The King's Peace (63 page)

"We are returned, and unharmed," Urdo said, while this was going on.

"And the great fiend you followed?" Morthu asked.

"The boar is gone," Urdo said, in the firm tone he used to indicate that a subject was closed.

Father Gerthmol turned round to face us, seemed to cower for a moment, and looked up at us.

Then he clutched at his pebble, drew himself up to his full height, and began to rant.

"Begone, demons and foul fiends come in the form of man and beast, I expel you in the name of the Holy Father, the God Made Man, and the Ever-living Spirit—"

It was so sudden and unexpected that nobody reacted for a moment, except Glimmer, who put his ears back and spooked again. When I'd got him back under control Father Gerthmol was all but foaming at the mouth, trying to cast us all out as demons. The other monks had taken a step back away from him and looked clearly uncertain; one or two of them were looking towards Raul. Father Geneth was trying, much too tentatively, to take Father Gerthmol by the sleeve.

I wanted to laugh, and then suddenly Darien did laugh, high and loud and clear, a sudden peal of irrepressible childish laughter. The next moment I heard Urdo's deep laugh boom out, and then I was laughing, too, and so were many among the crowd, Ulf and ap Selevan and Ayl and some of his people. Father Gerthmol looked furious, and for a moment, terribly embarrassed, then he started shouting again, and waving his arms wildly.

The charm he was saying can have had no power, or maybe the White God was angry with him for calling us demons when we were no such thing. He waved his arms in the face of our laughter, and he was still clutching his pebble. The cord that held it, perhaps worn with so much devotion, snapped, and the white pebble fell. It bounced off one of the bodies and then stuck in the mud in front of Urdo's horse. The event horrified Father Gerthmol much more than the laughter. Anyone would have thought it had been the worst thing to happen for months. He stopped shouting and froze for a moment, staring at the fallen pebble. Then his face suddenly crumpled and he sank towards the ground until he was sitting there, his robe rumpled around him. I thought he might cry, but he did not, he just sat on the ground like a skein of yarn dropped from a distaff.

Father Geneth took a tentative step towards him. At the same moment Urdo swung down from his horse in one easy movement. He picked up Father Gerthmol's pebble, wiped it clean on his cloak, and offered it back.

"No, no!" said Father Gerthmol, cowering away. "He has abandoned me. He has turned his face from me."

"It is possible to make a mistake and learn from it without being damned, Father,"

Urdo said. "I am no fiend, nor are any of my companions. The beast was a protector of this land, and he has done what he came for and gone on."

Father Gerthmol looked at Urdo, and at Raul, and for the first time ever I saw doubt in his face.

"A power of the land?" he asked.

"Yes," Urdo said. "Sometimes they touch mortal places, though never quite in mortal time. You have seen a sight few people have beheld."

Father Gerthmol groped at his chest unconsciously, and finding nothing his fingers clutched at the air. "I should have—few people have such a chance and I threw it away." I looked over at Danen, who had said the same. To my surprise he was not looking at Father Gerthmol but over at Morthu. The two of them were staring at each other with an intensity and a hatred like nothing I had ever seen. Raul said something to Father
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Gerth-mol, and he replied, but I didn't catch any of it, I was too concerned for Darien.

There was such animosity in Morthu's face as he gazed upwards, but Darien, sitting calm and relaxed on his horse, met his glare evenly and returned it. I found my hand was on my sword hilt.

I looked back to Urdo. He was entirely focused on Father Gerthmol.

"Take it," he said, offering the pebble again. "Know that I am no fiend but the king of this land, and part of kingship is knowing how to deal with such creatures."

"Everyone has their place, and your place is bringing such protectors into their place in the light!" Father Gerthmol said. He drew himself to his feet, slowly. He looked old and worn, and somehow blind, as if he had seen all too much of the light he talked about and now could make out only afterimages and not the real world around him. "That pebble was taken from me," he said. He put out his hand, but before he touched the pebble in Urdo's hand, somehow Morthu was there, worming his way past Father Geneth and the other priests to put his hand on Father Gerthmol's. "You are not unworthy, Father, take mine,"

he said, slipping his pebble from around his neck. Then the monks and half the arrmgers around were clamoring the same chorus, "Take mine, take mine!"

Father Gerthmol looked around, and he had tears in his eyes. "Such devotion," he said.

Then he looked at the rest of us, at Ayl and at me. "One day everyone will be part of this family of the Lord," he said. Almost absently he took Morthu's pebble and put it around his neck.

Morthu looked devout and honored. If I hadn't seen that terrible malice in his eyes when he looked at Darien, I might have been fooled. I glanced at Darien. He was watching Urdo intently. He had not touched the pebble around his neck.

Father Gerthmol looked at Urdo. "You have a pebble," he said. "If the Holy Father meant to take it from me to show me that I was wrong, perhaps he also meant it to come to you. Will you not keep it? Will you not take this opportunity the Lord has sent? Will you not make a statement of faith here before the people?"

Urdo looked down at the pebble in his hand. He looked up at Raul, who was smiling faintly.

"The pebble is only a symbol of remembrance," Urdo said. And then he gave a great shout, like the trumpet call that calls the arrmgers to assemble. The whole ala heard it and acted as if it had been the trumpet and gathered around, in silence like on a parade ground. Raul looked apprehensive. Father Gerthmol looked pleased.

"Let this be heard," said Urdo, loudly, almost shouting. "All gods of earth and sky, and all gods of home and hearth and kindreds of people, and the White God, Father Creator, God Made Man and Ever-living Spirit. Draw near and hear these words spoken before the people. I am Urdo ap Avren ap Emrys, War-leader of the Tanagans, High King of the Island of Tir Tanagiri by right of birth, by right of conquest, and by right of election by all principalities." As he went on his voice fell until it was in the usual even tone he used to address large gatherings. "In this land of Tir Tanagiri no one faith or any one god shall be set above another. Nobody shall be made to worship in any way they do not themselves choose, and nobody shall be persecuted for worshiping or refusing to worship any gods.

Despoiling any shrine or sanctuary or church shall be a crime to be dealt with by the local lord.

All gods and all faiths that are worthy of respect shall be respected. Nothing shall be either demanded or prohibited in the name of any god, saving only sacrifice of another person, which shall be forbidden and accounted as murder."

People were looking at each other and raising their eyebrows. I had no idea why Urdo was recounting the part of his law code to do with faith in the gods. Judging by his expression, neither did Father Gerthmol. Urdo continued for a little while, saying that nobody's fitness to hold any office should depend on which gods they worshiped. Then he stopped, put the pebble into the pouch on his belt, bowed to Father Gerthmol, and remounted.

Then we were all forming up, and I realized that the Thansethan party were going south with ap Selevan's pennon and the rest of us were going to Caer Rangor.

Darien and I dismounted for a moment to say good-bye. "Are you sure you're all right?" I asked. I couldn't believe it; I sounded like my mother. I almost laughed at myself. He squirmed in the way children always do when people fuss over them, I remembered doing it myself.

"I'm not hurt, really," he said.

"Would you rather come to Caer Rangor with us?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Well, I would, because it would be interesting, but I'd only have to go back to Thansethan later, and that would be a nuisance for you. It's only another two and a half years, and then I can come and be an armiger. And I need to learn what I am learning at Thansethan." He sounded more grown-up than some of the armigers I had riding for me now. He only needed the strength of arm that time and practice can give.

"Well, keep working on your riding," I said. "I may be able to come and see you at Thansethan now, if Father Gerthmol has decided I'm not a fiend. Er—Darien, did Urdo take the pebble or not?"

"He was amazingly clever," Darien said, admiringly. "He got out of that one without looking bad to anyone."

"But did he take the pebble?" I asked.

"The pebble is only a symbol," Darien said, grinning. "He has to be king, and with so many people being heathens it's hard for him not to step on someone's toes. Raul's explained it all to me. It might cause panic and riots, and wars, if he took the pebble, and maybe the gods wouldn't go with him and the crops wouldn't grow."

"But—" I couldn't ask again. People were mounted up all around us, and ap Selevan was trying to signal to me that he was ready. I ignored him. "What was that with you and Morthu?"

"Oh." Darien abruptly stopped smiling. "Just letting him know that I know he tried to kill me, and that I'm ready for him now. I thought before that he had some honor, that he'd wait for me to grow up and fight him. I'll kill him then."

Not if I can kill him first, I thought. But there was no way with honor, and he was Angas's brother. Then I realized what I was doing, sending Darien off with him. "Stay in Thansethan from now on," I said.

"He won't try the same thing again," Darien said.

"Don't trust in that. Stay close, and keep people with you." I made a hand signal to ap Selevan to come up. "I've changed my mind," I said to him. "You come with me to Caer Rangor, I may need you. Tell Gormant to come up. His pennon can do the escort duty and take the queen home." Ap Selevan shrugged, frowning a little, and acknowledged the order.

Darien looked at me with an expression I could not interpret. Gormant came up, and I told him the change of orders. He looked puzzled but didn't query me.

"Good-bye, then," Darien said. I hugged him, and he stood there. Then as we mounted up and started to move off he called out, "I forgot to tell you. Keturah had a foal. He's beautiful, and I'm calling him Pole Star."

"His great-grandfather had that name," I called. "Did you know?"

He shook his head, and grinned, and rode away with the monks and Gormant's pennon.

I took my place in the column of the already moving ala. Luth, Urdo, Raul, and Ayl were at the front, so ap Erbin and I moved to the back, last except for some lame horses and the scouts and pickets, who fell in as we passed them. The whole column was moving north at good speed. We have to camp at nightfall, but we would be in Caer Rangor sometime the next day. There was no question of burning Cinon where he fell, of
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course—he was a king and had to be taken home.

The mist had lifted and the sun was shining through frequent breaks in the clouds.

"Did he take the pebble or not?" ap Erbin asked me quietly as we rode along. He looked as confused as I was.

"I have no idea," I said. From the look of it, nobody else did either.

"He definitely said everyone would be free to worship whatever gods they choose and however they want," ap Erbin said.

"I heard that part loud and clear," I said.

"I think he bluffed them," ap Erbin said, finally. "Father Gerthmol was trying to push him, and it doesn't do to try and push Urdo. He did something they didn't expect, like bringing up the reserves in a flank attack."

"I'm glad I'm not a king," I said.

We camped at sunset. I set a double sentry ring, I was still not sure that there was not more trouble planned. I gave ap Selevan's pennon patrol duty, by numbers, so there would always be someone with Morthu. Then I went to my tent and Elidir heated oil and rubbed me down. It was foul-smelling linen-seed oil, but I didn't care about the smell, only how much better it made my bruises feel. It was a pot my mother had sent with strongmint crushed into it which may have helped the bruises even more but which didn't help the smell.

Urdo came up as I was lying on my back on the grass in front of my tent, waiting for the oil to sink in enough that I could put my clothes on again without having them smell of strongmint and oil for months. "You're lucky you didn't break a rib," he said, looking at my bruises.

"I'll be all right in a day or two," I said. "Maybe I should get the ala to practice belly-flop landings onto horses, except it would be hard to get anything high enough to drop them from."

Urdo smiled. "Luth caught you very neatly," he said.

"Luth's very good with a horse," I said. "I should thank him. Where is he?"

"If you can believe it, he and Ayl have gone off to try and spear some ducks they saw on a pond a little way back."

"I just hope they took guards—and that they don't get lost again," I said. "I'd have thought they'd both have had enough hunting for a month at least."

Urdo grinned.

Talog came over then, walking slowly, a bowl of steaming hot porridge in either hand.

"Elidir said you were resting here," she said, handing them to us. Mine smelled of honey, and I could see some fat bacon in it.

"You're both very good to me," I said. "I'd have made it to the cook-fire for my share."

"You deserve a bit of special treatment now and then," Talog said. I was so touched I could feel tears in my eyes. I reached into my pack to find my spoon so nobody would see.

"Oh, Urdo, Gunnarsson was looking for you, shall I tell him to come over?"