The King's Peace (68 page)

Elenn subsided, her eyes burning. She gave poor dead Emrys back to Teilo. Then she turned to me and gripped my arm almost strongly enough to break it. "Kill him for me."

"Elenn—" I hesitated. "Rigg says he couldn't have done it."

"There might be other poisons," she said. She lay back, drained and weak. "I saw his eyes. I know he meant me harm. How can I fight him? Kill him for me, Sullen."

I should have believed her. I should have done it. But Teilo pushed in front of me and knelt by the bed. She took both Elenn's hands and forced her to look at her face. "I will speak to Morthu ap Talorgen, and I will ask him if he has poisoned you, or cursed you to lose the child," she said.

"He will not be able to lie to me. If he poisoned you, or cursed you, then we will bring him before the king for justice."

"That is the law," I said, and Garah echoed me.

Rigg shook her head. "I drank more of the wine than you. There was no poison."

"He has a lot to gain by killing me, killing the baby," Elenn said. Her voice broke on the last word, and she wept. Teilo held her and stroked her hair.

"I will speak to him," she said.

"If you accuse him without proof he will laugh at us all," I said.

"He is Angas's and Penarwen's brother, and they won't stand for him being murdered,"

Garah said.

"He will answer me, or if not he will answer on the holy relics before everyone," Teilo
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said, inflexible. Elenn just sobbed.

"I want him to answer for it if he's done it," I said. "Just don't burst into the hall and make a fuss."

Teilo snorted and stood, her knees creaking as she straightened. "I know better than that; I have been dealing with kings and kings' houses since before Rowanna married Avren."

"Go to find Urdo," Rigg said to me.

I went towards the door.

"Don't say that to Urdo," Garah said. "Don't upset him more by accusing his nephew of poisoning, unless we need to."

"Thank the Lord you are alive," Teilo said to Elenn. She came out with me. When we were in the hall she made a sign of blessing over the door. "It is a fancy she has taken, I think," she said. "If you're all sure the wine wasn't poisoned, though what he was doing giving wine to the queen I'm sure I don't know."

"Stirring up trouble, I think," I said.

"Very well, but not trying to murder her; he's not such a fool as all that to do it where it would be so obvious. I'll go and ask him as I said." She went off in search of him, her stick tapping along the flags as she went.

I went out into the citadel, amazed to find it was only early evening and most people were eating in the hall. Ap Erbin's brother was singing his song about the woman of Wenlad as I went past. It seemed strange. It felt as if a long time had passed in Elenn's room and it should be a different season. I saw ap Cathvan, and told him the news, and he told me Urdo was out by the stables. I should have guessed and gone there first.

He was standing in the paddock where he had brought the summer-horses, stroking the nose of one of them. He looked up when I came around the corner of the stables, but I didn't need to tell him anything, he had been praying the whole time and the land had told him, or the Mother. There were tears on his cheeks, and when I saw him I started to weep again. It was his child who was dead, and I should have comforted him, but it was the other way around.

"He was so—he was so—" I kept saying, and he held me, and said, "Ah, Sulien, hush now, hush," until I did.

Then we went back to Elenn's room. Teilo was there. I looked at her inquiringly, and she shook her head. Urdo kissed Elenn, then he took little Emrys in his hands for a moment and looked at him sadly.

"You were right," he said to Rigg, "I did more good where I was."

Then Garah gave a gasp that was halfway between laughing and crying.

"I'll never understand you men," she said. "Aren't you even going to say how glad you are your wife is alive?"

"She knows how glad I am," he said, smiling at Elenn. She smiled back, weakly. "An heir is not the important thing," he said. "As long as you are well."

I crossed the room to Teilo. "He can't deny he had malicious intentions, but he neither poisoned her nor used sorcery to make her miscarry," she murmured to me. I should never have believed her. I should have demanded an inquiry into his intentions, or just gone and killed him anyway. But I did not.

Elenn was looking up at Urdo. "And will you come to Thansethan with me to pray for a son?"

she asked.

"In the spring," Urdo said. "When you are well again. If that is what you want, we will go there in the spring."

—40—

Foam-follower, sea-born, is it Manan seeking vengeance riding the wave tops like fields of lilies?

Who will name the wind?

Lifting great feet over the wave wash wild tossed manes, running the swan road swords rising red with the sun.

Who came like the "wind?

Swords sweeping down in strong arms reap the defenders to lie like tide wrack swift steeds speeding scatheless.

Who will blame the wind?

— Amagien ap Ross, "The Sea Raids on Oriel"

The monks of Thansethan, not content with a festival celebrating the end of winter and another celebrating the flowering of the land, have a festival between them to commemorate the date on which their monastery was founded by the great Sethan. It is a great celebration for them, one of the most important in the year. Because it is in the spring they celebrate spring also. They fill their sanctuary with early flowers and give gifts of food, the way civilized people do at the feast of Bel a month later. It was for this festival, which also marked the anniversary of Darien's birth, that we set out for Thansethan.

We went in great state. It was Urdo's first official visit there since he had quarreled with Father Gerthmol. As if that wasn't enough, we were going there to pray for an heir to the kingdom.

Elenn and Garah went wild for a month before sorting gifts and food to take.

I took half the ala and a new set of armor for Darien. He was about to be sixteen, and old enough to come back to Caer Tanaga and join the ala. Urdo had a sword made ready to give him.

Our foreign visitors were still with us. Rigg had not joined the ala. She spent some time attending to Elenn. She came out to practice whenever I was teaching lancework, but she was not assigned to a pennon or any duties. She created rather a stir at first by inviting all the personable young men of the citadel into her bed in turn, but before midwinter she showed all the signs of having fallen in love with our grumpy Vincan ambassador, ap Theophilus. Even more amazingly, he seemed to return her affection and the sight of them walking the walls hand in hand gazing besottedly at each other became a commonplace of the winter. Soon she was even teaching him to ride, and he was improving her Vincan.

What he wanted with us was hard to make out. I know Urdo tried to have it out of him several times that winter. It seemed he wanted us to acknowledge the sovereignty of Caer Custenn. He dropped hints that Caer Custenn was about to reconquer Vinca, or possibly the whole Vincan Empire. Eventually Urdo told him outright that Tir Tanagiri was an independent kingdom and Caer Custenn lay across a thousand miles of hostile territory.

He agreed with this and started talking vaguely about trade, and then even more vaguely about waterwheels and siege engines and ala organization.

Ap Lothar was less of an enigma. She was the sister of Radigis, queen of the Varni, and she came with her sister's authority to negotiate alliances. What she wanted was a straightforward military alliance against Arling Gunnarsson. It seemed that Sweyn had arranged a marriage alliance between Arling and Radigis which Arling had now repudiated in favor of a marriage with a Skath princess. Radigis therefore intended to make war on Arling and wanted our help. Her kingdom, like ours, was made up of the original inhabitants of the land and an influx of Jarnsmen.

"I could send an ala," Urdo mused later, when we were riding out alone. "The question is which,
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and whether I would get enough out of it. The risks are high, but then keeping Arling occupied on the mainland is worth a great deal."

"Supply would be difficult," I said.

Urdo smiled. "It would. It would either be very expensive or chance losing a whole ala, when I might need them here. That is why I won't do it. But I thought you would be begging me to send you!"

"Maybe I'm getting old," I said. I was thirty-three that year, no longer young and wild, and the thought of going away to fight in strange lands made me appreciate how comfortable I was in Caer Tanaga. We laughed together. Later he told ap Lothar that he would not send an ala to help her invade Jarnholme but would make a defensive alliance against Arling so that if he attacked either one of the kingdoms then the other would send help.

We arrived at Thansethan two days before the festival. While Urdo and Elenn were being formally greeted outside the gates I was amazed to see my mother among the press of people. I slid down from Brighteyes and embraced her. She looked as frail as ever, and the sight of her with her cane and her familiar gold comb brought my home to me as strongly as if I stood there. I only ever twice remember my mother leaving Derwen.

"Mother! What are you doing here?" I asked.

She smiled in her usual grim way. "Your brother and his wife are here for the same purpose as the High King, to pray for an heir. I came with them. Morien thinks I came to make sure he didn't convert while I wasn't watching." She snorted.

"So why did you come really?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "To see the grandson you've been hiding away here all these years. I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him, and I'm glad to see there isn't."

I felt my cheeks burning. I wanted to hide in my cloak. I had never exactly told Veniva about Darien, but it was absurd to think that meant she didn't know. "You've seen him then," I said.

"I have. He's about here somewhere, seeing to horses. He's besotted with them, just the same as you and my Darien at that age. He's shown me his four horses already, and told me Urdo's promised him a summerhorse foal as soon as there is one. That's very generous of Urdo, I told him."

"Darien will make a fine armiger," I said. "I'm planning to take him back to Caer Tanaga to the ala after this visit. He's sixteen now. That's old enough."

"Too old to be living surrounded by monks," Veniva said, dryly. "And as for you, don't you think it was time you were getting married? There's no use you pining after Urdo all your life. If he'll go to this much trouble for his Isarnagan queen, he's not going to put her aside no matter how fertile you are. Let me look around for you. I haven't pushed you before because I thought it was as much use as trying to force a donkey, but if you want more children, it's time you were getting on with it."

"Mother!" I was speechless. "I'm not—I don't—it isn't—"

"Oh stop spluttering," Veniva said. "But think about it. That's a good lad you have there, and I'm not any too well supplied with grandchildren, and I'm not getting any younger."

Fortunately, it was my turn to be welcomed to Thansethan then, which saved me from having to think of a reply. I went riding with Darien that afternoon, and that evening there was a feast.

At Thansethan there are no eating alcoves. Everyone eats at one table, or at a series of tables in sight of each other. The prayer they give for before food says that all feuds are set aside at the table. This is all very well usually, where feuds are not a question. It is the way we feast in the ala after a battle, all together. Even then there are sometimes people who have to be excused, and fortunately there are always duties that need to be done.

Ulf was used to the situation and went to eat m the kitchens without prompting or even much
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teasing from the rest of the ala. The meal that night passed without incident except that Morien and Kerys were seated near Morthu, and they spent a lot of time talking. I was busy dealing with Father Gerthmol's difficult politeness and talking to Veniva and Urdo and Elenn.

The next afternoon, after the morning rituals, I had planned to ride with Darien again.

Urdo was closeted with Raul and Father Gerthmol and wouldn't need me. Elenn had gone out riding with Ulf. Before I could find Darien, Morien found me on the way to the stables.

He was alone, without Kerys, which surprised me.

"I need to talk to you," he said, very seriously. I raised my eyebrows. "It is a matter concerning the family honor," he added.

My first thought was that he had found out about Darien and was horrified. "What's the matter?"

I asked.

"Not here," he said. "We must go out somewhere." When I started to continue towards the stables he frowned. "Can't we walk?" he asked. "We can talk more quietly then."

Nobody would have thought he was an armiger, let alone a praefecto, choosing to walk when he could ride.

We went out of the east gate of Thansethan and when my feet found they knew a familiar way to turn I did not stop them. The path lay through the fields and past the spinneys, the trees glowing in new green, towards Goldpate's stone. We walked for a little while in silence. We passed some armigers, exercising their horses, and then a group of prisoners carrying wood from the coppice. After a while we left everyone behind.

"What is it?" I asked, when nobody could possibly overhear us.

"The prince of Angas tells me that the man who killed Darien is in your ala!" Morien was almost shaking with anger now he could let it out. "You told our mother he was dead and his arms were on Darien's grave! And instead here he is eating with us openly!"