The Last Light of the Sun (50 page)

The streets were busy for so late an hour, but Esferth was crowded and jubilant. They could hear the noise from the taverns as they went. Walked past the one where
she’d stood across the street last night when Alun ab Owyn had come out with his dog, and she’d called the Erling over to her.

Gareth broke their silence. “Is he all right?”

“Who?”

“Athelbert. Of course.”

She blinked. Had made an error there. She managed a shrug. “I think he’ll be all right. After all, Judit is nowhere near him.”

Gareth stopped for a second, then burst out laughing. He dropped an arm around her shoulder and they continued that way, turning right at the next junction of streets towards the chapel.

“Where
is
Judit, do you think?” she asked.

“I imagine at the tents.”

He was probably right, Kendra thought: there
was
cause for wine and celebration with the Erlings slaughtered and driven away.

In the event, however, they were wrong. Entering the royal chapel they saw their sister beside the queen, at prayer. Kendra stopped for a moment in the side aisle, surprised. She found herself gazing at two profiles, candlelight upon them. The queen’s face round, fleshy, though still smooth, hints of a nearly lost beauty; Judit in the bright flush of red-haired, fair-skinned glory, on the cusp of her journey north to Rheden and marriage.

Kendra knew she had been avoiding the thought of that. So much would change. Their mother would leave for Retherly, and once Judit was married it would be her turn next. There might be green spirits in the wood, but the way of the world was not going to change for an Anglcyn princess because of them.

Aeldred’s two younger children went over and knelt beside their mother and sister, looking towards the sun
disk and the altar and the cleric standing there, leading the prayers. After a moment they added their voices to the incantations and responses. Some things at least still seemed clear enough, and needful: in the nighttime you prayed for light.

S
ometimes, as events in a given saga or idyll or tale move towards what may be seen as a resolution, those in the midst of what is unfolding will have a sense—even at the time—of acceleration, a breathlessness, urgency, speed.

Often, however, this emerges only in looking back, an awareness long after the fact (sometimes accompanied by belated fear) as to how many strands and lives had been coming together—or breaking apart—at the same time. Men and women will wonder at how they did
not
perceive these things, and be left with a sense that chance, accident, or miraculous intervention (for good or ill) lay at the heart of the time.

It is the humbling, daunting nature of this truth that can lead us to our gods, when pace and press subside. But it also needs to be remembered that sagas and idylls are constructed, that someone has composed their elements, selected and balanced them, bringing what art and inclination they have, as an offering. The tale of the Volgan’s raid with a handful of men on a sanctuary of the Sleepless Ones in Ferrieres will be very differently told by a cleric surviving the attack, chronicling the round of a dismal year, and an Erling skald celebrating a triumph. Those inside a story do not usually think of themselves that way, though some may have an eye to fame and those who come after.

Mostly, we are engaged in living.

Riding back from the coast in bright summer daylight on the main road by the River Thorne, birdsong above, harvest-ready fields to the east and the forest receding for a time as a valley cut it away, Ceinion of Llywerth watched the Anglcyn
fyrd
struggle to define a collective state of mind, and he understood their difficulty.

The victory was magnificent, memorable, complete. A considerable Erling force had been shattered, driven away with major losses on the raiders’ side and next to none on theirs. No deaths, in fact, after the initial night killings that had sparked the king’s ride.

It was a time of glory. There were traders from abroad in Esferth for the fair—the story of Aeldred’s riding out at night would be in Ferrieres and Batiara before autumn changed the leaves. It would reach Al-Rassan when the silk-clad horse traders went home.

Glory then, more than enough to share. But the death that had begun it mattered. They all mattered, of course, Ceinion told himself, but it was idle—even for a cleric dispensing pieties—to pretend that some lives did not signify more for their people than others, and Burgred of Denferth had been one of the three great men in these lands.

So there was that, to dim the joy of this homeward ride. There was also the prince, gone into the spirit wood. The madness of that, the death at the heart of it. And so those of the
fyrd
who wished to let their spirits soar kept a distance from King Aeldred and the mask that had become his face this morning.

And so again it seemed to Ceinion, as it had by the sea at twilight, that they were waiting on him. In a way it was an irony. He was only a visitor here, and the Cyngael were far from allies of the Anglcyn. In another sense, the reason Prince Athelbert was in the wood was that Alun ab Owyn had gone there, and Ceinion knew it, and so did the king.

You could say that it properly fell to a Cyngael, to their high cleric, to provide consolation and hope right now. Ceinion didn’t know if it was possible. He was very tired. Unused to so much riding, with a body that didn’t ease and loosen as it once had in the mornings. He was also heartsick and afraid, picturing the dragon-ships that might even now be cleaving seas to the west. There were blue skies overhead. He had prayed for storms in the night.

These inward sorrows didn’t matter, or couldn’t be
permitted
to matter, if you accepted the duties of your office. Ceinion twitched his reins and cantered his horse over beside Aeldred’s. The king glanced at him, nodded, no more than that. No one was near them. Ceinion took a breath.

“Do you know,” he said coldly, “if I were cleric of your royal chapel, I would be ordering you to do penance now.”

“And why would this be?” Aeldred’s voice was equally cold.

Within, Ceinion quailed at what he heard, but forced himself to push on. “For the thoughts that are written in your face.”

“Ah. Thinking now is cause for chastisement?”

“It always has been. Certain kinds of thought.”

“How illuminating. And what unspoken reflections of mine amount to transgressions, cleric?”

The title again, not his name. Ceinion looked over at the king, trying not to be obvious about his scrutiny. He wondered if Aeldred were succumbing to one of his fevers. If that might explain …

“I am perfectly well,” said other man bluntly. “Please answer my question.”

Ceinion said, as briskly as he could, “Heresy, a breaking from holy doctrine.” He lowered his voice. “You are easily
wise enough to know what I am saying. I am glad you are well, my lord.”

“Pretend, if you will, that I am not wise at all, that you ride beside a fool, deficient in sense. Explain.” The king’s face had flushed. Fever, or anger? They said he still denied when his illness was coming on, after twenty-five years. A refusal to accept. That gave Ceinion a thought.

“Let me ask a question. Do you truly believe two royal princes and an Erling who rowed with Siggur Volganson are incapable of contending with wolves and snakes in a wood?”

He saw what he was looking for. The flicker in the other man’s eyes, swift awareness of where this was going.

“I would imagine,” said King Aeldred, “they ought to be able to defend themselves against such.”

“But you decided, even before we set out this morning, that your son is now dead. You have … accepted his death. You said as much on the strand last night, my lord.”

No reply for a time. The horses cantered, a ground-covering pace, without urgency. It was warm in the sunlight, the weather accursedly benign, a scattering of soft clouds. He needed black storms, the howl of wind, obliterating seas.

Aeldred said, “You are upbraiding me for beliefs about the forest. Tell me, Ceinion, did you come here
through
the wood? Or did you and your companions avoid it?”

“And why,” said the cleric, deliberately sounding surprised, “would I choose to risk getting lost in a wood when the coastal path from Cadyr lay open before us?”

“Ah. Good. And it has always been from Cadyr that you set out? It is from that coast that all of the Cyngael coming east have departed? Tell me, high cleric, who it is has made a journey through that wood in living memory,
or in your chronicles and songs? Or do not the songs of the Cyngael tell something different, entirely?”

Ceinion felt equal to this, by training and disposition and necessity. He said firmly, “It is my task, and yours, my lord, to steer the people—our people in both lands, where we share the blessing of Jad—away from such pagan fears. If you think your son and his companions equal to wild animals and to not losing their way, you must not surrender hope that they will come out in the west. And there is a chance they will save lives doing so.”

Birdsong, horses’ hooves, men’s voices, laughter, though not near to them. Aeldred had turned his head, was looking directly at him, the eyes bright, clear, no fever, only knowledge. After a moment, he said, “Ceinion, dear friend, forgive me or do not, as you will or must, but I saw spirits close on twenty-five years ago, the night of the battle we lost at Camburn, and then in Beortferth that winter. Lights in the swamp at twilight and at night, moving, taking shape. Not marsh fires, not fever, not dream, though the fevers did begin the night of the battle. High cleric, Ceinion, hear me. I
know
there are powers in that wood who do not mean us well and are not to be mastered by men.”

It had taken so little time to say, and to hear. But how much time did a sword stroke take? An arrow’s flight? How long was there between the last breath of someone you loved when they were dying, and the breath they did not take?

Ceinion’s heart was pounding. An easy ride, their battles over, talking on a summer’s day. Even so, he felt himself assaulted, under siege. He was not necessarily equal to this, after all.

You brought your own memories and ghosts to these exchanges, however much you fought to keep them out, to be simply a holy man, a distilled voice for the teachings of the god you served.

He knew what he should say to this, what he was required to say. He murmured, “My lord, surely, you just gave yourself answer: it was the very night your kingdom was lost, after the battle, your father and brother slain … the worst night of your life. Is it any wonder that—”

“Ceinion, do me enough courtesy to believe I have thought of this. They were … present for me before, long before. From childhood, I have since come to understand. I denied them, avoided, would not accept … until the night of Camburn. And in the marshes after.”

What had he expected? That his words would shed a dazzling illumination upon a confused soul? He
knew
what this man was. He tried another way, because he had to: “Do you … do you not know how arrogant it is to trust our mortal vision over the teachings of faith?”

“I do. But I am not able to deny what I do know. Call it a flaw and a sin, if you will. Could
you
do that denying?”

The question he hadn’t wanted. An arrow, flying.

“Yes,” he said, finally, “though not easily.”

Aeldred looked at him. Opened his mouth.

“No questions, I beg of you,” Ceinion said. Raw as an open wound, all these years after.

The king gazed at him a long moment, then looked away and was silent. They rode for a time, through the mild, sweet glory of late summer. Ceinion was thinking as hard he could; careful thought, his refuge.

“The fevers,” he said. “My lord, could you not see that they—?”

“That I conceived visions in my fevered state? No. Not so.”

Two very clever men, long-lived, and subtle. Ceinion considered this a moment, then realized that he understood something else, as well. He gripped his reins tightly.

“You believe that the fevers are … that they come to you as … ” He reached for words. This was difficult, for many reasons.

“As punishment. Yes, I do,” said the king of the Anglcyn, his voice flat.

“For your … heresy? This belief?”

“For this belief. My fall from the teachings of Jad, in whose name I live and rule. Do not believe that what I am telling you has come kindly to me.”

He couldn’t imagine believing that. “Who knows of this?”

“Osbert. Burgred did. And the queen.”

“And they believed you? What you saw?”

“The two men did.”

“They … saw these things as well?”

“No.” He said it quickly. “They did not.”

“But they were with you.”

Aeldred looked at him again. “You know what the old tales tell. Yours and ours, both. That a man who enters the sacred places of the half-world may see spirits there, and if he survives he may see them after, all his days. But it is also told that some are born with this gift. This, I came to believe, was so with me. Not Burgred, not Osbert, though they stood by me in the marsh, and rode with me from Camburn that night.”

The sacred places of the half-world.
Uttermost heresy. A mound not far from Brynnfell, another summer, long ago. A woman with red-gold hair dying by the sea. He had left her with her sister, taken horse, gone riding in a frenzy, in a madness of sorrow beyond words. No memory, at all, of that ride. Had come to Brynnfell at twilight two days later, bypassed it, entered the small wood—

He made himself—as always—twist his mind away from that moon-shaped memory. It was not to be
looked upon. You trusted and believed in the words of Jad, not in your own frail pretense of knowing the truth of things.

“And the queen?” he asked, clearing his throat. “What does the queen say?”

It was the hesitation, Aeldred’s delay in replying. A lifetime of listening to men and women tell what was in their hearts, in words, in pauses, in the things not quite said.

The man beside him murmured, gravely, “She believes I will lose my soul when I die, because of this.”