by Jo Walton
When Amala came back she was carrying a folded length of white-and-gold cloth, three gold brooches, and a knife. She looked pleased with herself.
“This will do for a drape in the Vincan style, which will suit your height admirably. Hold still and I will wrap it for you.”
My mother would have admired how Vincan I looked going in to dinner. I felt sure everyone would stare, but nobody commented at all, and I soon relaxed. Indeed, after a while I felt quite comfortable in it. It was surprisingly convenient, far more so in many ways than a shift, overdress, and cloak, for my legs could move much more freely underneath it. It was pinned with two Vincan cloak pins, but the piece of cloth I wore around my head had a round Malmish brooch to hold it in place. When I came back to Caer Gloran afterward I begged Amala to show me how to make the clever folds and tucks in the material and I generally wore a drape on formal occasions afterwards.
We sat at benches by tables arranged in a circle. They almost filled the hall. Urdo sat at the table with everyone else. He ate heartily, laughing and talking with those around him. There was little elbow room. The center of the tables was piled with food, and there was an earthenware plate and cup set at each place. We had plates at home, but not so many nor so near to each other in color. My plate was a fine even orange. I had often heard my mother lamenting the fine pots of her childhood, and although she despised his work she had often tried to tempt the potter at Magor to move to Derwen. These would have pleased her, hardly any of them were cracked and those that were were mended most skilfully with rivets.
The food was wonderful. I had never seen as many kinds of sweet and savory pastries. There was thick barley soup and great platters piled high with different breads. There were three whole roast sheep and a dozen chickens. Angas said it would have been boars in the north, where pigs were not so rare. Osvran threw a piece of bread at him for complaining. Marchel was there, although I was surprised to notice that her husband was not. A look from her was sufficient for Angas to apologize. So many people told me that I should not expect to eat like this every day that I almost believed Glyn when he said that the usual fare in barracks was thin porridge with cabbage. The servants kept coming round and filling our cups with ale, and people kept raising their cups to honor each other. Everyone I had not already spoken to wanted to know who I was, and many toasted me. There were so many of them it was hard for me to keep hold of all their faces and remember who they were.
When the meal ended we drained our cups to the King’s Peace. I was longing to lie down, but Urdo came over to me and asked to speak with me a little while. I followed him out of the hall and up some stairs into a chamber hung with tapestries. There was a neatly made bed in one corner and a large marble table piled with scrolls and pens and writing tablets. There were two spindly elegant chairs. Urdo sat down on one, and offered me the other, smiling.
“I have a map here, I want you to show me where Derwen is and how you came from there. Do you think a large group of horse can go that way?” I looked at the map and began to show him the headland where Derwen lay, and pick out my route. There was a scratch at the door and without a pause the brown-robed man walked in.
“Do you have a moment?” he asked, looking at Urdo and making the barest acknowledgement of my existence. Urdo raised his chin absently.
“What is it, Raul?”
“If you are really going off south in the morning, we have to arrange what’s to be done about the prisoners, and also the ships.”
“Write to Thurrig to collect the ships. He’s at Caer Thanbard. The prisoners go to Thansethan in the usual way—they’ll work for their keep until they get ransomed or swear at the high altar to keep the Peace.” Urdo smiled at me as he said this last. “Raul is my clerk. He’s a monk of the White God. I couldn’t manage the accounts without him.” Raul glanced at me again, and away.
“Talking about accounts, have you thought of how you’re going to feed the alae this winter? We can’t go on managing on booty like this.” Urdo looked grave.
“Excuse me a minute, Sulien, I want to show Raul some figures.” I moved over and sat down on the floor by the end of the bed. There was a sheepskin rug laid on the boards there. It was beautifully soft. Raul sat where I had been sitting and began to talk to Urdo quietly, seeming to contradict a lot of what he said. They were discussing figures. Raul confidently and rapidly multiplied figures from the ones Urdo gave for one horse to cover twenty-four, and then sixty-four. I’d never heard anyone do that before. All the same, it was tedious to listen to as they went on. I looked at the map for a while, the hills and the rivers and the few scattered towns. So large a coastline, so many Jarnish ships, I could almost see them in the painted waves. I found my head nodding and looked up quickly. Nobody had noticed. The drone of their voices was wonderfully soothing. If I laid my head down for a moment until the king had time to talk to me he probably wouldn’t mind.
I woke to morning light on my face. I was still wearing the drape, though parts of it had come untucked, and there was a blanket over me. The blankets on the bed were pushed aside and rumpled. Urdo was standing by the table, fully dressed. He had clearly just thrown back the curtain. He smiled at me as I sat up, blinking sleepily.
“You were so fast asleep it didn’t seem fair to wake you to send you to bed. But we must be up and riding soon. Show me the route on the map and go back to barracks and get ready.” I noticed I still had the map clutched in one hand. I rubbed my eyes and tried to straighten the corner of the map where I had crumpled it.
“Yes, my lord,” I said.
6
“You ask for help, but we have no help to send. The legions and allied troops are all deployed fighting the barbarians that are upon us. You complain that you have been stripped of men and arms. We are beset, and would ask you for more help if we could. You must band together to organize your own defense as best you are able. We will offer up prayers for you at the great altar of Victory, and our thoughts are with you as yours are with us. We commend you into the keeping of the gods.”
—Letter from Gazerag, War-leader to Marcian, Emperor of the Vincans, to Emrys, sometime of Caer Segant, War-leader of the Tanagans.
It was a little over a year after that when I had sorted out the last of the problems left by the Jarnish attack on Derwen and was free to ride to join Urdo at Caer Tanaga.
Or so I have always said, telling the story, even after everyone knew, or thought they knew, all there was to know. But unless I am honest there is little point in taking up parchment and ink and time writing this down. If I were going to leave things out and lie then I have already told far too much of the truth. Not even the gods see all ends.
So, then, I rode south with Urdo and the ala, to Derwen. I was very surprised that first time how many more people than just the fighting armigers had to ride out, the grooms, quartermasters, doctors, farriers, and cooks made up what seemed an army themselves. I was surprised, too, how many spare horses we took. I was assigned two fine riding beasts, not greathorses but crossbreeds like my poor lost Banner. They were mares, both twelve or thirteen years old by their teeth. Riding them cross-country would mean Apple would be fresh if we needed to fight. We rode south down the road and over the hills the way I had come. It was pleasant riding even though it rained. We saw few people. We had tents to sleep dry, and there were enough of us that we only occasionally had to spend a few hours at night guard. Some of the armigers teased me about my night with Urdo, especially after they saw their wrong conclusions made me blush. Some of them stopped when they saw my confusion, and those who kept it up, especially Glyn, soon began to make me laugh. I saw that they would believe what they wanted to believe and guessed that most of them did not believe it anyway. We reached Derwen on the third day.
The place looked much smaller than it had when I left. We went first to the Home Farm where I was delighted to find my father awake and in his wits. That he would never walk straight again seemed a very little thing. He formally gifted me Appl
e and my sword, and informally gave his blessing on my riding with Urdo as armiger. It was too late for me to ask his permission. I tried hard to avoid speaking to Veniva alone. This was not difficult, for my family were living in the farm, and I was assigned to the third pennon, and busy.
Angas was my decurio, and Osvran ap Usteg was sequifer. Angas treated him as the second-in-command. He was a tall man, from Demedia, his parents were farmers, though he had been fostered with Angas and grown up with him. We slept six to a tent in the top meadow. By day we scouted up and down the coastline, going farther west than I had ever been, as far as the ruins of Dun Morr and even farther, as far as Tapit Point. We found four places where the pirates had landed. Everything indicated that they had taken sufficient plunder and left. It was raiding season, and we surprised one group of pirates who ran off back to their ship, and those we saw out to sea were too afraid to land once they caught sight of us. The Jarnish ships had the sea to themselves. Their square sails were visible far off, and then we would see their dragon prows cutting through the sparkling water, their oars rising and falling, sometimes even the pale-skinned faces of the raiders above the shields. Only one ship came in to meet us; the fight was nothing much—we had little difficulty driving them off. Angas found places along the cliffs where he said we should build lookout towers, as had been done near Caer Thanbard.
“They are no good unless we have enough armigers near to deter them, or unless we can fight them at sea, though,” he said, scowling at the dragon ship slipping away eastward. “If Urdo can get money enough, he will build ships. These ships have come so far west because it is raiding season, and the coast around Caer Thanbard is closed to them. We need to hold the whole coast.”
I began to learn to use a lance properly. Darien would have loved that training. He would have enjoyed life in the ala. I thought of him often. Lancework did not come naturally to me. It was not an easy skill to master, for much of what Duncan had taught me must be relearned differently. I came straight off over Apple’s head several times and lost the lance more times than I could count before I got the trick of picking up stakes from the ground. Garah spent much of her time looking after the horses for me, and after half a month I asked her if she would like to be a groom and come with me. She had a knack with animals, and Apple liked her. Most of the grooms were nervous of him, and he picked it up and gave them good reason. With Garah he was always good-tempered, though she did spoil him with treats.
We spent much time visiting outlying farms seeking supplies, especially roots for the horses. When Angas paid at one farm with coin the farmer shook her fist at him.
“What good is this to me? You’re as bad as the Jarns, taking half my turnips. Where can I spend this? What can I buy with it?”
“Peace,” said Angas, angrily, then turned and wheeled away. He sent me back with Osvran, to calm her down.
We rode back to the farm, where the farmer was not pleased to see us. Osvran reassured her that she could spend the coin at any of the king’s markets by the king’s law, or that my father would accept it as proof that her taxes were paid. I heard this with some uncertainty. I had only the vaguest idea about taxes, but I had heard my mother say they were a terrible thing, the ruin of the gentleman class and the cause of the decline of the towns. I assured her that my father would accept the coin as worth the value of the turnips, and that she should plant more next year, perhaps one of the fields now lying empty. She knew who I was and subsided, I sang a charm over her cow’s mastitis before we went, and she gave us both a drink of good creamy milk.
When we rejoined the rest of the pennon on the headland Angas was still red in the face.
“If a farmer spoke to my father so he would have her whipped!” he stormed.
“She has a right to be heard before the law, the same as anyone,” said Osvran calmly, wiping the last drops of milk from his moustache. “They are her turnips, however much we need them. Think what Urdo puts up with people saying in council. People must learn to understand what the King’s Peace is before they can want it.”
“I sent you back didn’t I?” he muttered, half under his breath.
Half a month later Urdo announced we would be moving on to Magor, leaving behind the second pennon with some carpenters and stonemasons to help with the rebuilding. Urdo also gifted my father with some horses and talked to him alone in the back room of the farm. At the end of the conversation my father limped out with tears in his eyes and called for Morien to fetch a spade. Ignoring my mother’s horrified protests he sent Morien off to dig up our hoard, buried treasure that I had heard spoken of all my life but never seen. I sat at the table of the farm kitchen with my parents, Aurien, and Urdo. There was an awkward silence. Urdo winked across at me. He was wearing plain white wool, as he often did, finely woven but with no decoration and nothing to mark him as king except the way he held his head.
After a difficult while, Morien came back with the hoard. It was in a stained and half-rotted leathern sack with a ring around the top. He handed it to Gwien, who lifted it with an effort, pulled back the ring, and opened it. Two smaller leather bags emerged, and a great pile of gold coins spilled out. Aurien made a little sound in her throat as they poured onto the scarred wood. They lay there in a great heap, bearing the heads and bold mottoes of half-forgotten emperors. There must have been one there from the minting of every emperor since first the Vincans took this land. It lay there in a great glinting heap. A few coins rolled onto the floor. Morien bent and picked them up and set them down on the edge of the table.
Gwien opened the larger of the inner bags and tipped out onto the corner at his side a pile of small silver coins, some of them half-stuck together and almost all of them tarnished green and black. He opened the smaller and drew out a comb and some jewelry, wrapped in stained sheep’s wool. He handed the comb to my mother, and turned over the jewelry with his finger. There were a pair of large gold brooches, one set with pearls and the other with amber. He gave the first to Aurien and the second to me. There were also some chains, which he pushed aside with the silver, and a heavy gold ring. This he pushed onto his finger. Then he ran his hands through the heap of gold coins, which were dulled from the earth but still had the unmistakable gleam of gold through the tarnish of water and time. He picked up one of them and turned it around in his fingers, angling it towards the light. Vinca Victrix was written around the edge, and the picture was a warrior with his foot on the body of a fallen enemy. It was the coin struck to commemorate the conquest of some province long ago, maybe even Tir Tanagiri, five hundred years before. He set it down again, and it chinked against the others. All this time nobody had said anything. Gwien set both hands against the great pile of gold coins and pushed it a little way across the table towards Urdo. He paled a little with the effort.
“That would be your taxes for the next twenty years or more,” the king said, looking evenly at my father, not touching the gold.
“And in twenty years’ time who knows what!” said Veniva, looking at Gwien as if wondering if his wits were addled after all.
“Well before that I may be dead, and all I am building may die with me, yes,” said Urdo, smiling at my mother.
She looked disconcerted. “Another government wouldn’t honor your intentions, however good they are,” she said, uncertainly. Urdo laughed.
“It is very true,” he said.
“Who else will help us to rebuild now?” Gwien asked Veniva. “You sent to ask him for help and see, here he is. He came. I gave him my oath, forgive me, lord, for the horses, not thinking much of it. Another little king claiming the whole island, I thought, here today gone tomorrow. But here he is, right here, and he does not give us empty air but solid help, stonemasons, carpenters, organization. He will station a pennon here when he has people enough, twenty-eight mounted armigers and all those who look after them, and he promises he will send craftspeople whose homes in the east have been destroyed. Craft workers, potters, and leather workers, maybe even a blacksmi
th, coming to live here at Derwen. This is not help from the moon, or help from the people of the hills that melts away in the sunlight. This is not a demand for tax that may do some good far away but benefits us little. He will give us the right by the king’s grant in law, to hold a regular market here that uses the king’s coin. People will come, and we can take coin from each of them who trades here.”
“And this in return for our hoard? Our fathers’ treasure?” My mother turned the comb over in her hands. It was the sort used to fasten up coils of hair on top of the head, and the word Maneo was engraved on it, “I shall remain.” It would look good in her iron grey hair. What good had it done in the ground all those years? I turned over the brooch in my own hand. It was much larger and more splendid than most Vincan work. What forgotten ancestor had used it to fasten a cloak?
“I knew nothing about the hoard,” said Urdo. “I would give the market right in return for the pennon being stationed here. They will be a protection, not just for you but for the whole coast, but you will have their keep to find and each greathorse eats two stone of roots a day, and green stuff. And then there are the people. Without supplies I can do nothing. I have not asked for this gold.” Urdo still had not reached out or touched it.
“It all sounds well enough. But what if the Jarns come?” Veniva looked from one to the other of them, and then at Morien, who was leaning on the wall looking very young and frail. He stood to attention under her gaze, straightening the hem of his brown tunic.
“There will be more troops up and down the coast. I do not have enough trained riders yet, and it is hard to find and support them. I told you when I gave you the horses to have your children trained to fight from horseback. You listened—if many did, then in a few years we will have alae enough to sweep the land. When there are enough armigers and horses I will station an entire ala down here. It will probably be at Magor.” Urdo sighed. “Horses and armigers who will train together, and lords’ households who have training enough to ride out with them and loyalty enough to go where they are needed to defend everyone’s homes. If the Jarns come we can win against them as long as we are there. They cannot burn our homes if they are well enough defended. Before mounted troops I have seen their shield walls break, time and again. If we are mobile and have well-found stone walls to protect us we can beat them off. As soon as I can I will be building a sea guard, too.” Veniva looked no less uncertain.
