The King's Peace

by Jo Walton

  “I, too, will accept your justice,” Ulf said. “And I will take what doom comes to me,” he said, and looked suddenly much more cheerful, as if everything were suddenly much simpler.

  Urdo turned and made a hand signal to ap Meneth. He began to ride towards us, bringing his little group with him.

  “First, I will announce this Peace,” he said. “Then if you choose you may wait with my praefectos while I get this matter out of the way. Because it touches on my kindred and on the gods I would rather deal with this matter alone and in the holy place.”

  Ayl looked content, but Ohtar frowned hard, glancing at Ulf and then up at me. “You said that when the law concerned a dispute between our people and yours, it would be judged by the lords of both people together,” he said. “It seems to me that this is such a case. And if it touches on the gods, as I do not doubt your word, then it seems it is rather the gods of my people than of yours.”

  Urdo looked almost as if he would laugh. “You are a brave and honorable man, Ohtar Bearsson,” he said. “I would far rather have you with me than against me. Will you come up to the holy place and help me judge this matter, then?”

  Ohtar smiled. “I will. And this shall be the first test of your Peace.”

  Ayl caught at an arm of the great dark bearskin Ohtar wore as a cloak and whispered something to him urgently. I caught the word walkurja. Ohtar shook him off as ap Meneth and the others came up. The other men who were Sweyn’s kin came up, too, and knelt and swore to Urdo. Ulf waited a little apart. He did not fidget. He looked almost relaxed.

  “Blow the call that the battle is over,” said Urdo to the trumpeter as the last of the Jarnsmen scrambled to his feet. “Let it be blown three times so that everyone may know that Peace is made.”

  “Peace?” asked Raul, looking only at Urdo. I had expected him to be pleased. He had been working for it as long as Urdo had, after all. But he sounded as if he were suppressing fury, the way he had when Galba and I had overheard him yelling about logistics.

  “It is agreed,” said Urdo, in his most decisive voice. Ap Meneth beamed. Glyn looked delighted. The trumpeter blew the blast, three times, so that everyone knew that this was a real and lasting peace, not just a brief truce. It rang out very loud in the stillness. Then a great cheer rose up from the alae and was answered by another cheer from the Jarnish lines. I noticed Ohtar grinned to hear it.

  Then Luth came up, with the other praefectos close behind him, and the armigers began to dismount.

  “We ought to break bread,” said Glyn. “But while we have some food we don’t exactly have any bread—”

  “I will invite you all to a great feast to celebrate the Peace at Caer Tanaga when the harvest is safely in,” said Urdo. “We will have much to discuss in any case. For now, Glyn, whatever you have will suffice.”

  Glyn shamefacedly brought out a circle of cold acorn cake, blackened on the stones of some campfire. It looked most unappetizing. Urdo took it and broke it roughly into three, then handed the other pieces to the Jarnish kings. Then he gestured to me. I was confused for a moment, then realized he wanted me to sheathe my sword.

  I hesitated for a moment. It was still sticky with blood from the battle. If I sheathed it like this it would never come out of the scabbard’s leather again. I pulled at the corner of my cloak, and stopped. Of course it was my white praefecto’s cloak, sewn with golden oaks. Nor did I want to get down to wipe it on the grass. Embarrassed, because they were all looking at me, I pulled out my water bottle and poured the water over the blade. I thought it might take off the worst of it. I’d probably have to get a new scabbard later, but I wouldn’t have to cut the blade out. To my amazement as the water trickled down the blade it shone clean, the blood and water ran down together and soaked into the ground. It was the last of the water from the lake. I dried the clean blade on my cloak and hastily sheathed it.

  Ohtar looked at his rough triangle of cake and made a face. The stuff was bad enough hot. “Well, defeat is supposed to be bitter,” he said, and took a great bite. Urdo gave a surprised chuckle around his chewing. Ayl ate his bread stolidly.

  “I have had worse,” he said. “Though I will look forward to another of your feasts at Caer Tanaga. Surprising you have anything left here really. I have no idea how you held out that long on the hilltop as it was.”

  “We had a depot there,” explained Glyn.

  “With enough food for two thousand horses for three days?” asked Ohtar, sounding incredulous. “Tell me how you did it? Every time someone tried to go up they got lost in the mist and came back hours later claiming they’d only been gone a few minutes. Almost all the men of Tevin and everyone who’d ever been up there was too frightened to do it again, muttering about ghosts. I thought they were afraid of their own fear. But it was exactly the same when I led a party of my best men up. We got lost, we saw strange shapes, we came back after hours to find we’d been gone only minutes. I wondered if you had slipped away, except that the place was surrounded, and whenever the mist did shift a little we saw horses and movement so we knew you were there. Sweyn thought you might be waiting for us to go away. We had water and food, even with ap Thurrig harassing us we could have waited much more than three days.”

  “Three days?” I asked stupidly, in the little silence that followed.

  “Three days,” confirmed Marchel, coming up at that moment and sliding to the ground over the lowered head of her horse in her usual manner. Ulf looked at her with deep admiration and Ohtar touched the muzzle of the bear’s head that lolled on his left shoulder. “I have sent to Alfwin and expect him sometime later today. I also sent to Caer Tanaga and to Dun Idyn, though the messengers won’t be there yet.”

  “We will speak of this later,” said Urdo. I caught his frown. In my heart I thanked the Owl-Eyed Lady of Wisdom that she had not sent to all the allied kings and to her father and his fleet. There was nobody at the citadel of Caer Tanaga but Elenn, Garah, and enough people who knew which end of a sword was which to repel a direct attack. I did not imagine Angas would have done anything foolish. And sending to Alfwin was a good idea. I would have done the same. Yet I could hardly take it in. If it had been three days, anything could have happened. Yet we had the victory. The victory and the Peace. I looked back from all the cheerful faces to Ulf Gunnarsson, who stood apart dejectedly. Once he was out of the way I could start to think about what came next.

  “You didn’t know it was three days?” Ayl asked, shaking crumbs from his beard. He was looking at me.

  “It seemed like one night,” I said. There was another awkward silence before Urdo started giving orders and making arrangements.

  I glared at Ulf all the way up the hill. Glyn had given him a horse, a half horse. He knew how to ride it. This was more than Ohtar did. He was clinging to the saddle of his borrowed mount like a three-year-old child who had never been to the stables before. He kept completely still except for the paws of his cloak moving a little in the light breeze. Fortunately the horse Glyn had found him was a very even-tempered bay gelding, one of ap Mardol’s spares. He plodded on after Urdo without paying any attention to the fact that nobody was guiding him. I had heard that they did not use horses for anything much in Jarnholme, but I’d never quite realized what that must mean. Urdo’s groom, ap Caw, rode close behind him, ready to help if necessary.

  The five of us rode in silence up the slope three of us had charged down that morning. It was early afternoon. It is always difficult to judge how much time has passed in battle, and it had taken Urdo a little time writing messages and sending off messengers. Raul had wanted to come up the hill with us. Urdo had spoken to him firmly and quietly, and he had stayed with Ayl and ap Erbin.

  When we came up near the top we dismounted. Ap Caw took the horses and tethered them where they could graze. Ohtar looked very glad to be back on his own feet.

  “I had no idea the beasts did as much damage to their riders as to the enemy,” he groaned, stretching his legs. Urdo smiled.

/>   “There is a knack to it, and it is best to begin early,” he said. “But I expect you will be going back to Bereich by water?”

  “That’s the proper way for a man to travel,” he said, wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve.

  “That’s what Thurrig always says,” Urdo said. “In time you two will have to talk about your fleets and what we can do against the raiders. Now we shall go to the holy place.”

  We left our weapons with our horses. It was a struggle for me to take off my sword belt. My fingers kept slipping on the buckle. I did not want to leave it behind. I hated to be unarmed. Urdo left his new sword with scarcely a backward glance. Ohtar left two big knives as well as his long ax—he had already left his spears with one of his captains at the bottom of the hill. Ulf seemed almost glad to unburden himself of his swords. One was a stabbing blade, and the other was not a Jarnish sword but something almost like a cavalry sword. He had been fighting from ponyback when I saw him at Caer Lind. I wondered if the knee wound made him unfit to fight in the shield wall.

  We walked up to the stone table. Even in the heat and the sunshine there was a stillness about it. There was a sense of something waiting. Crickets rasped nearby. High above I could hear a skylark, though it was not visible. There were no clouds either; the sky was the high faded blue that heralds the harvest.

  “Let this be heard,” said Urdo, in the Tanagan tongue and in the same even tone he had used the night before invoking the goddess. “All gods of earth and sky, and all gods of home and hearth and kindreds of people. All who may have concern in this matter draw near and take note. And may the White God who hears and holds all oaths from all people hold all that we shall say in this place this day to the truth, where all oathtwisting and lies shall be plainly seen as oathbreaking. And I who speaks 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.” It was the first time I had ever heard him say that. It was the first time it would ever have been true for him to have said it. His voice remained grave and calm. “I will judge as well as I might in equity, before the mighty ones.”

  “I will swear to the truth,” said Ohtar, “I am Ohtar, son of Walbern the Bear, King of the land of Bereich and War-leader of the people of Bereich. And I, too, will judge as well as I might in equity.”

  “I will speak truth before the gods,” I said, holding out my hands up and then downward, “and my name is Sulien ap Gwien, praefecto of Urdo’s Own Ala.” Then I remembered, though it felt very temporary to me and I never dreamed I would one day take it up, I added, “And heir to the lordship of Derwen.”

  Then we were all looking at Ulf. Amazingly, he grinned crookedly at us. “What can I swear that you will believe?” he asked. “You know I have given myself to the Father of Lies, and you know I am assumed to twist all oaths, and what’s more you know I did it before.” Very slowly and carefully he took a few paces away then drew his little eating knife. I was between him and the kings but I rose onto the balls of my feet, ready to move of he made any attack. But he only nicked the skin of his wrist very lightly and let the blood fall onto the earth. “May my doom find me, may my corpse rot and my name be unspoken if I do not speak truth in this place this day. My name is Ulf Gunnarsson, and I claim no title and am heir to none.”

  Then he sheathed his knife, again very slowly, and came closer again. Ohtar was looking at him very strangely. “Well,” Ohtar said. “Who brings what grievance?”

  “As to the charge I am accused of,” Ulf said. “Of sorcery I am entirely innocent. It is true, as the lord Urdo has no doubt heard, that I was there when Morwen ap Avren slew King Borthas ap Borthas of Tinala by blackest sorcery. My uncle Sweyn Rognvaldsson sent me to watch. He told me he chose me among his huscarls for this task because I was kin and could be trusted, and I think he chose me over my younger brother because I was not his heir.” He smiled at me. “A Jarnish king must be whole and unharmed when he comes to kingship. You struck very true. At least now I know you for a champion, I will not have to endure hearing for the rest of my life that I was lamed by a whore.” Blood heated my cheeks. But he had not insulted me.

  “It was ap Gwien wounded you?” Ohtar asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yes,” Ulf said, and smiled. “But it was in the normal usage of war, and I do not reproach her for it.”

  “We were speaking of sorcery” Urdo said drily.

  Ulf bowed to him and continued. “I was there when Morwen killed Borthas, as I said. But I had no part in it. Indeed I was sickened by it as I have never been sickened by anything else. It was very black sorcery. She called on no gods, she took his soul to use in her enchantments. She was mad and terrible, she raved and said dreadful things. I told Sweyn I could not watch another such death, and he railed at me and called me coward, and sent me to watch again when she went to kill Osvran ap Usteg.”

  I bit my lip. Osvran. This hilltop reminded me of him, even on a hot summer afternoon. “He was a brave man, and much he endured. No one should die like that, least of all a warrior who has sent fighting men to the High Feasting Hall. When he was almost dead I called on the Lord of the Slain to come and take him to the end he deserved, and then I slew him. Before Morwen could stop me he died with my sword in his throat. Even though she needed to unravel his soul for power to use for my uncle and our armies I could not bear to let her have it.”

  His face was twisted at the memory. I believed him.

  “That is the only time I have been glad to hear from a man that he killed my friend,” said Urdo, quite warmly. I felt a great relief sweep over me. It was seven years since Caer Lind. I had not believed the Hymn of Returning when I sang it for Osvran, but I believed it now—his soul had gone on its way. I could mourn him the way I mourned any friend lost in battle and not as one lost to the world entirely.

  “What did the witch-queen do?” Ohtar asked, sounding interested.

  “Railed and raved at me at great length. Sweyn was also very angry with me. Then the day after I saw ap Gwien on the field at Caer Lind, screaming my name and covered in blood. I thought she was a walkurja indeed, my doom come straight to find me. Yet I did not die, and the Lady of Angas did, at her hand. And that is the closest I have come to sorcery.”

  “Very well,” said Urdo. “I have been misinformed, for I knew that you were there and thought that you had been her apprentice.”

  “This is a very bad thing to have said about me,” Ulf said. “Even if I am to die I would keep what name I justly have. My brother Arling Gunnarsson, if he lives, can speak for Sweyn’s anger with me, and so can my aunt-by-marriage Gerda Odulfsdottar.”

  “Nobody here has doubted your word,” Ohtar said, smiling a little. Ulf shut his mouth, looking foolish.

  I suddenly realized that Urdo had thought him guilty of sorcery and bound to die on that account. I drew breath to speak and heard the skylark’s clear trill again. I looked up and again the sky seemed quite empty. If the Lord of the Sky was sending a messenger to guide my choice I did not understand how Everyone was looking at me.

  “Ulf Gunnarsson has wronged me before the law,” I said.

  “Whose law?” Ohtar asked. “He said you wounded him in the usage of war.”

  “No,” said Ulf. He looked deadly serious now and spoke to Urdo. “She was within the usage of war, and I, perhaps, was not. I was seventeen years old and out on my first raid. I was wrong in many ways. I will offer reparation.”

  “By Tanagan law or by Vincan law,” I said hotly, answering Ohtar. “It has never been acceptable—”

  Urdo raised a hand. I stopped, and he spoke, very calmly. “Ulf came onto Derwen land in a raiding party, they burned the house and he killed Darien ap Gwien, the heir and Sulien’s brother.”

  “With his own hand?” Ohtar asked.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “I was there.”

  Ulf closed his eyes briefly. “I had not known he was your brother,” he said
, directly to me.

  “This is matter for a bloodfeud, true enough, but it is not outside the usage of war,” said Ohtar.

  “Further,” Urdo said, “Catching Sulien alone and unarmed in the woods, he, with a party of others—how many?” he asked, turning to me.

  “Six,” I said. I hated to think about it and I certainly didn’t want to talk about it. It came back to me in detail as he asked, the fight, the defeat, the rape, the smell of leaf mold, and the pattern of the branches above me. I took a deep breath and smelled the sun-warmed clover and feather-headed grass. “Five and Ulf Gunnarsson. Do we really have to talk about that?” Ohtar looked distressed.

  Urdo shook his head a little sadly at me, then looked back at Ulf and his voice was a little less even. “With five others you caught Sulien ap Gwien alone and unarmed and raped her. You robbed her thereafter of all joy in the act of love.”

  Even with my stomach heaving that seemed unfair. I looked at the grass stalks beside my boots. I felt they were all looking at me. “It would have been worse to find out how awful it was after I was married and it was too late,” I said, not loudly, without looking up.

  “Heider!” breathed Ohtar, sounding not as if he were cursing but calling on the goddess to witness. “She is a king’s daughter,” he went on, louder. “Our law would have your head for that.”

  “You mean rape would be acceptable if my father were a farmer?” I asked, startled and horrified. I looked up and met his eyes. He blushed and stammered.

  “I will not say these things do not happen, in raids, in war, when there are men together and women of the conquered. I do say this should not have been.”