by Jo Walton
“It doesn’t happen in the alae,” I said, angry.
Ohtar raised his eyebrows and looked disbelieving. “The women don’t like to see it, and even the stupidest got the point after I hanged two of them,” Urdo said, flatly. It had never happened in any ala I served in, and I did not tolerate any such abuse under my command.
“Ulf Gunnarsson?” Urdo asked, and his voice now held anger.
“I did it.” I took a quick look at him at the sound of the pain in his voice; he was staring ahead over the kings’ heads, his hands clasped behind his back. There were tears on his face. He spread his hands. “What do you want me to say? I meant to do it, and I did it, though the two things are very different. I did not know what it meant. In Ragnald’s crew we spoke of women as plunder. That was how we saw her. Then after my friends were dead I think some madness was on me, but I did it and knew I was doing it. And, Heider help me, took pleasure in it.”
“Being sorry now counts for nothing,” Ohtar said. “Can you pay the great fine that must at very least be set on you?”
“I don’t know.” Ulf shrugged. “I hold no land of my own right. I have been a commander for Sweyn, and Sweyn is dead and his promises rot with him. The land that was my father Gunnar’s is under the wave. Some treasure I have, in Caer Lind; if it is still mine, I will willingly give it. But all I know I have is my name and my life.”
“Let us finish the tale of your misdeeds before we begin to talk of reparation,” Urdo said. “After that you coerced Sulien into healing the wound she inflicted on you, you promised not to kill her, then you left her bound to a tree, meaning her to die of thirst.” Urdo kept his tone very even. Ohtar grimaced at Ulf.
“And he dedicated me and gave me whole to a god not of my choosing,” I added.
“And have you had no good of that god?” Ulf asked. I caught my breath. I could not possibly answer that. It was true he had come to save me from Morwen, and maybe in battle. Fortunately, I had no need to speak.
Ohtar was looking at Ulf in complete disgust. “You idiot! You—” his face was almost purple, and he lapsed into a flood of rapid Jarnish cursing. I did not recognize most of the words, and the ones I did were all ones I had been told were unfit for polite company. Then Ohtar regained control of himself and caught his breath. With an effort he began again in Tanagan. “You twisted an oath and you performed a sacrifice you didn’t understand, and you did it wrong and you got Gangrader angry with us Jarns. No wonder he was so happy to drink so much of our blood today. What were you using for brains? That’s part of the ordeal for kingship, not a way of sacrificing prisoners. Even if you’d been entitled to sacrifice prisoners, which you’re not. Only a king may, and you aren’t a king and you weren’t then and you never will be!”
He spat on the grass and drew breath. “You just don’t understand what you were doing at all, do you? When a king sacrifices for victory in battle it must be done in the sight of the gods and the people, for the whole people. Even then it is a wide and difficult thing, to send someone to the gods. Nobody does it on a raid, and nobody does it for no one’s benefit but their own. Small wonder your doom has come to find you, you made it for yourself. You took a king’s daughter and you gave her good reason to hate you, you put her through an ordeal and you left her alive to come after you. The only wonder is that you have lived this long.” He looked at me and spoke more calmly. “I would agree that you did not do as badly as you might of that bargain with Gangrader, Sulien ap Gwien, but that is small thanks to Ulf. He had no right at all to do it. It was not sorcery it was oafish bungling.”
Ulf looked at the ground.
I looked from Ohtar’s expression of revulsion to Urdo, who was frowning. He looked back at me. “What would you, Sulien?”
“Can I fight him fairly?” I asked. “I swore to put his arms on my brother’s grave. I have hated him for years. But he saved Osvran, so I would give him an even chance. I will give him choice of weapons.”
“An even chance? And if you fall?” Urdo raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to lose you. I need you in the Peace as much as in the War.” My cheeks burned again, so much that I thought Ohtar might see, and tears came into my eyes. I looked away hastily, though I had little doubt I could kill Ulf in a fair fight. “And you, Ulf? What would you?”
He took a step forward and knelt before Urdo, the sun glinting on his arm-ring. “Lord, I would swear to you, not from the expediency that brought me to you on the field but from my heart. Sweyn is dead, and with him my obligations, I am a free man. In you I see law upheld and a hope of justice given to all of us.” Ohtar’s eyebrows rose, and he leaned forward staring at Ulf, bewildered. “Or I will go back to Jarnholme if you order it, if I have a place there. Or I will accept a more distant exile if need be. I will go to death when the Chooser of the Slain takes me; he has not called me yet, and I do not hear him calling me today As for this matter, I freely admit I have wronged her. I would make reparation, as much as I can. It was ten years ago, and I agree with all the harsh words King Ohtar has given me. I was a fool. I will willingly give up my arms to put on ap Gwien’s brother’s grave. I will do that in any case, whatever happens. I will fight her if you order it, but only if you order it.” He looked away.
“Exile is not a choice here. If you live, you will stay in the ala where I can keep an eye on you,” Urdo said. I looked between them, confused. I had wanted to kill Ulf for such a long time. Then I thought of a way out.
“Even if I would accept that offer of your arms, I cannot,” I said. “The bloodfeud is not mine to end, it is my brother Morien’s. He is lord of Derwen.”
“Derwen’s half a month from here,” Ohtar said. “This need to be settled today. You are his heir. You can do it, by your own law, if you would.” He was right. “Or you are welcome to kill him fairly, for all of me.”
I looked at Urdo. “My lord?”
“It is not the Peace I would best want if one of you must die to make it, but better a fair and open fight now than something else later. I will not stop you fighting if it is what you want. I cannot and will not order you to give up your vengeance. I will say this, whatever happened, what has been spoken on this hill today will not go further than those of us who are here, just that all has been satisfied.”
I looked at him for the space of three breaths. He wanted it so much. The Peace was what he had been working for all this time. But my brother Darien, dead and left to rot. The hours sawing my wrist free. The months at Thansethan. “I would fight him,” I said. “Choose your weapons.” I looked at Ulf.
“I will fight barehanded,” he said. I blinked. Yet it was a good choice. He was my height, or close to it. He had the knee injury, but he had some training, and he had a man’s strength of arm and body, probably greater than mine. I would have to keep him moving or end it very quickly if he was not to get the advantage. Thurrig always said if it got to wrestling, you’d lost already. Ulf dropped his little dagger on the grass before the kings, and I did the same.
“Let it be, then,” said Urdo, sounding saddened. I looked at him apologetically. “And let what is done here on this hilltop be an end of this forever.” I raised my chin in acquiescence and so did Ulf. Ohtar looked interested and not at all concerned.
I walked over to Ulf, and he stood there. I swayed a little, and he still stood there. He did not move at all. I tried to recapture the anger I had felt at him for so long, but it did not come. I could not feel the rage I felt in battle. I only felt a burning bitterness. I feinted a blow towards his head, an easy dodge for him. I put enough force into it to make it worth avoiding, it would strike him hard across the face if it connected. I meant to move in and kick as he moved away. But he did not move away. I felt the blow connect and moved automatically to follow it up and protect my head. But he did not move to attack, he just stood there, rocking slightly with the blow. I stopped and stepped back a little.
“Aren’t you going to fight?” I asked, cautiously, ready to strike or leap back and pivo
t if he did.
“No,” he said, and grinned, then spat a bloody broken tooth onto the ground. “The High King did not order me to. I’m just going to stand here. If your honor requires you kill me, go ahead and kill me.”
If I had had my sword in my hand I would have run him through that instant. As it was I struck him as hard as I could on the jaw, so that he fell over. But that was the end of that impulse of fury. How can you kill a man who doesn’t fight back, who lies on the ground smiling in a hopeful sort of way? I could have kicked him in frustration, but that was not the sort of rage in which I could kill him. I had killed so many men that day, brave men who had done nothing worse to me than stand in my way on the field of battle. Yet now Ulf lay before me and when I reached out for the hate I bore him I just felt confused.
I stood there and stared down at him. High above the skylark called again and was answered by another. I didn’t know what I felt or what to do. I wished Osvran or Thurrig could walk up and call me an idiot and tell me what to do next. I wanted to be in a warm dim stall with a horse that needed rubbing down slowly. Six thousand Jarns had died that day already. He lay there, eyes on the sky, smiling. He had given Osvran a clean death. There was a hollow place in my heart where rage had been. I have never understood where it went. I stood there a long moment. It would have been so easy to break his neck. He had wept when he thought of what he did. Would it be shameful to give up my vengeance and let him live? Not as shameful as killing him only to avoid that shame. I looked at Urdo. He was watching, his face very still. He looked like a carved statue of a king set on the hilltop as long ago as the stone he leaned on. I felt as if I had stood here almost forever already, looking down at Ulf. I kicked him in the ribs.
“Oh get up. You’re not worth the trouble of killing. Get up and get me your weapons,” I said through gritted teeth. “And we will say this is over and more than over, and you can swear to the High King and then you can be in my ala and then I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
24
In the morning battle,
at noon meat
at night rest.
—Isarnagan proverb
It was raining when we brought Galba ap Galba home. It was not the fine light rain that often marks the end of summer; it was a heavy rain that fell day after day from thick grey clouds and stripped the leaves from the trees and made riding misery The wind blew cold and constant from the west. All the way down through Tevin, through Nene, through Tathal, and on into Magor it rained until the highroads were slick with water and all the tracks away from the highroads were deep with mud. In some places the mud was dark and sticky and came up to Beauty’s fetlocks. I thought it no wonder we saw so few people as we traveled.
Urdo had thought to bury Galba with the other dead. There were too many of them to burn. Fifty-two of ours we might have managed, at some cost to the forest, but not six thousand Jarnsmen. So they were given to the earth in the new way, and great mounds were built below the hill at Foreth where they lie still in honor, their weapons beneath their feet. Galba alone of those who fell on the field was carried home and given back to fire and air in the old Tanagan way.
It was Emlin who changed the High King’s mind, coming to us almost as soon as we were back down Foreth Hill and before we had dismounted. Ohtar had decided to walk back down. Urdo had just sent Ulf off and had pushed back his hair and drawn breath to say something to me as Emlin came up. Emlin looked nervous but resolute, and his hair was shorn so short that from above I could almost see his neck.
“My lord,” he said, to Urdo, and added “Praefecto,” to me, perfunctorily but politely, establishing this as a formal and not a friendly conversation. “My lord, they said they are going to bury the Captain, I mean my praefecto Galba ap Galba. I have put a guard around his body or they would have taken him already.”
Urdo swung down to the ground and summoned the groom with a twitch of his head. He did not look as if he wanted formality. “Glyn’s people were only following my orders,” he said, as ap Caw led the red horse away, “to have everything ready for sunset. What is the matter?”
“My lord, he was heir to his father’s land, and three of his grandfathers shared his name and lie on that land, and he loved it so. The old Duke would want him to come home, all those he led know he would have wanted it.” I looked around. There were indeed more than a few of Galba’s people hanging around watching us anxiously. They had all cut their hair short. I realized as I saw this that they had done this not for close friends or fallen kindred but for Galba, their captain. They had served under him since Caer Lind, but all the same this was something I had never seen. The Vincan troops had done this for their great emperors, for Adren and Aulius and much loved Drusan. Cornelien records that the legions on the northern borders refused orders to cut their hair at the death of Tovran, saying that grief began in the heart and could not be commanded. The order had been withdrawn. I have always thought this sensible, though Cornelien saw it as a dire precedent. All this passed through my mind as I looked from Galba’s armigers back to Emlin. He had been to Urdo’s strategy feasts, he must know all this as well as I did. He would not have given an order. All the same someone must have suggested it. Few of these armigers would keep Vincan ways at home.
“It is close enough half a month’s ride to Magor, without risk to the horses,” Urdo said. “And it is summer.” There was a bank of low clouds far off to the west behind the hill, presage of the rain that was coming, but as he spoke it was a very hot afternoon. “It would be better to take the ashes to his family.”
“Ten days, from here,” I said. As I spoke I felt my voice shake, and dismounted to steady myself. The loyalty of the ala had moved me. As I reached the ground I went on, “I think Emlin is right that it is what his father and the land would want. We could make a casket.” Emlin looked at me gratefully.
Urdo turned his head sideways and seemed to be listening for a moment. I wondered if he heard messages on the wind from distant Magor. I looked to the southwest and saw only the river and the forest.
Urdo sighed. “I could not do this for all the fallen. But none other here is a king, or a land’s heir. Will you take his body home with his ala then, Sulien?” I turned to him.
“If you can spare me, I could,” I said, “It is my family duty if not my desire. It will be very hard to give this news to my sister and his young sons.”
“The news will be there before you, the red-cloaks are riding already, news of the Peace and those who died to make it will be all over the kingdom as fast as swift horses can carry it. But if you will take Galba’s body home you can perhaps give a little comfort. Also—Emlin, do you feel ready to command the ala?”
Emlin shook his head. “No, my lord.”
“That is as I also thought,” Urdo said, and smiled, “Leading an ala takes different skills from being a tribuno, and you are a very good tribuno.” He turned back to me. “Sulien, do you want to live down at Derwen and Magor near your family for a while?” Before I even got my mouth completely open, Urdo put his hand on my arm. “That was a question, not an order.”
“No,” I said. A great deal of relief seemed to have crept into my voice from somewhere, but my emotions felt out of reach as if they were happening somewhere else and I was hearing reports of them sent by unreliable scouts. I tried hard to speak evenly. “I will take my brother Galba’s body home and then come back. To Caer Tanaga?” I asked.
“To Caer Tanaga, yes, to the feast of Peace when the harvest is in. I will take your ala down with me, and Gwair’s ala, too.” He frowned a little as he mentioned Gwair Aderyn. “I shall miss Gwair. He was the steadiest praefecto I had, and the first to take up my cause. When I was a boy at Thansethan there were very few things I remembered about the time before I came there. It is all a jumble of pictures in my mind. I remember the silks my mother would wear, and how she always smelled so beautiful. I remember running out in the mud and getting filthy and my nurse scolding me, with mud dripping betwee
n my fingers. I remember a bee caught against a window somewhere, buzzing and buzzing to get out, to escape, and yet that may have been at Thansethan for they have beehives there and make good honey. I remember riding in front of someone on the saddle of a pony, I remember how the pony’s ears looked quite clearly, but I do not know whose horse it was. I remember seeing a goat, too—that was when I first came to Thansethan, the goat’s barred yellow eye. Children take notice of animals, I suppose. I remember when I first came there I did not know how to play with other children, and they all knew each other, having been born there or come there very young. That was strange, and lonely. And I remember coming there, riding through the night sitting on the front of Gwair’s saddle with my lady mother riding beside us. He used to come and see me once a year as I grew up, to take back news that I was well I suppose. I always looked forward to his visits. He used to bring gifts. I fancied that he must be my father. I do not remember my father at all.” He sighed, staring into nothing. Emlin and I looked at one another, wondering if we should stop him, but not quite daring. “Gwair was a good man. He was of no great birth nor was he very skilled in the new ways of fighting, yet nobody ever scorned to serve under him.”
“I never knew him well. Did he have children?” I asked, as gently as I could.
Urdo blinked a little and looked at me, his eyes back on the present. “Yes, he has two daughters, one of them is a decurio in Angas’s ala and the other is married in Segantia and has half-grown children of her own. Well. Neither will inherit his ala. When you come back I will put ap Erbin in charge of them and send them on to Caer Segant. We can discuss then who you want as your new second.”
“Masarn,” I said, without hesitation. “He’s the right sort of steady.”
“We will discuss it next month when you come back to Caer Tanaga,” Urdo said. Appointing a tribuno would usually be a praefecto’s responsibility. With my ala it was different, as we worked so closely with Urdo I had long since agreed that he would have a say concerning appointments. “You are in charge of Galba’s ala while you are there. Then Emlin, you can take care of them for a little. When you come back to Caer Tanaga, Sulien, bring your brother Morien with you. Galba’s trained him, and he’s been leading a pennon. Let me have a look at him and see if he’s up to command. He’s the obvious person, if he can cope with it. Do the troops like him, Emlin?”
