by Jo Walton
“Avoiding that would be worth putting up with the weather in Tevin,” I agreed. I tightened my wrist straps. “It doesn’t always rain anyway. Remember Foreth?”
“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It didn’t rain much yesterday either, and this rain looks as if it might stop after a little while.”
I squinted at the clouds. There were rolling hills ahead, and the clouds were piled up above them like folds of grey blankets. I rolled my eyes. “Here, maybe, but I think we’ll be riding into it all day.”
“We ought to be in Thansethan by late afternoon,” ap Erbin said. “As we’re going to collect the Queen and escort her back, we could suggest it wasn’t worth leaving until morning, so they might give us a dry bed for the night.”
“All fifty of us?” I asked. “They wouldn’t let me in anyway, the last time I saw him, Father Gerthmol was treating me like a demon. No, we’ll have to camp again, there if Elenn’s not ready to leave and on down the road if she is. Though if we weren’t doing this, she’d manage with less of an escort—she has ap Selevan’s pennon with her. That ought to be enough.”
“Oh well, it was a dry thought while it lasted,” said ap Erbin, mounting at last. We formed up and rode off down the highroad.
“Alfwin was less trouble than your own family then?” I asked as we rode.
“Much more polite if a lot more intimidating,” ap Erbin said.
“So what did he say when he took you off on your own?”
“I could ask the same,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “He asked me a lot of things about the gods, which I answered as well as I could. I told him I’d not try and force any faith on Alswith and the child—children, later. He seemed happy with that in the end, that they should decide for themselves. We talked about land—it seems his older son is heir to Bereich and is up there with his mother while the younger son is being brought up to be heir to Tevin. Alfwin wants me to swear to him the way ap Ross did to your brother, and he will give us responsibility for some land that joins the land Urdo is giving us. I never thought to hold land.” He drew a deep breath and looked around at the hills and the gentle rain. “It must be around here somewhere. There’s supposed to be an old villa off the road somewhere which we could patch up or use for building materials depending how much it’s decayed. We’re going to have a big wedding and walk the bounds of the land and do everything properly. What did he ask you?”
“He just asked me about you,” I said. It was true. He’d wanted to know all about ap Erbin. He’d seemed concerned that he might be letting his brother down in what was done for Alswith. From the way he had talked it seemed “big wedding” was an understatement. Alfwin wanted his niece to have one of the three most splendid weddings ever seen in the Island of Tir Tanagiri.
“What did you tell him?” ap Erbin asked, sounding worried.
“Urdo told me to tell him the gods had chosen you for a son-in-law,” I said. Alfwin had been more impressed by this argument than I had thought he would be.
Ap Erbin looked appalled. “Me?”
“Well, people don’t usually get to start babies without being married, the gods must have a hand in it somewhere,” I reminded him.
“I suppose so,” he said, without much conviction, looking straight ahead between his horse’s ears.
“Do you want to get married?” I asked.
“Well, everyone has to marry someone sometime,” he replied, “and I do like Alswith and I’d rather marry her than someone I don’t know. But it all seems so sudden. Marriage, land, a baby, all at once.”
“I suppose it must.” The highroad cut through the hills there, and we were almost sheltered from the rain. The sound of the pennons coming along behind us laughing and singing was very loud.
“Did you really tell Alfwin that?” Ap Erbin sounded concerned.
“Yes, but I also told him that you were a very good tribuno when you were with my ala and that you’d been covering yourself with glory in Demedia since, though covering yourself with wounds would have been just as accurate.”
He laughed and touched his ear self-consciously. “This was a sling-stone, of all things. An ambush in the mountains. The next one broke my horse’s leg, and I was lucky to fall straight over his head and not sideways, or I’d have been crushed. They ran away as soon as we started killing them, cowards that they are. Ap Gwinthew got the one who got me, though, or so he says.” He sighed. “I used to hear people all the time saying how much they hate the Jarnsmen and how we ought to push them back into the sea. I never felt like that when we were fighting them, not that I hated them, not even that time at Caer Lind. The Isarnagans, though, they’d never stand to fight, we’d wear ourselves out looking for them. Then if we stopped anywhere without walls they’d sneak into camp at night to stab horses and cut the throats of sleeping armigers. They rape prisoners and farmers and cut their heads off afterwards. I couldn’t help hating them.”
“I’ve never fought them,” I said. “But Thurrig says the same, and so does Angas.”
“I’m glad we got rid of them,” he said. “I wonder sometimes if Urdo was too hard on Marchel. When I heard I was shocked, but after I’d been fighting them for a while I could understand what made her do it.”
“You wouldn’t have killed them after they surrendered,” I said, quite sure of it.
“Well, I didn’t,” he said, and grinned. “Of course I wouldn’t. But I understand now how someone might want to. Though as she did it the first minute she saw them, she doesn’t have that excuse, of course.”
“I’m glad they’ve gone home,” I said. “Did you see the famous Atha ap Gren?”
“Oh yes, several times. She’s not really a giant, she’s no bigger than you are, and she fights with a spear. I was quite disappointed after all the songs. She’s neither so beautiful as to have men kill themselves for love of her nor ugly enough to turn people to stone, though she spikes her hair with lime and it does look horrific. Black Darag was uglier actually, but it might have been the way he was always scowling. He fought with a spear, too, a huge barbed one. Angas nearly killed Atha once, but nobody ever seemed to get near Darag until Larig managed it, and nobody knows how he did it.”
“Didn’t he tell you?” I asked. We were riding through the hills. A scout came back saying the road was clear and safe with no sign of life, and I sent her on ahead again to scout as far as the river.
When I turned back to ap Erbin he shook his head. “We never saw Larig again. There was a fight at the ships, and then he went off inland chasing Black Darag, and neither of them came back. We heard later that he’d killed Black Darag with his own belly-spear and then Conal the Victor had killed him. It was definitely Conal who gave Larig’s head back when we sent them home.”
Up in Demedia, killing my friends. I had guessed it. “I might wish to be the far end of a spear from Conal myself,” I said.
“He’s back across the Windy Sea now anyway, and I hope he stays there,” ap Erbin said.
“Killing people is one thing, taking their heads is another,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Well, we were all at it by the end,” ap Erbin said, lowering his voice. “Angas definitely did, and Larig took Darag’s by all accounts, and I let my ala do it after a while. It was the only way to make the Isarnagans respect us, and the only way to get them to give our comrades heads back was if we had some to swap.”
I was almost glad I hadn’t fought in Demedia. Just at that moment another scout came back, signaling trouble. I rode forward to him. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s a ship burning in the river, and it looks like a Jarnish ship. There’s no sign of any people, but there are tracks going towards the woods ahead, and there could be anything.”
I had a bad feeling suddenly. Something was wrong. It could be an ambush; lots of people had known we’d be riding this way today. “I’m going to go ahead and see what’s happening,” I said. I turned to the nearest decurio. “Elwith, bring f
ive and follow me. Ap Erbin, you take charge of the rest. Ride to the top of the crest where you can see my signals. If I’m not back in an hour, ride back to Caer Lind—or is Caer Rangor nearer across country?” I added. I always forgot the fortress existed if I wasn’t there or sitting staring at a map.
“From here I’m not sure. Maybe. Luth is there, though, with his ala,” ap Erbin said.
“Ride for there then, but don’t go on down this road if I don’t come back.”
“What are you—what do you think it could be?” ap Erbin asked.
“I don’t know, that’s what’s worrying me,” I said.
The five armigers were formed up. I noticed with resignation that one of them was Ulf. I joined them, and the scout led us ahead along the road.
The road came out of the cutting and ran straight downhill towards a loop in the river. Northeast the river curved away in its valley, southwest it went into the trees. Directly ahead, where the river was nearest to the road, lay the burning ship. Most of it was sunk into the mud. The keel and stem were sticking out and smoldering, sending up a smoke. It was pointed upstream as if it had come through Aylsfa from the sea. It could have held about fifty warriors. It was too burned down to be worth trying to salvage.
“Where are these tracks?” I asked.
The scout pointed to them in the wet ground. “It looks as if a group of men in armor left the ship,” he said. “These are deep prints. Armor, or carrying something. They went off that way, towards the highroad, angling towards the woods, south. Then they came back and got on the ship again, or someone did, but I’m almost sure it was the same boots.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Half a dozen,” he said.
“Why would anyone get back on a burning ship?” ap Padarn asked.
“Could they still be on there, dead?” Mael said, making an evil-eye sign.
“Ghosts don’t leave footprints,” the scout said, stoutly.
“Why didn’t they just sail away again?” Elwith said.
“This is very strange behavior for a Jarnish ship anyway,” Ulf said, frowning. “This is a stupid place to raid—why come all this way when there aren’t many farms and no rich ones. And you couldn’t row that thing with only six—where are the rest of them?”
“There are lots of farms an hour or two south along the highroad towards Thansethan,” I said. “There are one or two around here, but that’s all. There’s all of Aylsfa nearer to the sea, some of it rich and not too well guarded.”
“Unless they were raiding from Aylsfa, or from Tevin,” the scout said.
“That would be breaking the Peace,” Elwith said, much too loudly.
“If we hadn’t come along here just now, nobody would have known,” Beris said, looking at the ship. “Isn’t that Ayl’s prow-carving?” She pointed into the flames.
“No,” I said, squinting at it. It could have been. “Half of Ohtar’s ships have gilded prows, not to mention the raiders we fought off that time near Caer Segant.”
“I have a very bad feeling,” Ulf said, staring gravely at the ship.
I did too, but I wasn’t about to say so. If Ayl had broken the Peace, there would be almost no way to bring Aylsfa back within it. I just couldn’t believe he would do that. His kingdom had grown strong again, but he had prospered better in peace than he had in war. He had married Penarwen. He had no reason to do this. Nobody did. “Let’s go on.”
The tracks led to the highroad and into the woods. We went cautiously for fear of ambush, but none came. It was quiet, except for water dripping through the leaves from high above. Then the scout exclaimed—the tracks left the road to go into the woods to the right. I felt again that this was all wrong.
“There’s nothing there,” Beris said, “no farm or anything. It’s a deer track.” Ap Padarn scowled and put his hand on his ax.
“Do we follow?” the scout asked me. “It looks as if they went both ways here, in and out. I don’t think they’re still there. Shall I go and see? The horses will never get through.”
That it was a trap seemed more likely than anything else. All the same, we were armed, and there weren’t enough of them for an ambush. I jerked my chin up. “We’ll go quietly,” I said. “Mael, you stay here with the horses. Yell and go for help if you see anything.”
We dismounted with enough jingling of harness and huffing of horses to make a mockery of the thought of “quietly.” The scout led the way through the trees. My feeling of foreboding got stronger and stronger as we went on, though it was only for a few minutes. My heart was in my throat as we came into a clearing.
There was only one person there, and she was dead. She was bound to the roots of an oak tree, legs spread apart and blood on her pale plump thighs. Her throat had been cut, and her head lolled backwards. Her clothes were soaked with blood. All of us had stopped still as soon as we saw the dead Jarn. Strangely my foreboding had vanished as soon as I saw her, and I just knew that there was something very wrong. I looked around carefully before going forward. It seemed just like any grove, but there were old faded strips of cloth and twists of bone and carvings hung high in the branches of the trees. There was a blackened ring of stones in the middle where long ago something had been burned to the High Gods. I looked at my companions. Elwith was touching her pebble. Beris was making a Horse Mother sign. Ap Padarn was making a sign of the evil eye. The scout was completely still, as if turned to stone. Ulf was being spectacularly sick into a pile of last year’s half-rotted leaves. A pile, not a wind-dropped heap; someone had swept the clearing.
I went forward to the body. Her neck had been cut half-through with something very sharp wielded by someone strong. I lifted her head up carefully and felt an unexpected shock of grief. I had not been surprised it was a Jarnish body, most of the people living around here were Jarnish, or half-Jarnish. But now that I saw her face I recognized her. It was Sister Arvlid, the one person who had befriended me at Thansethan. Her pale eyes were open and staring, and her lips were drawn back as if in pain. I remembered her straining honey and pacing with me, missing her festival, when Darien was being born.
Elwith was beside me. “It’s Arvlid of Thansethan,” she said, and there were tears in her voice. “She used to ride out to the farms and hamlets with medicines and prayers, praying in Jarnish with the Jarnsmen. Her parents live on one of the farms out here. Those raiders must have caught her on her way and brought her here and killed her. Nothing we can do for her now, but we’ll get them!”
I closed her eyes and put her head down gently. Then I pulled her skirts down to cover her legs and give her a little more dignity in death. As I did so I caught sight of something in one of her hands. Reflexively, I straightened the skirts again to cover it. “Why would they bring her here?” I asked. My voice sounded strange in my ears. Ulf was still vomiting loudly, but otherwise the wood was very still.
“Who knows why those raiders do anything,” she said, angrily.
“Come here, Ulf,” I said. “You know why raiders do things, tell me why they might have done this.” His skin was as whiter than milk as he came forward, and his beard was stained and revolting. He couldn’t seem to stop retching, though only air and bile was coming out now. The spasms wracked him. “Drink some water and pull yourself together,” I said. “If I can stand to look at this, you can. This was a friend of mine, a holy sister from Thansethan.”
Silently ap Padarn gave Ulf his waterskin. Ulf poured it over his head, some of it went in his mouth. “They—they—” and he fell to the ground retching the water out again, lying full length in the loam at my feet. I managed to refrain from kicking him, but it was a close thing.
“Elwith, go and tell ap Erbin we’re all right, and get him to bring the troops down to the road. Then tell him—just him—to come in here and see this. Don’t tell the others what we’ve found. I want everyone to stay calm. Beris, you go with the scout, quietly, and go around this clearing and see if you find anything at all. If you do, come back and t
ell me, but I’d be surprised. She’s been dead all day, and they got back onto that burning ship.”
“Nobody would get onto a burning ship,” Elwith protested. “Unless the White God struck it by lightning to set it on fire and punish them for their crimes.”
It was a better explanation than anything I had. But they had probably left in another ship, whatever their reason for burning that one had been. “If he was going to strike people by lightning it would have been better if he’d done it in time to save Arvlid, not just avenge her,” I said. “I think they’ve gone, but I’m not sure, so keep watching out.”
Elwith went back to the horses, and the others left. Ulf lay in the dirt retching helplessly. “Have you any more water?” I asked ap Padarn. He shook his head. “Go back to Mael and get his waterskin,” I said.
As soon as he had gone I bent over Arvlid and drew out the piece of cloth I had glimpsed in her hand. It was a torn scrap of light red cloth the color and width of the streamers Ayl used like a banner. It didn’t look as if she had clutched at it; it looked as if it had been pressed into her dead fingers. I put it inside my tunic; then I did kick Ulf, just once and not very hard.
“Get up. I know you didn’t do it. I don’t think it was Jarnish raiders at all. How would they know to come to this place? This is a trap, and if we don’t want to be caught by it we have got to talk!” He groaned. Ap Padarn came back with the water. I poured it over Ulf.
“Never would have thought he had such a weak stomach,” ap Padarn said. “Not a pretty sight I’ll agree, but you don’t see me puking on the ground.”
“No,” I agreed, crisply. “Go back to Mael, and when the others come remind ap Erbin to come in. Don’t spread rumors among the others, and don’t tell them what you’ve seen; we don’t want more lost breakfasts.”
When he had gone, Ulf sat up. He looked disgusting, splashed with vomit and dirt and with twigs and dirt sticking to his wet hair. He could not meet my eyes, and he looked ashamed to be alive.
“I’m sorry,” he said, feebly. “It’s just I have nightmares—”
