Empire's Reckoning

by Marian L Thorpe

  “Some might.” I said. “Not me.”

  Chapter 14

  “Timber,” Liam said. “We have trees to spare, and the Casilani will need wood, for ships and buildings. Do you not agree, Daoíre, Oisín?”

  Twenty minutes earlier, Daoíre had enumerated items he had thought possible for tribute. Timber had been in the middle of the list, mentioned in passing. Oisín frowned. “Do you think so?” he asked. “How would we get it to them?”

  “Down a river, man,” Liam said. “How is timber ever moved?”

  “You expect them to send ships for it?” Oisín said.

  “Aye, I do. We cannot transport it south. Now where on the coast would you propose a harbour?”

  Neither Oisín nor Daoíre spoke, exchanging worried glances. “Just south of the Tabha? That Eirën would not object.” Ruar offered. He got up to fetch a map. The entire conversation had been planned, I realized, both to plant ideas in Liam’s mind, and to allow Ruar to be seen as a leader, knowledgeable about his land and people.

  By the end of the afternoon, I marvelled at the two men’s ability to maintain their composure in the face of Liam’s scathing remarks to them. Oisín, I judged, was less in control of himself, visibly holding back his anger. But I had my instructions: I was to offer timber and furs to pay the expected tribute over the next year.

  “Tomorrow,” Liam said, “we will speak of movement across the border. We have done enough for today.” Even though he had slept after the midday meal, his skin was grey with fatigue. “Bhradaín, you have recorded this?” he asked.

  “I have. I will review my notes with Sorley.”

  “Then I bid you good evening. I will not see you at dinner.”

  Very little was said about Liam at the meal: what was there to add? After the food Bhradaín and I played for a while, Liam’s daughters joining their husbands, along with other men and women of the household. It was not late when I went to my room.

  There was fuisce on the sideboard. I poured myself a little. Restlessly I paced the room, wondering what the plans were to regain Sorham without warfare. I doubted they would tell me: my toscaire’s oath was to the country, and if I thought their plans endangered Linrathe, I could denounce them. If I asked Bhradaín directly, though, he was bound to tell me.

  Or was he? There were limits to the scáeli’s requirement to tell the truth, to prevent them from being captured for information. Only that which they knew first-hand, or had permission to reveal, I thought. If Bhradaín had been excluded from all, or much, of whatever planning Daoíre was leading, he was not obliged to tell me, even if I asked. But neither could he lie. All he could say was that it was not his to divulge.

  I hadn’t raised the idea of the forts yet, but the conversation about allowing Linrathan people across the Wall would be a starting place: some might wish to go, if there was work to be had. Tomorrow would be soon enough for this. I reached for my ladhar. The last time I’d been in this room, I’d begun a song, a song I’d added to a little, but it wasn’t finished. Maybe I needed the clarity of distance. I tightened a couple of strings and played part of it again.

  You danced that night with grace unfettered...

  It wasn’t a beginning. Perhaps a chorus? Then I rolled my eyes at my own lack of insight. Only one opening was possible: the traditional one of so many of our songs. An image coalesced.

  My true love’s eyes are darkly gleaming

  In candlelight and music’s lure.

  One night alone, at spring’s fair dawning

  To keep me longing through the years,

  To leave my soul bereft and mourning.

  Now the already-written lines:

  You danced that night with grace unfettered,

  A glance my way, a touch bestowed,

  Your dark hair swept by supple fingers.

  Too soon the day, the calling road,

  The shaken head when asked to linger.

  Words poured out of me. By the end I was trembling with tiredness and spent emotion. The song was good, but more than that, it had told me what I had needed to know. No, I amended, what I already knew. You are worth any price to me, I had said to Cillian not so very long ago. Perhaps Druise accompanying Faolyn to Casil was for the best.

  My head spun, from fatigue and fuisce. The bed beckoned, and I accepted its invitation.

  “There is little I can tell you about our people’s ability to move south of the Wall permanently,” I told Liam and the others the next morning. “No declaration will be made until the Procurator’s men have finished surveying the land and counting every head in it, and the Governor has seen the numbers.”

  “Why should it be allowed?” Ruar asked. “And why would we want it to be?”

  Good questions, both. “Your father wanted it,” Daoíre told him. “Access to better land was most of his reasoning. It was to be considered in any formal treaty between the two lands, or so I was told. But that treaty was never signed, and both Donnalch and Callan are dead.”

  “We might lose too many of our people,” Ruar argued.

  “We might,” Daoíre agreed. “But I think not. The ties of land and family are strong. Are they not, Lord Sorley?”

  So Bhradaín had told him of our conversation yesterday. To be expected. “They are,” I said. “But, Raséair, Ruar, there is another consideration.” I explained about the proposed forts.

  “Who is to pay for these forts?” Liam asked sharply.

  “The Eastern Empire, as I understood it,” I answered.

  “And their troops to man them?” Daoíre pushed his chair back.

  “Aye, and why not?” Liam said. “We want their help in regaining Sorham. If there are troops stationed here, all the better. But tell me more about the trading harbour, Sorley. I see opportunity there, but Linrathe must control tariffs on what the Marai bring in for trade. Here is what you must say to the Governor.” He dictated questions and numbers. I wrote it down.”

  “The Governor has proposed a meeting,” I said, when the long list was done.

  “He said so, in his letter,” Liam said. “I am too old to travel. Daoíre can go in my stead.”

  “And I, Great-Uncle,” Ruar said.

  “You do not need to.” Liam’s hands, on the arms of his chair, shook. The palsy of age, I thought.

  “He should,” Daoíre said. “It is our tradition. Donnalch would have taken him, to observe and learn.”

  Liam shook his head, his characteristic single, terse movement. “We will discuss this later. Preparations for the council meeting take precedence. The Eirënnen will begin arriving today, I should think. I want no discussion of the trading harbour, do you hear?”

  “Why not?” Ruar asked, giving voice to what I guessed we were all thinking.

  “D’ye think I trust the coastal lords not to argue among themselves as to where it should be?” Liam said. “I want no Eirën taking advantage of the knowledge, sending messages into Varsland and offering favourable rates. The tariffs from trade with the Marai must be set by this house.”

  Messages into Varsland? I tucked that piece of information away to be considered later. Was that still happening? And if so, how?

  Chapter 15

  The Eirënnen began arriving in the afternoon, singly and in groups who had travelled together. Old men, their sons killed in the war; one woman, holding her land on her own now her husband was dead; young men barely old enough to take the title, and a handful close to my age, survivors. At dinner the first night, the council not formally begun, the talk was of loss: girls taken, torpari killed, granaries emptied and flocks slaughtered. But with the resilience of a people who lived always with the vagaries of a harsh land, they spoke too of lambing and sowing, of marriages and babies born. A night of reunions, of conversations that might lead to betrothals and lands joined, of commiseration and, in some corners, argument.

  I sat with the Eirën Ingold, and young Hagen, lord now of the torp just north of the Ti’ach na Perras. Hagen — I was having troub
le remembering not to call him Hagi — was a year or two younger than I. I’d known him since I was eighteen. He’d fought beside me at the Wall, watched his father fall to a Marai axe. We talked of Perras’s death, and the daltai girls taken by the Marai: little Niav, and Jordis. “No news?” he asked.

  “None,” I told him. “Nor likely to be.”

  “I suppose not,” he said. “I’d asked my father to approach Egan, you know, for Jordis.”

  “I didn’t,” I said, surprised. “I’d have thought you betrothed years ago.”

  “I was, but she died. I liked Jordis. What about you, Sorley? A northern lord, unmarried at your age?”

  I broke a piece of bread. “There was a girl waiting for me. My time at the Ti’ach was almost over when the war began.” Not a lie. I had never worked out what I was going to do about Betis.

  “I see,” he said. “What will you do now? Find an Eirën in Linrathe with no sons to inherit, and marry the oldest daughter?” I couldn’t take offense: it was how landholders thought, both sides of the Sterre.

  “Possibly,” I said. “But probably not. I sit the examination to join the scáeli’en in the autumn.”

  “Do you?” he said. “Aye, well, as good a life as any for you now, I suppose.” He leaned over the table to ask Ingold something. I looked around the room. Bhradaín caught my eye, beckoning to me.

  “You’ll play with me?” he asked.

  “Tonight?” A very great honour, to play for the assembled Eirënnen. With a tilt of his chin he indicated we should step away from the tables.

  “Tonight,” he confirmed, his voice quiet. “I’ve a mood to set, one that will help convince these men that a fourteen-year-old boy should be their Teannasach.”

  We played the songs of battle, of victory and loss, and Bhradaín spoke of Ruar’s bravery and valour. The boy had been unflinching, both in the long ride north — sixteen hours a day in the saddle, scant food and scanter sleep — and on the field. I’d fought beside him, and there had been others wielding swords not just to defeat the Marai but to keep the last loyal Teannasach’s son safe. He’d killed his share of the invaders, and Bhradaín reminded the men before him of that, too.

  The Eirënnen hoisted drinking cups and cheered; if there were dissenting voices, they were drowned out by the tide of approval. Bhradaín held up his hand for silence. It was late now, time for the last song of the evening.

  “Many of you know the musician who accompanies me tonight,” he said. “The lord Sorley rode north with our young leader, and never left his side in the fighting. He has done much more, but we will leave that for tomorrow. Only remember this: so that Linrathe had a chance of peace, he relinquished his lands and his family, for Lord Sorley is a man of Sorham. My lord, will you sing An Dithës Braithréan for us?

  Even as I nodded my assent — I could not refuse, even had I wanted to — part of my mind recognized Bhradaín’s ploy: the emphasis on my nobility, the reminder I had protected Ruar, the choice of final song, driving home to the assembled landholders of Linrathe what I had given up to buy them victory. I needed to remember these tactics, both as a scáeli and a toscaire. Bhradaín gestured me to the higher stool. The hall was silent.

  I had sung this song of brothers separated forever by war twice for Cillian, in love and anguish. But tonight I needed a different vision. I closed my eyes, picturing Gundarstorp, its coves and hills, the rhythm of the waves, the screams of gulls. Sheep on the hill and curlew on the moor. Roghan, chasing behind me, fighting me with wooden swords, bundling fleeces as I sheared. I plucked the strings slowly, letting my heart and my fingers suggest the wavering curlew’s cry, the susurration of water on rock, a boy’s laughter. An entire verse with only the ladhar, before I began to sing.

  I didn’t try for purity: I’d never reach it. I let my voice crack and falter, and by the time I finished, tears gleamed in more than one pair of eyes in my audience. I bowed and stepped aside, unspeaking.

  Bhradaín touched my shoulder. “Very well done,” he murmured. “Go straight to your room. Speak to none of them tonight, or it will lessen the effect.”

  A servant brought breakfast to my room the next morning. “The scáeli’s orders,” he told me. “I will return when the council is ready for you, my lord.” I ate my porridge, and thought about what I might be asked about the treaty, and what I would and wouldn’t say, in answer.

  When I entered the hall, Ruar, seated at the high table between Liam and Daoíre, stood immediately. “Lord Sorley,” he said, his voice clear and confident. “I had no chance last night to thank you for your music. You honoured us.”

  “The honour was mine,” I replied, “and I thank Bhradaín for allowing it.”

  “You play well,” Liam said, “but you are not here today as a musician, Lord Sorley. Daoíre will read the treaty to the Eirënnen, and then we will talk about its implications, and you will answer questions.” I took the seat indicated, at the end of the high table, and Daoíre began to read.

  It was Cillian’s translation he was reading, and it was as precise as I remembered. Cillian had asked my advice a time or two on the ship home from Casil, weighing the Linrathan words against the Casilan for shades of meaning. I doubted I’d added anything, but I’d appreciated being asked. The Eirënnen sat, silent for the most part, except for the occasional murmured comment to a seat-mate. Daoíre read fluently, stopping for a sip of water once or twice. The last words he read were my formal signature: Somhairle of Gundarstorp. My birth name, although only my mother had used the old pronunciation.

  “If I heard correctly,” Ingold said, “this treaty is favourable. The biggest change is that we pay tribute south rather than north.”

  “The biggest change,” another Eirën said, “is that we have lost Sorham, and have less than half the lands to find the tribute from. What right had you, Lord Sorley, to agree to those terms?” I didn’t recognize him.

  “Who else was there?” I said. “Casil offered help, but only to regain and hold Linrathe. Was I to refuse?”

  “Who sent you east?” the man asked.

  “No one. Donnalch was dead, Lorcann a prisoner, perhaps already dead when I left. I acted as a man loyal to Linrathe, and with its best interests at heart, nothing more.”

  “We could not have held Sorham,” Daoíre said. “Too many Härren saw the Marai favourably. Too many marriages and trade alliances made across the narrow sea.”

  “Not only is the treaty favourable,” Ruar said, “but I will remind you again of Lord Sorley’s loyalty to me, your Teannasach. He saw the need for me to come north to my people, accompanied me and fought at my side, taking a wound.”

  “Ruar,” Liam said, “you forget yourself. No support from the Eirënnen has yet been offered.”

  “Donnalch’s son is your choice, Raséair?” Ingold asked. “Yours and the other men of your house?”

  “He is,” Liam said. A reluctant choice, I knew. “The boy should succeed his father.”

  “Then let us hold that oath-giving and get on with the council,” Ingold said.

  “How old are you?” the Eirën who had challenged me asked.

  “Fourteen,” Ruar replied.

  “Na,” the man said. The northern pronunciation: his lands would be near the Sterre, then. “You’re only a youngling. Daoíre, will you not stand?”

  “I will not,” he said. “I am not of the Teannasach’s blood.”

  “But your sons — ” The man stopped. “Forgive me, Daoíre. They died early on, did they not?”

  “On the Sterre,” Daoíre said quietly. I hadn’t known. Hadn’t asked. “With yours, Utar.”

  So many men had fallen that day, fighting against a strong Marai force supported by too many men of Sorham. Surrender had come quickly, and shortly afterwards, the quiet organization of the Ti’acha and certain torps into a network for those who opposed Fritjof’s rule.

  “Shall we give our oaths?” Ingold said, after a moment’s silence.

  “No,” Utar said.
“I want something decided. The lad clearly favours Lord Sorley, and I still don’t accept his right to sign the treaty. We should settle that question first.”

  “What question?” A woman’s voice. Birgit, wife to the Eirën Sullis; he’d died with only an infant daughter as his heir, and Birgit had declared her intent to run the torp on her own.

  “The question of consequence,” Utar said. “Is he to be allowed such a presumption? He was not an envoy. I say it was almost treasonous.”

  “If I am a traitor to anyone,” I said, “it is Sorham. What would you have had me do, Utar?” I felt a flare of irritation, damped it down.

  “Let Cillian na Perras sign it,” he said.

  A laugh from among the men. “Utar,” someone said with an impatient edge, “he is sworn to the southern Empire.”

  “A traitor long before that, from what I’ve heard,” Utar said.

  That first flare of irritation blossomed into anger. “A traitor?” I growled, my chair scraping against flagstones as I stood to lean over the table. “Who do you think negotiated these terms? Could you have done better?”

  “Not likely,” I heard from among the men. “Utar, shut up. You could barely sell fleeces to the Marai.”

  Voices rose, in argument and defence. Liam pushed himself to his feet. “Quiet!” he shouted, smashing a fist on the tabletop. The hall fell silent. Blood pulsed in my temple.

  “The loyalties of Cillian na Perras are known to me,” he said, his old voice quavering a little. “I have no love for the man, and he could not have signed the treaty for Linrathe, but its terms are fair.”

  “They are,” Ingold agreed.

  “And Cillian na Perras is no traitor,” Hagen said. “I’ve known him all my life.”

  A derisive snort from Utar earned him Liam’s silencing glare. I took a deep breath. “Were I not a toscaire, and sworn to the land and its people,” I said, “I would be first to offer my oath to Ruar.”

  “Then I will be,” Ingold said, standing.