Empire's Reckoning

by Marian L Thorpe

  He buried his hand in the dog’s ruff. “They took my daughter. I’ll go to Karl myself, Lord Sorley.”

  Chapter 46

  Hours of light remained when we rode into the courtyard of the Ti’ach, the northern summer nights not ever truly dark. We were hungry, and our horses tired. Druise’s leg had tightened into cramp more than once on the ride, and I could tell from his face it pained him. A girl came to take the horses, telling us to go inside.

  But the door to the hall opened before we reached it, and the young Comiádh, Barì, stepped out. “Sorley,” he said. “We’ve been expecting you, but I thought you’d be alone. Druisius, you are of course welcome. And this is — Gwenna? I haven’t seen you since you were seven.” Barì had been one of our Ti’ach’s first students, a fourth son with no land to inherit, even though two of his older brothers had died in the war. He’d come to the Ti’ach at eighteen for five years of learning with Cillian. His time had overlapped with Ruar’s, and they had remained friends.

  “Barì na Cillian,” I said, stepping forward to kiss him lightly. He’d spent some weeks with us in the autumn, discussing curriculum with Cillian. “How prospers the Ti’ach?”

  “It flourishes. We already have eight students. Druisius, are you well?”

  “He is injured,” Gwenna said.

  The usual shrug. “It is nothing.”

  “I doubt it. Come in, and we will see what can be done. Food and ale would be welcome, I expect.”

  We’d missed the evening meal, and I wasn’t sorry: after the day’s events, I’d no wish to eat with eight students. But the daltai were in the hall for their evening’s instruction and entertainment, of course, and they stood as we entered.

  “Daltai,” the woman with them said, “welcome Lord Sorley, please, and his companions. When you have done so, the rest of the evening is free. After you put your instruments away, of course.”

  They chorused a greeting, and as they scattered, I smiled at Eithnë. I hadn’t taught her, but I had been one of the three scáeli’en who had judged her fit to join our ranks. “Thank you,” I said. “We are tired. Eithnë, you will not have met Gwenna, or Druisius. Gwenna’s name you will know; Druisius is captain of the guard at our Ti’ach.”

  Gwenna greeted her appropriately, dalta to teacher. As one of the students crossed the hall, Eithnë called to him. “Tell the kitchen we have guests who are hungry.”

  “And one who is injured,” Barì added. “Come with me, Druisius. I have some skill with wounds. How did it happen?”

  “It is just a bruise,” Druise protested.

  “Which will benefit from arnek.”

  “Druise,” I said, “go. And tell Barì everything.”

  When they had gone, I sank down into a chair at the big table. Without asking, Eithnë poured me ale; wine at this Ti’ach would be only for very special occasions. She gave Gwenna a cup as well, then sat across from me. “What has happened?”

  I told her, as succinctly as I could. She turned to Gwenna. “Well done. I can throw a secca, of course; we all learned to. But I am not sure how I would manage in real danger.”

  “You didn’t have my mother to teach you, my lady,” Gwenna said. “I was sorry to lose my mare, though. She was my mother’s, once. Do you think she will be angry with me, Sorley?”

  “Dalta,” I said gently. She realized, immediately.

  “Lord Sorley,” she amended. “Forgive me.”

  “You’re tired,” I said, “and you need food.” She looked pale. The lapse in protocol told me just how upset or tired, or both, she was. In this setting, just as at our Ti’ach, she should have called me by my title. She and Colm had been adept at this by their seventh years, switching easily between public and private spaces.

  “There’s a table in my teaching room where you can eat,” Eithnë said, “if privacy would be preferred.”

  “Yes,” I said, “thank you.” We followed her to the rooms, almost identical to mine. Eithnë knelt at the fireplace.

  “It’s summer,” I protested, as she lit dried moss and shreds of peat.

  “Fires are comforting,” she said, adding more peat. She stood, brushing her hands on her breeches. “I doubt you will say no to fuisce, either. And a little for Gwenna, well-watered?

  “I don’t like it,” Gwenna said, “but thank you, my lady.”

  “Wine, then?” Once Eithnë had left, I put my arms around her. She leaned against me, but she wasn’t crying.

  “Did I kill either of them?” she asked.

  “Not directly. I did, and Druise did.”

  “Mathàir says killing made her sick. I...I don’t feel that. Only sad about my mare. Am I unnatural?”

  “Sit down,” I said. She took one of the stools; I pulled another up close to her, so I could keep an arm around her. “You are not,” I said. “Each of us reacts differently. Your father believes he could never have killed; the act makes you mother vomit. But Talyn has killed without revulsion, and so has Druise. I dislike it, but it doesn’t make me physically ill.” I let her absorb that. “How do you feel, about the dead Marai?”

  “I wish they hadn’t had to die. They shouldn’t have attacked. It was...a waste.”

  “That’s what I feel too: regret at the necessity, and a little angry at the squandering of life, especially the young man’s.”

  “But if I wasn’t me...you would have let the older man live.” Here was the crux of her disquiet, I thought. It hadn’t been a question, but I would tell her the truth anyhow.

  “No,” I said, “I wouldn’t have. It would have been merciful, and perhaps he would have gone back to Varsland to talk of the leniency he received at the hands of a scáeli. Or perhaps he would have bragged how he had ignored the prohibition against harming one of us, and the talk would grow and spread, putting us all at risk.”

  The door opened. Eithnë came in carrying a tray. On it was a jug of water, and one of wine, and a small flask I knew held the fuisce. She put it down. “Food in a few minutes,” she murmured, and slipped out again.

  “Sometimes,” I said, “I am not just myself, Gwenna, but a representative of all scáeli’en. I must act for us all, regardless of what I feel personally.”

  “As I will have to,” she said.

  “Yes.” I poured her a cup of wine, adding a little less water than usual. My own fuisce got barely a couple of drops. There was a third cup, but I would let Druise decide if he wanted wine or something stronger.

  “If killing does not bother me — does not make me sick,” she said, “I could be a soldier, and not a diplomat.”

  “You could,” I sipped the fuisce. “Officers and diplomats use many of the same skills. Both exercise leadership, and discretion, and both must learn to read a situation and the people in it. And both,” I said with a smile, “are going to do boring work around supplies or trade when they are junior, as we are not at war.”

  She wrinkled her nose, but she smiled as well. “Is Druise all right?”

  “Yes. Just a bad bruise.”

  “He could have died today,” she said. “And you.”

  “Protecting you is his job,” I said. “And I promised your father I would guard you with my life. Instead, leannan, you helped save ours.”

  “I suppose I did,” she said. She drank a little wine. “Sorley, why did you forgive my father so easily for his betrayals?”

  “Easily?” But why would she think otherwise? “Oh, Gwenna,” I said. “It was far from easy.”

  “But you did.”

  “In the end. But it was a difficult journey, in more than one way.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  I would have to, I thought, although the memories would rob me of sleep; they could, still.

  “When you’ve had some rest,” I said.

  The food and Druise arrived together. “Are you all right, Kitten?” he asked.

  “Yes. Did the Comiádh give you a salve for the bruise?”

  “He did. It hurts less. Can we eat?” He
accepted wine, and we settled down to the meal. A little later Eithnë came for Gwenna, to take her to a bedroom on the girls’ floor.

  “You have the first two rooms in the annex, on the left side,” she said to us.

  Druise put down his wine. “I want to look around, outside.”

  “Then lock the door when you come in,” Eithnë said. “Sleep well, both of you.”

  Stars fogged the sky. We walked silently around the house and its ancillary buildings, Druise’s eyes studying every door and window, every wall and byre. I didn’t interrupt. I listened to the night sounds, the rustle of some small animal in the grass, a distant owl. Nothing untoward, and no unnatural silence.

  “All is well.” Druise stopped at a wall, looking out into the fields beyond. In Casilan, he added, “Before the attack, amané, where had your thoughts gone?”

  “Why?” I asked, prevaricating.

  “You do not always remember to school your face,” he said. “Some of it I understood. But anger? Still, after all these years?”

  “At myself,” I said. “For doubting his motives.” I had no need to say whose. “For thinking he would use me for political gain.” I leaned on the wall beside my lover. “Should I have forgiven myself for that?”

  “Yes. It is in the past. Just as my actions in Casil are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was not just a guard. I was meant to report back to the palace.”

  “You were?” I turned to look at him. “Lena and Cillian believed you might be, I think. Lena warned me not to speak of anything political to you.”

  “I did not follow my orders.” He shrugged. “I liked Cillian from the start, this man from so far away who knew about Casil. I liked Lena. And you. So talented a musician.” He grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. “So I lied to the man who sent me. I did not like him.”

  “Quintus?”

  “Who else?”

  “Does Cillian know?”

  “I told him, yes. On the ship. He said he had guessed, and it was part of the reason he had decided I should join you.”

  “He never told me. Nor Lena, I think.”

  “No. And I would not have, either, except you are still disturbed by your thoughts from so long ago.”

  I looked up at the stars. “I’m not, really. The memories were strong, though, this afternoon.”

  “Do you mind what I was?”

  Did I? “No. What matters is that you are here, protecting Gwenna. And still playing duets with me.”

  “Even if your songs are sad,” he said with another grin. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You too are just a man, Sorley. Forgive yourself.”

  Regardless of time and forgiveness and what I had told Druise, regret and a quiet disgust at what I had thought — and done — had never wholly left me. How we respond to circumstances is what defines us. Casyn’s words.

  Druise, I thought, did not agree. Although perhaps that was unfair: his response to circumstance was simply different, his own survival, and perhaps advancement, always predominant. Or they had been, until Gwenna’s birth. He would die for her; he well could have, today. As I could have too, but for all I loved her, in the moment I realized what was happening, what I had heard in my mind had been Cillian’s voice: Take care of my daughter. Different responses. Different loyalties.

  Loyalties. I grinned, thinking of Druise deciding, on instinct, to ignore his orders, because he liked us; because he was bored as a palace guard; because he didn’t like the man who had issued them. And perhaps because he and I had made music together. His confession hadn’t surprised me; I’d probably realized it on some unspoken level long ago. He’d been too unperturbed the times he’d been asked to extract information from his fellow soldiers, in Ésparias and in Casil, through whatever means he thought best. Whatever his motives in bedding me, that first night, neither of us could have expected our long partnership would result.

  Pragmatic Druisius, his behaviour not so different from Cillian’s in his days as a toscaire, using physical intimacy to encourage indiscretion. I’d known what Druise was doing in Casil, that summer. I’d told myself it didn’t matter. But had that been true? Or had it, pushed to the back of my mind, insinuated its way into my doubts about Cillian’s motives?

  Maybe. It was too long ago, and there were too many twisted threads to separate now. But if I took the sword of truth to that knot, the answer was simple: the fault had been mine. I had not, in the depths of my heart, believed I was worthy of Cillian’s trust, or his love.

  What a fool I’d been. I turned over and pulled the blanket closer. Go to sleep, I told myself. Tomorrow your concerns are music and the danta. I’d probably have to teach a lesson or two in my time here, especially if Eithnë had a student she thought exceptional. Druise could rest his leg, and demonstrate the cithar, and Gwenna could just be a girl among the daltai, for a few days.

  Chapter 47

  14 years earlier

  The Sterre blended into a slope of earth and rock climbing up into the Durrains; impossible now, after centuries, for me to see where the hand of man ended and the natural landscape began. I stood with Gregor on the ridge, looking north.

  “The last anyone saw of the general and his scout, they were heading north on that trail,” he told me.

  “And that was three weeks ago?”

  “Close enough.”

  “What were they looking for? Did they tell you?” I asked. I knew this trail; I’d travelled it myself, two years and more past. I couldn't help glancing east, although the path that Lena and Cillian had taken to begin their climb into exile lay further south, at the end of the Wall. Galen had brought them to that spot, I remembered. How difficult would it be to go north a short way, and then circle back to that eastern trail?

  Turlo had become increasingly subdued since the war with the Marai, Lena had told me once, worried. His once-irrepressible cheerfulness had settled into reflexive politeness. Too much loss, she'd said: Darel, Arey, Callan. Son, lover, Emperor; all the soldiers he had seen fall, and on top of that Turlo knew it was his treaty — his and Cillian’s — that had stripped his land of its autonomy. Too much loss. Enough to send a man into voluntary exile?

  But I was not really looking for Turlo and Galen. I would pay attention for signs, but it was not my purpose. I adjusted the pack on my back.

  “Thank you,” I said. He hadn’t reacted when I had given him the note from Ruar, with its instructions to keep my direction of travel secret. I wondered if he would. I doubted everyone now, I thought wryly.

  “Best of luck,” he said, turning to go back to his horse. I waited in the dawn light until he was out of sight, so that he could honestly say he did not know where I had gone. Then I scrambled down the northern side of the Sterre, and back into darkness.

  The huge evergreens that grew on these western foothills allowed little light to reach the forest floor at midday, and almost none at dawn. As my eyes adjusted, I could just see the trail, snaking among the thick trunks. A trail used by trappers and hunters, mostly, and in these weeks of autumn that was who would be out here, gathering pelts made thick and glossy by the riches of summer. I would almost certainly meet one or more of them. In my pack was my smallest ladhar, to support my claim that I was a torpari man aspiring to be a scáeli, risking my life to collect songs to meet the requirements of the council.

  I touched my chin. I hadn’t shaved now for three days; if I were lucky, I wouldn't run into anyone until my beard had grown in enough to help disguise me. But I hadn't lived in Sorham since I was eighteen, and in these foothills the chances of being recognized, even without a beard, were slim. As long as I remembered to speak in the accents and dialect of my youth, and didn't play or sing too well.

  A squirrel chattered at me as I passed, its body flattened along the trunk of the tree. It might well be its alarm call, or that of a jay, that would alert others to my presence. But if I paid attention, I would be alerted to an approaching hunter by the same sounds. I cou
ld not let myself be distracted or allow my mind to wander into writing songs.

  More light filtered through the dense evergreens now. I began to study the path in front of me, looking for scuff-marks in the layer of needles that covered the soil. Where exposed roots stretched across the trail, I paid more attention; a walker was more likely to catch a foot here, leaving a mark. But I found nothing. No one had been on this path for some time.

  Days later, I eased the pack, lighter now, off my shoulders and onto a moss-covered boulder at the side of the trail. A small stream ran down off the hills, adequate to fill my waterskin and my kettle. I thought I recognized this place, the trail hugging the edge of a drop to the west. Hadn't I camped here before? If so, I was more than half-way to the coast. Galen had captured me just a day’s journey north.

  There should be a small fire-ring across the stream, I thought, if I'm right as to where I am. I crossed the stream, and there it was, hidden behind another boulder, a good, sheltered place for a fire. I began to gather twigs and cones. I'd been lucky with the autumn weather; rain had been light and seldom, and the kindling I piled up would burn easily.

  The fire had caught and was burning steadily, and the squirrel I had killed earlier in the day spitted and waiting for coals, when I heard the warning call of a crow, and then another. I crouched down behind the boulders. The fire smoked, and any experienced hunter would smell it. You are a travelling musician, I reminded myself.

  I heard voices. Two men, I thought, coming from the north. I reached for my pack, and took out my ladhar, running my fingers over the strings. It was out of tune, but that didn't matter.

  “Music?” I heard one man say.

  “I smell smoke,” the other replied. “Someone’s at the campsite. Musician!” he called.

  I stood up. “Aye?” I called back. They came out of the shadows. Two men: trappers, it appeared, from the bundle of marten pelts one had strapped to his back.

  “Who are you?” the lead man asked. “And what are you doing here on my lord’s land?”