by Morgan Smith
Why the rubbish should now be invited to sup with a king was a question that disordered her world, but she wasn’t one to look at things too deeply. She was merely relieved when I nodded. Her attention was immediately distracted by one of the scullery boys dropping an armload of wooden platters, and she was off again, taking her worries back to the kitchens and the linen-presses.
I didn’t envy her. Truthfully, it takes less skill to kill things than to care for them.
I had hoped that I could slide unnoticed through all this. I had made my courtesies to Ilona the night before, bowed in the king’s general direction on cue and then told Guerin where I would be, and it had seemed then that interest in my existence and my whereabouts was blissfully minimal. Now, however, one of the king’s men, a rather young one, was heading towards me.
I glanced around for Eardith and Arlais, in the hope that I was not the primary object here, but they were nowhere to be seen. The man sketched the tiniest of bows, muttered a surly request that seemed more bereft of actual words than was customary, and gestured at the table.
“Lady Caoimhe,” Birais said, nodding at me as I came up. “Will you join us?”
I bowed. I walked to the end of the table, where Guerin was moving over to give me room. It was just courtesy, that was all, I thought. Just the courtesy of a man who was known for his good manners to his underlings, that led me here.
The talk resumed - it was as I’d thought. They’d been rehashing yesterday’s battle and now had got onto the most prized qualities in a warhorse. I let the talk wash over me, having little to contribute, but I became unnerved by the occasional glances Birais kept flicking my way, as if he were on the point of asking me a direct question, yet curiously unwilling to do so outright.
His young henchman, too, kept his gaze on me. He’d taken up a post at the side, leaning against the wall with his arms defiantly folded, every inch the truculent warrior barely leashing in his emotions.
He might, I realized, know who I was. Anyone might have told him. Lady Ilona? Guerin? Not Eardith, I was sure, as she wasn’t one to give even the tiniest mite of knowledge away without some purpose, and certainly not to a stranger, not without some good reason.
But if the king’s man knew who and what I had once been, then I knew what his angry eyes meant. He was calculating the odds and working out the when and where.
For the maximum glory, it would, of course, need to be in a formal setting, and in full view of as many folk as possible. If he killed me in any other way, there would always be questions, there would always be doubters. If you are going to kill a renowned killer, you want the full measure of credit, or what’s the point?
The old, familiar boredom deadened my spirit. It would be this evening, I guessed, once the tables were laid, and he most likely had some spurious excuse ready to hand. There would be some foster-friend or distant relative that I had killed, I reckoned.
Really, it was only too likely that I had. The nobles both north and south had married and fostered into so many of each other’s families over the centuries that the true wonder would have been finding someone who couldn’t use this as an excuse to challenge me.
He wasn’t so much bigger than I was, but he had a sturdier build, and something about his stance told me he was used to getting his way, on and off the field. Spoiled and headstrong, I reckoned, sizing him up, and he hadn’t yet met anything in this world he couldn’t bluster or bludgeon away.
I’d met his kind before. I’d killed his kind before, too.
Chapter Fourteen
I’ve endured longer days, I suppose. Idiotic behavior comes in many guises, but an impromptu king’s visit to a backwater village might well be the worst. There was all that subtle jostling for position, for one thing, not just from Birais’ own troops, but from a couple of Owain’s people who saw a chance at prestige and advancement. One seemed bent on being noticed by Birais himself, another was currying favour from one of the royal troop captains, and yet another was, slightly more realistically, trying to convince Cowell that she would make an excellent addition to Lady Ilona’s entourage.
Birais retired to his room in the afternoon, on the spurious excuse that he needed to consult with his captains regarding the disposition of the few Camrhyssi prisoners they were holding, and Lady Ilona once more swept Eardith and the obviously unwilling Arlais up and disappeared with them into the little walled kitchen-garden.
Left to our own devices, Guerin and I wandered down to the stables. His mount had come down with the colic that morning and after an emetic draught, needed constant walking. With so many extra horses, though, it was certain that this was low on the stable-hands’ list of priorities.
“That soldier of Birais’,” I said, as we led Shadow down the road towards the village, “the one watching me…”
“Aye, he seems a bit on edge.”
I glanced at him. “Does he know who I am?”
“Caoimhe,” Guerin said, gently. “Everyone knows who you are. Even when they don’t know, they know.”
“What in the Nine Hells does that even mean?” I said, exasperated. I don’t know why it was that nearly every time I talked to Guerin, I almost immediately lost my temper.
“You are who you are. You are what you are. People talk, you know.”
I waited. Usually, if you wait, most people will tell you something else, just to fill the silence.
Guerin wasn’t most people. He smiled amiably and began whistling.
I said, “He’s going to challenge me, you know. Probably tonight.”
The whistling broke off.
“Ye-es. Yes, he probably will.”
“Why? Why should he do this? What can he gain? It isn’t as if I am still Einon’s champion.”
“Oh, that,” said Guerin, almost apologetically. “Well, that might have been partly my fault.”
I waited again. This time, for once, he swallowed the bait.
“The thing is, someone was talking about you. And he said he’d heard it was a fine thing, being Dungarrow’s champion, and he’d a mind to it. And I pointed out that the last time someone voiced that thought, Einon said that as far as he knew, the position was still filled.”
“And how,” I asked, trying to keep my tone disinterested and even, “how, in the name of Aheris, does Einon know I am even alive?”
“I should think Owain wrote to him almost immediately, don’t you?”
My estimation of Owain rose several notches. He’d never even dropped the slightest hint. Well done, Owain. And it explained Guerin’s presence here, too, I thought, with an uncharacteristic sense of something like optimism. Acting as escort to a priestess on a fact-finding tour had struck me from the first as an unlikely errand for Guerin of Orleigh.
“So, what happens next?”
Guerin stopped. A moment later, I did too, and turned to look at him. He wasn’t smiling.
“Caoimhe, as far as you’re concerned, I have no instructions, invitations or suggestions of any kind. Nor messages either, although Einon did seem to want to know if you were still… all right, you know.”
I felt it then, a faint sinking of the heart. It was the tone of Guerin’s voice, I think. Almost as if he were trying to be kind.
You would have thought I was immune to anything like hope or its cousins, wouldn’t you? I had certainly thought so. I reminded myself that I was not a living thing. It could not matter. It must not matter. Be a rock.
Shadow snorted. Guerin reached up, patting his neck and murmuring soothing words, and began to walk on, and after a moment, I did as well.
Over the course of the afternoon, I tried to find out more about my possible opponent. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t know most of these men and women, and they had better things to do with their time than talk to me, anyway. In the end, I sought out Cowell, although I didn’t expect much to come of it.
He surprised me, though. Last night, he’d greeted me formally, almost as if I’d been the merest acquaintance, and I hadn’t
expected more. An oath-breaking murderer is not someone people care to be seen as friends with, after all.
But today, running him to earth out by the kennels, he grinned, punched me in the shoulder and said I looked well enough.
And he knew who I was asking about. Apparently, he thought that I did as well, although for the life of me I could not remember the boy at all. He was some sort of relation to Birais, and he’d visited Dungarrow with his father about a year before the old duke had died.
His name was Lannach.
“He’s one to steer clear of, or so I’ve heard.”
“I don’t often get the choice,” I said. “And I don’t think he intends to give me one.”
Cowell said, “Well, then. Young cock, crowing all the time. He fights like old Fencair’s uncle used to do, you remember? All blows, no niceties. He might try a rush, thinking he can knock you down. And watch for the over-the-head feint. He relies on those. Used ‘em twice in battle yesterday, and bragged about it. Thinks it makes him look crafty.”
By early evening, the manor folk had set up all the trestle tables there were in Rhwyn manor, as well as borrowing two smaller ones from the inn, and improvising a few more out of scraps of wood and hastily pegged together carpenter’s horses. Lady Delwen had, moreover, managed to commandeer every bench in the village, by the simple expedient of making it clear that everyone was welcome. No one would be slighted or left out. The villagers might get less meat and more broth down at their end, but they would be there. They could say forever after that they had feasted with a king.
Chapter Fifteen
They put me, not at the king’s table, but at a seat at the table closest to the right of it, with Arlais and Guerin. Both were preoccupied with their own thoughts and did not seem disposed to talk to me, which was just as well. I was trying to think of some way to avoid what was coming, and not being terribly successful.
You might think, since killing people was the single thing I was good at, and having been a highly successful ducal champion, that I would go looking for fights. There are people like that, I know. People for whom killing is the sole point.
Me, I have never cared, either way. If ordered to kill, I did so. I trusted that Einon knew what he was doing, and that the killing was necessary. If I felt no pity for those deaths, I took no particular pleasure in them, either.
If I could find some way to prevent Lannach from issuing a challenge at all, I would take it. If nothing else, I didn’t think the king was going to be very impressed by Owain’s hospitality if he saw his kinsman killed before his very eyes.
I started scanning the crowd, looking for Lannach. The hall was full to bursting, though, and if he was there, I couldn’t see him.
Birais came in, at last, with his captains, followed by Eardith and Lady Ilona. The Lady was finely dressed, as always; she must have travelled with a full string of pack ponies, and I wondered again, briefly, how she’d managed to keep up with a war-band at full gallop. There was the sound of scraping benches as everyone rose and waited, and then the disorderly noises that a crowd makes when sitting down again.
Then, just as they quieted, I heard his voice behind me.
“You’re in my seat.”
I very nearly laughed. Of all the boneheaded challenges, this one took the torch.
I turned and looked up and said politely, “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch…?”
“I said, you’re a jumped-up commoner, taking my seat.”
“Ah.” I smiled pleasantly and said, “Well, I am sure it was a simple mistake.”
“Didn’t you hear me, slut? You’re in the wrong place.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said, mildly. “Please, do sit down.”
Before I could move out from the bench, though, Guerin said lazily, “And here I thought the court of Keraine was famed for its especially good manners and gentle speech.”
I have said I took no special pleasure in killing. At that moment, though, I could quite cheerfully have slit Guerin’s throat.
Lannach, with his own desires already fixed, wanted no part of Guerin, fortunately. He ignored this jab and said, aggressively,
“Is this sniveling guttersnipe what the Duke of Dungarrow calls a champion? The only thing that could be more insulting would be to sit down with such a coward as had you to guard his name.”
Oh, to the Nine Hells with this, I thought. I hadn’t killed a hundred better than him in my time to let him publicly insult Einon to get what he wanted.
The hall had gone utterly silent.
I stood.
“My lord king,” I said, and I used the carrying voice that Einon had taught me, the voice and words I’d used a hundred times before, “My lord king, I call a challenge.”
“No!” said Arlais, in panicked tones. She grabbed my arm. I shook it off.
“If that is your will,” Birais said. His expression was completely blank and his tone was studiously neutral. It occurred to me that Lannach was probably the kind of boy to do this a lot. Birais must be used to it. Used to the challenges and used to watching Lannach kill for no purpose.
“I call witness for Caoimhe of Penlaith, champion of Dungarrow,” said Guerin.
One of Lannach’s friends called witness for him. I reached under the table to where I’d stashed my sword. Someone brought me a shield.
“You can’t do this,” Arlais said. “You can’t! This is madness. Lord Guerin, tell her!”
It was clear she didn’t understand. The thing was done. Neither one of us could back down now.
“You need to stop this!”
I looked at Guerin.
“Try not to kill him,” he said, cheerfully. “Einon doesn’t need any difficulties with the king, just now.”
I smiled, not very nicely. “That’ll be fun.”
“You’re both mad,” Arlais said. She sat down, picked up her wine cup with a shaking hand, and drank deeply.
I would have told her she was wasting her concern. That I wasn’t worth the worrying and that Lannach, on the unlikely chance he did kill me, would be doing all of us a favour. But there wasn’t any time for it. He had walked out to the space in front of the high table, and he already had his shield up and his sword out, all tensed and ready, and vibrating like a plucked harp string.
Oh, laddie, I thought, you’re not just an ordinary fool, are you? You’re the biggest kind of fool of all.
I sauntered out into the open space to face him, sword and shield hanging loosely at my sides.
Someone called the invocation. Lannach peered at me over the rim of his shield, and seemed confused by the fact that my shield and sword were still held carelessly at rest, with no semblance of defense.
Let’s have credit where it’s due. He wanted it to be a serious win, and he was willing to sacrifice something for it. He narrowed his eyes and waited.
“Are you ready?” he asked, finally.
“Aye.”
He began to step in to throw a blow, but when I didn’t move, he stopped it and dropped back a pace.
“Look you,” he said, low-voiced, just as if he was on a practice ground, ready to teach some youngling a lesson, “You’re supposed to - I mean…I will kill you, you know.”
“Aye,” I said, wearily. “Get on with it, then.”
He re-set into that tight stance, frowning a little, and stepped a little to my left. I stayed put.
And then, all of a sudden, he threw himself into the thing, with a stride forward and his sword swinging over his head in the most obvious attempt at misdirection I had ever seen. I wheeled my shield up, blocked the actual shot and let loose a flurry of blows against his shield, knocking both the rim of it into his teeth and his whole body back as he retreated.
I went with him a few steps, still raining hard, deliberate hits onto his shield, and then let him fall back.
He was not a quick study.
He tucked back into that tight stance of his and came after me again, still opening with that same overhead fa
ke, and I slammed my shield into his, then sent several more sharp blows against it, until he pushed away and backed up, breathing heavily and sucking at the blood on his lip.
I stepped away again, turning my back as if I simply could not be bothered, which was very close to the truth.
His fury was a palpable thing, now, a vast incoherence of rage, and I didn’t even need to look. I felt him begin to move, and turned back.
It’s all a matter of experience, speed and distance. Your opponent needs to be completely committed, and to have built up enough momentum so they cannot possibly stop in time.
He was less than two strides away, when I half-stepped right and leaned my whole body sideways, except for my left leg, still squarely in his path.
I didn’t have to see his eyes to sense his last-minute, panicked comprehension, as he tripped over my foot. I swung my shield edge around and punched it hard into the back of his thigh as he fell, to make sure he went sprawling into a clumsy heap onto the floor, and I heard his sword skittering away off under one of the nearer tables.
He was winded, just for a grain or so. I walked over and knelt beside him, leaning down so that no one else could hear my words.
“If you aren’t an utter fool,” I said softly, “you’ll let this end here. If you want to go on breathing, you’ll take my hand, stand up, bow to me and to your king, and play the honourable warrior. Otherwise,” I paused, “I can kill you now, of course.”
He looked at me, no hatred nor anger left, only that ultimate, final terror. For all their vaunted trust in the Mother of All, most people are so desperate to go on breathing just that one moment longer, they’d sell their own grannies for another grain of the glass.
“Well? Do you want to live?”
“Aye,” he whispered. “Aye.”
I rose and waited. He rolled over and onto his knees, and I put out my hand. He grasped it and I hauled him up. We turned to the high table, and bowed, and, not wanting to push it further, I walked calmly back to my seat.
Chapter Sixteen
