The Prize in the Game

by Jo Walton

  “And do you not desire to win her for yourself? She loves you already.”

  That wretched dog, he thought at once. He was not going to die for a foolish mistake like that. Then he realized Maga could be lying, could say that to all the men as well as asking about Elenn’s beauty. “My father has different marriage plans for me,” he said cautiously.

  “And you are such a dutiful son that you would give up your own desires? Lagin is allied to Connat. A closer alliance would please Cethern now, whatever he said before. Besides, he is sentimental. He would put your happiness before expediency.”

  Ferdia was by no means as confident of that as Maga seemed to be. But in any case, it wasn’t the point and she clearly wanted to force the issue. He could not get away. Cruachan was not yet in sight. The land seemed green and gentle, all hard edges softened by the rain and low cloud. “I do not want to marry your daughter,” he said.

  Maga was not smiling now. Her eyes were very bright as she peered out beneath the fold of cloth. “You do not? What a strange man you are, Ferdia ap Cethern. You do not want Elenn, when all the other champions of the island want her. You will not fight Darag because he is your foster brother. As for Atha, you doubtless have some equally strong but undisclosed tie that prevents you from fighting her?”

  He could say nothing. He drove on, staring forward at the endless road, up and down, the fields, the green and dripping trees.

  “Has the Great Cat taken your tongue?” Maga asked at last. “No ties to Atha?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Then why would a bold young man like you refuse to go against her?”

  “You cannot make me go to my death for nothing,” he said, finding words at last. “Atha is the greatest champion of our age. I took up arms only a year ago. I am willing to fight in battle, eager. But going against Atha would be certain death. It would clear no roads for you, and leave my family grieved to no gain.”

  “There are worse things than death,” Maga said. Incredibly, she was smiling again. “Do you know ap Dair the Poet? He is in the camp.”

  Ferdia did know him. He found him annoying. He had been the one to negotiate Cethern’s alliance with Maga, against all Ferdia’s advice. He kept bringing Maga’s messages, and when Ferdia reproached him with running her errands, he said that running Maga’s errands was inspiring. He said nobody could ever have imagined this war and that poets would be writing about it for generations. He was protected as a poet; nobody could kill him and so he did not fight. He talked and laughed as much as someone who had the right to boast of his deeds.

  “I know him,” Ferdia admitted.

  Maga put a finger on Ferdia’s chin, forcing his head up. “Look at the road, young champion,” she advised. The worst of this was that despite her impertinence she was right. It was dangerous not to pay attention, especially now that the road was slippery in the rain.

  “Sorry,” he said between gritted teeth.

  “Ap Dair will make whatever song I tell him,” Maga said. “If I tell him you are a coward, he will sing that. If I tell him you gave a pledge to Elenn and then refused her love, he will find that material for a fine song. It will not kill you, but he is a poet of renown. You will hear it all your life, and every day you do not hear it, you will hear in every silence the certainty that people have just stopped singing it because you came along.”

  “How can you so insult my honor?” Ferdia asked, furious.

  Maga laughed, throwing back her head and letting the fold of cloth fall so that her hair was free in the rain. “You cannot speak of honor,” she said. “You are a coward and a pledge-breaker. It is nothing but the truth.”

  “What do you want from me?” Ferdia wondered if he could possibly kill Maga right now and say they had been attacked by bandits, or even that she had been struck by lightning. Then he remembered the carts following along behind. They were private, but in plain sight. Maga knew what she was doing. She was always so very clever. Ferdia knew he could never hope to outsmart her.

  “I want you to fight Darag and clear a way into Connat for me. The gods are protecting Darag. Putting great champions against him seems to be doing nothing but killing the champions. Maybe if he saw his friend and bedmate before his spear, he would hesitate and let you kill him. Or if not, maybe if he kills his foster brother, the gods will take their hand away from him afterwards, for the impiety of the act.”

  It took Ferdia a moment to understand what she had said. “You are a fine one to speak to me of honor,” he said.

  Maga smiled. “Neither of us have honor, so we can understand each other.”

  “Then why don’t you send troops through the woods and leave them guarding the roads for nothing?” Ferdia asked. “It is only honor that constrains you to go against them one at a time on the roads.”

  “I am not going against them,” Maga said. “You are. And that is why I cannot. Honor is all in appearance. Inis ap Fathag was very clever when he made me promise before everyone that I would not go around unguarded roads. If I did, everyone would know I had no honor—and that would be if I could find enough people who would follow me without honor, which is doubtful. You might, little champion, but would your father? There are not enough of my folk who would, unless I were to make them very drunk, and maybe not even then. They fear the Ban. I cannot control Rathadun, much as I would like to.”

  Ferdia could not suppress a gasp of horror at the very idea. It seemed blasphemous even to think of controlling Rathadun of the Kings. He looked at Maga, at her gold and jewels and her damp hair. There was nothing to show of the horrors inside her except a gleam in her dark eyes. If she could think these things, who else might?

  “How many people are like you?” he asked, hardly knowing how he dared ask.

  “Shocked, little champion?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said baldly. “I meant how many people are like you and set the show of honor above the real thing?”

  “You yourself are like me in that, Ferdia ap Cethern,” Maga said. “And so you will go out and fight to open the road for me.”

  She was right, he thought. He had no honor. He had taken the gift from the dog-woman and given it to Elenn. He was afraid to fight Atha. It would be better to die and take the name of honor down into the dark with him than to live with Maga and ap Dair singing satires about him.

  “I will fight,” he said. They came around the curve of the hill of Cruachan as he said it, and he saw the gates across the road no great way before him.

  “Good. Then the supplies we will take back to the camp now will be for your wedding feast tonight.”

  “No,” Ferdia said, determined. “It seems you can send me to my death, but you cannot make me marry your daughter.”

  “Elenn loves you,” Maga said. “And you gave her the dog as pledge. What is one night, to make her happy?”

  “Dead men father no children,” Ferdia said. It was a proverb everyone knew. Spending one night married to her and dying would not give him an heir. “And I might yet live,” he finished, not believing it, and slowing the chariot to give himself time to finish what he needed to say before they reached the gates.

  “And would it be so terrible to live and be married to Elenn the Beautiful and be the envy of all men?”

  “No. But it would be unendurable to have to call you mother,” he replied.

  Maga laughed, sounding genuinely amused for the first time since he had known her. “A betrothal, then,” she said. “A betrothal you can break in a little while if you survive, but which will not break her heart if you die. I am speaking now not for policy, but for my daughter’s happiness.”

  They were nearly at the gates. Ferdia lowered his voice. “Much you cared about Elenn’s happiness when you married her to four men the last four nights.”

  “She still believes you are an honorable man,” Maga said. “If you go out to fight without at least a betrothal, she will see that you are not, because you have broken your pledge. I might even have to inq
uire where that dog came from and why you gave it to her.”

  Maga spoke to the gate guard and they swept inside the dun, the row of carts following. Ferdia drove in silence as Maga directed him toward the storehouses. He could see it all now. Even dead, the dog could confound his honor. It was just like the stories of Lew or Wydion; curses set on a hero, the one mistake he had made had the power to overset everything else.

  “You will have to speak to my father and explain it to him,” he said.

  This time, Maga’s smile was triumphant.

  7

  THE BATTLE AT THE FORD

  25

  (CONAL)

  Darag came walking down the road alone. She hadn’t come again tonight.

  Conal turned and signaled to the boy waiting, who set off at once back to the camp at a run. He braced himself against the bole of an elm as the pain came through him again. He tried not to tense, to relax against it as his mother had told him. He was the best Oriel could do for a sentry right now. While he knew it was a very poor best, he would do what he could, always. He had argued against giving the duty to the children and servants, or even to Amagien and Orlam and Inis, though Orlam had volunteered. It was necessary to have someone there who could run at need, as the fighting folk could not, now. He had agreed to keep one of the children with him, and it had proved useful.

  Even without being able to run, or fight, or do anything much, it was right that a champion be here, at the edge of the wood, waiting. Even on a damp afternoon like this, he was glad to be here. It got him out of the camp and away from the others, which he found a blessing. When Conary had suggested that the children could have the duty alone, Conal had said it made him feel better to be doing something. The other sentries had agreed. He wondered if they also spent their days thinking that they would be the first to fall to the enemy spears if Darag or Atha failed them and let the whole host of Connat through.

  Conal drew breath as the pain left him for the moment. “Was it a good day, cousin?” he called.

  Darag came nearer. He was black with blood again. His armor coat must have got drenched with it, and his face and legs were spattered. He raised his hand in greeting and grinned cheerfully. It was hard not to show that he hated him. Conal could have laughed to think of the reasons he had hated Darag before. Now none of the other reasons mattered. It was hard not to hate anyone who was well, even the servants who had not fallen to the curse, let alone Darag. It was probably good that Emer had not come. She might have seen resentment in his eyes. Maybe she had seen that on the first two nights and that was why she had not come back since. If only he didn’t miss her so much.

  “I held the road a seventh day,” Darag said as he came close enough for conversation.

  They stood a moment and looked at each other. They had already made all the jokes that could be made, on the days that had come before. Then the pain took Conal again, and he looked away, staring hard at a fringed piece of creamy fungus at the tree’s root and just trying to breathe deeply, not giving in to the pain. Plenty of strong champions back at camp were screaming when the pains took them. He had screamed only once himself, when it came on him unexpectedly between one stride and the next, tearing through his guts like a jagged knife. He had fallen awkwardly, and the jolt from the fall bruised him and took his defenses. Screaming hadn’t helped. It may even have made it worse. He was bitterly ashamed of it, most of all because his father had been nearby at the time. He had nearly knocked Amagien off his feet. He would not scream again, and certainly he would never scream in front of Darag. As the pain passed off this time he leaned into the tree and panted for a moment. His lips were bitten ragged already. Where he had not been clutching it, the bark was still spotted with cool water from the rain that had fallen an hour ago.

  “Is Emer well?” Conal asked when he could speak again.

  “She took a spear in her arm,” Darag touched his own arm, just above the elbow. “But the spear was there, we could heal it without too much trouble. It wasn’t a bad wound that would leave a weakness. Apart from that, she’s fine. She’s tired from all the fighting, of course. She sends her love to you, but she said she had to get back before they missed her.”

  This was what she had said every night since the third. Conal was surprised how much it hurt to hear that she had been wounded again. He buried his disappointment, pushing his sense of his own helplessness down with it. That sort of pain he was good at hiding. He just wished he could talk to her. “Did she say if she was having trouble with Maga?”

  “She didn’t say anything about it,” Darag said. “She doesn’t complain. You are fortunate to have her as your charioteer. As soon as this is over, you must marry her right away, if we all live. I will support that before Conary and your parents.”

  “Thank you,” Conal said, dumbfounded by this support. “If that isn’t possible, we have talked about running away together.”

  “What worse could Maga do to Oriel than this?” Darag asked, waving a hand that seemed to take in his blood-soaked coat.

  “Were you wounded?” Conal asked.

  “Only little wounds that are healed already,” Darag said.

  “It’s not your own blood you’ve been wading in, then?”

  Darag frowned, then looked down at himself in mild surprise. “No, this is the blood of Laran ap Noss, a champion of Connat. His head is on my chariot now. My sword took him in the throat and the blood went everywhere.”

  “Your sword?” Conal echoed and raised his eyebrows.

  “Not my best weapon, I know.” Darag shrugged. Conal had almost always been able to beat him with the sword, though that didn’t stop Darag trying. Nothing stopped Darag trying. He’d never admit he was beaten. “It was quite a long fight, very tiring. I don’t know why you like swords so much. But he was another husband of Elenn’s. Emer had eaten with him last night. She didn’t feel comfortable going against him. So when he came up and made his boast, I asked if he would fight me on foot and he agreed.”

  “He didn’t know who Emer was?” Conal asked quickly.

  “He didn’t. But he was an honorable man, with an honorable charioteer, and they agreed at once.” Darag sighed. “I have killed four of the poor girl’s husbands now, starting with Atha’s brother. How long can this go on?”

  “Until Maga stops attacking, or until Beastmother lets us come and join you,” Conal said. As he raised his hand to his head to make the Beastmother sign, he could feel the pain beginning again, slowly this time, building up as it ran through him like a cramp. He bent forward and rested his forehead on the cool, damp tree.

  “Wouldn’t you be better lying down?” Darag asked. The concern in his voice made Conal grit his teeth. To his surprise, gritting his teeth, combined with calm breathing, actually seemed to help a little.

  “Lying down is much worse,” he said as soon as he could, fighting to make his tone light. “I have even been sleeping, as much as I can between pains, sitting up leaning back against a tree.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping much either,” Darag said. “I can lie down in comfort, but the screams come so often and sound so terrible.”

  “You should sleep,” Conal said awkwardly. “We all need you to be well.”

  Darag smiled, almost a grimace. “I am glad I can keep the road. But it makes me feel so cut off from the rest of you.”

  “You’ve run mad at last,” Conal said, rolling his eyes. “How terrible, all the champions of Oriel are struck down by a curse except one, and that one is as crazy as an oracle-priest.”

  Darag laughed. The pain came to Conal just as he finished speaking, not a very bad one this time but much too soon after the last one, when he was still weak from it. It seemed to him that the pains were growing closer together. This one ran through his belly, both a gripping and a cramping, as if he had eaten too many green apples. It would not have been too terrible, except that it had been going on for seven days without a break. It was hard to bear Darag’s laughter. He bit his lip and set
himself to endure. If he had been well, he might have fought Darag now, for the thousandth time. But if he had been well, they wouldn’t all need Darag the way they did. In some ways, that was the worst of this—not only was he helpless, but that Darag should be the one who wasn’t.

  “Don’t worry,” he said lightly as he straightened up. “My mother says it is no worse than childbirth.”

  “Lots of the women are saying that,” Darag said a little uneasily.

  “My mother said that’s why she decided not to have any more children,” Conal said, waving his hand airily. “But it’s like seasickness. Nobody dies of it, they just wish they would.”

  He had expected Darag to laugh, but he frowned instead. “I always heard that childbirth hurts, but it is a mystery, that the woman is in the hand of the Mother. But then I heard of a woman in Muin who died having a baby once, in our great-grandfather’s time.”

  “Died?” Conal was astonished. “I never heard that. Who told you?”

  “Samar ap Ardan,” Darag said. “She said there was a young wife living out in the woods whose husband had been killed by a falling tree, and she started walking towards Muin and the baby came, and she was alone and didn’t know the right prayers and too afraid to call on the Mother without prayers, maybe, so she just … died of the pain.”

  “Maybe a wolf—” Conal began. He was going to add, “or a bear,” but the pain came down hard and this time, he couldn’t trust himself to speak through it.

  When he could look at Darag again, Darag was staring at the sky. “Maybe a wolf or a bear got her on the way,” Conal said, keeping his voice low. If Darag hadn’t been there, he would have rocked to and fro a little; that sometimes helped. “Or maybe it is just the sort of story people tell late at night on watch to scare each other. Inis might know. But in any case, this isn’t childbirth.”