The Prize in the Game

by Jo Walton

  So Elenn waited, smiling her way through all the customary hand-kissing and congratulations of betrothal. Marriage was so familiar a ritual she could have done it in her sleep. The only thing that made this different was that the handsome young stranger standing beside her was not her new husband-to-be but his nephew, come to take his place in this ceremony and escort her back to him. Otherwise, it was all just the same, even to the dizzy speed of the proceedings. She waited, and as soon as they let her go to get her things, she hastened to tell her sister.

  Emer was lying facedown on her bed in the room they shared, absolutely still. Her tangled hair spread out on the blanket. There was none of the relaxation of sleep, but she could easily have been dead. The first time Elenn had seen her like that, she had rushed to her in alarm. Now, after four months, it seemed almost normal. All the strength and independence Emer had found since she took up arms had disappeared since the battle, since Conal’s death.

  Elenn closed the door. “Ap Dair is back,” she said to her sister’s unresponsive back. “He’s come straight from the ship in a tearing hurry. Urdo wants me. Wants the alliance, that is, he hasn’t seen me of course. But so much the better. I am sick of men wanting me for my beauty. He will take the whole army and feed them and let them fight in his war and keep them as long as it lasts. I am betrothed to him already and we sail at sunset.”

  Emer rolled over slowly and sat up. Her eyes were red and the shadows under them were darker than ever. “Sunset today? Then you will get away,” she said.

  “Yes. I will be High Queen of Tir Tanagiri. And I will take you with me,” Elenn declared. “I have been thinking about it. If Conal comes back for you, he can find you as well in Caer Tanaga as anywhere else.”

  In her heart, Elenn was sure Conal was dead. At the truce talks, Atha had told them he was. His mother and his father had worn their hair loose in mourning. Emer had refused to believe Atha and gone to ask Darag, who was king of Oriel now, as Elenn had always known he would be. Darag had told Emer gently that nobody had seen Conal since the battle.

  It was true there was no body, but only Emer refused to believe he was dead. She had been mad, mad like Inis, talking as if she had been in the battle, when in fact everyone knew she had been back in Cruachan, not even in the camp. Since then, it was as if all the life had gone out of her. Elenn didn’t understand it. It wasn’t like grief as she knew grief.

  More tears welled up in Emer’s eyes. They both ignored them. “Have you asked Maga if I can come with you?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Elenn said. “But I will, and we are leaving on the tide.” Her clothes were in the chest at the foot of the bed. She could just take the whole thing. She took off her pearl circlet and dropped it in on top of them. She picked up her comb and turned it over in her fingers, then dropped that in, too. She shook off the orange bridal shawl and folded it. She would need that once more, for the actual wedding, once she met Urdo. She would wear her cloak. She could collect Beauty from the kennel master on the way, and then she would have everything. She would never come back, never. When Urdo died, she would marry someone else in Tir Tanagiri, someone she would meet there, someone she would choose herself.

  “She won’t let me go with you,” Emer said flatly, breaking into Elenn’s thoughts, which were already halfway to Tir Tanagiri.

  “What makes you think that? It’s a good idea. You’ll be company for me, and away from here, and doing different things.” All of Elenn’s plans for getting away had counted on taking Emer with her. She recognized that there was an element of selfishness in this; it would be nice to have somebody familiar there with her. But even if she didn’t want her, she could not leave Emer in the position she had been in herself, being forced to do what Maga wanted and knowing she had nowhere else to go.

  “I know all that, and I’m grateful, really I am. But Maga won’t let me go. You are bringing her an alliance. I am too valuable a piece on the gameboard for her to give up for nothing.”

  “You haven’t asked her either,” Elenn said reasonably.

  Emer shrugged fiercely, showing a flash of her old fire. “I asked to go to Rathadun to train to be a priest. Ap Fial says I have the skills, and Inis said the same.”

  “It’s twenty-one years of training,” Elenn said, sitting down on her own bed.

  “I know that,” Emer said. “But I’d be away from here, and I’d like it and be good at it.”

  “Orlam says lawspeakers and priests can go anywhere,” Elenn said. The idea was new to her. She’d never thought of doing anything like that. But Emer really wasn’t like her at all. In some ways, it might be what her sister needed to help her get over losing Conal. She had exhausted herself day after day doing the gods’ work throughout the war, after all, and never said a word about it unless you counted the babbling about axes and ravens when she came down the hill on the last day. Being an oracle-priest was something she could do where madness wouldn’t even be a disadvantage. Elenn shook her head. She wanted Emer to come back to sanity, not choose madness as an escape.

  “Yes. Go anywhere, have their own lives. Be useful. But Mother refused. She wants to make sure there’s only one way out, the way she wants me to take. So I’m sure she won’t let me go with you either, kindly as you intend it. I pleaded with her and Allel for that, and she was adamant. I’m not going through that again. I don’t have the energy to spare.” Emer sank down on her arms again.

  “Couldn’t you go anyway?” Elenn asked tentatively. “I remember Orlam saying, and maybe Inis as well, something about them taking anyone at Rathadun.”

  “The way they do it is that they will take a farmer’s child for nothing but expect a large payment from a king’s child. This means they can keep doing it. Kings’ cast-out children might not be welcome anywhere,” Emer said, flat despair in her voice.

  “I’ll ask if you can come with me, and you’ll always be welcome with me,” Elenn said, putting her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I’ll go to ask now while she’s with other people.”

  “Is Urdo ap Avren here?” Emer asked, her voice muffled.

  Elenn almost snapped, then remembered to be patient. At least with Emer, she did not have to keep smiling. “He couldn’t come himself. He’s in the middle of a civil war. He sent his nephew, the new king of Demedia, and his wife has come as well. She’s a Jam and wears a veil. It seems very strange. But there are lots of Jams in Tir Tanagiri. I’ll have to get used to it.”

  “He must be a very new king of Demedia,” Emer murmured.

  “He is. His father’s dead and his mother’s in rebellion, but Urdo trusts him.” She would have a lot of new politics to learn. She could see it would be a lot of work, but she could do it. She could manage a kingdom, even a huge high kingdom. As long as she was away from Maga and had a husband who could keep alive for long enough. She could love a husband, bear him children, do everything she needed to. “It’s the rebellion that Urdo needs our army for.”

  “Mother will be so glad to be rid of the army,” Emer said.

  It was true. Maga had raised the army and now they were an embarrassment. They wanted to fight someone. The Battle at the Ford was neither a victory nor a real defeat. They had run from shadows, but the shadows hadn’t actually killed anyone. The only people killed in the battle were Conal and Ferdia and Conary. When the bull died at Elenn’s feet and the shadows disappeared, the priests and the kings had decided the war was over. For the time being, there was peace, unless anyone did anything new to provoke more fighting. So the army hadn’t been needed. They had stayed at Cruachan rumbling with discontent all summer. The allies had gone home after the patched-up peace, but when they heard that the army of Connat remained in arms, they had kept their people in arms, too, afraid Maga was about to attack someone. Allel had tried to dismiss the army, but how could you dismiss an army that wanted so badly to stay in arms and make up for the past?

  “This is a wonderful solution,” Elenn agreed, not saying that it was her own idea. “
Sit up and put your clothes in your chest, then let’s go and find Maga, then we can say goodbye and go to the boats.”

  Emer sat up slowly as if it were a great effort. She didn’t look at her chest or pull together the clothes that were scattered about the room, but Elenn decided not to push. In any case, she didn’t have anything near as many clothes as Elenn, who had all her wedding gifts. Without looking, Emer picked up her two arm-rings, which were lying on the floor beside the bed. She pushed them onto her arms. Then she lifted her chest and looked at Elenn. Elenn picked up her own chest and led the way out into the hall.

  Maga was still talking to the king of Demedia, his wife, and ap Dair. “Ah, girls,” she said, smiling as they came up to her. “Ap Talorgen, ap Guthrum, let me present my younger daughter.”

  Emer set down her chest and bowed, and the two Tanagans bowed in return. Elenn set down her own chest. Emer was staring at ap Guthrum. Elenn could understand that. It was hard not to stare. She had hair the color of muddy straw. Her veil hid most of her face, but her hands and what was visible were yellowish-pink, nearer the color of a pig than a person. Her eyes were as gray as the winter sea, yet her expressions were kind, as far as Elenn could judge over the veil. She looked at ap Talorgen, so as not to stare at his wife and saw that he was grinning at her. She smiled graciously, then turned to her mother.

  “I was wondering if my sister might go with us, to make a visit and to spend some time with me in Caer Tanaga,” Elenn said boldly.

  Maga frowned. Ap Dair looked thoughtful. Ap Guthrum blinked. Ap Talorgen smiled. “I don’t see why not, if your parents don’t mind,” he said. “There will be room on the ship.”

  Maga smiled as ap Talorgen turned to her, but shook her head decisively. “I need Emer here,” she said. “She hasn’t been well, and she is to be married soon.”

  Emer raised her head and looked at Elenn. Her eyes held a mixture of defiance and pleading.

  “Just for a few months, perhaps?” ap Guthrum said. “The winter climate in the south can be good for recovery from illness.” Elenn was right, she was kind.

  “It just isn’t possible,” Maga said with regretful finality. Emer’s face was full of resigned despair. Elenn wasn’t afraid that her sister would outright kill herself. She was no coward. But she might throw herself to the front of any fight that offered itself. Or, worse, she might just stop eating. Elenn had been coaxing her sister to eat as it was.

  “We’ve packed her clothes,” Elenn said. “She could be back in the spring.”

  But Maga knew as well as she did that if Emer got away, she’d never come back. She just shook her head. “It’s touching to see how much you love your sister, but you will need to give all your love to your husband now,” she said.

  Elenn wanted to draw herself up to full height and demand to know how much love Maga gave Allel—how, after everything, Maga dared lecture her about love and marriage. But she held her smile. Arguing that way with Maga didn’t achieve anything. Indeed, she knew she had lost and Maga had won. She looked at Emer with regret. She couldn’t do anything else. She had to save herself, even if that was all she could do.

  “Who does the younger ap Allel marry?” ap Talorgen asked.

  “Lew ap Ross of Anlar,” Maga said. She sounded proud, as if she expected ap Talorgen to congratulate her on her alliances. He just looked blank, as if he had never heard of Anlar. Emer said nothing, just stood there looking miserable. “Her sweetheart was killed in the fighting,” Maga continued, still smiling, clearly feeling she needed to explain why Emer looked so sad.

  “He is not dead,” Emer said. “He is falling through the falling stars, but he will find his way home.”

  Ap Dair leaned forward, clearly fascinated. “The falling stars?” he asked.

  Emer looked at him with contempt. “You find my mother’s lies inspiring now. You turn your back on true poetry,” she said.

  “She’s mad,” ap Dair said, recoiling.

  “Recovering from madness,” Maga said. She turned to Elenn. “Are you ready to go? The army are boarding the boats already.”

  “I only need my dog,” Elenn said, her chin high and her eyes meeting Maga’s.

  “Shall we walk out to the kennels, then?” Maga asked. Ap Talorgen smiled and picked up Elenn’s chest, easily, as if it were light. Maga led the way out of the hall and they all trailed after her.

  Ap Dair walked beside Elenn. “You are more beautiful than ever,” he said. “It’s strange. When I first saw you, I thought you were very beautiful. When everyone was dying for love of you, I sang that you were the most beautiful woman on the island. But there is something in your face now that makes my memories of you seem shallow. Urdo will be proud of you.”

  Elenn looked at him silently for a moment. She couldn’t think of any possible response. Telling him to drop dead would have been satisfying, but she might need him again. “Thank you for helping to arrange this marriage,” she said.

  Allel was waiting at the kennels, Beauty with him. She was waiting patiently; even when she saw Elenn, she only gave a little whine and did not rush to her. She was almost full-grown now, her head nearly on a height with Elenn’s when she was standing. The kennel master had trained her very well.

  Allel had something folded in his arms. “This is a gift for your husband,” he said, bowing and handing it to Elenn. It was leather, tanned and supple, folded over on itself. Emer gave a little gasp. It took Elenn a moment longer to realize what he was giving her, and then she had to suppress a shudder. It was the hide of the black bull, the bull that had been Maga’s pretext for the war. It was a magnificent gift, and a terrible insult to Maga to give it to Elenn to take away. She looked up at her father, who was smiling. He wanted what was best for her, but he was usually so weak, compared to their mother.

  She searched for something to say. “It must have been tanned by someone who knew all the charms well to have it ready so soon.”

  “I did it all myself,” Allel said.

  Elenn risked a glance at Maga, who was smiling unreadably. There would be storms ahead.

  “Will you come with me to the ship?” she asked generally.

  After she had embraced her family on the strand, she went up the little gangplank onto the rocking ship. Ap Talorgen put the leather into her chest with her other belongings. She stood with the chest on one side and Beauty on her other side, her hand resting on her dog’s head. Maga and Allel stood together in something that looked like united amity from the distance the boat gave. Emer raised her hand in farewell. Elenn waved back. She wondered if Emer was mad. She hadn’t gone mad because of grief herself, but she had always had a body. With Ferdia she had even had a head. She would not think of that, would never think of that again if she could help it. Poor Ferdia, too good, too honorable, to live.

  The sun was setting behind the hills of Tir Isarnagiri and the boat slipped gently away from the shore. She waved one last time, then turned her back on her home and her family and stared out over the rose-gold water toward her hopes for the future. She knew that Urdo would spend one night with her and be off to war. She was used to that. She was more concerned with the work she had never yet done, the administration of his forts and organization of his supplies. She would learn. Beauty stood silently beside her, her warmth and solidity a comfort. Though ap Talorgen and ap Guthrum tried to make her more comfortable, Elenn stood still and straight as a figurehead through the night, her smile carefully on her lips, her eyes fixed hopefully before her.

  31

  (EMER)

  Queen of Anlar sounds good, does it not?” Allel asked pleadingly.

  Emer said nothing, as she had said nothing all the time her father had been with her. She submitted to allow her father to arrange the folds of the bridal orange overdress one more time. She wondered if the color looked as bad on her as it did on Elenn.

  “Not quite as good, perhaps, as High Queen of Tir Tanagiri, but good enough. And Fialdun is a strongly built fortress, and Anlar is a str
ong ally of ours.” He gestured to the Vincan tapestry that covered one of the walls of the dusty little room Lew had given her.

  “At least I’ll be away from you and Maga,” she muttered, unable to keep silent any longer.

  Allel patted her shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re being sensible at last, if you can call a marriage half a month after the Feast of the Mother sensible. The branches will be bare twigs and you’ll both freeze your toes off.”

  “None of it is sensible, or my choice,” Emer said. “I’m getting married because Maga was making my life unendurable and she carefully left me no other options.”

  “Conal is dead,” Allel said. “It’s nine months since the battle, and nobody has seen any sign of him.”

  “Do you think I’d be marrying Lew if I didn’t know that?” Emer asked, turning on her father with bitter anger. “He’s falling through the falling stars, and that may be the road to death, or he may be falling forever. His name is written in my heart. I know I need to go on from there, to live my life without him. But the way I would choose to go on isn’t this—there are other things I could do, things I would do better. I am a person, a human being. Father, look at me. It isn’t too late even now. Let me go. She refused to let me go with Elenn, or to go to Rathadun, and she has had me too carefully guarded for me to get away. Nobody is guarding me now in this hour before the wedding. Turn your back and I will go out of the dun and down to the harbor. I won’t disgrace you by joining with your enemies; I’ll leave Tir Isarnagiri to find some life fit for myself far away in Narlahena or Lossia or Sifacia.” For a moment she almost believed it might yet be possible.