by Jo Walton
Allel frowned petulantly. “Or on the moon,” he said. “Do you call living as a mercenary champion in some strange land a fit life for a king’s daughter?” He and Maga were still at feud over which of them now held the kingship, with Maga swearing she could not renounce it and had been beaten by a trick, but Emer was undoubtedly still a king’s daughter. There was no getting away from that.
“A fitter life than what you and Maga would give me,” Emer said. She turned her copper and bronze arm-ring with the fingers of her other hand. If Conal had lived she would have been able to escape no matter how closely guarded she was. She had been so tired, so very tired all the time since the battle; everything exhausted her. She would lie on her bed and weep, and sometimes even weeping took too much effort, so she would just lie there. Caring about anything at all was difficult. For the last few days she had felt a little better. It was almost as though there had been something holding her down that was now gone. She wondered what it might have been. She had thought it was grief, but she had not stopped grieving and yet the weight of not caring had lifted.
There was a scratch at the door. “Come in,” Allel called heartily. Emer could tell how relieved he would be to get rid of her.
“You can’t have it both ways,” she said, almost hoping someone would overhear her. “You can’t tell yourself it’s all alright and at the same time feel guilty about it.”
Allel turned his head away and did not reply.
It was the oracle-priest ap Fial who came in. “Not long before sunset,” he said.
“I’ll leave you two together,” Allel said.
“Oh no, stay,” Emer said, feeling cruel. She turned to ap Fial eagerly. “Could my mother have cursed me?” she asked.
Allel shuddered. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, and took a step towards the door.
“Never under the Hawthorn Knowledge,” ap Fial replied, ignoring Allel, his eyes going distant as he answered the question. “Though parents sometimes do set a curse on their children to protect them.”
“Not the Hawthorn Knowledge,” Emer answered. Allel left, still smiling nervously. There had been times when Emer had understood the enjoyment Inis got out of being mad, and now she almost wanted to give way to it. “I’ve known all that for years, you taught me it yourself—remember the mother who set a curse that her son could be killed only by a green boar with no ears, and then he told his best friend and then quarreled with him? I always wondered how his friend managed to get the boar to stand still to be dyed.”
“Stop babbling, Lady,” ap Fial said. “I am here to bless your womb for marriage.”
The form of address stopped her for a moment. Ap Fial usually called her “child,” and she was a charioteer, a champion and not a lady, wasn’t she? How could she have agreed to this marriage at all? Could Maga really have cursed her?
“I know why you’re here,” Emer said. “But could Maga have cursed me with helplessness for the last nine months? I have had no energy to do anything.”
“She might have if she had your blood and hair. There is a charm for that to the Stormcrow. But it should not work unless you had the displeasure of the gods, which I know you do not, or unless part of your soul was outside the world, which it might have been. Now I must bless you.”
“I did not seek this marriage.”
“Nor did I force it on you. I am here in Anlar for the same reason you are, to get away from your mother. I’ve spoken to Lew, and I’ll be staying with you.”
“That’s wonderful,” Emer said. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad after all. She would have ap Fial with her, and he was a friend. Lew had a smile like Conal’s. And she had already tentatively worked out a way of reorganizing Fialdun, except that everywhere in her old plan were little holes in the shape of Conal. She wouldn’t weep, not now, not again. Bachlach had struck off his head. She would love him forever, but she had to make some kind of life without him. She put her hand up to her scar and rubbed it with her knuckles.
Ap Fial raised his hands to invoke Mother Breda and begin the blessing.
At sunset, Allel came back to lead her out of the hall.
Lew was smiling. The people holding the bare branches were smiling. The mud underfoot was frozen hard as iron, and was almost as cold as iron. Emer could not smile. She knew if she tried she wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. So she walked out gravely, enduring the smiles and the little sentimental sighs and the look on Lew’s face as if they were minor wounds she could not stop for in battle. She could even bear it when she saw that one of Lew’s branch-bearers was Amagien. Why not? He was Lew’s brother, after all. She bowed to him gravely, and he bowed back, hand on heart. She would have had Amagien at her wedding in any case.
The thought was almost too much for her. She held back the tears. She had driven the chariot for nine days at the Battle of the Ford. Nobody here knew that, unless Amagien had discovered it, but she let the knowledge of it strengthen her as she danced the marriage measure with Lew, treading down the branches and at last taking both his hands and making her vows in a clear voice before the gods and the assembled people. She had said she would do this. At least she would get away from Maga.
Lew held Emer’s arm as if he thought she might still escape. She looked at him. He was still smiling. He did not know how reluctant she had been to marry him, and he would never know. He was a good man, if a weak king, and Conal’s uncle. She would be the best wife she could be to him.
The hall had been swept and the dogs chased away. The place was lit with many candles and full of the scent of roast boar. Amagien was playing the harp. Everyone was making wedding-night jokes, which Lew returned. He kept hold of Emer’s arm as he drew her through the crowds. There were a few familiar faces from her last visit, and a few of Maga’s entourage, including ap Dair, but most of those in the crowds were strangers to Emer.
Lew led her out in the first dance, whirling her among the confusion. It was a northern dance, danced in couples, not a southern dance with chains the way they danced in Connat. Emer hoped she wasn’t too clumsy at it. The exercise made her feel better in a way, but also almost tired. Lying on the bed and weeping for nine months had got her out of condition. She would be able to practice the chariot again here. The stables were good, she remembered, as Lew turned her in his arms. She would make friends with the stable-master as soon as she had the chance.
After the dance Lew again kept her arm. He seemed to know where he was going, and she had no plans so she let him draw her after him. After a while they paused between two alcoves. Maga and Allel were sitting together to their right. Maga was dressed magnificently in primrose yellow, and wearing all her gold. She smiled at Lew as if he were a new possession. He would not be, Emer swore silently; she would not guide him towards her mother’s policy but rather away from it. Emer bowed as coldly and as formally to her parents as she possibly could.
In the alcove opposite sat Atha and Darag, equally resplendent, both of them wearing red and silver. Atha had one breast bared to nurse a new baby. Emer had never thought she could be so pleased to see Darag.
“I didn’t know they were here,” she said in surprise.
“They wanted to come,” Lew replied. “I didn’t see any harm in it when Atha suggested it; they are one of my oldest alliances. Though ap Ranien, who is one of my councillors and whom you must meet soon, said it might annoy Maga.”
“It might,” Emer said. “But annoying Maga is not the worst thing. And it was very good of them to come when Atha must have given birth so recently.”
“A nursing mother is lucky at a wedding, yes, but at this time of year they are quite plentiful,” Lew said, laughing.
“I was thinking of their making the journey with the baby,” Emer said. “But shall we go and greet them?”
She did not wait for Lew to agree but guided him towards Darag’s alcove. “My blessings on your bed,” Atha said as they approached. “Four children and a fortunate beginning.”
Lew laughed and
bowed, though all of them knew he had had a daughter already, who was dead. Atha began to joke with him, drawing him a little aside.
Darag put out a hand to Emer. “How are you?” he asked.
She had seen him when they had been patching up a truce after the battle. He was the only person she would trust to tell her that nobody was hiding Conal from her. She had fallen on the hillside in Cruachan, near the cave; why hadn’t he? She had been very close to madness then and Darag had looked ravaged. He looked healthier now, but years older than the boy she had known.
“I am better than I was,” she said starkly. “You, too?”
Darag bit his lip. “May I claim a lucky dance with the bride?” he asked Lew.
Lew was beaming at something Atha had said. It was going to be hard to live with a man whose smiles made her want to cry. “Yes, go, dance with the King of Oriel,” he said, patting Emer gently on the hand. She managed to smile at him as she went. His eyes met hers as he was cooing over the baby.
Darag led her into the dance. He seemed to know the steps. “We would have given you our protection,” he said quietly. “Not only for Conal’s sake but for your own. We know how much we owe to you.”
“My mother kept me far too closely guarded for me to consider escaping to Oriel,” Emer said.
“We would still give you our protection,” Darag said, his voice barely audible even to her.
Emer sighed. “I am no oath-breaker,” she said. “Lew is not whom I would have freely chosen, as you know, but he is not a bad man, and there is work to do here. I have given my oath. I am married. It is too late. Besides, it would mean war with Connat, and you have probably had enough of that already.”
“Oriel and I owe you a debt we can never repay,” Darag said, looking more distressed than ever. “War with Connat and Anlar both would not be too high a price.”
Emer shook her head. She and Darag knew what war meant. “We can be friends,” Emer said. “That’s all I think we can do for each other now.”
“If Conal had lived—”
“Everything would have been different,” Emer interrupted harshly.
“I had only just learned to like him,” Darag said. “That makes my loss of him very great.”
Emer could hardly keep control of herself when she heard this and thought of how Conal and Darag had hated each other. But Darag seemed sincere. “I was—he was—” She broke off. “It is the worst thing that could happen,” she said.
“Not the worst thing,” Darag said, very low. “You didn’t kill him yourself.”
“Oh, Darag,” she said, full of sympathy she did not know how to express.
The dance was ending. Darag squeezed her hand and let it go, and then they bowed to each other. People she barely knew were pressing up to take their lucky dances with the bride. Then the outer door opened with a thump, and a blast of icy air came into the hall, blowing out a few of the candles and making people laugh and shiver. Emer turned to the door. This was her hall now, and disturbances were her responsibility, even if she had not yet taken up the keys.
Inis stood in the doorway, tall but stooping over the burden he carried, his multicolored priest’s shawl blowing loose over his shoulders. The burden looked like a body, wrapped in dark cloth. It was dripping water.
Amagien had stopped playing in the middle of a phrase, and the voices that had not hushed already seemed loud and false in the spreading silence. Emer found herself taking a few steps towards the door, without having intended to.
“Ap Fathag?” she asked tentatively, trying not to make it sound like a question.
There was a moment then when she both knew and didn’t know, as the wrapping fell away from his face. Then for an instant she thought it was Conal’s body he carried, drowned somehow, for his eyes were closed and water ran from his hair. She thought she heard someone screaming very high and far away. Then Inis lowered the body and she kept moving forward, so that she was kneeling before Conal when he opened his eyes and looked up into her face and said her name.
32
(FERDIA)
Beneath the world, Ferdia does not yet know he is dead. He has come through the rain of stars, through the fire, through the narrow gates, past their guardians, who ignored him. Now he walks downward, which seems to be the thing to do. His wounds are visible but no longer bleeding. He has no idea how he came to be here. The walls are packed earth, making a narrow corridor. He passes a three-headed dog, which reminds him of something he has already forgotten. It raises its heads to watch him walk by, then settles them down again on its paws.
He hears the lamenting around several corners, breaking the stillness. When he comes up to them at the dark landing place, he knows he is down among the dead, and wonders how he came here.
The dead do not talk as they wait, though many remember how to weep. There is no recognition in their eyes. They stand in the darkness, all together, but each alone.
When the boat comes slipping silently down to the landing, Ferdia, always polite, is pushed to the back as the dead push forward in desperate, urgent spasm, as if time could have meaning here.
The hooded boatman reaches with his pole, pushing the dead aside, choosing the ones he will carry. This trip is for those who were killed by Darag. There are enough of them to fill the boat.
Up in the sunlight, Darag knows it and weeps. The tears reach Ferdia as a thin thread of regret. He remembers his name and his death. The boat slips downstream, crowded with lamenting souls of those who fought and lost forever.
Ferdia stares into the darkness, remembering spears, one thrown over glittering water, one thrown in a sunlit field. His best friend, his dear enemy, his broken heart. It is his lost future he mourns most. His life, his hopes, his father’s kingdom, thrown away with nothing in exchange.
The boat comes at last to shore. Ferdia stands alone before the dark throne in the pillared hall, a shadow among shadows. The Lord of the Dead and his Bride look at him sadly, and judge as they must.
When he has given back his name, the sinews of his life and station, all he has been and done, his thin moth soul goes on to rebirth, wailing in the wind.
There is not, in this case, very much left at all.
I have been a prize in a game
I have been a queen on a hill
From far and far they flocked to see me.
White am I, among the shadows,
My shoulder is noted for its fairness
The two best men in all the world have loved me.
My crown is of apple, bough and blossom.
They wear my favor but my arms are empty.
The boat drifts heedless down the dark stream.
When you light a candle, it casts light and shadows in both directions. It is the same with telling a story. This novel is set in the same world as The King’s Peace and The King’s Name. Most of it takes place during the first few paragraphs of Chapter 12 of The King’s Peace. It is not necessary to have read that book before reading this one, it shouldn’t do any harm either way. The characters in this story who appear in that one do so before their appearance there. The illumination and the shadows will fall in both directions just the same.
When I was first doing research on the Celts, years ago, I found the Horslips album The Tain remarkably inspiring. It continues to be an influence. My whole conception of Darag and Ferdia and their relationship in this novel would be very different without that music.
There is a reconstructed dun much like the ones in this story at Castell Henleys in West Wales, not terribly far from Cardigan.
The poem at the end of section 7 was first published in my collection Muses and Lurkers, Rune Press, 2001.
Tor Books by Jo Walton
The King Name
The King Peace
The Prize in the Game
Tooth and Claw
Conal ran through what he would say to the farmers in his head, but what came out of his mouth was his first thought. “Where are your shields?” he asked.
They were naked and painted blue. Across their chests was a great black battle crow. Down their arms and faces were white spirals. They had been boasting and teasing each other. Now they looked at each other in confusion at the question, like children, and began to slink away to their houses to fetch their shields.
By the time they came back, Nerva had come out of the hall, carrying the black paint. She came over to Conal and asked, “Will you wear the victory sign yourself?”
He closed his eyes and felt the brush sweeping across his face. Nerva murmured the victory charm as she painted, and he felt it taking effect. The calm that had filled him since he woke receded and although the paint was supposed to take away fear he felt a little fear for the first time.
Conal waited until Nerva had set down the paint. Then he raised his hands palms up and then palms down. “Mother of Battles, be with us now when we call on you. Right is on our side. These folk have come from the Isles meaning to take us by surprise, steal our herds and harm our people. We are fighting for time. They have no help coming.”
Anla swung the gate open. The painted farmers, giving a great roar, came boiling out behind. Suddenly Conal’s feelings, which had been far away from him all morning, came back. They all welled up in him at once and he thrust them into a battle cry which rose up on the air above the howls and cries of the others.
Then they came up to the enemy, and after that there was only the fighting.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE PRIZE IN THE GAME
