Daughter of Lir (29 page)

Neither of them permitted his expression to change, but
Conn’s eyes sharpened. “Treachery?”

“It seemed so,” she said. She smiled at a tribesman who was
eyeing her sidelong, and reduced him to blushing confusion.

“Then we can go,” Hoel said. His signal was subtle: a
glance, a lift of the chin. It brought his people together. In a bare few
moments, the caravan was fully formed, gathered and moving away from the camp.

A fair number of tribesmen had come to see them go. Rhian
mounted one of the guards’ remounts, falling in with the guards. They all, even
she, did not look back to where Emry was standing. Their hearts were with him,
but if their eyes followed suit, one of them would break.

They could not do that. Not for themselves. Not for Lir. And
certainly not for Emry the prince.

o0o

Emry knew why they had turned their backs on him with such
seeming cruelty. He did his best to believe that it did not hurt. Why should
it? It was done to preserve his life.

They rode away safe. He, with whom they had bought this,
stood alone in a tribe of strangers. His weapons, his armor, were in the
caravan. He was a slave now. He owned nothing, not even his body.

His keepers closed in. They made it clear enough where he
was to go. He put on his most harmless expression and let them herd him. That,
to his surprise, was not into the king’s tent.

He knew real fear then. He had caught what Rhian said to
Hoel and Conn. If they had intended to deliver a dead man—might they intend to
keep a corpse in his place?

If he was to die, then that was the Goddess’ will. He would
not shame her by weeping and begging for mercy.

They took him to a tent, after all, not far from the king’s.
It was filthy and cluttered and had obviously never seen the hand of a woman.
From the look and smell of it, it belonged to the men who herded him.

Their leader pointed to a corner. “You sleep there,” he
said. “You eat what we leave. You fetch our wood, draw our water. You serve us,
and you live. You refuse . . .” He stabbed with his hand,
straight to the heart.

“I understand,” Emry said. He did not, not entirely, but he
understood enough. He could play the servant. That was what the king’s wife
wanted, it seemed; strange that she should pay so high for a slave for her
husband’s sons, but who knew what was in her heart? Certainly not Emry.

He did not wait for the king’s sons to leave. He set to work
silently, making order of that midden of a tent.

The king’s sons lingered for a while, watching, but he was
doing nothing of compelling interest. They wandered off one by one. Soon enough
he was alone. He went on cleaning and scouring, because it kept him busy; and
busy, he had less leisure to think.

When he was done, he would wager that these young men had
never seen their tent so orderly. His corner had a pallet in it, and a coverlet
of tanned cowhide that was not too frayed. His belongings, such as he had kept,
were secure in his pack, rolled and flattened into a bolster for his bed. It
was rough comfort, but it would do.

Even as he pondered a bath in the river, one of the king’s
sons came in search of relief for his hunger. Emry watched him consider
striking a blow when he found that Emry had done nothing about the daymeal.
Something held him back: royal orders, perhaps? He snapped instead, “Find me
something to eat. Be quick about it!”

Emry bent his head as if to one who was entitled to respect.
“If my lord will bring somewhat to cook, then I will cook it. Or will bread be
enough?”

“Meat,” said the boy. “I want meat.”

“Bring me meat,” said Emry, “and you shall have your
dinner.”

The boy looked ready to strike Emry in spite of the king’s
wife. Emry braced himself for it. But one of the others was calling in the
language of the tribe. The boy aimed a half-hearted cuff at Emry’s head, which
Emry eluded easily.

Such reprieves would not be frequent, Emry thought. He set
to work making bread, for which at least he had the wherewithal. Meat he would
not have unless he hunted for it, and he had no weapon. Nor was he at all
certain that he would be allowed to wander away from the camp.

“Don’t fret over Samias,” someone said behind him. “He’s all
snarl and no teeth.”

Emry looked over his shoulder. This one of the king’s sons
wore his own hair in its own curly dark-brown semblance, and his face was
broader and blunter than the others’—more like Emry’s own. “Dias,” Emry said.
“You are the prince Dias.”

Dias nodded. “And you are the westerner whom my mother
traded for gold. Were you expecting a life of ease in her company?”

“Truth?” Emry asked. “I was expecting to have my throat slit
as soon as my kinsmen rode out of sight.”

Dias laughed, as much startled as amused, and squatted
beside Emry. “So why did you do it?”

This was an amiable man, and a pleasant man, and a very
dangerous one. He was Etena’s son, and the prince Minas’ best-loved brother.
Emry answered him with a shrug and a lift of a flour-smeared hand. “I was
curious. Maybe I was bored. It’s not the adventure I’d thought, standing guard
on a caravan. Mostly one rides. One rides a great deal. Then one stands about
and looks fierce while the traders trade. And there’s precious little
fighting.”

“You think we’ll let you fight with us?”

“I’m good at it,” Emry said.

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

Dias looked him up and down. “Yes, you look strong. But can
we trust you?”

“Probably not,” Emry said, “if you ride against my people.
But otherwise . . . I gave my word. I belong to your mother.
I’ll fight as well for her as if she were my own.”

“Is that what you think she wanted you for?”

“She wanted me for my pretty face. But she’ll be needing to
get some use of me. These boys need a keeper, and badly, but there’s more I can
do. I’m sure she knows it.”

“Do you have no pride?”

Dias did not ask it in shock or disgust, but as if he truly
wanted to know. Emry considered the different sides of the question. Pride to a
tribesman, pride to a man of the Goddess’ country, pride to a prince from Lir.
His answer came a little slow, but he meant what he said. “I have pride enough
and to spare. I’ll not creep and moan and lament my condition. No one here will
sec me as less than a keeper of his word.”

“You are . . . different,” Dias said.

“I’m a westerner,” said Emry.

The bread was made. He buried it in the ashes of the fire to
bake, and sat on his heels to wait for it.

He thought Dias might leave, but he lingered. “I warned you
before,” he said after a while, “and this I suppose was your response: the
caravan left, but you took the bargain my mother offered. You know she’ll be
the death of you.”

“I hope not,” said Emry.

“She breaks men’s spirits,” Dias said. “And that may be
worse.”

“The Goddess protects me,” Emry said.

“Truly,” said Dias, “I hope that she does.”

So did Emry, but he would not say such a thing to this man.
Well-disposed he might be, but he was not a friend. Emry could have no friends
here, only enemies of his enemies. If Dias knew what had become of the brother
whom he loved . . .

It would all come in its time. That was truth, and Emry
could be sure of it.

The caravan rode away from the camp under a strange,
sultry, heavy sky. The heat was oppressive, the air thick, cloying in the
throat. Far off as the day lengthened, Rhian heard a mutter of thunder and saw
the flicker of lightning.

They went as quickly as Hoel judged prudent, which seemed
draggingly slow. A handful of boys and young men of the tribe had followed
them. The caravan could not seem too hasty, nor could they turn at once toward
the place where Rhian had left the mare and the prince. Both of whom, she
prayed, were still there, and still alive.

Near noon at last, they saw the pale shape of the mare
grazing on a hilltop. A dark bundle lay near her. By then they were alone in
the sea of grass, no pursuit, no companions, not even a vulture circling
overhead. Rhian flung herself from the grey stallion’s back, running headlong
up the hill.

The bundle was stirring. She ripped off its bindings and
pulled the wrappings from his sweating face. He was scarlet with the heat,
gasping, thrashing blindly, but there was no awareness in his eyes. They were
blurred with the drug his brothers had tricked him into drinking.

Conn dropped beside her, and Mabon beyond him. “Do you have
the potion you brewed for him?” Conn demanded.

“Yes,” she said, “but—”

“Give him enough to put him under,” said Conn. “We can’t
afford a delay—we’re still too close to the tribe. If hunters come out here, or
raiders—”

“Raiders,” she said. It had been growing in her since the
dawn, a thought so wild, so mad, that she had not allowed herself to finish
thinking it. Here under the lowering sky, with the heat weighing on her like a
hand, she knew what was laid on them to do. “Conn, take him, get him on a
horse, guard him and keep him safe. Mabon, call the rest of the company. Bid
them string their bows and sharpen their spears. We’re going hunting.”

“But you can’t—” Conn began.

“There are a dozen chariots out there,” Rhian said, “and a
dozen teams, and a following of remounts. Trained horses, Conn. War-chariots.
Driven by drunken boys who will never expect a raid on their raid. If we come
on them with the dark, we can take them all.”

“You are completely mad,” Conn said.

“I suppose I am,” she said. “But this is a gift, just as the
prince was. How can we fail to take it?”

“These are men in chariots,” Conn said. “We have horses,
well enough, but if they ride against us—”

“We’ll take them in camp,” she said. “It takes time to
harness chariots, far more time than we’ll give them. We’ll be fighting men on
foot, slowed with wine, and at most a man or two on horseback.”

“And if they’re ready for us?”

“If they’re ready and waiting,” she said, “we’ll know it was
folly, and we’ll escape before they see us.”

“It will never be as easy as that,” Mabon said. But if Conn
had hoped to find an ally, Mabon swiftly proved him mistaken. “If they really
are camped for the night, and if we catch them soon enough, we’ll take them.
And if we stampede the horses—”

“We need those horses,” Dal said, “to pull the chariots. Let
some of us draw them off while the rest fall on the camp. They’re all
stallions, yes? And we have the mare.”

“Yes,” said Rhian. “Yes! The mare can call them to her.
Without horses they’ll be helpless.”

“I suppose you know where to find them,” Conn said, “and can
come on them before dark.”

“The mare knows,” Rhian said. Her eyes took in all of Emry’s
young men. “Well, sirs? Are you with me?”

They were, to a man. And so, unwillingly but unflinchingly,
was Conn. “At least one of us should have a little sense,” he muttered.

It was not easy to entrust Minas to Hoel and the caravan,
but Rhian was driven by more than her own will. The mare waited, pawing
impatiently, while Rhian dosed the prince with her tincture of herbs in strong
wine. When he was deep asleep, breathing steadily and strongly, Rhian tore
herself away from him. “Keep him alive,” she commanded Hoel. “Keep him safe.”

The caravan-master was keeping his thoughts very carefully
to himself. “I will guard him,” he said. “We’ll come to you by morning.”

The mare smote the ground with both front feet and squealed.
Rhian knew better than to linger in the face of that.

o0o

The mare knew where she was going. The pace she set was
not quite killingly fast. Rhian crouched over her neck and clutched mane and
let herself be carried. The others were swept in her wake.

The sky was like a vast colorless hand, pressing down on her
skull. The sun seemed to hang motionless in it. There was no wind but that of
their speed.

They paused twice to rest the horses, to let them graze a little,
to drink from streams that crossed their path. How they found those on the
steppe in the summer, when even rivers ran dry, only the mare knew. This was
her venture. They were but her servants.

The charioteers must have made camp early. Their chariots
rested in a circle, the horses in a herd under little guard. They were well
into the last of their wine.

It was still some time until sunset, but the sun was hidden
in a bank of cloud edged with lightnings. It had built along the horizon while
they rode. It heaped on itself, climbing the flat pallor of the sky.

In that greenish dusk, the riders paused and began to
dismount. Rhian stopped them. “No. We go now.”

They exchanged glances. She knew what they were thinking. No
time to reconnoiter, no time to be certain that the men in the camp were all
there were; that there were no scouts hidden in ambush.

This was the mare’s battle. Mabon bowed his head to it.
Rhian left him there, borne away on the mare’s back, angling toward the horses.
Those must have wandered off from their masters, for surely even drunken boys
would not have set the herd out of sight of the camp. Only one man stood guard,
and he was asleep with his head on a half-empty skin of either wine or kumiss.

The horses were grazing, but uneasily, snatching mouthfuls
of grass, watching the mare as she came toward them. She sidled coyly, turning
her rump to waft her scent in their faces, borne on the thin wind that had
begun to blow.

Nostrils fluttered. One of the stallions squealed softly.
Another rumbled deep in his throat. With a flick of the tail that was pure
laughter, the mare lured them out onto the open steppe.

Behind them, under and about the sound of hooves, Rhian
heard the clamor of battle. She had never heard it before, but there was no
mistaking it. Metal on metal. Shouts, cries. Screams of pain.