Island in the Sea of Time (65 page)

Alston blinked a little. The Fiernan Bohulugi had plenty of taboos. Swindapa wouldn’t eat swan, for instance, or eat at all on certain days, or wash clothes or plant in the dark of the moon. But they evidently had
different
taboos
.
The thought of acquiring a whole new set of—
well, might as well call them in-laws—
was a bit daunting. Plus that meant more culture clash. The memory of the day they’d spent going over the concept of monogamy wasn’t pleasant; the Fiernan language didn’t even have a word for it.
And what if she wants to stay home?
With an effort, Alston put that thought out of her mind.

She looked out the window; dawn was just breaking, gray through early-spring clouds. “Not worth trying to go back to sleep,” she said. The Arnsteins were coming over for a working breakfast, planning diplomatic strategy.

“No, it isn’t worthwhile going back to
sleep
,” Swindapa said.

Alston looked down to the foot of the bed. The Fiernan was skinning out of her briefs and crawling up toward her, grinning through a fall of tousled wheat-colored hair. She’d never considered herself a very passionate woman, until now.
Live and learn,
she thought.

A hand knocked at the door a little later. “Go away!” Swindapa shouted, laughing.

Alston found herself laughing too; then stiffened as it turned into a long shivering moan. They lay clasped together, and then the knock came again—louder this time, and Ian Arnstein’s distinctive mumble. She rolled off the bed and snatched up her bathrobe, belting it on as she strode over to the door.

“This had better be good, Arnstein,” she said as she flung it open, trying to make the words a bark and knowing she still had an ear-to-ear smile on. “In case you hadn’t noticed, breakfast time isn’t for another hour and a half.”

It was the scholar, looking extremely nervous, and then blushing slightly as he looked over her shoulder.

“Sorry, Captain.” He didn’t call her that onshore unless it was a formal occasion or he was
very
nervous. “It’s Martha.”

Her irritation vanished into a cold clench of worry. “She’s all right?”

“So Coleman says, and the baby’s doing fine for someone only fifteen minutes old—but they want you there.”

Alston blinked; she hadn’t realized the labor had started yet. “Oh. Give me a minute, Ian, I’ll be right with you.”

Swindapa was dancing again with excitement as they scrambled into their clothes and downstairs to where their bicycles waited. They kept to the sidewalks to avoid Main Street’s bone-shaking cobbles, then swung onto pavement. Rainwater misted up from the asphalt, soaking her lower legs. For a moment she remembered her own children, something she’d carefully schooled herself not to do.
Forget it, woman,
she scolded herself.
They’re a long way away. Three thousand years is an even better wall than a divorce decree.

The streets were quiet, and so was the maternity ward—section, rather—of the hospital. Martha was lying in a freshly made bed with the baby in the crook of her arm; she was tired but triumphant, the baby was as crumpled and formless as babies usually were, and Jared Cofflin had the same sledgehammer-between-the-eyes look that he’d had on his wedding day, only more so.

“Congratulations,” Marian said inanely. “Everything went well?”

Coleman was still in his green surgical gown. “For a primigravida in her forties, very smoothly. Nice healthy bouncing eight-pound baby girl,” he said, with a workman’s pride.

“You wouldn’t say
smooth
if you’d been doing it yourself,” Martha said tartly.

“No indeed,” Marian said emphatically.

“Does it get better the second time?” Martha asked.

“No, can’t say that it does,” the black woman said. “But you sort of expect it more.”
And afterward you feel very, very
—

“Is there a
kitchen
in this torture chamber?” Martha asked sharply.

—
hungry
.

“You
are
recovering well,” the doctor said. “Someone will be along with a tray shortly. And if you’ll pardon me . . .”

Cofflin cleared his throat. “We’ve got a name for her,” he said. “Marian Deer Dancer Cofflins. Hell of a moniker, but it seemed appropriate.”

Alston felt the blood mount to her face, glad that it couldn’t be seen. “Ah . . .” she said. “Er, ah . . . why, thank you, Jared, Martha.” She stopped her feet from shuffling with an effort of will.

“We’d like you and Swindapa to be the godparents, if that’s all right,” Martha went on. “As neither I nor the baby would be here if it weren’t for you. We can have the baptism before you leave.”

Marian looked down at the wrinkle-faced form and stroked one arm with a finger. A tiny hand closed around it, rose-pink against black, the nails perfectly formed miniatures.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Mighty fine. We’ll just have to see that there’s a good world for her to live in, won’t we?

“Ayup,” Cofflin said. “Amen.”

 

D
aurthunnicar scowled and gripped the arms of the huge carved oak chair. The
ruathaurikaz
of the Tuattauna folk’s chieftains had stood here for many generations, time enough to accumulate many treasures. The timbers of the hall were carved and painted in the shape of gods and heroes, and they seemed to move slightly in the red-shot firelit dimness like the smoke-darkened wool hangings on the walls. By the wall across from him was a Sun Chariot and horse, cast in bronze and bearing a great golden disk as high as a man, incised with endless looping spirals. The Iraiina had nothing like that. They had never been a wealthy tribe, and they had been plundered of much of what they did have in the lost war on the mainland. The eyes stared at him through the murk, full of holiness and dread.

But we have victory here. The Sun Lord, the Long-Speared Father of the Sky, gives us victory now,
he told himself firmly.

The Iraiina
rahax
scowled at the Tuattauna high chief as he stood before him, and at the other enemy leaders. They bore themselves proudly, for beaten men looking at a foreign chief in their own high seat . . . except when their eyes strayed to his son-in-law, where he leaned on his spear beside the throne.
Men fear me because Hwalkarz is beside me,
he knew.
They fear our tribe because Hwalkarz lends it his wizardry and his might.
He was not altogether happy with that, not now. What was given could be withdrawn, and if the outlander’s hand was taken back, the Iraiina would have many foes and face much hatred.

When you have the wolf by the ears, you cannot let go,
he reminded himself. And had he not bound Hwalkarz to him by the closest of ties? His daughter’s belly swelled with this man’s get, which was more than his witch-wife had ever given him.

True, he’s a wizard.
But he was also a warrior beyond compare, a never-failing fountain of wealth, and a giver of deep and crafty redes. Some said he was a god. . . . And the old stories
did
tell of times beyond number when gods or half-gods or warrior Mirutha walked among men and took part in their quarrels in man’s shape. It would be a thing of high glory if his grandson was the son of a god. Such a one could make the Iraiina mighty. Such a breed of men could bestride the worlds. If he could not turn the wolf loose, he would wrestle it to the ground, set it to hunting for him.

“You come to hear my word,” Daurthunnicar said to the envoys of the defeated. “That is good. Sky Father has given victory to the Iraiina folk and the tribes who have sworn on the oath-ring with them. It is unlucky to strive against the gods.”

One of the ambassadors answered, speaking boldly. “Sky Father gives no man victory forever,” he said, in the whistling nasal accent his people had. “His favor is fickle.”

The defiance would have been more impressive if melting sleet hadn’t been dripping off the envoy’s beard and hair. Among the tribes of the White Isle it was not the least of grudges against Hwalkarz and the Iraiina that they had broken the old good custom of making war only between spring planting and first frost.

“Sky Father is not so fickle that there will be a steading of the Tuattauna standing whole by next harvest season, if you try to meet us on the raven-feeding field of war,” Daurthunnicar said. “Your warriors’ flesh feeds the Crow Goddess, your gold is on our arms, your cattle roast over our fires, our women wear your cloth, your wives and daughters spread their thighs for the stallion-cocks of our warriors. This is truth.”

The envoys’ fists clenched and they growled in their beards. But their eyes flickered to the iron-mailed line of spearmen who stood unmoving along the wall on either side of the Iraiina chieftain. Hwalkarz had taught them that unnatural stillness, and the arts of riding with footrests, arts of moving their warbands in ways that somehow always left their enemies at a disadvantage. Outside the captured hall rested one of the stone-throwing engines that battered down palisades like the fist of the Horned Man. And in two of the greater battles the sorcerer had struck men and horses dead at five times the reach of a bow, throwing bolts of thunder-death. The sorcerer, or the god?

“We . . .” The chief of the envoys stopped and ground his teeth. “We will pay tribute for peace. A tenth of our herds, a tenth of our bronze and gold, a tenth of our cloth and of this year’s harvest.”

There was a time when Daurthunnicar would have accounted that triumph and to spare, and taken it gladly.
And spent the next year in fear of their revenge,
he thought. Instead, he inclined his head slightly toward his son-in-law, holding out a gold-chased drinking horn. A woman scuttled over to fill it with captured mead.

Hwalkarz stepped forward; Daurthunnicar made a gesture, granting him formal leave to speak. When he did he used the Iraiina words with only the slightest trace of an accent. Was that the mark of how they spoke in the halls of the sky?

“You strove against us bravely,” he said, turning his spear and grounding the point in sign of peaceful intent. “It’s no fault of yours if the gods fought against you. And you’re wise to offer us peace. It’s a chiefs duty to safeguard the life of the tribe.”

The envoys relaxed a trifle, knowing that the Iraiina did not intend to grind their faces in the dirt further.

“Of the tribute you would give, we’ll ask only half of a half,” he went on. Their eyes went round in amazement. “That is, if you give your yes to our other offer.”

“Offer?” one said suspiciously. “You’ve beaten us—we acknowledge it, may the Dead Walkers suck your blood and the Night Ones ride your dreams forever. Why do you speak of offers?”

Hwalkarz smiled. Daurthunnicar shivered slightly behind his face. That smile did not mean what an ordinary man’s did.

“The Tuattauna still have most of their warriors,” he said. “If we take your tribute, their axes remain—and may strike at us some other time. So if you remain our foes, better that we grind you into nothingness. What we offer instead is that you become our friends.”

“Friends! You take our cattle and horses, burn our steadings, kill our men, force our women, and we should become
friends
?”

Hwalkarz’s voice was soothing. “After war, peace may be made. No feud should last forever; else the kin die out and there are no living to make sacrifice for the spirits of the dead. The Iraiina have already made peace with the Zarthani, the Maltarka, many of the eastern tribes. Their chariots fight side by side with ours, and they share in our plunder—and in our new arts of war and making.”

“They are your dogs, you mean, to run at your heel!”

Daurthunnicar could see that the envoys were thoughtful, despite their bold words. He nodded smugly. This was a talking he had heard before, with the other neighbor tribes.

“Who speaks of dogs?” Hwalkarz shrugged. “Speak of
wolves,
instead.” He touched the fanged wolfs head that shone on the green-enameled steel of his breastplate. They had seen his wolf banner on red fields, and the same emblem was more and more common on Iraiina shields. “The wolves run in a pack, and for each pack there is a leader—but all the pack share in the kill. Run with us, be our packbrothers, and you will feast richly. More than enough to make up for your losses.”

“Run against who?” the envoy said dubiously.

“Against all who oppose us,” Hwalkarz answered. “In another year, perhaps two, all the tribes of Sky Father’s people in these lands will go to war behind Daurthunnicar, high
rahax
of the White Isle. Already warriors come by the score from the mainland to join our banners and take meat and mead from our
rahax,
famous for victory-luck and his open hand to those who pledge loyalty.”

Daurthunnicar felt himself swelling with pride. It was true. He’d received envoys hinting that whole clans might follow, taking land to hold of him and joining the Iraiina folk. A tribe shrank with defeat but grew in victory.

“Then who will we go to war against?” the Tuattauna chief asked.

Hwalkarz’s grin spread. “Against the Earth Folk of the west and north, of course,” he said. “That will be a fat carcass big enough for us all to feast on. And in return for our friendship, we ask only a light tribute—every year—and that you make no war without the consent of our
rahax.
In return, you will share with us as comrades, and your chieftains will take council with ours.”

Daurthunnicar signaled the waiting women to bring in the food and drink. “Come, feast with us, be guests and peace-holy,” he said. “We will speak more of this.”

This session of the Constitutional Committee’s core group was fairly informal, a dozen people sitting around a table with notepads and plates of cookies, and Swindapa at the foot taking shorthand notes—she’d proved to have a natural talent for that.

Informal, hell, it’s in my living room,
Cofflin thought. The Meeting had given him and Martha a former boardinghouse-cum-inn just past the upper end of Broad, where it turned into Gay Street—Marian had given one of her rare full-bore laughs when she heard, he on Gay and she on Main. They’d pulled out the extra bedrooms, except one for guests and another for a nursery, and turned most of the space into offices of a sort.
So now I can’t ever get away from the goddam job.
He had to admit it was a nice place, and more practical for his work than the old house farther out, which was just too damn far to commute on a bike, especially in winter. There were more fireplaces, too; it was an older house, 1840s, like most in this section of town, and honestly built. Rain beat against the streaked antique glass, and the lilac bushes tapped on them like skeletal fingers. The streets were dark, drizzle falling through chill fog; a good thing nobody had to walk or bike far to get home.