The King's Name (18 page)

"And for people to choose how they shall live, and not be blamed for the faults of others or trapped by their birth," Darien said, looking at Urdo and smiling.

Urdo smiled back. He turned to Gomoarionsson. "Here we have law and justice, and many people in Tir

Tanagiri have taken the pebble, as you can see."

Marchel's son, Darien, Galbian, little Gwien, and Glividen touched their hands quickly to where their own pebbles hung. Gomoarionsson's eyes followed their gestures. He frowned, and for the first time he looked a little uncertain. "I thought you had all rejected his mercy," he said.

"Did my mother say that?" Marchel's son asked.

Gomoarionsson jerked his head downward, a curious gesture. "Yes," he said. "She told us she was exiled for speaking his word."

"She was exiled for killing people after they surrendered," I said quickly.

"I had also heard that story," Gomoarionsson said, looking at me and then down at his feet.

"But there are always stories about people who are exiled. She told us there would be no mercy at all for anyone who was captured, that we would be sacrificed to demons. Now I see this was mistaken."

"This was an outright lie!" I said angrily. "Nobody but Marchel has ever done anything like that."

"I wanted so much to bring the light of the White God, the way St. Diego brought it to Narlahena or Chanerig

Thurrigs-son to Tir Isarnagiri," Gomoarionsson said. "My father doesn't know I am here."

"Marchel would have forced that light on people unwilling," her son said, leaning forward. "And that is wrong,

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even if it covered the land in soft fruit knee-deep so that we needed shovels to harvest it."

We laughed; even Gomoarionsson smiled a little.

"My mother would have as well," Galbian suddenly said, unexpectedly.

"I don't know why Aurien wanted to do that," Veniva said. "She is dead and cannot answer. But will you follow her?"

"No," Galbian said. "I am no traitor to the High King, and he knows it." He looked at Urdo, then back at

Veniva. "I have taken the pebble. But that is for myself. I will not force anyone to do that when I am Duke, though if I can bring Magor to God I will." He looked at Urdo again, a little defiantly.

"As Custennin did in Munew," Urdo said. "As Guthrum and Ninian have done in Cennet, and as Cinvar has done in Tathal. I have not objected. It is between you and the land and the people.

When this war is over you should have two years in the ala, at Caer Tanaga. Then you will be old enough and experienced enough to be

Duke of Magor in your own name, though still very young for it. If you speak to the land at that time and the land is willing then I have no objection to you bringing Magor to the White God."

"Father Cinwil says it is willing," Galbian said.

"It is for you to say, and no priest nor anyone else," Urdo said, very sternly. "That is part of what it means to be a lord. Your grandfather knew that. Magor has been waiting patiently the seven years since he died for you to be old enough to speak for it. It is a great responsibility, that has come to you early."

Galbian drew a breath, let it out again, straightened his back, and looked at Urdo. "I will let you know if the land is willing," he said. Veniva smiled.

"The land and the people will come to the Lord when the time is right," Darien said with great confidence.

Gomoarions-son looked at him curiously. Marchel's son, Galbian, and Gwien were raising their chins in assent I looked at Veniva, and suddenly I realized how she felt when she called herself the last of the

Vincans. I had heard Urdo say to Raul that this would happen and I hadn't believed it, but here were all the young people, my son and my nephews, and all of them had turned away from the old gods. But what could I

do? I couldn't take up a sword in the gods' defense; that would be as wrong as what Marchel had done.

Nobody was going around saying how wonderful they were and how they could save your soul, they were just there, part of the way the world was, and maybe that wasn't enough for people. I think I must have made some noise, because Urdo and everyone was looking at me.

I was halfway to my feet. I sank back again, shaking my head.

"Maybe the light of the White God will indeed come to shine here," Gomoarionsson said.

"Perhaps Marchel was too hasty."

"I am delighted you realize it," Urdo said, sounding entirely sincere.

"But will you not take the pebble?" Gomoarionsson asked. He looked at me and at Veniva. "Will you not understand that the White God was born into the world to live and die with us, and through his sacrifice we can all live eternally praising him? Will you not come into the light?"

"I don't think that's any way to live, eternally or otherwise," I said. This clearly put me back into the category of demon for Gomoarionsson. He touched his pebble contemptuously.

Urdo just sighed. Veniva stood up, as straight as a sword blade for all that she was old and thin.

She raised her arms and sang, quite loudly. People in the other alcoves stopped talking and turned to look. She sang a hymn I had heard hundreds of times, that I had sung myself many
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times, the hymn to dawn, thanking the

Radiant Sun for the light and the knowledge a new day can bring. It was a strange thing to hear at night, indoors. Veniva's voice had never been strong, and now it was old, but still there was power in it. I found myself standing again, beside her, and Urdo beside me, and Darien on her other side. Then I saw Govien standing on the far side of the room, and other people, until when she had finished perhaps a third of us were on our feet. She bowed to Go-moarionsson then, and sat down, and said, "There is more than one light."

Gomoarionsson just sat there with his mouth slightly open, looking ridiculous. When I think of all the trouble we went to with him it makes me want to weep. He never amounted to anything after all, and was killed at a banquet twenty years later by his sister's husband, who is king in Narlahena still.

"It can all be part of the White God, too. It can," Darien said, sitting down again. But Veniva shook her head, and I didn't understand what he meant then.

—10—

"Before setting out on a journey, pack supplies, check the map, and make sure you know why you re going."

— Tanagan proverb

Not even oracles know what's going on somewhere else, only what happened to people in other worlds. I

asked ap Fial about this, afterward, when it was drilling into my head over and over like a demented woodpecker on an iron bar. He told me that nobody could change the past, and the only way to change the future was by changing the present, one day at a time. After that he relented a little, drank some blackberry wine with me, and became slightly more human. He told me that he had been taught to be wary of thinking he knew the future because the many futures oracle-priests can see are other worlds, more or less like our own, and bound to our own by the great events, but not by the lesser events, nor even by the significance of those great events. He said it's hard to tell which are the great events.

When he was quite drunk he told me that some oracle-priests are surprised when things come out differently from the way they expected, and others are surprised if they come out the same. I suppose the Vincans were right to ban them. I don't know how they can bear it, even after training for twenty years. He told me then what

Morwen had told me long before, that I was not in any of those futures, those other worlds he could see; there is only one of me. I find that comforting sometimes. It would be too painful to think that there are worlds somewhere where I got everything right.

We left the next morning and rode uneventfully through the hills all day. It was not all uphill, no matter what

Masarn said, but each ridge was higher than the last, and as the day went on we saw more trees and fewer farms. For all that, there was more cleared land than there had been when I was first Lord of Derwen. Some fields were planted with crops, but as we got higher more of them were dotted with sheep. Some of the farmers waved, and their children came running to watch us go by. Some of them cheered and called my name. I always waved back.

When we had passed one group of children, watching the sheep far out of sight of any farmhouse, Urdo smiled suddenly.

"I wonder what they will say when they get home," he said. "Do you think they will say to their parents that they saw two alae of armigers with bright banners go riding up the track this morning?"

"And if they do will their mother scold them for making up stories?" I said.

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"Or will they tell stories when they are old and bent, and say that they remember when they were children and they saw the High King Urdo go up the hill with the Praefecto Sulien at his side, and the sun shining out of a cloudless sky? Then their grandchildren will laugh at them,"

Masarn said. The sun was indeed shining for once, though there were a few clouds around the western horizon.

"Their grandchildren will not laugh," Darien said. He was absolutely in earnest; nobody can be so serious who is not also young. The rest of us just smiled, and rode on.

We were not riding fast, to spare the horses. We came at last to Nant Gefalion in the long twilight. We had long since lost the sun behind the hills we had been climbing all day, but back at Derwen he would still be slipping into the sea. High summer had crept up on me; it was only two days before midsummer day.

Nant Gefalion was quiet. Hiveth had the place well in hand. Nobody at all had come down the track from Caer

Glo-ran, and nobody had come up the track from Derwen except my own scouts and messengers. The forges were quieter than normal, but the smiths I spoke to were not disturbed.

They were glad to have a pennon to protect them in case of trouble. "Thank you for taking thought of us," one old fellow said, speaking for them all and bowing in Jarnish fashion. He was the carpenter who had moved here from Caer Segant, I remembered. They wanted me to leave Hiveth with them. It was hard to explain that they would be better defended if my ala was whole even if it was elsewhere. Everyone can understand a pennon in front of their eyes.

The next morning we set off north and east again toward Caer Gloran. We crossed into Tathal almost at once. The border was clear to me though there was nothing here to mark it.

Urdo set an easy pace again, although now we were over the watershed and headed downhill.

We reached the highroad in the afternoon.

Every time I came over the little rise there I remembered the first time I had ridden this way and the skirmish I

had interrupted between Marchel and the Jarnish raiders. This time, despite all reports, I half expected to see

Cinvar's militia drawn up to meet us, but I was disappointed. The highroad was empty in both directions, and

there was no army between us and the river.

Urdo and I conferred for a little while, while the alae had a short break; watering the horses, stretching, and working out the stiffness riding all day will cause in even the fittest. "We could camp here tonight and send out more scouts in both directions," I said. "There is some hope Emer might reach us late tonight, if they have made good time up the highroad. They had fewer miles to cover than we did."

"I don't think they are nearby," Urdo said, frowning. "I want to know what Cinvar is doing."

"Is there any chance he might be sitting at home waiting until we do something that looks aggressive?" I

asked.

"I think the time for scoring that sort of point is over," Urdo said. "In any case, he killed those two men of

Cadraith's household. We are entitled to come and inquire into his conduct."

"What are we going to do with him?" I asked. The pennon cooks were handing out cold bannocks they'd cooked before we set off in the morning. Talog brought us one each, and I bit into mine hungrily.

Urdo sighed, turning his in his hand. "Raul and I have been talking about this endlessly. There's no denying

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Cinvar is in open rebellion, if he is. Whatever I do, it's very difficult for me not to look as if I am acting tyrannically, exactly as my enemies say I am doing. I will do as I did at Magor, if I can. Assuming he takes arms against us, Cinvar has to be executed, but his son Pedrog, who is blameless and away in ap Erbin's ala, can inherit."

"So what he does now makes no difference?" I said, with my mouth full.

"If he comes and asks pardon without fighting at all, that would make all the difference, but I somehow doubt he will. We are going to have to go to him." Urdo took a bite of his bannock at last, and chewed thoughtfully.

"There is a problem with riding up to the walls of Caer Gloran and demanding entry," I said, pulling out the map. "We have nowhere to retreat to if they close the gates, and then they could come out at night and attack us when we are dismounted."

"We have two alae, and the ironwork for some war machines that could be assembled if needed. We can make a proper camp and sleep by numbers. In any case, he may be in Talgarth."

"Have you been up there?" I asked.

Urdo shook his head. "Uthbad always came to Caer Gloran to see me, if I was anywhere in Tathal, and so does Cinvar. Caer Gloran is properly one of my fortresses, not one of the king of Tathal's. Though, since the

Peace, since I disbanded Marchel's ala, I have kept no forces there."

"I have only been to Talgarth once myself," I said, remembering the winter journey from Caer Avroc with Galba and two pennons. I pointed it out on the map, northwest of Caer Gloran. "It's not a proper fort, for all that they call it the Fort of Tathal in poetry. It's an old earthwork fortification on top of a hill. Old Uthbad's father retreated up there when the legions left, according to my mother. It's completely untake-able, I should think, but it would be very easy to ignore anyone up there. If he's there we can safely leave the Isarnagans to besiege him and eat the countryside clean, while we go off to deal with whatever's happening in Tevin."