The King's Name (34 page)

knew. "Very near to death. Ap Erbin is dead, and Ohtar, and Custennin. We have lost many of our troops.

More than half. But they have lost more, two thirds perhaps. As well as the kings you killed, Marchel is dead.

We think Flavien is alive, at least his forces retreated in some order. We don't know where
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Cinon is; he may be dead and unnoticed. Guthrum was still holding out on the bridge when we called a night-truce. Angas and what is left of his ala are still in the farm."

"What about Morthu?" I asked.

"Nobody has seen him all day," Emer said.

I grimaced. "And how about Cinvar?"

There was an uneasy silence for a moment, and they exchanged glances. After a moment Darien spoke.

"You killed Cinvar," he said gently. "You killed three kings with your own hand today. It will be remembered forever."

Remembered forever, even if I didn't remember doing it. I didn't even particularly care about Cinvar, who was an idiot. "It wasn't enough, if Morthu's still alive," I said.

Darien raised his chin.

A messenger came running up. "Father Cinwil wants to speak to someone," he said, his words falling over themselves in his hurry.

"Where has he come from?" Darien asked, without hesitation.

"From the bridge," the messenger said.

"Then speak to him, Raul," Darien said. "Tell him we will take Guthrum's surrender if he will return to the

Peace. When we have done that we will have the more difficult task of dealing with Angas."

There was some coming and going then as Raul and Father Cinwil negotiated. Atha came and spoke to us.

She asked how Urdo was, and Darien told her he was near death. "I must go and sing the elder charm over my people," she said as she left us.

"Does the curse still hold?" I asked. The looks on their faces were enough to tell me it did. I pulled myself to my feet. "I should go to the sick tents."

The first person I saw there was Ulf. Ap Darel was sewing up the gash in his side and berating him for fighting on all day with it. I tried the charm against weapon-rot and felt the same block that had been there all this time. The elder charm worked, and soon I was back in the routine of the sick tents, moving from comrade to comrade, singing the charm, exchanging a few encouraging words, and moving on. Padarn was there, and Beris and Govien and many other old friends. It seemed everyone wanted to ask me about Darien, whether the sun had really come out when Urdo proclaimed him his heir and whether he was really High King now.

They wanted to know if they should call him Darien ap Urdo or Darien Suliensson. I told them they would have to ask him.

I came across Thurrig in the third row of the walking wounded. I was more pleased to see him than I could have said. "What brings you here, you old pirate?" I asked.

"Just scratches," he said dismissively. "Barely that. I wouldn't be here if not for the terrible stories people are telling about a curse that makes any scratch go bad and kill you."

"Not if I can help it," I said, and sang the elder charm over his cuts, which were more than scratches but none of them serious. "I saw you getting out of the boats with Custennin," I said.

"Undecided to the last minute, as always," Thurrig said, and gave a great rumbling laugh.

"Linwen and Dewin would have kept him in Caer Thanbard until things were sure. Young Gorai wanted to fight for Urdo and Peace and Honor and his uncle ap Erbin, the hero. He needs his romantic notions knocking out of him, but he'll be a better king than ever his father was even so.

Custennin knew he wanted to do something, but he wasn't sure what. He thought he might want to join the rebels and fight for the White God. Well, he's safely praising him now. We wrangled all the way upriver. It's hard in civil war when you have friends on both sides. I didn't make up my own mind until I saw Marchel coming towards me, looking to profit by her oath-breaking.

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Well, she's learned better now. I don't know what made her think I'd taught her all my tricks."

"Oh, Thurrig," I said, knowing how much he cared, however lightly he spoke. "I saw your grandsons at

Derwen half a month ago. They are fine men, sensible men, and one of them might have a child of his own by now, from the way his wife looked then. I saw Amala, too; she looked well."

"Amala is in Caer Tanaga," Thurrig said. "She's been writing to me, telling me to come and join her and bring the ships so that we can go off to Narlahena. She thinks that because she's been forgiven there that I will be, forgetting how long memories can be."

"I've always wondered what you did to be exiled there," I said.

"It's been almost fifty years, and I haven't told anyone; do you think I'll tell you now?"

Thurrig asked. He grinned. "I didn't even do what they think I did. Or, at least, I did half of it. I went against orders and won a sea battle against the Skath. The other half, killing king Thudimir, I didn't do, but I know who did, and I've always let everyone think I did."

"Who did?" I asked.

He gestured to me to lean over, so I put my mouth to his ear. "Amala!" he whispered.

I looked at him skeptically. I could not imagine her killing anyone. Thurrig chuckled. "Talk to me if you're thinking about a way of getting into Caer Tanaga, because if Amala is expecting me to come, that might be one." We exchanged serious looks and he moved his eyes to indicate the people around us. "I'm very sorry to hear about Urdo," he said. "I served his father and his grandfather and I'll be glad to serve his son."

Then Darien came through the press of doctors and wounded to stand beside me. "You have served my house and my country well, all these years, and never better than today,"

he said, taking Thurrig's unwounded hand. "Has my mother sung the charm over you?" he asked.

"I have," I said. "We were just talking."

"There is nobody else waiting," he said. "I want to talk to you for a moment, if you wouldn't mind."

"Where?" I asked. We had set up camp on the hillside. The camp was, of course, full of people.

"Let us go out among the trees," Darien suggested.

"I'll speak to you soon, Thurrig," I promised. Then I followed Darien out. The moon was only a day or so away from full, but clouds scudded across her face, making the light change from moment to moment even before we came to the trees.

"What is it?" I asked.

Darien stopped. "I just feel so strange," he said. "Being the heir is different from being the king, and it's really hard to understand what's happened to Urdo."

"He's dead," I said, feeling the weight of it. "You're the High King, and everyone wants you to be."

"There is so much I still had to learn," he said. "But I have to decide what to do. Angas wants peace. Angas always wanted peace. Morthu inflamed him against Urdo. He was quite happy to agree that Morthu should stand trial for sorcery. But he wants me to forgive him for killing Urdo, and he wants me to marry his daughter. In effect he wants to say he was justified in fighting, and his grievances have been settled. Can I forgive him?"

I hesitated. I knew I ought to say that he should forgive him and make peace. Angas could keep it, if Morthu were dead. I had always liked Angas. I couldn't think straight on about Urdo's death yet, but even though the

killing tide that had risen in me was stemmed for now, and I might let him live, I could never forgive Angas myself, never again embrace him as a friend. "I can't," I said, at last. "I understand what Morthu did. I know why Angas was fighting against us. I pity him. But I can never forgive
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him."

"I don't know," Darien said, very quietly. "I have to marry somebody, and soon, and it would be a very good way of settling the north, although the girl is twice my cousin."

"Twice your cousin?" I asked.

"Missing a generation both times," Darien said, and the moonlight let me see him smile.

"Eirann was

Rowanna's niece, and Angas is Avren's grandson."

He sounded like Veniva, who I knew would approve wholeheartedly of such a match. Also, as he was not

Urdo's son, there was no relationship at all. I couldn't say that. "I think it's sufficiently far," I said.

"Raul thinks so, too," Darien confirmed. "Marriage is such a big thing, as well. Why didn't you marry Urdo?"

he asked, abruptly.

I blinked. It had never crossed either of our minds, but I could hardly say that without telling him that Urdo wasn't his father. All the same, I didn't want to lie to him. I thought back to the night in the stables in Caer

Tanaga when I'd heard Urdo talking to Mardol. "Urdo wanted to make a diplomatic marriage,"

I said. "And I

wasn't really anybody."

"You were the daughter of the Lord of Derwen!" Darien said.

"Well, yes," I said, feeling myself on safer footing. "But that didn't mean then what it would now.

Derwen was a tiny, insignificant place back then. A lot of the growth it's had since is a consequence of Urdo's Peace.

Back then almost nobody had heard of it. Urdo himself had to stop and think for a minute the first time I told him where I came from." I smiled at the memory. "Now, Derwen is a kingdom worth mentioning. We have a large ala, and a militia; we have trade." I bit my tongue to avoid going on to explain all the things we made and shipped. I didn't want to sound too much like Veniva, even if I was proud of how Derwen had grown. "But back then, we were nothing, really, out of the way down there. I wouldn't have had an alliance to bring to Urdo. And he was very young, and he had a lot of lovers."

"All the same, having a child means something," Darien said.

"Yes, but I didn't have any idea what," I said truthfully. "I was very young, remember, younger than you are now." Hard as it was to believe. But he was twenty, and I had been eighteen when he was born. "And Urdo was young, too, he thought he had plenty of time. And even more than Urdo's need for a diplomatic marriage, he needed a queen. When he found Elenn he had that.

He loved Elenn, I know he did. She has been a really good queen for Tir Tanagiri, while I would have made a really dreadful one. Also I didn't want to be one. I wanted to be what I am. Oh, not Lord of Derwen, I do that as well as I can because it's my duty.

But I wanted to be an armiger, to ride for Urdo. If I had ambition, I wanted to be a praefecto, and I wanted to be the best."

"You are," Darien said seriously.

I stopped and looked at him, but the moon had gone behind a larger cloud. "I am what?"

"You are the High King's Praefecto, and you are the best."

"One of the best," I agreed cautiously. It was true that there weren't many people who could touch me at practice.

"You killed three kings today," Darien said. "I would say you got what you wanted. You didn't have to be queen. You got to be the best."

"Sometimes when you get what you wanted it turns out not to be what you want anymore," I said, heavy-hearted. I wanted Urdo to be alive again, and I wanted to be riding free with a spear and a sword and companions around me.

"I know," Darien said. "I wanted to feel as if I was unquestionably Urdo's heir, not the
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second-best choice, not a bastard. We talked about proclaiming it in a few years when all the kings knew me, when I was a praefecto.

He made me feel there wasn't any question he would have chosen me even if there had been a choice, but I

wanted everyone to feel like that. I wanted you to feel like that," he said, in a lower voice.

"But I do!" I said. "I'm so proud, Darien!"

"But now I have that, it isn't anything because what I want now is to talk to Urdo. But he is—"

He choked.

"He is dead, and you are High King," I said.

"He is dead, but there is no body, and he is lying there with his bones sunk into the land but still speaking sometimes. I am not High King yet, I have taken nobody's oath," he said. He looked so young, biting his lip in the moonlight.

So I knelt to him there in the moonlight and made him my oath for Derwen. I did not make my armiger's oath again. Although it, too, is ended by death, I still feel bound by it in my duty to Urdo.

When Darien had spoken, I stood again, and then, as a cloud moved away from the moon, I saw Darien's face, transfixed. "Mother, the trees!" he whispered, as if he hardly dared speak.

I turned to see what he was looking at. The trees were moving; one of each kind was growing taller. They formed a circle around us and bowed to Darien. There was a music rising and growing around us that was the song of the green and growing things of the island. I could feel the land then, as I could at home in Derwen, but this was the whole island speaking to Darien, the mountains of Bregheda and of Deme-dia, the fens of Tevin, each river and forest and rock and farmstead making itself known to him as part of the pattern, part of the music of the island, whether he had known it before or not.

The moon shone steadily now, for we were out of the time of clouds. I found myself mounted on Apple, as always when the land saw me, and as always, although I knew he was dead, it felt so right that it did not have time to feel strange. I moved back a little from Darien as they came through the trees, the protectors of

Tir Tanagiri, as I had seen them all once before when I went home to Derwen and took up my lordship. Urdo had been beside me then as I was beside Darien now. Turth was there, and Hithwen the white roebuck, Hithun the stag, Hoivar the great owl, Palug the cat, and many others, coming out of the shadows and the moonlight to make themselves known to the new king. I sat there calmly on Apple's back, looking down at Darien as they came one by one and greeted him. His face shone with wonder in the moonlight and he put out his hand to each of them in turn, before they went back to the trees to wait. Last came Ohtar Bearsson, protector of the Jarnsmen of Tir Tanagiri. Darien embraced him, though Ohtar was taller now than any man or bear that had ever walked the waking woods.