The King's Name (9 page)

Only you could be surprised at rain before nightfall.

—Heed, attr. Alswith Flamehair

I spent the morning talking to the ala and raising the militia. The levy of Derwen had been almost nothing in my father's day. Even now it would not compare to the militias of Tinala, Bregheda, or any of the Jarnish kingdoms. Infantry and cavalry do not mix well together; to put it at its simplest, people on foot cannot keep up with horses. Whenever I had to fight with infantry it always seemed that we were sacrificing all our mobility for a very small gain.

Nevertheless I had instituted a proper militia from among the strong young farmers of my kingdom. They came and trained in the seasons when there was little to be done on the farms, and I counted it as good as a tenth of their tax paid, or a fifth if I kept them away from home for very long. Most of those who were fit for the work thought it a good bargain. Duncan usually took care of the specifics of the training. They all knew which end of a spear was which and had spent at least a little time drilling with the ala. This meant they were not afraid of horses and they knew our signals and commands. They knew each other and understood who could give them orders. They would not run away on a battlefield, at least not straight away, and that
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was as much as I had asked of them. That was more than I had ever thought they would need to do.

Infantry are for holding land cavalry has taken, and I had need of only enough of them to serve as guards around the town. If we were attacked, well, I had the ala.

My main use of the militia was as a source of recruits. Every season a few of them would come to me shyly and ask if I needed armigers. If they had strong shoulders and could ride I would make sure they could be spared from their homes. Then I would usually start them as grooms or scouts and begin their training. After a year or so if I felt they had earned a horse and weapons I would take their oath. In this way over five years I had raised three more pennons. The whole ala had three halves—one usually at Magor, one usually at

Derwen, and one usually at Dun Morr.

The land could support them. Derwen was thriving. The harvests were good and there were plenty of foals.

Trade had increased as well; we could sell as much linen and linen-paper as we could make, and we made more every year. We were making enough iron and smithgoods at Nant Gefalion to sell those too. In return we got tin and lead and silver from Munew, books and grain from Segantia, Jarnish beer from Cennet, dyes and mordants from Aylsfa, leather goods from Tevin, apples and cider from Tathal, gold and roofing slate from

Wenlad. We even had traders coming with salt from Nene, honey and blown glass from Tinala, fleeces from

Bregheda and Demedia, and worked wooden goods from Bereich. We had ships come often from Tir

Isarnagiri and from Narlahena, and even sometimes from Varnia, though most of our Varnian goods came to us through Munew and Segantia. These days what my mother called Imperial goods were mostly books, wine, spices, and preserved fruits. We bought little oil now, as we had linen-seed oil in sufficient quantity for our own use.

People who had been driven out of the eastern lands by the Jarns had come to us and settled, bringing their skills and increasing everyone's comfort. We did not need to bring in pottery and iron as we had before, we had our own. The single potter my mother had enticed to the town fifteen years before was now one among a whole street of potters. One of them made nothing but tiles for roofs and floors, and insisted on being called a tiler, not a potter. If a farmer broke the one pottery cup they kept for blessings it was a shame but not a disaster for them, it could be mended or replaced. There were shops in town all the time, workshops which sold their goods; a candlemaker and a tinsmith and a cobbler. We held a market four times a year, not all that much smaller than the ones at Caer Tanaga.

All these enterprises throve within the town itself, which consequently grew all the time and was beginning to press on the walls my father had so wisely built wider than they were needed. This last year I had moved the press for crushing the oil from the linen seeds a little way upriver from the town, with a waterwheel of its own.

This kept the waterwheel above the docks free for grinding corn and sawing wood. All the retting of the flax was done upstream as well, beyond the walls. This dirtied the river of course.

I had been considering a plan

Glividen had suggested of building an aqueduct to bring clean water into the town from the stream in the woods. It would make it much easier to water the horses than using wells and troughs. But until now this had seemed the worst of having that work out there. I had not thought about needing to defend it. This was Urdo's

Peace; no raider would land near a town so well defended. Now I fretted about it. My father had meant the walls to hold all the local farmers if necessary, as tiiey had when the Isarnagans
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attacked. Now, if we had to take in the people, there would be no room for them inside unless we crowded them into our hall, and maybe not then.

Everywhere I went, people wanted to ask questions. Mostly I could not answer them. First diing that morning

I had sent Hiveth's pennon to Nant Gefalion, and to warn the people of the countryside on the way. My plan was to gather the militia and wait for the rest of die ala to come up from Dun Morr. Then I would leave the militia with one pennon under Duncan's command to defend the town if necessary, and take the rest, amounting to seven pennons, to Magor to try to prevent Marchel from landing. I had sent scouts out down the coast at first light.

All the way along the coast between Derwen and Magor there are shingle and sand bays where a ship can be half-beached safely enough to disembark people through the surf. But Marchel was bringing horses, which can scramble ashore well enough but cannot climb cliffs. I could only think of half a dozen places she could unload them. Magor was not near enough to the water to have docks inside the walls the way we did at Derwen. She could unload them at Aberhavren and bring them down the high road, but I thought she would be more likely to bring them to shore somewhere quieter, and plan a day or so for the horses to recover before they would be seen. They were bound to be half sick and weary from the journey. It was eight hundred miles straight across the open sea from Narlahena, or so the Malmish merchants delighted in telling me whenever I tried to haggle with them. It wasn't like taking animals across a river or even the fifty miles from Tapit Point to

Tir Isarnagiri. I hoped to prevent her from having that time, to catch her as soon as she landed and make her fight before she was ready.

Govien and his three pennons arrived in the late afternoon, when I was out in the yard talking to Nodol

Boar-beard about supplies. To my surprise, Lew arrived with them. My first thought was that he had come to escort Emer home, and to claim Conal's body. I went up to greet him and helped him dismount.

"Greetings, and welcome to Derwen, Lew ap Ross," I said when he was down, bowing.

He bowed back, looking as plump and self-important as ever. He still had the ridiculous long mustache. I wished he hadn't come to waste my time. I was already looking around for Veniva to take him off my hands and take him into the hall for the welcome cup so I could talk to Govien.

"Lord Sulien," he said as he straightened. "I came as soon as I had the news. I have left ap Ranien to gather my forces. They will leave tomorrow and come as fast as warriors may come on their own feet. I thought I

would take advantage of the horses and come more swiftly to let you know what strength you can expect. Ap

Ranien will bring four thousand fighters, armed with spears and shields, and fifty of my household warriors, armed with swords as well."

I gaped at him. It had never occurred to me to ask Lew to call up his people, nor that if I had he might have obeyed. He was sworn to me and to Urdo, and he did have that fighting strength, but he was a king and an ally. Before I had ever met him, Emer had told me Lew was an old fool and strongly implied that he was a coward. I had never seen anything of him to contradict this impression, until now. He was fat and he fussed, and he consulted his advisors frequently and at length. But he was neither fool nor coward, and when he had to act he did. He could have stayed quite safely in Dun Morr and let the half ala come to me. Indeed, he need not have stirred out of his fortress at any time. The rebels would most likely have left him alone. Instead he had stripped his own land of troops to come to my aid, and I had not even asked him to. "I am overwhelmed,"

I said. "I don't know what to say. I had not expected such great help." I wondered if he even
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knew who we would be fighting. I wondered how I was going to feed four thousand extra infantry. "This is an act of honor which will be remembered with your name forever."

Lew bowed again at that, looking terribly pleased. "It is no more than I have sworn to do," he said.

"I hope you have left enough defenders for your own home," I said, as the thought struck me.

"There are enough people there to man the walls. My daughter and heir is in charge, with three of my most experienced counselors to help her. I will defend Derwen or go where you want me."

I suddenly remembered Demedia, invaded from Oriel as Angas was busily invading Bereich. If Lew were left in charge he could take Derwen while I was away. Trusting good faith could be taken too far. I wished I really knew why Lew had stripped his country of troops. "We should make sure to leave enough people to defend our homes," I said. His daughter and heir was only eleven years old. "Come with me." I gestured to Nodol to accompany us. "I will call your wife and my decurios and we will have a council of war."

In the end I waited another day to see ap Ranien's army arrive, and yet another to see them safely leave again in the direction of Magor. My militia were raised and ready by then. I sent some of them west to Dun

Morr and left most of them to defend Derwen. I left Lew in charge of them, Veniva in charge of the town, and

Emlin in charge of the pennon I left there and general defense. I had Emer make it clear to Lew that he would take general military orders from Emlin while I was away. She could put it diplomatically, as I could not.

Emlin was capable of conducting the defense and of dealing tactfully with Lew; none of my other decurios were. I wished I had two of him. I tried to squelch that thought before I caught myself wishing for all my friends, living and dead. Among that list, even though I knew perfectly well that if he had been there I'd have been cursing him for making my life difficult, I wished Conal was there to offer suggestions. I also wished most strongly and just as vainly that Emer and Duncan would be content to stay behind.

Emer insisted that she wanted to fight and that her place was at the front. I don't know what arguments she used on Lew; the ones she gave me were senseless and plainly amounted to the fact that she wanted to be doing something because Conal was dead. I had some sympathy for not wanting to sit and wait, but I couldn't see what getting herself killed would help. I could and did prevent her from riding with the ala—she was not trained and would be a liability. As Lew gave her permission, I could not stop her riding with ap Ranien's army, which had a few mounted scouts.

Duncan was even more of a problem. I had meant to leave the militia in his hands and take Lew to Magor where I could keep an eye on him. But at the war council, after Lew had revealed that he had heard disquieting hints of the rebellion already and I had made my dispositions, Duncan begged leave to ride to

Magor. He sat stiffly, rubbing his thumbs together and avoiding my mother's eyes.

"But your duty is here," I said impatiently.

He stood up, bowed, and stared straight over my seated head. "If I have ever done anything to deserve the gratitude of the Lords of Derwen, then let me ride with you," he said. I could not refuse a request phrased like that. But it left a gap in my arrangements. Riding to battle, Duncan was just another armiger; with infantry he was a reliable commander. I bit my lip and left Lew in charge of my people, where he could do little harm even if he intended any. His own people, under ap Ranien, were following me east. But I rode off heavy-hearted. I had wasted two days, I was going with uncertain allies against friends turned enemies, and I wondered how many others were riding with me seeking death.

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I was still in a bad mood when we stopped for our noon rest and food. Ap Madog came and sat by me as I

was eating some good cheese Garah's mother had made. "I was thinking," he began.

I bit my tongue and managed not to commend him for the strenuous mental activity.

"Yes?" I asked, as encouragingly as I could. It can't have been very encouragingly, he gave me a nervous glance.

"About supply," he said. "I know Nodol's performed miracles getting us ready to go out so soon, and I know where the caches are and what I was thinking is that they're the same caches we've been using all this time."

"Yes?" I said again, not following him. A pigeon whirred out of the trees and I stared at it blankly as it disappeared back into them. Then suddenly I saw what he meant. "Yes," I said, in an entirely different tone.

"And Marchel commanded the ala here before Galba, didn't she, so she will know them too."

Ap Madog jerked up his chin in doleful agreement. "I was hoping you'd thought of something,"

he said.

"It was very good thinking on your part," I said. "I'll write to Nodol and tell him, and tell Lew to set some of our militia to guard them."