The King's Peace (30 page)

We were too well matched and could not find a way through the endless fighting to any lasting victory.

In the fifth year of the War Urdo was stupidly wounded in a skirmish when we fell on a raiding party that was larger than we expected. A thrown ax got through to the king when we were riding steadily down on them. There's nothing to do when that happens but keep on riding towards them and hope it will miss. This one hit and went through the armor on his thigh. We were not far from Thansethan. We fell back to the monastery by night to rest. It was the first time I had been there since I fled with Beauty and Garah.

The muddy rutted track from the highroad to the stable gate was worn deeper.

Otherwise, it seemed little changed, and my heart sank as I heard the bell ringing for a prayer as we rode up. Urdo begged admittance, for nobody could command the monks here in their stronghold. The gates opened to us, and we went inside.

We had an awkward reception. Father Gerthmol said nothing to me but touched his pebble every time he looked at me. Urdo was not badly hurt, but he had lost blood. He looked horribly pale; it worried me to see him like that. He needed rest and water and food—I knew it would only be gruel, but hot food would be better than any charms. The place also had good water in quantity, which he needed. The thing he needed least was the priests fussing, but I knew that was inevitable. He sent me away once he was settled in a guest room. He said that he could deal with Father Gerthmol best alone, and he knew

I had people to see here.

I went off, feeling shy, to look for my son Darien. It was summer. I had to count it up on my fingers. He would be nine years old. I thought I ought to find Arvlid first. Then I thought I ought to check on the horses. I knew this for cowardice, but I thought that if I saw Starlight safe and sound. I would have courage to seek him after. I did not at all know what I could say to him. The stables were full and quiet, the horses had been cleaned and watered and fed. There was plenty of food. Thansethan was one of the places where food was stored for us, to be collected or sent out where it was needed. There were a few monks moving about, and here and there armigers seeing to their horses. Grugin raised a hand to me as I passed him grooming his horse. Starlight was down at the end, where it was quiet. Darien was in her stall with her.

I wondered how he had known she was my horse, and that I would be coming to see her. I did not have a moment's doubt as to who he was, even though he had only been two months old when I had last seen him. He had a look of my brother Darien, though his coloring was closer to Jarnish. He was tall, for a nine-year-old. He did not look much like his father, except for his winter-sea eyes. He was wearing brown homespun wool, like all the children of the monastery, and he had a pebble around his neck. He was talking softly to Starlight, who had put her head down to his hand. He was giving her an apple. She liked him.

She was good-tempered and liked most people. I was glad he knew how to treat horses.

I came up behind him and stood there for a moment. "You found my horse," I said, and cleared my throat.

"Yes, sir," he said, turning. He looked up at me calmly, meeting my eyes. I wondered for a moment if giving him Darien's name, I had given him Darien's soul, he looked so like him. Such things have happened. "Is she your horse then? I thought she must be the High King's horse, because she is the most beautiful." When he said this I felt strange inside. He had come to Starlight because Starlight was beautiful. He did not know me after all, and I would have to tell him.

"She is the daughter of one of the High King's horses," I said, and my voice came out evenly though my heart was thumping so loudly I was afraid he might hear it. "Her name is Starlight, and her mother's name is Twilight. Twilight isn't here, she's at Caer Tanaga, she's in foal this year. Urdo's riding Prancer, who is in the stall just across there." I pointed, and he squirmed out of Starlight's stall to look.

"She's a good horse, too, but she's not as beautiful as your Starlight." Prancer was Urdo's favorite greathorse that year. She was Twilight's daughter by Apple, a seven-year-old then. She was almost as dark as Apple had been but not so broad-chested, and a sweet-tempered horse like her sister. Although Urdo always disagreed, I thought she did not quite have Starlight's grace.

"I think so, too," I said. "So you're a good judge of horses?" He flushed. With his pale skin it was extremely obvious.

"I like horses," he said, a little defensively. "They're the best thing here."

"I like horses, too," I said. "Do you want to work with horses when you grow up?"

He shook his head slowly, looking at me consideringly. Now his expression was nothing like my brother at all. "Oh no. I want to be an armiger and ride for the High King. Why did you never come before?"

My tongue stuck in my throat. "You know who I am?" I asked, idiotically.

"You are wearing a praefecto's cloak, gold oak leaves. The only women who are praefectos are Marchel ap Thurrig and Sulien ap Gwien, and I know Marchel. She comes here.

So you must be Sulien ap Gwien. I am called Suliensson, and so you are my mother."

He bowed. I knew I ought to embrace him, but somehow the way he held himself didn't at all invite it. He was very self-possessed, not at all the way I had been when I was a child, nor my brother either. I suppose it was growing up with the monks.

"Yes," I said, and remained still, though I wanted to move towards him. Starlight nickered softly and another horse answered her. "And I didn't come because I wasn't sure Father Gerthmol would let me in. We only came now because Urdo was wounded. I—"

"Is he going to be all right?" The concern was immediate, real and personal. He looked just as my brother Darien had looked when we fished Morien out of the river the time we tried to teach him to swim.

"Yes. He's lost blood, but he'll be well again soon."

"Oh, thanks be to the White God ever merciful," he said, entirely sincerely, with a real relief in his voice. It seemed odd to hear him pray to the White God, but if I had not wanted him to
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grow up in that worship I shouldn't have left him here.

"You know the High King then?" I asked, curious.

"Oh yes." Darien rocked on his feet. "He always conies to see me when he comes here.

He brings me things. He brought me a toy sword, but I have outgrown it. He brought me some weights for practicing, and I have practiced and practiced, shall I show you?" He looked ready to run off and find them. I shook my head.

"I haven't brought you anything," I said. "I didn't know I was coming."

"That's all right," he said. "There's nothing I want." I knew I should have brought something. I should have come before, no matter how much Father Gerthmol disapproved. This boy was a stranger to me. "Did you really summon a demon?" he asked, leaning forward and looking interested.

"No," I said. "It was Morwen of Angas who did any summoning that was done. She tried to kill me, and then told lies."

"That's what Sister Arvlid told me," he said. "I knew she was right." By the set of his shoulders as he said it I knew that he was used to fighting the other children about this. I wanted to cry.

"It's all lies," I said. "Arvlid was right."

"Then—" he hesitated. "Then why don't you like me?" he asked, and stuck his bottom lip out. I wanted to reach out to him, but something in the way he was standing said that he would run away if I moved closer. It was hard to know what to say. I squatted down on my heels so my head would be closer to his level.

"I do hke you. I don't know you, but I think I would like you if I did. It wasn't anything you did wrong!" He looked at me, very unsure now. "There isn't—I can't—" He raised an eyebrow. He must have learned that from Urdo. "I'm a praefecto, I don't really have a home I can take you to. If you don't like it here, I could send you to my parents in Derwen, or my sister's house at Magor, though the Mother alone knows what they'd say."

"I don't mind it here." He leaned back on the ropes that were the back of Starlight's stall. "I've never been anywhere else. The High King says it's one of the best places to grow up in Tir Tanagiri."

I was surprised into a laugh. "He never grew up anywhere else either," I said. "It's something people only get one try at doing."

"Will you come and see me again?" he asked.

I wanted to promise I would, but if I broke a promise now, it would ruin everything. "I don't know if I'll be able to come back soon. I don't know where I'm going to be or what's going to be happening. I'll come when I can. You're nine. You can't be an armiger until you're sixteen at the youngest. That's seven years. Come to me in Caer Tanaga then. If I'm not there, go to ap Gavan and tell her who you are and wait for me, I get there now and then. I will give you a place in my ala." He bowed again.

"Thank you, sir."

"Darien—" I said. He started and drew in his breath. He had not given me his name.

He seemed surprised I knew it. "There's no excuse for why I didn't come. I was afraid of Father Gerthmol's disapproval, and I was busy, and time went on and you were getting to be a person and I didn't know. It wasn't that I didn't care about you. I wish I had brought you something. Is there anything you'd like me to send you?"

"There's nothing I want," he said, but I caught the flash of his eyes towards Starlight. I couldn't give her to him, she was Urdo's gift. There was Glimmer, the filly she bore in the first year of the War. Since then I had ridden her, despite ap Cathvan's advice to ride
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lesser horses and have her bred.

"If I left Starlight here," I said, "and you had her bred to a good stallion, one ap Cathvan chooses when he comes here in season, then she would give you a foal you could train to be ready to ride when you were ready to be an armiger." For an instant he looked thrilled, and as if he might unbend towards me. "And," I added, "then I'd have to come back next year to collect Starlight." His face closed up again, and I realized what I had said, that I would promise to come for the horse but not for him.

"Thank you, sir," he said, cold and formal. "That would be extremely kind of you. I would take good care of her." He looked at Starlight, and his face changed again. He loved my horse. I had made a bad beginning. I should have come before. I drew breath to speak, to try to set it right, and there was a great hammering on the stable door. We froze. One of the monks came down and opened it. There was a rider outside, a red-cloak, one of the Garah's messengers.

"Urgent news from Caer Tanaga for the High King," he said. "Do you know where he is?" I recognized his voice, it was Senach Red-Eye, who had been in my pennon once.

"I am here," I said, straightening up, raising a hand to Darien to signal him to wait.

"The High King is wounded. Is the news worth disturbing him?" Darien shrank back against Starlight, who huffed at him gently. The monk stepped aside and let Senach in. He dismounted and stood dripping on the floor. He handed me a dry scroll from his leather bag. It was sealed with Elenn's seal and addressed to Urdo.

"From the Queen?" I asked. I wondered if she was with child at last. "Do you know the news? Is it personal?" All but the most personal and dangerous news would be entrusted to the messenger as well as to the scroll, in case some mischance happened. Messengers were especially chosen from loyal and discreet people. Most of them were armigers who had been wounded, like Senach, whose single eye no longer sufficed for him to ride to war.

"It is no good news," Senach said, taking offhis wet cloak and nodding to the monk who led away his horse.

"Tell me." The monk was out of earshot if he spoke quietly. Senach looked at Darien inquiringly.

"I will see you tomorrow, sir," Darien said, bowed, and ran out past me through the stables into the courtyard. I bit my hp and turned back to Senach.

"What?" I snapped.

"Some assassin of Black Darag's has killed Maga, the Queen's mother, the king of Connat in Tir Isarnagiri. It is war there. Allel has sent asking our help."

"They want their troops back?" I stepped back, horrified. They ate a lot and wouldn't do any work but fighting and we had to wait around for them, but the Isarnagan infantry was a great asset in any big battle.

"They want more than that. They want our help in their war." I felt my teeth grind together.

"I think this is important enough to take to Urdo, even if he's asleep," I said, and sighed. There was no sign of Darien as I took Senach and the unopened scroll up to Urdo's room in the guesthouse.

—20—

It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks into thee. O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, who walked among us as a man in Sinea, died for us, and ascended into Heaven in renewed and restored strength.

Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are a heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord.

Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant even so are young children. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them, they shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

O God, the strength of all of them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers.

Through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that we may please thee both in will and deed and bring forth children to praise and please thee.

Therefore, with Angels and Archangels and with all creatures living and dead, visible and invisible, yea with all the glorious company of Heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory, Glory be I to thee, O Lord most High.