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Authors: Jo Walton

Tags: #Women soldiers, #Science Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Fiction

The King's Peace (38 page)

BOOK: The King's Peace
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"Nobody here has doubted your word," Ohtar said, smiling a little. Ulf shut his mouth, looking foolish.

I suddenly realized that Urdo had thought him guilty of sorcery and bound to die on that account. I drew breath to speak and heard the skylark's clear trill again. I looked up and again the sky seemed quite empty. If the Lord of the Sky was sending a messenger to guide my choice I did not understand how. Everyone was looking at me.

"Ulf Gunnarsson has wronged me before the law," I said.

"Whose law?" Ohtar asked. "He said you wounded him in the usage of war."

"No," said Ulf. He looked deadly serious now and spoke to Urdo. "She was within the usage of war, and I, perhaps, was not. I was seventeen years old and out on my first raid.

I was wrong in many ways. I will offer reparation."

"By Tanagan law or by Vincan law," I said hotly, answering Ohtar. "It has never been acceptable—"

Urdo raised a hand. I stopped, and he spoke, very calmly. "Ulf came onto Derwen land in a raiding party, they burned the house and he killed Darien ap Gwien, the heir and Sulien's brother."

"With his own hand?" Ohtar asked.

"Oh yes," I said. "I was there."

Ulf closed his eyes briefly. "I had not known he was your brother," he said, directly to me.

"This is matter for a bloodfeud, true enough, but it is not outside the usage of war,"

said Ohtar.

"Further," Urdo said, "Catching Sulien alone and unarmed in the woods, he, with a party of others—how many?" he asked, turning to me.

"Six," I said. I hated to think about it and I certainly didn't want to talk about it. It came back to me in detail as he asked, the fight, the defeat, the rape, the smell of leaf mold, and the pattern of the branches above me. I took a deep breath and smelled the sun-warmed clover and feather-headed grass. "Five and Ulf Gunnarsson. Do we really have to talk about that?" Ohtar looked distressed.

Urdo shook his head a little sadly at me, then looked back at Ulf and his voice was a little less even. "With five others you caught Sulien ap Gwien alone and unarmed and raped her. You robbed her thereafter of all joy in the act of love."

Even with my stomach heaving that seemed unfair. I looked at the grass stalks beside my boots.

I felt they were all looking at me. "It would have been worse to find out how awful it was after I was married and it was too late," I said, not loudly, without looking up.

"Heider!" breathed Ohtar, sounding not as if he were cursing but calling on the goddess to witness. "She is a king's daughter," he went on, louder. "Our law would have your head for that."

"You mean rape would be acceptable if my father were a farmer?" I asked, startled and horrified. I looked up and met his eyes. He blushed and stammered.

"I will not say these things do not happen, in raids, in war, when there are men together and women of the conquered. I do say this should not have been."

"It doesn't happen in the alae," I said, angry.

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Ohtar raised his eyebrows and looked disbelieving. "The women don't like to see it, and even the stupidest got the point after I hanged two of them," Urdo said, flatly. It had never happened in any ala I served in, and I did not tolerate any such abuse under my command.

"Ulf Gunnarsson?" Urdo asked, and his voice now held anger.

"I did it." I took a quick look at him at the sound of the pain in his voice; he was staring ahead over the kings' heads, his hands clasped behind his back. There were tears on his face. He spread his hands. "What do you want me to say? I meant to do it, and I did it, though the two things are very different. I did not know what it meant. In Ragnald's crew we spoke of women as plunder.

That was how we saw her. Then after my friends were dead I think some madness was on me, but I did it and knew I was doing it. And, Heider help me, took pleasure in it."

"Being sorry now counts for nothing," Ohtar said. "Can you pay the great fine that must at very least be set on you?"

"I don't know." Ulf shrugged. "I hold no land of my own right. I have been a commander for Sweyn, and Sweyn is dead and his promises rot with him. The land that was my father Gunnar's is under the wave. Some treasure I have, in Caer Lind; if it is still mine, I will willingly give it. But all I know I have is my name and my life."

"Let us finish the tale of your misdeeds before we begin to talk of reparation," Urdo said.

"After that you coerced Sulien into healing the wound she inflicted on you, you promised not to kill her, then you left her bound to a tree, meaning her to die of thirst."

Urdo kept his tone very even. Ohtar grimaced at Ulf.

"And he dedicated me and gave me whole to a god not of my choosing," I added.

"And have you had no good of that god?" Ulf asked. I caught my breath. I could not possibly answer that. It was true he had come to save me from Morwen, and maybe in battle. Fortunately, I had no need to speak.

Ohtar was looking at Ulf in complete disgust. "You idiot! You—" his face was almost purple, and he lapsed into a flood of rapid Jarnish cursing. I did not recognize most of the words, and the ones I did were all ones I had been told were unfit for polite company.

Then Ohtar regained control of himself and caught his breath. With an effort he began again in Tanagan.

"You twisted an oath and you performed a sacrifice you didn't understand, and you did it wrong and you got Gangrader angry with us Jarns. No wonder he was so happy to drink so much of our blood today. What were you using for brains? That's part of the ordeal for kingship, not a way of sacrificing prisoners. Even if you'd been entitled to sacrifice prisoners, which you're not. Only a king may, and you aren't a king and you weren't then and you never will be!"

He spat on the grass and drew breath. "You just don't understand what you were doing at all, do you? When a king sacrifices for victory in battle it must be done in the sight of the gods and the people, for the whole people. Even then it is a wide and difficult thing, to send someone to the gods. Nobody does it on a raid, and nobody does it for no one's benefit but their own.

Small wonder your doom has come to find you, you made it for yourself. You took a king's daughter and you gave her good reason to hate you, you put her through an ordeal and you left her alive to come after you. The only wonder is that you have lived this long." He looked at me and spoke more calmly. "I would agree that you did not do as badly as you might of that bargain with Gangrader, Sulien ap

Gwien, but that is small thanks to Ulf. He had no right at all to do it. It was not sorcery, it was oafish bungling."

Ulf looked at the ground.

I looked from Ohtar's expression of revulsion to Urdo, who was frowning. He looked back at me. "What would you, Sulien?"

"Can I fight him fairly?" I asked. "I swore to put his arms on my brother's grave. I
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have hated him for years. But he saved Osvran, so I would give him an even chance. I will give him choice of weapons."

"An even chance? And if you fall?" Urdo raised an eyebrow. "I don't want to lose you. I need you in the Peace as much as in the War." My cheeks burned again, so much that I thought Ohtar might see, and tears came into my eyes. I looked away hastily, though I had little doubt I could kill Ulf in a fair fight. "And you, Ulf? What would you?"

He took a step forward and knelt before Urdo, the sun glinting on his arm-ring. "Lord, I would swear to you, not from the expediency that brought me to you on the field but from my heart.

Sweyn is dead, and with him my obligations, I am a free man. In you I see law upheld and a hope of justice given to all of us." Ohtar's eyebrows rose, and he leaned forward staring at Ulf, bewildered. "Or I will go back to Jarnholme if you order it, if I have a place there. Or I will accept a more distant exile if need be. I will go to death when the Chooser of the Slain takes me; he has not called me yet, and I do not hear him calling me today.

As for this matter, I freely admit I have wronged her. I would make reparation, as much as I can.

It was ten years ago, and I agree with all the harsh words King Ohtar has given me. I was a fool. I will willingly give up my arms to put on ap Gwien's brother's grave. I will do that in any case, whatever happens. I will fight her if you order it, but only if you order it." He looked away.

"Exile is not a choice here. If you live, you will stay in the ala where I can keep an eye on you,"

Urdo said. I looked between them, confused. I had wanted to kill Ulf for such a long time. Then I thought of a way out.

"Even if I would accept that offer of your arms, I cannot," I said. "The bloodfeud is not mine to end, it is my brother Morien's. He is lord of Derwen."

"Derwen's half a month from here," Ohtar said. "This need to be settled today. You are his heir.

You can do it, by your own law, if you would." He was right. "Or you are welcome to kill him fairly, for all of me."

I looked at Urdo. "My lord?"

"It is not the Peace I would best want if one of you must die to make it, but better a fair and open fight now than something else later. I will not stop you fighting if it is what you want. I cannot and will not order you to give up your vengeance. I will say this, whatever happened, what has been spoken on this hill today will not go further than those of us who are here, just that all has been satisfied."

I looked at him for the space of three breaths. He wanted it so much. The Peace was what he had been working for all this time. But my brother Darien, dead and left to rot.

The hours sawing my wrist free. The months at Thansethan. "I would fight him," I said.

"Choose your weapons." I looked at Ulf.

"I will fight barehanded," he said. I blinked. Yet it was a good choice. He was my height, or close to it. He had the knee injury, but he had some training, and he had a man's strength of arm and body, probably greater than mine. I would have to keep him moving or end it very quickly if he was not to get the advantage. Thurrig always said if it got to wrestling, you'd lost already. Ulf dropped his little dagger on the grass before the kings, and I did the same.

"Let it be, then," said Urdo, sounding saddened. I looked at him apologetically. "And let what is done here on this hilltop be an end of this forever." I raised my chin in acquiescence and so did Ulf. Ohtar looked interested and not at all concerned.

I walked over to Ulf, and he stood there. I swayed a little, and he still stood there. He did not move at all. I tried to recapture the anger I had felt at him for so long, but it did not come. I could not feel the rage I felt in battle. I only felt a burning bitterness. I feinted a blow towards his head, an easy dodge for him. I put enough force into it to make it worth avoiding, it would strike him hard across the face if it connected. I meant to move in and kick as he moved away.

But he did not move away. I felt the blow connect and moved automatically to follow it up and
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protect my head. But he did not move to attack, he just stood there, rocking slightly with the blow. I stopped and stepped back a little.

"Aren't you going to fight?" I asked, cautiously, ready to strike or leap back and pivot if he did.

"No," he said, and grinned, then spat a bloody broken tooth onto the ground. "The High King did not order me to. I'm just going to stand here. If your honor requires you kill me, go ahead and kill me."

If I had had my sword in my hand I would have run him through that instant. As it was I struck him as hard as I could on the jaw, so that he fell over. But that was the end of that impulse of fury. How can you kill a man who doesn't fight back, who lies on the ground smiling in a hopeful sort of way? I could have kicked him in frustration, but that was not the sort of rage in which I could kill him. I had killed so many men that day, brave men who had done nothing worse to me than stand in my way on the field of battle.

Yet now Ulf lay before me and when I reached out for the hate I bore him I just felt confused.

I stood there and stared down at him. High above the skylark called again and was answered by another. I didn't know what I felt or what to do. I wished Osvran or Thurrig could walk up and call me an idiot and tell me what to do next. I wanted to be in a warm dim stall with a horse that needed rubbing down slowly. Six thousand Jarns had died that day already. He lay there, eyes on the sky, smiling. He had given Osvran a clean death.

There was a hollow place in my heart where rage had been. I have never understood where it went. I stood there a long moment. It would have been so easy to break his neck.

He had wept when he thought of what he did. Would it be shameful to give up my vengeance and let him live? Not as shameful as killing him only to avoid that shame. I looked at Urdo. He was watching, his face very still. He looked like a carved statue of a king set on the hilltop as long ago as the stone he leaned on. I felt as if I had stood here almost forever already, looking down at Ulf. I kicked him in the ribs.

"Oh get up. You're not worth the trouble of killing. Get up and get me your weapons," I said through gritted teeth. "And we will say this is over and more than over, and you can swear to the High King and then you can be in my ala and then I'll make you wish you were dead."

—24—

In the morning battle, at noon meat at night rest.

— Isarnagan proverb

It was raining when we brought Galba ap Galba home. It was not the fine light rain that often marks the end of summer; it was a heavy rain that fell day after day from thick grey clouds and stripped the leaves from the trees and made riding misery. The wind blew cold and constant from the west. All the way down through Tevin, through Nene, through Tathal, and on into Magor it rained until the highroads were slick with water and all the tracks away from the highroads were deep with mud. In some places the mud was dark and sticky and came up to Beauty's fetlocks. I thought it no wonder we saw so few people as we traveled.

BOOK: The King's Peace
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