The King's Peace (65 page)

Yes, those were good years. Urdo finished his law code and gathered all the kings together to hear it and agree to it. He gave them all a copy afterwards. Flavien tried to sneer at Ohtar, saying he wouldn't be able to read it, and Ohtar amazed him by quoting back what Urdo had read. He had remembered it from one hearing. The kings were not quite as they had been after Foreth. Cinon was dead, and young Cinon was more polite and cautious. He did not drive Elenn to distraction the way his father had. Young Galbian tried to be as dignified as his grandfather, but he was only eight years old. Mardol the Crow was dead, too, quietly, in bed with a young leman. Cadraith wept when the laws were read and said it would have gladdened his father's heart.

The year after that we all cautiously rejoiced, especially those who were always casting glances at the queen's waistline. It seemed Elenn was pregnant, and by the Harvest Fair it was unmistakable. Everyone was saying there would be an heir for the kingdom by midwinter.

At that time there was a new water mill built at Caer Tanaga. It ground better than the usual sort, for the wheel was mounted vertically and not horizontally in the stream.

These wheels are everywhere now, of course, but then it was a new thing and a marvel to us.

Nobody then had thought of using the work of the wheel for sawing wood or cutting stone; it did nothing but grind wheat to flour. I did not like it at first because it made such a roar and frightened the horses. After I tried the good bread made from the fine flour I thought it was a wonderful invention. News of it went far and wide, farther and wider than we could have imagined.

The Fair that year was the biggest I had ever seen. There is always something exciting about a fair. Even if there is nothing new, there is always the promise that there might be something wonderful around the next corner.

I have never envied Glyn his job, and then I envied it less than ever. With Elenn pregnant and Garah just brought to bed, all the work of provisioning the ala fell to him. As I passed through the main part of the fair where the farmers were selling their extra produce, I caught sight of him bargaining with a fruit seller. Glyn had grown plumper with time and good cooking. By now he was quite a round man. Little ap Glyn was next to him, jumping from foot to foot and looking bored. The younger one, the boy, was perched on his shoulders pulling his hair; the new baby was left at home with Garah. Ap Glyn Junior was too old to be carried really, but with the coming of the new baby he had slipped back into some of his ways of a year or two before. He missed being the youngest. Both children spotted me before their father did, and I gave them the ala hand signal for silence. I came right up behind Glyn and poked him in the ribs. He jumped, and the child on his shoulders giggled.

"Don't buy as many pears as last year," I said. "They were coming out of our ears before spring and half the armi-gers were giving them to their horses because they were so tired of them."

He laughed. "We got pears in tax from Guthrum and Rowanna last year; I didn't have to buy any. This year Guthrum sent beans and Rowanna sent hay—hay I ask you! I want tax in coin, but Urdo says he won't push it yet."

"Hay, I ask you," the little boy echoed. "Over land, too, the old lady must be cracking at last!"

I crowed with laughter, and Glyn looked terribly embarrassed. "Well," he said. "I don't think we'll have any pears at all this year if I have to pay these prices for them." He shook his head over the baskets at the farmer and put on his most doleful expression. "I don't suppose the thought of all those hungry horses can soften your heart?" The boy on his shoulders pulled Glyn's ear, and the farmer grinned and started to haggle.

"I thought I'd borrow one of your children," I said, before Glyn was too absorbed. Both children immediately started to draw attention to themselves, but stopped when I frowned at them. "Mind, if I do take you I'm expecting really good behavior," I said. "No touching things, and if I'm talking, you be quiet. I want someone to help me with money, and I know you two are better with it than I am."

"You think she'd be joking," Glyn said to the farmer, who was giggling behind her hand at the way the children were raising their chins in agreement. "But no, the Praefecto here lives in barracks and eats in the king's hall and never remembers how many silver pennies there are in a gold victrix, and as for haggling, she has less idea than my month-old babe at home, never mind these two."

I smiled crookedly. Then I went on with both children and Glyn's sincere thanks, wrapped up but not hidden in his teasing. We went quickly through the part of the fair selling food. Next came the artisans. Some were local and had shops in the town all year, but others had come a long way especially for the fair. Here there were fewer people with baskets and more boards set out on the ground. Some even had little tents hung about with their merchandise. There were potters, some selling bowls and jugs and crocks and even beakers, others offering to mend any broken pots. Beris was there having a plate mended with rivets; she smiled at me as we went by. The new pots were very expensive, and I didn't need any, not having a house of my own. The colors and glazes were beautiful.

The children were clamoring to get on. We stopped for a moment to watch the tinkers mending broken metal tools. The smiths at Nant Gefalion grumble about tinkers and their work, but few people would buy anything metal if they had to go all the way to a smith to mend it if it cracked.

There were craftspeople selling cloth of all kinds, and rolls of yarn. I told the children that you could get a whole set of clothes at the Harvest Fair, cloth and thread and the tinkers would sell you needles to sew it together.

"Would they sell it to you if you came in wearing nothing though?" The little girl
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giggled.

"The Jarnish ones wouldn't," the little boy said, indicating a nearby tent hung about with distinctive pink cloth from Aylsfa and presided over by two veiled and pigtailed young Jarnswomen. The children roared with laughter at the thought of needing new clothes so badly and not being able to get them. "You could get boots, too, look, leather, and shoemakers to make them up for you if you can't cobble."

"People do that," I said. "I've done it myself, though there are more years where I get the boots I've worn down cobbled together to last me another winter." There was a tannery at Caer Rangor where we bought leather for the ala. The stink of it hung on the air for miles around. I paused and looked at a lovely piece of leather hanging on a tent. It was tanned very pale. I felt it, it was very soft, it would be better for gloves than boots.

"Do you fancy that, Praefecto?" Morthu asked, softly and suddenly. He had come up behind the tent and had a covered basket over his arm.

I was startled. "It's beautiful stuff," I said, honestly. "I don't need any at the moment."

"What a shame," he said, putting out his hand to stroke the leather. I let go of it abruptly and moved away. Although he had said nothing but casual politeness, there was something about him that made my skin crawl. He was a grown man now, with nothing of the boy left about him, and I was suddenly aware of that, as if he wanted me to be. He didn't look like his father or his mother. Indeed he looked a little like Urdo, which wasn't surprising in a nephew. He smiled at me deliberately and continued to stroke the leather.

"It's very soft," he said.

I wanted to shudder, or hit him, and deliberately stopped myself. The children were being good and quiet, as I had asked them. I wished they would ask for something or catch sight of something interesting and give me an excuse to leave Morthu. I looked down on him.

"Have you been buying leather?" I asked, indicating his woven basket and hoping my voice would stay even.

"No," he said. "Wine. There's a ship in from Narlahena, and they're selling some of their cargo."

"Oh, where?" I asked. He turned and took my arm to show me the direction. I flinched, and I know he felt it for I saw an instant of triumph in his face. I couldn't say anything, what he had done was something any of niy comrades could have done without offense. The difference was that he was an enemy and that he did mean offense. I moved away from him and went off with the children, glancing back to make sure he did not follow.

The next place was selling smith's ironwork, daggers and spades and hoes. I had to explain to the children how the handles would be fitted into the implements. They wanted to buy a spade for their grandfather back at Derwen, who only had a wooden one. They haggled for a while, but the smith was not fool enough to sell to a seven-year-old for a promise of coin later. They had to be contented with the thought of coming back and asking their father to pay for one. By the time we went on I was feeling almost calm again.

We passed people selling dyes, then a man selling hot sausages, and the children had to have one each. We went on past people selling spices and trinkets and love potions and cures for all sorts of illnesses. Some of these were real enough healing herbs, but others were not, and in any case I hated to see them sold as wonder cures and not medicine. I wondered if I could ask Urdo if there was anything we could do about that. Then at last we came to the Narlahenans.

They had barrels of wine and a board set out on two big barrels so it was like a table, and they had wine in flasks and flagons spread out an embroidered cloth on top of that.

Lots of people were haggling over them as they sampled the wares, including the High King's cook. As well as wine they had some other items, and these were what interested us. The
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children stuffed their sausages into their mouths and put their greasy hands behind their backs to stop themselves from touching everything in sight. There were glass beads, and glass jars, and glass beakers, all in beautiful reds and blues and some in green. Also there were some books. I looked at them longingly. I doubted if I had enough money to buy one, even if I wanted them. I looked at them quickly. I was disappointed to see they were all copies of the Memories of the White God except for one, which was a book of prayers composed in a monastery in Narlahena. I put them back and turned back to the glassware.

The children were pining over some little glass animal beads, very cunningly made and about the size of my thumbnail. I asked how much they were, and was surprised to find they were quite cheap. Ap Glyn insisted on bargaining for me, even though the Narlahenan spoke only Vincan and she spoke only Tanagan and so I was forced to translate all the haggling. The children spoke Tanagan at home and heard Vincan only rarely.

The Narlahenan had the same clipped accent as Amala, biting off the ends of words, so I knew he must be a Malm. I bought them a bead each, a little red hare for the boy and a blue horse for the girl. On impulse after the price had been agreed I bought a red squirrel and a blue dog for my nephews m Magor, Aurien's two children. I wasn't planning to go home, but I could send them in my next letter to Veniva. I was sorry Darien was too old for one, and then I saw a blue pig and decided to buy him one anyway.

It might make him smile.

The Narlahenan, seeing me buying so many and the gold in my purse, brought out more glassware, some of it very beautiful. I wasn't tempted by any of the glass jewels, but when he brought out a green-glass beaker, almost clear and hardly a finger's width thick, with a gold rim around the edge I hesitated. It occurred to me that when Elenn's baby was born I would need a gift for it, and this was a gift good enough for a future king. The Jarns say it is bad luck to buy a childgift before the child is born. The man was just handing the beaker and the beads to me when someone started to address me in a language I did not know.

I looked up to excuse myself, straightened, and was amazed to have to keep looking up to see a tall woman who looked a great deal like my father. My father had never had a sister, but if he had, this could have been her face—the shape of her cheekbones and her nose and chin were just like Gwien's. Apart from that she looked like the wildest sort of barbarian. Her hair was limed so that it was white and stood straight up in spikes all around her face, and she was wearing sealskin leather clothes. She had wide shoulders, and her bare arms had patterns drawn on them, a snake curled around on one and a stylized horse on the other. The children gasped, and the little boy clung to my leg.

She repeated her question, whatever it was, now grinning broadly. I shook my head. "I don't understand," I said.

She said something else incomprehensible, waving her painted arms, then repeated it very slowly and I realized that now she was speaking very bad Vincan. "You are cousin to me?" she asked.

The glass-seller was waiting for my coin, which I gave him, and I took the things carefully and put them in my pouch. Then he said cheerfully and rapidly, "I'd watch out for her if I were you, lady. She's come from the Ice Mountains, took passage with us from Olisipo. She's got six huge horses and a big ax and she paid for her passage with a pair of carved walrus tusks the size of my legs, and she broke a sailor's arm for trying to get familiar."

"Thank you," I said, and turned away. I turned to the woman, who was waiting patiently.

"If I am your cousin, I don't know it," I said, slowly. "Who are you?"

"Rigg, daughter of Farr, daughter of Beven, daughter of Neef," she said, striking herself in the chest. "Neef s other daughter was Larr, Larr came to this island with the horses. Beven was lord and could not come, said come later bring horses. She did not come. Farr did not
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