The Prize in the Game (23 page)

Then Allel turned to the rest of them. "I hear my impetuous daughter has given you all welcome to Cruachan already," he said, smiling. "But let me repeat that now in my name, and my wife's.

You are all welcome, and may your quest prosper here."

"Where is Mother?" Emer asked.

"She is talking to your sister," Allel said. "She asked me to send you in to her as soon as you arrived." He smiled at the rest of them. "My wife has been separated from her daughters for such a long time. I'm sure you understand. Do sit down, there will be a servant with drinks in a moment, and we will eat later of course."

Emer looked at him, an unreadable mix of emotions in her face, then she went off into the shadows of the hall, leaving Conal feeling entirely bereft.

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18

(ELENN)

They had been talking for only an hour when Emer scratched at the door and asked for entry.

Maga called her in at once, and they both looked at her for a moment. She wore no overdress and her shift was bound around her legs. Her hair, as so often, was straggling out of its braids.

She looked as if she had just come from the stables.

"Mothermdash" she said.

"Darling," Maga said, and opened her arms, just as she had done with Elenn an hour before.

Then Emer came to embrace Elenn, awkwardly. Emer had grown taller in the three months since Elenn had seen her.

Maga sat down again on the bed, which sent up a waft of the scent of heather and lavender.

Smelling that again made Elenn realize that she was home at last. She felt the prickle of tears at her eyes.

"Now, girls," Maga said, lowering her voice confidentially. "Sit down, both of you, and tell me everything."

So it began again. Elenn had been telling her about their reception at Ardmachan and Emer's taking up arms.

Now she would want all the rest. Emer and Elenn sat down on the stools on each side of the fire. Beauty wriggled closer to Elenn as she sat down, getting farther away from the white cat curled on the bed. She didn't make a noise, just nestled into Elenn's legs. She was such a good puppy. Elenn stroked her head.

Ferdia hadn't exactly said he loved her, but why else would he have gone to all that trouble to get her Beauty?

He probably wanted to talk to his father before saying anything official. He had behaved perfectly all the way from Ardmachan, paying her compliments but never touching her. He was so honorable.

Elenn came back to reality to see her mother and sister looking at her. "I'm sorry," she said, blood heating her cheeks. "What?"

"Why did you leave Ardmachan early?" Maga asked, leaning forward on her elbow.

"I wanted to come home. I was lonely," she admitted.

"You should have asked me," Maga said. "It might have been useful to keep you there a little longer."

"I'm going back until the spring," Emer said eagerly, almost bouncing off her stool.

"I'm only here now because I'm Conal's charioteer, so whatever you needed Elenn to be there for, I'll be able to do."

"No, I don't think either of you need go back there," Maga said soothingly, as if she hadn't heard that Emer wanted to be there. She'd told her mother how much Emer had changed. But Maga would have to see for herself before she believed it. "As for being Conal's charioteer, you should have asked me about that. It would have been much better for you to have been Darag's."

"Darag and I don't get on," Emer said, bristling like a cat.

"Conary and I have been negotiating about you and Darag, you know that, darling," Maga said, sitting back and letting a touch of reproach creep into her tone.

"Conal's going to be the king of Oriel," Emer said defiantly.

"I don't think so," Maga said, and smiled her most satisfied smile. "That's certainly not what Conary intends, and really, he ought to know more about these things than you do, don't you think?"

"It isn't only Conary's decision. Conal would make a wonderful king. The Royal Kin of Oriel will see that. And if I were married to himmdash"

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"You're only sixteen, much too young to be deciding about marriage yet," Maga said. Emer subsided and

Elenn let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. She hated it when Maga and Allel fought, and it had looked as if Emer was going to fight in just the same way. "You've both been away from me for so long, there's a lot you don't know about the way the world's going, just as I need to catch up on what you've learned while you've been away. You're much too young to be making alliances for yourselves yet, and I won't have you trampling across the ones I've already made. As it happens, I haven't quite decided what to do about Oriel. Maybe I will find some weakness, then we will go to war with them. Since you have been away, I have been making military alliances that will surprise you, I think. Your father is positively longing to fight. But if I

were thinking about settling Oriel with a marriage, it would be Darag I'd be thinking of for you."

Emer drew breath to speak. Elenn gestured to her to be quiet. It was the wrong moment to interrupt. Emer ignored her. "Mother, I don't want to marry Darag. I love Conal."

An expression of pain crossed Maga's face, then she laughed. "I haven't taught you very much at all if you think that love has anything to do with marriage, or marriage with love. Most especially the kind of love you fall into when you are sixteen years old. That love may be very sweet indeed, and I would wish that for you both, but marriage is a serious business."

Elenn could have kicked her sister. Now that she'd ruined everything, there would be no careful bringing the subject around to an alliance with Lagin.

"But unless there is love in a marriage, there will be no children," Emer said, stubbornly insistent. She rocked forward and made her stool scrape on the hearth.

"Duty can be enough," Maga said. "And that is a different kind of love from what you are talking about."

Elenn's eyes met Emer's across the fire. For once, they seemed to be in agreement in trusting their love and their loved ones. It was too much to hope to get Maga to understand. Elenn scooped Beauty up onto her lap and held her. She could get around Maga, if left to get on with it. She tried to signal as much with her eyes, but Emer, heedless as ever, caught none of it.

"As well as love, it would make a good alliance. Conal is winning, Mother, really he is."

"Put it out of your mind," Maga said firmly. "Conal ap Amagien is not for you. If you truly will not marry Darag, well, I am considering other offers, ones that would make both of you a queen." Elenn blinked. Where was there for Emer to be queen of, apart from Oriel? Muin had a queen already, and the royal children there were babies. Lew ap Ross of Anlar was quite old, wasn't he? Not Lagin, surely not Lagin? She suddenly had the awful vision of Maga marrying them off to the wrong men, Emer to Ferdia and her to mocking Conal.

"I don't suppose either of you have given any thought to Tir Tana-gin?"

Elenn blinked. She certainly hadn't. She shook her head. From Emer's blank face, it was plain that the big island to the east hadn't crossed her mind since she left home.

"An alliance?" Elenn asked, knowing she had to say something, had to keep her mother talking about it until she came to what she wanted to say. What could Tir Tanagiri have to offer them?

"An alliance, perhaps, but with which side?" Maga smiled again and stroked the white cat, which rolled onto its back and purred. "Urdo ap Avren is High King, for as long as he can stay on top.

He wants fighting folk, and in exchange, he offers gold and a marriage alliance. Would you like to be High Queen of Tir Tanagiri, my dear? But can we spare the champions to send across the water? He might lose in any case. As well as the

Jarnish enemies he knows about, his sister, the Queen of Demedia, has been looking around in secret for alliances against him. She is sitting up there at the north of his kingdom plotting against him, and will rise when she is ready. She also has sent to me."

"What does she offer?" Elenn prompted.

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"Gold, and a promise to fight with us in our need. Urdo does not offer that, it is his sticking point. If he did . . .

well, with cavalry, war with Oriel would be practical. But the queen of Demedia does not have cavalry, whatever she says, and without that, what are a few Demedians more or less?

And she can offer no marriage alliance. Her older son, the one who will be High King should they win, is married already, to some Jarnish princess." Maga rolled her eyes. "Her younger son is not yet ten years old, as if younger sons were good enough for my darlings anyway." Maga made her voice caressing.

"How old is Urdo?" Elenn asked, her heart sinking.

"Twenty-five or six. He's never been married. He was betrothed to one of the Crow of Wenlad's daughters, but she died in a plague. He is holding out for a good alliance, but he will not wait much longer, he has no heirs.

He would be ideal for you, if only we could be sure that he would survive." Maga frowned a little.

"But I don't wantmdash" Emer began, tears in her eyes.

Elenn decided to interrupt. All Emer would do was make Maga more and more set on a course that so far, however awful it appeared, was not settled policy. If Maga could be distracted, she might change her mind another day and forget about these suggestions as if they had never been mooted. Tir Tanagiri was far away from everyday affairs. If she became angry, she would never forget.

"You said war with Oriel," Elenn said, straight across her sister's voice. "Did you mean a raid, or a real war?"

Emer shut up and glared at her across the fire between them.

"That would depend, darling," Maga said. "Certainly a raid next summer, to test them. As for war, I think we're too well matched. Everyone will fight in a raid, but a war takes people who really care about it. Nobody minds dying in battle, but they like to be taken prisoner if they lose, not like in war. So I don't think so.

Unless . . . did you notice any weaknesses when you were there, anything that would give us an advantage?"

"Mother!" Emer burst out. "You know you can't ask us that! We were fostered there. It would be enough to put us under the Ban, and you, too."

Maga trilled the laugh she laughed when she did not mean it, the laugh she had taught Elenn. Beauty cowered down on Elenn's lap at the sound. "Darling, despite what they may have taught you, the priests aren't quite so urgent about enforcing that sort of thing as you may think. You have to do considerably worse than that to be put under the Ban. Besides, who would ever know? What have you discovered, Emer?"

"Nothing," Emer said, looking down and biting her lip.

Maga raised her eyebrows. "Extraordinary. Elenn?"

Elenn could think of nothing anyway. She shook her head. "They don't always guard the lower gate at

Ardmachan," she said, remembering Leary swinging on it. "But everything is at the top of the hill, and they always guard the upper one."

Maga didn't seem to be listening. She wasn't looking at her but at Emer, who was staring defiantly at the rushes on the floor. Maga got up, dislodging the cat, who hissed. Beauty scrambled down from Elenn's lap and stood between Elenn and the bed, as if to defend her from the cat. Elenn put her hand down onto

Beauty's head, willing her to be still and quiet and not draw Maga's attention. But Maga did not even glance at them. She walked across to stand before Emer, who continued to stare downwards. Elenn stayed calm and silent, hardly moving, keeping her face tranquil, making herself untouchable inside herself even if Maga should turn on her. Maga put her forefinger on Emer's chin and tilted her face up. Emer met her eyes defiantly.

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"What did you learn?" Maga asked softly.

"Nothing. I told you, nothing," Emer said. Her voice sounded too loud in contrast and was full of the stubbornness Elenn had come to recognize.

"Will you put your new friends above your own mother?" Maga asked, her voice now reproachful.

"I saw no weaknesses," Emer said.

"Then why this talk of the Ban, of a fosterling's duty? Someone has told you that, to stop you doing your real duty to me and to Connat. Who told you?"

"Nobody. Ap Fial taught me about the Ban when I was seven years old and he was teaching me the law."

Elenn had no idea what Emer was trying to hide, but it was completely obvious that she was keeping something back. Maga stared down at Emer for a moment. Elenn kept having to remind herself to breathe.

She kept her hand on Beauty's head. Having her puppy with her helped to make her brave.

"I know you're hiding something," Maga said, anger creeping into her voice now. "And now I know there is something to find, I will find out what it is whether you tell me or not, so I will know anyway, but it will be the worse for you."

"No, Mother," Emer said steadily.

"Then there is something, some weakness that would let me conquer Oriel, and you are keeping it from me?"

"There's nothing," Emer said, passionately and emphatically.

"You're lying," Maga said, and caught hold of Emer's braids and pulled her head back by them, twisting them hard, so hard Elenn was afraid she might pull them out by the roots. Elenn's own scalp hurt in remembered pain. "I can tell you're lying to me. Tell me now."

"If I would ever have told you, I wouldn't now," Emer screamed, tears of pain and chagrin on her face. She stood up, wrenching her hair free. A hank of it stayed in Maga's hand, blood on the ripped-out roots. Emer's hand went to her waist where her sword would be if she was wearing it, and Elenn thanked Damona, Lady of

Wisdom, for making the law that no weapons must be brought into the hall. She didn't trust Emer in this mood to remember that she would fall under the Ban just as much for kinmurder. Emer pushed Maga away from her, forcing her mother to take a step back. They were almost equal in height, and standing glaring at each other, they looked very alike.