The Prize in the Game (3 page)

Finca said Emer would as well, and Elenn, too, if she would only try harder. Lots of the best charioteers were women. Darag's mother Dechtir had been Conary's charioteer before she was killed. There were songs about her.

But Elenn didn't want to be a charioteer at all. She just wanted to know how to fight well enough to defend herself, that was all. She didn't need to be a champion. She was going to be a queen.

Her king would have a whole hall of champions to defend her honor. Like Maga. If anyone insulted her, she could just raise a finger and everyone in the hall would be begging to be chosen as her champion and she'd choose the best one and they'd always win. That was better than fighting for yourself. Maga had explained that to her years ago. Nice as it was to be away from her for a while, Maga made a lot of sense about that sort of thing.

Ap Fathag charged straight past the Speckled Hall, which was a huge storehouse for supplies, with a special room where weapons were left when people were in the dun and didn't need them.

He marched right into the

Red Hall, which was the king's. Emer and Conal followed close behind, and Leary, Nid, and Elenn a little behind them. Elenn was starting to worry about what ap Fathag would do.

She knew King Conary wouldn't do anything awful to him whatever mad thing he did, because ap Fathag was an oracle-priestmdashand Conary's father, even if he had never been married to his mother. But she wasn't so sure Conary wouldn't be really cross with the rest of them for following him.

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The king was sitting in one of the end alcoves playing fidchell with Amagien the Poet.

There was a place above where the roof could be lifted off to give light on warm clear days, so they and the board were clearly illuminated. Both men sighed when they saw ap Fathag and his pupils approaching. King Conary didn't look as handsome as usual when his face had such an irritated expression. Elenn found herself remembering stories about his terrible rages. It was said he'd killed his sister Dechtir in a fit of temper.

"I can guess what you want," he said, crossly. Elenn kept her face still, the way her mother had taught her.

Ap Fathag laughed loudly, the way he did sometimes. It sounded more like a raven than a man; there was no mirth in that sound. Elenn saw Nid shiver, and she would have shivered herself if she were younger.

"What did Darag tell you?" Inis asked.

"He told me you told him it was the day fated for him and Ferdia and Laig to take up arms,"

Conary said.

"I told you your foolish nephew was lying," Amagien put in. Conary glared at him.

"I told all my pupils that it would be a good day for a mighty warrior to take up arms," ap Fathag said. "I did not tell Darag to come to you." "Not lying," snapped Conary at Amagien.

"Enterprising lad." Conal hissed air

between his teeth, but ap Fathag clapped him hard on the shoulder and he said nothing. They all just stood there. Conary stared at ap Fathag as if daring him to speak.

"Have you given Darag and Laig and Ferdia arms?" ap Fathag asked after a long pause.

"Surely nobody would doubt the right of the king to arm his nephew and fosterlings in his own hall," Amagien said.

"Quite right, too, I have every right to do it if I want to," Conary blustered.

"You have every right," ap Fathag said, very mildly. "But you must arm also these other nephews and fosterlings who stand beside me now." "Sir, I am three months older than Darag," Conal put in. "Do you think we could have forgotten your age?" Amagien asked. Elenn had never seen him snapping like this before.

"Of course I know his age," Conary said. "It is well past noon, Inis. It is too late to arm them today. They will never find a beast to kill before sundown."

"We will take that risk, sir," Conal said. "Very willingly," Leary agreed.

Conary looked at them all as if they were something that had fallen from the thatch into his stew. "All of you?" he asked. "I will," Nid said.

It was only then that Elenn realized exactly what was likely to happen. She wanted to be armed, yes, but not like this, not in a scramble and with no time to hunt properly. She wanted it to be an occasion, the whole court there out on a hunt and leaving the kill to her. She had heard all the stories of how her brother had taken up arms two years before. She didn't want it to happen this way.

"Not us," she said, thinking quickly. "Sir, my mother would not like it if we were armed in Oriel." That was nothing but the truth; Maga definitely wanted to arm all her children herself, as she had done with Mingor.

"Besides, I am not ready."

"But I would be armed," Emer said. Elenn couldn't stop herself from gasping. It was as if her left arm had suddenly developed a will of its own and started reaching for things she had no desire to grasp.

"Nonsense, girl," Amagien said. "Your pretty sister is right, it would cause trouble with Connat.

Besides, how can the younger girl be armed and the elder not?"

"If Elenn feels unready for arms, that is her choice," Emer said. "She has no wish to be a great warrior."

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Elenn winced, for all that it was true.

"Stout heart," ap Fathag said in something that sounded horrifyingly like an approving tone.

"My mother would wish to arm us herself. Elenn is right. But she would yield before the news of a fortunate day," Emer said boldly.

Elenn leaned forward. "Emer, think, you can't," she whispered.

"Oh yes I can," Emer said, keeping her eyes straight forward.

"Maga will not like it, but will she go to war for it?" Amagien asked.

"She will go to war with us for one cause or another within three years," ap Fathag said, rocking to and fro slightly in the stupid way he did when someone asked him a question. It was so unfair, as his main means of talking was by asking other people questions, but if you asked him one back, his response was to say something often unintelligible and always uncheckable and then go off into a daze. He was much madder than the oracle-priests at Cruachan. And his predictions were always so obvious, just like this one.

Conary leaned forward, looking at Emer. "Do you want to be a great warrior, then?" he asked.

"If possible," she replied.

"Has anyone seen if she can even fight?" Amagien asked. "Ah, I thought not. And she is two years away from age."

"She can fight," Conal said. Elenn frowned at him, but he took no notice; he wasn't even glancing at her.

"She's young to be armed, but so are we all, sir. And time and daylight of a fortunate day are wasting as we stand here."

King Conary had shut his eyes. "She has not strength to fight hand to hand," he said faintly.

"Anyone can see that."

"Strength as much as my daughter Dechtir had," ap Fathag said.

Conary's eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, but when he spoke, his voice still sounded weary. "Do either of you youths need a charioteer?"

Leary and Conal both stared at Nid, who shrugged. "I have driven you both and would willingly drive either of you," she said.

"You have far more often driven me," Leary began.

"Then let her drive you now," Conal said, "If Emer will consent to drive me?"

"It would be an honor," Emer murmured, looking down and sounding her usual self again.

"Let her be armed as a charioteer then," Conary said, as if he were tired to death of the whole business.

Elenn felt a great deal of sympathy for him. "Come, Amagien. Where is Finca?"

Finca came up immediately. Elenn suspected she had been listening in the next alcove. It was a large hall, and the alcoves were hidden from each other in the same way they were at Cruachan.

It meant proper privacy for eating, but it also meant it was very easy to hide in them and spy on people when the hall wasn't full. If she built her own hall, Elenn thought she would prefer to have a great table to eat on the way the poets said the Vincans did. Except that it would make it difficult for people who were at bloodfeud with each other and so could not eat together. She wondered how the Vincans managed about that.

"You called for me, my brother?" Finca asked.

"Rejoice, for today your child becomes one of the people," Conary said with an ironic nod of the head to

Conal. "If you can find Elba and Ringabur, and Ugain and his wife, they may wish to hear the same news.

Regrettably, Maga and Allel cannot be here. Also, the feast I bade you prepare for Darag's return should perhaps be expanded a little."

"Yes, my brother," Finca said, as if his words had been quite ordinary. She gave hardly a glance
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to Conal and no glance at all at the rest of them.

"Oh, and sister, take the elder princess of Connat to help you," Conary said. "She does not need to be armed today."

"No," Finca said, looking at Elenn a little curiously. Elenn kept her head up and looked back.

"Very well, you can help me prepare the feast. Come along, child."

It was only then, hearing that familiar form of address, that Elenn realized what she had done.

She would still be a child, when the others, even Emer, would be adults in everyone's eyes. It was not quite too late to change her mind, but entirely too late to do it and maintain dignity. She lifted her chin high and walked off after Finca without a backward glance.

3

(EMER)

King Conary gathered up champions and parents and guards so that there seemed to be a crowd of them before they even left the Red Hall.

Emer was starting to feel almost sorry that she had spoken up. Elenn's face had been like thunder as she went off with Conal's mother. No doubt she would never let Emer forget it.

Worse, she would tell Maga. Maga hadn't wanted to send them to Oriel in the first place. Having fosterlings at Cruachan was one thing. Sending her own children off into danger was another.

Not that there was any danger. Emer couldn't see how such a thing could even cross her mother's mind.

Maga and Allel had fought over it until Emer's head hurt. Eventually, Allel suggested that Maga's reluctance wasn't fear for her children but an intimation that she herself would break the sacred bonds of guesting and harm a fosterling. Emer thought he was entitled to say so.

After all, the idea would never have crossed anyone else's mind. All guests were sacred, even in the middle of a war, and fosterlings were the most sacred guests of all. Maga had clawed Allel's face so hard that he had marks for days. After that, there had been no more words Emer could hear through the wall, only moans and cries. That fight had ended up in bed, as her parents' fights so often did. Emer had wondered at them the next morning, seeing her father with a scratched face and her mother purring. She had been overjoyed when Allel had told them that they would at last be allowed to spend a year at Ardmachan. She had been waiting through all of Maga's excuses since she was nine years old and the royal children of Oriel had gone home without them.

King Conary marched out of the Red Hall with everyone close behind him. Emer blinked at the sudden sunlight. There were some champions playing hurley on the field laid out for it over against the east wall. Their excited cries rose up in the warm air as someone scored.

"Don't you just wish you were with them?" Conal whispered. Emer turned and grinned at him and he rolled his eyes towards the adults. King Conary was walking very fast, with an expression as if he had bitten a sour apple. Everyone else except Inis was scurrying to keep up.

The king's counselor ap Carbad was almost smiling. Nid's parents looked apprehensive, and Leary's looked confused. Conal's father, Amagien the Poet, was frowning as usual. Emer thought it was awful that Conal's mother hadn't even bothered to stay to see her son armed.

"Not really?" she said tentatively, making it a question.

"Oh no, not really," Conal agreed.

"Besides, hurley is a stupid game," she said.

Conal laughed. "I don't know how you dare say so," he said, sounding surprised. "Though in many ways it is a very stupid game. I enjoy it sometimes. But such a lot depends on things you can't do anything about."

"Like how many people there are on each team, and when they switch sides," Emer said.

"Is it true that

Darag once played alone against all the rest of you?"

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"There was a game once that started off like that," Conal said carefully.

"He didn't want to wait to pick sides," Leary said. "He won, though."

"Who was left on the other side at the end?" Emer asked.

"Just me," Conal admitted, and lowered his voice. "But that isn't the sort of thing that's worth making songs about."

"Hurley is good training for war," Nid said. "It teaches you how to move in battle."

"May the wise gods send that I never have to fight a battle where everyone changes sides as they see their advantage," Conal said.

Nid and Leary laughed, but Emer just looked at Conal, knowing he wasn't joking. His eyes met hers for a moment, dark and serious. An instant later he was laughing lightly again as they all hurried to catch up.

Then King Conary flung open the door of the Speckled Hall and stopped abruptly, forcing everyone behind him to stop just as fast. Leary's father fell over his feet and caught himself. Nid giggled nervously.

The two guards inside the Speckled Hall looked incredibly guilty, as if they had been caught stealing from the storehouses rather than guarding them. They leaped to their feet with their spears ready. As far as Emer could tell, they had been doing nothing worse than sitting talking. King Conary looked them up and down for a long moment. "Better," he said at last, and both guards relaxed a trifle.

"I wonder what they were doing last time?" Conal asked, almost in her ear. Emer bit back a giggle.