by Greylady
“One. Myself. And that’s enough for now. But I may give you an order during the race. You will obey that order without question.” That was an order in itself.
“Yes, my lord,” Bayrd said obediently.
“Your Word of Binding on it.”
A quick flash of resentment at this lack of trust shot through Bayrd. Normally a man’s promise was good enough. But he nodded all the same. “My Word on it.”
“Good. Then we had best get to the boats. And remember, I intend to win.”
Mystified, and more than a little unsettled, Bayrd Talvalin followed his lord down to the boat and the patient horses waiting in their harness.
Every time the oars dug at the water the rowing-boat bucked like an unbroken colt, and each time Bayrd staggered until he learned to flex with each jolting, irregular motion rather than try to brace himself against it. For men who had just completed this same course less than an hour before, Gerin’s crew seemed to have lost none of their strength. If this was how they rowed when they were tired, then Light of Heaven! how much more had this cockleshell lurched to and fro when they were fresh?
Bayrd hated it. The movement wasn’t regular enough to start him feeling queasy yet, but it affected him in other ways. His knees and ankles and the muscles of his belly hurt, from trying to wrench himself back to balance every time the deck rose or fell or pitched in some unforeseen direction. His wrists hurt, from the repeated shocks of grabbing things when keeping his balance became a lost cause. And his shins hurt, from being hacked again and again by the dozens of unnecessary wooden protuberances sticking out at odd angles from the hull.
If he felt like this after only ten minutes, then what state would he be in at the end of a race which last time had lasted almost half an hour?
Lord ar’Kelayr’s boat was running as level as it had done the last time, less than two lengths to their left. As Bayrd glanced over to check its progress, staggering slightly when turning his head affected his whole balance, Vanek ar’Kelayr looked at him, worked his jaws and spat copiously across the gunwale in their direction. The insult was blatant, and yet if called on it, the excuse was just as obvious: in a race like this a man gets spray and water in his mouth, now doesn’t he…?
Bayrd looked away and fought his anger back to calm. He had duelled a high-clan lord once in his life already, and doing so again would start to look like some sort of pattern for those with eyes to see such things. Eyes that saw them whether they were there or not, coupled to mouths for which the word ‘ambitious’ came as easily as breath. Ahead of him, Gerin ar’Diskan swayed with the motion of the boat, moving with a deceptive ease that Bayrd almost envied. Almost, but not quite; even thinking of the amount of practice it must have taken came very close to making him feel sick at last.
He concentrated on the thin line of land just visible over Gerin’s shoulder. That was their goal, and already it seemed closer than before. The thin mist played tricks with distance. As he set his teeth against the slow thick churn of discomfort building up inside him, he fancied he could see the lighter patterning of bodies and faces against the darker mass of the shore. Over the screech and thump of the oars, the hiss of the water past the hull and the boom as it struck against the planks, he could almost hear the cheering again. Imagination, nothing more.
Then Gerin swore and pointed out to the left. Bayrd looked, and saw something that was not imagination. Vanek ar’Kelayr’s boat was moving ahead. It had not taken the lead by more than a quarter-length, but that was already enough to lose ar’Diskan the lands he coveted. His crew valiantly increased their efforts so that the spray flew from the bow, and cut their opponent’s lead by maybe a foot.
And there they remained, unable to gain, able only to hold their position. If the lake had been half as long again, ar’Kelayr would have won honourably, by a clean margin. As it was, this was even more insulting than his white globule of spit. He would be slapping his hand against the grass at the Overlord’s feet just as Lord Gerin sprang out of his boat. To be defeated by such a short distance was more than could be borne.
And it was a risk that Gerin had prepared for. “Bayrd!” His voice cut through all the other noises of the racing boat. “Companion, to me!”
Reeling, and trying with all his strength not to fall across the rowing-benches for that would surely give the race to ar’Kelayr, Bayrd struggled forward along the narrow deck. Lord Gerin half-turned and watched him approach, then when he was close enough held out one hand to steady him. Startled by the honour, Bayrd was even more unnerved at the colour of the clan-lord’s face. He had seen that expression only once before, and in the shocked memories of afterwards he knew it had been once too many. It was white, not the clammy greenish hue of seasickness but the bloodless pallor of fear. And what made it worse was the look of determination locked onto the man’s features. He looked like a theatrical mask.
“Your Word, remember?” Gerin’s voice was pitched low for a degree of privacy from the rest of his crew, but it carried to Bayrd’s ears well enough.
“I remember.”
“Then keep to it. Draw your sword.”
Bayrd Talvalin felt the sickness in his stomach give a sudden plunge, and it turned cold. For some reason, perhaps because this contest closely concerned his lord’s honour, the taiken Isileth was riding at his hip. It was well covered against the spray, even though he was sure that after however many years in the crypt beneath Dunrath, water could not hurt any part of it.
“Companion, I said draw.”
The blade came from its scabbard with a metallic hiss that Bayrd could hear clearly over the noises of the water and the oars. It was a hungry, warning sound, the hiss of a viper leaving its burrow, and abruptly he felt afraid of what he would be asked to do. An awful suspicion was taking shape in his mind as it raced back to what Lord ar’Lerutz had said.
It was as if Gerin ar’Diskan had seen the thought form in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, and forced his mouth into a sort of smile. “The first hand to shore. Just the hand. How well—” The voice and the smile cracked together, and reshaped themselves into a horrid simulation of cheer. “How well can you throw…?”
“Far enough.” Bayrd swallowed, wondering how he had come to be trapped like this. It was not right. And yet it was: a Companion was permitted to do such things at the request of his lord. Worse things… Gerin glanced out over the bow, towards the land and the people, and Bayrd followed his gaze. He heard the clan-lord’s teeth grinding together. Another five minutes, ten at the most, and then he would have to do as he was ordered. There was no honourable way to refuse. None at all.
The oars beat against the water, and still they could not gain on the other boat. It had not been able to draw any further ahead since that first dash, but it was ahead. Barely ahead, but enough. Vanek ar’Kelayr would win; the land would be his, and the old fortress, ready to be rebuilt. And once Yakez of Elthan had been persuaded by force to accept his loss, ar’Kelayr would have the villages as well. Bayrd’s throat went tight. Redmer and all the other little places which had shown him friendship in the deeps of winter half a year ago, even when friendship would have cost them all they had if their own lord had heard of it. And ruled by ar’Kelayr, a man who would not keep the peace even with his own folk. He closed his eyes and saw flames, saw swords, saw blood. That would happen the first time Youenn Kloatr dared to raise his voice. It would happen within a week.
“Bayrd…?”
The thoughts shattered like glass hit by a hammer: bright, painful, useless shards. “My lord?”
“Soon now.” His voice was trembling with the anticipation of agony.
Gerin pulled a thong of braided leather from his belt and gripped it in his teeth while he fumbled with the fastening of his sleeve. Bayrd watched him; looked at the shore; looked at ar’Kelayr standing tall and arrogant in the bows of his speeding boat; and looked at last at Isileth. The longsword’s edges glinted. He knew how sharp they were; sharper than any other sword he had e
ver seen. Sharp enough that it would all be over before it even began to hurt. Bayrd made his choice.
Reaching out across a deck that suddenly seemed quite steady, he pulled the thong from between Gerin’s teeth, and in the same movement reversed Isileth so that the long blade lay against his arm and the hilt was presented to his lord. Gerin stared for an instant, not believing. “No,” he said. “No. You can’t mean this.” But suddenly his voice was steady again.
And then he took the sword.
Bayrd wrenched up the left sleeve of his tunic without troubling about the fastenings, and fabric tore as scraps of metal tinkled brightly on the deck. He wrapped the thong around his forearm twice, three times, four, and dragged it tight with right hand and teeth. Except for the thin pallid ring where the thong bit into flesh, his left hand began to darken with trapped blood. He looked at the shore, tried to see Eskra – prayed to see Eskra, and didn’t – measured the distance to throw the… To throw, and measured the time to reach shore and a surgeon. Close enough. Soon enough. Make an end to the waiting.
He raised his left arm and extended it. His left hand was straight out to one side, hot and cold and tight, trembling as the blood tried to pump past the obstruction. He turned his head to stare fixedly in the other direction. Sweat trickled down his back, ran out of his hair. His heart had never been so loud. Something made him say, “Forearm, not wrist,” and he was amazed at the calm in his voice.
Bayrd took six breaths very fast one after the other, and pushed the last from his lungs as hard as he could. “Now,” he said on that final breath. “Do it. Now!”
There was a sound like a bird’s wing, and a sound like a gasp, and a sound like a ripe apple hitting the deck.
There was a sound like rain.
There was a sound like pain.
There was no sound at all…
He could hear the cheering swell to a crescendo; then it stopped on a high note and became scattered screams and silence.
Bayrd opened his eyes. He was lying on the deck of the boat, but it had stopped moving and someone was doing something to his left arm. It felt cold and hot by turns, but the silver spike that had run up through his bones and into his brain had gone away. His head was too heavy to turn, so he looked up. There was a sky above him that was blue. It had been red before. Hot. Burning hot. The someone said, “Good. It isn’t bleeding any more.”
“So soon?” said someone else. They sounded relieved, but at the same time surprised.
“It couldn’t be soon enough for me. He might have bled dry otherwise. Look at the mess…”
It went dark again, and when the light came back he was lying on grass instead of planks. It felt good, and smelt better than tarred timber. He breathed in the scent of the grass and the small flowers scattered through it, and felt better. Strong enough to sit up. So he did.
This time the surprise was louder, especially when he raised his left arm and looked at the bandage wrapped around it from the elbow down. It was shorter than it should have been. And then he remembered everything.
Almost everything. Though the arm-stump hurt atrociously, he had forgotten what the silver pain had been like. Bayrd was glad of that. Eskra was there; and Marc and Mevn; and off to one side, looking ashamed, was Gerin ar’Diskan.
Bayrd couldn’t understand. He had given the clan-lord no more than what a Companion promised: service and honour and life and limb. He smiled at how appropriate that was, though it was a wincing sort of expression. But there was no reason for his shame. There was no sign of Vanek ar’Kelayr, and no sound of triumph, so it was difficult to tell what had happened – except for what he knew had happened.
“Did we win?” he asked. There was a ripple of nervous laughter that he suspected had more behind it than his innocent question. Gerin was still carrying Isileth. All of a sudden he handed it to Marc ar’Dru and hurried away. Bayrd didn’t watch him go. Turning his head was too much effort.
“Albanak-arluth wants to see you outside his pavilion as soon as you’re well enough,” said Eskra. There was an odd set to her face, and it was mirrored by Marc and Mevn. “And we have your hand.”
“Ah.” Bayrd wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to see it again. His last memory outside the silver pain had been of lying on the deck with his face all wet, looking at his own hand not connected to anything, and then Gerin bending down, lifting it, and flinging it out of sight. “Show me,” he said at last.
It was the same hand he had known all his life; slightly scarred by the grazes and small cuts of growing up, one fingernail broken on an over-tight buckle, some traces of grass-smear over the knuckles. And a great deal of rusty-black dried blood that ran from the fingers right up to where its forearm stopped abruptly at a straight, clean cut. The flesh was horribly cold.
“Sharp sword,” said Bayrd, trying to make a joke and wondering what sort of funeral you gave bits of yourself.
Then his stump shot a needle of sensation up and down the length of the arm; not pain this time, not the silver pain, but a high, shrill tingling. It was like the difference between singing and screaming. He didn’t know if he had screamed. He had done his best not to, but sometimes you just couldn’t help doing things you didn’t want to… And the tingling hit him again.
If feeling had colour, then this was hot, bright blue…
“Get this bandage off.” His voice was suddenly urgent. “Get it off now!”
Eskra dropped to her knees beside him and began unravelling the knots – then paused, looked up at Marc ar’Dru and grinned at the knife which had suddenly appeared out of his boot. It wasn’t an honourable blade like the three on his weaponbelt; it was just functional. The purpose of such a hidden knife is to cut things, and this one cut better than most. The bandages fell away in long loops until there was only a pad of cloth over the stump. Bayrd didn’t want to see that part – strange that a warrior should be so squeamish, but then there was something rather less personal about other people’s torn flesh and spilled blood – but the tingling was so acute and so constant that he pulled the pad away without waiting a second more.
It had covered another clean cut, a surface as flat as a polished mirror. He stared in wonder at the bones and muscles, the nerves and blood-vessels all severed and open to view, then looked at his hand. The next step was so obvious that it was foolish. It was also so obvious that there was nothing else he could do. He picked up the hand, pressed cut arm to cut wrist, and let go.
There was no flicker of blue flame, no brilliant flash of sorcerous power running a bracelet of fire around his wrist over the white line of the scar. Nothing at all.
But the hand stayed where it belonged.
The fingers moved properly; it began to grow warm again – and with the warmth came the sizzling of the worst pins-and-needles he had ever suffered in his life. When that was over, and the swearing it had provoked had died down to a muttering under his breath, Bayrd stood up.
Or rather, he tried to stand up and needed help from everyone near him.
“Carefully, carefully.” That was Mevn’s voice, still amused at everything but also doing her best to mask her astonishment. It wasn’t working. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re going to be as weak as a kitten for a few weeks.”
“A kitten could take me two falls out of three.” They laughed, but he meant it. “I’ll have to stay on better terms with the kitchen cat.”
“Never mind the cat,” said Marc. “Something’s biting the Overlord, and from the look of ar’Diskan, Albanak’s passing the biting along. Mind what you say. Oh, and while we’re on that subject, Eskra put your hand back. Understand?”
“I think so.”
“Good. It’s strange, though. You said something once, years ago. About sorcery and your hand. That the Talent was as much part of you as your hand, but you could always cut the hand off. It was the left hand, at that. Very strange…”
“It would appear we were worrying needlessly,” said Overlord Albanak, silkily. He stared hard at
Bayrd, taking in details, drawing conclusions, making up his own mind as he always did. “I doubt you could say the same.”
“Lord, I meant only—”
“We know what you meant. All of us.” Albanak leaned forward on his camp-seat with as much dignity as though it had been a throne. “You are a remarkable young man.” Bayrd twitched inwardly at that choice of words, wondering how much more was there than the obvious meaning. “Quite remarkable.”
“Of a sort I had thought had passed from the world,” put in Keo ar’Lerutz, which if all this was a compliment was high praise indeed. Bayrd just wished he knew for sure. All the comments were disturbingly oblique, at least to a guilty mind.
“Your display of honourable behaviour has been an example to every kailin in Alba,” said Gyras ar’Dakkur, back by now from his place at the start of the race, and Bayrd silently released a long sigh of relief. So it was a compliment after all, and not… Not the alternative. “It reflects credit on your name.”
“My lord…?”
“Talvalin, of course.” Lord Gyras smiled. “I do not make that sort of mistake.” He glanced at Albanak. “It is such credit, Lord, as deserves a reward.”
“We are all agreed on that, my lord ar’Dakkur. An honourable name deserves honour, so Talvalin shall be the name of your clan. Let it be so written. And you shall be its first clan-lord.”
Though he heard the sharp, delighted intakes of breath behind him, Bayrd didn’t turn round. He didn’t move at all – for if he did, he was certain he would fall down.
Albanak evidently thought the same, since he made the same gesture as normally acknowledged a full First Obeisance. “I will take your courtesy as given, my lord,” he said. “Now: a clan-lord needs land, and a fortress.”
Bayrd heard another gasp, but this time there was no pleasure in it. Gerin ar’Diskan’s black brows lowered, and he gave his Bannerman and Companion a suspicious scowl. “Lord…?”
Whatever he had been about to say was cut short when the Overlord stared at him. “They are not yours, my lord,” said Albanak quietly. “You did not win them.” In the sudden silence it was possible to hear birds singing in the distance, and the murmur of voices discussing the day’s remarkable events. Bayrd had eyes only for the expressions tumbling across Lord Gerin’s face, and he was glad that Isileth was back on his belt.