The King's Peace

by Jo Walton

  “He will have no priest near him.” Marchel sighed.

  “He can’t be from Guthrum then. Guthrum is as devout a follower of the White God as even Father Gerthmol would wish.”

  “He is,” said Marchel, very shortly. I sighed. We were never going to agree about matters of the gods, for as a follower of the White God she was never content to allow others to go about their worship in their own way.

  “He ought to talk to you anyway. It’s discourtesy not to.”

  “Oh and I know as much, but if he fears treachery from the Jarns and thinks I am one, then who knows? His brains may be completely addled, but he is dressed like a Jarnish noble and claims to be a herald. If we can’t find out what he wants it’s very difficult to know what to do with him.”

  We came up into the citadel and waved at the guard, who passed us in after a very perfunctory ritual challenge. Ap Rhun came out and called after us, asking me how many pennons I had brought and needed feeding. “Four,” I called, as Marchel rushed me along. “The decurios will see you about them.” Ap Rhun had shadows under her eyes and looked unhappy.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  “Too much work, as usual. And I expect she wants to kill the queen for being prettier than she is.” Marchel laughed.

  “Ap Rhun’s a good key-keeper, not just Urdo’s leman,” I protested.

  “She’ll be looking after another of his fortresses soon if he has any tact,” said Marchel. “The Queen’s running her ragged trying to find everything out. Come on, he’s in here.”

  They had put them in one of the smaller halls, but it looked huge and unfriendly and full of shadows. It was lit by a few wax candles around the walls. He was sitting on one of the carved chairs, and indeed, he looked just like a Jarnish nobleman, golden hair and beard and barbarian clothes in good dyed wool and leathers. He was about forty years old and looked well used to fighting. I had never seen him before, which made it very unlikely he was one of Ayl’s people. We had been fighting them fairly regularly for years, and most of their great men were familiar to me. He might be from Sweyn. He straightened in his chair as Marchel walked in. He looked anxious and uncomfortable.

  Marchel advanced into the room. “I bring to you the Praefecto of Urdo’s Own Ala,” she began. The Jarn rose, looking relieved. I followed her in and bowed to the Jarn. He bowed to me, but the look on his face changed from relief to dismay. He muttered a word under his breath in his own language.

  “I thought the Praefecto of Urdo’s Own Ala was Osvran ap Usteg?” he said, in even and polite tones, but looking at me suspiciously.

  “He was, but he was most regrettably killed at Caer Lind, and I now have that responsibility. I hope you have been made welcome in Caer Tanaga?” I asked.

  “He has spoken to me but not broken bread with me,” said a very low sweet voice in the doorway. She spoke in Tanagan although we had been speaking Vincan, as I always did with Marchel. I turned and saw a woman who could only be Elenn ap Allel, Queen of Tir Tanagiri. She was even more beautiful than Angas had said, as beautiful for a woman as Starlight was for a mare. I had never seen anyone like her. She wore a very simple overdress in slate blue. She had a heart-shaped face and deep dark eyes. Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing, and bound around it was a silver circlet set with pearls. It must have been an heirloom of her house, but it suited her as it would suit almost nobody else. In stories flowers grow up in the footsteps of exceptionally beautiful women, and I almost looked to see if this was the case with Elenn. She was holding a taper in one hand. I bowed to her as she came forward and began to light more tapers around the walls.

  “I mean no harm to any here,” said the Jarn, slightly plaintively. “But I want to speak to the King, or someone who has his trust.”

  “I am the Praefecto of Urdo’s Ala,” I said. “Will you tell me what brings you here to us?”

  He bit his lip. “I know you lead the charge for the High King. But women do not conclude alliances.”

  Marchel drew an angry breath and choked it back. I did not know whether to burst out laughing or yell abuse at him. Alliances? I choked back both and whispered to Marchel, “Is ap Cathvan here yet?” Elenn spoke before she could reply.

  “I am myself a girl, and newly come here,” she said. She had her head tipped slightly to one side. She looked very imperious. She reminded me in a way of the dowager Rowanna. “But these two women are high in my husband’s confidence and captains of his troops. If you cannot speak to them, then you cannot speak to anyone until the king my husband returns, which might be soon, or it might not. We have been exchanging politenesses since noon, and I am tired of it. I have heard that in Jarnholme they keep women veiled and locked up with the cooking pots, but it is not so here. You have come into our country now. Shall I fetch in some stableboy or scullion for you to explain yourself to what is inside his breeches? Or will you fast until my husband returns? Or perhaps you could bring yourself to speak to those the High King has found worthy of his trust?” She folded her arms and waited.

  He stood there staring down at her for a moment, his mouth open and a most comical expression on his face. Then he turned and bowed to me and to Marchel.

  “My name is Alfwin, son of Cella, son of Edgar Houndsbane, son of Alfwin, son of Otha, son of Tew,” he said. “I have come to offer the High King Urdo my sword. The traitor Sweyn has killed my father, who was king in Tevin. I can offer him fifty armsmen of my house besides myself. I ask only that he uphold my claim.”

  Marchel and I exchanged glances. Her eyebrows were almost up to her hair.

  “Greetings to you, Alfwin Cellasson, and welcome to Caer Tanaga. I am Sulien ap Gwien ap Nuden ap Iarn ap Idris ap Cadwalen.” I stopped after six names because he had done so, and that seemed polite. “I am Praefecto of the King’s Own Ala under Urdo ap Avren ap Emrys, High King of Tir Tanagiri, Protector of Caer Tanaga, War-leader of the Tanagans.” I gave all Urdo’s titles not just because it was a formal occasion but because I was trying to find time to think how to say what must be said. “Only the High King himself can fully accept this offer. I do not know if he is free to accept your claim by the terms of the truce he has made with Sweyn. I can promise, though, that he will not harm you or allow harm to come to you under his roof, or by his will, and that we can offer you and your armsmen and companions rest and comfort under his roof until he returns.”

  Alfwin bowed again, to my relief. Elenn gestured to a servant, who brought forward food and drink. We all sat around the low table. The servant brought plates and cups, a plate of bread, another of cold meat, and a pitcher of ale.

  Elenn waited until Alfwin had taken his first bite, then gave instructions to the servant that food was to be taken to his companions. The servant left, closing the door.

  “We are saddened to learn Sweyn has killed King Cella,” said Marchel. If she had known more than the bare name of King Cella an hour before, it was more than I had. “Can you tell us how this came to happen? We had no news of a falling-out among your people.”

  Alfwin grimaced. From the way he was eating the bread and cold meat it seemed he had been hungry. “That doesn’t surprise me, Thurrigsdottar,” he said. “For there has been no such falling-out.” He took another great mouthful and chewed loudly. “When we have eaten I will tell you,” he said, speaking around the food. His table manners certainly owed little to Vincan propriety. My mother would have had severe words for him. I tried not to look at his mouth.

  Elenn poured the warm ale, pouring for Alfwin first, then for Marchel and then for me. She had taken only bread and was clearly eating only out of courtesy. Marchel was eating bread and meat slowly and looking very intently at Alfwin. She hardly said a word. I ate quietly. I like cold lamb, the lean meat and the fat together. It was good bread, too. I was hungry. Elenn inquired about my journey, and I asked about hers from Tir Isarnagiri. It had been of no more interest than mine. She then set herself to charming Alfwin, at which she had much success. When we had quite
finished she turned to him seriously.

  “Will you please tell us about your father’s murder?” she asked. “And could you tell me also who Sweyn is, for as you know I am newly come to Tir Tanagiri and these names and places confuse me.” She smiled very sweetly into his eyes and leaned slightly towards him. I wondered at the time if she had taken a great liking to him, but I learned afterwards that this was her manner with all men of rank, and she meant nothing by it.

  “Sweyn,” said Alfwin, and then he swallowed hard, caught his breath and choked. I banged him on the back. He picked up his cup carefully as if it were something strange to him. Then he took a drink and began again, using the formal storytelling style of his people though speaking still in the Tanagan tongue. I had heard their skalds telling tales in this manner before, and he did it quite as well as any of them, giving our words an air of his own language and now and then using a word of it where no word of ours would do.

  “Sweyn was the rightful king of Jarnholme. Now Jarnholme is sinking, every year the waters are rising. This has been so for three generations. Every year there is less land to farm, and less food for our people to eat. So many of us have left, when the seas came calling, and considered what we found in the south or across the Narrow Seas ours to keep, and none of Sweyn’s to yield lordship to any of our kin we left behind us.” He took a long drink and set down his cup. “Some of my people set off to the south into the rich Vincan lands there, and some went east inland. There they found the ravaging marauders, the brotherhood of the Skath, who have recently fallen on the Malms in Vinca and destroyed them.”

  “I have heard very bad things of the Skath,” said Marchel. It was the first thing she had said since we started to eat, and Alfwin turned to her in courtesy.

  “They are a dangerous people. The Jarns who went east had no profit in it and returned to their sinking homes, and those who went south in my grandfather’s time and made themselves kingdoms are sorry for it now as the Skath attack them. I have heard that they pray to a god of rats, and also that when their leader married a Vincan princess he stole the luck of Vinca. The Vincans keep trying to steal it back again, but they are not having any success.” He turned back to Elenn.

  “In any case, my father Cella, my two brothers Harald and Edfrith and I came with all our people over the seas to Tevin twenty years ago. As the waters were drawing nearer Lord Tew came to Hild, my mother, in a dream. He gave her the news that we must leave by sea and take up the land he should give us. The wind he sent brought us to the shores of what was then called Valentia. We won the land fairly, taking even the city after five years of war. The night before the battle in which we took Caer Lind, Lord Gangrader came to my mother while she slept. He said to her that if we spared the Lord as he fled with his child set before him on his piebald horse, then the land would be entirely ours with all the Vincans driven out.”

  I started, spilling my ale and causing them all to look at me for a moment. I had not known Duncan was the Lord of Caer Lind, though who else would have had a greathorse? I wondered if my father knew. Marchel drew nearer to Elenn, away from both me and Alfwin. I had read the monk’s book in Thansethan. I knew Gangrader was the Lord of the Slain, Old One-Eye. I wondered what he had wanted with Duncan and Rudwen.

  “Do go on,” I said, into the silence. Alfwin touched an amulet at his throat, and continued.

  “Lord Gangrader said if we did this one thing then we would be prosper in the land and a king with the royal blood of Jarnholme would become High King of Tir Tanagiri. And this has come to pass, for Urdo has that blood through his mother Rowanna, though when we Jarns speak of kings we usually consider blood to pass from the father. The rest of what Lord Gangrader said came about immediately. The lord did flee on a piebald horse, with a child set before him, and we did not pursue. Once they had gone the land was ours, and we prospered in it. We named the land Tevin, for Lord Tew who had given it to us. Very many of our kin came there from Jarnholme, as the waters rose, and they built hamlets and farmed. Even though the water is rising in Tevin, too, there is much of it raised higher and inland. We lived there for the most part in peace among ourselves and with plenty of room for those of our kin who came from Jarnholme in later times. It is such land as we greatly love, with rivers and marshes for fowling and fishing as well as land for farming. We fought now and then with Ayl, and with Cinon of Caer Rangor, and most often with Borthas, but there we prevailed, for even if he won in the field, he could not stop us taking the land and farming it, and thus more of Tinala became Tevin as time went on.” Alfwin took a deep breath.

  “When Ohtar Bearsson and his men took Bereich, to the north of Tinala, at first they warred with us by sea, for they had an alliance with Borthas. His sister was married to their king Ohtar’s son. At that time my mother Hild Haraldsdottar, called Hild the Red for her red hair, and my younger brother Edfrith Cellasson died of a camp fever. A little while after, Borthas killed his son-in-law by treachery and tried to take Bereich in his nephew’s name. Then Ohtar made a truce with us, and I married a daughter of Ohtar and we warred upon Borthas. This was nine years ago, and it is the reason I am alive now.” He smiled very grimly, looking at Elenn, who looked back with perfect composure.

  “Sweyn Rognvaldsson, as king in Jarnholme, heir to his uncle Gunnar Arlingsson, believes he is king of all the Jarnsmen, wherever they may be in the world. He made an alliance with the witch-queen of Angas and wrote to all the Jarnish kings in Tir Tanagiri, calling them his underkings. Guthrum of Cennet returned him a rough answer. Ohtar and Ayl made an alliance with him. When he heard this my father said that we needs must do the same. I urged him rather to make alliance with Urdo ap Avren, who has the name of an honorable and powerful man. My father would not give up our gods, who have been good to us. We missed my mother’s wise advice, for the gods do not speak to my wife or to my brother Harald’s wife. My brother’s daughter had confusing dreams and woke many times in the night calling out Sweyn’s name but could say nothing clearly. So we also made alliance with Sweyn, and he gathered up the might of Jarnholme in ships and crossed the Narrow Seas and landed in Tevin. When his foot touched the shore of Tir Tanagiri he made the great blood sacrifice to the gods. He himself took the knife to his daughter, a girl of eight summers. As her blood soaked the soil he said that the land would be his and that the island would be known hereafter as Jarnland.” I gasped, Marchel made a noise in her throat and sat wide-eyed, her hand clasping the pebble around her neck. Elenn sat still, silent, unmoving, calmly beautiful, her hands folded in her lap. I suppose as an Isarnagan she did not feel it the same way.

  “He then commanded our farmers to abandon their dwellings, at the word of the witch-queen, and we fought and fled and fought again with Urdo’s troops in Tevin and in Tinala. I think you know of this already, how there were was much fighting around and within our city of Linder, that you call Caer Lind. I was with my father-in-law Ohtar, fighting in Tinala, for my wife was with child and wished to be with her mother. Ohtar favored me and gave me a command. I fought against you on the field there, I think before Yavroc?” He said this last to me, and I raised my chin in agreement.

  “I did not see you, but I was there. Your side fought well.” It was true, as well as being a politeness; they had stood well.

  “Sweyn thinks you are a walkurja, one of Gangrader’s chosen. He fears you, daughter of Gwien.” He laughed a little uneasily, and I grinned at him. I had not realized I had gained this reputation among the Jarns, but it did not displease me to have my enemy fear me. It would make their stand against the charge that much less stalwart.

  “Well, Ohtar and I fought a little with your troops after that, until winter closed down on us all, and Sweyn made a truce with Urdo until spring. My new son was a month old. I left my wife and children with her parents and went to Caer Lind for a few days, meaning to speak to my father and my brothers. As I traveled through Tevin a man of my brother’s household approached me, and told me that Sweyn had treacherously slain my f
ather, Cella Edgarsson, and my brother Harald Cellasson, for arguing with his right to make disposition of lands in Tevin, calling this treason, but without holding any trial before the people such as the meanest peasant might deserve. He had done this almost as soon as he was secure on shore, before any of the battles and not long after I had left for Ohtar’s camp. No doubt if I had stayed he would have slain me, too, for I would not see the land of Tevin given wantonly away any more than my father would. That land is ours. None of my father’s thanes dared raise a voice, for Sweyn had so many huscarls at hand. As soon as my niece, Harald’s daughter, learned of this she did not waste time making appeals for justice to Sweyn or his wife, she gathered up all the people of my brother and my father’s households who she knew were loyal and fled, seeking me.” He took another deep draught of his drink. I drank, too.

  “Worst of all, I had seen Sweyn in that time, when he came to Ohtar’s camp, and he talked to me and called me Cellasson, and he even drank ale and ate with me and with Ohtar and with our household there, but he said no word to me that my father was dead by his hand. I owe my life to the fact that Sweyn needs my father-in-law. Yet, when I went back to Ohtar with my brother’s people Ohtar was in fear of Sweyn, and he said that my father must have been a traitor if Sweyn said so. He even spoke against my father, saying he was no great lord in Jarnholme and not even his father’s eldest son. This is truth, but so much the better for him that he had won great lands in Tevin by his own might and main. Ohtar would not listen to me. He said he knew I was no traitor, and he would always give me a place at his court for my wife’s sake and the sake of our children. Yet in my heart I could not stay with him unless he would help me take vengeance. I left him in peace, and my wife and children are with him still. She was not well enough for a long journey.” He coughed, and took another drink.