by Jo Walton
“You didn’t do this,” I said. He couldn’t have done it, but he could have caused it to be done. I had believed what he had said in the sight of the gods on Foreth, but I had to be sure. I put my hand on my sword ready to kill him if I had to.
“Of course not,” he said. “No. I could never—”
“Someone wanted me to find it and act in fury,” I said, as sure of it as I ever had been of anything. I took my hand off my sword and looked down at Arvlid’s body. “If I had ridden into Aylsfa and fired the fields in vengeance for Arvlid, Ayl would have fought, and that would have been the end of Urdo’s Peace.”
“You’re not going to, are you?” Ulf asked, groggily.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve never been further from hot fury in my life.” In fact I felt as cold and hard and brittle as ice. “But think. Whoever did this aimed it at me like a knife to the heart. They killed Arvlid to break the Peace, I think. Who was it? If this was meant whoever did this knew, Ulf. They knew something only you and I and six dead men know. Who have you told?”
“Nobody.” He shook his head, dazedly, looking up at me. “Nobody, not that they could know to do this. Half the men of Jarnholme know that I was lamed by a woman on a raid in Tir Tanagiri, but I didn’t know who you were. I have said nothing to anyone since the judgment.”
“Ohtar, Urdo—nobody else at all? I have never told anyone.”
“From what we said on Foreth there would not have been enough to know it was an oak tree—an ash would be the tree for the Raven Lord,” Ulf said, slowly, stumblingly. He looked up for the first time and saw the bones and bundles hanging in the branches. “What is this place?” A few drops of rain came down through the leaves and fell on his upturned face; he brushed them off irritably.
“An old place of worship for my gods, I think, though nobody has been here for a long time, twenty years maybe. Who else could have known? Think!”
He was silent a while. “Nobody,” he said. “A handful of Jarnsmen know where. They are all of them in Jarnholme or dead, I think. Ragnald Torrensson and my brother Arling know where and hate you. But they don’t know enough to have done this.” He gestured but did not look. “Could they not have meant an atrocity for whoever came?”
“Maybe, but this is beyond coincidence, this was aimed at me, or at you and me, by malice.”
“Would you have thought, if I had not been here, that I—” He could not go on. Though there was nothing inside him, the noises he made were disgusting.
“No,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I would or not. “You spoke the truth on Foreth, and I believe you.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said, gulping air. I gave him the waterskin, and he took a deep draught. “Nobody could know from me, unless they read my dreams, and such things are only in old stories.”
I thought at once of Morwen of Angas, and the thought felt right, though she was dead. Morwen the witch-queen. “Old stories?” I said. “You should never sleep near people you do not trust, especially if you have screaming dreams that wake up half the camp.” I rubbed my eyes and reached out to the Lord of Light for clarity. “Is this very like your dreams?” I asked. “It does not seem to me as like as all that.”
Ulf staggered to his feet and looked at Arvlid, breathing carefully. “We cut your dress off,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear. “But in my dreams they pull my tunic up.”
I didn’t know what to say. Ap Erbin came through the trees a few minutes later to find us standing silently, not looking at each other.
“What’s going on?” ap Erbin asked. “Elwith said—” He came forward and knelt beside Arvlid.
“Gunnarsson, go back to the others,” I said. Ulf turned and left without a word, not looking at me.
“Someone is trying to make me angry,” I said to ap Erbin.
“It sounds to me as if they’ve succeeded,” ap Erbin said, looking up at me, puzzled. “I’ve never seen you so furious.”
“I don’t think this is the sort of angry they want,” I said. “What do you think of what you’ve seen?”
“Sulien?”
“Tell me what you think,” I said, speaking through my teeth.
“A dead monk, a longship on fire for no good reason—a Jarnish raid, though a bit inland for one. Maybe some kind of ambush somewhere, which is what you thought when you rode down here. Why are you so very upset?”
I took the cloth out again and showed it to him. “This was in her hand.”
He gasped and drew back. “Ayl? But why?”
“If I said we were going to ride into Aylsfa and punish this would you come?” I asked. I raised a hand as soon as he started to speak. “Look a bit closer. What is this place? Why here? Why did they burn the ship? What did they gain by it? How likely is it that she should have torn a banner if she was struggling? A banner of all things, when Ayl only has one? This is a trap, for us and for Ayl. This was done by some enemy of the Peace, and I have to see clearly what to do next.”
Ap Erbin frowned and turned the cloth in his hands. “Who could have done it? Why?”
“Someone who hates us and wants dissension. Someone who knew we would be riding down this road today and wanted us to find these things. Who could it be?”
“Arling Gunnarsson? Atha ap Gren?” Ap Erbin’s frown deepened as he looked up at the bundles in the trees. “Cinon of Nene? Flavien ap Borthas? Someone who knew the land well.”
“The land, of course. That’s what to do about it!” I said, interrupting. “Are we in Nene here, or still in Tevin?”
“I think this is actually Segantia, just,” ap Erbin said. “We’re half a day from Thansethan. Why? What difference does it make?”
“The calm answer to something designed to make us angry is to have a judgment,” I said. “This is a murder. I am sure there’s something about murder in Urdo’s law code, or there will be when it’s finished. I want to gather them all here to see justice done to whoever did this. I am angry: I am so angry I want to tear their hearts out. They took Arvlid’s life, Arvlid who never did any harm and much good, and they killed her not for anything she was or was not, but just to trick me and break the Peace. I will gather them all here, and I will have the land say who did this.”
“Sulien, what are you talking about?” Ap Erbin stood and put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re not making sense.”
“Somebody who hates us wanted to goad me into breaking the Peace. They thought that this would do it,” I said, as calmly as I could. “It might have worked if they had done it better, if I hadn’t seen through it. I need to find out who it was to stop them trying again and doing better next time. I need justice done in the open.”
“It could have been raiders. She was always riding out from Thansethan, Elwith said.”
“This cloth was prepared in advance,” I said, but even as I spoke I remembered Darien’s letters, saying he rode out with her. If this was an attack aimed at me, where was he? “Stay here,” I said. “Camp by the river. Keep a guard on this clearing. Send scouts out as far as you can and bring in anyone you find, both directions on the river. I am going to Thansethan, and then to Caer Tanaga. I will come back with Urdo, I should be back in five or six days, or I will send word.”
“I don’t understand,” ap Erbin said, sounding dazed. “You said they wouldn’t let you in at Thansethan? Why are you going? Calm down a moment.”
I took a deep deliberate breath, and then another. I reached out to the Lord of Light and felt calm coming closer to me.
“I need to get Urdo and everyone here,” I said. “I need to find out if anyone else has been hurt. My son is at Thansethan, and he sometimes rode out with Arvlid.”
Ap Erbin stared at me a moment. “Send messengers,” he said. “Send scouts all round in groups. You can’t do any more than they could. We should set up camp here, by the river. A proper camp with a ditch and rampart. Those raiders or whoever they are have gone somewhere, and not up in smoke.”
He was right, and I k
new it. I wanted my enemies drawn up in a shield wall before my lowered lance, everything is so easy then. It was the gods’ help that gave me the clarity I had, not to go tearing off in my rage and break the Peace myself.
“I’ll write the messages. You send out the scouting groups and get the camp started.”
“What about—” He gestured to Arvlid’s body. “Should we send her back to Thansethan or bury her here?”
“What would be usual in her faith?” I asked. “I only know what they do for people killed in battle. Would it be different for a monk? We’re not far from Thansethan: let’s just cover her for now and ask them what they want done. And we must keep the armigers away from here: this is a terrible place. Post two guards here, but don’t let everyone come and trample about. Let’s all get back to the river, and get people out as soon as we can.”
35
Come little warrior, kick your toes.
Come little shieldman, touch your nose.
Come little warrior, make a fist
Come little shieldman, snatch my wrist.
Come little warrior, duck your head,
Fast, little shieldman, fast or dead.
—Jarnish nursery rhyme game
The first report came from the half pennon sent across the river into Aylsfa. They found signs that a group of people, nine or ten, had left the water a little way past the bend downstream and headed off inland. They tracked them for a mile or two cross-country towards a hamlet, but the tracks vanished into a coppice. They thought from the prints there might have been a boy with them, someone with smaller feet. The scout looked wretched and could not meet my eyes when she told me. I sent another group with some of the best scouts out that way, but nobody could pick up any trail after they went into the trees.
I paced in the rain all afternoon and everyone kept clear of me except more scouts bringing inconclusive reports. Everyone was occupied, either scouting or setting up camp under ap Erbin’s direction. After a while, when most people were eating, Elidir came up and waited for me to notice her. She had brought some smoked ham and pan bread. I ate it standing up, choking down each mouthful as if it had been an acorn cake.
A party from Thansethan arrived at the camp just before dusk. It was a much larger group than I had been expecting. Ap Selevan’s whole pennon was there, with a whole cluster of brown-robed monks riding in the middle. Father Gerthmol was among them, with Raul and nine or ten others.
Ap Selevan came up to me as soon as he had dismounted. “The Queen insisted we all come, Praefecto,” he said. “She said she was safe behind strong walls in Thansethan, and you might have need of us.”
“May the Lady of Wisdom bless her for her good sense!” I said, really meaning it. Elenn had done me a great favor here, in sending them and in not coming herself. Another pennon increased my choices greatly—a half ala made a good-sized fighting force against anything we were reasonably likely to encounter. Ap Selevan stood there, stolid as ever, dripping from his riding cape, waiting for instructions. “Set up camp as always: ap Erbin will tell you where,” I said. “Oh, and ask Father Gerthmol if he can spare me a moment tonight.”
Even ap Selevan knew enough about my relationship with Thansethan to raise his eyebrows at this. “Yes, Praefecto,” he said.
“Ask him as politely as you can,” I said, and he jerked his chin up and went off.
I would rather have made a forced march across a marsh in midge mating season carrying my own weight in turnips than talk to Father Gerthmol just then, but I had to know about Darien. I paced a little while longer, waiting for him.
He came up to me with a companion, another brown-robed priest. I remembered him from Thansethan, he was Father Geneth. He had told me the grindingly dull story of his conversion four times, sure that it must move me eventually. They both bowed, and I bowed in return. Father Geneth began by asking about Arvlid. We spoke about her for a little while, making arrangements for a funeral the next sunset. He did not take his hand off his pebble the whole time. Father Gerthmol neither spoke nor looked at me but acted as if he were standing alone in a field. I waited for them to mention Darien. I had asked about his safety in the message I had sent to Thansethan. At last, when it seemed they would leave at any moment, I was forced to ask again.
They looked at each other. Father Gerthmol looked back into the distance beyond my shoulder. Father Geneth met my eyes for a moment, then looked down at the hem of his robe and his sandalled feet below it. “Young Suliensson rode out with Sister Arvlid yesterday as usual,” he said.
I don’t remember what they said next or how they left me. I paced some more until eventually ap Erbin dragged me off to my tent and made me swallow a cup of some vile Demedian drink he had. From the taste it must have been made of mashed turnips and linen-seed oil, but it burned hot all the way down and he meant well by it. I must have slept that night because I remember waking up in the dawn with a raging thirst.
It rained all the next day. I paced again, almost wearing a rut through the mud of the camp. I kept expecting every report to be that Darien’s body had been found. Instead the reports were curiously empty. It seemed there was nobody and nothing moving as far as they could reach. A red-cloak came in from Caer Rangor in the late afternoon saying that Luth and Cinon had gone out hunting, separately, and had not returned, but the message would wait their return. I hadn’t been on a hunt that lasted more than a day since Angas went back to Demedia. I cursed them for being off indulging themselves when I needed them. The news of Luth would have been a worse blow if I had been without ap Selevan’s pennon. I blessed Elenn again in my heart.
At sunset they buried Arvlid in the grove where she had died. There was a stir when I arrived with the others. There were so many of us there who had been her friends that there was no room in the grove, and we had to stand back among the trees. I think Father Gerthmol would have sent me away, but Raul said something to him and they let me stay. If he was expecting a spectacular conversion, he was disappointed.
It was a calm and quiet service. Father Gerthmol spoke about her—how as a young girl she had warned Thansethan about Goldpate’s attack and how she had lived there so long and served the White God. Now, he said, she had been taken to Him and would serve Him in eternal and everlasting worship. Then we sang and everyone piled earth on the mound afterwards, just as if she had fallen in battle. They cut down the grove later, all but the one oak, and built a church and a monastery. Ap Erbin built his house near there, and I hear that now a little town has grown up around it in the river bend, a real town with a school and a marketplace and a stable for the red-cloaks to change horses. Everyone calls the place Thanarvlid. It is not such a bad way to be remembered. I think if she had known that in dying she was making a town and a center for the Jarnsmen who lived in those parts, she would have been glad of it. It is true that she loved the White God and served him all her life, but she also loved her people and tried to do her best for them. That is why she used to ride out among them after all. It wasn’t only prayers she took them but medicine and other help. If they were all like Arvlid, I would like the monks much better.
After the service I tried to speak to Raul, but Father Gerthmol would have none of it and almost snatched him away. After that I paced again until ap Erbin asked me if it was helping, and I snapped at him. Then I went and groomed my horses. They didn’t need grooming, the groom had taken good care of them. It did calm me enough to sleep.
The next day was the same. I still didn’t want to eat or talk to anyone at all. The same thoughts kept going round and round in my head. Every time I saw a party coming back I felt certain the next report would be that Darien’s body had been found. Arvlid had been there when he was born; had he been there when she died? Had all that pain and trouble been for nothing, for him to die so young? I had hardly known him. Then I felt angry with myself for being so selfish as to think of my pain and trouble when it was his life that he would have to start all over again after such a short time. Then I would sta
rt thinking about revenging myself on whoever had set this up, but being very sure who it was first. This led me into the other maze of trying to puzzle out who had done this and why.
The only new news to reach us that third day was a message from Penarwen that Ayl was away from Fenshal, hunting. No more news came from Cinon and Luth at Caer Rangor, which suggested that they had not returned.
That evening, as I was sitting on a log grooming my horses and thinking in futile circles, I felt Glimmer move sideways uneasily and I realized someone had come up and was standing a little way behind. I drew my hand across my eyes to block the fire’s glare and turned around.
It was Ulf, looming over me in the half-light. I was surprised. I had been expecting ap Erbin or Elidir fussing over me again. Most of the others had been avoiding me.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Praefecto,” he said. I stood up; I didn’t want him to have any advantage over me.
“What?” I asked, ungraciously.
He took a deep breath. “Whose child is it they are saying is lost?”
“Mine,” I said, shortly.
“I knew that,” he said. “I have heard ‘Suliensson this’ and ‘Suliensson that’ ever since ap Selevan got in. How old is this son of yours?”
I felt a sudden surge of anger. “I don’t know what right you think you have to ask me that sort of question?” Glimmer caught my mood and threw up his head and huffed loudly in challenge. The other horses shifted uneasily.
“No right at all,” Ulf said, bleakly, as if that were answer enough. It was too dim to make out his features, but I saw him shudder. “But however much Ohtar called me a fool, I think I was right—you are suited to Gangrader and he likes you. I wish he would be content with you and leave me alone.”
“Your choice of gods is your own affair, Ulf Gunnarsson,” I said. “I don’t see why you need to disturb me with it now.”
“Because this boy who is lost is your son, you who have never been married, and because you think that the gods are on the side of peace. Gangrader is not like that, he is a god of war-strife and death in battle and vicious jokes.”