by Jo Walton
The Narlahenan, seeing me buying so many and the gold in my purse, brought out more glassware, some of it very beautiful. I wasn’t tempted by any of the glass jewels, but when he brought out a green-glass beaker, almost clear and hardly a finger’s width thick, with a gold rim around the edge I hesitated. It occurred to me that when Elenn’s baby was born I would need a gift for it, and this was a gift good enough for a future king. The Jarns say it is bad luck to buy a childgift before the child is born. The man was just handing the beaker and the beads to me when someone started to address me in a language I did not know.
I looked up to excuse myself, straightened, and was amazed to have to keep looking up to see a tall woman who looked a great deal like my father. My father had never had a sister, but if he had, this could have been her face—the shape of her cheekbones and her nose and chin were just like Gwien’s. Apart from that she looked like the wildest sort of barbarian. Her hair was limed so that it was white and stood straight up in spikes all around her face, and she was wearing sealskin leather clothes. She had wide shoulders, and her bare arms had patterns drawn on them, a snake curled around on one and a stylized horse on the other. The children gasped, and the little boy clung to my leg.
She repeated her question, whatever it was, now grinning broadly. I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said.
She said something else incomprehensible, waving her painted arms, then repeated it very slowly and I realized that now she was speaking very bad Vincan. “You are cousin to me?” she asked.
The glass-seller was waiting for my coin, which I gave him, and I took the things carefully and put them in my pouch. Then he said cheerfully and rapidly, “I’d watch out for her if I were you, lady. She’s come from the Ice Mountains, took passage with us from Olisipo. She’s got six huge horses and a big ax and she paid for her passage with a pair of carved walrus tusks the size of my legs, and she broke a sailor’s arm for trying to get familiar.”
“Thank you,” I said, and turned away. I turned to the woman, who was waiting patiently. “If I am your cousin, I don’t know it,” I said, slowly. “Who are you?”
“Rigg, daughter of Farr, daughter of Beven, daughter of Neef,” she said, striking herself in the chest. “Neef’s other daughter was Larr, Larr came to this island with the horses. Beven was lord and could not come, said come later bring horses. She did not come. Farr did not come. But I have come.”
I blinked at her. Laris the giant, I remembered. Rigg wasn’t a giant, though she was a handspan or so taller than I was. I wished my father was alive to meet her. “You’re the granddaughter of my grandmother’s sister, and you’ve come to join the family?” I wanted to giggle at the sudden thought of my mother’s face. The children were tugging at me and asking what I was saying. “She says she’s my cousin,” I said to them. They gaped at her.
“Not join your family,” Rigg said, and smiled. “I not know your family was, not know my mother’s mother’s sister Larr had family here. She was young fighter when she left, no children yet. I come to keep promise my mother’s mother Beren made to Emeris.”
“I’m Sulien,” I said, belatedly realizing that I hadn’t given my name and to cover my astonishment. But then meeting family I’d never heard of was a very strange thing for me. “My father was Gwien, and his mother was Larr.”
“She is dead?”
“Yes, she died in the civil wars. My father is dead, too, in a plague.”
“Very sad,” Rigg said, and bent her head. “Did he have sisters?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “No, he was an only child. But I have a brother and a sister. She has descendants.”
“Descendants? Word mean son’s children? Children of son are better than nothing, but daughters of daughter are true kin.”
“Descendants just means children of children, or further,” I said. “We count through fathers here, mostly.”
“But how is anyone to be sure of a father?” Rigg grinned. “But still you are cousin to me, your face says so. And the children, they are yours?”
“No,” I said. “They are the children of my friend, they are mine only for this afternoon. They only speak Tanagan.”
She laughed, and made faces at them. They clutched their beads and smiled a little shyly. “And Emeris? He is dead, too, I hear?”
“Yes,” I said. It was very strange; she had come out of nowhere and wanted to know about ancient heroes. It gave the whole encounter a dreamlike quality. It was only forty-five years or so since Emrys had died, and indeed Thurrig had known him well, but it seemed to me like a time of legend. “And his son Avren is dead and his son Urdo is High King now.”
“I heard that.” She smiled. “I did not know Emeris made himself lord here until I came to Narlahenia.”
This seemed even stranger. “There is a song about his voyage to the land at the back of the North Wind,” I said, carefully. “But not much else is known about it.”
“Is called Rhionn, Rigatona in Vincan language,” she said. “You not hear about Rigatona, Horse Mother Land, from your father’s mother Larr?” she asked.
“She died before I was born,” I said. “She died in a battle when Emrys was making himself High King. My father was only a boy. I have her armor.
“Very sad,” Rigg said again. “I will keep promise to Urdo. Daughter’s daughter of Beren and son’s son of Emeris, maybe that is how Horse Mother meant.”
“I’m intrigued,” I said, and met a blank look. “I’m very curious, interested, in what this promise is. If you can tell me, I’d love to know. In any case I can help you find Urdo.” Though in truth I had no idea where he was, probably at the fair somewhere. I could help her find him in the evening, though, which would be much simpler for her than braving his clerks and asking to see him. The children were very restless now. I started to walk on slowly through the crowds, drawing Rigg and the children with me back in the direction of the farmers where I hoped to find Glyn at least.
“Oh, I can tell,” she said, as we walked. “It is not secret promise. Emrys won five games but Beren could only prize four.”
“You’ve won five games on the shining strand, won them with your song” I remembered from the ballad. “They say he won a thousand horses with a song. Some people say they rode home over the foam, past the two fiery mountains and on past Tir Isarnagiri until they got here.”
“Not riding on waves,” Rigg said, and laughed. “He had boat. And not a thousand. No lord could give a thousand horses for her mother’s funeral songs. Generous beyond the gods! Fifty-two horses he won, four for each moon. His songs were very good, and all new, and we sing them still. But only forty-eight he took, for there were no horses of summer moon. Never until now were there four such to bring. You want see them?”
“Where are they?” I asked. “You want to go and see some new greathorses from the giant’s land?” I asked the children. They did; they both loved horses. We went down towards the quay, past the money changers’ tables. I smiled at the bored armigers on duty there. The changers had their scales and piles of gold and silver and copper as always and seemed to be doing fine business. Raul was there, talking to an old man with an amazingly long beard. He didn’t even glance up at us as we passed.
Rigg led us down to the water’s edge. The river was all but overrun with ships that year. There were Jarnsmen from the continent, local riverboats, Narlahenans, even some big vessels from far away with rowdy crews and big awkward sails. Rowing boats and barges were to and fro to them all the time unloading cargo, swarming on the usually peaceful river like frogs in mating season. Rigg’s six horses were tethered quietly on the grass in front of a sealskin tent on a standard patch. Two of them were bays, but the other four were pale gold, all with white manes and tails and white blazes on their noses. They were the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen, the color of summer wheat fields. A pale-skinned boy was watching them, sitting on a huge bundle of sealskins.
“They’re beautiful,” I said to Rigg
.
She smiled bashfully. “Four horses of summer moon.”
I translated this for the children. “They’re called summerhorses,” and added to Rigg, “I’ve never seen horses that color!”
“Emeris did not bring any. Four of all moons, two pairs, but no horses of summer moon because there were not four to give.” The children were clamoring to have a ride on the summerhorses, and I had to frown at them to stop them. “We find Urdo now?” Rigg suggested after I’d made friends with the horses. They were three-year-olds, two pairs as she had said. They were a magnificent gift, or late prize or whatever. I was sure Urdo would be delighted.
“Whose are the others?” I asked, indicating the bays.
“Mine,” Rigg said. “In truth, I wanted adventure. I am not Beren’s heir. Rigatona seemed small to me. I wanted to see outside. Traders from Firemountain came, horses were there, I asked to go.”
“Beren is still alive then?” It seemed strange to think I had a great-aunt on some distant island just one step away from legend.
“Oh yes.” Rigg looked down at me. “She is old, but nothing happened to kill her yet. She has four daughters, all live. I have two sisters and a brother, all older, all taller. Not many wars in Rigatona. The traders said wars came to Tir Tanagiri. I brought my horses to fight wars.”
“You want to fight for Urdo? Join the ala?”
“What is ala? A wing?”
“A wing, an army of fighters on horses,” I said, and smiled. “We all fight together, very many horses. I am Praefecto of Urdo’s Ala.” It was good to be able to say something that impressed her for a change.
She said something fast in her own language, and made swooping rushing motions with her arms. “I need words. You mean horses all running together, with spears? We do not have at home, but I saw in Narlahenia?”
“Yes,” I said. “In Narlahenia? An ala? With greathorses?”
“Small horses,” Rigg said, dismissively. I thought immediately of Marchel and wondered what she was doing. The ala was Urdo’s idea. “But all running together, and spears moving together, very beautiful. Yes, I want to join ala,” Rigg said, after a moment of chewing her lip.
“You’ll have to ask Urdo, and vow to serve him, but I’d be delighted to have you,” I said. Just then ap Glyn reached up cautiously and touched the painted horse on Rigg’s arm. Rigg laughed, and crouched down, showing her arm and rippling the muscles to make the horse run. Both children thought it was wonderful.
“Did you paint that?” the little boy asked, and I translated.
“Not paint,” she said. “Made with needles and dye, like a carving.” She jabbed at her arm with her finger to demonstrate. I shuddered, and translated, then the children shuddered, too.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go and find Urdo.”
39
Then Tiya the Skath dragged Princess Gall up above the city and told her to look, and she looked, and saw that he had caused his men to destroy the aqueduct that brought water for drinking and washing. The ruins lay broken on the hillside.
Gall looked at the ruin, and said “I thought at first you wanted to get revenge for your mother, and then I thought you wanted to take over the rule of the Empire. But now I see that you will not be content until you have destroyed us all, and all that we have built, until our very names are forgotten.”
Tiya smiled, and stroked his moustache, and said, “Imprisonment among us is teaching you something. We have stolen your luck. Your towns and farms do not please the Great Rat, and if we took them so that they were our towns and farms that would not please him either, but if it is all laid waste and you wept among the destruction, that would please him greatly.”
-“The Fall of Vinca,” The Red Book
Only a few minutes after we reached the fair Masarn called out to me that Urdo was looking for me. Four more armigers and Senach Red-Eye had given me the same information before I returned the children safely to Glyn, who knew not only that Urdo wanted me but where he was.
“He’s showing the ambassadors the waterwheel,” he said. “Yes, a beautiful horse—Sulien, you spoil these children.”
“I didn’t buy a spade for their grandfather,” I said, and laughed. “Let me introduce my cousin from Rigatona. Rigg, this is Glyn, the logistical wizard for our ala.”
Glyn bowed to Rigg. “I would have known the resemblance anywhere,” he said.
“So I would to your children,” Rigg said.
I left the children to explain about the marvelous iron spade and went down towards the waterwheel. We walked through the crowd. Somehow everything seemed less exotic with the Rigatonan woman at my side. She exclaimed over ordinary things like turnips and seemed to take no notice of strange spices except to wrinkle her nose a little. We walked along, weaving in and out of people selling hot chestnuts, cider, dripping honeycombs, ribbons, felt blankets, and hunting dogs. I only just managed to prevent Rigg from stopping to buy a great Isarnagan hound like Elenn’s.
Urdo and Elenn were standing near the waterwheel talking with Morthu and two foreigners. I wished Morthu would fall in and drown. We made our way towards them. Urdo looked very serious, and Elenn looked gracious and beautiful but slightly tired. Knowing her, that probably meant she was exhausted. Urdo’s eyes widened when he saw Rigg. Rigg drew back a little and needed to be reassured about the wheel’s clatter. Then she put her chin up and advanced confidently.
When she reached Urdo she bowed. “Urdo, Lord of the Tanagans, I bring greetings and four horses of summer moon from Beren, Lord of Rigatona, in accordance with the prize Emeris won. I am Rigg, daughter’s daughter of Beren.”
Urdo looked astonished. I don’t think he knew any more about Rigatona and Emrys’s voyage there than I did.
“Many welcomes to you who come in peace to Tir Tanagiri,” Elenn said. I was surprised to hear her speak Vincan. She had learned it late and found it difficult and avoided using it as much as she could. “You must feast with us tonight, and I will welcome you properly.”
“Welcome indeed,” Urdo said. “Truly today we have been honored by visitors from far countries.”
Rigg smiled. “Strangers and family, too,” she said. “Now I learn my mother’s mother’s sister has,” she hesitated and used the word carefully “descendants in this land, and this leader of ala is one of them.”
“I wish my father were alive to know he had cousins among his mother’s kin,” I said, into the bewildered silence. For once, not even Morthu could think of anything to say.
Urdo looked more amazed than ever. One of the strangers, a woman with pale skin and dark hair, was smiling. The other, a man who would have looked ordinary enough except for the fact that he was wearing an embroidered drape out of doors in the afternoon, looked bored and turned his attention back to the waterwheel. Morthu smiled as if everything about the situation charmed him.
“Praefecto Ap Gwien, I wanted you to meet Ambassador ap Theophilus, who has come to us from the court of the Emperor Sabbatian at Caer Custenn.”
The man turned back to us, now clearly annoyed. He bowed to me, and I bowed back. “We say Sabbatian, the Emperor of the Vincans,” he said, correcting Urdo, “not the Emperor at Caer Custenn. There is no other. Even here at the end of the world I know he would want to be given his proper title.”
Ap Theophilus’s Vincan was so good that it made mine sound like Rigg’s in my own ears. I wished Veniva could be here to hear him and know that there were people who could use the language so well and so lightly. As for what he said, it was not as admirable as his command of the language he spoke. While it was true that there was no other, there had been one Emperor in Vinca and one in Caer Custenn for hundreds of years, and if this was no longer the case, it was because the Skath had killed the last emperor in Vinca fifty years ago. His sister’s son was still alive and claiming the title while ruling some tiny Malmish kingdom somewhere, the last I had heard. There was no Vincan Empire left, only places which had been Vincan once. If it came to that
, Emrys and Avren had claimed to be Emperor of the Vincans, and while Urdo had never said he was, he had flown the great purple imperial banner at Foreth. I am sure ap Theophilus knew this as well as Urdo and I did, but we all just smiled and bowed and said no more. I wondered what the Emperor in distant Caer Custenn wanted with us.
“And this is Ambassador ap Lothar of the Varni,” Urdo went on, introducing the woman. We bowed to each other.
“It is such a shame we can’t all share a welcome cup now,” Morthu said, sounding regretful.
“I should go up to the citadel and get it,” Elenn said at once. “Or send—”
“You should rest,” Morthu interrupted. “You look tired and pale, you should be sitting down being looked after, not being dragged all around the fair in the heat let alone rushing about finding cups. Don’t you agree, sir, she needs to rest in her condition?”
Appealed to thus, ap Lothar could only agree. “Of course you should,” she said, in clipped Vincan. “This evening is plenty of time to share a cup.”
“But I have some wine here,” Morthu said, taking a flask out of his basket. “I bought it from the Narlahenan ship. If only we had a cup.”
“My cousin has!” said Rigg, beaming. “She buyed one just now.”
I knew she meant nothing but good, but I was annoyed all the same. “I meant to give this to you anyway,” I said to Elenn, and took the glass beaker out of my pouch.
“It’s beautiful!” Elenn said, and held it up to the light. She thanked me and everyone admired it and Urdo asked how they had managed to pack it to bring on the ship and Rigg explained how she had seen them packing glass in straw. Then Elenn held it and let Morthu fill it with his Narlahenan wine.
It was a peace cup, and we all drank, but I knew right away something wasn’t right. I had given Elenn the cup, it wasn’t that, it was hers and as fit to welcome strangers with as the gold cup or any cracked wooden one she chose to honour with the ceremony. I put it out of my mind and made conversation with ap Theophilus. His trip from Caer Custenn had taken eight months, if he was to be believed. He had traveled overland through Lossia and Vinca and then taken ship with ap Lothar from the Varnian port of Burdigala. I did not like to ask him why he had come, though I wanted to know. I guessed Urdo had wanted me there because I could speak good Vincan, so I did so, and when ap Theophilus quoted from a poet or philosopher I quoted another as soon as I could. I did not want him to think us barbarians at the end of the world. Urdo looked gratefully at me from time to time.