by Jo Walton
“It’s very fortunate you came along,” Morien said, and I echoed him. Conal put Morien on his horse. She was a broken-down old grey mare who looked barely capable of bearing Morien a mile, let alone Conal and his pack all the way from wherever he had left the sea.
“How is my uncle?” Conal asked.
“He is well, and so are all his people. His daughter broke her leg jumping off the stable roof last autumn, but she is as good as ever now.”
The three of us went back to Thansethan together, making small talk, and none of us saying what we were thinking.
41
In the matter of judicial combats, no one may be forced to fight; they may always choose to set the matter before judgment instead. No one may bring challenge other than in their own person, nor against one whose worth is less than theirs. Challenge may not be made against, nor accepted by, one who has not reached the age of their full growth, nor against anyone who is not whole in body or wits.
If the challenge is answered by a champion, the one on whose behalf that champion fights bears both the price of their proved crime and the price, and the price only, of the blood guilt of their champion to the champion’s family. Necessarily capital crimes may be defended against by judicial combats, should the accused party choose to fight, but may not be defended by champions. No champion shall receive, nor be seen to receive, recompense above the price of their wounds should they get any.
—The Law Code of Urdo ap Avren
Nobody could expect Conal to have as much decency as Ulf and to eat in the kitchen. Besides, he was a herald, and by ancient tradition heralds must not be treated badly. Father Gerthmol had just enough sense not to seat him with us but at one of the other tables. I could see him taking his place among the armigers, his twig now pinned to a fresh tunic. He looked cheerful and relaxed. Darien was at the same table, still dressed in brown robes, but I consoled myself that this would not be for long. I sat between Kerys and Morien, opposite my mother and Raul, to prevent Morthu from inflaming Morien again. Ap Theophilus sat between Raul and Elenn. Morthu sat between Rigg and Father Gerthmol, opposite Urdo and Elenn. Morien looked uneasy at being between me and Rigg. He wasn’t comfortable with our new cousin yet. I saw Elenn search out Conal. Her eyes narrowed a little as she found him, then she looked away.
It was a fast day at Thansethan. We were given cold smoked fish and hot pease porridge. There was only water to drink. Elenn did not touch her food, and when Father Gerthmol inquired she murmured something and touched her stomach as if she were unwell. Morien spoke to Kerys and Veniva and said as little as he could to me. He looked a little bruised about the face but nobody mentioned it. It was an awkward meal. The armigers and the monks ate merrily, laughing and talking, but we at the king’s table had very little to say. Conal said something that occasioned great gales of mirth from his companions. Beris laughed so much she choked, and Conal very solicitously patted her on the back. Ap Padarn said something then that had the whole table in stitches, even Darien and the monks.
Then Conal raised his voice to say something over the din, and suddenly, as he did so, the room fell into one of those uneasy silences that occasionally fall onto even a large hall, so that his voice rang out alone. “So, if you’re all here, where is that jolly Jarnsman your queen takes off to dally in the woods?”
The silence continued for an instant, an appalled hush. Everyone was looking at Elenn, whose eyes were lowered. Urdo had stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth. For a moment I thought it would pass off. They would act as if they had not heard. People were always making ridiculous jokes about Elenn and Ulf, though never in her hearing. Gossip like that rarely got more than a groan in the ala. It was so obviously untrue and based on so little—Elenn always took an escort when she went riding, and there were a handful of armigers she preferred, and Ulf was one of them. That was the entire basis for the joke—no doubt Conal had seen them together that afternoon and his putting that interpretation on events was intended purely to amuse his companions. It was just like the joke about me and Urdo or about ap Selevan’s love for one of the monks of Thansethan, and deserved as much attention. Even if it had been true it was no crime and would have been nobody’s business but theirs and Urdo’s.
I had started to breathe again when Morthu spoke up loudly. “Take no notice of the Isarnagan lout! He is speaking nonsense and nobody would give credence to his accusation.” Urdo set down his spoon, the chink it made was very loud. He took a deep breath. But Elenn, without looking at him, put her hand on his arm.
“I have been insulted,” she said, very gravely. “All of you have witnessed. It is an accusation for which denials would be useless, even though it is entirely baseless. I would therefore challenge Conal to combat, that God may decide who is speaking the truth.”
Conal stood up and turned to her. He frowned. “I meant no—”
She cut him off with an abrupt hand gesture. “What good would that do to my honor? You have insulted my honor, and I will have satisfaction.” Urdo closed his eyes briefly, but her hand was still on his arm, and he said nothing. I could not see what she was doing. Conal was a big man and a trained fighter, and she was a very small woman who had not handled a weapon for years, if ever.
“If you would insist on fighting then I will accept your challenge,” Conal said. He looked puzzled. “I would not see a quarrel—”
She cut him off again, she was clearly determined not to allow him any chance of apology. “Then I will choose a champion to defend my honor,” she said, and now she smiled a very small smile, hardly more than a twitch at the corners of her mouth. Morthu was looking very pleased with himself. Urdo looked like a king carved from stone. Father Gerthmol was staring at Elenn as a man might stare at a lapdog who is holding off a wolf. I was startled, too. This was like something from an old song, and an old Isarnagan song at that. Elenn and Conal were both Isarnagan, and I think they were acting in a way that was more natural to them than it was to the rest of us. I thought she would say that Urdo would fight him, and so, I think, did Urdo. Her mother would have. I was not happy at the thought. Conal had killed Larig, who was a very good fighter. But Elenn knew better than that.
“In my husband’s ala there are many champions, and I know that if I asked, none of them would deny my claim.” There was a sudden roar from the benches where the armigers sat. They might have felt as if they were in an old song, too, but they would respond to a call from their queen. They surged to their feet shouting and stamping their feet; they all wanted to be her champion. The monks looked stunned. Nearly all of them were clutching their pebbles.
She held up her hand for silence, and the uproar ceased. “I could choose any of these brave armigers, because God and the right are on my side. It is difficult to choose, but so that nobody can ever accuse me of favoring any man among them again I will choose Sulien ap Gwien to defend my honour.”
Everyone was looking at me then. Urdo looked completely amazed. I rose and bowed to Elenn, it was all I could do. I looked at Conal. He had a twisted smile on his face. He raised his cup of water and saluted me. I did not want to kill him for making a stupid joke, but I did not see what choice I had. I bowed to him. Near him, Darien was looking at me as if he were proud of me.
“Tomorrow, at dawn,” Conal said, bowing back. Then he left the hall. I sat down again and stared at the fish on my plate. It looked like something dead. Now Urdo was looking concerned. I tried to smile at him. Elenn said something quietly reassuring to Father Gerthmol. Everyone was talking again now, loudly. Rigg leaned over Morien to pat me on the back. Veniva shook her head slowly. “This is a bad business,” she said. “Dueling has been against the Vincan Laws this last four hundred years.”
“Judicial combats are permitted now,” I said. “And dueling has happened rather a lot in the last four hundred years, whatever the law said.” Kerys laughed. Raul started to explain the law to Veniva. I sat and stared at my food until a monk took it away and the feast was over. As soon as I
could decently leave I went in search of Conal.
He wasn’t difficult to find. It is hard for a tall Isarnagan with leaves on his tunic to hide in a monastery. He had done his best; a monk directed me to one of the little meditation rooms below the library. I started towards it then made a quick detour to the stables. There was a flask of mead in my saddlebag, and I thought I might need it. I said a brief hello to the horses and promised to take them out soon. Then I went off to find Conal.
He didn’t look surprised to see me. He had lit a candle and sat down on the three-legged stool that was all the room contained except for a painting in the plaster of the wall of one of the White God’s followers preaching to some animals. I needn’t have bothered with the mead; he had some already. “You are an idiot, Fishface,” I said, coming in and closing the door.
“I know,” he said, lightly. “I go off to the woods with a woman who is forbidden to me. I follow my king to a hopeless war in Tir Tanagiri, and survive when he is killed. I stop you from killing your brother. I make foolish jokes in the presence of the people I am joking about. And worst of all, I get caught red-handed every time.”
“If you had no honor, you could leave now and go back to Oriel,” I said, bluntly.
He passed me his flask. It was a good silver one, and the mead was good, too, and went down smoothly. “I will have honor if it is all I have,” he said, bleakly.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “Elenn—it isn’t her honor, though you shouldn’t have said it. She wants me to kill you because you killed her mother.”
“It is the only honor she has, and I know it and should not have taken it lightly,” Conal said. “For us, we have honor in our deeds, but what does she have, beyond being beautiful and her king’s wife and faithful?”
“That may be the way of things in Tir Isarnagiri,” I said. “Here, no. She has chosen who she is, and she has the work of being a queen. No one wins a fight where logistics did not get there first. She works as hard and as well as Glyn organizing supply. And she—”
Conal laughed, and reached out for the flask again. “She may well have pride in that, but it is not honor.”
“It is,” I said, as he drank. “It is a different honor. But honor is not only in fighting well and killing cleanly. The monks here say that everything is honorable that serves the White God; if one sweeps a room or preserves apples in his name and does it well, then that is honorable and holy. I think they are right that there is honor in living as well as one can. They think that life has to serve their God, but I think whoever one serves and however one lives there can be honor in the living of life. She has honor. She is a good queen for Tir Tanagiri.” I remembered her walking into the hall with Urdo when he told all the kings we would defeat Sweyn. I remembered her walking out into the archway to greet Mardol and Cadraith, the cup held out. I remembered how she had stood calm and still with her hand on her dog’s head when we thought the Jarns were attacking. “But it is not honorable to kill you like that.”
“If I die, will you tell Emer?” he asked.
“Tell her what?” I was embarrassed at the thought of delivering a message.
“Tell her that I’m dead, so she doesn’t have to hear it in front of Lew and the whole court and take it without flinching. She will do it if she must, but I had rather spare her.”
“I’ll do it if I can, but think—if you’re dead, I’ll have killed you; there must be people it would be more fitting to ask.”
“I daresay, but few enough who know that she would need telling.” He smiled and rolled his eyes. “Well, I am not dead yet. Oh, sit down, do! Has it not crossed your mind that I might kill you?”
I laughed, and sat down. It hadn’t, of course. “Perhaps it should have,” I said. “You did kill Larig, after all.”
“Larig?” he said, as if the name was strange to him. “Larig ap Thurrig? Why do you pick him?”
“Because he taught me Malmish wrestling, and he was a friend and good in battle,” I said.
“How do you know I killed him?” he asked, in the same polite tone that he had inquired after his uncle’s health earlier.
“Ap Erbin told me,” I said. “He was there, and Larig was a friend, and we had some kinship ties.”
“Ah, ap Erbin,” he said, and then he was quiet for a moment, staring at the candle flame. “You know what happened up there?” he asked, after a moment.
“I know there was hard fighting and head taking and you lost,” I said.
He snorted with laughter. “That is it in a nutshell, if you leave out the hills and the rain. Demedia is a dreadful place. The problem was that we were doing just well enough to make it worth carrying on, for much too long. We should have seen we were defeated almost at once and made a truce. Darag was never very good at telling he was beaten, though, not from a boy. We grew up together, you know; he was my foster brother. His mother was my mother’s sister, and his father, well, some say his father was the god of the Cunning Hand, the Lord Maker. However it was, his mother and her husband did not get on, and he was fostered early with my mother. His mother and mine were both sisters of the old king, Conar. Conar had no sons, so it was clear that the next king would be me or Darag or Leary, who was his other nephew. All the time from when we were children we would compete, and Darag would never give in. It stood him in good stead then, because after Conar was killed in the war with Conat he married Atha and was chosen to be king.” Conal sighed, and handed me the flask. It was almost empty. I finished it. “But in Demedia it did him no good, he couldn’t see that we should give in. He wouldn’t listen to me telling him.” He sighed again and looked at me. “Did ap Erbin tell you how I found Darag’s body?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think he can have known.”
“Darag and Larig were fighting on their own, up in the hills. From the look of it when I got there afterwards, Darag had thrown his belly-spear at one of Larig’s horses and killed it. Then Larig threw the spear back and wounded Darag’s horse. That’s how I found them actually. The wounded horse ran off, and I followed the blood trail back. Then Darag must have thrown the spear back and killed Larig’s other horse under him. He was more accurate with it than Larig, which isn’t surprising because it was his spear and he practiced with it. But then Larig drew the spear out of the horse and threw it back again, gut-wounding Darag. He was dead then, of course, losing blood, too weak to stand, except that he wasn’t going to give in yet. He dragged himself over to a godstone that was nearby, and he tied himself to it by his belt. I don’t know what Larig was doing, maybe he helped him if he was an honorable kind of man. In any case, he was tied to the stone with his belly spilling out, but they must have fought there for a while. When I came up his body was tied to the stone with ravens showing an interest, his sword was on the ground near Larig’s right hand, cut clean off. Larig had taken his head, of course.”
“Ugh,” I said, and opened my flask of mead.
“Ugh,” Conal agreed, reaching over for it. “So you see, my killing Larig, which I cannot deny I did, was no great feat of arms, as he was dismounted and lacking a hand. Though, as the sword and the hand were right there I have wondered why he didn’t just stick it straight on again?”
“He was a Malm and a follower of the White God,” I said. “He’d have thought of that sort of charm as women’s spells.” I suddenly remembered very clearly Ulf saying to me, “You know spells?”
“I see,” Conal said. “I can see that if that sort of thing spreads with the faith in Tir Isarnagiri, there will be rather less sword fighting or rather more one-handed people.” He laughed. “I am getting drunk and missing the point,” he said. “The point is, of course, that killing a one-handed man, no matter how common they are, is less of a feat than killing a two-handed one, and so you need have no fear on that account.”
“I hadn’t,” I said. “Look, Conal, I don’t want to kill you.”
“Amazing,” he said. “Truly amazing. That’s the first time you ever calle
d me by my name. Now I probably will die in the morning. Breaking curses is usually a bad sign.”
I ignored that remark. “I have to avenge the insult to the queen’s honor, but I don’t have to kill you,” I said. “In Urdo’s law code, there are judicial combats fought to first blood. If you will accept that, and stop, and I say that the queen’s honor is avenged and you apologize, at first blood, then that ought to do.”
“It won’t give her satisfaction,” Conal said.
“I will talk to Urdo about it,” I said. “If you will accept it.”
“If I had so much honor that I strongly desired to die, I’d have seen I died after killing Larig,” he said, surprisingly. “My father asked me what I was doing alive after my king was dead, you know. I would have thought he liked me better than that, but then he’d seen the bodies after one of your raids on the coast, and it made him bitter.”
“So you’ll accept a fight to first blood?” I repeated.
“I will,” he said. “But what if that goes against you? First blood can be anyone’s. I am counted as good with a sword.”
“The gods will be witnessing for Elenn’s honor,” I said.
“And are you so sure I didn’t speak the truth in jest?” he asked, sardonically.
I shuddered at the very thought of Elenn voluntarily letting Ulf touch her. “I think I can safely take that risk,” I said, standing up. I let Conal keep the mead flask and went off into the monastery in search of Urdo.
42
“Come,” she said, and shed no tear
and come they did with Evalwen’s spear,
come they did with Evalwen’s sword,
the blade still wet that had slain her lord,
come they did with Evalwen’s sling
a great big pile of everything.
“Stack them deeper, pile them higher,