Forging the Runes

by Josepha Sherman

  Fothad's eyes glinted with instant comprehension. "Prince Ardagh."

  "Exactly. Have him summoned, if you would. I suspect our far-travelling prince may well give us a new view of this problem. And—who knows?" Aedh added with a grin. "He may even come up with a solution."

  The Sudden Ambassador

  Chapter 5

  Ardagh just barely stifled a yawn. King Aedh seemed to have an unerring knack for sending a servant for him at just the wrong time. After the full backlash of his failed spell had hit him, the prince had collapsed into a dreamless pit of sleep, but that sleep hadn't been quite long or deep enough. And the shadow of last night's despair still lingered, there at the back of his mind like a chill mist. He had very much wanted to do nothing but spend the day doing . . . nothing.

  But the servant was watching him earnestly, looking like a nervous bird about to dart into the air, and the prince sighed and said, "Yes. I'm coming."

  Aedh and Fothad both were waiting for him in the royal conversation house, the usual table piled with scrolls set between their chairs; a third chair waited. The two humans looked disgustingly alert and aware, watching him with identically keen stares, and Ardagh bit back the impulse to snarl something rude and thoroughly human at them and forced himself instead to bow politely.

  "Please, Prince Ardagh," Aedh said, "be seated."

  So formal? "Do I look that weary?" Ardagh asked.

  "A bit, yes. You are recovered from the battle?" The delicate emphasis on the king's question made it clear that he referred to the bout of iron-sickness.

  "There's been no lasting harm," Ardagh countered, just as delicately. "I merely had a less than restful night. King Aedh, what would you?"

  "We were pondering a problem, Fothad and I, one that we thought you might help us solve."

  What bizarre test was this? Prodding his still sleepy brain, Ardagh hazarded, "The Lochlannach," and saw by the humans' slight starts that he'd guessed correctly. "Yes, of course that's it. You fear that they'll return in greater numbers, and you don't know how to stop them."

  Aedh's smile was wonderfully sly; he must be suspecting Sidhe magic at work. "No magic," the prince told him dryly, "merely logic. You would hardly have summoned me over something as trivial—your pardon, good Fothad—as my relationship with the lady Sorcha. Bishop Gervinus is most certainly dead, and the storm is ended. As far as I know, no other underking is foolish enough to mount a rebellion." Yes, and no one, he added silently, witnessed my failed Gate-opening spell, so it can't be about that.

  "Neatly summarized." Aedh studied him speculatively. "We were wondering if you, being who and what you are"—a glint almost of mischief flicked in the king's grey eyes—"remarkably far-travelled, I mean, of course, and from such a foreign culture—"

  "Of course."

  "—might not have some unique view of how we can stop the Lochlannach." Aedh's voice hardened. "Preferably forever."

  "I doubt you could ever totally stop them," Ardagh countered. "Not without mounting a massive attack on their homeland. That, I take it, is out of the question?"

  "Quite," the humans answered almost as one. Not surprising: Eriu had hardly struck Ardagh as a naval power.

  "Besides our lack of warships," Aedh added, "there's no evidence that the Lochlannach come from any one kingdom. There are a good many hidden corners of the Northern lands where they could be breeding."

  "Ah. Awkward."

  "Very."

  Ardagh cocked his head in Fothad's direction, seeing the hint of wondering in the poet's eyes. "I'm afraid not," the prince said. "We can't hope to receive a warning from . . ." the prince paused almost imperceptibly, dodging falsehood, "from the Other Realm before every attack." Worded this way, it was quite true; the last warning they had received, though Fothad hadn't realized it, hadn't been from the human Heaven but from the Sidhe Realm.

  "A pity." Aedh's tone was ever so slightly cynical. "But here we are at the point where Fothad and I got mired. Since we can't mount a frontal attack or sit back and beg for Heavenly intercession—what would you do, Prince Ardagh?"

  There was no hoping that Aedh could muster all the kingdoms into a coastal patrol; Ardagh had already seen that the natural way of things here was for each king to be at war with the next.

  No. Anything useful was going to involve some strong equivalent to the Ard Ri of Eriu. "What if," Ardagh began warily, "the next time the Lochlannach come raiding, they find not one isolated community but an alliance? One powerful enough to block their ships, deny them landfall no matter which way they turn."

  Fothad blinked. "Are you speaking of a political alliance? With other kingdoms?"

  He sounded so incredulous that Ardagh just barely bit back a sharp, Powers Above, man, what else did you think I meant? "Yes, of course," the prince said with great restraint. "Eriu can't be the only land in danger from the Lochlannach. I should think any kingdom with a coastline would be glad of a chance to stop those raiders."

  "Prince Ardagh, you wouldn't be aware of this, not being native to this land, but no king of Eriu has ever tried an alliance with another power."

  "That can't be right! Father Seadna told me once that it was Eriu's missionaries who spread your faith through Britain!"

  "Oh yes," Aedh interjected, "over the last two centuries or so, the good friars have turned many a pagan Sacsanach into a proper Christian. But friars are hardly political emissaries."

  "In all our recorded history," Fothad continued, "we've never had nor needed an ally."

  "Not a human ally, at any rate." Aedh raised an eyebrow at the startled prince. "And no, Prince Ardagh, I'm not getting mystical; I'm speaking of the sea. It's kept Eriu nicely isolated all these years. It protected us, for instance, back in the old pagan days when the Romhanach armies were swarming over the mainland and conquering everyone else. The sea protected us again when those armies were followed into Britain three centuries later by the Sacsanach hordes."

  "I gather," Ardagh commented blandly, "that neither of those groups were seafarers. The Lochlannach undeniably are."

  "There is that."

  This is like wandering through mist! "Then what's the problem with an alliance? Granted, you always need to be cautious: too weak an ally is useless, too strong an ally is perilous, but—" Ardagh stopped short. "Am I missing a point? Is there some law that out-and-out forbids alliances?"

  Fothad's gaze went remote; he was clearly searching through mental archives. "Och, no," he said at last. "At least not so far as memory serves."

  Ardagh stretched weary muscles. "Then I fail to see why you're both being so reluctant. 'Because it's never been done before' just isn't a convincing argument."

  He didn't like the sudden smile on Aedh's lips. "I assume," the king said, "that you aren't expecting us to jump blindly into the political sea."

  So that's the way the wind blows, is it? "Why, King Aedh," Ardagh purred, "you've thought this all out already, haven't you?"

  "Why, Prince Ardagh," Aedh purred right back, "of course I have, long before this meeting. An alliance is not going to be a popular idea with my advisors. I can win them over—but only if they're sure that I'm not involving Eriu in something we can't control."

  "Go on," Ardagh said flatly. "There's more."

  "I think we'd both agree that the only way I can get everyone's approval is not to do anything too dramatic, but to simply send out someone as an informal, or even an unofficial, ambassador."

  Ardagh raised a slanted eyebrow. "Someone doing nothing more suspicious than sending innocent greetings, I take it, one king to another? And in the process seeing how things stand? May I remind you that I'm not one of your subjects?"

  "That's exactly the point I was about to make." Aedh leaned forward in his chair, grinning like a wolf. "I think that our unofficial minister can only be you. With your permission, of course."

  Ardagh's first thought was a quick, panicked, No! I don't dare leave Eriu, not when the Doorway home lies here! But then the prince sn
apped at himself, And what good does a so thoroughly sealed Doorway do you? Or are you waiting like a dog at a locked gate for Eirithan to throw you a scrap? Besides, a new land just might mean new spells. . . .

  Ardagh kept his face Sidhe calm, but he could feel his heart begin to pound. "Why me?"

  Aedh's smile never faltered. "Prince Ardagh, please don't take offense at this, but you are a man of honor who can yet be as cunning as a rogue and smoothtongued as any bard. You can talk almost anyone into or out of almost anything. What's more, as a foreigner, you have no awkward political or kinship ties to anyone at any . . . ah . . . western court. Besides," Aedh added, "if you can't manage to snare us some aid with your sleek words, then no one can."

  "That," Ardagh said in genuine admiration, "is the most convoluted and backhanded compliment I have received since my days at my brothers court. King Aedh, I salute you." He bowed in his seat, received Aedh's ironic little dip of the head in return.

  "Then you agree. You are the only choice."

  "Perhaps." Ardagh glanced slyly sideways. "And is that relief I see on your face, Fothad mac Ailin? Are you that glad at the thought of separating me from your daughter?"

  "You know that's hardly true."

  "And if I was anyone but cu glas, you'd welcome me into the family."

  "Yes. No. I—that's an ugly way of putting it, but—" Fothad stopped short, shaking his head. "A smooth talker, indeed!"

  "One does what one can," Ardagh said sweetly, and turned back to Aedh. "And of course, since I am a foreigner, you have another advantage: If something happens to me on my mission, why, I'm none of yours, so you need do nothing but say, 'What a pity' and go on with life as before."

  Aedh smiled but did not deny it. Ardagh mirrored that smile, thinking that he could hardly take offense at something so beautifully, cold-bloodedly, practical; it was almost as properly devious as a Sidhe plot! "And of course you know that since I never lie, when I say I won't just . . . run off and not return, there's no danger of my abandoning your cause, either." Or rather, of abandoning Sorcha. "So, now. Where is your most informal and smooth-tongued minister to go?"

  Was his easy acquiescence surprising Aedh? The well-schooled royal face showed no sign of it. You think I've turned into your obedient tool, Ardagh told him silently. You have no idea I'm using you as well.

  "Now that," the king mused, "is an entirely new problem. We can eliminate one ruler under the 'too powerful for safety' category: the Frankish soon-to-be-Emperor Charlemagne. Trading with the Franks is one thing; we don't want that ambitious fellow sniffing at Eriu's borders! No, let him play his political games on the mainland. At any rate, the Franks haven't been threatened very much by the Lochlannach."

  "Yet," Fothad muttered, bent over a scroll.

  Ardagh straightened. "Is that a map you're studying?" As Fothad nodded, unrolling it fully, the prince got to his feet to lean over the poet's shoulder, pretending a casual interest but actually trying to make sense of the inked-in lines without revealing his ignorance of the human Realm beyond Eriu. "There, now," the prince said, guessing wildly. "Is that not Cadwal ap Dyfri's homeland, Cymru?"

  Fothad glanced up at him. "Of course."

  "It seems to lie relatively near Eriu, without too much water between. Mm, yes, and it has quite an extensive, if convoluted, coastline. Why not—"

  "Because there's no such thing as Cymru," Aedh cut in. "No one such thing, rather. The land is sliced into several small, often warring kingdoms—Cadwal would know the lot of them," he added offhandedly. "None are strong enough to do us much good, and there's no one High King to unify them." Contempt tinged his voice. "Besides, that convoluted coastline is far too rocky to suffer many Lochlannach landings."

  And you, oh king, like everyone else in Fremainn, are too prejudiced against those Cymric cousins of yours to even consider making peace with them. "Who else, then?"

  "It will need be one of the rulers of the Sacsanach— Saxons, in their tongue."

  "Offa of Mercia was certainly the strongest king in Britain," Fothad murmured, "possibly too strong for any safe alliance, but at any rate he died four years back."

  Aedh snorted. "Too strong, indeed. He signed some manner of pact with none other than our ambitious Frankish Charlemagne. Yes, and if rumor's right, Offa died just as he was making his own plans against the Lochlannach. Well, with Ceolwulf on the Mercian throne, those plans are certainly lost! He's not half the ruler Offa was."

  "Just as well, I would think," Ardagh murmured, and received a wry glance from the king.

  "Beortric," Fothad said suddenly, looking up from his map.

  "Beortric!" Aedh echoed in delight. "King Beortric of the West Saxons—yes, of course: powerful but not too powerful, ambitious but not obnoxiously so. He's said to be a singularly affable fellow; he's reigned rather peacefully for . . ."

  "Sixteen years or so," Fothad supplied.

  "Yes, and if I'm correct, he's married to one of Offa's daughters . . . Edburga, I think her name is."

  "Yes."

  Aedh nodded, clearly pleased. "That means an alliance with Wessex is indirectly an alliance with Mercia as well, with no awkward complications attached of who's stronger than whom. Perfect. And Wessex—Beortric's land," he added to Ardagh, who had already puzzled it out— "Wessex has even suffered a Lochlannach raid or two some few years ago."

  "How unfortunate for them."

  "And fortunate for us." Aedh beamed at the prince with blatantly overdone charm. "Prince Ardagh, I understand that Wessex can be quite a pleasant land."

  "Can it, indeed?"

  "Of course, it's already too late to travel so far this year; autumn is already past the best time for sailing, and winter is definitely not the time for an ambassador to set out. And before we can do anything else we shall have to go through the formality of a general meeting of my counselors first. The Sacsanach have not been exactly kind to our British kin. I suspect," the king said blandly, "that we're in for a good deal of shouting and bluster."

  "Without a doubt." Ardagh's voice was equally bland. "And I suspect that those British kin are distant cousins."

  "Very."

  "Convenient. I will need some schooling in the ways and language of Wessex, naturally. I'm a swift learner, as my lord Fothad will, no doubt, attest, but there are limits."

  "Of course," Aedh agreed. "So now, eventually matters will get themselves straightened out. Let's just say that I'm sure you'll enjoy your visit to Wessex."

  "Oh yes," Ardagh agreed, "I think that I may."

  But his smile was not at all charming or dutiful.

  One of the safest places for two lovers to meet in Fremainn was out here in the bright daylight in the center of the grassy field, with no possible hiding places to let even the most suspicious soul find fault in their being together, nor any way for anyone to overhear what they said.

  Which, Ardagh thought, was just as well. He and Sorcha had been strolling together, apparently innocently, but all the while he had been hunting for a way to say what he must say.

  No way but the blunt truth. "Sorcha. King Aedh has decided to use me as an informal sort of ambassador."

  She eyed him warily. "Where? Surely not to Leinster."

  "No. The king wishes to send me to King Beortric of Wessex."

  Sorcha froze, stricken. "Wessex!"

  Startled by her shock, Ardagh soothed, "Ae, love, it's not the Land Beyond Beyond."

  "It's far enough! Ardagh, do you have any idea of our human distances? You don't, do you? We're not talking about some magical blink-of-the-eye trip there and back again, but a journey of only the good Lord knows how long, first by boat, then over leagues of foreign soil. And there's so much that could happen, so much that could go wrong—why, even in the simple crossing from Eriu to—Ardagh, you can't, you mustn't—"

  "No, no, Sorcha, you're missing the point. Listen to me, calmly. Calmly."

  "Go ahead," she said grimly. "I'm listening."

  Ardagh took a deep breat
h. "Last night I made one more attempt to open a Doorway. It failed. Yes, that's why I've been dragging myself about so wearily. You've seen me collapse from backlash before: you know something about how much strength the effort would have cost me. With this latest failure," he continued, fighting to keep his voice level, "I believe I have completely exhausted whatever little spells I've been able to find in Eriu."

  "B-but you haven't—you can't—"

  "Listen to me. Wessex is new soil; foreign soil. At the very least, I'll be able to keep myself healthy by drawing on its forests' natural Power, just as I do here. At the most—I am hoping against hope, as you humans would word it, that I'll find something more useful, more Powerful, there. I might even," he added with a sudden savage burst of longing, "find the spell to open the Doorway home."

  "I see. You . . . wouldn't just go, would you?"

  "What—"

  "Ardagh, please: Sidhe honesty."

  "I know no other sort. Go on."

  "If you opened a Doorway in Wessex, one that would let you go home, you wouldn't leave me here alone . . . would you?"

  "Ae, never. Sorcha, never."

  Her laugh was shaky with relief. "There is something to be said for having a love who can't lie."

  Ardagh cocked his head to one side, studying her. "But there's something more than worry in your eyes, I think."

  "I don't doubt it. For one thing, I'm envying you."

  "Envying!"

  "Och, Ardagh, you know how things are for noble-born women in this land. I'm not a slave, but I'm not exactly free, either. I've never left the region, my love, let alone travelled to a foreign land. And," she added sharply, "I don't think much of this 'woman patiently waiting for her man to return' role."

  "I never saw the point of it, either. In my Realm you could go where you pleased, with no one to say—" He brought himself up short. "But we aren't in my Realm."