“First, there is the question of breaking the peace of the cantref. You have broken your oath to Lord Batteny, and taken the lives of innocent hostages. So you will pay honor price to both the families of the hostages and to your lord.”
Dalgeth and Iolu both looked surprised and somewhat relieved; evidently they had been expecting worse.
“Second,” Cricket said, “there is the matter of preserving the peace. For this purpose, the bards teulu of each household will exchange places. Laird Dalgeth will welcome Iolu’s bard, and Iolu will do the same for Dalgeth’s.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence. Volmeth finally cleared his throat and said, “Your pardon, cerddorion. I don’t mean to question your wisdom, but what will that help?”
“I think I know, lord,” said Serca, trying to suppress a grin. “The bards will know that their lives hang in the balance of peace. If a war starts, they will be the first to die, so they will be very careful to avoid letting that happen.”
“But we are bards!” Dalgeth’s nephew said. “Our lives are sacrosanct!”
Cricket said, “Do you truly believe that men who would kill hostages would stay their hands because of the star?”
Both men turned gray, but said nothing more.
Volmeth began to chuckle. “It might work. It might bloody well work!” He put his axe away. “Is there anything else, young bard?”
“That’s all,” said Cricket.
Sean stepped forward. “There is one other thing. As ollave, I declare this to be the final judgment.” Fixing each laird with a hard stare, he said, “If the peace is broken once more, your caers will be leveled, your families dispersed to the five fifths of Glencairck, and your heads will hang on Taris’ wall. The Pen Bardd will be advised, and I assure you, every bard will be watching. Do I make myself clear?”
Volmeth grinned wolfishly. “I will be watching as well, you dogs. Next time there won’t be any waiting, eh?” Both lairds bowed low. “Now get this mess cleaned up! And I want my honor price by the time the moon is full!” He pulled his chariot around and sped out of the valley.
The bards followed at a more leisurely pace, winding their way through the rapidly darkening mountains. “Is it always so... intense... to be a cerddorion?” Cricket asked.
Sean chuckled. “Usually it’s the matter of a stolen brooch or a lovers’ quarrel. Very rarely do we settle a war.” The ollave turned serious. “But don’t forget this. If we judge lightly, this can be the result.”
“Those two were treated leniently for many years,” Serca added. “Everyone thought their honor would keep them in check.”
“And by the time we knew better, it was felt that we needed to keep working with them instead of just hanging them.” Sean shook his head. “One of the worst decisions Ard Righ Brian ever made.”
The three rode silently for a while. “How long is it going to take to get back to Caer Bath?” Cricket asked.
“Oh, it should be well after midnight,” Sean said.
“Unless you want to go at Lord Batteny’s pace,” Serca said. “It’s only a dark, rocky road, with long drops on either side—”
“So you’re saying that Volmeth is a little crazy?” Cricket interrupted.
“I don’t think it’s just a little,” Sean replied. “Now, does anyone have a tune to make the ride go faster?”
Lord Batteny feasted the company for two days, praising Cricket repeatedly and giving him a gold arm band. For their part, the bards relaxed and enjoyed themselves, playing and singing late into the night. Volmeth demanded a song honoring the occasion, and Sean complied; Cricket blushed when the ollave played it for the Caer.
On the morning of the third day, Sean told them to pair off. Amid the groans, Cricket asked Serca what was happening. “This is my favorite part,” she replied. “Each pair will ride in a different direction, and we will spend a few weeks visiting every hearth, hold and hall we can find in the cantref.”
“Could I go with you?” Cricket asked shyly.
She looked at him sideways. “Certainly.” She went up to Sean. “Cricket and I are ready to leave.”
“Well, at least someone is,” the ollave. “Have you seen Gwales by any chance?”
“Not since last night.”
“Alright. Since you’ve traveled in the mountains before, I want you to go east and north. Be back in three weeks, and for Ogmah’s sake, steer clear of the border.”
“Anything else?” Serca asked. “Perhaps a cask of famous Bettany bock?”
“Flatterer,” Sean grumbled. “Bring two.”
Serca bowed. “We go to do thy bidding, ollave.”
Sean gave her a dirty look, and they quickly left.
Serca led them north along narrow roads that twisted along the forested mountainsides. Cricket watched the scenery unfold with wide-eyed wonder, especially in the clearings and precipices that allowed him to look down into the valleys below. “I never knew that country like this existed.”
“Where are you from?” Serca asked.
“Down south. What we called mountains were just hills compared to this.”
“Completely different,” she agreed. “Do you like it? Here, I mean?”
“It’s beautiful,” Cricket said. “There are so many trees, and the smell...”
“I grew up in these mountains,” she said. “Not anywhere near here, but when I first went to Taris, I thought I’d never return. The winters are long and hard up here, and life is often harsh. But the smell of pines always brings fond memories, and I miss the way the land reveals itself a little at a time. Not like the lowlands, where everything can be seen at once. So I like coming back.”
“Would you ever return to stay?” Cricket asked.
“You mean like a bard teulu?” She shook her head, causing more curls to escape their braid. “I enjoy the road too much. I intend to stay a cerddorion for a long time, and then maybe I’ll be a free bard.”
Cricket had a sudden image of her as a wrinkled old woman riding a wrinkled old horse, her harp and bodhrán bouncing on her bowed back. He tried not to laugh, but it escaped him.
“What’s so funny?” she asked suspiciously.
Cricket told her. “You won’t take offense, I hope?” he added.
She smiled. “How could I? It’s just what I want.” When he started laughing again, she joined him.
They spent the first night in a cowherd’s shelter, a cozy hut set on the edge of a small meadow. Cricket woke in the morning stiff from the cold, and when he stumbled out to the stream, he found a layer of ice around the banks. When Serca came out a moment later, he complained, “I thought Beltain had passed.”
“It has,” she laughed. “But this high up it freezes up most nights, summer or not, although the days can be broiling.”
He looked across the grass, where a low mist glowed in the early dawn. The trees beyond loomed silent and dark, but behind them the mountains reared even higher, gilded with light from the hidden sun. “It’s so beautiful,” he said. “I think I could live with the weather.”
“Wait until you’ve spent a winter up here,” she said. “Come on, let’s restock the woodpile and get going.”
For two weeks, Serca led them to small duns and isolated caers where the people greeted them warily until they saw the star and counted the colors in their cloaks. Then the suspicions and the weapons disappeared, and the bards were treated like long lost cousins. The bards teulu they met begged for news from Taris, and gave them news from beyond the border in return.
Cricket discovered a people hard pressed by the elements and their proximity to an often hostile neighbor, a people who valued a good fight as much as the daylight. But they knew how to enjoy themselves as well, spending the night in dance and song. Even when the bards stayed one night with a crofter, the man and his wife gathered their children for an evening of stories from the distant past.
During the day, they heard disputes. The mountain men and women, swallowing their pride, would lay down th
eir weapons, bowing low. They stated their cases calmly, keeping their eyes downcast, although emotions often seethed just below the surface. Cricket found the whole thing somewhat embarrassing.
Cricket also found a true friend in Serca. She possessed a deep well of strength in her that steadied him when he wanted to lash out at the petty disputes and hard feelings that were laid before them. Her humor was often dry and sardonic, but he always made her laugh in the end. He teased her about her untamable hair, and she teased him about his boyish looks. On the way back to Caer Bath, he said, “I’m sorry this is ending.”
“What, the mountains?” she asked.
“That’s part of it,” Cricket replied. “But also being out here with you, just wandering from place to place...”
She lifted her eyebrow. “Are you saying that you like me, or that you don’t like the others?”
Something in her tone made him blush. “Both... neither... I don’t know. I’m not looking forward to Flann’s little tricks or Branwen’s towering superiority.”
“They’re not that bad,” Serca said.
“Yes they are.”
“Okay, they are.” She reached over and patted his hand. “It’s okay, though. We’ll go to another cantref, spend a few days with the lord, and then we’ll be off on our own again.”
Cricket rode along silently for a few minutes, watching two hawks wheel high overhead. “Would you mind if I was your companion again?”
“I would like that very much,” she said with a look that he could not decipher. Then she grinned: “Can you imagine me with Gwales?”
He laughed. “He’s not stupid, but he’s slow enough that you’d probably want to strangle him. I know I would.”
“And probably on the first day, too.”
The company traveled to Caer Innis in Cantref Aerness, where the same pattern repeated itself: two days with the lord, and then into pairs to roam the country side while Sean stayed behind. Although the mountains looked the same to Cricket, the people of Aerness seemed even more warlike than those in Batteny. He asked Serca if it was his imagination one evening while they sat around their campfire.
“Not at all,” she replied. “Aerness lies along the only pass big enough to bring an army through, and these people don’t forget it; they’re born with a sword in their hand and a war cry on their lips.”
“But there hasn’t been a war with Bangreen in a generation,” Cricket said.
“And you think that stops them?” Serca shook her head. “They’re always at war. Usually with each other, but occasionally with everyone else, too, including the rest of Glencairck.”
“Not much has changed since CuChulainn led the heroes of Duvnecht then.”
“Not much,” Serca agreed. “These mountains are covered with bones.”
Cricket shook his head. “Then what made Iolu and Dalgeth so different? Why didn’t we just let them beat each other senseless, or even kill each other?”
“Honor.” She sighed and gestured out beyond the light of the fire. “The rivers of Duvnecht would run red with blood except that Duvnechtmen hold honor dearer than life.”
“Except the two in Batteny.”
“Except for them. They constantly broke their word, and this last time, when they killed the hostages... to a Duvnechtman, that’s like raping a corpse.”
“And you grew up here?” Cricket asked with a grin.
“I certainly did. Do you still trust me?”
“Only if you promise not to hurt me.”
“I’ll consider it.”
When they rejoined the company, summer had started to give way to fall in the highlands. On the morning that they planned to move on, Sean sat down with his cerddorion. “We have to decide where we want to winter over,” he told them. “I want to head south from here, but I also want to get out of Duvnecht if possible.”
Suggestions came from all sides, including shouts of “Taris!” and “Faerie!” Sean laughed, but finally held up his hands. “Everyone has given an opinion, no matter how ridiculous, except for one. Well, Cricket? Where do you want to go?”
“How about Elnsbruck?” he said, trying not to betray any eagerness.
“Hmm...” Sean mused. “Not too far, but there are a couple of cantrefs between here and there... Anybody have any objections?”
“It’s in Leinath,” Culweth said.
“Unanimous it is,” the ollave replied.
Chapter 14: Serca
Two months later, the company rode across the Shanterry river and into Elnsbruck. Cricket began to look around, wondering if he would like living among the rolling fields and rocky peat bogs that seemed to characterize that part of Leinath.
“What is it, Cricket?” Serca finally asked. “You act like there’s a ghost behind you or treasure ahead of you; which is it?”
“You know me pretty well,” Cricket said.
“That doesn’t answer the question, you know.”
He grinned. “A treasure.”
She looked around, then pulled in close. “Should we kill the others and take it for ourselves?” she whispered. “We could live like royalty, feasting all night, sleeping all day...”
He snorted. “It’s not that kind of treasure.”
“Well, you certainly act as if will make you even happier than spending all of your time with me.”
“It just might at that.” Seeing her hurt expression, he said, “I’m sorry. But my two best friends—besides you, of course—live in Elnsbruck.”
“You have friends besides me?”
Cricket thought his insides would twist into a useless morass by the time they reached Caer Coll. Sean played at the gates until they were invited in, welcomed by a steward who promised the return of the Cantref lord soon. “He’s out in the fields,” the man explained. “He’s trying to decide how to plant next year.”
Cricket almost laughed at the distaste on Branwen’s face; this evidently was not what she expected from someone who wore a cloak with five colors. The company waited patiently, telling stories to the children who gathered. Lord Elnsbruck came through the gates just as the sun began to set, his boots muddy and a look of concentration on his face. The company made him stop and stare; Sean bowed low and said, “I ask permission to play in your Caer for the winter.”
“A company for the winter, eh? Unusual.” He spied Cricket among the cerddorion. “You!” he shouted, rushing over and wringing the young man’s hand. “Said you should be a bard. Said so.”
“My lord is kind to remember,” Cricket said, suddenly shy from all the praise.
“Kind, nothing! Ollave, your company is welcome. Indeed.” He nudged Cricket in the ribs. “And there’s a certain crossain and his family who will be happy to see you. Quite.”
Lord Elnsbruck hurried across the courtyard, calling for a feast, and the company followed. “Well, Cricket,” Sean said with a wink, “now I see why you chose to winter here. Ought to be a good time, if his reaction to you is any indication.”
Cricket smiled. “Might be rough on us, actually. Lord Elnsbruck once told me that he likes to work out his joints with dancing.”
“Well, if a bard isn’t playing, he’s pretty useless,” Sean replied. “This’ll be fun.”
Two people appeared at the door to the hall, a man with red hair and a lovely woman with a child on her hip, and Cricket felt his heart leap. Abandoning dignity, he ran across the yard and grabbed Asael in a bear hug, spinning him around. Then he did the same, more gently, with Leann, while the small boy she held squealed in delight. Everyone talked at once, getting nothing said, but enjoying the sound of each other.
The boy looked on in wide-eyed silence, and Cricket finally asked, “So who is this?”
“This is Dyvan MacAsael,” Leann replied. “Someone wanted to name him Cricket, but wiser heads prevailed.”
Asael put his arm lovingly around his wife’s waist. “We’re expecting another one around Beltain.”
“The farm life has been good to you,” Crick
et said admiringly. “I’m still working on the wife part.” He looked around for the company, but they had disappeared into the hall. “Let’s go in, so that I can play, and then we can talk some more.”
They stayed up late that night, renewing their friendship and hearing about each other’s lives. Asael and Leann had a quiet life, playing for the hall when the bard teulu was busy, which was common. Unlike many cantref lords, Lord Elnsbruck liked to travel widely through his demesne, and often took his bard with him.
Cricket told them about the Academy and about the things he had learned there. In a quiet voice, watching memories at the edge of his vision, he told them about Gorsedd Ogham, and the death of Bres.
Leann shook her head when he finished. “It’s been difficult for you,” she said. “I wonder if we should have stayed.”
“It’s okay,” Cricket answered. “This summer has been wonderful, so that makes up for a lot of it.”
“Besides,” Asael told his wife, “He needed to grow up. We supported him for way too long.” He dodged Cricket, laughing.
“And you’ll really be here all winter?” Leann asked.
“Until the spring,” Cricket replied. “If we didn’t have to travel as much as possible, we would stay till Beltain.”
“Four months or so. That’s not bad,” Leann said.
“Did you meet Serca tonight?” Cricket asked. “She’s my companion when the company splits up.”
“She’s cute,” Leann said.
“And you two are constantly together?” Asael asked slyly. “Sounds like you are working on finding a wife.”
“It’s not like that.”
“If you say so.” Asael and Leann shared a knowing smile.
Cricket rolled his eyes. “You’re going to get me back for all those times I teased you about Leann, aren’t you?”
Sean sent them out two mornings later. Traveling with Serca again was nice, but Cricket looked forward to returning to the Caer for the first time.
One night, as they scooped out beds in the hayloft of the dun they were staying at, Serca said, “You love your friends very much, don’t you?”
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