How was it possible I was even thinking about this now?
“The energies are a problem?” Letitia said faintly.
“The energies are impossible,” Amien said. “We’ve got to get you to Aballo.”
Excitement and dread collided in my chest.
“What?” Letitia said.
“Let’s just rein that one in right now,” Rishan said, low-voiced. His pale, green-shadowed face was abruptly flushed. “The last time you promised to escort a member of this family—”
Suddenly Amien was on his feet, chair sliding away behind him. He grasped his sword; his chest heaved. He and Rishan stared as if trying to bore holes through one another’s skulls.
“No man, not even one of the lords of the order, may ignore the summons of the Aballo Prince,” Amien rasped. “Nevertheless I begin and end each day with the wish that I had forfeited my life and done just that.”
“So do I,” Rishan rejoined in a profoundly unsympathetic tone.
Amien spun away and strode to the window. The sounds of everyone breathing seemed unnaturally loud.
“We should be able to reach Aballo in nineteen or twenty days,” Amien said to the window. “I have sent word to the High Chief of the Essuvians, requesting that she meet us with reinforcements at Banbagor, but—”
“What about the wildfires?” Letitia interrupted. “Wait—twenty days? I can’t be gone that long! My investiture is in twenty-four!”
Amien laughed humorlessly. “This war has been going on for five years, now. I can’t guarantee that we’ll have it mopped up on time for your investiture!”
A strange desperation manifested in Letitia’s face. “Maybe it’ll just have to wait.”
“Letitia! ” I blurted. Sweet Lady Tella, when had my mouth developed a will of its own? All I did out here was speak out of turn.
“Mora,” I said, in a more appropriate tone. “Do you understand what is happening here? The Bard’s Wizard is targeting you. Every resource the kharr can spare will be applied to your death. If Amien can’t find the power to keep you safe out here… You must agree to go to a place we can defend.”
And had I really just volunteered to spend the next month working with Amien? I’d gone mad and hadn’t noticed.
“But Aballo?” Letitia said reasonably. “Does it have to be there?”
Gods, no. Anyplace would be better, with the possible exception of the kharr’s captured capital of Macol. But Amien shook his head, whether at Letitia or me I wasn’t sure.
“Aballo commands the most reliable power sources in the world,” he said, sounding reasonable again. “The tides alone make the island difficult to approach, and the harbor’s completely inaccessible unless you know the release spells. And we have walls,” he said to Rishan. “Yes, Mora, it must be Aballo. I cannot guarantee your safety otherwise.”
“There are wildfires between here and Banbagor,” Letitia said. That must be the source of the smoke I’d seen from the barge yesterday.
“Yes, arcane fire,” Amien said. “It pursued me as I rode; it’s no coincidence, I assure you.”
“And a plague of locusts between here and the sea,” Letitia said, as if she thought she’d won an argument.
But Amien just nodded, unsurprised. “That’s what I felt. Well then, Mora, we should probably discuss traveling via the Muir Pass. I may be able to contact my second from Ilunmore and—”
I lost focus on the argument. Traveling via the Muir Pass would take us through the center of Tanaan society and culture, through cities about which I’d spent countless hours reading and more hours dreaming. I’d taken the shorter route to Fíana: beyond Ilesia’s eastern borders and north, across the highlands and through Banbagor. To tread the celebrated shores of the Devadore, to visit the College of Bards at Arian and learn from their loremasters, even to see the wonders of the sacred isle of Ilunmore—these things would be more than sufficient compensation for a month in Amien’s company.
“Muir?” Letitia’s voice escalated into shrillness again, snapping me back into the moment. “How long is that going to take?”
Amien shrugged. “Longer. Twenty-two, twenty-three days? If we can charter a ship at Goibniu, we can shave off a few days… But this close to the Moot, we can’t plan on that.”
Letitia buried her head in her hands. “How do I know these two attacks came from the same place? What if the first time it really was the mora of Banbagor, and I go through Muir to Aballo rather than making answer to Banbagor—and Banbagor goes right on attacking Fíana? How could I call myself Mora then?”
“Mora, there’s no way it wasn’t the same wizard both times,” I said.
“Can you prove it?” she retorted.
Not without discussing any number of topics I’d give much to avoid. I grimaced. “No.”
“If Banbagor wanted to settle a grievance with you, they wouldn’t make it impossible for you to get to them,” Amien pointed out.
“Unless they just wanted to make it look like I refused.”
“To what end?” I snapped. Letitia rewarded me with a look that suggested I had stepped out of line again—as if I were some inconsequential tiarn. My frustration flared higher; I mustered my patience.
“Letitia, what would the mora of Banbagor accomplish by removing you as mora of Fíana?” I said, with far less irritation than I felt. “It’s not as if she could become mora of Fíana as well, is it?”
She turned a wrathful glare on me, meeting my stare with mouth set in a way that made it very clear I was treading the edge of my welcome. I held her gaze, too frustrated to care. Amien had found me, anyway.
After a moment she sagged, then gathered her dignity and rose. “I need to meditate,” she said, and left the room.
More than an hour had passed. Rishan and Amien had gone directly from the sitting room to a private chamber nearby; I couldn’t imagine them drinking brandy together after the baleful stares they’d exchanged, but I didn’t hear shouting or furniture breaking, either. I wandered aimlessly among Ériu House’s elegant corridors and courtyards, waiting for an opportunity to make a graceful exit.
Why had I thought I wanted to spend a month or more in Amien’s company? With him here, Letitia had all the arcane defense anyone might require, and it was clearly a matter of very little time before one of us lost patience with another and said something everyone involved would regret. Maybe I’d come back next spring; maybe I’d take a wrong turn on the way back to Ilnemedon and miss the Moot after all. Maybe I’d sign on as a Nagnatan mercenary and get it over with: it was strangely difficult to imagine going back to Ilnemedon at all, whether as ard-harpist or simply as some man the ard-righ used to know. I wondered where a man could get a skin of brandy in this city.
“Ouirr Ellion,” Etan said quietly.
I looked up: the Tana stood in the doorway to the courtyard I wandered, green-lit and downcast. I met her gaze evenly, sharing her grief and my rising despair.
“If you would return to the sitting room, the mora will join you in a moment.”
I nodded and followed her inside. As I approached the sitting room, I saw Rishan walk in. Amien hurried towards me from the opposite direction and planted himself in my path.
“You didn’t tell them who you are?” he said, black eyes incredulous. “Great Lord Ilesan, Rishan thought you were a harpist!”
I manufactured a laugh. “My lord, I am a harpist. A good one, as it happens.”
“Pheh,” Amien said, spun on his heel, and stalked inside.
Letitia was already there, in the same chair as before, golden hair and fresh-cream skin muddied by green shadows and sudden age in her eyes. She had the air of someone who had been sitting alone for quite some time.
I bowed and entered the room. “Mora.”
“My lord.”
She gestured for me to sit; I took advantage of the opportunity the moment afforded to adjust to my sudden change in stature—or tried to. Something very strange was going on in my chest. I glanced at
her again as I settled, and found her gaze still on me. Iminor entered the room and settled beside me again.
“I appreciate your grace in giving me time to collect my thoughts,” she said finally, sounding so much older than a Tana on the verge of her first Bealtan that I ached to wrap my awareness around her, to seek out the cause or cure. I held myself closed.
“I will surprise none of you,” she continued. “My investiture must wait. I cannot become mora under these circumstances; there will be no safety for anyone here until this situation has been resolved. My lord Amien, I would be grateful to accept your offer of sanctuary at Aballo.”
It was done, then. Amien nodded gravely, face still.
“My lord Ellion,” she said, turning her depthless eyes on me. “I will not ask you to ride with me on this journey. The war against the rebels is not your war: you have made this plain.” Her eyes were as intent on mine as if we were the only people in the room. Objections tangled on one another in my throat.
“But, my lord, if you volunteered—I would not turn you away.”
I could feel Amien staring at me. Rishan rose abruptly, chair sliding away behind him, and strode to the window. I rose, feeling the inevitability of it, and presented myself on one knee. I met Letitia’s eyes and offered her my sword.
But there was no way I could make the crossing to Aballo.
Map: Northern Fíana and the Devadore
Ériu House Maps Collection no. 875
9. Leading the Blind
Cainte the chef, Etan’s assistant Flidais, and Letitia’s herald Boanna were already arrayed on funerary biers in a hall that was probably a ballroom on happier days. I discovered I wanted to pay respect to Cainte, even though we had barely known one another: the Tana had the soul of a warrior, whatever her profession, and she had died in Letitia’s defense. I stood beside her body, looking at her fine-boned face: does every Tana become a goddess in the stillnesses of meditation and death? I tried to apply myself to the question, hoping it would distract me from the energies Amien was raising in the opposite wing. But the battle for calm was a hopeless one.
Amien had insisted on working personal wards for Letitia before we set out: a sensible last line of defense for the Bard of Arcadia’s latest incomprehensible objective. But the wizard was clearly having as much difficulty with the working as he’d had with the Básghilae out in the house yard: again and again power surged at the edges of my awareness, only to fade like the smoke from a cheap candle. He must be half-insane with frustration; the surge-and-fail of power was making me itch for violence. Finally I admitted I wasn’t giving the dead their due, murmured an apology, and strode out to the house yard.
The house was surrounded by wards, of course: I’d forgotten. They hung like drapes of green magma suspended from some unimaginable height, blockading everything beyond the edge of the portico. I could have opened a portal and slipped through, but the thought of entangling myself in Amien’s working was even less appealing than the still air; I just stood there, hand on the pommel of my sword, waiting: for what, I did not know.
A moment later Amien strode out to the portico, fuming.
“Ah,” I said without thinking. “Got it?”
“Fouzhir torc,” he muttered.
“What?” I said blankly.
He gave vent to an explosive sigh. “Her torc! The Mora’s Torc of Fíana! I couldn’t get the wards past the damned thing; she finally had to take it off. Great Lord Ilesan, get me the hell out of here!”
I nodded.
“She looks exactly like her mother,” the wizard said, staring at the wards around the house.
I nodded again. “I had wondered.”
Amien nodded, too, as if the fact were yet another irritation. “Exactly.”
For a moment we were both silent. Finally he sighed.
“Well, I’d better take these things down,” he said. “We leave in half an hour.”
“Well, then,” I said. “I’ll see you in a bit.” I turned and strode back inside, in search of some way to while away half an hour that didn’t involve Amien.
When I returned, the yard was busy again, with a more compact train that carefully skirted the places in which someone had heaped wood and kindling on top of Básghilae corpses and set them alight. I hoped for the sake of everyone who must remain here that the upside-down pyres worked—and wondered where they would hold the proper pyres for Letitia’s dead retainers tonight.
Amien already stood beside his horse, impatience written in his every motion; Iminor shot me a look of pure venom as I stepped down from the portico. We hadn’t even held a conversation since this morning’s battle; how had I managed to offend him? I gave him a nod, because a civil response to anger tends to end such matters quickly, one way or another, and applied myself to checking my horse’s tack and ensuring that my gear was properly lashed. By the time I finished, Nuad, Letitia, and Rishan had arrived. Rishan glared at me, too, then turned a look composed of equal parts injury and frustration on Letitia. She just sighed and climbed into the saddle, the spidersilk of her artistically-crafted mailshirt rustling; so I followed suit, surveying the train. For the moment we were a party of five with a single pack horse: a much more sensible proportion for travel than this morning’s mummers’ parade.
“Don’t bollocks this one up,” Rishan said to Amien.
The wizard’s mouth twisted. “Kiss my ass, old man. Your words will inspire me all the way to Aballo.”
“See that they do.”
“Is there anybody who still likes you?” Amien retorted. “Nuad, let’s go.”
Nuad glanced at Amien, Rishan, and Letitia in turn; Letitia gave him a nod, and he cued his horse.
“Be safe,” Rishan said to Letitia, sudden vulnerability in his face. A little noise escaped her; she reached out and brushed his outstretched fingers as she passed.
Rishan turned his depthless black eyes on me as I fell in behind her and Iminor; suddenly his voice was in my head.
*Surprise me. Do the right thing.*
Long habit sent sarcasm racing to my lips; but suddenly I felt the import of this thing into which I’d stumbled. I met his gaze and nodded instead.
A double contingent of guards waited for us at the base of the slope, as Nuad had promised: ludicrous and resplendent in the same white-and-gold enameled armor I’d seen on Letitia’s previous contingent, the Fíana standard fluttering prettily in the light onshore wind. They came to order as we rode down to meet them; Nuad dismounted and presented each guard to Letitia in what was clearly a ceremony of high tradition. Among them were Mattiaci, Vandabala, Eber and Tru, the surviving members of Letitia’s last contingent—and three Tana besides Tru.
All the Tana except Tru hailed from junior septs of the Fíana clans, I noticed: what truth might I glean from that? It seemed reasonable to assume that a position on the Mora’s Guard was an honorable one; the preponderance of Tans who hailed from primary clan houses seemed to bear that theory out. So if rank helped secure a position in this organization, what did it mean that the males tended to be of higher rank than the females? I had insufficient information, as usual.
There were two members of Clan Ériu among the group: Ogma, who hailed from a junior sept, and Neide, who was of the clan house itself. Letitia stiffened visibly when Neide was presented; he winked at her, with head tilted a bit so most of those present couldn’t see. But she made no objection to her kinsman’s inclusion in the party.
Finally the presentation was complete: all twenty-four of them stood in a long line before Letitia, battle-bound hair stirring in the wind and well-worked armor gleaming. She glanced at Nuad, then looked out at them again.
“Thank you, Nuad, these guards will do admirably,” she said, in what was clearly the expected conclusion to the ceremony. I wondered whether I imagined relief in the line of Nuad’s shoulders.
“Mora,” Amien said, an undercurrent of frustration in his tone.
Letitia stiffened again, then turned a warning gaze on
the wizard.
“Lord Amien,” she responded in a tone that left no doubt which of them was in charge of this expedition. Astonishment raced through me: no human righ would have the effrontery to put the Prince of the Aballo Order in his place, certainly not in front of observers. A human would have known better than to think he would be the last one standing. What freedom must it be for a Tanaan mora to answer to none but her gods.
But Amien looked frustrated, not surprised; and I remembered his first appointment had been to the staff of Mora Bebhionn of Muir, Rishan’s mother. I was torn between satisfaction at his discomfiture and an uneasy sense that Letitia’s condescension towards the Prince of the Order translated into disrespect for the true gods.
“Mora,” Amien said again, gaze locked on hers. “I do not dispute Ouirr Nuad’s selection of your guards, but the manner of their outfit is wholly unacceptable!”
Letitia bristled; the wizard shook his head and pressed on.
“Our objective is to get you to Aballo safely—to attract as little attention to you as possible. This contingent is quite obviously in the service of a tiarn at the very least, most likely a royal!”
“Would you prefer they looked like a band of highwaymen?” Letitia snapped.
“Yes!” Amien retorted. “A Tana traveling under such guard, with the Bard of Arcadia’s bounty on your neck most assuredly a public thing by now—”
“Fíana’s honor—”
“Will not keep you alive!” Amien’s voice escalated perilously close to a shout. He stopped, surprise in his equine face. Letitia’s translucent skin was abruptly several shades paler. A horse stomped nervously; everything else was silent, except the Fíana standard dancing in the wind.
The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods) Page 14