“What was the vision?” I asked. But the seer in question was crossing the yard towards us, and the stable hands were beginning to crowd around; Letitia shrugged, reined and dismounted, so I followed suit. Tiaran embraced Letitia without preamble, leaving the younger Tana struggling against sudden tears.
“Come inside, child,” Tiaran said quietly. “The bath water is hot.”
A little noise escaped Letitia. “Your hospitality is legend,” she said, the courtly words hanging on the edge of a sob.
Tiaran kissed Letitia on the forehead, released her, and turned to Iminor and Nuad, who she grabbed in a fervent double hug, kissing each of their brows.
“Well done,” she said, emotion creeping into her voice. “Very well done indeed; who needs a bath?”
“Lord of Light, Amma,” Iminor croaked. “The longest bath ever!”
“Pra-nu,” Nuad said.
I controlled the startle with an effort, then had to fight down the impulse to laugh at my own foolishness: few humans outside the initiate use that phrase, which invokes the attention of the gods to a prayer or act of magic. For people descended from gods, it seems, it is nothing more than an expression of fervent agreement.
Tiaran released both Tans, smiled at me, and offered a courteous nod. “It’s good to see you here, young ouirr. I had looked forward to your visit.”
Again I fought down a laugh. I hadn’t known this place existed, much less planned to come here, and she’d been waiting for my arrival. But her attention was already on Amien, who she greeted with a deep, nimble curtsy.
“And Himself!” she said. “Truly you honor my house; never before has one of the Lords of the Order graced us with a visit.”
Amien bowed, smiling for the first time since I’d seen him in Fíana. “Your hospitality is legend. My lady, with your indulgence, I’ll need to ward the house.”
“Ah,” Tiaran said, as if he had just handed her the missing piece of a puzzle. She nodded gravely. “I’m sorry—I should have realized… I’ll need a few minutes to prepare.”
“Of course,” Amien said, equally grave.
“May I make you comfortable in the meantime?” she said, taking his arm and turning towards the house.
“I’m sorry, I dare not,” Amien replied. “Ours is… a formidable opponent.” He glanced at me; my throat tightened.
Tiaran frowned thoughtfully. “I see no attacks on this house this night,” she said slowly. “But if your goddess tells you otherwise…”
Amien bowed. “It is not my god that speaks, but simple caution.”
Tiaran nodded. “That, too, has merit. I will have my men inside the wall in a few minutes. Be at ease, my lord. Will the rest of you come in?”
I looked at Amien, trying with minute gestures of eyebrows and eyes to remind him that the answer had better be yes: to refuse to stand down when her men held the walls would be a terrible insult. He seemed to understand, though I could see the surrender pained him.
“Thank you, Lady. We are honored to accept your welcome and protection,” he said with creditable smoothness. “I will remain out here, and offer your men what support I may, until you are ready for warding.”
Tiaran smiled and looked around at the group. “Be welcome in,” she said, took Letitia’s arm in her own, and led the group across the yard.
For half a second I wavered on the edge of decision: it felt profoundly wrong to leave Amien to handle arcane defense alone, exhausted as he was. But it wasn’t as if I could actually draw power, so what would be the point? My throat tightened again; I turned and followed the group towards the house.
“Ellion,” Amien said behind me.
I stopped and turned towards him, giving him an inquiring look; he cast a glance around the yard, which was rapidly emptying, and up at the walls. The men on the walls were spaced for the watch, not defense; there was no one within range of a normal speaking voice.
“It’s been… a long time,” the wizard said slowly, black eyes intent. “Much has changed—but much remains the same. You were… the most promising Talent I ever taught. And I need your—”
I shook my head vigorously. I couldn’t draw enough breath.
Suddenly the accusation was back in his tone. “What happened to the man for whom limits didn’t matter, who turned Tellan upside-down to answer the goddess’s Call?”
“He displeased Her,” I grated.
Shock flitted across Amien’s face; but he didn’t hesitate. “A youthful mistake. Surely—”
“If you believe that—”
“So this is Her Will? You waste your Talent, you jeopardize lives with your inaction, you—”
“I have no idea what Her Will is anymore!” I blurted—then wished more fervently for death than I had in a long time.
Amien stared at me; half a second later he remembered to close his mouth. Wind whined through the gate as someone pulled it shut.
Silence stretched between us; Amien’s face was grave and still, but his eyes were full of alarm. Just like the day he arrived in Tellan, after everything fell apart.
I managed a stiff nod, spun on my heel, and crossed the yard with what little dignity I could muster. I could still feel him staring after I pulled the door shut.
When Vandabala failed to arrive for dinner, I finally remembered: he’d been ill since we set out from Irisa, and he’d had a brush with an enchanted sword. I should have been on top of the issue much earlier; and if my suspicions were correct, he needed Amien, not some garden-variety healer.
But Amien needed rest and food, even more than the rest of us; the green walls of the wards hung solid tonight, but his face had developed a hollow look. I waited throughout dinner, where he sat at Tiaran’s left hand and seemingly developed an instantaneous friendship with the seer, trying without much success to carry my share of the dinner conversation.
No one present seemed in significantly better spirits than I: which was to be expected, I supposed, as the tableful of warriors with whom I sat had been raised with the expectation that war was a game confined to the tourney field, not an endeavor at which competent fighters might die. During a lull in the conversation, Letitia looked across the table at me, a question struggling towards birth on her lips.
“Lord Ellion,” she said finally. “Would you educate me on the topic of the Bard of Arcadia?”
I felt myself stiffen, then remembered: the Tanaan have no taboos regarding serious topics at table. The conversation could hardly do more damage to the mood in the room. I pursed my lips, but controlled the impulse to look into my plate rather than meet her bewitching gaze. For a moment I stared at the enchanted diamond that dangled beneath her torc, trying to figure out where to begin.
“Our knowledge of him is limited, I’m sorry to say,” I said finally. “At first he seemed little more than a curiosity: a small-time bard in Macol playing in taverns that catered to tradesmen. Even then, from what I’ve been able to glean, no one outside his immediate circle knew his true name: he was simply the Bard of Arcadia, even though no one could have said where Arcadia might be or how he had become its bard. It’s hard to say exactly where his influence spread when; by the time I became aware of him, the main thrust of his mission seemed to be… evangelism for the god Esus, one of the gods that were worshipped by—” I nearly said humans. “—Bealla before the arrival of the true gods six hundred years ago.”
“So this bard worships a god no one else believes in anymore?” Letitia said, puzzled. “How does that…? Who would…? Is that the basis of the war?”
I offered her a rueful smile. “No. Half the boat captains on the Ruillin still worship the old goddess Laverna, and no one cares except their wives.”
Amien shot me a look; I raised my eyebrows, daring him to dispute the point, and he turned back to his conversation with Tiaran.
“So the Bard of Arcadia has… unusual religious beliefs, but that’s not what’s at stake,” Letitia prompted.
“It isn’t,” I agreed. “The issue is
that he—and the kharr who follow him—are working to overthrow every ruler everywhere.”
Letitia frowned. “And replace them with what?”
I shrugged. “The god Esus, perhaps?” The humor eluded her, and every Tanaan around the table, though in the corner of my eye I saw Amien quirk a wry grin. I shook my head. “It’s anarchy he’s advocating, Mora. With himself at the head of the mob.”
Silence settled over the table. Some taboos should not be violated.
“He hasn’t managed to overthrow all the rulers on the other side of the mountains yet, correct?” Letitia said finally.
“Correct.”
Letitia nodded. “Well, my lord Ellion, I am no scholar of warfare, but it seems strange that he would—” Her calm tone disintegrated. “Put so much effort into killing me.”
“Letitia,” I began.
“Really, if whatever this Bard’s agenda is—doesn’t it seem much more likely to have something to do with, say, the mora Carina? As I understand it, she is known on your side of the mountains.”
Now Tiaran was looking at Letitia as if she’d said something insightful.
“Didn’t—Lord Amien, am I mistaken or were you, too, expecting to meet the mora Carina on your arrival at Irisa?”
The wizard nodded. “Yes, that’s true; and it brings me to a question I’ve wanted to ask.” He swallowed, the exhaustion in his face overlaid by grief. “What happened to the mora Carina?” His voice had gone to gravel again.
“I—don’t know, Lord Amien,” Letitia said.
For a man trained in truth-sense, the difference between the truth and a lie is as easy to hear as a harp string that has gone off its proper pitch. Even through the pain in Letitia’s voice, it was plain: her answer, while factual, was far from true. I controlled the impulse to slip into her mind and try to ferret out the things she had chosen not to say, but found myself staring at her anyway. In my peripheral vision I saw Amien doing the same.
Letitia looked into her plate, toying with her food, then spread her gaze between Amien and me. “Truly there has been no word of her in the Beallan realms?”
And that question was an attempt at misdirection: she didn’t know the answer, but at this moment she was more interested in getting our focus off herself.
“Letitia,” I said, patience thinning. “Would we both have come out here looking for her, if there had?”
The Tanaan left the dining room in the same unceremonious style I had observed at Ériu House. I spoke Amien’s name as he escorted Tiaran from the room. He met my gaze without speaking, something I couldn’t quantify in his eyes, and nodded. I remained behind as Iminor took up his habitual spot at Letitia’s elbow and the shrunken contingent followed them from the chamber.
Within a minute Amien was back, staring at me from the doorway.
I nodded. “Vandabala. Do you know which one he is? He’s one of Letitia’s original—one of the group that is always in closest proximity to her.”
“Are we talking about the one who’s ill?”
I nodded again. “On the night of our first engagement against the Bard’s Wizard—let’s see, that’s three—plus another—six nights ago in total… Vandabala took a minor hit from a Básghilae weapon.”
Amien flashed me a look both accusatory and alarmed.
“He seemed fine at the time,” I temporized. “The Básghilae weren’t actively feeding at the time, just trying to get to Letitia—and it wasn’t until we were on the road these last three days that he began to show ill effects…”
Amien shook his head. “So have you investigated?”
Guilt flared inside me. “No.”
“And now you want me to do that, too.”
I couldn’t help it: I glanced away. Nevertheless his glare set my face burning.
“My lord, I—”
“Being uncertain of the will of the gods is the human condition, Ellion,” Amien snapped. “Welcome to the realm of mortals.” He turned and strode away.
I slunk out of the dining room, climbed the stairs to the room I’d been allocated for the night, and picked up my harp: I just wanted to hide and play through the pain. But a harpist who is a guest and does not share his music with the household violates a geas older than human memory: were I to play tonight, it must be in the house’s great room, where everyone had gathered. I sighed, slung the strap over my shoulder, and went back downstairs. At least playing would give me an excuse to avoid conversation.
Everyone looked up as I stepped into the room, faces displaying varying mixes of surprise, anticipation, and pleasure.
Tiaran smiled. “My lord, you honor us.”
Against all reason, I felt a flush rising on my cheeks. I bowed. “It is only my pleasure I share with you this evening,” I said: the expected reply.
“Allow us to make you comfortable,” Tiaran replied. Iminor rose from his seat beside Letitia and adjacent the fire, ceding the desirable seat in accordance with the same protocol that requires a harpist to share his art.
I held up both hands in the required refusal. “My lord,” I said, shaking my head.
Iminor had been well schooled, or else the protocols were the same on this side of the mountains: he bowed and stepped away to stand behind Letitia’s chair. I bowed again and accepted the seat; servants brought a new chair for Iminor and installed it on Letitia’s other side, then set a goblet of heroic proportions on a low table before me. I found myself smiling, surprised: I couldn’t think of a human tiarn whose household would be this well-prepared. Usually a harpist only receives this sort of honor in a royal house.
I unpacked my harp, pulled the key from my pocket, and began tuning as the servants poured wine for everyone present.
“What would you hear this evening, Lady?” I said to Tiaran.
Even here she did not falter. “Whatever pleases you, my lord.”
I accepted her gracious answer with a nod and a small smile, then applied myself to tuning the harp as conversations resumed around me. Tiaran sat speaking with Nuad; several of the knights played a card game I didn’t recognize, with a deck that bore an eerie resemblance to the ones I’d seen fortune-tellers use; Letitia held a book but seemed to be staring through the narrow window on the opposite wall, at the green curtain of the wards. The mood in the room still verged on despair: a wise harpist would play something to lift a warrior’s spirits, probably a lay of the great warrior Cúchulainn. But I didn’t want to hear about him tonight. I tuned the harp to my dark mood, then finally realized what key I had chosen. The harp was ready to play Fergus in Exile. So was I.
I struck the opening chord; they all looked at me. Even Letitia laid the book across her lap. Firelight caught in Tanaan eyes, and I remembered: most of my audience didn’t understand Ilesian. I must tell them the tale in the Tanaan language if they were to have any appreciation for it.
I let my hands wander over the strings, teasing out bits of the chord progressions in the song, dallying with snatches of the melody, and looked around at my audience again: of the twenty-four who had stood at harborside three days ago, twelve remained—thirteen, if one counted Vandabala, who lay in a bed upstairs. Some of the eleven fallen had been lost to superior fighters, but more to inexperience with real warfare; I still hadn’t trained them, and what little I could do before we set out in the morning was unlikely to spare any life but Letitia’s. They were dying in a war that had nothing to do with them: as if they were the pawns of some restless god in an ancient tale.
Renewed dread bit at my throat. The song in my hands was appropriate for them, too: far too appropriate. A wiser harpist would stop and re-tune, play something else—but suddenly I saw that the key and the melody fit their mood as well as mine. Wherever I finally ended up, this was where we must begin. I paused, sipped lean but subtle red wine from the herculean goblet, and began again.
“This song comes from a very large song-cycle about the War of the Brown Bull,” I began, introducing a snatch of the Brown Bull’s primary theme with
my left hand and returning to toying with the current melody. Sparks of recognition lit in eyes all around the room, which shouldn’t have surprised me: no one is certain how old that cycle is. If the Tanaan turned out to know the work, if against all odds I returned as ard-harpist to Ilnemedon, I must bring the fact back with me, just in case it was the missing piece to some historian’s puzzle.
“This is the story of Fergus, who was born to be righ but tricked into giving up the throne to his nephew Conor,” I continued. “He was a man of honor, and he served the righ his nephew faithfully, never giving sign that he was anything but content to be a mere lord and the greatest warrior in the realm. Where Conor needed him, he went, whether to fight or to make peace—and so it was natural that Conor should call on Fergus to restore the peace between him and his nephew Naisi.
“The trouble between Conor and Naisi arose because of Dierdre, the most beautiful woman ever to walk the meadows of Hy-Breasaíl.”
The Tanaan were nodding.
“Ah, you know the story of Dierdre?” I said, smiling, and let her theme ripple briefly across the strings.
“When she was born, a seer prophesied that she would be the most beautiful woman in the world—and that she would marry a mor,” Tiaran said gravely. “And she would be the cause of war and the ruin of the country.”
I nodded. “And so Conor decreed that he would marry her himself, thinking he would avert the doom and possess this great beauty—but the gods laughed at him, as They so often do, and rather than marrying him she eloped with his nephew, Fergus’s beloved friend Naisi.
“Conor remembered the prophecy, at least for a while—and he didn’t fight Naisi for her, and let them run. And when he saw they would not return no matter how they were pursued, he sent Fergus to offer peace. In peace Fergus and his sons brought them back to court, Deidre and Naisi and Naisi’s brothers—but again the gods toyed with Fergus, and he was forced by a geas to temporarily separate from the party on the evening of their arrival. Naisi and his brothers were betrayed; Fergus’s sons fell defending them, and all were lost; and Conor captured Dierdre after all. But she would not have him, and when the opportunity arose she killed herself—and when Fergus returned and saw how Conor had betrayed his trust and killed his sons and his beloved friend, he swore vengeance.”
The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods) Page 16