by Widowmaker
Until that morning came, and then he wasn’t so sure. Typically, there was no trace that anything untoward had ever happened.
No visible trace, at least. But it was there in Reth ar’Gyart’s attitude towards Marc, more sullenly suspicious than ever, and in the way that attitude had begun at last to spill over into the behaviour of the other lord’s-men. There were fewer of them willing to talk to Marc than ever before. Of the few who dared ar’Gyart’s displeasure, what had once passed for conversation had degenerated so far into pointless chatter that it was no longer worth any of Marc’s attention.
So what? he thought to himself. They all know me by now. Or think they do. It won’t influence…
Influence what? Influence who? The next lord who might be willing to accept his service? That was a question he couldn’t answer, even if there was another such lord within reach. And because of what he was, what he had become, Marc doubted it very much. Not when even the lesser retainers had begun to treat him as an outcast. As he turned his head and felt again the movement of roughly-cropped hair against his neck and ears, he began – hating it – to accept matters at last.
That cropping marked him far more than anything he might think or believe or say. An Alban kailin’s hair was worn long; loose only when bathing or preparing for bed, but at all other times plaited into the tight braid that marked a warrior. At the very least – though fashions changed in this as in everything else – it was worn in a single horsetail caught by a crested clip.
Only eijin wore it short, so that people of honour could more easily see and avoid them. And whatever he might do, or say, or even think in the privacy of his own mind, Marc ar’Dru had become an eijo.
With that single dramatic gesture of repudiation when he cut off his own braid, Marc had made himself into an Outlier, a landless, masterless warrior whose status was next to nothing in the Alban hierarchy. Eijin weren’t popular at the best of times. Their treatment depended so much on what had brought them to such a lowly state, and the more Marc brooded on it, the more he realized that his case was among the worst of all.
Some warriors left the service of Clan or House or Family on the death of the lord who had received their fealty, holding that allegiance to have been a personal thing between kailinin rather than a matter to concern the dead man’s line. Whether or not that viewed was shared by the line in question, and by the other lords to whom they might later offer service, depended very much on circumstances. Leaving full-grown heirs who would already have their own circle of friends and retainers, and perhaps little time for their dead parent’s henchmen, was far less reprehensible and lacking in honour than abandoning an immature child.
Sometimes, too, a man might take exception to a lord’s behaviour or policies, and give them formal defiance as an admonishment and a hint to mend their ways. That was what Marc had done – or assumed that he had done. But without positive proof of ill-doing, the reprimand should have been made privately rather than in full public view…
Otherwise such retainers could be seen as taking this opportunity to cause a loss of respect and confidence that any enemy might be proud of. And if their lord had enough opponents, there was always the unspoken question: whose instructions had they been following? That of their conscience – or of the adversary who had paid them?
Because of that, they weren’t trusted; as ar’Gyart had already demonstrated so eloquently, in a reaction Marc suspected had been more instinctive than at a conscious level. And the oldest, most traditionally-minded high-clan lords wouldn’t even tolerate such an eijo in their presence or under their roof.
It was as bad as that.
Marc ar’Dru had thrown away much more than a comfortable and respected position with Clan Talvalin. He had become unreliable. If his high-minded attitude could turn him against the lord who had been his friend, and who had elevated him to a rank beyond that attained by most members of a mere low-clan House, then it could turn him against any other lord whose fealty he might claim.
Unless he was given no chance to do so, and the easiest way to make sure of that was to have nothing to do with him.
Not even the old stories had anything good to say about eijin, except for those driven by the needs of vengeance, or with wrongs to put right. It was well known that fireside tales favoured the more romantically downtrodden characters: lovers separated by the feuding of their families, a youngest child who stood to inherit nothing but was the only truly honourable among several children, a warrior whose nobility was not appreciated until tragedy struck.
All good, uplifting, ethical stuff, at least for the most part. Even villains – though this was often condemned by the more moral – might be presented as darkly glamorous heroes if their villainy could be shown in a sufficiently dramatic light.
But not such an eijo as Marc had become.
There were some who would not even permit them to be spoken of in Hall, as if the very word was tainted. Eijin were unhappy creatures at best. At worst they were as short-lived as mayflies. When no-one would raise a voice, never mind a weapon, in their defence, old grudges could be easily settled.
The more that Marc brooded on what had happened, the more he blamed Bayrd for what had happened. If he had been in error, Bayrd would have spoken out; he would never have stood in silence and let Marc say what he had said. If he had been innocent, Bayrd would have protested it in front of all the ears who had heard Marc’s accusation. And if he had been guilty, and a man of any honour, Bayrd should have confessed it so that there would have been no doubts cast on the honour of his Bannerman companion. Instead, he had stood mute and let things happen as they had.
Marc broke his fast, trying to relieve his feelings by grinding his teeth far more than really necessary on flat biscuits of waybread and a few strips of jerked meat. One had all the taste and texture of dry wood, the other was like leather, and it was all washed down with herb-steeped hot water passed him grudgingly from the cooking-fire. As he ate and drank – or at least chewed, and tried to swallow, then chewed some more – he remembered the fragrant tang of Hauverne and Seurandec wines, the crisp, savoury scent of a roasted chicken simply served, the laughter and the warmth of friendship around the table that was better than any sauce.
And he began to hate the very thought of the Clan-Lord Bayrd Talva—
No. Not so very long ago, he had been mere ar’Talvlyn,. Let him be ar’Talvlyn again.
Again there was the ride in silence, sombre despite the sunlit brilliance of a summer day on the burnt bronze and dark green bracken, on the white and purple heather. This time the silence was more profound than it had been on any of the previous days. Nobody spoke to Marc at all. He wondered if that was their own decision, or whether Reth ar’Gyart had finally issued orders to that effect. He cared neither one way or the other. Eijo or not, with the land in its present state, teetering on the edge of self-created turmoil, any man might make his own way in the world.
Ar’Talvlyn had done it.
Once the tinted lenses of friendship had been finally thrown away, it was all too obvious that his one-time comrade was no more than an adventurer, a freebooter, a reaver like the young men whose heads had been set on spears as a warning to others who might imitate them. But Bayrd had differed from them in one important respect: with an eye for a larger prize than just the next man’s cattle. He was a player in what the Albans in Drosul and Kalitz had long called an Moy’Aleth. It was the Great Game, whose first and only written rule was that ‘what can be seen is not truly seen at all’.
To the blind, or the ignorant, or the trusting, it was nothing more than spying in disguise, gathering intelligence about a potential enemy – and in the purest forms of the Game, everyone was a potential enemy – to such an extent that knowledge became a weapon of such power that no others were needed.
Marc should have realized that a long time ago, but his misplaced loyalty had blinded him to the truth. In the Great Game, potential prefaced every player, every possibility: potentia
l gain, potential loss, victory, defeat, ally, opponent. Everyone else might be a friend, or might equally be an enemy. Every move might be a trap, and should be treated so. Advantage and disadvantage swung from one side to the other like a weight hung on a cord. It was an unpleasant fact that should always be remembered.
Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had never forgotten it; that was plain, though he had concealed the awareness with a consummate skill that was the mark of a master player. Gerin ar’Diskan had forgotten it, made himself vulnerable by such carelessness, and had lost the land he coveted. Vanek ar’Kelayr had forgotten it, put himself into the enemy’s hands, and lost his life. Marc ar’Dru had forgotten it, placed too much trust in someone else’s honour, and lost his status, rank, position and respect.
He would not forget again. And now that he knew the Game was being played in Alba as it had been played in Kalitzim, he was like a man who had rediscovered the use of weapons after being unarmed for far too long.
There would be a war. That much was certain. Ar’Talvlyn was hardly the only lord in Alba to be a player, and Marc was hardly the only kailin to have realized what he now knew. When war came, and with it battle, conquest and the seizing of land, then he, Marc ar’Dru, intended to be on the winning side.
He would play the Game properly. No matter what moves had to be made to achieve such a result, whichever side he was on would be the winning side. That was how the Game was played, with rules known only to the players themselves and subject to change from one moment to the next. That was how Bayrd had made his moves, and so subtly that until now his honour had remained untarnished. For all Marc knew, it still was untarnished, while he and his own honour were the pieces sacrificed to prove it…
Marc blinked as he emerged from a daydream of complex plotting and manoeuvre, and discovered that he had been left behind. His horse had taken the chance to slow from a walk to a disinterested amble, and ar’Gyart’s party were no more than a cluster of distant specks. Maybe they had taken the opportunity to ride on when he had offered it, maybe it had been nothing so deliberate, but whatever the reason, they were already the best part of a mile ahead of him.
He grinned sourly; this was more evidence, in a small way, that some game or other was being played. The lessening of an opponent’s esteem in the sight of his companions was as unequivocal a move as any other. It was near enough midday that they might soon stop for the noon-meal, or even, if he was right in the lie of the landscape at long last, that they might reach Erdanor and Hold ar’Kelayr before that. Either way, it would be less than seemly if he came straggling in behind the rest. Marc shook the reins and jabbed with his heels, urging his horse and the pack-pony in tow into something approaching a centre.
And just at that moment, all hell broke loose.
For all the distance between where he sat and ar’Gyart’s people, Marc’s eyes were good enough to make sense of what he saw. What made it worst of all was that he was close enough to see it all, but still far enough away that nothing he might do could be of any help if help was needed. In the drowsy, disconnected moment between his daydream and the sharper lines and colours of reality, the dozen distant figures of ar’Gyart and his followers were suddenly ringed by another score of men who had risen from concealment in the bracken.
He could make out no other details from such a distance: neither who the newcomers were, nor whether they were armed, nor if they were, what weapons they were carrying. Without knowing that, he couldn’t even guess at why they were here, what they wanted, what they might do next…
But when the first rider spilled from his saddle, and an attenuated shriek hung on the air like the sound of a rabbit taken by an eagle, Marc was abruptly quite certain that whatever else the group of men might be, they were no welcoming committee.
He threw the pack-pony’s leading-rein loose from his saddle, tugged his bow free from its case and nocked an arrow to the string. And then he hesitated.
What was he doing?
He was without helmet, without harness, without even a coat of plates hidden under fabric such as the cautious wore in doubtful company. And he owed these men nothing, ar’Gyart least of all. Three-quarters of a mile of open country separated him from the action, and beyond all doubt he had already been spotted. How many other men might be crouching in the bracken for him to ride within range…?
There was a second scream, and now Marc could see an occasional staccato flicker between one side and the other, a horizontal sleet as the polished shafts of arrows caught the light. Another man sagged over his horse’s neck and slithered to the ground, but now at least two of the archers on foot were now dead or wounded, sprawling back into the heather.
All Marc had to do was wait. There was no need to put himself at risk, no need even to beat a retreat. He was mounted, the enemy were all on foot. If any of them started moving in his direction, he could be out of sight before they came within bowshot.
And doing any of these things stuck in his throat like a chunk of unchewed bread.
What if they had been less than well-disposed to him? What if they had put him firmly in his place? What if Reth ar’Gyart had tried to behave in a manner as severely righteous as his own dead lord? At least they’d accepted him, if only after a fashion, and if they’d put him in his place, that place was more than most eijin might expect at all. And as for Reth – well, there were worse ways to behave. The men being killed out there were the closest he had to comrades in the Debatable Lands, and without them, he was alone. Vulnerable. Helpless…
Marc would never have thought it possible that he would be a victim. But then, until four days ago, he would never have thought that he could be so utterly alone as this.
He listened to a third scream, a horrible mingling of disbelief and anguish he had heard – and caused – too many times before, the sound of a man ripped by steel and trying to deny the mangling of his own flesh. It etched into his hearing like a mordant acid into copper, a sound and a reason that might not have happened had Marc ar’Dru thought less about what he might or might not do, and simply done it.
He slammed heels to his horse’s flanks, and charged.
The bow thumped once, twice, three times as he thundered closer, before he spun the weapon back into its case and reached for sword and axe. Marc’s taiken was a nameless blade, without any lineage, but that had never detracted from its edge. There were yells of dismay, then a sharper yell of pain and a thud as his horse stumbled over someone who didn’t get out of the way in time. Marc cut to either side, missed both times, and then he was inside the ring of footsoldiers.
No. Not footsoldiers. They weren’t soldiers at all, and no more armoured than he was himself. The hard-suppressed terror of a blade ploughing into his unprotected body faded at once. It didn’t go away completely – that was arrant folly – but at least it diluted enough for Marc to flip a cheerful, cheeky salute towards Reth ar’Gyart before he flung himself out again at the nearest opponent.
What they were, he still didn’t know. Why they were here, he still didn’t know. But what they were doing here he knew only too well. They were trying to kill everyone riding a horse. And that included him.
The native Elthanek and Prytenek people had been calling their Alban conquerors mergh-arlethen, Horse Lords, almost from the moment the keels hit the beach on the Day of Landing. Their own rulers, High Lords like Gelert, rode only as a token of rank, and fought, when they had to, on foot. The Albans, however, had been mounted warriors for more generations than were recorded in even the oldest Books of Years, had won first recognition and then fame as mercenary cavalry – and for too long a time, the more hidebound among them had tried to rule their new domains in just the same way.
‘You can conquer a country from the saddle,’ some wit had said a few years back – no-one was willing to accept responsibility for the observation, ‘but if you want to rule it, and rule it well, then you’d better get down onto your own two feet just like everyone else. That lack of height changes the perspect
ive quite remarkably.’
Very few had done so, and those who had faced ridicule. Bayrd ar’Talvlyn was one of them. At least, he was ridiculed by his own people, the Albans. But he was supported, and praised, and even lied for, by his other people, the Elthaneks. Except that he called them Albans as well.
If he hadn’t been so soured against anything Bayrd had done, and so busy fighting, Marc might have paused to wonder about the incongruity of his own thoughts. Instead he lashed out with the axe in his left hand at a half-seen movement, and heard and felt the ringing chime as steel sheared wood and the thrusting spear became nothing more dangerous than a long stick.
The attackers broke and ran, even their wounded scrambling up from the ground and hobbling away. They left no corpses. Marc stood in his stirrups and yelled a war-shout after them, incoherent triumph more than any formal challenge or defiance. But with the relief, the delight, the sudden restored sense of his own worth that came surging up inside him, he had to do something. That, or burst.
It was impossible that the arrival of one more man, one more sword, had tipped the scales and spoiled their confidence so much, but there was the evidence: discarded weapons and running men. He watched them go, poised and ready in case this was some clever deception, reluctant to believe that their retreat was just because of him. But then, he had to believe it: it was happening.
Marc looked down at the severed spearhead, not really seeing it for a moment. Then everything seemed to click into focus, and he saw it indeed. Not a spear, but a pike. To the uneducated there was little difference: both were metal blades attached to the end of a long pole, meant to thrust and pierce. But to a kailin, and especially a kailin who had seen service against the rebels in Durforen north of Kalitz, the difference was separated by an unbridgeable gulf.
Spears were made by armourers. They might be tanged or socketed depending on how they were forged, and some of them could be of as fine make as the more common swords. But a pike was usually made in secret, and by no more than a common blacksmith. It was a simple weapon: a lozenge of metal for the blade, and below that, two flat wings hammered around the staff for a socket, then secured with rivets. A spear was for a warrior. A pike was for a rebel.