by Judith Tarr
Round the curve of the wall spread the Ebran camp, a huddle of fires, a silent massing of tents. Neither voice nor song rose from them, nor the muted revelry of Mirain’s men, nor even the keening of grief. Defeated, pardoned, they took no chances on their new lord’s mercy.
But one pavillion more than made up for the silence of the rest: the healers’ tent between the outer wards and the battlefield. Here was clamor, such an uproar as might rise out of hell: moaning and shouting, cries and curses and shrieks of pain.
Close to it, the tumult was numbing, overlaid with a gagging stink and lit with a red demon-light. But worse than the assault on the body’s senses was that on the mind, wave upon wave of mortal agony.
Elian staggered under it. The tent flaps gaped open; within, men lay in row on row, lamplit, with somber-clad healers bending over them. The wounded, the maimed and the dying, all mingled, friend and enemy, in a red fellowship of pain.
Someone jostled her, muttered a curse, pointed sharply toward a comer. “Walking wounded over there. We’ll get to you when we get to you.” Before she could speak, the man was gone, tight-drawn with the immensity of his labor.
She edged into the tent. Whatever had brought her here would not let her escape, though the manifold odors of suffering set her stomach in revolt. Battling to master it, she stumbled and fell to her knees.
A man stared at her. A northerner, dark and eagle-proud but abject with pain. A great wound gaped in his side, roughly bound with strips torn from a cloak. He was dying; he knew it; and his terror tore at all her defenses.
She flung up both hands against it. One brushed the wound, waking agony. Her power swelled like a wave and broke.
Part of her stood aside and watched it and was grimly amused. Blessed, O blessed Lady of Han-Gilen! She who dealt wounds could also heal them; she who slew could bring new life to the dying.
No, not she. The power that dwelt in her, mark of her breeding as surely as the fire of her hair. For those were the three magics of Han-Gilen: to see what would be, to read and to master men’s souls, and to heal the wounds of body and mind.
Prophet, mage, and healer; by the god’s will she was all three. Under her hand the flesh lay whole, marked only by a greying scar.
She looked up. Dark eyes met her own. Mirain bowed his head, equal to equal. This gift too he had, the legacy of his father.
He knelt beside a man in battered Ebran armor. She moved past him to another who waited with death at his shoulder.
oOo
Thunder woke Elian from a deep and dreamless sleep. For a long moment she lay bemused. She could remember in snatches: laboring far into the night, finding at last that nothing remained for her to do; every man was dead or healed or would heal of himself. She who had been weary when she began had passed beyond exhaustion.
She had felt light, hollow, almost drunken. So wonderful, this healing was, the only magic that left one more joyous than one began, that healed the healer as well as the one she tended.
Mirain had appeared out of the shadow of the tent, smiling. She swayed; he caught her, himself far from steady. Leaning on one another, they made their way to the keep.
They ate, she remembered that. The bread was warm, the first of the new day’s baking. The wine was rich with spices. There was fruit and new cream and a handful of honey sweets.
Mirain was as gluttonous for them as she. They laughed, counting them out, half for each and one over. “You take it,” he said.
“No, you.”
He grinned and bit off half of the confection and fed her the rest. There remained only the wine, a whole flask of it, strong and heady. Elian, warm with it, loosened the laces of her shirt and let it fall open as it would.
He watched her, head tilted. “You should never do that where anyone can see you.”
“Not even you?” she asked.
“Maybe.” His finger brushed her cheek lightly, tracing the paling scars. “It must be sorcery. When you stand in armor or in my livery, I see a boy, a youth, Halenan when he was young. But now, no one with eyes could possibly take you for aught but a woman. Even your face: it’s too fine to be handsome. It’s beautiful.”
She snorted. “Some of the men say I’m too pretty for my own good, scars and all. And much too well aware of it.”
“No. That, you aren’t. I remember when you used to lament. Your eyes were too long and too wide; your chin was too stubborn; your body was too thin and too awkward. For all that anyone can say, you still believe it.”
“That’s the best part of this game. No one treats me the way people treat a beautiful woman. A boy is different, even a pretty boy.”
He reflected on that in the way he had; but the wine had lifted his barriers. His eyes were as clear as water, with a brightness in the heart of them.
“You are not ugly!” she said sharply.
He laughed. That had always been the end of her complaining. He would say, “Ah, but I really am as unlovely as you think you are.” And she would cry out against him, and he would laugh, because he believed himself, and she never would; and that was the way of their world.
She seized his face in her two hands and glared into his eyes. “There are plenty of handsome men in the world, brother my love. But there is only one of you.”
“Thank Avaryan for that.”
“Yes, for begetting you. Who else would have let me be what I want most to be?”
“But what is that?”
She let him go abruptly, filled his cup, thrust it into his hand. “Now’s no time to go all cryptic and kingly. Here, drink up. To victory!”
He might have said more, but he paused. His brow lifted; he raised his cup and drank. “To victory,” he agreed.
They had drunk, and drunk again. And then, what? Sleep, yes. There had been a very mild quarrel, that she would spread a pallet on the floor, with so wide a bed, and he needing so little of it.
She lay on celestial softness. He had won, then.
Carefully she opened an eye. It had been good wine; the light was bearable. Mirain slept in utter and youthful abandon, with the whole long line of his side not a handspan from her own.
Whatever his quarrel with his face, even he could not deny that the rest of him was well made. That was clear to see; for he slept as he always slept, as bare as he was born.
And so, this drunken night, had she.
Her breath caught. If anyone ever, ever heard of this, then there would be a scandal in truth. Who would believe that they had done nothing?
They had had wine enough and to spare, but they had not fallen to that. He had not even hinted at it. Had only looked at her long and long, smiled at last, and taken the far side of the bed, with an acre of blankets between.
Again, thunder. It had been rolling at intervals since first she woke.
This burst shook her fully out of her dreaming. Not thunder; a swordhilt on the massive door.
For an instant she froze. They knew—they all knew. They had come to denounce her. Liar, deceiver, harlot—
Idiot. She rolled out of bed, snatched the first garment that came to hand, pulled it on. Swiftly but quietly she slid back the bolt.
The man without was shaking with urgency: a big man, Ianyn, one of Mirain’s household. Even as the door opened he cried, “My lord!”
And stopped at the sight of her, seeing only the hair at first, and his own disappointment. Of course it would be the squire who opened the door.
Face and manner shifted, and stilled again. His eyes widened.
She glanced down swiftly. She was covered. She had her shirt.
Her thin, unlaced, entirely undeceptive shirt.
It came as memory comes, swift, piercing: a vision not of what was past but of what was still to come. The man, his message delivered, returned to his companions, and he had a new and startling tale to tell. One that traveled as all such tales must, swifter than fire through a dry field.
Foresight passed. In its aftermath she knew only a weary irony. All
her fears—she had shrugged them aside as folly. And they had been prescience.
Mirain’s voice spoke close to her ear, shattering the impasse. “Bredan. You have news?”
The king’s presence and his own training brought Bredan to attention. His eyes strove not to follow Elian as she gave Mirain the doorway. “Urgent news, sire. The Lord Cuthan sent me to wake you.”
“Go on.” Mirain was wide awake; and he was blocking Bredan’s view of the chamber.
“Troops, sire,” the man said, recalling his urgency. “South of here, across the river where Ebros and Poros meet. A whole army, thousands strong. They march under royal banners, princes’ banners. The Hundred Realms have come to fight us.”
Mirain did not flinch or falter. “All of them?” he asked.
“My lord counted upwards of five thousand men, and twenty-odd standards. Including . . .” Bredan paused, and swallowed. “Including Han-Gilen.”
“Following? Or leading?”
Bredan swallowed again, very carefully not attempting to find the Gileni face behind his lord’s back. “Leading, sire.”
“Yes,” Mirain said as calmly as ever, “Han-Gilen would lead. Go now, Bredan. See that my captains are told of this.”
“Aye, my lord. Should we post guards?”
“See to it. And send a man to the lords of Ashan and of Ebros. I’ll speak with them after I’ve broken my fast.”
oOo
Mirain bathed almost leisurely, and ate with good appetite. Her half of the bath, Elian was more than glad of, but she could not eat. She tended Mirain’s hair instead, cursing to herself when it proved more than usually intractable.
“Yes,” he said as if she had addressed him, “your game is over. Even if you hadn’t betrayed yourself, there would still be Han-Gilen’s army to face.”
“And my brother.” She knew that, beneath thought, as she knew that her father had not come. She doubted that it was arrogance. She wondered if it was wisdom. “Are you going to make me fight?”
“Would you?”
She breathed deep, to steady herself. “I swore an oath.”
“You did.” His hair was half braided; he freed the plait from her fumbling fingers and finished it much more deftly than she had begun it, and surveyed her, a swift keen glance. She wore livery as always, with her sword girded over the scarlet surcoat.
“Come,” he said to her.
oOo
The keep’s wide hall was full of men and thrumming with tension. Though some had come here on honest business with the king, most seemed merely to be hangers-on.
Mirain’s own men mingled freely enough, but there were two distinct camps set well apart and bristling at one another. Luian’s heir led one. Over the other rose the tall form of Ebros’ prince. He came forward as Mirain entered the hall, bowing regally, if somewhat painfully, as lord to high lord.
Mirain smiled his quick smile and clasped Indrion’s hand. “You look well, lord prince. I trust that you are recovered?”
“I am well,” the prince answered, smiling in return, his eyes warming to amber. “Apart from an aching head. That was a shrewd blow, my lord.”
“A simple one, and an old trick.”
“Ah, but it succeeded.”
There was a bench nearby. Mirain sat on it. Elian, taking her place behind him, admired his art that turned the humble seat into a throne, and in the same instant invited his new vassal to share the seat but not, ever, the kingship.
Indrion hesitated no more than a heartbeat, then slowly sat. His smile was gone, but he looked on Mirain in deep respect. “My lord,” he said, “I regret that I challenged your kingship. But I shall never regret the fight. It was a fine battle, and well won.”
“As well lost.” Mirain raised a hand. “Lord Omian.”
Luian’s heir left the ranks of his countrymen. To reach Mirain he had to cross before the Ebrans.
He neither speeded nor slowed his progress for them, nor acknowledged that they existed. He bowed to Mirain, and without perceptible pause, to Indrion.
Mirain smiled warmly and beckoned. “Sit by me, sir.”
There was space on the bench, but only beside Indrion. Ebros’ prince had made certain of that. Omian sat with perfect ease, and with a smile, which was more than his enemy could muster.
Mirain seemed to see none of it, either hostility or forced amity.
When Omian was settled, the king said, “The Hundred Realms have risen, my lords, and come to meet us. They are close now to the ford of Isebros.”
Neither of the princes would glance at the other. “Indeed, sire,” Indrion said, “I had had word that Han-Gilen was rousing the princedoms. I had not thought they would arrive so swiftly.”
“Had you not?” asked Omian. “Surely you were praying for them to overtake us and cut us down while we were still in disorder from fighting you.”
Indrion shrugged slightly. “I was a fool, I grant you that. I should have held to my walls and waited and let you mount a siege, to be crushed by the advancing forces. But I thought I could stop you. I chose open battle, a day too soon. I am well paid for it.”
“Aye, and now you think to catch us with your Ebran treachery.” At last Indrion’s temper escaped its careful bonds. “And what of yours, dog’s son? You could not but have known what Han-Gilen called for. Yet you and your hound of a father plotted to be first at the trough, to lick the king’s feet and win all his favor, and to steal my land into the bargain.”
“Your land, cattle thief? You knew you claimed what was never yours; you knew the judgment would go against you. Thus you gambled. Either you would slay my king and win my valley, or he would defeat you in combat and offer you his famous clemency, which else you had no hope of.”
Indrion half rose; Omian bared his teeth in a feral grin. Mirain’s glance quelled them both.
Ebros’ prince hooded eyes gone hot gold. Ashan’s heir sat still, with but the merest suggestion of a smile.
Quietly the king said, “When I have done what needs doing here, I shall ride to meet the army.”
“My forces are at your disposal,” said Indrion a little tightly still.
“And mine,” Omian said, “my lord.”
“My thanks,” said Mirain. “I shall take twoscore men; and you with them, sirs, if you are willing.”
Omian laughed, incredulous. “Twoscore men against five thousand?”
“It will suffice.” Mirain did not ask him where he had learned their number. “If you will pardon me, my lords, I have duties.”
oOo
It seemed to Elian as she kept to the squire’s place that every man in the hall watched her and whispered and wondered. Eyes flicked toward her, held, flicked away.
They had always done that: bored, or intrigued by the brightness of her hair, or caught by the beauty of her face. Now they strained to see if it were true that the boy was indeed a woman; they peered at the slim erect form in the king’s livery, searching for curves no boy could claim.
Maybe they laid wagers. Surely they sniggered, recalling that she spent every night with the king, and wondering if she would turn her eyes elsewhere. Bold as she was, how could she be aught but wanton?
In a pause between petitioners, Mirain touched her hand. “Go free,” he murmured. “You’ll know when it’s time to ride.”
Her brain blurred, shifting from her own troubles to the danger he faced. “You want me there?”
“At my right hand, you promised me.” He smiled a little. “It’s not a fight we go to.”
No. No prince would attack a mere twoscore men, if they rode with care. Certainly Halenan would not. And he would talk to Mirain, if only for memory’s sake.
She bowed. “I’ll ride with you, my lord.”
Mirain’s smile followed her from the hall. So too, and much less warmly, did the stares. She straightened her back and stalked away from them.
ELEVEN
It was an hour’s ride from the town to the ford of Isebros. The road was wide and
well kept, running past villages whose folk hid in their houses, and farmsteads barricaded against invading armies.
The word had spread abroad that the Sunborn had swept out of the north, and that the Hundred Realms had massed against him. And when princes struggled for mastery, it was the land and its people who suffered most.
A goodly land, this vale on the marches of Ashan between Ebros and Poros. Its fields were rich; its villages seemed prosperous even in their fear.
Where the river swept wide round the last low outrider of Ashan’s mountains, its ford offered passage from Ebros into Poros. No town had grown there on either side, but walled villages stood in sight of it; somewhat upstream of it on the Poros side, a bold soul had built a watermill.
Oddly, when Elian remembered after, the mill came first to her mind: the turning and the clacking of the wheel and the washing of water through it. How foolish, she thought. Any marauder could overrun the mill, and hold it or destroy it as he chose. Yet it was built of stone and well fortified, and folk from leagues about could bring their grain to it to enrich the miller.
Perhaps she focused on it to avoid what could not be avoided. All the green land between the mill and the village was lost to sight, overspread with the camp of a great army. The banners were banners Elian knew, every one a royal standard, sigil of a prince from the north of the Hundred Realms; and beneath each one ranged a city of tents. Not since the war on the Nine Cities had so many princes come together into a single force.
Now as then, the center and command post, first among equals, was the flameflower of Han-Gilen. Elian sat very straight on Ilhari’s back. She might yet have to draw blade against her own kin; but as she rode beside Mirain to the river’s bank, she knew no shame of her lineage. Han-Gilen’s princes had ruled in the south before ever king or emperor rose to challenge them; kings and emperors had fallen, and they remained, stronger than ever.
And they would remain, she knew with sudden certainty. Whatever befell between this hour and the sun’s setting, the Halenani would endure.
Mirain raised a hand. His escort halted. The Mad One stepped delicately down the bank into the swift shallow water. There he too was still.