The Prize in the Game

by Jo Walton

  “You should get them ready, or they will fight each other,” Emer said very quietly. “Shall I drive you to the gate?”

  Conal could see that she was right. The young farmers were overexcited already and did not want to wait.

  They looked up as he came over. He ran through what he would say to them in his head, but what came out of his mouth was his first thought. “Where are your shields?” he asked.

  They were naked and painted blue. Across their chests, men and women alike—though it looked more horrific on the women—was a great black battle-crow. Down their arms and down their faces were white spirals. They had been boasting and teasing each other. Now they looked at each other in confusion at Conal’s question, like children, and began to slink away to their houses to fetch their shields. By the time they came back, their fellows had joined them, and at last Nerva came out of the hall, painted and carrying the black paint.

  Anla came back with the swords, which Conal took. “There were some throwing spears as well,” he said. “Only five.”

  “My great thanks to you for keeping the dun so well,” Conal said.

  “It is Garth you should thank,” Anla said grudgingly. “I have kept it for many years, but he thinks it is his time.”

  “His time will come,” Conal said. “Now, as soon as we are out, get Blackie from his house. Watch from the gate. When I signal by throwing both hands up in the air and calling his name, let him go.”

  Anla hesitated. “You know how Blackie can be,” he said. “There’s no promise he’d know his friends in a battle.”

  “Do it all the same,” Conal said, as firmly as he could.

  Anla drew breath as if he would speak again, but Conal stared at him. He didn’t want a conversation about what Amagien would say if Blackie were hurt. At last Anla raised his chin in agreement and went off to help with distributing spears. Conal arranged the throwing spears in the slots in the chariot so they would be ready to his hand. He set a long-weighted fighting spear beside them in case he needed it, then looked at the swords. They were both much bigger than the swords they had been practicing with.

  “Which do you want?” he asked Emer.

  She looked at them. “They’re very old,” she said.

  “Anla said one of them was my father’s and the other was left by the lord who was here before him.”

  “Which was your father’s?” Emer asked suspiciously.

  “I really don’t know,” Conal said.

  “Then I’ll take the one that’s a little shorter,” Emer said. “I wish I had my own that King Conary had given me for my use.”

  “So do I,” said Conal, buckling on his sword.

  Nerva had been painting Garth’s face. As soon as she was done, Garth climbed into Meithin’s chariot and Nerva came over to Conal. “We are painted,” she said. “Will you wear the victory sign yourself?”

  He bent his head, closed his eyes, and felt the pig-bristle brush sweeping across his face. Nerva murmured the charm as she painted, calling on the Mother of Battles for Victory, and he felt it taking effect, filling him with confidence, making him more ready to fight and kill. The calm that had filled him since he woke receded a little and although the paint was supposed to take away fear, he felt a little fear for the first time.

  “And you, lady?” Nerva asked Emer.

  Emer looked at Conal, then shook her head.

  Conal waited until Nerva had set down the paint and picked up her spear. Then he raised his hands palms up and then palms down.

  “Branadain, Mother of Battles, and Edar of the Spring, be with us now when we call on you. Right is on our side. These folk have come from the Isles meaning to take us by surprise, steal our herds, and harm our people,” Conal said. Then he looked at the waiting farmers. “Our plan is to hold them off long enough for King Conary to come here with his champions and help us. Ap Gamal will be going to fetch him, so they will be back here almost before we know it, and well before the folk of the Isles can expect them. If I give a great howl like a wolf, break off and come back up to the dun, we will hold them off inside. We are fighting for time, and they have no help coming. And most of all, remember, the cows are ours!”

  Anla swung the gate open and Emer drove out, Meithin close behind with Garth clinging to the side of her chariot. The painted farmers, giving a great roar, came boiling out behind. Conal saw heads turning among the raiders. He gave his own battle cry as Emer headed the chariot straight down the hill toward them, and suddenly his feelings, which had been far away from him all morning, came back and were close. He felt his love for Emer not as a distant knowledge, but as a burning presence. His fear that he might disappoint his father, or die with nothing done, his joy at being alive and going downhill fast enough to rattle his teeth, and the love and comradeship he felt for Emer, so close beside him—all welled up in him at once and he thrust them into the battle cry which rose up on the air above the howls and cries of the others.

  Then they came up to them, and after that, there was only the fighting.

  10

  (ELENN)

  Emer still wasn’t there when she woke up. Nid was fast asleep and snoring in a beam of sunlight that had come in through a hole where the roof sat on the wall. Emer’s bed was still as she had left it the day before. Elenn sat up and combed her hair and felt strange inside, as if she wanted to cry, but she didn’t know what she wanted to cry about. She swallowed hard and kept back the urge. She had cried when she’d come in last night, and it hadn’t helped at all. Anyway, if she cried now, it might wake Nid.

  She didn’t know if she was dreading or hoping for what would happen when Emer got found out. She didn’t even know if anything would happen. She knew for sure that she wanted something to happen. There was a tightness in her chest that she thought an explosion of anger with Emer would clear. For a moment, she stopped still, considering being angry with Emer herself. She almost wished she could. But Maga said losing your temper was letting people know what you were thinking and something you should only do with a very good reason. Even Allel said it was better to control your temper, so Elenn never lost hers anymore. She had not lost control of it since she was a very small child having tantrums, and she felt embarrassed to remember that now. So she didn’t want to be angry with Emer; she wanted someone else to be angry with her and make her feel better.

  Elenn went out to find some breakfast and see if she could find Emer. Finca was stalking around the hall as if she were looking for someone to shout at. The cooks were keeping their heads down. They didn’t even look at Elenn as she went up for some porridge from the pot over the fire, just ladled out a bowlful.

  Elenn walked around the alcoves looking for someone to eat with. There was nobody there she wanted to see or who called out to her. It wasn’t early, but maybe it was early for the morning after a festival. King Conary was there, but he looked so grumpy that she didn’t want to try talking to him. In the end, she sat down next to ap Dair the poet and Leary’s sister Orlam, who were talking about music. Music didn’t interest Elenn much. But Orlam had only come back here yesterday and didn’t know anything about Elenn, and ap Dair seemed like an old friend from home, because she had seen him sometimes in Connat.

  As soon as they had greeted Elenn, they took up their conversation again. Elenn took a spoonful of her porridge. It was thin, and could have done with some fruit or honey. Maybe there would be wild strawberries soon. There would at home.

  “You get the best music in the world in Rathadun, it spoils you for coming home,” Orlam said.

  “It has wonderful music,” ap Dair agreed. “But I enjoy going around to different kings’ halls and playing with different people, and learning the songs of the different places.”

  “Where have you heard the best music, then?” Orlam asked.

  “I have heard very good music in this hall,” ap Dair said courteously. “And I have heard very good music in Cruachan,” he continued, turning to Elenn and half bowing as best he could sitting
down, which meant that she had to say something back. She racked her brains for a proper response to that.

  “Do you like traveling so much that you mean to travel all your life?” she asked. “Or would you like to settle down and sing in one place eventually?”

  “When I grow old,” said ap Dair, stretching. “There are certainly songs you can only learn by staying in one place, though they may be less obvious than the ones you can learn by traveling.”

  Orlam made a noise of agreement, though Elenn had no idea what he meant. Surely it didn’t take more than four hearings to learn any song? And poets were supposed to be able to learn a song in two, ap Fathag said.

  “But I’m not ready to be just ap Dair,” ap Dair went on. “You know what I mean?” He looked at them and grinned. He put his spoon down and gestured with both hands. “The king’s hall, full of people. They want music. The visiting poet is introduced, comes up to the great harp and sings a new song to much applause, rich gifts. Then the king’s own poet comes out and people say ‘Oh, it’s just ap Dair our poet, whom we have heard many times before.’ And even if it is a new song, they only listen with half their ears because they know they will hear it again. When I am old, I may be ready for that, but for now, I have too much vanity. I like to travel to different places and be acclaimed and eat my breakfast surrounded by beautiful women.” He grinned at them again, and Elenn smiled back.

  Orlam looked thoughtful. “I am not a poet or a warrior, but a lawspeaker,” she said. “So fame plays little part in my desires. But there are many mornings when I would be glad to see not new and beautiful people but the same faces that delight me. It is the same with places. I have been nine years at Rathadun and at first I missed Oriel badly. Now I am home for the first time for longer than a few days and I am already missing Rathadun. A lawspeaker can go anywhere. Some of my friends are planning to travel throughout the island and see all the wonders. But I know if I did that, I would only find more places and friends to miss.”

  “And what of you, ap Allel?” ap Dair asked.

  “I have never thought about it,” Elenn said. “I have never been anywhere except Cruachan until this year. I have always thought I would live in one place. I’ve never thought about the alternatives.”

  She sounded impossibly naive in her own ears, but Orlam made a sympathetic noise. “I heard at Rathadun that your parents didn’t follow the custom of fostering with you,” she said. “I have met your brother, Mingor.”

  “We are fostered here this year,” Elenn said.

  “But this year you are what, seventeen?” Orlam asked. Elenn raised her chin in agreement. “That’s old enough that you have largely formed your expectations of conduct already, and traveling never crossed your mind because you never did any.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t want to be a poet,” ap Dair said.

  “My sister plays the harp,” Elenn said, though she herself could play and sing well enough not to disgrace herself if called upon.

  “What do you want to be?” Orlam asked.

  Elenn looked at her blankly. “What choice have I? I have always been a king’s daughter, although my brother is the heir, and I have always known I would grow up to marry to further Connat’s alliances.”

  Orlam winced, and ap Dair frowned. “Like a princess in a song,” ap Dair said after a moment. His voice sounded strange, as if he thought that sad rather than enviable.

  “I am of the royal kin of Oriel myself,” Orlam said, which Elenn naturally knew. She was Leary’s sister, which meant that her great-grandfather was King Fiathach. “I could have made such a marriage myself.”

  “You still could,” ap Dair murmured. “I saw ap Cethern looking at you yesterday when we were dancing. He isn’t betrothed to anyone yet, and he will be king of Lagin unless things go very badly for him.”

  Elenn went cold all over, as if someone had poured well water straight down her back. She bit her lip to avoid saying anything. Even with her short hair, Orlam was very pretty, and of course she was quite grown up already.

  “He’s a child!” Orlam said, and laughed as if the suggestion was absurd.

  Elenn breathed freely again. She would have liked to have put her face in her hands and shut her eyes for a moment of relief. She made herself smile. “He is seventeen, the same as I am. And he has taken up arms.”

  “And I am twenty-six, and a lawspeaker, because I have made other choices about what my life is about,” Orlam said, rolling her eyes. “Marriage and children are things I want, and I am even feeling ready for them now that I am home. But marriage for policy and being a queen, well …” She screwed her face up. “I mean,” she looked at Elenn in belated but well-intentioned courtesy. “That it is not for me.”

  Elenn finished her porridge and set the wooden bowl down carefully. “It is what I have been brought up to,” she said.

  “And you never wanted to be a king or lawspeaker or harper—” ap Dair began.

  “—or smith, or champion, priest, or farmer?” Orlam finished, miming counting out the cherry stones.

  Elenn laughed. “I never thought about it, but now that I do, no, I don’t want to do any of those things.”

  “You are beautiful enough that you will doubtless have all the kings of all the world fighting to make you their queen,” ap Dair said, getting up and bowing extravagantly.

  “Thank you,” Elenn said, as she had been taught.

  Ap Dair bowed now to Orlam. “And as for you, ap Ringabur, they say your mother and her sisters were the most beautiful girls of their generation, but you outdo them all. I am sure all the men in the hall are jealous of me sitting here with the pair of you.”

  Orlam laughed, but a little impatiently, and got up herself, offering her hand to Elenn. “Let’s go outside where the air is not quite so thick with prettily turned compliments,” she said.

  Elenn took the proffered hand and pulled herself to her feet. She liked compliments usually, but she had also noticed something odd about those, after the conversation. It was as if ap Dair had stopped addressing them as people and was saying something that could be addressed to any pretty girl. In some ways, it was more comfortable not to be seen as herself, but in others, it was refreshing and she liked it. She definitely liked the way Orlam talked to her.

  She walked towards the door with Orlam, though she wasn’t sure where they were going. “I hate how even the nicest men can just turn words to emptiness like that,” Orlam said.

  “Oh, yes,” Elenn agreed enthusiastically.

  Just then Finca intercepted them. If she had once been one of the most beautiful girls of her generation she didn’t show much sign of it now. She was bony and hard faced and had scars on her arms from fighting. “Have you seen Conal?” she asked.

  Elenn shook her head. “Not since I came home,” Orlam said. “That’s strange, now I think of it. He was still hanging around me like a puppy dog when I last visited. But like Darag and my little brother he must be seventeen and an adult, by what I hear.”

  “You hear right,” Finca said, and walked away without another word.

  Orlam laughed quietly. “That sounds like more than too much merriment. Do you think he’s been out all night with some girl my aunt disapproves of?”

  “My sister,” Elenn said and sighed. It would be very unfair of Finca to blame Elenn for not keeping Emer in order, but from the set of her jaw this morning, it didn’t seem beyond her.

  “Your sister?” Orlam said. “I thought—”

  Just then Darag came into the hall. He looked as if he had not slept enough. “Elenn!” he said. “Orlam!” Then he stood looking lost in the middle of the floor as if he had no idea what to say next. Orlam giggled, and Elenn had to fight not to giggle herself.

  “Drink water,” Orlam advised kindly. “Lots of water. You’ll need it.”

  “Have you seen Ferdia?” Darag asked. Then he looked appalled, as if he said something terribly rude, though Elenn didn’t know how he could have.

 
; Orlam giggled again. “Not since the time I saw him with you after my brother introduced us yesterday. Everybody seems to have lost someone this morning.”

  “Who have you lost?” Darag asked, looking alarmed.

  “Why, nobody,” Orlam said, making her eyes wide. “But Finca is having trouble finding her little boy.” Then Orlam took Elenn’s arm and took her off, leaving Darag staring after them. “People who can’t hold their drink can be disgusting. Do you think he will remember the water?” Orlam said into Elenn’s ear, and this time Elenn could not keep her giggles to herself.

  In other company, Elenn might have been distressed to see Ferdia looking ill and tired and making his way to the hall. Somehow, with Orlam, it just seemed like a continuation of the joke. “Drink water,” she said as a greeting.

  Ferdia started and rubbed his eyes. “Thank you, I shall,” he said.

  “Darag is looking for you,” Orlam said. “And have you seen Conal?”

  “Conal? No.” Ferdia said, distracted. “Where was Darag?” Elenn had just opened her mouth to tell him, when Meithin ap Gamal came running in through the gates and pelting across the grass towards the Red Hall as fast as her legs would go. Elenn stopped and stared at her.

  “What’s wrong, Meithin?” Orlam called.

  “Invasion from the Isles, at Edar,” Meithin said without stopping. “I have to get to the king, fast.”

  Ferdia’s eyes widened and his shoulders went back. All the laughter went out of Orlam’s face. “He’s eating in the hall,” she called after Meithin.

  Meithin charged on into the hall. The three of them followed her. When she skidded to a halt in front of Conary, they were only a little behind. The other folk of the dun who saw Meithin running came pressing up behind them to hear what was happening. Conary had finished eating and was talking to Finca in front of the fire.

  “Invasion, from the Isles, at Edar,” Meithin panted. She sounded as if she had been saying it in her head all the way. “Six ships, a hundred and four people. The folk of the dun are holding them off, under Conal ap Amagien.”