TABLE of CONTENTS
I — Taking Up Arms
1. (Conal), 2. (Elenn), 3. (Emer), 4. (Ferdia)
II — The Feast of Bel
5. (Conal), 6. (Elenn), 7. (Emer), 8. (Ferdia)
III — Atha ap Gren
9. (Conal), 10. (Elenn), 11. (Emer), 12. (Ferdia)
IV — Amagien's Feast
13. (Conal), 14. (Elenn), 15. (Emer), 16. (Ferdia)
V — Connat
17. (Conal), 18. (Elenn), 19. (Emer), 20. (Ferdia)
VI — The Suitors
21. (Conal), 22. (Elenn), 23. (Emer), 24. (Ferdia)
VII — The Battle at the Ford
25. (Conal), 26. (Elenn), 27. (Emer), 28. (Ferdia)
VIII — Taking Responsibility
29. (Conal), 30. (Elenn), 31. (Emer), 32. (Ferdia)
I have been a prize in a game
I have been a queen on a hill
From far and far they flocked to see me.
White am I, among the shadows,
My shoulder is noted for its fairness
The two best men in all the world have loved me.
My crown is of apple, bough and blossom.
They wear my favour but my arms are empty.
The boat drifts heedless down the dark stream.
"My parents are always fighting," Elenn said.
Conal looked at her. She really was a distractingly beautiful girl. He had thought so even when she had first arrived in the king's hall, wet and bedraggled, with her huge-eyed little sister standing beside her. Here in the sunny orchard with the blossoms around her she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. His father, the poet Amagien, had already written about her looks in extravagant terms. But it was very hard to look at her and deny that her hair was reminiscent of black night or her eyes of stars. She looked like Nive herself come down to walk among men for a season. It was a pity she didn't have wit to match her looks. All she seemed to care about was having everyone adore her. This was the first time she had said something that wasn't directly about her, and even this wasn't far away. "Always?" he asked.
"All the time," she confirmed, smiling a little as if she could see something Conal couldn't. "
"What about?" he asked, mildly interested despite himself. He knew she was only walking with him because Ferdia and Darag couldn't be found and she didn't want to walk alone.
"Everything," she said. "Anything at all. What weapons the three of us should be taught. What colour my sister should wear for the Feast of Bel. What crops the farmers should plant and in which fields. Whether the hall needs new rushes yet. If we are to go to war with Muin this summer. If my brother should marry Atha ap Gren. Who is the father of the white cat's kittens."
Conal swallowed hard. He was glad they were alone. He knew that if anyone were to catch his eye at that moment, even Darag, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from laughing aloud. Elenn looked as serious and as beautiful as ever. In the month she had been at Ardmachan she had already reproached him for laughing at her at least a dozen times. "Some of those matters are of great import, and others are very trivial," he said, as calmly as possible.
"I know," Elenn said, composedly. "Sometimes they will fight about whether this is the way a king should behave."
"My uncle Conary would say that it is not," Conal said, definitely. He had heard Conary's lectures on kingship often enough. They were always made to all the royal kin, though it was Darag he always looked at, and Darag whose questions were answered first.
"My parents have very different ideas about kingship from King Conary," Elenn said, looking up at him under her lashes in a way he would have found enchanting if he could have believed for a minute that she liked him.
"Which of your parents is the king of Connat anyway?" he asked, realizing that he did not know for sure. "I think I have always heard them mentioned together."
"Both of them are of the royal kin," Elenn said. "My mother, Maga, was the daughter of the last king, Arcon. My father, Allel, is her cousin. When the kindred came to choose, many of them wanted Maga, for her wisdom, and others Allel, who was remarked as a warleader when he was young. So it was agreed that they should marry and give each other the benefit of their skills."
"And they've been arguing ever since?" Conal asked.
"Oh yes," Elenn said. They were almost through the orchard. Conal could already see the oak tree his grandfather used for a school. Emer was there already, pulling a flower apart intently. Leary and Nid were playing fidchell with leaves in the dust. There was no sign of Darag, or Ferdia and Laig, or of Inis himself. "I think marriage of cousins is very wrong, do not you? I think marriages work better when people know each other much less well to begin with."
"No doubt," Conal said, politely. Then he thought of his own parents, who had known each other since his father had been fostered here as a boy. "Definitely. But as for your parents, which of them holds the kingship from the land?" he asked. "Only one person can hold it, that I'm sure about." They passed the last of the apple trees and slowed their steps to salute the trees as they passed through the grove.
"My mother does," Elenn said, bowing to the birch tree. "But it is something else they argue about incessantly. My father says that the kingdom would be nothing if not for his leading armies, and my mother says it would be nothing if not for her alliances."
"Are those two paths?" Inis asked.
Conal jumped and Elenn gave a little squeal. His grandfather had a habit of doing that and it never failed to disconcert him. Conal tried to be aware of people and movement. Inis was the only person who had managed to surprise him in half a year, but he managed it almost every time. He strove not to let his surprise show on his face or in his movements. Most of a year ago he had asked Inis for advice on how to deal with Darag and Inis had told him that he had already learned how. That meant his way of taking things lightly and not showing when he was wounded. He had learned that from his father's constant prodding, not from Darag. He had a shrewd idea that Inis knew that too. Now he tried to keep his reactions to himself as much as he could, while smiling and speaking airily. He bent his mind to what Inis had said as if it were a riddle he was using to teach them. Were Maga's alliances and Allel's warleading two paths? "I think you mean that Connat needs both their strengths to be strong, Grandfather," he said, phrasing his answer carefully.
Inis looked pleased and began to walk with them towards the others. "Do you see it, girl?" he asked Elenn. She raised her chin affirmatively, but Conal didn't think there was room for much thought behind her pretty face.
"Where are Ferdia and Darag?" she asked.
Most of a month in Oriel and she hadn't learned yet not to ask Inis questions. Not to mention how much that one gave away. Even the order of names revealed her hidden preference, he would guess. Elenn had spent most of the month letting Ferdia and Darag act as rivals for her favours, offering each of them the hero's portion in turn, with the occasional shred of meat thrown to Leary and Conal. She hadn't managed to spoil the friendship between Darag and Ferdia. There was no friendship between them and Conal to spoil, even if he had cared, but he hated to watch what it was doing to Leary. Conal had originally thought it might be a good thing for the two princesses of Connat to be fostered with them for a while. He remembered the time he had spent at Cruachan fondly. But he had forgotten the great distance that stretched between eight and seventeen. He would have begged his uncle not to invite them if he had guessed how disruptive rivalry for a beautiful girl could be. Conal realised that Elenn's question had fallen into silence, which meant his grandfather was looking for the answer across the worlds. He turned to him in concern, just in time to see the emptiness in Inis's face before he spoke.
"Acting on what I taught you this morning," Inis said. His voice sounded different, full of the echoes that meant he was speaking from the depths of his oracle-knowledge. His eyes met Conal's without recognition for a moment.
Conal felt disgusted with Elenn for pushing his grandfather away from sanity. Then he took in what Inis had said, so suddenly his head spun. "This morning we were learning how to recognise a fortunate day," he said.
"And you said that all days were fortunate, but there is an art to telling for what they are fortunate, for some day fortunate for one thing might be unfortunate for another," recited Elenn in a monotone, as they came up to the oak tree where the others were sitting.
"And you read the signs for today and said that it would be a good day for a great warrior to take up arms for the first time," Emer said, enthusiastically, jumping up and taking Inis's arm. "Sit down now, sir, and teach us how to read the signs. I could almost see it, but not quite."
Inis blinked at the girl, rubbed his eyes and sighed. "You would have made a fine oracle-priest," he said.
Emer looked down and smiled.
"I have to go," Conal said. It had never occurred to him that Darag would have acted on Inis's divination. They were seventeen, it was a year before any of them could take up arms. A year, which Conal had been counting off by months and days. How could anyone, how could Darag and Ferdia and Laig have gone off to defy that? He felt stricken. They all spent as much time as they could practising, but even so they would not be ready to take up arms until they were eighteen, six threes of years, nobody was. It was a law of Oriel, of the whole island of Tir Isarnagiri, of the whole world as far as Conal knew.
"I must go too," Elenn said.
"We must all go," Inis said, sounding as if he knew where he was again. "I have acted without thought." He hesitated, looking from Emer to Conal, then he sighed. "Come back to the dun, we must see the king."
"What? All of us? Why?" Nid looked up from her game for the first time, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
"Darag has gone to take up arms," Elenn explained to them. Nid and Leary exchanged a startled glance, then got to their feet as Inis gestured to them. Then, without looking, he put out his hands and held back Emer and Conal, one on each side of him, and let the others go ahead. Leary and Nid at once flanked Elenn, one on each side, Leary offering her shy compliments. She did not so much as glance back at Conal.
Inis sighed again as he held Conal back. "I did wrong, but I could not have done other; so I did in all the worlds."
"You said in all the worlds, ap Fathag," Emer said. "I don't understand how it would be possible to know, without looking into every world there is." Conal grinned at her behind Inis's back. That was the way to ask Inis questions if you wanted information out of him. Conal hadn't taken much notice of Emer before. She was a year younger than the rest of them, only sixteen. She'd just gone through a growing spurt and seemed all eyes and legs. She hadn't caused disruption among the rest of them the way her sister had. He'd been concentrating on Elenn, and Darag, of course. But now it seemed that, unlike her beautiful sister, she had more wit than hair.
"Some events have such weight that they cannot be changed," Inis said. "Most times we are free to choose, and if folk choose the same in other worlds it is because they are much the same folk and so choice arises. But some things touch the way the worlds are held together and with them it feels like choice but is not."
Conal frowned, wishing this riddle made sense. Emer drew breath to speak, let it out, drew it in again. "I don't think I can tell the difference between those events and any others," she said.
Inis laughed, the laugh Conal's mother Finca called his cracked cackle. Elenn and the others ahead turned to look, but Conal gestured them on and they started walking again. "If I cannot tell after all these years looking across the worlds, then how can you hope to, child?" he asked. "Being able to tell is part of what an oracle-priest must know. I cannot tell until afterwards, and that is only the second such time in my life."
"It would be very interesting to know the other time," Conal said.
Inis grinned at him, looking almost like any old man, except for the way his head was shaved in the front and the brightly coloured shawl that would have marked him as an oracle-priest however sane he seemed. "It was when I got Conary on King Nessa," he said.
It was such an ancient scandal, from so long before Conal was born, that he was surprised to see Emer look shocked. Maybe it wasn't well known in Connat. Conal's parents didn't like to talk about it, but all the same he had known since he was five years old.
"If only two events in all your length of life have been of such stature as to hold across all the worlds, then maybe there will be none in mine," Emer said.
"Such are lucky folk," Inis said, "And such are most folk, truth told. But I do not think either of you are so lucky."
"I know better than to ask," Conal said, looking ahead through the trees to where Elenn inclined towards Leary. They were holding hands. Nid had gone a little way ahead. "You know, grandfather, though my mind is quick for the branches of learning, and though I love you, I hate learning from you. I have always learned songs and figuring fast enough, but this Oak knowledge of learning to read luck and the way of other worlds makes my skin crawl. I don't even like thinking about it."
"You know the story of Curog the Oracle-priest?" Inis asked. "He prophesied that a certain lady would win the love of a certain lord. When the lord died the lady came to him and reproached him for being wrong, for he had never loved her. Then Curog said that in the worlds he could see, where he had not spoken, she had acted to win his love and won it, and in our world she had been sure she would win it without acting, and so nothing came of it."
Inis said no more. Conal glanced at Emer, who was frowning at nothing. They walked in silence for a while. Conal started running through arguments he would make to Conary. It was hideously unfair to let Darag and Ferdia take up arms early and on a fortunate day, and not the rest of them. But Conary always favoured Darag of all his nephews. There were good reasons for that, of course. Conal was good, but Darag was better. But Conal was sure that if he put in more effort, more time practising, building up his strength, he would eventually catch up and even overtake Darag. Being strong and fast as a boy was nothing, what counted was when you were men. Even his father said so. If Darag had taken up arms today, then Conal would do the same, that's all there was to it. Anything else was unthinkable.
When they came out of the orchard, Elenn, Leary, and Nid were waiting for them at the foot of the mound. Nid was swinging on the gate. The bottom palisade was no ring of sharpened stakes but a tall fence of strong bog-oak, the oak that could break an iron axe. No enemies had ever breached it. No enemies were expected today however, which was fortunate as there was nobody guarding the lower gate.
"We thought we'd wait for you slowpokes," Leary said, sticking out his tongue at Conal. Conal smiled as if amused at how childish boys of seventeen could be, hiding all the pain. Leary had been his friend. They had always practised together, both of them hoping to become as good as Darag. Now Leary hardly spoke to him except to jibe.
"It is unkind to mock my old bones, grandson," Inis said, sharply. Leary jumped. He was used to the old man not paying any attention. Conal kept his face still, to show nothing.
Inis let go of Conal's arm, and then, a moment later, Emer's. He led a brisk pace past the stables and up the hill towards the dun. Here, where Conal would have guessed he'd want support, he decided to do without it. The rest of them followed him in a straggle, Conal first, quickening his own pace, and Emer beside him. "I didn't know Leary was ap Fathag's grandson as well," Emer said, quietly.
"You're getting really good at not asking questions," Conal said, and smiled at her. This time she smiled back, shyly, not at all like her sister. "But it's all right to ask me. Inis had four children. My mother, Leary's mother and Darag's mother by his wife, and Conary by King Nessa as he just told us."
"I had heard before," Emer said, even more quietly. "Do you think he told us that last story to stop us asking questions?"
"Yes," Conal said. "Or maybe to tell us he isn't infallible, or that oracle-talent isn't infallible. He hates being asked questions, he can't help but look then, and he prefers to look in his own time."
"Can you see across the worlds?" Emer murmured. Conal had to lean close to hear her.
"Of course not!" he said, quickly, surprised she would ask. "I'm not an oracle-priest, and you must have heard me saying just now how I hate to think about those things."
"That's what made me wonder whether you could," she said.
"Can you?" he asked.
Emer shook her head. "Sometimes when I talk to ap Fathag or ap Fial at home I can almost see how to do it. They say I could learn. But I don't want to. Like you. I'd rather not know what might happen already. You know what ap Fathag said when I asked him whether I really would marry Darag the way my mother wants?"
"Your mother might want it, but it will be up to Conary just as much," Conal said.
"I know," Emer said. "I don't want to. He's in love with Elenn."
"Marriage is nothing to do with love," Conal said.
"I know that, too," Emer said. "But anyway, when I asked your grandfather, he said 'Often enough you do.' That's just so horrible. Even if I don't, even if I manage to get out of it, often enough other ones of me didn't, and have to marry him, ugh. I'd much rather not know that."
Inis was at the top gates, speaking to the guard, and they were almost on him. Conal was intrigued enough to stop. "Ugh? You don't like Darag?"
"He's horrible. I hate him," Emer said, in a whisper. Then she went on, almost running to catch up with Inis. Conal followed more slowly, trying to smooth out the frown that wanted to come down between his eyes.
Elenn smiled at Leary, but it wasn't any fun. He was too besotted, there was no challenge there at all. He would have done anything for her, but it didn't matter. Besides, he might be King Conary's nephew, but he wasn't anybody really. Nobody thought he might be the next king of anywhere. Dear Ferdia was almost sure to be the next king of Lagin. As for Oriel, it was bound to be Darag or Conal. Her mother had told her before she left home that it would almost certainly be Darag. That didn't mean it wasn't worth being nice to Conal in case, Maga had added. As if Elenn would ever be mean to people just because they weren't important. That wasn't the same as not worth bothering with. She smiled at Leary again, and looked up at him through her lashes. It was amazing how easy it was.
Maga had told her a lot of things about how to act with men, but she had never had a chance to try them out until she came to Ardmachan. Back at Cruachan everyone knew her, and what's more, everyone had seen Maga. Next to Maga, Elenn thought, she barely counted as prettier than Emer. Away from Maga it was a completely different story. Amagien ap Ross had written a poem saying she was one of the three most beautiful women in the island of Tir Isarnagiri. That made her feel quite shaken, and all excited deep inside, but she knew how to act. Alone with Emer at night she had laughed and recited the poem over, but in front of everyone she sat listening to it being sung as if it was nothing unusual. But it was, it was very unusual for such a poem to be written about a seventeen year old girl who was away from home for the first time in her life and enjoying every minute of it.
It was strange that Amagien was Conal's father. It was hard to imagine people more different. Amagien was so emotional, and Conal was so driven. Conal was so handsome, too, like ap Fathag, even though ap Fathag was so old. Amagien wasn't at all handsome. But he had good manners, unlike his son. She could have liked Conal, except that he didn't like her. He tried not to show it, but he didn't. He was too clever. She thought maybe sometimes he could see what she was doing and laughing at it, or sometimes disapproving of it. She'd have to try harder with him, she could see that. He thought too much.
The one she really liked was Ferdia. He was the one she was going to ask her mother if she could marry. Then Maga would fix it. Emer could have Darag, if she wanted, Maga thought that was a good idea anyway. Maga was good at that sort of thing. She liked Darag, but he scared her sometimes. Darag was wild. He might be the strongest and the best fighter, but Ferdia was taller and gentler. She had the feeling he would have been kind to her even if she hadn't been beautiful. He was kind to Emer. Darag and Conal had hardly noticed that Emer existed. In some ways it was really nice that she was the important one, that nobody cared about Emer here. But it was wrong even so. Elenn was so used to being compared to her sister. And she had to share a room with her, she had to hear Emer's views on everything. In front of everyone, Emer was quiet, the way Maga had told them to be. But get her alone and she wanted to share what she thought. So Elenn couldn't forget about her. And if she was going to have to care about her, then everyone else ought to.
She looked to see where Emer had got to. She had been walking with ap Fathag and Conal, which was all right, but now ap Fathag had gone on ahead and she seemed to be talking intently to Conal. That wasn't all right. It especially wasn't when Conal paused to hear what Emer was saying. Elenn just knew they were talking about her. She couldn't catch up to them either, because she had to walk with Leary and pretend to be paying attention to what he was saying. What was he saying anyway? She listened for a moment.
"Nobody takes up arms until they are eighteen, which won't be until next Spring," he was saying. Leary had been talking about Darag and Ferdia being wrong all the way from the grove. Well, Elenn thought it was wrong too, but she wasn't going to bore anyone with it. She closed her ears again, which was a useful skill sometimes. Sometimes what a queen has to do is just sit and smile and look beautiful. Maga had told her that, though Maga wasn't a queen, of course, but a king. A king needs different skills. But Elenn wasn't going to be a king, and she was glad. Being a king would be boring and you'd have to listen to people going on and on all the time. A queen had a lot of work to do with organising food and supplies for everyone and being gracious, but no fighting.
Not that Maga did any fighting, she hadn't for years. But she might have to, if there was an invasion. No fighting, no being forced to do more than pretend to listen to boring people and no talking to the gods. Talking to the gods was scary. Let her brother Mingor be the king, she'd be a queen and make a good alliance for Connat. If Ferdia were king of Lagin he'd make a very good alliance indeed.
They had reached the top of the mound. It was strange how familiar with Ardmachan she had got in the month she'd been here. At first it had seemed huge and frightening. There was the wall at the bottom, and another wall at the top, and then three big halls inside, as well as the ordinary buildings. Everything was inside here, except things that couldn't be on top of a hill, like the well and the smithy.
Elenn smiled at the guards on the gate as she went through. She always did. It wasn't any trouble, and it made them like her, and things were always easier if people liked her. She knew one of these guards. He was Casmal, who taught them spear-throwing. He looked worried. She wondered what ap Fathag had said to him. She gave him a special smile, and hurried after Leary and the others.
Nid gave her a strange look as she caught up. Elenn didn't understand Nid very well. She was a girl, but she wasn't at all beautiful, not even as pretty as Emer. That wasn't strange, but Elenn couldn't understand why she didn't care about it. She wore long brown straight shifts, and embroidered overdresses only on special days. She kept her hair tied on top of her head almost all the time. All she wanted to do was be a charioteer. Finca, Conal's mother, who taught them chariot-fighting, said that Nid would probably be very good at it. She was good with ponies and she wasn't going to be heavy, which was important for a charioteer. She said Emer would as well, and Elenn if she would only try harder. Lots of the best charioteers were women. Darag's mother Dechtir had been Conary's charioteer before she was killed. There were songs about her. But Elenn didn't want to be a charioteer at all. She just wanted to know how to fight enough to defend herself, that was all. She didn't need to be a champion. She was going to be a queen. Her king would have a whole hall of champions to defend her honour. Like Maga. If anyone insulted her she could just raise a finger and everyone in the hall would be begging to be chosen to be her champion and she'd choose the best one and they'd always win. That was better than fighting for yourself. Maga had explained that to her years ago. Nice as it was to be away from her for a while, Maga made a lot of sense about that sort of thing.
Ap Fathag charged straight past the Speckled Hall, which was a huge storehouse for supplies, with a special room where weapons were left when people were in the dun and didn't need them. He marched right in to the Red Hall, which was the king's. Emer and Conal followed right behind, and Leary, Nid and Elenn a little behind them. Elenn was starting to worry about what ap Fathag would do. She knew King Conary wouldn't do anything awful to him whatever mad thing he did, because he was an oracle-priest, and his father; even if he had never been married to his mother. But she wasn't so sure he wouldn't be really cross with the rest of them for following him.
King Conary was sitting in one of the end alcoves playing fidchell with Amagien the Poet. There was a place above where the roof could be lifted off to give light on warm clear days, so they and the board were clearly illuminated. Both men sighed when they saw ap Fathag and his pupils approaching. King Conary didn't look as handsome as usual when his face had such an irritated expression. Elenn found herself remembering stories about his terrible rages. It was said he'd killed his sister Dechtir in a fit of temper.
"I can guess what you want," he said, crossly. Elenn kept her face still, the way her mother had taught her.
Ap Fathag laughed, loudly, the way he did sometimes. It sounded more like a raven than a man, there was no mirth in that sound. Elenn saw Nid shiver, and she would have shivered herself if she were younger.
"What did Darag tell you?" Inis asked.
"He told me you told him it was the day fated for him and Ferdia and Laig to take up arms." Conary said.
"I told you your foolish nephew was lying," Amagien put in. Conary glared at him.
"I told all my pupils that it would be a good day for a mighty warrior to take up arms," ap Fathag said. "I did not tell Darag to come to you."
"Not lying," snapped Conary at Amagien. "Enterprising lad."
Conal hissed air between his teeth, but ap Fathag clapped him hard on the shoulder and he said nothing. They all just stood there. Conary stared at ap Fathag, as if daring him to speak. "Have you given Darag and Laig and Ferdia arms?" ap Fathag asked after a long pause.
"Surely nobody would doubt the right of the king to arm his nephew and fosterlings in his own hall," Amagien said.
"Quite right too, I have every right to do it if I want to," Conary blustered.
"You have every right," ap Fathag said, very mildly. "But you must arm also these other nephews and fosterlings who stand beside me now."
"Sir, I am three months older than Darag," Conal put in.
"Do you think we could have forgotten your age?" Amagien asked. Elenn had never seen him snapping like this before.
"Of course I know his age," Conary said. "It is well past noon, Inis. It is too late to arm them today, they will never find a beast to kill before sundown."
"We will take that risk, sir," Conal said.
"Very willingly," Leary agreed.
Conary looked at them all as if they were something that had fallen from the thatch into his stew. "All of you?" he asked.
"I will," Nid said.
It was only then that Elenn realised exactly what was likely to happen. She wanted to be armed, yes, but not like this, not in a scramble and with no time to hunt properly. She wanted it to be an occasion and the whole court there out on a hunt and leaving the kill to her. She had heard all the stories of how her brother had taken up arms two years before. She didn't want it to happen this way. "Not us," she said, thinking quickly. "Sir, my mother would not like it if we were armed in Oriel." That was nothing but the truth; Maga definitely wanted to arm all her children herself, as she had done with Mingor. "Besides, I am not ready."
"But I would be armed," Emer said. Elenn couldn't stop herself from gasping. It was as if her left arm had suddenly developed a will of its own and started reaching for things she had no desire to grasp.
"Nonsense, girl," Amagien said. "Your pretty sister is right, it would cause trouble with Connat. Besides, how can the younger girl be armed and the elder not?"
"If Elenn feels unready for arms, that is her choice," Emer said. "She has no wish to be a great warrior." Elenn winced, for all that it was true.
"Stout heart," ap Fathag said, in something that sounded horrifyingly like an approving tone.
"My mother would wish to arm us herself, Elenn is right. But she would yield before the news of a fortunate day." Emer said, boldly.
Elenn leaned forward. "Emer, think, you can't," she whispered.
"Oh yes I can," Emer said, keeping her eyes straight forward.
"Maga will not like it, but will she go to war for it?" Amagien asked.
"She will go to war with us for one cause or another within three years," ap Fathag said, rocking to and fro slightly in the stupid way he did when someone asked him a question. It was so unfair, as his main means of talking was by asking other people questions, but if you asked him one back his response was to say something often unintelligible and always uncheckable and then go off into a daze. He was much madder than the oracle-priests at Cruachan. And his predictions were always so obvious, just like that one.
Conary leaned forward, looking at Emer. "Do you want to be a great warrior, then?" he asked.
"If possible," she replied.
"Has anyone seen if she can even fight?" Amagien asked. "Ah, I thought not. And she is two years away from age."
"She can fight," Conal said. Elenn frowned at him, but he took no notice, he wasn't even glancing at her. "She's young to be armed, but so are we all, sir. And time and daylight of a fortunate day are wasting as we stand here."
King Conary had shut his eyes. "She has not strength to fight hand to hand," he said, faintly. "Anyone can see that."
"Strength as much as my daughter Dechtir had," ap Fathag said.
Conary's eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, but when he spoke his voice still sounded weary. "Do either of you youths need a charioteer?"
Leary and Conal both stared at Nid, who shrugged. "I have driven you both and would willingly drive either of you," she said.
"You have far more often driven me," Leary began.
"Then let her drive you now," Conal said, "If Emer will consent to drive me?"
"It would be an honour," Emer murmured, looking down and sounding her usual self again.
"Let her be armed as a charioteer then," Conary said, as if he were tired to death of the whole business. Elenn felt a great deal of sympathy for him. "Come, Amagien. Where is Finca?"
Finca came up immediately. Elenn suspected she had been listening in the next alcove. It was a large hall, and the alcoves were hidden from each other the same way they were at Cruachan. It meant proper privacy for eating, but it also meant it was very easy to hide in them and spy on people when the hall wasn't full. If she built her own hall, Elenn thought she would prefer to have a great table to eat on the way the poets said the Vincans did. Except that it would make it difficult for people who were at bloodfeud with each other and so could not eat together. She wondered how the Vincans managed about that.
"You called for me, my brother?" Finca said.
"Rejoice, for today your child becomes one of the people," Conary said, with an ironic nod of the head to Conal. "If you can find Elba and Ringabur, and Ugain and his wife, they may wish to hear the same news. Regrettably, Maga and Allel cannot be here. Also, the feast I bade you prepare for Darag's return should perhaps be expanded a little."
"Yes, my brother," Finca said, as if his words had been quite ordinary. She gave hardly a glance to Conal and no glance at all at the rest of them.
"Oh, and sister, take the elder princess of Connat to help you," Conary said. "She does not need to be armed today."
"No," Finca said, looking at Elenn a little curiously. Elenn kept her head up and looked back. "Very well, you can help me to prepare the feast. Come along, child."
It was only then, hearing that familiar form of address, that Elenn realized what she had done. She would still be a child, when the others, even Emer, would be adults in everyone's eyes. It was not quite too late to change her mind, but entirely too late to do it and maintain dignity. She lifted her chin high and walked off after Finca without a backward glance.
King Conary gathered up champions and parents and guards so that there seemed to be a crowd of them before they even left the Red Hall.
Emer was starting to feel almost sorry that she had spoken up. Elenn's face had been like thunder as she went off with Conal's mother. No doubt she would never let Emer forget it. Worse, she would tell Maga. Maga hadn't wanted to send them to Oriel in the first place. Having fosterlings at Cruachan was one thing. Sending her own children off into danger was another.
Not that there was any danger. She couldn't see how such a thing could even cross her mother's mind. Maga and Allel had fought over it until Emer's head hurt. Eventually Allel suggested that Maga's reluctance wasn't fear for her children but an intention that she herself would break the sacred bonds of guesting and harm a fosterling. Emer thought he was entitled to say so. After all, the idea would never have crossed anyone else's mind. All guests were sacred, even in the middle of a war, and fosterlings were the most sacred guests of all. Maga had clawed Allel's face so hard that he had marks for days. After that there had been no more words Emer could hear through the wall, only moans and cries. That fight had ended up in bed, as her parents' fights so often did. Emer had wondered at them the next morning, seeing her father with a scratched face and her mother purring. She had been overjoyed when Allel had told them that they would at last be allowed to spend a year at Ardmachan. She had been waiting through all of Maga's excuses since she was nine years old and the royal children of Oriel had gone home without them.
King Conary marched out of the Red Hall, with everyone close behind him. Emer blinked at the sudden sunlight. There were some champions playing hurley on the field laid out for it over against the east wall. Their excited cries rose up in the warm air as someone scored. "Don't you just wish you were with them?" Conal whispered. Emer turned and grinned at him and he rolled his eyes towards the adults. King Conary was walking very fast, with an expression as if he had bitten a sour apple. Everyone else except Inis was scurrying to keep up. The king's counsellor ap Carbad was almost smiling. Nid's parents looked apprehensive, and Leary's looked confused. Conal's father, Amagien the Poet, was frowning, as usual. Emer thought it was awful that his mother hadn't even bothered to stay to see her son armed.
"Not really?" she said, tentatively, making it a question.
"Oh no, not really," Conal agreed.
"Besides, hurley is a stupid game," she said.
Conal laughed. "I don't know how you dare say so," he said, sounding surprised. "Though in many ways it is a very stupid game. I enjoy it sometimes. But such a lot depends on things you can't do anything about."
"Like how many people there are on each team, and when they switch sides," Emer said. "Is it true that Darag once played alone against all the rest of you?"
"There was a game once that started off like that," Conal said, carefully.
"He didn't want to wait to pick sides," Leary said. "He won though."
"Who was left on the other side at the end?" Emer asked.
"Just me," Conal admitted, and lowered his voice. "But that isn't the sort of thing that's worth making songs about."
"Hurley is good training for war," Nid said. "It teaches you how to move in battle."
"May the wise gods send that I never have to fight a battle where everyone changes sides as they see their advantage," Conal said.
Nid and Leary laughed, but Emer just looked at Conal, knowing he wasn't joking. His eyes met hers for a moment, dark and serious. An instant later he was laughing lightly again as they all hurried to catch up.
Then King Conary flung open the door of the Speckled Hall, and stopped abruptly, forcing everyone behind him to stop just as fast. Leary's father fell over his feet and caught himself. Nid giggled nervously.
The two guards inside the Speckled Hall looked incredibly guilty, as if they had been caught stealing from the storehouses rather than guarding them. They leapt to their feet with their spears ready. As far as Emer could tell they had been doing nothing worse than sitting talking. King Conary looked them up and down for a long moment. "Better," he said, at last, and both guards relaxed a trifle.
"I wonder what they were doing last time?" Conal asked, almost in her ear. Emer bit back a giggle.
"Ap Carbad, take all these people whose children are not here today down to the stables to wait," Conary said, without even turning his head to look. Ap Carbad gathered up the extra people, pausing when he came to Inis, but passing on as Inis beamed like an imbecile and indicated Conary. Inis was very clever about using his madness to his advantage when it suited him. He could be absolutely outrageous and nobody would challenge it. Emer had been afraid of him at first, but now she knew him better she liked him.
King Conary led the ten of them remaining into the Weapons Room. Emer had never been right inside the Weapons Room of the Speckled Hall before. As a child she had had no weapons of her own to leave, and for practice they used weapons kept down at the stables. The light came in under the eaves where the roof met the walls. The walls were plastered and painted with pictures of champions fighting in chariots. Maga would have sneered at the paintings, which used were crudely drawn and used too much blood-coloured paint. Emer quite liked them. The way the people were standing looked right, almost as if they could move. It took a moment or two for her to lower her eyes to the arms they had come to find.
The room was almost full of weapons of all descriptions, clearly carefully arranged, but equally clearly using some system she could not imagine. There were spears and knives and slings in great profusion, and piles of round slingshots, lime mixed with blood and set harder than stone. Among them were swords, more swords than she had ever seen. At home her father had a sword, of course, and her brother, and maybe half a dozen of the other champions. Here there seemed to be uncountable numbers of them. Emer stopped. She knew better than that. Ap Fial had taught her the Thorn Knowledge, how to count large numbers. She ran her eyes over them, counting by threes and twelves. "Forty five and two," she murmured, impressed.
"What?" Conal asked, setting down a sling and turning to her.
"Forty seven swords," she said. "That must be one for each champion of Oriel."
"More," King Conary said, stopping abruptly again and turning to Emer. "Many of these swords are mine, battle spoil which I have not yet gifted to any champion." He bent and picked one up to show her. "This is a Vincan cavalry sword. I won it fighting them on the coast of Demedia five, no, six years ago." He half drew it out of the scabbard. "Look at the edge on that!" He set it down again carefully in its place and picked up another nearby. "This one belonged to the champion Ardan of Muin, before I killed him. It is called Oakheart. See how the hilt is carved and the blade is veined a little like an oak leaf? It was made by a smith of Muin, you do not see those patterns on swords made in the north."
Quite suddenly King Conary seemed to notice that everyone was watching and listening. His face twitched and he set the sword Oakheart down carefully. "Well, why are you waiting?" he asked. "Arm these children; it is why we have come here." Then as they began to bustle about, he put his hand on Emer's arm. "Do you just admire good weapons, or can you use a sword, ap Allel?" he asked.
"I can use one a little," Emer admitted. "My father taught me. But he said I should wait until I was tall enough to use a real one. Mostly I have used a wooden one made the right size for practice."
"Very wise. The sword must work with the arm, and if you started using an ordinary sword before you were tall enough you would have too much to unlearn, or you would need a sword as tall as that one—" he indicated the Vincan sword "—when you had all your growth."
"Is that the sword of a Vincan who made that mistake then?" she asked. "Or an ogre?"
He laughed. "Neither. It is a cavalry sword, meant to be used from horseback."
"Riding on a horse? For battle?" Emer was astonished. "I have ridden, but I would never have thought of such a thing."
"Their horses are larger," Conary said. "Much larger. Even their ordinary horses are almost three hands larger than ours, and their war horses maybe six hands higher. They can bear a heavy man in armour. They use them in preference to chariots. I might do so myself if I had horses that size."
"And they use those swords?"
"They use thrusting spears first, and then the swords."
"Sir, I did not realise before what a feat you were recounting when you told me you won that sword in battle," Emer said, and bowed with both hands on her heart, the bow given to a mighty warrior, not the bow given to a king.
Conary laughed, and looked distinctly pleased. "If you have to fight against them, use spears," he advised. "Spears have the reach. Get the horse fast, and then they will be down on your level. Best of all use a belly-spear." He reached out without looking and drew forward a spear with a wicked barbed head. "It twists on the way in, and can't be drawn out straight, so it's almost sure to kill. I keep those for fighting against cavalry. Horse-warriors are a nuisance, but the good thing is that there are not very many of them. They cannot be everywhere at once, else raiding Demedia would be a foolish pastime indeed."
Emer laughed, knowing that Oriel raided Demedia every summer they were not at war elsewhere.
"You must be armed today," King Conary said, sounding much happier about it than he had earlier. He touched her elbow and then her wrist, then held his hands apart at that distance. "I know," he said, and looked about him. Then he frowned. "Conal!"
Conal was on the other side of the room with his father, looking desperately unhappy. He was wearing an armour coat, leather set with iron rings, and holding a spear. He and Amagien both looked up at Conary's call. As Conal looked up he smiled easily. Emer was surprised how quickly he could do that. Inis, who was standing by the door turning a knife in his hands, also glanced over, then away again.
"Conal, where are those Jarnish swords I said you could use for practice?"
"If you have lost the king's swords—" Amagien began.
"Oh no, they are not lost," Conal said, with a smile like ice over deep water. "They are here with the sling I use." He took a few paces among the weapons, dodging Leary who was pulling on his armour coat, clearly entirely at home in the room, and took up a pair of long knives and handed them to Conary.
"They are mine, and should not be kept with your father's weapons," Conary said, frowning.
"Useless boy!" Amagien said. "Can't you do anything right?"
"I am very sorry, sir," Conal said, looking at Conary.
"Humph. They're not harmed by it. Have you outgrown them yet?"
"The smaller, yes, but I am still using the longer." He turned to Emer. "I use them for practice. Using a weapon with an edge is different from using a wooden one, even when the weight is the same."
King Conary measured Conal's arm the same way he had measured Emer's, and frowned.
"This will be the summer he will grow," Amagien said, grimly, as if he would personally make sure of it.
"He is smaller than Darag but taller than Leary, he is not small for his age," Emer said, surprising herself. Conal gave her a swift frown and shook his head a little. Amagien looked furious.
Conary laughed. "Does your charioteer defend you already?" he asked. "Well, so it should be. Emer ap Allel, take this sword. It is a Jarnish weapon. These were won in a seafight, years ago. When you grow taller and wish to change it, bring it back to me. Conal, you keep the other until you too need a longer sword."
Emer took the smaller of the pair and turned it over curiously. It was not quite like a sword sized for a sixteen year old. The shape was unusual, but the balance was good. Conary handed the other to Conal just as Nid's mother came up with an armour coat for Emer. She shrugged it on over her clothes. There'd be time at the stables to take off her overdress. She belted up her shift and fixed the sword to her belt. Beside her, Conal was doing the same.
"And a spear," Conary said. He touched her head briefly and made for the wall where many spears were standing propped. He took up one without hesitation and strode back to her with it. She hefted it for a moment. It was just the right length. She was glad to see he had chosen an ordinary throwing spear, not a barbed belly-spear.
Conary went over to Leary then and after exchanging a few words found him a blade.
"If we are done here, then to the stables," Conary said. "Time is wasting."
As soon as they were back out in the sunshine Inis came up to Emer quietly. "I thought you would need a knife today," he said.
Emer bit back the first six things she wanted to say, all of which were questions. "The king has given me a sword," she said, showing him.
"I saw," he said. "That was well done." Without another word he turned and walked off, towards the gate of the dun, back towards the grove.
Emer stared after him.
"Sometimes he is just impossible," Conal said.
"I don't understand him," Emer said.
"To understand him you'd have to be him, study all the branches of knowledge for twenty-one years and at last come to the depths of the Oak Knowledge that drives people mad. And after that he has spent half the rest of his life spread out across lots of worlds. He's my grandfather and I've known him all my life and he has been nothing but good to me, but I wouldn't want to understand him."
Emer felt almost afraid of the intensity Conal was letting her see. "Come on," she said. "We ought to catch up or we'll be left with the chariot with the wobble."
"Oh no," Conal said. "This isn't practice. We don't use the practice chariots. We'll take my father's chariot. And his chariot horses. He will do that for me, and I'll make him proud of me." Emer looked. Amagien was up ahead talking to the king, taking no notice of them at all.
"Thank you for asking me to be your charioteer," she said.
"I meant it," Conal said. "Not just today. I mean to be a great warrior. I will need a charioteer. I want you."
"Why?" Emer asked. Then as she saw his face fall she added hastily, "I mean, yes, yes of course, but why me?"
"Because you are brave," Conal said. He looked as if he might say more, but he just shrugged, as if that was enough.
Emer grinned, too full of words to speak any of them, then ran off after the others, with Conal running beside her.
Finca had sent word to the stables, and both chariots had been harnessed ready. She was even here herself, fussing with the horses. Elenn was with her, still looking very downcast. Ap Carbad and a great crowd of champions of Oriel were gathered round talking busily.
Emer stole a moment to dress herself properly in one of the stalls before they set off. Nid came with her and they helped each other bind up their shifts tightly and tie back their hair. "My mother's upset," Nid said, frowning. "She wanted to have time to make me new clothes for when I come back, and she's only just started to warp the cloth for them never mind got them done. She doesn't care about lucky days, she says this is a scramble."
"She'll be glad when you come back," Emer comforted her. Nid looked unsure for a moment. Then they came out and rejoined the others. The grooms handed them the reins, and they mounted up. Emer put her spear into the slot for it at her side. Nid looked much steadier once she had horses to control. Emer's pair seemed well matched, both in colour and temperament. They were a pair of dun mares, both properly mealy-nosed, and absolutely raring to go.
Then King Conary raised his hand for quiet, and everyone stood together without saying anything. Amagien kept shifting his weight and scowling at Conal.
"You stand before me children," King Conary said. "Children of my blood, children of my dun, or fosterlings of my hearth, but children all. Today you take up the arms you bear, not now in practice but for the first time in truth. Bear them well and worthily, and as long as you may bear them in honour. Go now and hunt, and carry back whatever you may kill in token that you return to me children no more but men and women grown and champions of my household."
Nid's mother and Leary's father were weeping openly, and Leary's mother was wiping her eyes. Nid's father was grinning like a man who was ridiculously proud. Amagien continued to scowl. Finca looked emotionless. Elenn was smiling distantly like a queen painted on a wall. Emer was deeply relieved her parents weren't here, and that she had got out of doing this before the whole court in Cruachan. There would be a fight over it, she knew, but just one fight, not a whole drawn out campaign.
At a signal from Finca she and Nid let the horses go, and a moment later they were driving down the track that circled Ardmachan.
"Where to?" she asked, wishing she could turn and see Conal's face. Then he came and stood beside her so, so close she could feel the warmth of his body.
"Anywhere we want," Conal said. "Anywhere, anywhere at all, anywhere in the whole island of Tir Isarnagiri, nobody can stop us." He laughed, and they all laughed with him. Emer felt as if she had managed to escape a cage that had been around her all her life.
The farmers in the fields looked up as they heard them. "They probably think we're mad," Nid called, and that made them laugh all the more. They came towards the first track leading away into the countryside.
"There are four hours to sunset," Conal said, sobering a little. "There's likely to be game in the woods. Let's go that way."
Emer obediently turned the chariot south-west, full of delight.
"If it's such a fortunate day, why haven't we found anything yet?" Laig called.
Ferdia would have shrugged, but he knew what shrugging did when you were holding chariot reins. "I don't know," he said, too quietly for Laig and Darag to hear. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to think about what he was going to do when they did find something. He'd been thinking about that all afternoon. He almost had it clear, but it made such a difference what they found that it wasn't easy to make a plan. Darag would be all right. Darag was always all right.
Anyway, it was easy to make a kill from a chariot if you had a charioteer. It was a different matter if you didn't. He'd either have to stop and get down or be extraordinarily lucky. He'd have to be lucky to kill something on foot, too. Or maybe he would see something, stop, draw the spear, aim and throw. If only the horses didn't move just as he was throwing and draw off his aim. If he didn't kill something he wouldn't be a man. He wouldn't be a boy either, since he had taken up arms. He didn't know what he would be.
"We should have gone after the hares," Laig said.
"Don't be a fool," Darag said, roughly. Ferdia glanced over. Above the dust of the chariot wheels, Darag was standing without holding on, the way they'd been practising. His hair was clubbed together on his neck, the rings set in his leather armour were shining in the sun. He had his spear drawn back ready as if he was expecting to sight a quarry at any moment. He looked like a hero in a song, like Young Lew going to fight at the Plain of the Towers. But there was still nothing to fight. The countryside rolled here, with green fields spread out on either side of the track with the young corn green and growing. Ferdia hadn't seen so much as the tail of any animal but those hares since they had left Ardmachan, and they must be almost to the borders of Connat.
Ferdia sighed and got his eyes back to the space between his horses where they ought to be. You had to pay attention all the time to drive a chariot, it wasn't at all like a cart. Even going slowly was fast enough to tangle the traces and bring the horses to their knees, and maybe lame them or worse. Ferdia had gone off over his head a few times before getting the hang of it, and once Finca ap Inis had called him a clumsy oaf and said he'd have killed his left for sure if she hadn't been there to catch them. He had a good pair today; he doubted if King Conary had a better pair in his stables, except for his own, which Laig was driving. He had given Darag his own pair and his own chariot. It was an incredible sign of favour. He had been very kind to Ferdia too. These were very good. They were better than any he had ever driven in practice. They were both six year olds, used to working together, one bay and one dun, both with the sprinkling of white hairs on their muzzles that marks a hardy horse. They had been going steadily all afternoon without complaint. If he did not kill today he could not blame them. Nor could his father blame King Conary for sending him out badly equipped. He had even refused his offer of an experienced charioteer.
"A hare would make a useless trophy to show in the hall," Darag said. "Don't be afraid, Laig, we'll find something better. A stag. Or a wolf. Or a boar. Or even a bear. A bear would be best of all."
Darag was always so sure about everything. Ferdia, who was never sure, who always stopped and thought things through two or three times, found Darag's certainty compelling. "I'm not afraid," Laig said. "A bear each would suit me." Ferdia had been on a bear hunt once with his father, and all the champions of Lagin. He would have been worried by Laig's overconfidence if this was anything like bear country.
"My kill would count for yours as well, you're my charioteer," Darag said. "If we found a big bear and all three of us killed it together that would count for all three."
"But there aren't any bears in the southern part of Oriel," Laig said. "And we're coming round in a loop and this road leads back to Ardmachan."
"It does?" Ferdia asked, startled. Sometimes Ferdia wished he'd never left Lagin where he knew every stone and tree, and, even better, felt that they knew him. All the same, he should have been able to tell by the shadows if he was paying attention. The next moon would mark the feast of Bel. That meant by the shadows there were three more hours of daylight and they were indeed heading back north-east.
"I forgot you wouldn't know," Darag said. "Sometimes it seems as if you've always been here, not just since midwinter." That offhand comment made Ferdia feel welcome all through. "The road does lead back to the dun. I didn't want to exhaust the horses. But don't worry, it goes back through the woods. There are always animals there, it's where people go to hunt."
"So why didn't we go there first?" Laig asked.
"Do you need a charioteer?" Darag asked.
Ferdia glanced at Darag again. He was actually leaning towards him. "Do you want to kill yourself?" he asked, getting his eyes back where they belonged. He could see the trees up ahead. He looked forward to the shade. He hoped the woods would be teeming with wildlife. Even a hare, even a squirrel would be better than going back with nothing.
Darag laughed, a little uneasily. "Not even when I am ready to throttle Laig," he said. "I am no charioteer. We should have brought Nid."
"I would have, though nobody drives you but me," Laig said. "She'd have been glad enough to drive Ferdia. But she was playing fidchell, and there was no getting her away from Leary. He would have wanted to know and wanted to come. He's going to be spitting furious when he finds out."
"Not half as furious as Conal's going to be," Ferdia said, laughing.
Going to the king and asking to take up arms on the fortunate day had been Darag's idea. It had taken Ferdia to see the advantage of not telling the others. It wasn't just that they would be men and great warriors, and the others would not. That would be churlish, for a great warrior wants other great warriors around him. The real advantage was to Darag, for it would put him clearly ahead of his cousins in the rivalry for Oriel. King Conary's children were dead, it was very likely that one of his nephews would be chosen to be king after him. Darag just seemed to assume it would be him, but Ferdia knew that sometimes things didn't work out like that. Darag was the best champion, but Leary was tough and Conal was clever, and anything that would give Darag an advantage when it came to choosing was a good thing. Ferdia meant to do everything he could to see that when he was king of Lagin, Darag would be king of Oriel, so they would still be equals. It would be ridiculous for Darag to be set below him or have to be polite to him. They would both be kings and both be friends and Lagin and Oriel would never go to war. They would always fight together against Muin and Connat and Anlar and the Isles, especially Anlar, whose king Lew ap Ross was a boring old windbag.
"What's that?" Laig said, drawing his pair to a halt. Ferdia had been so far off in his thoughts that he was surprised to find they were deep under the shade of the trees. He hadn't heard anything, but he was glad of a moment's rest. He halted beside his friends and spat, clearing his mouth of the dust of the road. He took a mouthful of water from the skin at his belt, and put it back to stop himself from taking as much as he wanted and draining the skin.
"Could it be deer?" Darag asked.
Ferdia listened for a moment. "Sounds a lot more like horses to me," he said.
"Better let whoever it is pass, then," Laig said, drawing his chariot over to the side.
Darag put his head on one side as if he were listening too. "No, let's go and find them," he said.
Ferdia twitched the traces and the horses responded at once with a surge forward. A moment later the other chariot came up beside him. They went forward along the track through the trees. The trees along the right side of path were a line of planted alders, so although he had never been here before, Ferdia wasn't at all surprised when the woods widened out ahead and there was a mere on his right, full of reeds and rushes. What did surprise him was the sight of two other chariots, drawn up facing the water. The nearest was Nid, driving Leary, and the other with little Emer of Connat, driving Conal. Ferdia could hardly take it in that they were there at all.
"Ah, greetings cousin," Conal said, bowing in his typical sardonic way. "Have you made a kill yet?" His eyes ran over their empty chariots. "No? What a pity." Emer laughed. Ferdia scowled.
"I wondered if you might make it after all," Darag said, in perfect good humour. "No, we have seen nothing all day. How about you?"
"We have only been out an hour, and naturally we used our wits and made straight for the woods as the most likely source of game," Conal said. "But we have seen nothing yet worthy of our spears."
He was also holding his spear. He didn't look as good as Darag, but only because his chariot wasn't moving. Conal had the sort of smooth good looks that made Ferdia want to break his nose.
"Why are you stopped here?" he asked.
"We were looking what birds are on the water," Nid said.
Ferdia looked at the water. Moorhens, and a handful of ducks. He enjoyed eating duck as much as anyone, but it wasn't game for a warrior, they were caught with nets. Anyway, they couldn't be killed now, unless someone was likely to starve to death otherwise. It was late spring. They might be nesting.
"There's nothing," Laig said, after a moment.
"We were just looking," Leary said, gruffly.
"Well, since we have met, cousin, should we hunt together or separately?" Conal asked.
Ferdia longed to answer that they should separate, but looked to Darag for a response. As he turned he saw them, gasped and pointed. Darag immediately turned to see, spear ready. A flight of six swans was coming down towards the mere, dark against the sky. Swans were warrior's game, if speared from the sky. They might not be as good as a bear, but they were a lot better than a squirrel.
His spear was in the charioteer's slot beside him. With the chariot stopped and facing towards them it was much easier than it would have been. He drew the spear, chose a swan, aimed and threw. He knew almost at once that he had missed. But even as he realized, he saw that Darag had hit. He saw another spear miss and plunge into the water. He was surprised Conal or Leary had even tried, from that angle it would be quite impossible. Darag's spear struck the swan cleanly, as cleanly as any such hit Ferdia had ever seen, and it fell straight down, into the water. The other swans landed, swishing in one by one and settling to sit serenely on the surface. They turned and honked angrily. Ferdia wondered if they knew they were safe on the water.
"I hit it!" Darag said. "Bad luck, Ferdia. You were very close"
"You didn't have anyone to hold your chariot still," Laig said.
"There'll be another chance," Ferdia said, furious with himself. "Will you hold my traces while I get my spear?" He handed the traces to Laig and stumped off towards his spear. He could see it clearly against some fallen leaves already half returned to loam. It was a good cast, though that was no consolation as he hadn't hit, all it meant was further to go to get it back. The ground was very muddy. He wiped the spear on some moss as he retrieved it.
When he got back, Darag and Leary and Conal had all got down and were looking at the floating body of Darag's swan, a tall man's length from the edge of the water.
"My spear is sunk forever," Conal said, with a wry smile. "If we didn't need the swan for you to show, I'd suggest leaving it."
"My mother keeps dogs to bring back game," Emer said, staring out over the water.
"So do we. We just didn't think to bring any," Leary said.
"I'll fetch it back," Laig said. "It's part of my job. I was only waiting for Ferdia. Here, have your reins back."
Ferdia was in no hurry to take up the reins again. He ignored Laig. "I might be able to reach it with my spear," he said. He took a couple of careful steps into the water and reached with his spear, hoping to hook the swan and have it drift towards them. The live swans were moving away elegantly. The dead one was a revolting object, all its grace gone. He could almost reach. The surface beneath his boots was made up of slippery mud and the roots of reeds and trees.
"You'll get very dirty if you fall in," Conal said, in his mocking way. Ferdia took another step, less carefully, and slipped. He went down on one knee, and instinctively put his left hand down to save himself. The bottom squirmed away under his hand. His right hand, holding the spear, reached the swan and poked it further away. His breeches were soaked. Beyond caring now, he pulled himself to his feet and waded out towards the swan. The water was thigh deep. One of the live swans glided towards him, hissing ominously. He wondered if it was the mate of the one Darag had killed. He knew it was wrong to spear a bird on the water, but did that apply to self defence? The swan's beak looked quite threatening. Ferdia made a warding gesture with his spear, hoping to scare it off. At the same moment he grabbed the dead swan with his left hand and took a step back towards shore. Then another swan got inside his guard and made a determined strike at Ferdia's right knee, hard, and he went down again, going right under the water this time, dropping the dead swan and almost losing his spear. He pulled himself half up and used the spear like a quarterstaff to push the swans away.
He could hear Conal laughing, and some of the others as well.
"Hold on Ferdia, I'm coming," Darag called from shore.
"I'm all right," he said, though he wasn't. He heard Darag splashing into the water. He attempted to stand up straight. His armour was heavy and his knee hurt where the swan had hit him. The water was all churned up with mud and he couldn't see the bottom at all now. There were big bubbles breaking all around him. At least he'd made the swans back off a little, though they weren't far away. He made another grab for the dead swan just as everything exploded.
He had been in the water, and now he was looking down on the water. He had been standing, or crouching at least, now he was upside down. The swans had been going for him, but now he was being squeezed around his waist. He tried to see what was squeezing him, but he couldn't make it out. It seemed to be a huge silver coil. That made sense, because there were other huge silver coils coming out of the water. Darag was in the water, fighting the coils with a spear. Leary wasn't far from him, also with a spear. This made Ferdia remember that he ought to have a spear himself. He looked around for one. There was a spear stuck hard in the smooth coil, though it was not bleeding. It was quivering slightly and stuck quite far in. Ferdia wondered if he had put it there, though it looked as if it had been thrown there. He stretched his arm to see if he could reach it, and found his arm encircled with another loop, a thinner one. People were shouting, but the sound of thrashing water drowned them out.
What was this thing anyway? It was like a snake, but everyone knew there were no snakes in Tir Isarnagiri. And where was its head? He looked up, and saw nothing but sky. He was starting to feel faint from lack of breath. The coil seemed to be moving him downwards towards the water. There was a huge splash and he was immersed in the mud and water again. He struggled, but the harder he struggled the more the loop squeezed him. Just as he was about to give up and try to breathe water someone rolled him over. He just lay there for a moment, breathing. Breathing was wonderful. He was on his back in quite shallow water. Close above him were Conal and Emer, laughing. They both held big knives, or maybe funny little swords, and were soaked and muddy.
Ferdia sat up, gasping, and saw Darag, still holding a spear, looking concerned. "Are you all right?" he asked. There was nothing behind him but Leary and Nid, muddy and dripping, both their spears running with water.
"Where did it go?" Ferdia asked, and coughed painfully.
"We killed it," Emer said, then amended herself. "Conal killed it."
"Emer killed it," Conal said, bowing. "You're a true warrior, not a charioteer."
"I'd much rather be your charioteer," she muttered.
"If you killed it, where's the body?" Laig interrupted. Ferdia looked to the bank. Laig was standing there dry and clean holding the traces of both chariots.
"It melted away when we killed it," Emer said.
"What was it?" Ferdia asked. "Was it a snake?"
"It may have been," Conal said. "I've never seen one, but it was like the way they are in songs." He leaned down and offered his empty hand to Ferdia and pulled him to his feet. The water wasn't even up to his knees here. Now he could breathe again he felt chilled all through. He took a step towards the bank and stubbed his toe on something hard. He saw a gleam through the murky water and bent for it. It was his spear. He pulled it out and leaned on it.
"I didn't know they were so big," Nid said. She looked cold as well, her teeth were chattering. "And I didn't know about the wings. I thought it was like a huge swan."
"What wings?" Ferdia asked, puzzled.
"I didn't see any wings. It had scales like snakes are supposed to, but I think it was a great big fish," Leary said.
Ferdia looked about for the dead swan he had come into the water for. There was no sign of it. There was no sign of any life at all, except for one solitary moorhen cowering in the reeds.
"It wasn't a swan or a fish or a snake, and we didn't kill it," Darag said. If it hadn't been impossible, Ferdia would have thought there were tears in his voice. He must have swallowed some of the water. "She was the Guardian of the Creatures of the Island of Tir Isarnagiri, and it's all my fault and I nearly got you killed, Ferdia. I shouldn't have killed the swan, I knew it was out of season."
"The swan was flying," objected Leary. "You're allowed to spear swans in the sky all year round."
"But he was coming down, and he fell in the water," Darag said.
"If it was the Beastmother, and I do not for one moment concede that it was," Conal said, his voice like sharpened ice, "Then how is it that you know this and we do not?"
"It's just how things are," Darag said. He ran his wet hand through his wet hair. "I know you won't believe I don't do this sort of thing on purpose, Con, but if I could be free of it I would. I'd happily give it to you and have it be you who hit the swan and you that Rhianna spoke to. It's as if everything I do has significance beyond anything I would want for it. I can't just come out and kill an animal and go back a man, something has to happen to make it special. It's as if nothing of my life belongs to me and all of it is tied to something else. It's as if I don't have any choices. Everything I do is ringed about with strangeness. I saw a target and went for it and I could have got Ferdia killed." He sounded completely despairing.
"Ap Fathag said—" Emer began, but Conal raised a hand and she fell silent.
"Any of us could have done the same," Conal said. "But speaking to the gods is—"
"It was because he killed the swan," Leary said. "He's the king's nephew, we all are, she would have spoken to any of us if we'd killed it. I didn't even throw, impossible shot from where I was. You missed, lost your spear. Darag hit it, we all fought the Guardian, whatever it was. When we did well enough against her she relented, spoke to Darag to tell him what he did so he wouldn't do it again. That's all."
"And I'm all right," Ferdia said, to Darag, as reassuringly as he could. "Really I am." Darag came nearer and embraced him, wordlessly. Ferdia hugged him back, as if they were family.
"Did we kill it?" Nid asked. "Or do we have to go and look for something else?"
"Emer killed it, but it counts for all of us," Conal said, doggedly. "The same as it would in a boar hunt."
"No head," Leary said, briefly, looking around as if hoping to find one. "Supposed to show the head in the hall."
"They will have to take our word," Emer said.
Conal laughed suddenly. "Yes, they will. After all, would they accuse all of us of jumping in a duck pond to muddy our clothes and making up a story about it?" He bowed to Emer and took her arm to escort her out of the water, for all the world as if they were going in to dinner.
Ferdia shook his head at Darag. "Will they believe us?" he asked.
"They'll have to," Darag said fiercely.
In the end it didn't matter, because a herd of deer crossed their path on the way out of the wood so they had venison enough to feast all king's hall.
Conal feinted high and thrust low. Emer blocked smoothly, then signalled a stop. They both stepped back.
The grass behind the smithy was flattened in a rough circle. They had been coming here to practice alone for half a month now. It was as private a place as there was in reach of Ardmachan. Conal had found it three years ago. The willow-bordered stream ran out of the trees and alongside the low stone smithy. This patch was one of the very few pieces of land outside the dun bare of trees and not planted with crops. The smith kept a cow, but she did not mind her pasture being trampled. And the smith didn't mind the noise, he always made enough himself. Conal had come to an arrangement with the smith. When the cow was ready, he would bring his father's great bull down to her, and this kept the smith in milk and cheese and meat, or even profit if it should be a heifer which he could trade. The smith was well pleased with this bargain, always greeted Conal kindly and sometimes even brought him out a cup of milk on hot days. Amagien knew nothing about it, but it suited Conal very well. Inside the dun there was plenty of room for practising. But inside the dun there were also the others.
"What's wrong?" Conal asked. She couldn't be tired already. She wasn't even breathing hard.
"Nothing," she said. "Just getting my balance a moment. You're right about how different it is using the blades."
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. He wouldn't have agreed to it if he wasn't sufficiently confident of his control of the sword. He had always been told never to practice steel against steel, but Emer had wanted to so much, and he knew he could stop.
She laughed. "Of course not." Conal felt a sudden wave of protectiveness, a desire not just to avoid hurting her but to keep her from being hurt by anything, ever. "But I suddenly realised I could hurt you. The next move after the block would be—" she mimed the upward strike, slowly.
"Yes, and I would block," Conal said, bringing his shield round equally slowly. "We've done this with the wooden swords. You're fast, and you're getting much smoother."
"But if you didn't block in time, I could hurt you. With a wooden sword that doesn't matter." Conal grinned wryly. They had both felt the force of the wooden swords in the time they had been training hard together. "Well, if you don't count bruises it doesn't matter," she amended. "But with this if I don't stop, I could gut you. And I know I shouldn't be thinking about stopping."
"You're right, it's the last thing," Conal said, seriously. He sat down, and patted the ground beside him. For a wonder, the grass was quite dry. Emer sat, obediently, quite close. "That's what Meithin always says, and I see now how right she is. That's why we always practice with wooden blades. If you learn to pull your blows then you'll pull one in battle, when you need to be gutting someone. And they won't do the same and then you'll be the one who's dead."
As he was speaking the smith's hammer stopped for a moment, and the last word came out unnecessarily loud in the sudden silence. The sound of the stream came to him clearly, and a bird singing in the woods.
"Have you ever fought anyone, for real?" Emer asked, quietly.
"Not with swords." Conal didn't want to think about the times he'd fought Darag. He wasn't sure it counted anyway, real as those fights were, they weren't trying to kill each other, only to win. "Only that thing in the water."
"That wasn't at all the same," Emer said, turning her sword in her hand. "It didn't have hands or a head. It was a monster. I just wanted to stop it. It wasn't like fighting a person. I didn't use any technique until you told me to cut through it with you."
"We were very lucky, I think," Conal said.
The hammering started up again, louder than ever.
"It felt different from practising," Emer said, raising her voice. "I think fighting people for real would feel different again."
"I think so too," Conal said. He hesitated, looking at her, still feeling strangely protective. "You don't have to fight if you don't want to," he said.
Emer looked startled. "Of course I want to! Do you mean you don't think I'm good enough to be your charioteer after all?"
"You're better with the chariot than a lot of charioteers already," Conal said. "Even my mother says so, and my mother never gives more praise than she need. I didn't mean that at all. It's what I want. But if you would rather not fight and kill, rather stay home safe, nobody would think any the worse of you, and I would defend—"
Even as he found the words he knew he was saying the wrong thing.
"I think you are mistaking me for my sister," Emer said, her voice very hard. She turned her face away, wiping it on her sleeve.
"I'm sorry," Conal said, after a moment. "I wasn't mistaking you for anyone else. I just—" Her hair was tightly braided, as if to go under a leather battle-cap, she seemed all eyes, as always. She wasn't beautiful, like Elenn. But she was unmistakably herself. He wanted to take her him his arms and kiss her. He wished she weren't so young. "You are special, and I want to keep you safe."
She turned her head back, her eyes still bright with tears, but there was anger in her voice. "And how would you feel if I said that to you?"
He thought about it for a moment, giving it consideration. "Treated like a child," he admitted.
"Well then!" she retorted, and threw a piece of grass at him. It landed on the leather practice coat around his chest. He looked at it for a long moment as it moved with his breathing. "I want to defend you, and be defended by you," she said. "I want to be your charioteer and fight beside you."
Conal reminded himself again how young she was, almost a year younger than he was, not even seventeen yet. "Yes," he said. "And later, not yet, later, in a few years time, we could get married, and keep on fighting together."
Emer didn't say anything for a moment, and he thought he had spoiled everything. Then she put her hand on top of his where it lay on the grass. "It would be like a song," she said, quietly. "If my mother would let us."
"You said she wanted to marry you to Darag," Conal said. He felt far more aware of his hand where hers touched him than of anything else. "There are no bloodfeuds between our houses. I am of the royal kin of Oriel. If she would consider Darag, I ought to do as well, if not better. Through my father I am also of the royal kin of Anlar."
"Maybe we could persuade her," Emer said. She ran her long fingers over the back of his hand. He shivered. "It isn't blood she is concerned about, but alliances. Kings." Emer frowned.
"Darag is not bound to be king of Oriel," Conal said. He felt as if his hand was his whole body, his whole existence. He wanted to move, to put his other hand on her hand, but he dared not. "And surely if you tell your mother your preference she will take account of it."
"My father might," Emer said, biting her lip. "My mother thinks if Elenn is married to Ferdia and he is king of Lagin, and I am married to Darag and he is king of Oriel then they will do what we say."
"That's nonsense," Conal said. "I mean when my father married my mother I am sure my grandfather Ross of Anlar and everyone here meant it to be an alliance to bind Anlar and Oriel. But we go to war with Anlar whenever we want, and my father goes along and takes care not to kill his friends and then makes up songs about it afterwards."
"Maga's plan is that we should make the marriages as alliances for Connat before anything else, and use our wiles to keep our husbands firm to our alliance," Emer said, screwing up her face. "She is full of good advice about how to do this, and how to be a queen, all of which sounds the most vile nonsense. Not to mention that it demonstrably doesn't work, or she and Allel wouldn't fight so much. But she says that if we do it right there will be nobody to attack Connat except Muin."
"Or Anlar, or the Isles," Conal objected. "But no, I suppose Anlar couldn't attack except through Oriel, and the Isles would have to attack by sea, and I suppose that's why she wants your brother to marry Atha."
"She doesn't want him to!" Emer said, surprised. Her hand stopped moving, and Conal's breath caught. "My father wanted him to, but Maga says that Atha is a famous warrior and will always want to be fighting someone."
"She would, you know," Conal said, grinning at the thought. "I met her when she was here last year. She's not happy sitting still. She had the champions racing and playing hurley all day and dancing all night. My aunt Elba kept threatening to take to her bed with exhaustion, and my mother kept forcing her to join in with dire threats."
Emer laughed, and stroked his hand again. "I wish I'd seen that. Is Atha really as ugly as people say?"
"No, nothing like. She's not pretty, but she wouldn't crack a plate either. Just like anyone. But I hear she always spikes her hair and paints herself ugly all over for battle."
"Does she fight naked then?" Emer asked.
"Apparently. Almost all the champions of the Isles do. I haven't seen her in war paint. But that's what my mother said."
"It shows great trust in the gods," Emer said, dubiously. "Our people paint their faces and arms and legs, but they wear armour where it will cover."
"Very sensible of them," Conal said. "But you're right that Atha fights in a frenzy, and your mother is right that she's not be happy without fighting. Besides, I have heard that she might be going to marry Urdo ap Avren."
"Really? And go off to Tir Tanagiri and fight the Jarnsmen?"
"Ah, that's the snag. Urdo would like that, no doubt, but she'd like him to send her some horse-warriors to fight against us."
Emer rolled her eyes and took back her hand. "Marriage alliances!" she said. "This is getting like dinner conversation at home."
"I wasn't talking about an alliance, except incidentally," Conal said. Now he was free to move he reached out his hand, meaning to take hers back, but she moved, and she was in his arms and he was kissing the top of her smoothly braided head. Her scent was stronger than the scent of the grass. He felt overwhelmed. "Emer!" he said. "Emer!" The hammering stopped again. "Emer," he whispered into her hair.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do, though he knew he wasn't going to do it. She might be a grown woman before the law but she was not seventeen yet, and she was his uncle's fosterling. No matter what his father said he wasn't an irresponsible boy. He could master his desires. But she turned her face up and looked at him, and in her eyes was such trust that he almost wanted to close his own eyes. "Conal," she said, very quietly.
Then there was a hesitant cough, and they leapt apart as if they had suddenly grown red hot. It was the smith, bringing a cup of milk as he often did on hot days.
He held the wooden cup out to Conal, who stood and took it, awkwardly.
"Shall I bring some more for the lady?" the smith asked, slyly, looking at Emer.
Conal's first thought was to say no and get the man away as fast as he could, begging him not to tell anyone what he had seen. Then the things he had learned took over. If he acted guiltily everyone would assume that there was something to be guilty about. Nothing would make the man gossip more than him trying to stop him. Much better to act as if there was nothing unusual. "Yes, thank you very much," he said, casually, sipping he milk. "How do you keep the milk so cool on such a warm day?" he asked. Emer was sitting down with her back to them.
"Well, now, I keep the bucket in the stream," the smith said.
"What a good idea. I shall have to tell my mother about that," Conal said. "I suppose you have an iron bucket?"
The smith laughed. "Iron fittings on it," he said. "A bucket all of iron would be too heavy."
"Of course," Conal said. "I was thinking you could have made one without the carpenter."
"Iron fittings, and the wood swelled to be water-tight, for a bucket" he said. "I'll fetch some more milk for the lady now."
Emer looked round when he had gone. "How could you talk so calmly?" she demanded.
Conal laughed. "I'm good at that," he said.
"I know, I've seen, but even so. My face was burning. It still is. I've never been so embarrassed in my life."
"We weren't doing anything wrong," Conal said, draining his cup.
"My mother would scream for days," Emer said. "Worse, she'd make me come home. She may anyway. She may not like my taking up arms." She bit her lip again.
"Surely she'll take it all right?" Conal was alarmed. "Uncle Conary sent ap Usli to explain, and he's good at explaining. She won't really make you go home, will she?"
"I've begged Elenn not to ask her to," Emer said. "And she wrote as well. Maga takes more notice of her. But Maga didn't want us to come away. Ap Usli could be back by now, if she had been happy, it's only five days to Cruachan."
"They'll have asked him to stay for the Feast of Bel," Conal said, "I can't see what Maga can object to, really, when it was a fortunate day."
The smith came back out, with another cup of milk. Emer took it and thanked him seriously. They all bowed, then he went back inside and began clattering again.
"It will be the Feast of Bel in three days," Emer said, drinking her milk.
"Yes?" Conal said. Then he remembered what that meant. "No," he said, in a different tone. The Feast of Bel had three meanings. The first was that the season of planting was over and the season of war could begin, between planting and harvest. The second was the renewal of the ancient ward that protected evil from coming to the island of Tir Isarnagiri. The third was the dance of fruitfulness. Everyone danced it once, around the relit fires, that the crops and the beasts should be fruitful in the next year. Then, after the children were sent to bed, it was danced again by men and women. Conal had heard that nobody ever asked where anyone had slept on the Feast of Bel. It was a time when the gods came into the world in disguise looking for willing partners, a time when women whose husbands had not given them enough children could seek a more fruitful coupling, and a time when many married couples would try to kindle children in the fields who had not come to the marriage bed. So many children were conceived at the Feast of Bel that the Feast of Mother Breda came exactly nine months later.
"Nobody asks where anyone sleeps on the Feast of Bel, and we are adults now," Emer said, smiling in a way that made Conal want to hold her again.
"You are not done growing, you are too young to bear children yet," Conal said. His voice came out almost as a growl. "Besides, if we go to war with the Isles this summer you won't want to be feeling sick as the chariot lurches."
Emer frowned. "But I'm not married, and unmarried women don't have babies."
"They do after the Feast of Bel," Conal assured her. "If the gods want them to. That's what it's all about."
"My mother never explains things properly," Emer said, crossly.
Conal had heard tales of what Maga did on the Feast of Bel. He didn't like to think what she might have told Emer. "There will be plenty of other chances," Conal said, stooping to pick up the wooden swords. "But not yet." He tossed a sword to Emer. She caught it left-handed, she still had the cup in her right hand.
"Not here," she said, looking at the smithy and setting the cup down. "Not in the dun, not anywhere in the dun."
"No, there's no privacy there unless you have your own house," Conal agreed. "If we get married we could have our own house. Next year, maybe."
"You could sleep in the king's hall now if you wanted," Emer said, picking up her shield and getting into position.
"I'm not ready to fight that battle with my father," Conal said. "I need to do it from a position of strength. He isn't ready to see me as a man yet."
"Anyway, apart from the poetic side of it, it wouldn't do any good. I sleep with Elenn and Nid."
"What poem do you mean?" Conal asked, taking his stance.
"Really, for someone whose father is a poet anyone would think you never heard any," Emer said. "Cian's poem 'Spring'. He's in love with a woman and they both sleep in the king's hall. 'How can I sleep when your soft breathing fills the air of the hall, echoes through the whole island'."
Conal laughed. "Sounds to me as if she snores."
Emer looked horrified for an instant, then began to laugh so hard she dropped sword and shield and sat down abruptly.
"I'm not very poetic," Conal said, apologetically.
"Oh that's all right," Emer said, when she could speak again. "It's Elenn who wants poetic. I just want you."
Conal put out his hand and pulled her to her feet. "And I, you know I," words had always come easily to Conal, but now there didn't seem to be enough of them to say what he meant "I want you, too," he said, clumsily, and angry with himself for being clumsy. "Now pick your sword up, and let's get back to it."
"With the wooden blades?"
"Yes. Now I really understand why it's not good to learn to stop, or to gut your friends in training. We can use the real swords for practising alone. Or maybe we could use them with ap Carbad, if he keeps coming down to morning practices the way he has been this last few days. You wouldn't mind if you gutted him."
"Not in the slightest," Emer said, sounding entirely as if she meant it. "No more than I would an enemy. But he's going to be very surprised tomorrow when he sees how much better I am."
They practised until hunger drove them back to the dun.
When Finca shouted outside the door they all got up and dressed by candle-light, getting in each other's way. Nid kept yawning and complaining about having to be up so early as if she didn't care what day it was.
At home, they would all have had new clothes. Maga had sent new overdresses for both girls, pale green with red and blue hatchings. Elenn smoothed hers down carefully. It was the first dress she had had for years that she hadn't worked on herself. She had neither helped weave the length nor sewn the finished cloth. She might have carded or spun the wool before she left home, and she found herself hoping she had, that when Maga had come to choose the wool to weave she had run her hands carefully along the store until she came to some Elenn had spun. It was strange to wear a dress that had none of herself in it. She had only her old shift to wear underneath. Maga had not sent one, and she had not thought in time to beg Elba for wool and the use of her loom.
They did not seem to make new clothes for the Feast of Bel in Oriel. If they had all been preparing, she would have remembered. But nobody had said anything about it or been extra busy at the looms. Nid was wearing the overdress she always did. Elenn had seen her wear it every time she'd seen her more dressed up than the shift and jerkin she wore every day, like a boy. Nid's hair, left bare and unbound for the festival, looked like a rat's nest. Elenn took up her comb, a very good hawthorn comb her father had made. She combed her own hair smooth and left it loose on her shoulders. She turned to Emer and was about to offer her the comb when she saw that her sister was wearing her usual mottled heather-coloured overdress.
"You forgot your new overdress," Elenn said.
"It doesn't fit," Emer replied, untwisting her hair from her sleeping braid.
"How can it not fit? Mine fits."
Emer shrugged and looked down. "I've grown a lot since I left home."
Elenn frowned. She had grown too, and her dress fit. But it was true that Emer had grown a lot.
"You should have said before," she said. "I'd have helped you let the seams out. It's fortunate to have new clothes for the Feast of Bel."
"Is that a custom of Connat?" Nid asked.
"It's what we say at home, yes," Elenn said, trying not to sound as if she thought less of Oriel for doing differently. Maga had warned her about that. She had warned her about a lot of things, but not of the important one. She didn't think Maga had ever imagined the possibility of Emer's mutiny.
Emer still wasn't meeting her sister's eyes. "The dress isn't long enough," she said.
"An overdress doesn't need to be long," Elenn said. "Let me see if I can do anything with it." She couldn't force Emer to do anything any more. The last half month had shown that only too clearly. But she could persuade her.
"There isn't time," Emer said, sulkily.
"She's right," Nid said. "It'll be light soon. I need to find my parents and you need to join the king."
Without waiting for Elenn, or combing her hair, Emer took up the candle, parted the curtain on the door and started out into the hall. Elenn and Nid had no choice but to follow.
At home, Maga and Allel would have had every fire in the hall lit, ready to be doused. Then they would lead their way around all the houses of the dun and down into the village, making sure there was no fire anywhere before Maga made the sunrise vow. Here, there were hardly any fires lit. Well, nobody could say it had been cold. It was one of the warmest springs Elenn could remember.
The hall was dark and shadowed. King Conary was standing with Ferdia, Darag, Leary and Leary's parents. As Elenn came out of their room, Conal and his parents came into the hall through the outside door, letting in a little dawn light with them. Inis came in a little behind them. Emer went straight to Conal and stood beside him, abandoning her sister. Nid joined a group of people going outside, and slipped off to join her family.
"The fires in the dun are cold," Finca reported.
Elenn walked over to stand by Ferdia and Darag. At least they looked pleased to see her. Ferdia was even wearing new clothes. That made Elenn feel more comfortable somehow. It was so strange when everything was the same and different. She wished she was at home with her brother teasing her and her father making special porridge for them to eat before the fires were put out. Nobody had offered her any early breakfast, so it would be nothing but cold food all day. Ferdia smiled at her, and Darag complimented her on her dress. It was nice that somebody noticed.
King Conary led the way around the whole hall, starting in the kitchen. The fires were almost out already. He quenched all those that were still burning, using water. At home, Maga would have used her charm. Everyone knew the charm for lighting fires, but the charm for putting them out again was something special. Maga had promised to teach it to her daughters when they were grown. Elenn bit her lip and hoped she would not teach it to Emer first now. There had been a message for Emer with the clothes, but nothing for her. Was Maga angry with her? And if so, for what? For letting Emer take up arms or for not doing the same herself?
Conary led the way back through into the main hall and they all trooped after him. Even the hearthfire, which never went out except for the Feast of Bel and the Day of the Dead, was little more than embers. Before bending to it, Conary touched the heads that hung on each end of the stone mantle above the fire. Elenn knew they were only vanquished brave enemies, protecting the hearth, the same as the ones at home. But the ones at home were familiar; she had heard their stories told many times. There were no more here than at Cruachan, but they somehow seemed more sinister. She wondered if any of them were people she had known. It was not polite to ask.
Conary took up a poker and stirred the embers apart. When they sparked to life he poured water on them, sending up a choking cloud of smoke. Emer coughed, and for a moment Elenn almost went to help her. Then she remembered that her sister wouldn't want her help any more, and stayed where she was. When he was quite sure the fire was out, Conary blew out his candle. The others who had candles hastily blew theirs out too.
Ap Fathag opened the door outside, and they all followed Conary through it. The sky was quite light now. Everyone was gathered in the space between the hall and the hilltop. It looked as if not only everyone in Ardmachan but all the farmers for miles around had come. On the hilltop was a cold bonfire, ready for sunset. Conary strode towards it through the crowd.
"Do we follow?" Elenn asked Ferdia. The grass was wet and cold with dew, chilling her feet. But it wasn't really cold, not like sometimes. There had been Feast of Bel mornings at home when Elenn had shivered in her bare feet almost as much as on the Day of the Dead six months later.
"We can stay here," Darag said. "We have seen the fires put out, the king doesn't need his household with him now."
Conal's family, with Emer, her eyes red and streaming, stopped a little way ahead. Leary's family followed Conary almost all the way up to the crest.
"Shhhh!" Ferdia said.
Conary had reached the top and was looking out eastwards, waiting for the first sliver of sun to clear the horizon over the distant sea. A hush grew through the crowd, a quiet expectancy. This, at least, was just as it was in Cruachan. At this moment, Elenn knew, her mother would be waiting as Conary was waiting, as the kings of Muin and Lagin and Anlar and the Isles would be waiting.
As the sun revealed itself, Conary raised his arms, first palm up and then palm down. "Hear this," he said, very loudly. "Lord Bel, Mother Breda, and all gods of earth and sky and of home and hearth and clan. And hear this, my people assembled here before me. The fires are cold. The folk of Oriel have kept the Ward."
Nobody moved or spoke. Behind them, Elenn knew, the sun was rising slowly. Usually she stood beside her mother and father and brother and watched it rise. It seemed a great deal of trust to put in Conary to let him watch alone, though he was the king, and he had no wife or children to stand beside him.
After a time which seemed endless, Conary spoke again. "The sun is risen, Lord Bel, master of life and death. No fire will be kindled again in Oriel until we see the fire that has been kindled on the Hill of Ward." It was much too far to see the Hill of Ward from here, of course. But there was a bonfire prepared on each hilltop, and as each hilltop sighted the fire on the next they would light their fire until every fire in the land was lit. Then the feasting and dancing would begin.
"Let the Ward hold across Tir Isarnagiri," Conary said. "Let there be death in bright sunlight, life out of darkness, war without hatred, strife without bitterness. And let the evil time come not."
Everyone murmured their assent. Then everyone sang the Hymn to Dawn, voices rising together. When it was done, people started moving and talking. Elenn stayed still. Weren't they going to sing again? But it seemed they were not.
"Come and have breakfast," Darag said, taking Elenn's arm.
"It seems strange to do this and be hungry," Ferdia said, taking her other arm.
Elenn smiled up at him. "Do you eat first in Lagin too?"
"Ah, but breakfast is the best part," Darag said.
People were going into the Speckled Hall and coming out with baskets. Finca was setting up an ale barrel. "Are people going to start drinking already?" Elenn asked.
"Some people will, others will wait until this evening," Darag said.
"We could drink some ourselves," Ferdia said.
Darag grinned. "I hadn't thought of that. Have you ever had any?"
"A little cup at dinner with my father sometimes," Ferdia said.
Elenn smiled to cover her uneasiness. She wouldn't have wanted ale even if she'd been allowed it. Maga had told her all about it, how it muddled people's minds. She did want something to eat, though. She wondered what was in the baskets. She saw Emer going with Finca into the Speckled Hall. "Should I go to help?" she asked.
"They look as if they know what they're doing, but I expect they wouldn't turn help away," Ferdia said.
"You should stay with us," Darag said. He smiled at Elenn, and she smiled back. She liked Darag. There was just something strange about him, even now, when he was being nice.
Leary came running up to them, whooping. "Ale. Did you see?" he asked.
"We saw," Darag said, smiling amiably at him.
"Get some for you, Elenn?" Leary asked.
"I'd prefer to have some well water," Elenn said, meaning it. She'd tried ale and found it much too bitter.
"Get you that, then?" Leary begged. Elenn smiled graciously at him and gave him permission, while they went to collect some food.
There were apple pies and meat pies, cold but delicious. They filled their sleeves with them. The boys got wooden cups of ale, and Leary came back with Elenn's water. They sat down to eat it on the far field, right over by the wall. Nobody was playing hurley or practising slingshots today. There were other people around, but nobody was really close. Elenn sat down, spreading her skirts out and putting her pies on them. The boys sat sprawling, Ferdia and Conal on each side of her and Leary opposite.
"Aunt Finca's been baking for days," Darag said, munching an apple pie. "She says they've used up every last one of last year's apples and she's asked Uncle Conary if we can have a big hunt soon to replenish the meat stores."
"Hunt?" Leary sat up a little. "For what?"
"Boar, deer, whatever we find to fill the smokehouse," Darag said, spraying crumbs.
"But we could go with the champions?" Ferdia asked, looking eager.
"Of course we could." Darag grinned. "We're champions now, just the same as the others."
Elenn didn't say anything. She took neat bites out of her pie. She didn't want to go hunting anyway.
"Do you think it'll be tomorrow?" Ferdia asked.
"Probably he'll leave it a day or two, to let people get over tonight." The three boys laughed.
"Oh, that happens here too?" Elenn asked. She had heard about that from Maga. Nobody cared who slept where on the night of the Feast of Bel, once the children were put to bed. It was a wild festival. "People getting drunk and dancing and ploughing the furrow in the fields?"
The boys looked at each other, and then awkwardly at her. "People will get drunk," Ferdia said. "Then they'll be hungover tomorrow and not ready to hunt."
"You going to do that?" Leary asked.
"Definitely not," Ferdia said. Elenn looked at him approvingly.
"I don't know," Darag said. "I've never had the chance before."
Ferdia looked disappointed in his friend. "I'm not going to," he said again.
Leary giggled. "Drunk. Ploughing the furrow... Know what they say about the Feast of Bel? Feast of the Mother comes nine months later."
Ferdia laughed.
Elenn was horrified. It just wasn't the sort of thing people talked about, and especially not men and women together. It seemed almost an impious thing to say. She looked at Darag, who had neither said it not laughed, and saw that he was also looking shocked.
"You know what they say," Ferdia said, grinning, oblivious of the fact that nobody wanted to hear this. "They say children born at the Feast of the Mother always know for sure who their mother is!"
"They don't say that to me," Darag said, forcing the words out. He looked as if he'd been hit quite unexpectedly and very hard. Elenn put her hand out unthinkingly and pressed his shoulder for a moment, offering comfort.
Ferdia looked surprised and a little taken aback. "Were you born at the Feast of the Mother, then?" he asked.
Leary also looked chastened. "Didn't mean you," he said.
Darag looked as if he was never going to get a word out again.
"I was born at the Feast of the Mother," Elenn said. It was true. She had always thought it a good time of year for a name day. Mother Breda gifts all children to their mothers, but Elenn had always felt especially close to her because she had been born at her festival. Besides being true, she said it because she wanted to distract Ferdia and Leary from going after Darag when he felt so bad. Maybe he really didn't know who his father was. Both his parents were dead, after all, and both when he was very young. She'd never heard him addressed by his father's name since she'd come here, he was always Darag, as if he were king already. "Maybe my parents went out to the fields," she said, smiling.
"Yes, definitely," Ferdia said, much too quickly. "I'm sure they did. Lots and lots of married couples do."
"Lots of married couples go together," Leary confirmed, unhesitatingly, clearly not believing a word of it.
Elenn now understood something of what Darag might be feeling. She felt stupid. She knew that Maga didn't go into the fields with Allel, but alone, to find a new and willing partner. She had never thought, before, how Mingor and Emer looked like Allel but she didn't. Where babies came from was a Mystery, a Mystery of the Mother, people shouldn't talk about it like this. Not that it mattered. She'd ask Allel if it was true when she got home. Allel, not Maga. Maga knew a lot, and understood things really well, but sometimes she said what she wanted to be true. Allel didn't always know, but he always told things straight out.
Darag looked as if he was a painted statue of a young man someone had set up in the field. Ferdia looked anguished, clearly realising he had hurt her, though he was staring at Darag, obviously too distressed even to look at Elenn. Leary looked uncomfortable.
"Think we should get more pies," he said, and took Ferdia's arm.
"I think not," Ferdia said, shaking him off. "Darag—"
"Darag's thinking. Be fine in a little while. Elenn wants more pies, don't you Elenn?"
It would give her a few minutes to gather herself, at least. Darag looked as if he was going to be quiet for a long time. She raised her chin affirmatively. But as soon as they were gone, Darag stirred.
"You are festival born?" he said.
"Yes," Elenn said. There was hardly any point in denying it. "But it's a Mystery. Leary shouldn't talk about it like that."
"He shouldn't," Darag said, very quietly. "Or Ferdia either."
"Ferdia didn't know," Elenn said. "I didn't know."
"My mother didn't know who my father was," Darag said. "She told my uncle he was a god."
"I have heard stories of that happening, at the Feast of Bel," Elenn said. She was starting to wish she had gone with the others. "Nive, or Lew, or Govannon coming to join the feast."
"But my mother wasn't married," Darag said. "So it must have been a god. Or maybe not. I've never known. Sometimes it seems that it was just some lucky man, and other times I think it must have been—" he stopped and put his head in his hands.
"It is a mystery, truly," Elenn said. "But it would explain a lot if it was," she added.
"Explain, yes, but what's left for me then?" he asked. "Who would want me, or even see me, when everything I touch turns to wonders?" He shook his head. Elenn saw Leary and Ferdia coming back slowly, talking to a pretty girl she didn't know, laughing with her. "I know I'm not a normal man. Strange things happen to me. Omens. Portents. And I keep dreaming such strange dreams."
"About your mother and a god?" Elenn asked, gently.
"No. Not that. I keep dreaming about how they built this dun," Darag said. Elenn blinked, surprised. "There wasn't even a hill to start with. They brought all the earth here, piling it up and up, little horses pulling it up. It's this place, this dun, before it was a dun." He gestured around him, as if he could see it. "One of the horses is a mare, and she's pregnant, worse, she's actually giving birth, shuddering with it, and the man, the king, keeps on driving her up with load after load, whipping her, whipping all the horses, forcing them. And then she stops and gives birth to a filly, just over there, where the Red Hall is now. And the king takes the filly and draws his knife to cut her throat. And then, talk about mysteries, then the filly changes and grows and it's Beastmother he has hold of, Rhianna herself, and she's huge and powerful, like a horse but not, like a woman too, and black, black as night, flecked all over with blood and sweat. And she shakes the man in her great teeth, and then the hill is built, all finished, but the people are all clutching themselves and crying out in pain, and the horses are all gone."
"That's horrible," Elenn said, and shivered.
"I don't know why I keep dreaming it," Darag said, miserably. "I don't know what it means."
"Have you asked ap Fathag?"
"It's impossible to ask Inis anything," Darag said. "I haven't told him. Maybe I should try. But he always looks at me as if he isn't really seeing me, or if he's seeing too many of me."
"I think you should try," Elenn said. The others were nearly up to them. She wondered who the girl was. Ferdia seemed to be paying a lot of attention to her. "And tell me what he says. Now, quick, stop being upset about it, whatever it is it doesn't matter, you or me, we know who our mothers are, and for both of us that's the important thing. Don't let anyone see you're upset."
"I have to fight anyone who says anything against my mother's honour," Darag said.
"When you'd kill them? Where's the honour in that?" Elenn asked. "Besides, what's against her honour to say she lay with a god in the fields on the Feast of Bel? She was the king's own sister, after all."
"Thank you for understanding," Darag said. Elenn gave him one of her best smiles. She wasn't at all sure she understood, but she wasn't about to let him know that.
She thought the best thing would be if she could provoke him into saying something disparaging about Connat. Anything would do. Then she could fight him in honour, without making Conal a cause. She thought she could do that without causing Conary to throw her out or Maga to summon her home. Maga's words had seemed almost scorched into the paper as it was, demanding to know what she thought she was doing. She wouldn't tolerate any more independence right now. Defending Connat's honour, or better Maga's own honour, would be ideal. Amagien didn't guard what he said at all. She thought she could kill him quite easily. He was slow, and he rarely came to practice. The only problem then would be the impiety of marrying Conal after she'd killed his father. No, she couldn't do it no matter how much he annoyed her. It would be a bloodfeud, and people with a bloodfeud between them couldn't marry. That would be a disaster. She'd heard of a bloodfeud being reconciled so that people could marry, but only after six generations. Though maybe she could provoke a quarrel between him and another warrior. Only she wouldn't do anything so dishonourable.
Emer had never thought Maga's lessons in how to smile sweetly whatever you were thinking would come in useful. She'd never been as apt a pupil as Elenn. Yet now she found herself doing it every time Amagien opened his mouth. He didn't seem to be able to say anything at all without making Conal squirm. It didn't matter than Conal didn't show it. It was just the same as standing by while someone stuck little knives into him.
The clouds in the western sky blazed purple and red. The sun was down and Conary had made the sunset vow. They were waiting to catch sight of the first fire. Conary was standing alone by the fire. Near him were Elenn and Ferdia, arm in arm. Elenn had been ignoring Emer all day. Emer had almost repented of not wearing her new overdress when she saw how unhappy her sister was. It wouldn't really have made any difference. The one she was wearing was just as much Maga's gift if she stopped to think about it. She just didn't want to take a gift from her mother right now. Also, she didn't want to wear the same colours at the same time as Elenn ever again. She was tired of being dismissed as the ugly sister. She wanted to be seen as herself. No, she had made the right choice and been right to stick to it. It was strange to feel pity for Elenn. But now her sister couldn't do anything to stop her, even what she said didn't hurt. It just sounded like a weak echo of Maga.
Her eye moved on through the crowd. Elba and Ringabur stood with Leary, who caught Emer's eye and grinned. Next to him was a woman Emer didn't know. She was stocky and well balanced, and her face marked her as obviously kin to Leary. Darag was next to her.
"I didn't know Leary had a sister," she said to Conal.
"Where?" he turned to look.
"The elder ap Ringabur came back from Rathadun of the Kings today," Amagien said. "She has been there nine years learning the law."
"She's back to stay?" Conal grinned. "You'll like Orlam, Emer. Let's go over and I'll introduce you."
Anything that got them away from Amagien was all right with Emer. She raised her chin affirmatively.
"You're not to waste her time," Amagien said. "She won't want to be bothered now she's a lawspeaker. Let her see that you're a man now, don't behave like a puppy dog."
Conal froze. Emer decided to change the subject before one of them said anything they regretted.
"Have you ever been to Rathadun?" she asked.
"Never," Conal said.
"You'll go there one day," Amagien said. "I went there for my initiation, and you'll go there when you're chosen to be king. If you ever shape up enough that you are chosen. Rathadun of the Kings is a wonderful place, very holy. The nine hills have a peace like nowhere else. The Hill of Ward, where even now the fire will be alight, is the very heart of it. And nobody stays there but priests and initiates, and they make no difference between initiates for law or poetry or priesthood or kingship. It is a wonderful way to live."
Emer smiled another excruciating Maga smile, and wanted to scream. She hadn't exactly forgotten that Amagien was a poet. How could anyone, when he went on about it all the time? Nor had she forgotten that poets were, like kings and priests and lawspeakers, immune to challenge. But she somehow hadn't connected it up. He didn't act like a poet. Even when he sang his stupid song about how pretty Elenn was, he just seemed too full of his own importance. Still, she should have remembered, and it ruined everything. He could say anything in perfect impunity and nobody would be allowed to challenge him over it. At least this solved the riddle of how he had lived to grow as old as he was. He could say whatever he liked and nobody could even kill him. It really wasn't fair. What was so sacred about poets anyway? A king, yes, or a lawspeaker, of course they shouldn't be challenged, because then they might be afraid to judge fairly. As for priests, challenging them insulted the gods. But poets? Nobody would challenge someone because they didn't like their poetry.
"There!" Conal pointed, and a rustle went through the crowd as everyone craned to look. The first faint spark of fire blazed out to the south, looking distant as a star. "That's Mornay," he said. "And now, watch to the west, we'll see Lusca next."
"Nemglan next," Amagien said. "Then Lusca."
It didn't matter. But if she said it didn't matter it would make Conal feel worse. The points of light spread, like red flowers bursting into blossom. Conal named them all for her until at last it was time. Conary raised his hand and the bonfire beside him burst into flame. People stepped back from the sudden heat. The drummers began to play, and the harpists joined them. From somewhere came the sound of a pipe, the music twining around the harps.
"I must join Finca," Amagien said. "Take good care of ap Allel, Conal. And make sure you take her safely to the Red Hall after the dance."
Emer smiled a farewell. Conal raised his cup and took a relieved sip. "Why are poets sacred anyway?" she asked Conal.
He choked on his ale. "To keep words free," he said, when he had recovered. "But why were you thinking about that?"
"Your father made me wonder," she said. "Look, the fires are spreading north."
Thankfully Conal accepted this distraction and turned to look. The fire was indeed still leaping from hilltop to hilltop across the darkened countryside. "That's Edar," Conal said, pointing at a nearby blaze to the northeast. "My father's farm."
"I didn't know Amagien had a farm so close," Emer said.
"We used to live out there," Conal said. "But since my mother is Uncle Conary's keykeeper, we have all moved into the dun."
"Do you ever go out there now?"
"All the time," Conal said. "Not so much recently, but whenever my father can find an excuse to send me with a message or something to do out there, he does." He laughed. "Don't tell Amagien, because he thinks it a punishment to send me. But I like going. I like the farmers there—and see what a great blaze they have made."
"Why does your father think it's punishment?" Emer asked. "Like 'Pleeeease don't turn me into a bird, Uncle Math?'"
"Partly that," Conal said, grinning at her Little Wydion voice. "But I used to be afraid of the bull, a few years ago. He's a huge creature, and fierce. My father made me lead him about and take charge of him."
"Your father is a monster," Emer said, before she could help herself.
"Well, but it worked. I'm not scared of the bull any more. And he isn't a monster. He means well. He wants me to help me grow up to be the best."
Emer knew she couldn't say what she wanted to say. She knew too much about parents who wanted things for their children. Instead she looked away at the distant lights. "I wish we were out there," she said. "Away from them all." The music was getting louder, people were forming up for the dance around the fire.
"It's a pity we didn't think of that earlier," Conal said. "We could have gone out to Edar. The farmers there are good people. They'd have been glad to share their feast with us."
"We still could," Emer said, all at once eager for it.
"It's two hours walk," Conal said. "And it's nearly dark already."
"We could take the chariot," Emer said. "We'd be there much sooner. And people won't stop celebrating tonight until late."
"Do you mean stay the night out there?" Conal asked.
Emer felt her cheeks heat. Elba came by before she could say any thing and gave Conal a little push. "Take your places, we're starting," she said. Emer realised that almost everyone was lined up ready to begin the dance. Conary was at the head, with Orlam ap Ringabur. Elenn was with Ferdia, and Darag with Nid. Conal and Emer hastily took up a place as the music grew insistent. Some of the champions grinned at them and made teasing remarks.
"Yes, I did mean stay the night, but not what I said before," Emer whispered under the music as they started to move. "I believe what you said. But if nobody minds where we sleep, then we could just sleep out there, in a storehouse or something, and come back in the morning. No parents, no Darag, no Elenn. Strangers are lucky on the Feast of Bel, they'll be glad to see us."
Conal danced in silence for a moment, looking torn. They circled the bonfire, then Conary led the chain of dancers around the wall of the dun. "Can you drive in the dark?" Conal asked at last.
Emer raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Of course."
"Have you done it?" Conal persisted.
"It won't be very dark," she said. "There's light in the sky still, and the moon is rising. And you know the way."
Conal shook his head and grinned. "All right," he said. "Let's do it. Straight after the dance."
Emer felt as if they were escaping as they made their way down the hill. Nobody noticed them in the general confusion. People were preparing food and hurrying children to bed and bringing animals to be led around the fire. They could still hear the merriment as they came to the stables.
There was nobody there, and no horses either except one strange horse. "That will be Orlam's horse," Conal said. He dragged out the chariot while Emer went out to the paddock and caught the horses. She had been afraid they might be hard to catch, but they all came running as soon as she whistled, and the problem was separating out the pair she wanted. She had to light a lantern to see what she was doing with the harness, but before long she had them safely yoked to the chariot. She looked up. Conal was watching, smiling at her in a way that made her feel warm all through, despite the chill of the night.
"We should have brought cloaks," she said. "The wind's cold, even if it is the Feast of Bel."
"Our armour coats are down here," Conal said. "That'll be warm."
As they were coming back with them, they heard the sound of someone whistling a plaintive tune. They glanced at each other guiltily. The chariot was waiting outside, there was no sense in trying to hide. The whistling stopped as they came out. Meithin ap Gamal was looking at the chariot. She laughed when she saw them. "Oh, so it's you two new champions? I might have guessed."
"We were just—" Conal began.
"Sneaking out?" Meithin laughed again. "Well, you're not children, I'm not going to stop you. I'm not even asking you for an explanation. I'm just here off to fetch my Swiftfoot and Windeyes up to take around the fire, and if anyone asks, I haven't seen you. But what horses have you got?"
Emer breathed a sigh of relief and set down the lantern beside the chariot so Meithin could see them properly. "Whitenose and Crabfoot," she said.
"Very sensible of you," Meithin said, approvingly. "Nobody's going to want the geldings tonight. You have been careful to put Crabfoot on the right?"
"Yes, I'm quite used to him," Emer said.
"We make sure you have difficult horses for training to that you get used to challenges," Meithin said. "You're not going to do anything crazy, are you, not going to blindfo