The Prize in the Game (22 page)

"And what about this stupid half-arranged thing with Darag?"

"Everyone knows neither of you want that. And if. . ."he trailed off, not daring to say it. It was the most ill-omened thing you could do, to count on victory halfway around the
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course. "Whatever happens, I should look like a good alliance to your mother, and it won't be more than a year that you have to stay there," he said instead.

"You don't know my mother," she muttered. "I wish I was a champion of Muin."

Conal laughed in surprised recognition. "So do I," he admitted. "I've never had such fun in my life. Even exhausted. Even covered in mud and freezing cold and starving."

"They really know how to have a good time," Emer agreed, then giggled. "It was a good time, though, it really was."

"And not only that, but unlike all the contests in the Isles and Lagin, it was a good challenge, because it was actually something that does count for being a king," Conal said.

Emer raised her eyebrows and darted a quick glance at him. "Flying Leary's breeches like a banner from the top of the palisade is something a king needs to be able to do?"

Conal laughed. "Wasn't he furious! But you know what I mean. Not that specifically, not any of the specific goals, but organizing the watches, arranging the raids and the defense, even little details arranging how people eat so that nobody has to sit down with anyone they have a bloodfeud with, getting everyone working together. It's useful knowledge. I think it's a better way than Conary's, having the champions working together in watches like that, having rivalry between watches instead of rivalry between champions. I learned a lot doing it, from Samar and the others.' Think how cheerfully Samar let me take her place as watch captain and make mistakes, and how she helped me."

"Once we'd shown we were competent." Emer was staring out at the road again. "It really felt like belonging, as if we had a place in the Heather Watch. As if they'd be there at our backs when we needed them. All of the rivalry and all of the goals were just part of that, and that was what was important. It was easier for me, of course. I didn't have to be organizing everyone, didn't have to be in charge."

"Even that was fun," Conal said. "Once I'd worked out how to ask, anyway." He grinned. "I don't think I'll ever forget the last month as long as I live." The road widened ahead of them, making a broad, straight track.

"I've never had such a good month," Emer agreed, smiling. "I just wish we could have stayed there forever."

"If I am ever king, I will organize the champions of Ardmachan into watches like that,"

Conal said. "And whatever else, next time it snows, whenever it is, I'm going to have another snowball fight."

"I'll be stuck on my own in Connat," Emer said, suddenly glum again.

"Not forever," Conal said. "I may have to go back alone, but I'll come and marry you as soon as I can."

"Come soon." He moved a little closer to her. "Everything rests on what happens in Cruachan now."

"What do you think they will arrange?" Conal asked.

"Before we went to Muin, I'd never imagined anything but contests the way we had them in Lagin and the

Islesmdashracing, fighting, spear-throwing, hurley. But Maga will want to outdo Muin. I have no idea what she'll come up with. She will have had plenty of time to think. She will also have had time to hear that you won in Muin, Darag won in Lagin, and the honors of the Isles were divided between you. She may well have her own ideas about who she wants as the next king of Oriel."

"You can't mean she'd cheat?" Conal tried to speak lightly to disguise the fact that he was shocked.

"I don't know. I sometimes think she would cheat for her advantage unless she was afraid she might get caught," Emer said, lowering her voice, although there wasn't much
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chance of the others catching what they were saying. "She won't cheat directly. My father would catch her if nobody else would. But she's setting the rules, and that's somewhere she might try to give someone an advantage. Be very careful with her."

"Hoy!" Laig called, coming up on their left. "How about a race?"

The road stretched ahead of them straight and inviting, wide enough now that the three chariots could run abreast. Nid, ahead of them, dropped back a little so that they were almost even.

"We've been doing nothing but racing for months," Emer called, but she was smiling, and Conal could see that she was already tightening her grip on the reins. He saw Darag putting his hand on the side of his chariot, as if casually.

"We didn't race at all in Muin," Nid replied, indignant.

"But Lagin made up for it," Laig said. "I wouldn't normally want to risk the horses on strange ground, but this road could have been made for racing, and we're nearly there, aren't we?"

"Very nearly," Emer said, sounding despondent. "We're less than an hour from Cruachan here, coming in on

the south road. But we'll get covered with mud, racing, and it's bad enough anyway." It was wonderful how she could sound like that with every muscle tensed and ready to be off, as if there was still a decision to be made and she was giving it consideration.

"We may be doing nothing but racing in Connat," Nid warned, her eyes on the road.

"Go!" called Leary unexpectedly, but the others were as fast off the mark as Nid.

For a little while, they were ahead, and Conal remembered the second race in Lagin, the one they had won.

Then Nid and Leary came up on the side and pulled a little ahead. Conal looked to see where Darag was and saw that he was lagging well behind. As he looked, Darag signaled to him to let Leary go. For a moment, he frowned; then he saw it and began to laugh.

"Let Leary get ahead," he whispered to Emer. She did not turn to look at him, she needed her attention for the horses. She slacked off as he had asked, though, unquestioning, and Nid and Leary surged forward, far ahead of the others as Emer and Laig drew their chariots to a halt.

"I wonder how long it will take him to notice?" Darag asked, laughing.

"I wish I could see his face," Conal said.

"It was Laig's idea," Darag said.

Laig grinned. "He'll be thinking this time, this time at least I'm winning, and then he'll realize that this time doesn't mean anything, and then he'll stop and look round and realizemdash"

Up ahead, Leary's chariot drew to a halt, spraying mud.

"We should go up," Emer said seriously. Conal realized then that she hadn't been laughing with the others.

"Make them come back," Laig said, still laughing.

"No, Emer's right, we should go up," Darag said.

"What's wrong?" Conal asked quietly as they drove on.

"That wasn't funny," she said, giving him a quick sideways glance. "Think if they'd done that to us. Leary doesn't need to have it rubbed in that he can't win now."

"You're right," he said, immediately contrite.

But Nid and Leary were laughing helplessly when they drew up. "I'll strangle you," Nid said.

"Get you next time!" Leary chortled, taking a battle position with empty hands.

"Thought you'd like to win for a change," Laig said.

Leary stopped laughing. "Don't mind being fairly beaten," he said. "Do mind seeing the chance snatched away. I know I was a fool to make an issue of the hero's portion, been meaning to say that for a while. Know

I'm not as good as you two, never have been. Amagien got on the wrong side of me. Don't want
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to be king anyway. But I'm not sorry now. I wouldn't have missed Muin for anything."

"Well said," Conal said. "And we don't blame you at all."

Leary grinned and Nid rolled her eyes.

"I've enjoyed it, too," Darag admitted.

"Well, let's get on with it, then," Laig said and twitched his reins.

They drove on, still abreast but no longer racing. The sun was buried deep in clouds now, and the light started to dim, the short winter's day almost over already. The road curved around between two hills and at last, Cruachan was in sight. Conal had spent a year here when he was nine. It had the strange familiarity of something known in childhood and not seen for years. It seemed both larger and smaller than he remembered. Nid gasped at the sight of the cluster of buildings nestling inside the palisade at the foot of the craggy hill.

"Do you all live down here?" she called to Emer. "What happens when raiders come?"

"There isn't room on the top for everyone to live," Emer said. "There's two halls up there, though you can only see one from here. That one's called the Upper Hall, or the Dun Hall, and we usually just use it for big feasts.

The other is a storehouse. A few of the champions have houses up there. Everyone else lives down here in the village usually and they just go up in time of danger or for festivals. The hill is very steep, as you can see,

and there isn't much flat space on the top, not like Ard-machan."

"How unusual," Laig said. Conal was quite sure that all of them were thinking how easy it would be to capture the village. Conal craned his neck upwards. He had stayed in the Lower Hall, down in the village. He had been to the Upper Hall, but he didn't think he'd ever been right up to the top of the hill. As best he could tell in the fading light, it seemed to be a desolate crag.

Dark birds hung on the air around it, giving it a sinister feel.

Emer drew ahead of the others as they came closer. Her reluctance to finish the journey seemed to have been overtaken now that the end was in sight. The palisade seemed very sturdy, and two guards came out of a little hut behind the south gate when they drew up before it.

"Ap Allel," one of them greeted Emer cheerfully. "Both of you back on the same day without warning?"

"It's good to see you back," the other said. "What's this I hear about you taking up arms already at your age?"

"The priest said it was a lucky day, so I did," Emer replied.

"Luck has come of it, from what we hear," he said. "Ap Dair passed through singing about you and the

Victormdashis that him behind you now?" Conal squirmed inwardly at the name, but kept his face still.

"Indeed," Emer said. "Don't you remember teaching him how to hold a spear when he was here before?"

Conal had only hazy memories of it himself, and certainly couldn't recall the guard's name.

"There are so many children," the guard said. "Who can tell which ones will grow up to become heroes?"

"Ap Fial," said the other guard, at which they both roared with laughter.

"Ap Amagien, these reprobates are ap Roth and ap Nemed," Emer said, indicating. Conal bowed. Just then the other two chariots drew up and Emer introduced everyone.

"We had heard you were coming," the second guard, ap Nemed, said. "You are all expected, though nobody was looking for you today especially. Your sister didn't say anything."

"My sister? She's here?" Emer sounded dismayed. Conal wondered what had made Elenn leave Ardmachan early. Boredom seemed most plausible.

Ap Roth looked at Emer. "Your parents are in the Lower Hall. Do you want to take your guests
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there, or do you want to welcome them here?"

"Can I?" Emer asked, sounding surprised. Then she smiled. "I can. I hadn't thought, because I haven't been home since I've been grown up. I'd like to."

"Your mother will probably want to do it again in the hall, but no reason you can't give them the peace of

Cruachan," ap Roth said.

"That way, the horses won't have to stand about," Emer said. Ap Nemed looked at her strangely, but he opened the gates and they all drove in. Ap Roth disappeared into the hut and came out while they were dismounting, carrying a plate of salted bread and a cup of ale. Emer took them from him and welcomed all of them individually to Cruachan, beginning with Conal and ending with Nid.

They all went to the stables, where Emer took much longer than usual fussing with the horses and arguing with the stable-master about their need for hay after the journey. Conal couldn't help picking up some of her nervousness, however hard he tried to speak lightly.

"As if there's any goodness in grass at this season," she muttered as she led them out again. Then she took

Conal's hand and squeezed it.

She led them to the Weapon Hall, a small building that had no purpose but storing weapons, not a room in a storehouse as at home. Conal found himself reluctant to leave his sword here, although it had lain with his spears in the weapon room in Muin gathering dust the whole time he was there. It was the larger sword Conary had given him after he had outgrown the Jarnish blade.

The daylight was completely gone by the time they came through the lanes of the village to the Lower Hall.

The door guard wanted them to wait. "Say I have given them welcome already," Emer said to him. He raised his eyebrows at this. "Say that they have given their names already and accepted the peace of Cruachan.

Tell them who is here," she said.

He went in to announce them. Emer shifted her weight between her feet. Conal stood still, not touching her.

After a moment, the guard came back and they all folio-wed him in.

Inside, by the light of candles and hearth fires, the hall seemed much like the Red Hall at home.

The door guard led them to an alcove, where, to his astonishment, he saw Ferdia sitting with two other men. Ferdia was smiling but seemed a little nervous. The other two men were a young champion and a graying champion, one on either side of the fireplace, like older and younger images of each other, clearly father and son.

Emer rushed forward and embraced the older man. "Father!" she said. Then she embraced the younger man, more formally. He must be her brother Mingor. Conal's memories of him eight years before were of a gawky boy, nothing like the way he was now.