The Prize in the Game (40 page)

Maga was still talking to the king of Demedia, his wife, and ap Dair. "Ah, girls," she said, smiling as they came up to her. "Ap Talorgen, ap Guthrum, let me present my younger daughter."

Emer set down her chest and bowed, and the two Tanagans bowed in return. Elenn set down her own chest.

Emer was staring at ap Guthrum. Elenn could understand that. It was hard not to stare. She had hair the color of muddy straw. Her veil hid most of her face, but her hands and what was visible were yellowish-pink, nearer the color of a pig than a person. Her eyes were as gray as the winter sea, yet her expressions were kind, as far as Elenn could judge over the veil. She looked at ap Talorgen, so as not to stare at his wife and saw that he was grinning at her. She smiled graciously, then turned to her mother.

"I was wondering if my sister might go with us, to make a visit and to spend some time with me in Caer

Tanaga," Elenn said boldly.

Maga frowned. Ap Dair looked thoughtful. Ap Guthrum blinked. Ap Talorgen smiled. "I don't see why not, if your parents don't mind," he said. "There will be room on the ship."

Maga smiled as ap Talorgen turned to her, but shook her head decisively. "I need Emer here,"

she said. "She hasn't been well, and she is to be married soon."

Emer raised her head and looked at Elenn. Her eyes held a mixture of defiance and pleading.

"Just for a few months, perhaps?" ap Guthrum said. "The winter climate in the south can be good for recovery from illness." Elenn was right, she was kind.

"It just isn't possible," Maga said with regretful finality. Emer's face was full of resigned despair.

Elenn wasn't afraid that her sister would outright kill herself. She was no coward. But she might throw herself to the front of any fight that offered itself. Or, worse, she might just stop eating.

Elenn had been coaxing her sister to eat as it was.

"We've packed her clothes," Elenn said. "She could be back in the spring."

But Maga knew as well as she did that if Emer got away, she'd never come back. She just shook her head.

"It's touching to see how much you love your sister, but you will need to give all your love to your husband now," she said.

Elenn wanted to draw herself up to full height and demand to know how much love Maga gave

Allelmdashhow, after everything, Maga dared lecture her about love and marriage. But she held her smile.

Arguing that way with Maga didn't achieve anything. Indeed, she knew she had lost and Maga had won. She looked at Emer with regret. She couldn't do anything else. She had to save herself, even if that was all she could do.

"Who does the younger ap Allel marry?" ap Talorgen asked.

"Lew ap Ross of Anlar," Maga said. She sounded proud, as if she expected ap Talorgen to congratulate her on her alliances. He just looked blank, as if he had never heard of Anlar. Emer said nothing, just stood there looking miserable. "Her sweetheart was killed in the fighting,"

Maga continued, still smiling, clearly feeling she needed to explain why Emer looked so sad.

"He is not dead," Emer said. "He is falling through the falling stars, but he will find his way
Page 149

home."

Ap Dair leaned forward, clearly fascinated. "The falling stars?" he asked.

Emer looked at him with contempt. "You find my mother's lies inspiring now. You turn your back on true poetry," she said.

"She's mad," ap Dair said, recoiling.

"Recovering from madness," Maga said. She turned to Elenn. "Are you ready to go? The army are boarding the boats already."

"I only need my dog," Elenn said, her chin high and her eyes meeting Maga's.

"Shall we walk out to the kennels, then?" Maga asked. Ap Talorgen smiled and picked up Elenn's chest, easily, as if it were light. Maga led the way out of the hall and they all trailed after her.

Ap Dair walked beside Elenn. "You are more beautiful than ever," he said. "It's strange. When I first saw you, I thought you were very beautiful. When everyone was dying for love of you, I sang that you were the most beautiful woman on the island. But there is something in your face now that makes my memories of you seem shallow. Urdo will be proud of you."

Elenn looked at him silently for a moment. She couldn't think of any possible response. Telling him to drop dead would have been satisfying, but she might need him again. "Thank you for helping to arrange this marriage," she said.

Allel was waiting at the kennels, Beauty with him. She was waiting patiently; even when she saw Elenn, she only gave a little whine and did not rush to her. She was almost full-grown now, her head nearly on a height with Elenn's when she was standing. The kennel master had trained her very well.

Allel had something folded in his arms. "This is a gift for your husband," he said, bowing and handing it to

Elenn. It was leather, tanned and supple, folded over on itself. Emer gave a little gasp.

It took Elenn a moment longer to realize what he was giving her, and then she had to suppress a shudder. It was the hide of the black bull, the bull that had been Maga's pretext for the war. It was a magnificent gift, and a terrible insult to Maga to give it to Elenn to take away. She looked up at her father, who was smiling. He wanted what was

best for her, but he was usually so weak, compared to their mother.

She searched for something to say. "It must have been tanned by someone who knew all the charms well to have it ready so soon."

"I did it all myself," Allel said.

Elenn risked a glance at Maga, who was smiling unreadably. There would be storms ahead.

"Will you come with me to the ship?" she asked generally.

After she had embraced her family on the strand, she went up the little gangplank onto the rocking ship. Ap

Talorgen put the leather into her chest with her other belongings. She stood with the chest on one side and

Beauty on her other side, her hand resting on her dog's head. Maga and Allel stood together in something that looked like united amity from the distance the boat gave. Emer raised her hand in farewell. Elenn waved back. She wondered if Emer was mad. She hadn't gone mad because of grief herself, but she had always had a body. With Ferdia she had even had a head.

She would not think of that, would never think of that again if she could help it. Poor Ferdia, too good, too honorable, to live.

The sun was setting behind the hills of Tir Isarnagiri and the boat slipped gently away from the shore. She waved one last time, then turned her back on her home and her family and stared out over the rose-gold water toward her hopes for the future. She knew that Urdo would spend one night with her and be off to war. She was used to that. She was more concerned with the work
Page 150

she had never yet done, the administration of his forts and organization of his supplies. She would learn. Beauty stood silently beside her, her warmth and solidity a comfort. Though ap Talorgen and ap Guthrum tried to make her more comfortable, Elenn stood still and straight as a figurehead through the night, her smile carefully on her lips, her eyes fixed hopefully before her.

31

(EMER)

"Queen of Anlar sounds good, does it not?" Allel asked pleadingly. Emer said nothing, as she had said nothing all the time her father had been with her. She submitted to allow her father to arrange the folds of the bridal orange overdress one more time. She wondered if the color looked as bad on her as it did on Elenn.

"Not quite as good, perhaps, as High Queen of Tir Tanagiri, but good enough. And Fialdun is a strongly built fortress, and Anlar is a strong ally of ours." He gestured to the Vincan tapestry that covered one of the walls of the dusty little room Lew had given her.

"At least I'll be away from you and Maga," she muttered, unable to keep silent any longer.

Allel patted her shoulder. "I'm so glad you're being sensible at last, if you can call a marriage half a month after the Feast of the Mother sensible. The branches will be bare twigs and you'll both freeze your toes off."

"None of it is sensible, or my choice," Emer said. "I'm getting married because Maga was making my life unendurable and she carefully left me no other options."

"Conal is dead," Allel said. "It's nine months since the battle, and nobody has seen any sign of him."

"Do you think I'd be marrying Lew if I didn't know that?" Emer asked, turning on her father with bitter anger.

"He's falling through the falling stars, and that may be the road to death, or he may be falling forever. His name is written in my heart. I know I need to go on from there, to live my life without him. But the way I would choose to go on isn't thismdashthere are other things I could do, things I would do better. I am a person, a human being. Father, look at me. It isn't too late even now. Let me go. She refused to let me go with Elenn, or to go to Ra-thadun, and she has had me too carefully guarded for me to get away. Nobody is guarding me now in this hour before the wedding. Turn your back and I will go out of the dun and down to the harbor. I won't disgrace you by joining with your enemies; I'll leave Tir Isarnagiri to find some life fit for myself far away in Narlahena or Lossia or Sifacia." For a moment she almost believed it might yet be possible.

Allel frowned petulantly. "Or on the moon," he said. "Do you call living as a mercenary champion in some strange land a fit life for a king's daughter?" He and Maga were still at feud over which of them now held the kingship, with Maga swearing she could not renounce it and had been beaten by a trick, but Emer was undoubtedly still a king's daughter. There was no getting away from that.

"A fitter life than what you and Maga would give me," Emer said. She turned her copper and bronze arm-ring with the fingers of her other hand. If Conal had lived she would have been able to escape no matter how

closely guarded she was. She had been so tired, so very tired all the time since the battle; everything exhausted her. She would lie on her bed and weep, and sometimes even weeping took too much effort, so she would just lie there. Caring about anything at all was difficult. For the last few days she had felt a little better. It was almost as though there had been something holding her down that was now gone. She wondered what it might have been. She had thought it was grief, but she had not stopped grieving and yet the weight of not caring had lifted.

Page 151

There was a scratch at the door. "Come in," Allel called heartily. Emer could tell how relieved he would be to get rid of her.

"You can't have it both ways," she said, almost hoping someone would overhear her. "You can't tell yourself it's all alright and at the same time feel guilty about it."

Allel turned his head away and did not reply.

It was the oracle-priest ap Fial who came in. "Not long before sunset," he said.

"I'll leave you two together," Allel said.

"Oh no, stay," Emer said, feeling cruel. She turned to ap Fial eagerly. "Could my mother have cursed me?"

she asked.

Allel shuddered. "I'll see you soon," he said, and took a step towards the door.

"Never under the Hawthorn Knowledge," ap Fial replied, ignoring Allel, his eyes going distant as he answered the question. "Though parents sometimes do set a curse on their children to protect them."

"Not the Hawthorn Knowledge," Emer answered. Allel left, still smiling nervously. There had been times when

Emer had understood the enjoyment Inis got out of being mad, and now she almost wanted to give way to it.

"I've known all that for years, you taught me it yourselfmdash remember the mother who set a curse that her son could be killed only by a green boar with no ears, and then he told his best friend and then quarreled with him? I always wondered how his friend managed to get the boar to stand still to be dyed."

"Stop babbling, Lady," ap Fial said. "I am here to bless your womb for marriage."

The form of address stopped her for a moment. Ap Fial usually called her "child," and she was a charioteer, a champion and not a lady, wasn't she? How could she have agreed to this marriage at all? Could Maga really have cursed her?

"I know why you're here," Emer said. "But could Maga have cursed me with helplessness for the last nine months? I have had no energy to do anything."

"She might have if she had your blood and hair. There is a charm for that to the Stormcrow. But it should not work unless you had the displeasure of the gods, which I know you do not, or unless part of your soul was outside the world, which it might have been. Now I must bless you."

"I did not seek this marriage."

"Nor did I force it on you. I am here in Anlar for the same reason you are, to get away from your mother. I've spoken to Lew, and I'll be staying with you."

"That's wonderful," Emer said. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad after all. She would have ap Fial with her, and he was a friend. Lew had a smile like Conal's. And she had already tentatively worked out a way of reorganizing

Fialdun, except that everywhere in her old plan were little holes in the shape of Conal. She wouldn't weep, not now, not again. Bachlach had struck off his head. She would love him forever, but she had to make some kind of life without him. She put her hand up to her scar and rubbed it with her knuckles.

Ap Fial raised his hands to invoke Mother Breda and begin the blessing.

At sunset, Allel came back to lead her out of the hall.

Lew was smiling. The people holding the bare branches were smiling. The mud underfoot was frozen hard as iron, and was almost as cold as iron. Emer could not smile. She knew if she tried she wouldn't be able to hold back the tears. So she walked out gravely, enduring the smiles and the little sentimental sighs and the look on Lew's face as if they were minor wounds she could not stop for in battle. She could even bear it when she saw that one of Lew's branch-bearers was Amagien. Why not? He was Lew's brother, after all. She bowed to him gravely, and he bowed back, hand on heart. She would have had Amagien at her wedding in any case.