A Hero's Tale (35 page)

Vintel was so astonished she could think of nothing to say.

"The story is too long to tell you now," Maara went on. "You knew they had raised an army, but you could have had no idea how strong they were, or you would have stayed at home behind the walls of Merin's house and hoped you could withstand a siege. Instead Vintel brought you out to meet them, and when their army turned around, in her arrogance she thought they were retreating and pursued them. They were not running away from you. They were running back to defend themselves against the army that Tamras sent against them."

"Where is this army now?" Vintel asked. "Are you telling me the northern tribes have joined the army that defeated them?"

"As I said," Maara replied, "it is a tale too long to tell, though I think it will make next winter pass all the quicker when it is told by the hearth in Merin's hall." Maara turned back to the assembled warriors. "A short distance to the north you will find the battlefield. There you will see, still smoldering, the funeral pyres of the victors and the earth freshly heaped over the northern dead."

"Where are these victors now?" Vintel asked.

Maara smiled at her. "They were defeated in their turn by Tamras and her allies, more by cleverness than by force of arms. Some have joined us, but most have gone back into the north, to seek refuge where they can."

"I knew Tamras was fond of storytelling," said Vintel, "but this is beyond even her imagination. Who would believe such a preposterous tale?"

But when she turned to see the faces of the warriors, she saw that they did believe it. They would, of course, make haste to inspect the battlefield themselves, not because they were incredulous, but because they were eager to bear witness to such a great event.

"Now you must decide," Maara said to them. "Will you follow Vintel, who provoked the northern tribes into raising such an army, who then led you into peril, who would have led you to your death and the folk of Merin's house to their doom. Or will you follow Tamras, who saved you?"

"Tamras!" The cry went up so suddenly and with such energy it startled me. "Tamras! Tamras! Tamras!"

Never in my life had I been so popular. Merin's captains all surged forward. If my guard had not prevented them, they would have hoisted me onto their shoulders. Many of the warriors of Vintel's army rushed forward too and took up the cry, even though no one had yet told them what had happened.

Only the warriors belonging to Vintel kept silent. They withdrew from the others and gathered around her, waiting for an explanation. Vintel had to lead them away a little distance before she could make herself heard over the commotion. I watched as they put their heads together.

"Best put a stop to that," said Maara. "Let's see if Bru can spare us some of his men to escort them home. We can't risk letting them reach Merin's house before us."

A chill ran down my spine. "Would Vintel resist us?"

"She might try," Maara replied. "She has warriors enough to hold the fortress. And she would have hostages."

"Merin and my mother."

Maara nodded.

First I had to free myself from Merin's captains. I raised my arms, to ask for silence.

When they were quiet, I said, "Go now, and tell your people what has been decided here. Then I will welcome all of you to our encampment, where you can rest and have a bite to eat before we prepare for our journey home."

They looked disappointed.

"On the way we will pass by the battlefield," I added.

Then they grew more cheerful and went at once to speak with their warriors. As soon as they had gone, I looked around for Bru. I hadn't far to look. He had been waiting to congratulate me.

"I hope some of your men can remain with us a little longer," I said. "We will need a small army just to escort Vintel and her warriors home."

"I'd be glad to see to that myself," he said. "I wouldn't mind visiting the house of kindness again under different circumstances."

I almost asked him if he wasn't eager to go home himself, but I thought I knew what he was feeling. Bru was accustomed to the battlefield. He felt at home here. Today he was a warrior. When he returned from exile, he would become a king. I understood his reluctance.

"Shall we disarm them?" Bru asked me.

I looked to Maara for the answer.

"Let's not humiliate her," Maara said. "Vintel doesn't handle humiliation well. Let's talk to her instead."

"Talk to her? What more have we to talk to her about?"

"Her warriors are from her sister's house. Where else will Vintel find a welcome? Vintel's sister is one of Merin's strongest allies. It would be foolish to befriend our enemies in the north only to create new ones in the south."

I saw reason in what Maara said, but I didn't much like the idea.

"Let it go," Maara whispered.

"What? Let what go?"

"Your anger. Your resentment. Your sense of injury. You act now for every soul you have just taken into your care. You can no longer afford to indulge your petty grievances."

"Vintel would have murdered us," I said. "I hardly consider that a petty grievance."

"You have counted out to her the price of treachery. Let that be punishment enough."

Maara saw in my face what I would not say, that I didn't consider going to her sister's house a punishment.

Maara smiled at me. "You're not a younger sister," she said.

I thought of Tamar, who all our lives had resented my place as firstborn--older, taller, stronger -- even as she followed me like a puppy at my heels.

"She will not be content to remain in her sister's house, in her sister's shadow," Maara said.

Was she speaking of Tamar or Vintel?

"What shall I say to her?" I asked.

"Offer her your friendship. She may not think that such a small thing now."

While Bru gathered an escort for Vintel's warriors, Maara and I went to speak with Vintel. I began by asking her where she planned to go.

"What difference does it make to you?" Vintel replied.

"Vintel," I said, "we need not part as enemies."

"We have been enemies from the beginning. Why would we part as friends?"

"If we can't part as friends, then let us at least part as allies."

"Why? So that you can call on strength when wisdom is not enough?"

I felt a distant echo of my humiliation when Vintel tried to steal my brooch, and I resented Maara for putting me in this position, asking favors of an enemy of such longstanding, an enemy I had at last defeated. Before I could reply, Maara touched my arm, to keep me silent, and addressed Vintel herself.

"If you insist on enmity," she said, "you and your warriors will return to Merin's house, disarmed and dishonored, as our prisoners. Tamras would spare you that, just as she would spare Merin's house the loss of a faithful ally."

Vintel gazed at Maara, as if seeing her for the first time.

"I have no quarrel with Merin," she said. "I will always be her friend and an ally of her house."

"With that we are content," said Maara.

Bru rounded up enough of his kinsmen to keep an eye on Vintel and her warriors. I was glad now of the men who made up my guard. Their duty to me would keep them occupied and away from the temptation to join the escort of those who had once escorted them. Of Merin's prisoners, only Finn was not accounted for, and though he had more cause than any, to seek revenge was not in his nature.

There was hardly time to make all the decisions required of me, and I had to rely on others to act upon them. Laris took charge of the warriors of Vintel's army who belonged neither to Merin nor Vintel, but to Merin's allies, to let them know that the people of Merin's house now followed me. I trusted her to present it to them as a thing accomplished, not as a choice for them to make between Vintel and me. If any of them wished to alter their allegiance, they would have to wait for our return to Merin's house.

Bru sent messengers to the men who were still waiting on the hillsides, to tell them to stand down. Those who were not needed for Vintel's escort he sent back to the encampment, to prepare a welcome for yet another army.

Then Merin's captains returned, followed by their bands of warriors, all eager to tour the battlefield. I asked the young king to lead them there. His language resembled ours closely enough that with a little effort Merin's people could understand him, and his people had never been our enemies. He could convey to Merin's warriors what had happened without opening old wounds.

"They seem to believe that it was you, not Elen, who defeated us."

The voice came from close behind me. When I turned, I found myself confronted by the northern chieftains' go-between.

It was inevitable that the northerners would discover who had sent Elen's army out against them. The stories were everywhere. Sooner or later the go-between was bound to hear them told in a language she understood, and stories have a way of traveling easily even through the barrier of language.

"This evening," I said, "the story will be told and told again around the campfires. As stories do, it will serve the present purpose, to bind Merin's warriors to me by admiration and by gratitude. I would prefer that you hear the whole and simple truth from me."

She waited.

"I have no time now to tell it properly. Join me this evening at the council fire. There I will gather my friends from Merin's house, and I will tell you all, as best I can, as much of the truth as I remember."

Soon the armies were once again in motion, making their way north. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen Sparrow since before my confrontation with Vintel.

"Don't worry," Maara said. "She'll turn up. Perhaps we'll find her at the encampment."

But at the encampment I had too much to do to think about finding anybody. There was hardly room enough to accommodate so many, and I worried that the crowding and the jostling might strike a spark that would ignite the tinder of their grievances, both old and new. After all, many of these people had not long ago been at each other's throats.

To my relief, the northerners, already set apart by their inability to understand any language but their own, preferred to keep to themselves. We settled them in the part of the encampment left vacant by the young king.

They soon made use of the water so close by. They got to work digging out a bathing pool, and many of them shed their armor and their clothing to bathe away the last remnants of the battlefield. It would not be so easy to cleanse their memories, but I hoped their hearts would have had time to heal a little before they learned that I was responsible for their defeat.

I kept open a place for Merin's warriors and her allies as far from the northerners as possible and with Bru's men as a buffer between them. Merin's captains and their warriors didn't arrive at the encampment until late in the afternoon. They had lingered long upon the battlefield. They had walked every inch of it, seeing for themselves how fierce the battle, and how costly.

They wondered at the funeral pyres, as much at the strange custom of burning the dead as at the number of the fallen. They marveled at the grave of the northern warriors and from its size reckoned up their losses. Each brought a stone for the cairn that would cover it, out of respect for such valiant fighters, and also out of gratitude, that they themselves had not been their adversaries.

Bru led Vintel's warriors to the hollow in the hills, to keep them from starting any mischief among those who had been their comrades in arms. So that they would not regard their isolation as a punishment, he treated them as honored guests. He took care to provide them with everything they needed, water for bathing, fuel for their fires, meat and bread, every necessity and every comfort he could think of.

All day I kept an eye out for Sparrow. I didn't see her.

When at last my work was done, I sat down beside the council fire. The last rays of the setting sun cast a golden light over the wilderness.

The encampment was unusually silent. Their bellies full, their arms and armor laid aside, the warriors dozed in the soft grass or spoke in quiet voices to their friends who sat beside them. Later, when the dark had fallen and the fires had been lit, the camp would wake again, and the storytelling would begin. Now, in the hush of evening, we rested in the balance between light and darkness.

I felt myself drift up into the golden air. I floated there as down floats upon the slightest breath. Below me lay the armies of the peoples of the world, at last at peace with one another.

Someone touched my shoulder. With a sudden thump I came back down to earth to find Maara kneeling beside me.

"Come with me," she said.

"Where are we going?"

"I thought we might try to make you more presentable." She brushed my cheek with the backs of her fingers and smiled. "When was the last time you washed your face?"

She stood up and held out her hand to me, to help me up. When I was on my feet, she let me go, but she didn't turn away. She was held there by something in my eyes. She touched my face again, then lifted my chin a little as she bent and kissed me.

I forgot that I was standing in the midst of armies. I forgot that my guard was watching over me. I gave myself to Maara in that kiss, as if we had never been parted from each other.

In the tent a bucket of warm water was waiting for me. Somewhere in Elen's stores Maara had found a cake of fragrant soap. She stripped me to the waist and bathed me. She even washed my hair. Then she shook out a clean linen shirt and dressed me in it.

"Where did you find this?" I asked her.

"In one of the wagons," she replied.

"Did they bring a change of clothing for the entire army?"

Maara chuckled. "Not likely."

The shirt must be one of Elen's. I was surprised how well it fit me.

Maara looked me up and down. "I suppose that will have to do," she said. She met my eyes. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Tonight," she said, "you must show them something new. You are no longer the child they remember. You are the leader they have chosen. Tonight you must show them Merin's heir."