Daughter of Lir (60 page)

“I was not trying to get killed,” he said.

“Don’t lie.” She glared down at him. “Don’t ever leave me
again, either. Promise!”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“Promise.”

“What if I die before you? Will you curse me for an
oathbreaker?”

“Promise you won’t leave me.”

She was as stubborn as her mother. “I promise,” he said,
“that as long as I’m alive, I won’t abandon you.”

“You won’t leave me.”

“I won’t leave you alone,” he said.

He held his breath. But she was very young. The subtleties
of words were new to her. She accepted his oath.

He did not like this taste of guilt, this mingling of sour
and bitter that burned in his throat. She slid back down to his side, sighed
and wriggled and went to sleep, abruptly, as children could. He cradled her in
his arms, stroking her hair till it was smooth. “I’ll try not to die,” he said
softly. “For your sake, I will try.”

A handful of days after Minas was brought back to Lir, a
rider came down the eastward road. He was riding a sturdy bay horse and leading
another. People greeted him as he rode past, taking him for one of the king’s
sons; they were all as like to one another as pups in a litter. Only a few
paused to wonder why a king’s son would be dressed in a fashion that had not
been seen in Lir since—

Since the princes of chariots came in their leather coats
and their trousers and their high soft boots, their beads and braids and
ornaments of gold and copper and shell and bone. There were strings of amber
braided in his hair, and bands of gold about his arms, and the mantle that
protected him from spits of cold rain was the hide of a lion.

Rhian was on the wall that surrounded the city’s heart,
seeing to the disposition of a wagonload of arrows, when she caught sight of
him on the road. The usual crowds were thin today, between the rain and the
dread of war; people were keeping to their towns and villages, and traveling as
little as they could.

The captain of the city guard leaned on the parapet beside
her. “Who’s that? Conory? I thought I just saw him in the market square.”

“No,” said Rhian as the truth dawned on her. “No, that’s not
Conory.” She had turned already, running toward the ladder, barely touching the
rungs as she flew down.

Mabon was still on the wall, calling out to her—then he saw
what she had seen. His great voice lifted in a bellow. “Emry!
Emry
!”

He swung right down off the wall, rolling as he landed,
running headlong toward the rider on the road. But Rhian was ahead of him. She
was lighter and quicker, and she had recognized Emry first.

He had stopped his horse and dismounted before either of
them reached him. Rhian knocked him flat. Mabon hauled him up and hugged the
breath out of him, babbling his name.

Rhian was hardly more coherent, but she had enough wits left
to pry Mabon loose before he killed Emry with gladness. Emry stood swaying. His
face was blank.

Slowly it came alive. “Mabon,” he said, as if the name had
come to him out of old memory. “Rhian.” He paused. “
Rhian
?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Come, you look as if you haven’t
eaten or slept in days. Your father will be—”

“My father is alive?”

“And as well as he ever was,” Mabon said.

“I thought—” Emry swayed again. “I heard—she—”

“He is safe from her,” Rhian said grimly.

As if that had cut the cord that was holding him up, Emry
collapsed. Mabon caught him, grunting as he steadied his feet: Emry was not a
small man.

As Mabon braced to lift him, Emry fought free. “I will not,”
he said fiercely, “I will
not
go to
my father like a child in arms. Let me walk!”

“Better than that,” Rhian said. “You’ll ride. Up with you,
and come.”

Even after a hand of years as a tribesman, Emry was obedient
to a woman’s voice. He mounted like a rider of the steppe, with ease that was
altogether unconscious.

People were gathering. They had heard Mabon’s bellow—it must
have been audible in World’s End.

With the courtesy of Lir, they did not crowd or clamor, but
the murmur of their excitement followed him to the king’s house. Some
recognized him. Others insisted that it must be one of his brothers; but they
could hardly deny that his fashion was not the fashion of Lir.

Rumor had wings. The king met them outside his house, all
dignity forgotten, and all sense that might have bidden him mistrust anything
less than the sight of his eyes. But for Emry he would even forget that he was
king.

They were so very like, the two of them: big beautiful men.
The king did not speak his son’s name, not aloud. Nor did Emry say a word to
his father. They closed in a long embrace.

Maybe they wept. Not even Rhian, who was closest, could see.
They might have been alone in the world, for all the notice they took of the
crowd around them.

They went arm in arm into the king’s house. The people
loosed a long sigh. There was still no Mother in Lir, but with the king’s heir
returned, some of the heart had come back into the city.

o0o

Emry ate ravenously and drank watered wine to bolster his
strength, but he would not rest. “I need to see—I need to know—everything. Some
things I heard as I came here, and many things I saw, but there’s still so
much—”

“Tomorrow,” his father said. “Today is for joy. Tomorrow
we’ll think again of war.”

Emry might have defied his father, but he was both too wise
and too weary to venture it. His brothers were all there, his friends, his kin,
as many of the king’s council and his warleaders as were in Lir or able to come
there. They filled the hall, all watching him, all hungry for the sight of him.

Whatever he had expected to feel when he came home again, it
was not what he felt, which was nothing. Somewhere, dim and far away, he knew
that he should be singing with joy. The Goddess had brought him home safe,
unwounded, uncaptured, and no more hungry or tired or filthy than he should be
after riding straight from World’s End. His father was alive. There was no
taste or smell of Etena here, no taint of her in anything that he saw. And the
war—they were ready; splendidly so.

He had come looking for death and disaster, and found life
and strength. He should be profoundly happy. He was only empty.

People were talking, laughing, easing into the pleasure of
his presence. When silence fell, it fell slowly, until it was complete.

Emry followed their eyes—but Rhian’s most of all, a stare as
fierce and swift as the stoop of a hawk. Someone new had come to the hall, and
paused in the doorway, as if taken aback by the crowd within. It was a man with
a child in his arms.

He had changed very little. Except about the eyes. Those
were old in the young face, as old as the world.

Emry was a little dizzy, looking at him. A prince of the
People held a child—girlchild, no less—as if he had been a man of Lir. She looked
like him, but her hair was dark, her skin cream instead of milk. Emry did not
need to ask who her mother was.

She wriggled until Minas set her down, and trotted into the
hall, altogether unperturbed by the crowd that filled it.

She stopped in front of Emry and looked him up and down.
“You look just like all your brothers,” she said. “But I like your clothes
better. May I sit in your lap?”

Emry opened his arms. She clambered up, made herself
comfortable. “You smell different.”

“That’s the air of the tribes,” Emry said. And after a
moment: “You have a name, I suppose?”

“Ariana,” she said.

“Ariana,” he said, inclining his head. “And I am Emry.”

“I like your name,” she said. She nestled against him, as
comfortable as a young thing could be, tucked her thumb into her mouth and
seemed well content.

He was . . . almost content. With a child’s
warmth in his arms, he was closer to the world of the living.

Her father wavered transparently between advance and
retreat. But he was a warrior of the steppe; he had to conquer whatever
troubled him. He strode into the hall, putting a swagger in it. The seat he
chose was near the king and the king’s son. People granted him respect; some
smiled.

He had done well for himself, for a prisoner and a slave.
But there were those eyes, and a bitter set to the mouth as he refrained from
looking at Rhian.

Emry knew that bitterness, oh yes. The pain beneath it, too.
His clasped Minas’ child—his sister-daughter, his wife’s grandchild—in his arms
and rocked, as he would have done with one of his own. Both his daughters were
very like her.

He gave in not long after to his father’s urging that he
rest. He did not need to feign the weariness, either. Exhaustion dragged at his
bones.

But it was not to his own chamber that he went, that they had
kept ready for him. One of the servants was pleased enough to tell him where
the tribesman slept—“Lord Minas,” she called him, with the same air of respect
that he had received in the hall. That was a feat for a foreigner, to win not
only courtesy in Lir, but also the goodwill of its people.

Was Minas not Aera’s son? She was lady and queen wherever
she was.

The room was empty. The shutters were fastened open, letting
in light and air. There were few furnishings, but a mingling of belongings. The
walls glowed with bronze: bits, bridles, blades and hilts and spearheads, and a
sunburst of ornaments, some of remarkable delicacy.

Emry was examining these when Minas came into the room. Two
burly men loomed behind him, dressed in the manner of the king’s guard. One
stayed by the door; the other settled by the window.

Emry raised his brows at them. “You’ve lived so for five
years?”

“Five days,” Minas said. “Since I ran for the river.”

“Ah,” said Emry. Carefully he lifted a brooch from the wall,
turning it in his fingers. It was intricately, beautifully inlaid with bits of
colored stone, all shades of green like a field in summer. “You do wonderful
work.”

“That is work,” Minas said, tilting his head at a row of
spearheads. “This is play.”

“It’s a joyous thing.”

Minas folded his arms and propped himself against the wall,
as insolent a young buck as had ever strutted through a war-camp. “They let you
go,” he said.

He was keeping the grievance out of his voice, but Emry
caught the hint of it nonetheless. “No,” Emry said. “I ran, too. They were busy
crossing the river; no one hunted me once I reached the western bank. Not with
a whole kingdom to conquer.”

Minas’ glance raked him. “You’ve done well. For a slave.”

“King’s charioteer,” Emry said.

Minas laughed, a sharp bark. “Oh, indeed!”

“Truth,” said Emry.

“Remarkable,” Minas said. “But then I build chariots for
your king. I’m sure the gods are amused.”

“The Goddess finds balance in all things.”

“So they say.” Minas rubbed his chin, which he still kept
shaven in this land of bearded men. “Are you here for a reason? Do you have
messages?”

“Not exactly,” Emry said. “Your brother is well. He knows
you live. He’s glad beyond measure, and determined to win you back.”

“Is he?”

“To the very heart of him,” said Emry.

“
You
never told him.”

“I never knew for certain. They found ashes and ruin, and no
trace of any living thing.”

Minas grunted. “You stayed. Why? The bargain was a mockery.
I was presumed dead. You could have run home again.”

“Yes,” Emry said.

Minas’ eyes narrowed. “What are you afraid to tell me? Is it
my mother? Is she dead?”

“Dear Goddess, no.” It was as much a prayer as a denial.
“She was well when I left the camp.”

Minas’ relief was palpable. “Good. Good, then. She’s looking
after Dias’ tent, I suppose, and ruling his wives. That would suit her very
well.”

“No,” Emry said. “She has a tent of her own.”

“Metos? She looks after Metos?”

“Not she,” said Emry.

“She married again?” Minas’ voice was incredulous. Angry?
Emry could not tell.

Emry answered with a nod.

“King? Warleader? Clan-chieftain?”

“King’s charioteer,” Emry said.

The silence was enormous. Minas was not a fool, and he was
not at all slow in the wits. “
You
—”

He laughed loud and long. He fell down doing it, clutching
his middle, rolling and kicking. He howled like a mad thing.

Emry waited him out. It was better than what he had
expected, which was a knife in the gut.

When he surged up, still howling, Emry was ready for him. So
was the guard by the window. Between them they wrestled him to a standstill;
and a fierce battle it was, too. The years in Lir had done nothing to lessen
Minas’ skill or his strength.

When at last he lay flat, breathing hard, Emry said mildly,
“Yes, I. I earned the right to ask for her. They made songs of it. You have
sisters, prince, and a brother.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Minas said, flat and hard. “She was
barren after she bore me.”

“The Goddess blessed her,” Emry said, “and made her
fruitful.”

“She is old enough to be your mother!”

“So she used to say,” Emry said, “until she saw how little
it mattered.”

“You stayed for her.” Minas had gone limp, but neither Emry
nor the bull of a guard trusted that. He ignored them both. “You—stayed—”

“For her,” said Emry, “and for Dias.”

“For her.” Minas gasped. It might have been laughter again.
It might have been a sob. “Gods. My sides hurt. Maybe I am dead, and this is a
particularly clever torment.”

Emry nodded to the guard. The man rose reluctantly, but
stayed close. Minas made no effort to renew his attack on either of them. He
lay where they had left him, sprawled on the floor. “You left her,” he said.

“She sent me away. Because,” said Emry out of all the pain
in his heart, “I knew you lived, and I let her grieve for you.”