Daughter of Lir (62 page)

“Wise man,” Dias said. And then: “We’ll stay on the river as
long as we can. There’s a place a day’s ride from the city—a ford; the western
goddess came from there. It has a landing, and open fields. Maybe a fort, but
not likely a large one. We’ll land there, most of us, but send the rest onward,
to let the enemy think that’s all of us.”

“They can count horses,” Aias pointed out.

“Can they? Do they know we brought them—or that we even
could?”

They both looked back down the line of the fleet to the
barges in which the horses rode. The shamans were with them. The drone of
chanting was fainter than it had been when they began. Most of the horses had grown
resigned to their fate; those that had proved intractable were long since
killed and eaten.

“Those who go up the river will need horses when they land,”
Dias said. “We’ll be sure those are clear to see.”

“Wise king.” Aias was mocking him, but gently. Dias aimed a
cuff at him, which he eluded with ease.

o0o

The boats drifted apart. Dias returned to his favored
place in the bow, face uplifted to the moon, as if he drank strength from it.
He was smiling still. Nothing could sadden him, not now, not since he knew that
Minas lived.

Aera curled in the stern and shut her eyes. Her back was
against Vatis’, her knees propped against the hull of the boat. It was not
particularly comfortable, but she had slept in worse places.

But sleep did not come at once. Her mind was too wide awake.
She knew where Dias had learned of the ford—Long Ford; she remembered the name
of it rather more clearly than he did. But then she had heard all of Emry’s
stories, some over and over.

No one had spoken of Emry since the People crossed the
river. Not a word, though anyone who knew him would know where he had gone. If
he lived, if he had not been killed on the journey, he was in Lir. As Minas
was. Both of them in one city. Both waiting for the war to fall upon them.

Emry could tell his people much. But everything Dias had
done after he left—could he have predicted that? Not even Aera had expected
them to take to the river. Dias was less simple a man than anyone had thought,
and more distinctly a king.

“They’ve taken to the river.”

The king was not as appalled as the rest of his council. He
could admire a truly clever mind, even if it belonged to an enemy. He bent his
glance on Emry, who sat beside him. “Did you know he would do that?”

“I’m not even sure he did, until he’d done it.” Emry shook
his head. “Who’d have thought it?”

“Certainly not I,” the king said ruefully. “We built all our
defenses on land, against an enemy who has never been seen on water.”

“We do need those defenses,” said Mabon. “He’s unleashed the
tribes; they’re raiding wherever they will, from World’s End to Larchwood.
There’s rumor of raiders closer even than that, but nothing certain yet. We
can’t gather forces for any single battle. There are too many, in too many
places, too far apart.”

“He’s coming here,” Emry said.

Nobody seemed to hear him. The council had erupted at Mabon’s
words. The whole country was overrun; they were on the knife-edge of panic.
There had never been a war like this. There had been no war at all here since
before their grandfathers were born.

Amid the overlapping voices, one spoke for them all. “How
can we fight this? They’re on us like a swarm of bees.”

“Kill the king.”

That caught their attention. The babble of confusion
stopped.

Emry faced them all. “Bees swarm at the command of their
king. Their king is coming to Lir. His brother is here; likewise his mother,
who is the cause of all his sorrows.”

“And his good fortune, too,” Mabon observed. “If not for her
and her trading, he’d never have been king.”

“So,” said the king of Lir. “He’s coming here. We’re ready
for him. With his horde divided, our cities are endangered—but we’re also safer
than we would be if the whole of them came on together. We don’t have to face
the whole horde; the army he brings here may be no larger than ours.”

“If he’s wise, he’ll call them back in before he reaches
us,” Emry said. “But these are wild tribes, some so barely tamed that they
still fight with clubs and stones. Now they’ve had the taste of blood, they may
not obey the call to muster.”

“Let’s give them more blood,” said a woman in a long kilt
like a priestess’; but she spoke and carried herself like a soldier. “Give them
as many diversions as they can swallow—order all towns and forts that can to
mount attacks against the raiders. Keep them busy, so that when the summons
comes, even if they want to answer it, they can’t.”

“That’s well thought of,” said the king. “Do you see to it,
then. We’ll scatter the swarm till there’s no hope of its coming together
again.”

The heart had come back into the council. Amid the hum of
their interwoven conversations, settling this and that, Emry heard a sound that
raised his hackles.

There was buzz and bustle enough in Lir, these days, with
the city full of fighters and preparations for fighting. But this was a
different sound. Many feet coming on swiftly. Clash of metal. A cry, abruptly
cut off.

He was out of his seat and halfway to the door when the
invaders burst through it. They were all women, and armed. There was blood on
some of the swords. Servants’ blood, he could suppose. Guards’ blood.

He stopped short. An arrow was aimed straight at his heart,
and a pair of cold black eyes behind it.

The council had gone absolutely still. None of them was
armed. Their weapons were laid outside. There was not even a knife for cutting
meat.

The king’s voice spoke behind him, deceptively soft. “What
is the meaning of this?”

His answer came from behind the warrior priestesses. She was
dressed in black, and veiled. She led a small veiled figure by the hand.
Priestesses followed her, elders whom Emry knew well. “Take him,” she said to
the armed women on either side of her.

Emry heard the rustle and scrape as the king rose. “I will
not be—”

A bowstring sang. Emry whipped about—no matter if he took an
arrow in the back. His father’s eyes were wide. An arrow sprouted from his
heart. It pulsed once, hard, as he toppled across the council-table.

Councilors scrambled back in horror, all but Mabon and one
or two of the captains. It was Emry who cradled him in his arms, and Emry whom
he saw as the life ebbed from him. He reached up, groping as if in the dark,
and laid his hand against Emry’s cheek. Emry held it there long after the
warmth had gone out of it.

That warmth, that fire of spirit, had entered into Emry. The
last breath his father drew, Emry drew with him. King to prince. Prince to
king.

He looked up in the terrible silence. Somewhat to his
surprise, no arrow flew. When the invaders moved, they did not move to slay
him. They took his father from his arms. He fought—but they were many and he
was one, and those who would have helped him had swords at their throats.

Him, for whatever reason, they needed alive. They bound and
gagged him and held him still struggling, while Etena sat in the king’s place.
Her daughter perched on the arm of the tall chair, as small and big-eyed as a
bird.

“My lords and ladies and captains,” Etena said when she was
settled in comfort, “you have a choice. You may go as your king has gone, or
you may accept the will of the Goddess. We need you and the forces you command,
but we can manage without you. Which will it be? Life and acceptance? Or a
quick death?”

“What will you do with him?” Mabon demanded, tilting his
head at Emry.

“He will live,” Etena answered.

“As your creature?”

“As whatever he elects to be. Our ally or our enemy. He has
wife and kin among the tribes. That will serve our purpose. And you? Will you
live or die?”

Emry willed him to live. He was a stubborn, headstrong,
unshakably loyal man, and he wept freely and unconsciously for his king. But
thank the Goddess, he had a little sense. He said, “I live for Lir, and for my
young king.”

Emry’s knees tried to buckle with relief. He stiffened them.
They all took Mabon’s example, however grudgingly they did it. They chose life.

Etena was well pleased. “Even men may be wise,” she said.
“Listen now. Your fealty is to the Goddess, and to the Goddess’ servants. You
will do as we bid, exactly, without objection, without question. Now go. One of
mine will go with each of you. She speaks my will; she carries out my orders.
Obey and all will be well. Disobey, and you die.”

The councilors glanced at one another. There was great shame
in them, to be conquered without a battle, and bound in service to a stranger.

They were alive. That for now was all that mattered. Emry tried
to reassure them with his eyes, since his mouth was bound shut. None of them
would look at him, except Mabon; and Mabon’s despair was so deep that Emry
doubted he saw anything beyond it.

They left—fled, some of them. Only Emry remained, and the
company of priestesses, and what clearly was the new council of Lir.

Etena looked long at him, taking visible pleasure in the
fact that she could do such a thing. Emry stood as much at ease as he could,
gagged and with his hands bound tight behind him; yet he was poised, light,
ready to leap. Such a leap would be his death, but he would do it if he must.

Maybe she hoped that he would. Lir would not lack for a
king. He had six brothers, and a son among the tribes.

She smiled in her veils and said, “Oh no, young king. Don’t
do that. We want you alive. You’re wonderfully useful: king’s heir, king of
Lir, king’s charioteer of the People. If you’ll be reasonable, we’ll stand at
your back when you take your kingship before the people. If not . . .
what would Dias give, I wonder, for the man who was friend and brother, who
abandoned him at the border of this country?”

Emry, gagged, could not answer. But she was not looking for
conversation. She flicked a hand. “Take him away.”

o0o

They locked him in his own chamber, bound but freed of the
gag. He had half a dozen guards to the two that his father had set on Minas. He
supposed he should be flattered—and concerned for the prince of chariots, who
might not live long now that Etena ruled in Lir.

Emry lay on his bed. The coldness that had been on him since
Aera cast him out was his protection now. Far beneath it he howled with grief
for his father. His father, his brothers, his people—all of Lir. Fools, every
one of them, for letting her live, for dreaming that she would keep quietly to
the temple.

Anger flared and faded. He would wait, he thought, until
dark; he would sleep. He would let his captors think him resigned to his fate.
And then . . .

What? Something mad or stupid, that would get him
conveniently killed?

He groaned and rolled onto his face. Maybe he wept. He took
no particular notice. Nor did he care if his guards saw. The weaker he seemed,
the better.

o0o

Minas was in the workroom with a handful of the makers
when the warrior-priestesses came, finishing the last chariot that he intended
to build in Lir. He had been rather surprised not to find Eresh perched on the
stool in the corner, telling stories, as he invariably did when he was in the
city. Maybe he had found people willing to trade even with the People so close.

The priestesses burst in as if charging into battle, swords
drawn, arrows nocked to string. They bowled over Lathan, who was nearest the
door, and hacked at him when he protested. He lay twitching, head half severed
from neck, bleeding out his life on the floor.

The rest of the makers retreated, drawing back behind Minas.
Wise fools. These women had come for him, he had no doubt of that. Their leader
was the same who had taken him in flight. He could suppose that his guards were
dead, since she was here, with blood on her blade; and she had not been the one
to kill poor Lathan.

He smiled at her with all the charm at his disposal, and
held out his hands for her to bind. She gripped them tightly. One of her women,
thick-armed and cold-eyed, lifted a war-club with a bronze head. He sighed
faintly. Death, then; and quick. That was well.

The club lashed out. He felt no pain, not then. But his legs
no longer held him up.

A slow death, after all, he thought distantly. His legs were
broken. One knee, he thought, was shattered. When the pain came, it would be
exquisite, a thousand splintered shards of it.

Two of the priestesses heaved him up. He made himself as
heavy as a stone. They grunted at the weight of him, but forbore to drop him.
Neither they nor their captain granted him the mercy-stroke. The woman with the
club had put it away, perhaps with some regret.

“I would have preferred to give you death,” the captain
said. “But those are not my orders.”

“The king,” said Minas. “Dead?”

“By now, yes.”

Minas let his head roll on his neck. The pain was coming
like a storm across the steppe, a black cloud of it, shot with lightnings.
Ariana, he thought. Dear gods. She was the daughter of the daughter of a
Mother.

If he did not name her, maybe they would not think of her.
Maybe she was safe.

He was losing his wits. It was pain. He knew how to endure
it: he was a warrior of the People. But it clouded his thoughts; it reduced him
to silence.

Better silence than shrieking and begging for mercy.

They carried him to the small room that opened off the
workroom. It was meant for storing the makers’ tools. There was a pallet in it,
for when one of them—often Minas—labored through the night.

They laid him on the pallet, not too roughly. What could he
do? their manner said. He was crippled.

He showed them. He drooped and dragged and let them struggle
with the dead weight of him. While he did that, he slipped a dagger from its
sheath, concealing it against his arm. The cold bite of it was welcome.