The King's Name (10 page)

"Why can't he use them to move them?" ap Madog asked. "Guarding on foot against mounted enemies is really tough."

"I know, but if he moves them we won't know where they are either. Think why we make the caches, think how easily we can find them? What's the first assignment a new armiger gets, eh?

Nodol could move them and he could send me a map of where they are, but could everyone who might need them find them from that? Supplies you can't find might as well be on the moon."

"Right." Ap Madog looked downcast. "The other thing I was thinking—are we planning to attack Magor itself?

Because my wife's parents are there and—"

"We will do what is necessary, but I'm very much aware that many of the ala have family in Magor," I said.

"They're unlikely to walk onto a battlefield by mistake though. Don't worry."

Just then I saw a scout hurrying toward me. I stood up so he could see me better.

"They've landed," he

blurted. "We found signs. They've headed inland for Magor."

"How many?" I asked.

The scout frowned. "It's hard to tell. A lot. I'd say a whole ala at least, maybe more. A lot of horses, four or five hundred, but they were being led, not ridden, so I can't guess how many are spares. There were a lot of people as well."

"Most importantly, when?" I asked urgently.

"This morning very early, when the tide was high."

"Then we might still catch them and cut them off before they reach Magor," I said. I gave orders to remount and we set off at once.

We pushed on as rapidly as we dared and came to Magor in the late afternoon. I was riding toward the rear of the column as we came out of the woods. The track is quite wide there, with ditches separating it from the fields on either side. In that season they held standing barley, nearly ripe. There was a shout from the first rank as they came out of the trees and caught sight of Magor. Marchel had reached it before us; there was a column of horse going in through the main gates in the wall Duke Galba had built. We were in column and the first pennon took off at a canter down the track toward them. I signaled to Berth to sound the attack, though it was almost unnecessary. Everyone knew what to do. Only the first pennon could engage now, the
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rest of us rode behind in support. It was all we could do without trampling the barley and risking our horses' necks on the unseen and uneven ground.

The main body of them kept on filing inside Magor as we approached. Our front ranks had their lances lowered. I signaled to the decurios to spread out by pennons and attack on their own initiative. Berth relayed the orders. Everyone behind readied their weapons and prepared to spread out when there was an opportunity. We thundered nearer. Evenstar put back her head and neighed as she scented them.

They were mounting and forming up with admirable speed. Two pennons came toward us rapidly. As they came nearer I could see that they were all Malms, pale-skinned, long-nosed, and dark-eyed. They could all have been Thur-rig's children. They were armed much as we were but wore lighter armor. They had charge and rally banners like ours and they were clearly organized the same way we were. Their horses were much smaller than ours, but real horses, not ponies like the ones Sweyn's horsemen had used. They seemed all gray or dappled or black, with not a brown hair among them. They were tall, but not as tall as greathorses.

The tallest were perhaps a hand's width shorter, and most were two or three hands smaller. They were much more delicately built, nothing like as broad or strong. They were fast enough, as we saw when they charged toward us. The Malms were shouting and howling as they came. It took me a moment to realize that it was not "Glory and Death!" they were shouting but "The Glory of God!" I could feel Evenstar speed up of her own accord, although we were nowhere near them. I saw the impact when the two lines met.

They could not stand before us. They must have known that when they came out. There were two pennons of them against a whole ala, even though we could not spread out, and their additional speed could not make up for our strength. They fought like fiends, aiming for our horses. If they had been slower, or if we had not been confined to the narrow track, we would have killed them all almost at once.

As it was, they were fighting to buy time to get their friends to safety, and they did that, at the cost of their own lives. They probably did better against us than they should have. They had been practicing, and fighting against people on horseback was still strange to us. I wanted to come up to them and fight. There was just no room. It was one of the most frustrating skirmishes of my life.

Eventually they broke and we surrounded them. I signaled to Cadarn to wait in case they broke for the walls, and went closer myself. They were still fighting, though they could not maneuver.

Then the last of their friends passed inside and the gates of Magor closed firmly behind them. A trumpet blast came from the walls, and the Malms who were still outside cheered to hear it and fought harder, if anything. Not one of them surrendered; we had to kill them all.

I stared at Magor, firmly in the hands of the enemy. The stables and the barracks, clearly visible as their walls formed part of the outer wall, had been ours only two days ago. I knew it all so well. It felt wrong for it to be against us. Duke Galba would have cried to see his hard work in building the walls abused like that There was nothing for it but a siege, and I knew how well supplied they were. I had made sure of the supplies myself. I realized I was grinding my teeth loudly, and stopped.

I set Cadarn and ap Madog's pennons, who had been in the rear, to watch the town, and the rest of us retreated to the edge of the woods, patched up our wounded as best we could, and gathered up our dead.

There were plenty of wounded; I saw that everything was in hand, and checked to see if anyone needed my help singing charms. One or two of them did, so I saw to that. Then I turned to Govien for the death tally.

There had been time.

"Ten horses, another ten too badly wounded to survive, though the grooms are trying with the
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weapons." It is always more difficult with horses, who cannot say which weapon hurt them.

"Only three armigers," he added, uncertainly. He wasn't used to being tribuno and we were both used to Emlin doing this.

"Good work," I said.

Then I went to look at the dead as I always did. Govien had pulled them out of the battlefield and had them brought to the edge of the woods. Elidah was a girl who had been one of my first volunteers when I instituted the militia. I remembered visiting her parents on their farm near Derwen, and their pride at the thought of their daughter being an armiger. I had been meaning to promote her to sequifer soon. Mabon was a man who had served for many years under Galba. He had fought at Caer Avroc and at Foreth, only to die within sight of the place he had been born. The third corpse was Duncan.

He had been killed cleanly by a spear thrust through the neck. He looked old and confused, as if the world had confounded his expectations again. I remembered him long ago teaching me to fight. He had come here to die and he had what he wanted. I brushed away tears that helped nothing. If only Marchel had lined up her alae at that moment, I would have been ready to mount up and charge straight at them.

"Where are we going to camp?" Govien asked, coming up behind me. It was just starting to get dark and the rain was beginning. I knew as well as he did how vulnerable we were dismounted, and how any ditch we could build to keep them out would also keep us in. I frowned.

"We've got to keep them in there. Tomorrow ap Ranien and the Isarnagan army will be here and we can besiege them properly. For tonight, I think we rest here until it gets properly dark and they can't see us leave, and then press onto Aberhavren, which has shelter and walls and supplies. We need to secure it in any case, and tomorrow we need to block Marchel's route to Caer Gloran."

Govien sighed. He was from Magor originally; he had been promoted to decurio by Galba. He was a broad, squat man, one of the shortest of the armigers but very strong. He was looking tired to death. Mabon had been a friend of his. "This is awful," he said, looking not at the bodies but at the walls and the gate.

"You cannot," I said through gritted teeth, "hate it worse than I do. But we'll stop them. We can do it. Don't worry."

I was almost surprised to see him comforted by this, and sound confident and heartened as he rode off to relay my orders.

—6—

This is a time of war, we must stand firm against the fearsome foe, not waste our lives for empty dreams of glory or of skill.

All lives have worth, including this of mine

I lightly held so long, and those who die are spent to save the fire in the corn, the hungry winter, homes and farms destroyed, more deaths than these we count, the land aflame and all the Peace we built so long, forgot.

—From "Thirty Sword"

It took ten days to lure her out.

I held a council of war at Aberhavren at dawn the day after we arrived there. The place was not a town, just a little settlement that had sprung up around the spot where the ferry crosses the Havren. It had no walls, only a wooden stockade. Galba had widened this to make room for the ala when he had first been based down

here. We also kept a supply dump here. I had been afraid to find that Marchel had taken it or that Aurien had given orders to the locals to forbid me entry. The whole spirit of civil war is caught in that fear, riding up to a strong place you know well and not knowing if the
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inhabitants are for you or against you. Fortunately the inhabitants of Aberhavren were indifferent. The man on the gate had inquired why we were riding so late, but made no move to stop us entering when I gave my name. He would probably not have tried to stop Marchel either. I did not know if the local people even knew about the civil war.

I gathered my decurios together in the shack where I'd been sleeping and they crowded around, leaning against the walls. As the day brightened I could see that in some places the plaster was wearing off and the willow wattles showed through. I had Talog bring breakfast, and we all ate porridge while they offered me their views and suggestions.

"The problem is that we want to get her out but not to let her escape," I said.

"We can starve her out," objected Govien, gesturing with his bowl.

"There are almost two months' supplies for an ala inside Magor," Bradwen said gloomily, putting hers down. "I

put them there myself." She had been the sequifer of Garian's pennon before I promoted her after Garian's death. It had been her job to deal with Nodol Boar-beard about supplies for Magor.

"That's not counting anything Aurien might have been stockpiling," I added. "Did any of you who were stationed at Magor see any signs she was doing that?"

Bradwen and Golidan shook their heads. I wished I'd thought to ask Emlin before leaving him at Derwen. "It's a bad time of year for it," Golidan said.

"We always keep supplies for the horses in case we have to move in a hurry," Bradwen said. "But the cabbages and the turnips will be ready in ten days or so—if she'd done this after harvest she'd have had a whole winter's supplies."

"Summer is a better time to fight," I said. "But if she has two alae in there with a month's supplies, then starving her out is a possibility. That might take too long if there is trouble elsewhere."

"Is there any news?" ap Madog asked. He scraped around his empty bowl for the last morsels, then set it down.

I shook my head, swallowing the last of my own breakfast. "None. But Cinvar could come south at any time.

More Malms could land. We have no idea what Flavien or the other kings are doing. There is the possibility of a Jarnish invasion, which could come anywhere."

Cynrig Fairbeard stirred uneasily, then realized we were all looking at him. He was a Jarnsman of course, one of Sweyn's more distant kin, who had been taken into the alae after Foreth. Like Ulf he had learned fast and become a reliable armiger. I had made him a decurio when I formed the ninth pennon. I had thought long and hard about doing it, but I had never had any reason to doubt his loyalty and he was the best of the possibilities. It would have been unfair to pass over him because of the color of his skin or because he had fought against us twelve years ago. "I haven't heard anything," he said. "Arling hates me even more than he hates all of you; he calls those of us who ride with you traitors. But I can tell you this; he won't land just anywhere, he will land where he thinks the land will be with him, and that is Tevin. Sweyn made the sacrifice there and Arling will think that the gods will listen to him because of that. Also, Sweyn's son and daughter by

Gerda Hakonsdottar are in Caer Linder with their mother, and Arling will want to secure them."

"I'm surprised he won't want to kill them as rivals," ap Madog said. "The daughter must be what, eighteen or so by now? And the son was born the year before Foreth, so he'll be twelve or thirteen? That's old enough to be worrying, considering both of them have been brought up by Alf win and in our Peace."

Cynrig looked shocked. "No Jarnish king would ever kill his nephews. Even apart from the impiety, which

Mother Frith would punish, who of his huscarls would risk his honor to stand beside a man who would do such a thing?"

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"Sweyn killed his own daughter!" Govien objected. "You just said so and we all know it. He slaughtered her like a deer as a sacrifice."

"That was his daughter, not his nephew," Cynrig explained, then, seeing our faces, he laughed. "It does make a difference! But it's hard to explain. And that was a sacrifice, which is a different thing. In any case many of us thought Sweyn was wrong to do that, and we were right, as events proved. Sweyn's old wife, Hulda, never forgave him for killing the girl or for marrying Gerda."