The King's Name (5 page)

I didn't want to tell him anything at the moment, so I just said, "Yes." He handed me and Emer steaming beakers of hot apple juice. This was faster than he normally managed a hot drink, even on a cold day. I

thought that he must have started heating them when he heard we were at the gates.

"Peace in this hall," he said to Emer. I raised my beaker to my lips, then, despite my thirst, waited as she

murmured the response, to drink with her. Then I caught the smell and dashed it down, knocking Emer's from her hand. My cup was copper, it dented and rolled, making a ringing sound. Emer's was my mother's precious red Vincan cup, and it broke into many pieces. I grabbed Daldaf by the upper arms and lifted him off the ground.

"Nobody plays that trick twice!" I said. His look of terror was enough to convict him in my eyes.

"Who told you to poison me and why are you doing it?"

Just then Veniva swept into the hall. She smelled of rosemary, and had green stains on her apron; she must have been making up a salve. She took in the scene in a moment and raised her eyebrows. "Whatever are you doing to Dal?" she asked.

"Stopping him from poisoning me and my guest," I said. It was only then that it struck me that if Emer's drink had also been poisoned then he had actually poisoned the guest cup. It was an enormity that made Aurien's attempted kin-murder at her own table look almost acceptable.

Veniva came forward quickly. Daldaf was struggling in my grip. I had thought I was weak and tired, but I had no trouble keeping him pinned. "Did you do that?" she asked. He said nothing. I shook him, and he still said nothing. Veniva stooped to the broken pieces of her precious red cup and sniffed at one. "Henbane?" she said, in a horrified voice. "Daldaf? Why?"

"I'll never speak," he said. "The White God will protect me!" He tried to spit at me, and missed.

"It's even worse than that," I said, holding him at arm's length. "Aurien tried to poison me yesterday. Then she sent troops after us when we were on our way here, and killed Garian and Conal the Victor." I think it was the first time I'd ever referred to him as anything but Fishface, and it was then I really believed he was dead and

I'd never hear his outrageous statements again.

"Aurien did?" Veniva said. "And Daldaf is invoking the White God?"

"I'll make him talk," I said.

"He is my steward, Sulien," my mother said. "I think I know my duty. I will make him talk."

"I'm entitled to a fair trial," Daldaf said, looking frightened, as well he might.

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"So you are," Veniva said. She clapped her hands, and the hall was suddenly full of servants and people of the house. I expect they had been listening around the comers. My three decurios were shuffling their feet on the porch; she called them in as well. I gave Daldaf to ap Madog, who took a firm grip on him and pinned both his hands behind his back.

"Before all the gods who care to listen!" I said, in my loud lord's voice. "Daldaf ap Wyn, you stand accused of attempted murder of your lord and of a guest of the house by poisoning the welcome cup." This was the most impromptu justice I had ever given, but it was all quite legal.

"Have you anything to say?"

"I won't speak," he said.

"The pieces of the cup are here and the smell of henbane is still on them," I said. "I am witness to this act, and so is your other attempted victim, Emer ap Allel, queen of Dun Morr. If any would smell the cup, come and do it. That the poison is in it is not in dispute. If you did not set it there, tell me who did."

Daldaf just shook his head and said nothing.

"I ask you again if you will name the others who conspired with you in this act, or if you have anything to say that can mitigate your offense?"

"I won't speak, you can't make me!" he said again. Veniva took the curved gold comb out of her hair and twisted the loops up without it. She ran her fingers over the sharp points and smiled.

"The punishment for attempted murder is death, and the punishment for treachery is death, and the punishment for the impiety of poisoning the guest-cup you will find after death."

"The White God will protect me!" Daldaf said. There was a murmur among the onlookers, many of whom had taken the pebble.

"You are no martyr, Daldaf, only a murderer," I said. I picked up the copper cup he had given me and set it upright so anyone who wanted to could come and smell it. "I sentence you to death. As the conspiracy you are concerned with touches on matters of deep importance, and since you will not speak, you will be put to the question before you are executed. Ap Madog, take him—" We had never had to torture anyone before that I could remember. I couldn't think where would be a good place to do it. "Take him where my lady mother tells you." Ap Madog dragged him off, struggling. I gestured to two of the other armigers to go with him in case he needed help. They made their way toward Veniva. She stood and watched him for a moment, her hand on the teeth of her comb.

"You have brought disgrace on my hall," she said to Daldaf, loudly, so that everyone could hear. Then she went off toward the store rooms, the others following.

I found another cup and welcomed Emer properly to Der-wen. Then I sent out Hiveth and her whole pennon to bring back the bodies and to look out for Emlin and the pennons from Magor.

I sent a messenger to Dun Morr to inform Lew of Conal's death and Emer's safety. I gave him another message for Govien ap Caw, who was in charge of the pennons stationed there, to tell him to bring them to me as quickly as he could. Then I sent everyone back to work, making sure the guards were alert and that there would be sentries out.

Then, although I was very tired and it would have been better to wait until after Daldaf had spoken, I began to compose a message to Urdo.

—3—

Stir to life, my exiled heart, far down the mountain I see the horse of a messenger bringing letters.

News is coining to stir my blood, news from ever-bustling Vinca, politics, literature, scandal, and love.

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No longer is everything I care for out of reach.

The messenger is drawing ever nearer.

Outside my window the snow is melting.

—Naso, "The Banks of the Vonar, Number 61"

I went into the little accounts room, sat at the table by the east window, and took up pen and parchment. I

had spent many days in that room in the last five years, working on accounts, writing to Urdo, and watching the square of sunlight creep across the stone flags. Everything in my life was complicated, and only writing to

Urdo was simple. He had long wrestled with the problems of kingship and knew ways of dealing with questions that had only begun to perplex me. Therefore I wrote to him not just with news but with all the questions that came to me. Angas had told me years before that it was lonely to be a king, and now I felt it for myself. Had it not been for Urdo's letters I do not know how I could have borne it. I went to Caer Tanaga for half a month or so every year, usually at midsummer. The rest of the time duty kept me at Derwen. I had Veniva for company, I had Emlin and the ala, but it was hard and lonely. I was doing work that did not suit me and for which I had never been trained.

After Morien's death I had suddenly found myself responsible for the whole land of Derwen, for everyone and everything on it. I do not think I was a bad lord, even then, but there was so much I did not know. I learned a new respect for my father and Duke Galba. I learned administration and justice. I tried hard to be fair and to learn how to be a lord. I read Urdo's laws and now I began to understand them. Sometimes things Urdo had said about them years before when he was first thinking about them came back to me. Often our letters were about law and justice; the red-cloaks would carry discussion of some point in Dalitus back and forth for a month.

Other times I would simply pour out everything that was troubling me in one long letter. Often enough, just writing it would ease my heart, and his reply would set me quite straight again. He always replied, often within a day or two of when my message reached him. Once, when it was a problem with Cinvar ap Uthbad of

Tathal about the border above Nant Gefalion, he came himself, unannounced.

Now I sat chewing the end of my pen and slowly stripping off the feathering. I had written the salutation so many times that I didn't have to think: "From Sulien the daughter of Gwien, Lord of Derwen, at Derwen, to the

High King Urdo, War-leader of the Tanagans, at Caer Tanaga or where he may be, Greetings!" I dipped the pen again and left enough space so that when the sheet was folded and sealed the salutation would be all that was visible. "My sister Aurien," I wrote, and stopped and stared at those three words, alone with space all around them. How many times in the last five years, I wondered, had I written them thus to Urdo? How many different sentences had they begun?

"My sister Aurien doesn't want her boys trained with weapons—"

As if there was any choice for a nobly born child, or would she have us all defended against the raiders by monks of the White God? "My sister Aurien objects to my naming little Gwien heir to Derwen—" Although what else could I have done? Darien was promised to Urdo, who still had no other heir. Veniva kept on sighing for more grandchildren, saying that she had not expected this when she had borne four children. In the end I had outright told her I would never marry. Gwien was as good an heir as any child of mine and the land accepted him. Anyone would have thought Aurien would be pleased to see her two sons both become kings, but since Galba died nothing pleased her.

I ran my hands through my hair and looked at the words again. "My sister Aurien." Oh, I had known for years that Au-rien hated me, and had known it in part my fault. Still, why did she
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think she could get away with poisoning me now? The story about drink would never have worked on those who knew me best, on Veniva or on Urdo. She was no fool. There must be something I was missing, something happening I didn't know about.

She had not acted like someone mad or possessed by evil spirits, and Daldaf had been in league with her. I

kept staring at those three words, as if expecting them to develop answers instead of more questions. I stood up and paced. The little accounts room was cluttered with chests of accounts and receipts, and there was only enough clear space for three strides. One of the chests was marked in fresh, clear letters, "taxes." The summer before we had passed twenty years since we had given our hoarded gold to Urdo, and now Derwen paid tax like all the kingdoms. My mother groaned and complained and said she would have argued the gold was worth more if she had ever imagined any of us would be alive to see the day.

I looked out of the window. I could just see the gates, shut and guarded. There was no sign of the pennon coming back with Conal and Garian's bodies. The sky was full of threatening low clouds but there was no rain yet. I looked at the couch and longed to fling myself down and sleep. Things might be clearer when I woke up. I went back to the table and sat down; those three words were waiting to ambush me again. "My sister Aurien." I shook my head at them. I could feel my eyes closing and I let them. When I woke up Veniva would come and explain why Aurien hated me and what I had done wrong.

I knew I was dreaming, and yet it seemed as if it was no dream but just what I had been expecting to happen.

Veniva was in the room, dressed in a drape, white with a dark blue border. It was folded perfectly and pinned with Aurien's pearl brooch from the hoard. I noted idly that her carefully pinned hair had returned to the black it had been when I was a child. She looked entirely calm.

She was holding a big leather pouch like the ones the red-cloaks carried. "Sulien, I have come to ask your permission to send these to Aurien." She drew out of the pouch a coil of rope and a dagger. I drew in my breath. I had read in Cornelien about this ancient custom of sending the implements of suicide as a mercy to the nobly born. It had been a custom, never a law, even in Vinca long ago. I could not remember a time it had been done in living memory. "She is the mother of my grandsons," Veniva said. "Let me send these as my personal gift. Treachery needs repayment. I have raised a fine set of fools and traitors. At least let hers be a Vincan death." Then she reached into the pouch again and drew out Daldaf's head, dripping blood from the neck. He appeared to be quite alive; he looked up at me and said, "And the life of the world to come."

I woke with a start, to find not Veniva but one of the house servants bending over me. I rubbed my eyes. I felt slow and sick and stupid.

"They've brought the bodies and they wanted to know what to do with them," she stammered.

"Has my mother—is my mother there yet?" I asked, stretching and yawning.

"The wife of Gwien is still—" She hesitated. "Still in the old dairy with Daldaf."

There was a horrible taste in the back of my mouth. I did not want to watch Daldaf being tortured. "Bring me hot mint water to the hall," I said, and she scurried off toward the kitchens.

I went out into the hall, where suddenly I was being asked a hundred questions by everyone.

Most of them had to do with the daily routine of the house, which had been so terribly disrupted. I could see that we were going to need a new steward immediately. I had never quite thought how much Daldaf did.

The question of what to do with the bodies was not a simple one either.

Garian was a follower of the White God, and he had a mother, a wife, and two children at Magor. Conal, of course, was Isarnagan. His nearest relative was Lew, at Dun Morr, but his father was still alive in Oriel and

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might want his body sent home. He was one of Oriel's Royal Kin. I thought of asking Emer what she would want done, and then realized how inappropriate that would be. Yet I knew nothing about his personal relationship with the gods. I gave orders for both bodies to be laid out honorably for the time being. I sat down on the windowseat to sip my mint water and think. People kept coming up to me with questions, which I answered as best I could. In between interruptions I dozed and fretted. Despite the irritation of the interruptions I didn't want to go to bed or to try to get on with my letter. I wanted to sit in the sunshine and watch my people as I had done so many times in the last years.