The Prize in the Game (14 page)

She walked towards the door with Orlam, though she wasn't sure where they were going. "I hate how even the nicest men can just turn words to emptiness like that," Orlam said.

"Oh, yes," Elenn agreed enthusiastically.

Just then Finca intercepted them. If she had once been one of the most beautiful girls of her generation she didn't show much sign of it now. She was bony and hard faced and had scars on her arms from fighting.

"Have you seen Conal?" she asked.

Elenn shook her head. "Not since I came home," Orlam said. "That's strange, now I think of it.

He was still hanging around me like a puppy dog when I last visited. But like Darag and my little brother he must be seventeen and an adult, by what I hear."

"You hear right," Finca said, and walked away without another word.

Orlam laughed quietly. "That sounds like more than too much merriment. Do you think he's been out all night with some girl my aunt disapproves of?"

"My sister," Elenn said and sighed. It would be very unfair of Finca to blame Elenn for not keeping Emer in order, but from the set of her jaw this morning, it didn't seem beyond her.

"Your sister?" Orlam said. "I thoughtmdash"

Just then Darag came into the hall. He looked as if he had not slept enough. "Elenn!" he said.

"Orlam!" Then he stood looking lost in the middle of the floor as if he had no idea what to say next. Orlam giggled, and

Elenn had to fight not to giggle herself.

"Drink water," Orlam advised kindly. "Lots of water. You'll need it."

"Have you seen Ferdia?" Darag asked. Then he looked appalled, as if he said something terribly rude, though

Elenn didn't know how he could have.

Orlam giggled again. "Not since the time I saw him with you after my brother introduced us yesterday.

Everybody seems to have lost someone this morning."

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"Who have you lost?" Darag asked, looking alarmed.

"Why, nobody," Orlam said, making her eyes wide. "But Finca is having trouble finding her little boy." Then

Orlam took Elenn's arm and took her off, leaving Darag staring after them. "People who can't hold their drink can be disgusting. Do you think he will remember the water?" Orlam said into Elenn's ear, and this time

Elenn could not keep her giggles to herself.

In other company, Elenn might have been distressed to see Ferdia looking ill and tired and making his way to the hall. Somehow, with Orlam, it just seemed like a continuation of the joke.

"Drink water," she said as a greeting.

Ferdia started and rubbed his eyes. "Thank you, I shall," he said.

"Darag is looking for you," Orlam said. "And have you seen Conal?"

"Conal? No." Ferdia said, distracted. "Where was Darag?"

Elenn had just opened her mouth to tell him, when Meithin ap Gamal came running in through the gates and pelting across the grass towards the Red Hall as fast as her legs would go. Elenn stopped and stared at her.

"What's wrong, Meithin?" Orlam called.

"Invasion from the Isles, at Edar," Meithin said without stopping. "I have to get to the king, fast."

Ferdia's eyes widened and his shoulders went back. All the laughter went out of Orlam's face.

"He's eating in the hall," she called after Meithin.

Meithin charged on into the hall. The three of them followed her. When she skidded to a halt in front of

Conary, they were only a little behind. The other folk of the dun who saw Meithin running came pressing up behind them to hear what was happening. Conary had finished eating and was talking to Finca in front of the fire.

"Invasion, from the Isles, at Edar," Meithin panted. She sounded as if she had been saying it in her head all the way. "Six ships, a hundred and four people. The folk of the dun are holding them off, under Conal ap

Amagien."

Finca's lips pressed into a hard line. Conary's eyes bulged. "Conal?" he asked, incredulously.

"We went there for the feast," Meithin said.

"He was here at sunset," Finca objected.

"We went out there after sunset," Meithin said, putting a hand to her head. "But this is all wasting time. He's there right now, fighting Atha for all I know. We need to arm and hurry to help him."

"Did you bring the chariot back and leave him there?" Finca asked. She looked so angry that Elenn took an involuntary step backward and trod on someone's foot.

"There wasn't any point in me staying, without a champion to fight or someone else to drive so I could fight,"

Meithin said.

This made sense to Elenn, but apparently not to Finca, who rushed at Meithin, her voice rising to a screech.

"Was Conal not champion enough for you that you left him there on his feet?"

"We had two chariots!" Meithin said, sidestepping just in time. Ap Carbad caught Finca before she ran into someone and straightened her as if she was a child just learning to walk.

"So Emer ap Allel drives him? Babes to the slaughter," Finca said.

Elenn suddenly felt worried herself. She had thought Conal and Emer were pretty good. But Finca had taught them to fight from a chariot, she ought to know. She bit her lip. There was nothing she could do now. She'd worry about how to tell Maga that Emer had managed to get
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herself killed if it happened.

King Conary shook himself. "To arms!" he said. "To arms, my champions! Let us ride out and defend Edar and come to the aid of my valiant nephew. Finca, have the chariots harnessed. Ap Carbad, open the

Speckled Hall. Time is short. We ride as soon as we are armed."

Everyone began to bustle about. Ferdia and Darag embraced, then rushed off to wards the Speckled Hall together, looking much less as if they were suffering the aftereffects of drinking strong ale. Meithin went off after them. Nid almost knocked Elenn over as she ran past, dressing as she went. She did not even look back to see if Elenn was all right.

Orlam stayed where she was, with Elenn, an island of stillness in the midst of the bustle. She looked torn. "I

was a champion before I went away," she said to Elenn. "Now I am bound to watch with the old and the weak and the children and be defended while others put themselves in harm's way. My little brother and my mother and father are all going, and I am staying."

"Have you sworn an oath not to fight?" Elenn asked.

"No, one not to be killed needlessly," Orlam said, putting her hand to her hair, cut in a lawspeaker's crop.

"And one not to fight when there are other good choices. If it were a case of defending the hall and everyone needed, I should take up my arms again, it not being so long since I laid them down that I would have forgotten the use of them. But for a raid on a May morning? A hundred and four of Atha's people against all the champions of Oriel and the spearmen of Edar?

They don't need me, and there is no honor to me to fight those who would find themselves cursed for killing me."

"Amagien fights," Elenn said.

"That rests on his soul," Orlam said. "But if someone's parents were to ask me to judge recompense when a poet had killed their child who was piously avoiding hurting them in such a battle, the laws would not find the poet guiltless. I do not wish to go to this fight." All the same, her eyes followed Meithin until she was right out of the hall. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just as bad for you, because your sister is in the battle. But next year you will be able to go out and fight, and I never will again."

"I don't know why I'm not more worried about my sister than I am," Elenn said. "I wasn't worried at all until I

saw how worried Finca was."

"Finca fusses over Conal, though never where it would do him any good," Orlam said. "He was shaping up well when I last saw him, better than Leary. Unless he's stopped practicing since then, I doubt he'd get your sister killed. Not and survive himself, in any case, which may not be much comfort if he's fighting one to one against Atha ap Gren, but it's something."

"We should go and cheer them off," Elenn said, hoping it might brighten Orlam's thoughts.

Orlam hissed like a cat. Elenn looked at her in surprise. Orlam laughed. "It isn't so much even that I want to fight," she said. "It's how much I hate not being able to do anything."

"Oh!" Elenn said. "I understand that. I hate that too. Sometimes, even if I don't want to go, I still hate being left behind."

"Cheering them off seems like the very essence of being left behind," Orlam said. "But I do see how it is our duty to do it."

They walked together down the hill, avoiding running champions and charioteers as best they could. Outside

the stables, Conary was trying to organize the people, the horses, and the chariots. There was a tremendous din as everyone shouted at once. Darag came up to Elenn and kissed her hand for luck before getting into his chariot. "Go with glory," Elenn said, as she had heard her mother
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say.

"Remember your healing charms," Orlam advised him.

He shook his head at her and laughed. "You've come back very wise, cousin, but I think it is my fighting I

shall need to remember."

"Sometimes it's the charms, if you want to fight another day," Orlam said and embraced him.

Then Amagien came up and kissed Elenn's hand, and after him Leary and his parents, and a host of other champions. Ferdia was almost the last of them. She wished she could embrace him at parting, to show her friendship, but he made no move towards it.

There was some squabbling as Conary insisted that some of the older champions stay behind as gate guards. He had to raise his voice, which would have surprised Elenn when she first came but seemed almost normal now. Then everyone mounted up. When Conary gave the signal, they all surged forward and followed him up the road around Ardmachan. Only one chariot tangled the traces and had to stop; the rest swept off as creditably as the champions of Connat could have managed.

Elenn held up her hand until they were out of sight. Then she walked back up the hill to the dun, deep in conversation with her new friend.

11

(EMER)

After she stopped being afraid and before her sword broke, it was even better than Emer had imagined it would be.

It wasn't at all like the songs. The songs never said how noisy battle was. They sometimes mentioned the clash of arms, but the clash of arms was the least part of it, after the howling of battle cries, the dissonant music of the war trumpets, and the bellowing of the cattle. Even Conal yelled out the battle cry at the top of his voice. It was deafening, like a very loud game of hurley played for some mad reason in a byre. It tested her skill to the limit, but with Conal beside her, she found herself enjoying it all enormously.

To begin with, she had been nervous. It was clear that their reputations as champions would stand or fall on what they did today. She harnessed the chariot ponies with the same hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach with which she always anticipated a quarrel with her mother.

She wiped her palms nervously on her shirt before fastening her gloves. Then Conal came to wait with her, looking calm and beautiful, like a young god in the morning of the world. She ran through all the advice she had ever been given about chariot fighting. She knew that in a fight like this, where nobody else was mounted, the most important thing was to keep moving; if they were brought to a standstill, they could be pulled down. Yet she had no other horses so she could not risk exhausting the pair she had. She worried that the horses would not fight properly, would not obey her.

She had heard of chariot teams running away from battles when the charioteer wasn't firm with them. She thought of the things Finca always said at practice. Mistakes now would not mean embarrassment and bruises, but wounding and death.

Then ap Anla painted the battle-crow across Conal's face, changing him at a stroke into a wild and fierce stranger. Hardly knowing why, Emer refused the transformation. So it was as herself that she took up the traces and drove out of the gates and down the steep slope. She felt very young and inexperienced. When the horses pulled hard and tried to turn away from the raiders, she remembered that they at least had seen battle before. It was much harder than practice getting them back under control, but after a moment, they responded to her hand on the traces. She brought the chariot up beside Meithin's. The steward who had questioned Conal's right to lead earlier was riding in it, clutching the rails and keeping his balance uneasily.

Meithin grinned at her and rolled her eyes. Emer found herself laughing, all the fear burnt off like mist in the sun now that there was something to do.

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They caught the raiders entirely unaware, scattered among the herds, trying to bring them toward the ships.

Meithin wheeled and set down the steward, then brought her mares around and set their heads for

Ardmachan. Emer turned her horses only to give Conal clear room to strike to the right. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the farmers of Edar charging down the hill. They were painted to make a fearsome sight, and they held their shields above their heads. Those who had them waved their spears, the rest waved axes or mattocks or billhooks. All of them screamed out battle cries as they ran.

Conal took down three of the invaders with his throwing spears while they were still standing openmouthed.

Anyone would have imagined he had been doing it for years. Emer gave a shout of encouragement and brought the horses around again, closer this time, forcing Crabfoot to turn in just the way he hated most. The invaders were starting to get organized, and some of them were forming a line, but most were still among the cows. Emer looked for Atha ap Gren but couldn't tell her from any of the rest of them. Several of them had limed hair. None of them had chariots, so they couldn't challenge Atha to a single combat, and there would be no fighting chariot to chariot.