The Prize in the Game (18 page)

"I'll have to go back to Connat at the Feast of the Mother next year," she said, not looking at him, her hands busy with the reins. "You think your parents are difficult but you don't know what my mother's like for making arrangements people don't want. We should get something sorted out before that."

"I don't want to be away from you either. Maybe you could speak to my parents and I could speak tomdash"

Conal began.

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"Look out!" Leary screamed, much too close. Conal could hear the horses and chariot tearing down toward them out of control. Emer dropped her reins and leaped to the side. He followed her, diving to the ground and rolling, coming up just in time to see what happened. The chariot careened past them, almost through where they had been standing. The iron wheels looked huge and much too near. He could picture one of them rolling over Emer's head, crushing it, almost as vividly as if it had really happened. His heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it would beat its way out of his chest. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.

Emer's horses, spooked, ran in different directions. Leary seemed to be drivingmdashor attempting to drivemdashthe chariot, though it was clearly out of control. There was no sign of Nid anywhere. He was pulling the horses to the left, to get as far from Conal and Emer as he could, or maybe in the hope of making a circle around the field and drawing the team to a halt when they were exhausted. But when the gelding bolted in one direction and the mare in the other, she went straight into the side of the hurtling chariot. Conal felt frozen in place. He could see what was about to happen. He held his breath. Emer clutched his arm.

Neither of them could do anything to prevent it. Horse and chariot met with a great crash, and the chariot collapsed in a shattering of timber. The mare screamed. Leary's bolting horses were pulled to their knees.

"Oh no," Emer said under her breath. "Oh no, oh no, oh no."

"Come on," Conal said. Starting to move was hard, but once they had begun they ran and reached the fallen chariot in a few moments. People were coming running from the stable yard; they must have heard the crash even over all the tumult. Conal took in the scene with one rapid glance. Leary was half lying over the rail, his

eyes closed. His left side was bloody and bruised. Nid was slumped on the floor of the chariot with blood on her temple, but she seemed otherwise unhurt. The mare was still alive, but breathing heavily with blood and foam around her mouth.

"Help me get them out, then look to the horses," he said to Emer. He went to the other side of the fallen chariot and began to pull Leary out. He was breathing, and Conal felt his own breath come easier for it. They had quarreled a lot in the past year, but before that, Leary had been his friend.

He laid him safely on the muddy grass and went back to help Emer pull Nid out. As he carried her over to lay beside Leary, Ap Felim and Uthidir came to help. Soon they were singing charms Conal did not know over

Leary and Nid and there was nothing he could do.

He looked up. The chariot horses had been cut free and people were seeing to them. Meithin was with Emer by the wreck looking at the mare, who was plunging wildly and struggling to breathe. They both had tears on their faces. Conal stood up and took a step towards them. He was surprised to discover that his legs quaked like a bog.

"I knew her," Emer said. Meithin made a motion, but Emer drew her knife. "Forgive me, Barley, forgive me

Rhianna," she said, made the Beastmother sign, and plunged the knife into the mare's neck.

Blood spurted out, covering them. The mare slumped for a moment, then swelled. The sun went behind a cloud. The mare's flesh fell away from her bones, like cooked meat falling away from a bone in stew. Conal could not move his eyes away. The mare's bones fell apart on the ground, and inside her there was something small and bloody and very ugly. It grew and darkened until it was unmistakably a horse, an enormous black horse, bigger than the chariot, bigger than any horse that ever was, with huge yellow teeth.

Conal did not know how his legs had given way but he was sitting staring up at the great and terrible horse shape.

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"Forgive me, Rhianna," Emer said again. She was still upright, the bloody knife in her hand, and her voice shaking only a little. Meithin, who had been beside her, was facedown on the ground.

"Thou I forgive, brave charioteer of Connat," Horse Mother said. Her voice was like the thunder of hooves towards battle. "Thou struck from mercy. But Orielmdashno. This is the third time I died at Ardmachan."

"Accident," Leary gasped. Conal half turned and saw him sitting up, looking ghastly.

Nid was still unconscious. Uthidir and ap Felim had flung themselves facedown like Meithin. "A stone struck my charioteer, and I couldn't hold the horses. The mare wasmdash"

"Careless and cruel are not far apart," Rhianna said. Conal turned back to her. Her face seemed more like a woman's now, but still with those huge rending teeth. "Once it was cruel, once it's a tool, and now it's a fool.

Beasts are not tools to bear your burdens, they are companions. Well that you learn this. I set a curse on the folk of this dun once, now I will call it to force. And all of my beasts who are here I will take."

Conal wished desperately that Conary or Inis were there to speak for Oriel. He cleared his throat to speak.

"Mother of Beasts, we love our horses and mean them no harm. We risk them in war, but only as we risk ourselves."

Rhianna stared at him, and her eye was like a woman's and a horse's at the same time. Then she nickered, and the two chariot horses and the gelding, Patches, went running towards her.

Patches was still tangled in his harness. One of the chariot horses was limping. They went right up to Beastmother and pressed close.

They did not seem even slightly afraid. Conal dared not drop his gaze. He felt she was weighing every time he had ever had to do with animals, from his childish fear of Blackie the bull to his killing the two chariot horses in the battle at Edar.

She threw back her head and shook it, like a horse bothered by a fly. "True are your words, son of Oriel, you love them," she said. "And the beasts say they stay. Still, I will bring down the curse that I gave you long, long ago bullwhen the dun here was raised. When next the red tide of battle is flowing, when folk in arms cross the borders to fight, then will my curse come to make you remember, the fighting folk of Oriel will suffer that night."

"Suffer?" Conal asked.

She reared up, dark against the sky, as tall as the dun, taller, blotting out the hill, her eyes red and her mane tossing like stormclouds. "As the mare suffered, as the mare suffered, as the mare suffered," she said, each repetition more like thunder. Then she was gone from the paddock into the sky.

Conal sat staring up at the racing clouds, his mouth still open.

14

(ELENN)

Edar wasn't much of a place. It was just a farm on a hill with a palisade around it, like hundreds of other farms. And the hall wasn't big enough for everyone, even though it had clearly been extended recently and given a fresh coat of limewash. There wasn't even a proper kitchen. The far end of the hall, the old end, had a sturdy stone fireplace. It was there that the ox had been roasted, whole. It still hung there, a little away from the fire, smelling wonderful, waiting for Amagien to come and carve it himself. There weren't enough alcoves on the hall so trestles had been set up with boards placed over them, and everyone was lined up sitting along them, Vincan fashion. She liked being able to watch everyone. There were three tables, two of them running down the hall and the top one running across. One of them was packed tightly with the farm people, one -was full of the champions and court of Oriel, including Elenn, and
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the top table was for the king, his family, and those who were being especially honored, including two of the farmers.

Conary sat at the centre of this table, with his family around him. Everyone was dressed in all their finery.

Finca looked very dignified. Elba was wearing a new overdress embroidered with pearls.

Ringabur was engaged in a long conversation with Darag about something that seemed to need lots of arm gestures. Leary put in the occasional remark. They really did look like champions now, not like boys. Conal, looking like a poet, was talking to Emer, who was looking respectable for once, with her hair combed and wearing a clean overdress. Beyond her were the two farmers, who looked clean but uncomfortable.

Elenn wished she felt more certain that Maga would approve of Emer behaving like this and being singled out.

It was certainly an honor, but it might not be the right kind of honor. She hoped Emer wouldn't do something to bring disgrace on Connat. She didn't know what her sister could do to disgrace them, but she would never have been able to imagine half the things Emer had done already.

Emer was wearing a gold arm-ring Conary had given her after the battle, and another one of thick twisted bronze snakes which Conal had given her.

Elenn didn't know if it was right of her to accept them, but she was quite glad she had them now, because she was too young to have adornment of her own and without those she'd have been the only one at the king's table bare of it, except for the farmers, of course.

"In Lossia, they eat lying down," Ferdia said. The other good thing about the seating was that she could sit between Ferdia and Orlam, a little way down the right side of the champions' table. No ordinary seating arrangement would have put her with both of them for a formal feast. She would normally have been tucked away in an alcove with Emer and Atha and some of the lesser champions of Oriel.

"Lying down?" she asked, trying to picture people eating stretched out on the floormdashor maybe they ate in their beds? "That's absurd."

"It's true," Orlam confirmed. "There are two songs that mention it."

Orlam was looking especially beautiful. She was wearing a pale blue overdress, a gold arm-ring on each arm, and a circlet of silver and pearls on her head. She made Elenn feel very young. It didn't matter if Amagien had written a song about how beautiful she was, her friend had so much more style. She herself was wearing the overdress Maga had sent for the Feast of Bel.

Lacking adornment, she had made herself a headdress of dusk-purple daisies, which sat comfortably on her black braided hair.

"How do they do it?" Elenn asked.

"I don't know," Orlam said. "I'd imagine they'd suffer a great deal from indigestion." They laughed.

"Where is Lossia anyway?" Ferdia asked.

"Far off across the sea, beyond Tir Tanagiri, beyond Vinca, way off farther than anyone's been,"

Orlam said, looking dreamy. "I'd like to go one day and see what's really in the wide world."

"Raiding?" Ferdia asked, looking interested. "My father has raided Demedia."

"Farther than Demedia, and not raiding, just exploring," Orlam said. "Just to see what they do and what they eat ..."

"And how they eat," Elenn put in, smiling. "I'd like to do that, too."

"I'd like to eat now, I'm starving," Ferdia said.

"Well, you're about to get lucky. Here comes Amagien at last," Orlam said "Be quiet."

People were shushing each other all around the tables as Amagien came in. He was dressed in his best for the occasion, glittering with what must be every tore and arm-ring and brooch he had ever won as a poet.

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Elenn's heart sank to see that he was carrying his little harp. She saw Leary whisper something to Darag and roll his eyes and wondered if they too would rather leave music until after they'd had a chance to eat.

"Be welcome to my hall of Edar, King Conary, champions of Oriel, Atha of the Isles, prince of Lagin, and princesses of Connat," Elenn inclined her head politely as she was mentioned. Emer visibly squirmed, at the top table, though it was no more than courtesy.

"Never was such a splendid company gathered in this hall, nor were such splendid deeds done at Edar as those we gather here to honor today. Edar was threatened, and on the very first day of summer. With only the folk of the farm and two chariots with their charioteers, my son Conal beat off an attack by Atha ap Gren herself and by the champions of the Isles." Now it was Conal who squirmed. Some of the farmers didn't look very happy to hear their part played down so much.

"Nothing can be sufficient to honor those who fought and fell, those whose names will always be remembered. This feast is my small offering for those who fought and lived to see the victory. The herd was saved, until today when one of them will be served up to you." It was a feeble enough joke, but people were laughing at it, so Elenn made herself smile politely. Orlam's stomach growled.

"I have made no praise song for the victory at Edar. It is a little much for a poet to write praise songs for their own family. But Gabran ap Dair has made a song, which I shall sing now before we eat."

Everyone's face fell a little, even Conary and Finca lost a little of their air of pleased expectancy.

People kept looking at the fine roasted meat as if to ask whether letting it get cold was a good idea. Only ap Fathag settled back comfortably as people usually did while harps were tuned.

Amagien began to sing. His voice and his playing -were as good as ever. Elenn had heard the song before, when ap Dair first performed it in Ardmachan, so there were no surprises. When it came to the part about the cooperation between Connat and Oriel, she glanced at her sister.

Conal and Emer were both listening with sober expressions and their heads down. If Elenn hadn't known that Emer had been brought up properly she would have wondered if they could be holding hands under the table.