The Prize in the Game (31 page)

Maga narrowed her eyes. "I am sure you could do great deeds if you were called upon to do so,"

she said and bowed in return. Her gold flashed as it caught the sun when she straightened. She turned and mounted the chariot, holding the reins to Ferdia. He took them and climbed in beside her. The looks the others gave him were envious. He would gladly have changed places with any of them.

The ponies, both dusky black mares that looked as if they had no staying power, were lively and ready to be off. They drove in silence until they were out of the camp. Ferdia had to concentrate on steering wide of tents and groups of people running about. Most of them seemed to be sharpening weapons or practicing, but there were big groups gathered around people telling stories. Nobody seemed to want to move out of his way. He was glad when they were past the press of people. The carts were waiting, drawn up on the road to Cruachan under a stand of alders. There seemed to be a great number of them.

"We will lead the way," Maga said, waving to the carters. "Go slowly and let them stay only a little way behind. We are here for their protection."

There was nobody now to hear anything Ferdia said. "What are we to protect them from?" he asked.

Maga looked at him and smiled, a smile he did not at all like. "Mostly from their own fears," she said. "But we have taken up arms, and long ago I made a law that in time of war, all supply carts will be accompanied by a chariot. It has many times saved food that we needed from being taken by the enemy."

"This is not war," Ferdia said, almost before he could think what he was saying.

"It is most like war," Maga said.

Ferdia thought it wisest not to reply to this at all. His father kept the distinction very clear.

They drove on slowly for a little while. They passed farmhouses and tilled fields and here and there a wooded spinney. The land was much like Ferdia was used to in Lagin. It would have been a pleasant drive, except that he was very aware that Maga was watching him.

"You are a fine young champion," she said after a while.

"Thank you," Ferdia replied, horribly embarrassed.

"It seems to me that you would do well against one of the Keepers of the Roads. You throw your spear straight, even when you have been surprised. You are young and strong and well trained. Yet you have not gone against them. Why is that?"

Ferdia stared between the horses' ears. She should not have asked. He could not say that he had no desire to die. "Darag is my foster brother," he said. "It would be the greatest impiety to fight him."

"Oh, yes, that little stay in Ardmachan from which we all hoped for so much and yet gained so little," Maga

said, her voice gentle. "I was against it from the start, but allowed Allel to overrule me. If Darag is your foster brother, you must know him well."

"Very well indeed." The road was rising to go over a little hill, and a dark cloud covered the sun.

"We all know he is good with a spear, but so little else about him." Maga hesitated as if she wanted Ferdia to say something.

"I can tell you what he is like, but you met him when he came to Cruachan in the contests after Amagien's

Feast," Ferdia said.

"That was for such a short while, and besides, he was on the hill or asleep for most of the time.

And such strange things he fought, too, three-headed dogs, headless ogres. Is it true that his father is a god?"

"I have heard it said," Ferdia said cautiously. "It would explain how it is that the curse has not
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laid him down."

"Such a strange curse," Maga said. "And who knows how long it will last? But if he is the son of a god, which god would it be, do you think? Or has he not confided that even to his foster brother?"

"He doesn't know," Ferdia said. "Many of the gods come to the festivals, it is said."

A soft rain started to fall. The first drops of it sent up a fresh green smell from the dust of the road. Maga drew a fold of her overdress over her head. "How curious that the god should protect him without revealing himself."

"I don't know if he's protecting him," Ferdia protested. "It could just happen that way, because of who his father is."

"If his father didn't take notice, he wouldn't have seen the three-headed dog," Maga said as if she were perfectly sure, as if the gods took her into their confidence about such things.

"No, he must know and be keeping it to himself."

Ferdia thought about what Darag had said about the strangeness. He was sure Darag had been telling the truth. He didn't want to say that to Maga. He just shook his head, feeling the dampness of his hair as he did.

"Also, some divinity must be protecting him both from the curse and from our spears, and guiding his spears to kill our champions," Maga went on in the same tone.

"He doesn't need his spears guided by the gods," Ferdia said. "He is uncommonly goodmdashfast and accurate, with good judgment as well as a good eye."

"I begin to understand why you don't want to fight him," Maga said.

Ferdia felt heat rising in his cheeks. "He is my foster brother," he repeated, and turned his face away from

Maga. The rain was heavier, but he welcomed it now. He realized he had unintentionally put on a burst of speed and he slowed carefully so the carts could keep up.

"Do you think my daughter Elenn beautiful?" Maga asked. Her voice was soft and confiding now.

Ferdia wondered how many men she had beguiled to their deaths with that question. Four at least, whom

Elenn had married, one every night for the last four nights. Nobody would ever know how many others had gone to death hoping to clear the road and win Elenn's fabled starry eyes and midnight hair. "Very beautiful,"

he said. "One of the three most beautiful women of the Island of Tir Isarnagiri, as the poet has it." Anything else would have been rude. Besides, nobody could deny that Elenn was beautiful.

"And do you not desire to win her for yourself? She loves you already."

That wretched dog, he thought at once. He was not going to die for a foolish mistake like that. Then he realized Maga could be lying, could say that to all the men as well as asking about Elenn's beauty. "My father has different marriage plans for me," he said cautiously.

"And you are such a dutiful son that you would give up your own desires? Lagin is allied to Connat. A closer alliance would please Cethern now, whatever he said before. Besides, he is sentimental. He would put your happiness before expediency."

Ferdia was by no means as confident of that as Maga seemed to be. But in any case, it wasn't the point and she clearly wanted to force the issue. He could not get away. Cruachan was not yet in sight. The land seemed green and gentle, all hard edges softened by the rain and low cloud. "I do not want to marry your daughter," he said.

Maga was not smiling now. Her eyes were very bright as she peered out beneath the fold of cloth. "You do not? What a strange man you are, Ferdia ap Cethern. You do not want Elenn, when all the other champions

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of the island want her. You will not fight Darag because he is your foster brother. As for Atha, you doubtless have some equally strong but undisclosed tie that prevents you from fighting her?"

He could say nothing. He drove on, staring forward at the endless road, up and down, the fields, the green and dripping trees.

"Has the Great Cat taken your tongue?" Maga asked at last. "No ties to Atha?"

"No," he admitted.

"Then why would a bold young man like you refuse to go against her?"

"You cannot make me go to my death for nothing," he said, finding words at last.

"Atha is the greatest champion of our age. I took up arms only a year ago. I am willing to fight in battle, eager. But going against

Atha would be certain death. It would clear no roads for you, and leave my family grieved to no gain."

"There are worse things than death," Maga said. Incredibly, she was smiling again. "Do you know ap Dair the

Poet? He is in the camp."

Ferdia did know him. He found him annoying. He had been the one to negotiate Cethern's alliance with Maga, against all Ferdia's advice. He kept bringing Maga's messages, and when Ferdia reproached him with running her errands, he said that running Maga's errands was inspiring. He said nobody could ever have imagined this war and that poets would be writing about it for generations. He was protected as a poet; nobody could kill him and so he did not fight. He talked and laughed as much as someone who had the right to boast of his deeds.

"I know him," Ferdia admitted.

Maga put a finger on Ferdia's chin, forcing his head up. "Look at the road, young champion,"

she advised.

The worst of this was that despite her impertinence she was right. It was dangerous not to pay attention, especially now that the road was slippery in the rain.

"Sorry," he said between gritted teeth.

"Ap Dair will make whatever song I tell him," Maga said. "If I tell him you are a coward, he will sing that. If I

tell him you gave a pledge to Elenn and then refused her love, he will find that material for a fine song. It will not kill you, but he is a poet of renown. You will hear it all your life, and every day you do not hear it, you will hear in every silence the certainty that people have just stopped singing it because you came along."

"How can you so insult my honor?" Ferdia asked, furious.

Maga laughed, throwing back her head and letting the fold of cloth fall so that her hair was free in the rain.

"You cannot speak of honor," she said. "You are a coward and a pledge-breaker. It is nothing but the truth."

"What do you want from me?" Ferdia wondered if he could possibly kill Maga right now and say they had been attacked by bandits, or even that she had been struck by lightning. Then he remembered the carts following along behind. They were private, but in plain sight. Maga knew what she was doing. She was always so very clever. Ferdia knew he could never hope to outsmart her.

"I want you to fight Darag and clear a way into Connat for me. The gods are protecting Darag.

Putting great champions against him seems to be doing nothing but killing the champions.

Maybe if he saw his friend and bedmate before his spear, he would hesitate and let you kill him.

Or if not, maybe if he kills his foster brother, the gods will take their hand away from him afterwards, for the impiety of the act."

It took Ferdia a moment to understand what she had said. "You are a fine one to speak to me of honor," he said.

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Maga smiled. "Neither of us have honor, so we can understand each other."

"Then why don't you send troops through the woods and leave them guarding the roads for nothing?" Ferdia asked. "It is only honor that constrains you to go against them one at a time on the roads."

"I am not going against them," Maga said. "You are. And that is why I cannot. Honor is all in appearance. Inis ap Fathag was very clever when he made me promise before everyone that I would not go around unguarded roads. If I did, everyone would know I had no honormdashand that would be if I could find enough people who would follow me without honor, which is doubtful. You might, little champion, but would your father? There are not enough of my folk who would, unless I were to make them very drunk, and maybe not even then. They fear the Ban. I cannot control Rathadun, much as I would like to."

Ferdia could not suppress a gasp of horror at the very idea. It seemed blasphemous even to think of

controlling Rathadun of the Kings. He looked at Maga, at her gold and jewels and her damp hair. There was nothing to show of the horrors inside her except a gleam in her dark eyes. If she could think these things, who else might?

"How many people are like you?" he asked, hardly knowing how he dared ask.

"Shocked, little champion?" she asked.

"Yes," he said baldly. "I meant how many people are like you and set the show of honor above the real thing?"

"You yourself are like me in that, Ferdia ap Cethern," Maga said. "And so you will go out and fight to open the road for me."

She was right, he thought. He had no honor. He had taken the gift from the dog-woman and given it to Elenn.

He was afraid to fight Atha. It would be better to die and take the name of honor down into the dark with him than to live with Maga and ap Dair singing satires about him.

"I will fight," he said. They came around the curve of the hill of Cruachan as he said it, and he saw the gates across the road no great way before him.

"Good. Then the supplies we will take back to the camp now will be for your wedding feast tonight."

"No," Ferdia said, determined. "It seems you can send me to my death, but you cannot make me marry your daughter."

"Elenn loves you," Maga said. "And you gave her the dog as pledge. What is one night, to make her happy?"

"Dead men father no children," Ferdia said. It was a proverb everyone knew. Spending one night married to her and dying would not give him an heir. "And I might yet live," he finished, not believing it, and slowing the chariot to give himself time to finish what he needed to say before they reached the gates.

"And would it be so terrible to live and be married to Elenn the Beautiful and be the envy of all men?"

"No. But it would be unendurable to have to call you mother," he replied.

Maga laughed, sounding genuinely amused for the first time since he had known her. "A betrothal, then," she said. "A betrothal you can break in a little while if you survive, but which will not break her heart if you die. I

am speaking now not for policy, but for my daughter's happiness."

They were nearly at the gates. Ferdia lowered his voice. "Much you cared about Elenn's happiness when you married her to four men the last four nights."