Daughter of Lir (47 page)

Aera stared at him.

He opened his eyes. They were clouded, but much less than
before. His hand groped among the heaped fabrics of his bed, found something,
brought it out clenched in his fist. “She made this,” he said. “Help me. Help
me drink it.”

She saw how it was: how he struggled to raise it, but his
arm trembled violently, until his grip on the vial slackened. It fell to the
coverlets. It was a foreign thing, finely carved out of pale green stone, and
tiny to be so deadly.

“Did she give it to you?” Aera asked.

His head shook—tossed. “Stole it. Kept it . . .
long. Could never . . .”

“Better to kill her,” Aera said, “and set you free.”

“If she dies first, her soul enters me,” he said. “Kill me
first. Then kill her.”

Aera took up the vial. It was cold, and heavy for its size.
He lay like a dead thing, but his breath was coming in gasps. It was fear—but
not of death. Of living as he did now, bound and helpless.

Aera slipped the vial into her garments. “Can you endure
until spring? Can you do that, my lord?”

His fists clenched in the coverlets. “My death then will
only feed her power.”

“Not if we perform the rite,” she said.

“Too long,” he said. “Too long.”

She hardened her heart. “If you die now, you weaken us. If
you wait—”

“If
you
wait,” he
said, “her power will be unshakable. She will take the new heir, and take me,
and rule this tribe more completely even than before.”

“Is that so ill a thing?” Aera asked.

“Once she no longer has me,” he said, “she will break us.
She will see that the clans divide, and the kings and chieftains and warleaders
go to war with one another, and all our power scatters in the wind. No one will
remember us.”

“No,” said Aera. “Maybe once she wanted that. But now she
tastes power. She will bring the clans together under a new king, unite them
and strengthen them and drive them westward. Just as she has always driven you—toward
the lands of gold, to wealth unimaginable. She forges us into a weapon for her
hand.”

“She will destroy us,” he whispered. “However she does it,
she will conquer us all.”

He gave her no warning. He surged with startling strength,
lunged at her, bore her down. The vial flew free of her mantle. He caught it
with warrior’s swiftness. The tremors began as soon as his fingers closed about
it; but this time he did not succumb to the weakness. He linked both hands,
gasping with the effort, and brought the vial to his mouth.

She scrambled toward him. But he was too quick.

It was a swift poison. It seemed the vial had barely touched
his lips before he convulsed. “Kill,” he gasped with the last of his breath.
“Kill her.” And as he died: “Go. Live! Kill—kill—”

His will, that had been broken for so long, was strong in
his death. It drove her out as if she had been flung by a hand. She had wits at
least to cover her head and face, move without haste, slip through the
murmuring dimness and out into the cold of the winter morning.

Wisdom would have taken her back to her father’s tent, to
her loom, her sisters, her wonted tasks. But she could not be wise.

She found Emry, by the gods’ grace, alone in the young men’s
tent. Dias and the rest were preparing for a hunt: she heard them whooping and
laughing out by the horses. Emry must have been sent to look for something: he
was rummaging in a bundle of oddments, bits of fur and tanned hide,
harness-straps, arrowheads, coiled bowstrings. He took up one of those with a
grunt of satisfaction and turned, and started like a deer.

Aera was in no mood to be proper, just then. Nor could she
be discreet. “The king is dead,” she said, quite calmly she thought. “It will
be a little while before they find him.” She held out her basket, which she had
kept with her even in her flight. “Here is bread, dried meat, sweetness. For
your hunt. See that Dias is safe. Will you do that?”

“I always do that,” he said, but not as if he took much
notice of his own words. “Did you say—I thought I knew your language. But did
you say—the king—”

“The king is dead,” she said.

“Did you kill him?”

Straight to the point, and no foolishness about it, either.
She smiled at him, unable to help herself; it was the beginning of hysteria.
“No.”

“Etena?”

Her hand flicked, warding off the ill luck of the name. “No.
I wouldn’t, you see. Because I wanted him to wait, to hold on till spring. But
he couldn’t do that. He had poison. Her spells kept him from drinking it, till
he had me there. I think I made him strong enough.”

“You would strengthen any man’s spirit,” he said a little
faintly. He rallied himself: his shoulders came back, his chin came up. “You
want us to go on this hunt? It might be better if the king’s heir is here—when—”

Aera sank down where she stood. Her mind was clear. Her
heart was steady. But her knees, all at once, had lost their power to hold her
up.

He dropped to one knee in front of her. If he had touched
her, she would have broken, but he kept his hands to himself. “Lady,” he said,
“I think Dias should stay in camp. The more of his men he has about him, the
clearer it is that the succession is assured, the safer he’ll be. And, lady,” he
said, “I don’t know all the intricacies of power here, but I think it would be
less than wise to let her live.”

“He said that, too,” Aera said, “before he died.”

“I’ll do it,” Emry said. “I’ll kill her.”

She stared at him. He was not jesting, nor was it bravado.
He meant every word.

He had seemed a gentle creature, and soft, with his rich
clothes and his meek manners. But he was a warrior after all, and a king’s son.

She caught him before he could rise. “No. This is not for
you to do.”

“Who better than I? A slave, a foreigner, not bound by kin
or clan. Any of you who does it becomes subject to the laws of kinslaying. I a
slave, killing a king’s wife, am simply condemned to death. I’ll run, lady—and
maybe I’ll escape. Or maybe not. Does it matter which?”

“It matters,” she said, too low she hoped for him to hear.
Aloud she said, “You will do as I bid you. Go, stay close by Dias. Trust no
one, not even his yearmates. What must be done with Etena, I will do.”

He opened his mouth to protest.

She silenced him with a stroke of the gods’ own inspiration.
“This is a women’s matter. Do you question it?”

He bent his head. “Lady,” he said. There was enough of a
growl in it to make clear his reckoning of her wisdom, but he was too much a
man of his people to disobey her.

When he was gone, she had to stay for a while where she was.
She did not think she could walk, just then.

It dawned on her much too late, that she had not settled
with Emry whether Dias would go or stay. She had to trust that he would do what
was best.

Oh, gods. The king was dead—had sacrificed himself. And she
was utterly unprepared for it.

But so was Etena. Etena could not even know it yet; it was
still early, though it seemed as if days had passed since she watched the king
gasp out his life. Aera had to get up, to move. To be ready when the first
shriek pierced the icy air.

Metos. Metos must know. She should have gone to him at the
first. Fool that she was, and besotted, to run to the foreigner—but he had
proved useful after all. If he did as he was told. If he did not break free of
her command and get himself killed.

She raised herself to wobbling knees, and after a long
moment, to her feet. She drew a deep breath, and then another, to steady
herself. Emry had left the basket behind. She left it where it was, for the
young men to find when they came back. Carefully, a little slowly lest she
break and fall, she walked back to the makers’ circle.

Emry knew perfectly well what Aera had done to him, but he
could no more defy her than spread wings and fly.

Nor was it only obedience that held his hand. The part of
him that was prince and not simple man knew that it served Lir better to keep
Etena alive. Lir needed contention among these people. The more bitter the
battle for the kingship, the more likely it was that the tribe would crack,
even shatter.

He found Dias still among the horses, and several of his men
squabbling amiably over taking out chariots. There was snow, but wind and sun
had thinned it. It would not be such heavy going, they insisted: just enough to
keep the teams from running wild.

Dias seemed disinclined to call a halt to the bickering. He
was whiling the time with one of the young stallions, who, it appeared, had
been broken to harness but not to ride. The horse was amenable to bit and saddle-fleece,
but he sidled and snorted at the man leaning over his back.

Emry moved in to take the bridle and gentle the stallion.
Dias swung up and landed lightly. The stallion staggered but held his ground.
Emry from below, Dias from above stroked him till he stretched his neck and
sighed.

Dias slid down to stand again by the stallion’s side. Again
he mounted and dismounted, and then a third time. When he had done that, he
looked Emry in the face. “Tell me,” he said.

Emry had thought himself sufficiently masked, but it seemed
he was not. He had had a shock, to be sure; he was still reeling with it.

He considered keeping silent or evading the question. Better
not, he thought. “Your father is dead,” he said.

Dias frowned. “That is not a thing for jests here.”

“Nor in my country,” Emry said.

“You said—” Dias leaned toward him. “If you are lying or
mocking or playing a game of princes, I will have you dragged behind yonder
chariot.”

“I tell the Goddess’ own truth,” Emry said, “through the
lady Aera. He is dead. He took his life in her presence.”

“Gods,” said Dias. He had gone white. “Oh, gods.” He
straightened. “Then why do we hear nothing? The women should all be wailing.”

“No one knows but the lady Aera,” said Emry, “and we two.
He’ll be found soon, but—”

“She came to you? She told
you
?”

“She came to your tent,” Emry said, “and I was there.”

“You belong to Etena. And she told you. What, is she trying
to get herself killed?”

“I am no danger to her,” Emry said. “She thought that you
would be wiser to stay in camp, and not be out hunting when they find him.”

“When they—Gods.” Dias scraped his hand across his face.
“This means that I’m—”

“Yes.”

“I’m not ready.”

“I think,” said Emry, “that few princes are.”

“I have to be ready,” Dias said. He stiffened his back. “I
must be strong enough. I must—be—king.”

“I think,” Emry said slowly, “that you should take it into
your head to visit Metos. This squabble will go on all day, and you weary of
it, yes? And we all know the hunting is abominable, unless we ride far; and is
that snow I smell on the wind?”

Dias smiled thinly. “You’re a clever man,” he said. “Now
swear to me that you do none of this in your mistress’ name.”

“By my own name I swear it,” Emry said.

Dias nodded, satisfied. He and Emry between them freed the
young stallion of his bridle and saddle-fleece, and let him run back to the
herd of his fellows.

Dias called easily to some of the warband who were standing
about. “Aias, Kletas, Borias! Come.”

They were willing. The others glanced at them, but the
squabble was erupting into a fight. That was more entertaining than whatever
Dias might be up to.

The three who went with him were his most trusted friends,
the ones who were closest to him. Emry took note of that. Dias was thinking
like a prince, if not quite, yet, like a king.

o0o

Metos was waiting in his tent. Being Metos, he worked at
something while he waited: carving a casting-mold for a bit made of copper
rather than bone.

He looked up at the young men’s coming. Emry had seldom seen
him look at a human creature; he kept his attention for the works of his hands.
But he looked at Dias, and then at each of the others, and at Emry last of all.
His eyes were piercingly keen. Emry began to believe what the tribesmen said,
that this was a god.

He seemed to be alone. But Emry sensed another presence
behind a curtain, the mingling of softness and brilliance that was Aera.

That was well. Aias and Kletas and Borias, innocent of the
thing that had brought Dias here, bent their heads in respect to Metos and sat
politely until he was ready to speak. Dias prowled the space that, though not
wide, was empty enough to indulge his restlessness.

Aera emerged, veiled, from behind the curtain. She brought
cups, jars, a basket of bread. There was salt with it, very precious, very
rare, so that the young men’s brows rose.

The jars were full of honey mead, the summer wine of the
tribe. The bread was newly made. Even Dias ate a little bread dipped in salt,
and drank a sip of the mead. This was a ritual, a ceremony that bound them all
to more than simple hospitality.

Emry shared it. He might not have done that, but Aera
brought the basket and a jar and a cup to him, eyes lowered in the propriety of
the tribe. So was he too bound, and this council sealed to the silence of those
who took part in it.

Once the needs of hospitality were fulfilled, Aera did not
retreat behind her curtain. She sat quietly in a corner, out of sight of most
of them, but not Emry.

Metos, as the host, spoke first. He had drunk a cup of mead
and eaten half a loaf of bread. He belched, as was polite, and said, “If I were
a wise king, I would send men now, before the truth comes out, and take the
woman captive.”

“The woman is a witch,” Dias said. “Who will dare take her?
She turns men to toads, it’s said, and shrivels their members till they piddle
like women.”

His companions glanced at one another. They could not but
know whom he spoke of. Hands flicked, warding off the omen.