There was nothing kneeling before him now, where the blade (too smoothly, almost no resistance) had gone. Alun understood. It was a soul, not a mortal body. It had died long ago. He was stabbing hearth smoke and memory.
He told himself that, again and again, as he besought light (besought) for each of them, one by one, as they came and knelt and he did what they had drawn him here to do for them. He became aware of how grateful he was that Brynn had stayed, after all, that he wasn’t here alone to do this in the dark, wrapped in sorrow, hearing that aching joy in each of them at their release, the sound they made.
His hand was steady, each time, over and again. He owed them that, having been chosen for this. Exchanges in spirit woods, he was thinking. A hammer laid down in one forest that a sword might be lifted from under a boulder in another. Thorkell’s life for his and Athelbert’s, and so many others on that slope today (mortals, all).
He had no idea how much time had passed or if, indeed, it had.
He looked down upon the last of these kneeling souls taken once, and discarded, by the faerie queen. He offered his prayer for it and plunged the sword and heard the cry, and saw this last one flicker and drift from sight as the others had done. Nothing green left glimmering in the glade. And so this, Alun thought, was the last exchange, final balancing, an ending.
He, too, was young. To be forgiven this error, as the others were.
He heard music. Looked up. Behind him, Brynn began, quietly, to pray.
Light upon the water, pale, as if moonlight were falling. And then the light (which was not moonlight) took shape, attained form, and Alun saw, for a second time, faeries coming across the surface of the pool, to the sound of flutes and bells and instruments he did not know. He saw the queen (again), borne in her open litter, very tall, slim, clothed in what would be silk or something finer, silver-hued (like his sword). Faeries, passing by.
Or not, in fact, passing. Not this time. The music stopped. He heard Brynn behind him, ceaselessly speaking the invocation of light, the first, the simplest prayer. The dog was silent, still. Alun looked at the queen, and then made himself look beside her.
Dai was there, as he had been before (so little time would have passed for them, he thought). He was riding a white mare with ribbons in her mane, and the queen was reaching out and holding him by the hand.
Silence upon the water. Brynn’s murmuring the only sound in the glade. Alun looked at that shining company, and at his brother (his brother’s taken soul). Without having intended to, he knelt then on the grass. His turn to kneel. They were so far inside the half-world; only with mercy would they ever come out, and faeries were never known for mercy, in the tales.
They did make bargains, though, with mortals they favoured, and there can be a final balancing, though we might not expect it or know when it has come.
Kneeling, looking upon that tall, pale, exquisite queen in her silvered light upon water, he saw her gesture, a movement of one hand, and he saw who came forward, obedient, dutiful, from among those in her train, to her side. No sound. Brynn, he realized, had fallen silent.
Grave, unsmiling, achingly beautiful, the faerie queen gestured again, twice, looking straight at Alun, and so he understood—finally—that there could be indulgence, mercy, a blessing, even, entangled with all sorrows (the cup from which we drink). She reached out one arm and laid it like a barrier before the small, slim figure of the one who had come forward. The one he knew, had spoken to, had lain with in a forest, on the grass.
Will you come back into the wood?
Will you sorrow if I do not? he had asked.
Her hair was changing hues, as he watched, golden to dark violet, to silver, like the queen’s. He knew these changes, knew this about her. From behind the barrier of that arm, that banning, she looked at him, and then she turned her head away and gazed at the figure on the other side of the queen, and Alun followed her glance, and began, now, to weep.
Final balancing. The queen of the faeries released his brother’s hand. And with those fingers, a gesture smooth as water falling, she motioned for Dai to go forward, if he wished.
If he wished. He was still wrapped (like a raiment) in his mortal shape, not green and twisted away from it as the others had been. He was too new, still her favoured one, riding the white mare at her side, holding her hand amid their music, upon water, in the night woods, within the faerie mounds.
If he wished. How did one leave this? Go from that shining? Alun wanted (so much) to call to him, but tears were pouring down his face and his throat was blocked with grief, so he could only watch as his brother (his brother’s soul) turned to look at the queen in her litter beside him. He was too far away for Alun to see what expression was on his face: sorrow, anger, fear, yearning, puzzlement? Release?
It is, as has long been said, the nature of the Cyngael that in the midst of brightest, shining joy, they carry an awareness of sorrows to come, an ending that waits, the curving of the arc. It is their way, the source of music in their voices, and—perhaps—what allows them to leave the shining behind, in due time, when others cannot do so. Gifts are treasured, known not to be forever.
Dai twitched the reins of his mare and moved forward, alone, across the water. Alun heard Brynn again, praying behind him. He looked, for one brief moment (that could be made to last a lifetime if held clearly enough in memory) upon the faerie that had come to him, his own gift, a shining left behind, and saw her raise a hand to him from behind the arm of the queen. Final balancing.
Dai reached the water’s edge, dismounted. Walked across the grass. Not hovering as the others had, not yet, still clothed in the form his brother had known. Alun made himself stand still. He held the Volgan’s sword.
Dai stopped in front of him. He did not smile, or speak (no words spoken, across that divide). Nor did he kneel, Owyn of Cadyr’s older, slain son. Not before a younger brother. One could even smile at that perhaps, later. Dai spread his feet a little, as if to steady himself. Alun was remembering the morning they had ridden north from home, coming here. Other memories followed, in waves. How could they not, here? He looked into his brother’s eyes and saw that they had changed (were still changing). It seemed to him there were stars to be seen there, a strangeness so great.
“Let there be light for you,” he murmured, scarcely able to speak.
“Let it be done with love,” said Brynn behind him, soft as a benison, words that seemed to be from some ancient liturgy Alun didn’t know.
“How not?” he said. To Brynn, to Dai, to the bright queen and all her faeries (and the one he was losing now), to the dark night and the stars. He drew back the sword a last time and drove it into his brother’s chest, to accept the queen’s gift of his soul, the balancing, and set it free to find its harbour, after all.
When he looked up again, Dai was gone (was gone) and the faeries had disappeared, all that shining. It was dark upon the water and in the glade. He drew a ragged breath, felt himself shivering. There was a sound. The dog, come up to nuzzle him at the hip. Alun put a trembling hand down, touched its fur between the ears. Another sound. He turned towards it wordlessly, and he let Brynn ap Hywll gather him in his arms as a father would, with his own father so far away.
They stood so for a long time before they moved. Brynn claimed the scabbard, wrapped the sword in its cloth again, as before, and they walked over and he laid it in the hollow where it had been. Then he looked up. It was dark. The torches had burned out.
“Will you help me, lad?” he asked. “This accursed boulder has grown. It is heavier than it used to be, I swear.”
“I’ve heard they do that,” said Alun quietly. He knew what the other man was doing. A different kind of gift. Together, shoulders to the great rock, they rolled it back and covered the Volgan’s sword again. Then they left the wood, Cafall beside them, and came out under stars, above Brynnfell. Lanterns were burning down there, to guide them back.
There was another torch, as well, nearer to them.
&n
bsp; SHE HAD WAITED by the gate the last time, when her father went up. This time Rhiannon slipped out of the yard amidst the chaos of returning. Her mother was arranging for a meal to be served to all those who had come to their aid, invited, and unexpectedly from the farms west, where someone—a girl, it seemed—had seen the Erlings passing and run a warning home.
You honoured such people. Rhiannon knew she was needed, ought to be with her mother, but she also knew that her father and Alun ab Owyn were in the wood again. Brynn had told his wife where he was going, though not why. Rhiannon was unable to attend to whatever duties were hers until they came out from the trees.
Standing on the slope above their farmyard, she listened to the bustling sounds below and thought about what it was a woman could do, and could not. Waiting, she thought, was so much a part of their lives. Her mother, giving swift, incisive orders down below, might call that nonsense, but Rhiannon didn’t think it was. There was no anger in her any more, or any real feeling of defiance, though she knew she shouldn’t be up here.
Needful as night she had said in the hall at the end of spring, entirely aware of the effect it would have. She’d been younger then, Rhiannon thought. Here she was, after nightfall, and she couldn’t have said what it was she needed. An ending, she’d decided, to whatever had begun that other night.
She heard a noise. The two men came out from the trees and stood there, the grey dog beside Alun. She saw them both look down upon the farmhouse and the lights. Then her father turned to her.
“Jad be thanked,” Rhiannon said.
“Truly,” he replied.
He came over and brushed her forehead with his lips, as was his habit. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder. Alun ab Owyn had stayed where he was, just clear of the last trees. “I need to drink and drink,” Brynn said. “Both at once. I’ll see you below.” He went over and took both horses’ reins and led them down.
She was unexpectedly calm. The springtime seemed so long ago. The wind had died down, the smoke from her torch rose up nearly straight.
“Did you—?”
“I have so much—”
They both stopped. Rhiannon laughed a little. He did not. She waited. He cleared his throat. “I have so much need of your forgiveness,” he said.
“After what you did?” she said. “Coming here again?”
He shook his head. “What I said to you—”
This, she could address. “You said some things in grief and loss, on the night your brother died.”
He shook his head. “It was … more than that.”
She had stood by the gate, seen her father go up. The two of them had just come out of the wood. She knew something of this. She said, “Then it was more. And you are the more to be forgiven.”
“You are gracious too. I have no right … ”
“None of us has a right to grace,” Rhiannon said. “It comes sometimes. That night … I asked you to come to me. To sing.”
“I know. I remember. Of course.”
“Will you sing for me tonight?”
He hesitated. “I … I am not certain that I … ”
“For all of us,” she amended carefully. “In the hall. We are honouring those who came to help us.”
He rubbed at his chin. He was very tired, she saw. “That would be better,” he said quietly.
That would be better. Some paths, some doorways, some people were not to be yours, though the slightest difference in the rippling of time might have made them so. A tossed pebble landing a little sooner, a little later. She looked at him, standing this near, the two of them alone in darkness, and she knew she would never entirely move beyond what had happened to her that night at the end of spring, but it was all right. It would have to be all right. You could live with this, with much worse.
“Will you come down, my lord?” she said.
“I will follow you, my lady, if I may. I am not … entirely ready. I will do better after some moments alone.”
“I can understand that,” Rhiannon said. She could. He’d been in the half-world, would have a long way back to travel. She turned away from him and started down.
Just outside the gate to the yard, a shadow moved away from the fence.
“My lady,” said the shadow. “Your mother said you would be up that slope and unlikely to welcome someone following. I thought I would risk coming this far.” Her torchlight fell upon Athelbert as he bowed.
He had come through the spirit wood to bring them a warning. They were not even allies of his people. He was the king’s heir of the Anglcyn. He had come out to wait for her.
Rhiannon had a vision then of her life to come, the burdens and the opportunities of it, and it was not unacceptable to her. There would be joys and sorrows, as there always were, the taste of the latter present in the wine of such happiness as mortals were allowed. She could do much for her people, she thought, and life was not without its duties.
“My mother,” she said, looking up at him by the light of his lifted torch, “is generally right, but not always so.”
“It is,” said Athelbert, smiling, “a terrible thing when a parent is always right. You’d have to meet my father to see what I mean.”
They walked into the yard together. Rhiannon closed and latched the gate behind her, the way they had all been taught to do, against what might be out there in the night.
HE WASN’T ALONE. He had said that he needed to be, but it was a dissembling.
Sitting on the grass above Brynnfell, not far from where he’d first walked up to the faerie (he could see the sapling to his left), Alun set about shaping and sending a thought, again and again in his mind.
It is over. It begins. It is over. It begins.
He had no idea what the boundary markers of this might be, if she could sense anything from him, the way he’d been so painfully open to the images she’d sent. But he stayed there, his dog beside him, and he shaped those words, wondering.
Then wonder ceased and a greater wonder began, for he felt her presence again, and caught (soundlessly, within) a note of laughter. It is over. If you are very fortunate, and I am feeling generous, it begins.
Alun laughed aloud in the darkness. He would never be entirely alone again, he realized. It might not have been a blessing, but it was, because of what she was, and he knew it from the beginning, that same night, looking down upon the farm.
He stood up, and so did the dog. There were lights below, food and wine, companionship against the night, people waiting for him, with their needs. He could make music for them.
Come back to me, he heard.
Joy. The other taste in sorrow’s cup.
CHAPTER XVII
Nine nights after leaving Brynnfell, as they rowed into the wind back east, skirting close to Ferrieres to be as far from Aeldred’s ships as they could, Bern realized that his father had spoken a last word to him.
It was a bright night, both moons in the sky, a little more light than was entirely safe for them. He remained thinking for some time longer, hands to his oar in the night. He rocked his body back and forth, pulling through the sea, tasting salt spray and memories. Then he lifted his voice and called out to Brand.
They were treating him differently now. Brand came directly over. He listened as Thorkell Einarson’s son shared a thought which seemed to Leofson to come, under the two moons, as guidance from a spirit (burned with all proper rites on a strand in Llywerth) benevolently mindful of their fate.
At dawn they lashed the ships together on choppy seas and took counsel. They were Jormsvik mercenaries, feared through the north, and they’d had humiliations beyond endurance on this journey. Here was a chance to come home with honour, not trammelled in shame. There were reasons to roll these dice. It was past the end of raiding season; they’d be entirely unexpected. They could still land nearly a hundred men, and Carloman of Ferrieres had his hands full (Garr Hoddson pointed out) farther east with the Karchites, who were being pushed towards him by the horsemen of Waleska.
And most of them had heard—and each now believed he understood—the last cry of Thorkell Einarson, who’d lost a single combat deliberately, to save their lives. Brand One-eye had stopped even trying to proclaim it otherwise.
There was no dissent.
They put the ships ashore in a shallow cove west of the Brienne River mouth. They knew roughly where Champieres was, though not with certainty. Since the Volgan’s raid, no one had been back to that hidden valley where kings of Ferrieres were laid to rest, chanted over by holy men. In the early years, they’d known it would be guarded after what had happened. And later, it was as though Champieres had become sacred to the Erlings too, in Siggur’s memory.
Well, there were limits to that, weren’t there? A new generation had its needs.
They did, in the event, know enough to find it: beyond the river, an east-west valley, entered from the east. It wasn’t hugely difficult for trained, experienced men.
What followed, three nights later, was what tended to follow when the Erlings came. They sacked the royal sanctuary of the Sleepless Ones, set it afire, killed three dozen clerics and guards (not enough fighting men any more, Garr had been right about the Karchites). They lost only eight of their own. Carried—loading the horses, burdened like beasts themselves—sacks of silver and gold artifacts, coins, candlesticks, censers and sun disks, royal gems, jewel-hilted blades (none silver, not this time), ivory caskets, coffers of sandalwood and ebony, spices and manuscripts (men paid for those), and a score of slaves, whipped towards the ships, to serve them in Jormsvik or be sold in a market town.
A raid as gloriously triumphant as anyone could remember.
An echo, even, of what the Volgan had done. Enough looted to leave each one of them wealthy, even after the share given over to the treasury when they came home.
A hearth fire story, too. You could hear the skalds already! The dying hero’s last word, Volgan’s friend, understood only by his son one night at sea, sending them to Champieres, where the father had been twenty-five years and more ago. In the name of Ingavin, it made a saga by itself!