Alidan reached king and squire first: Alidan without her
helmet, her hair escaped from its braids, her sword hand bloody to the wrist.
But there was no wound on her. Mounted as they both were, Mirain pulled her
into a tight embrace.
For each of the others he had the same. They all had the
look of men who had passed through one of the thrice nine hells: grey and
stunned, staring without comprehension at the plain daylight.
“We tried to follow you, my lords,” Alidan said for them
all. “The shadows turned into men and fought us; we fought back. But you were
too fast for us. My lords, you shone like gods. You went deeper and deeper, and
at last we could not force our mounts forward. We tried to hold the line behind
you. It broke. Our seneldi carried us out. My lord king, any punishment you
name—”
“Punishment?” Mirain laughed painfully. “I did exactly the
same as you, and abandoned you to boot. No, my friends. You did what few other
mortal men could have done.” His eyes caught Alidan’s; he laughed again with
less pain and more mirth. “Mortal men, and one woman.”
oOo
They rode back slowly. They were barely half of the way from
the stream to the battle-lines—those lines bending outward against all
discipline to receive their king—when a horn rang. The Mad One whipped about,
Mirain’s sword flashing from its scabbard.
The enemy’s lines opened. Out of them came a single rider, a
man on a smoke-grey senel, all in grey himself with a torque of grey iron about
his neck. That and the grey banner without device proclaimed him a herald,
sacred before men and gods, owing allegiance to one chosen lord. His eyes
rested neutrally on the army, but when they touched Mirain they narrowed and
darkened.
“Men of Ianon,” he said. He had a superb voice, rich and deep,
trained to carry without effort over a great distance. “Followers of the
usurper, the one who calls himself Mirain, bastard child of a priestess and
false claimant of the throne of the mountain kings. I bring you word from your
true lord. Lay down your arms, he bids you. Yield up the boy and you shall go
free.”
“Never!” shouted Alidan, fierce and shrill. Deeper voices
echoed her.
The herald waited patiently for silence. When he had it he
spoke again. “You are loyal, if not wise. But your rightful king remembers what
you choose to forget: that you are his people. He would not willingly send his
army against you for a battle that would end only, and inevitably, in your
destruction.”
“What about the villages?” bawled a man with a voice of
brass. “What about the children cut down and burned in their houses?”
The herald continued coolly, undismayed. “The king proposes
a different course, one both ancient and honorable. Two men claim a throne
which only one may hold. Let them contend for it, body to body and life to
life: a single combat, with all spoils to the victor. Thus will none die but
one man, and the division of Ianon be healed, and the throne secured. What say
you, men of Ianon? Will you accept my lord’s proposal?”
Mirain rode forward a senel-length. The movement silenced
his army. He faced the herald, taking off his helmet and setting it on his
pommel. “Will Moranden swear to that? That the victor take all, with no
treachery and no further slaughter?”
The herald’s nostrils flared. “Have I not said so?”
Upstart
, his eyes said. He was a man who
believed in his commander.
Even from behind, Vadin heard the smile in Mirain’s voice.
“Will you condescend to take him my answer?”
“He gives you until sunset to make your choice.”
“He is generous.” The Mad One advanced another length.
Mirain’s words came bright and strong. “Tell him yes. Yes, I will do it.”
The herald bowed: barest courtesy, no more. “It is the
privilege of the challenger to choose time and place, of the challenged to
choose the weapons and the mode of battle, whether single or seconded. My lord
bids you to meet him here between the armies, tomorrow, at sunrise.”
Mirain’s bow was deeper, rebuking bare courtesy with true
courtliness. “So shall I do. We shall fight singly, overseen by one judge and
one witness of each side. As for weapons . . .” He paused. His army waited,
drawn thin with tension. “Tell your commander that I choose
no
weapons. Bare hands and bare body:
the most ancient way of all.” He bowed again. “Tomorrow at sunrise. May the
gods favor the truth.”
“Unarmed!”
Even Adjan had taken up the cry, shocked out of all dignity.
Mirain turned a deaf ear to him as to the rest, laboring first among the
healers and then, and only then, returning to his tent.
The protests had followed him; they continued as his squires
disarmed him. Blood had soaked even to his undertunic, and dried there; there
was a long breathless pause until his pursuers saw that none of it was his own.
With sudden fierce revulsion he tore at the garment, stripping it off, flinging
it as far from him as he might.
Which was, by design or chance, into Adjan’s hands. “My
lord,” the arms master said with some remnant of his usual control, “single
combat is an old and honored way of resolving conflicts. But unarmed combat—no
weapon, no armor, no defense at all—”
Mirain looked at him. Simply looked, as a stranger might, a
stranger who was a king. “If it would soothe your outraged modesty, I could
wear a loinguard.”
“The dark,” someone muttered. “He rode into it and fought
it. It’s driven him mad.”
Vadin stared the man down until he fled. That began an
exodus. Vadin remained; and Adjan, and Obri the chronicler who was like a
shadow on the wall, and Ymin with Alidan.
Olvan and Ayan, moving with great care, began to prepare the
king’s bath. They filled the broad copper basin; Mirain let them wheedle him
into the water, a letting that had no passivity in it. His eyes were still on
Adjan. “Well, Captain, would a loinguard content you?”
“Full armor would be no more than adequate. And sword and
spear and shield with it.”
“And the body of one of your northern giants.” Mirain
glanced down at himself. He had grown since he came to Han-Ianon; he would not,
after all, be so very small. Middle height in the south, perhaps, but in Ianon,
small still; smoothly and compactly made, with the lithe strength of a rider or
a swordsman.
And ensorceled surely, to have bound himself to a contest
without weapons against the most formidable fighting man in Ianon.
“No,” Mirain said with tight-reined impatience. “No. Unbind
your brains, my friends, and think. I’m skilled in arms, I know it well enough;
with the sword I may even become a master. My charger has no peer in this
kingdom. But.” He stepped out of the bath, neither flaunting his body nor
belittling it. “Moranden is a man grown, in his full prime, trained from
earliest youth in the arts of war. He can wield a larger sword, a longer spear;
if he can’t out-ride me, he can hold his own against my Mad One. While I flail
uselessly at him, he can smite me at his leisure, like a man beset by a little
child.”
“He can do the same without weapons,” snapped Adjan. “His
arms are half again as long as yours; he stands head and shoulders above you.
And he’s strong. The Python, his enemies used to call him: he strikes like a
snake, fast and deadly, with all the force of his size.”
“In the west,” said Mirain, “there is a creature. She is
small, no larger than my two hands can hold, with a long supple tail, and great
soft eyes like a lovely woman’s. She sheathes her claws in velvet. They call
her Dancer in the Grasses, and Night Singer, and most often
Issan-ulin
,
Slayer of Serpents. There is no creature swifter or fiercer or more cunning
than she. Even the great serpent-lord, the crested king, whose poison is most
deadly of all—even he falls prey to this small hunter.”
“She has claws and teeth,” Adjan said, immovable. “What have
you?”
“Hands,” he answered, “and wits. Come, sir. You’re a famous
fighter; I’ve heard you called the best master-at-arms in the north of the world.
See if you can strike me.”
The old soldier looked hard at him. He stood loose, easy,
smiling. But a keen eye could detect the tension in him.
Adjan was noted for his swift hand, whether or not it held a
weapon. As the others drew back to the walls, he shifted slightly, almost
invisibly; feinted right; lashed out with his left hand, too swift for the eye
to follow.
Mirain seemed not to have moved. But Adjan’s fist had struck
only air.
Adjan’s brows knit. He advanced a step or two. Mirain did
not retreat. “Seriously now,” he said, “strike me.”
This time Mirain’s movement was clearly visible, an
effortless, sidewise bending. He laughed. “Seize me, Adjan. Surely you can do
that. I’m in your arms already.”
He was; he was not.
Adjan lowered his hands. His face was a study; he composed
it. “So. You’re uncatchable. What use is that in a duel, unless you can land a
blow where it matters?”
Mirain stepped back with the supple grace of a cat. “You’re
angry. I’ve made you look like a fool. Attack me, Captain. Wrestle me down and
teach me to listen to your wisdom.”
There was nothing Adjan would have liked better. But he was
wary, and well he might be. He had said it before when he faced Mirain at practice
in front of the squires. In all his years of fighting and of training fighters,
he had only once seen speed to equal Mirain’s: in Moranden when the prince came
into his manhood. Three years, four, five—let the king get his growth and hone
his skill, and he would be a warrior to make songs of.
If he lived past the next sunrise.
Adjan attacked. Mirain let him come, shifting a little,
poising on the balls of his feet.
Suddenly Adjan was in the air, whirling head over heels,
sprawling amid the coverlets of Mirain’s bed. And Mirain was kneeling by him,
holding his reeling head, saying in a tone of deep contrition, “Adjan! Your
pardon, I beg you. I never meant to throw you so far.”
Adjan shut his mouth with a snap. A sound burst out of him,
a harsh bark of laughter. “Throw me, boy?
Throw
me? I weigh enough for two of you!”
Mirain bit his lip. His eyes hovered between laughter and
apology. “You do. And I used a good part of it against you. A little more and I
could have killed you.”
The arms master staggered to his feet. “Of course you could
have. The more fool I. I should have known you’d have the western art.”
“The gentle killing. Yes, I have it. I learned it of a
master, by my mother’s will. She knew I’d grow to be like her: western stature,
northern face. And people in the west, being so small beside the rest of
mankind, have learned to turn their smallness to advantage. Since they can’t
conquer by brute strength, they conquer by art. I’ve seen a child from Asanion,
a maidchild mind you, younger and smaller than I, cast down a man nigh as big
as Moranden, and kill him when he refused to yield.”
“I’ve seen something like it. It’s enough to make me believe
the stories that Asanians have interbred with devils.”
“Precisely the tale they tell of me.” Mirain rose. “Now do
you understand? With weapons I have no skill that Moranden cannot either equal
or surpass. Without them I may be able to even the balance. He’s a big man; he
relies on his strength. So too shall I.”
“I still think you’re mad. If you would see sense, find
another champion—” Adjan broke off. Abruptly and deeply he bowed, the full
obeisance of a warrior to his king. “However it ends, my lord, it will be a
battle to make songs of. There’s no power of mine that will keep you from it.”
Mirain bowed his head. Suddenly he seemed immeasurably
weary. “Please go,” he said. “All of you.”
oOo
They obeyed, none willingly. Ymin hung back, but found no
yielding in him. Slowly she retreated, letting the tent flap fall behind her.
But Vadin did not go. He made himself invisible, withdrawing
into the darkest corner, thinking not-thoughts.
It had its effect. Mirain did not glance at him; did not
order him out.
The tent seemed larger for the people who had left it, lit
by a single lamp, warm and quiet in the heart of the night. The squires had
taken the bath with them; Mirain sat where it had been, on carpets flattened by
the weight of water and basin, and set himself to a task they had not come to:
loosing and combing his hair. It was even less straight above the root of his
braid than below; cut short, it would have sprung into a riot of curls.
A shield hung from the central pole, polished to mirror
sheen. He met his reflected stare.
Vadin, invisible, unable to help himself, slipped inch by
inch into Mirain’s mind, following his thoughts as if he had spoken them aloud.
Quiet thoughts, a little wry, like the tilt of his head as
he contemplated his face. Westerners had smooth oval faces and sleek rounded
bodies and hair that curled with abandon; they were light-skinned, gold and
sometimes ivory, and often their hair was straw-pale.
Mirain had inherited none of that but the curling of his
hair. He was all dark, indubitably of Ianon: high cheekbones, arched nose,
proud thin-lipped mouth. “Imagine the alternative,” he said aloud. “Western
face, northern body. The strength to stand against Moranden as warrior to armed
warrior, without art or trickery.” He sighed. “And I would still be a boy half
grown, with size and skill yet to gain.”
He tied his hair back with a bit of cord and clasped his
knees. There was the heart of it. Moranden was strong and skilled and
implacable in his enmity; and he had strong sorcery behind him. What was to
prevent his mother and her goddess from giving him art to equal Mirain’s?
“Father,” he whispered. “Father, I am afraid.”
When he was very young, sometimes he had wept because his
hand burned him so terribly, and because he had no father he could touch or run
to or cry on. There was his mother, who was all the mother a child could wish
for, and Prince Orsan whom he called foster father, and the princess; and
Halenan, and later Elian, brother and sister in love if not in blood. But for
father he had only pain, and the distant fire of the sun, and the rites in the
temple.