I, shaking, killed none.
So it was that Drustan found us, the Cruarch of Alba, woad-patterned arms splashed to the elbows with gore, his face grimly exultant, the brown horse lathered and blown. The victorious army plunged raggedly through the copse, shouting behind him. He drew up, looked at his mother and his living sisters, their similar faces telling the same grief; and Moiread, the youngest, her smile forevermore stilled. "Ah, no. No."
We gathered to one side; Joscelin kneeling in Cassiline penance, Hyacinthe with bowed head. Necthana rose, grave and sorrowing. "The Cullach Gorrym has taken his due," she said quietly. "My son, who rules in Alba?"
Drustan turned his head; a chariot plunged toward him, Eamonn’s, his face streaked with dust and blood. Behind the chariot bounced a corpse, a large young man, red-haired, his dead face locked in a grimace, flesh abraded. Maelcon. "I do, Mother," Drustan answered softly. "The Usurper is dead."
"Slain by the Cruarch’s own hand!" Eamonn shouted, lashing his team closer. Then he saw, and drew rein. "Dagda Mor, no."
"For every victory," Necthana whispered, her great dark eyes shining with a mother’s tears, "there is a price."
Chapter Seventy-Three
We did not ride into Bryn Gorrydum that day, but remained at the battle-site.
Our poets do not sing of the dire aftermath of war, of the horror and stench of it, strewn bodies, entrails spilled beneath the sun and stinking, ravens plucking gobbets of flesh, the buzzing clouds of flies that gather-nor of mass graves, or the horrid effort of digging, warriors cursing flies and wiping the sweat from their brows.
Some twelve hundred of the Tarbh Cro survived to surrender; thousands had been killed. It had been a slaughter when the Cullach Gorrym had boiled over the edge of the valley; they’d been caught unprepared, on lower ground, by the very enemy they’d thought to surprise.
Only Maelcon’s hostage-takers had succeeded at that, I thought, and they were all dead too.
I worked as one with Necthana and her daughters, her surviving daughters, bearing water into the battlefield, for the dying and the laboring alike. I came upon Joscelin among the latter, working grimly; the dead of Drustan’s army had been gathered, eight hundred or more, and a good many of them Dalriada. They were building a cairn above them, stone by heavy stone.
He shook his head when I offered him the dipper. His face was haggard in its beauty, splashes of blood drying rust-brown and flaking on his skin, his clothing, even the thick wheat-blond cable of his braid. Poets do not sing of that, either.
"You did what you had to," I said softly to him, proferring the dipper again. "Joscelin, they drew to kill."
"I should have saved her too," he replied grimly, turning away and hoisting another stone. I let it be and moved on, offering my dipper to a Cruithne warrior who took it gratefully, gripping with both hands, throat working as he drank. And on, and on. The dying were the worst. I remembered the night Guy was killed, pressing my hands over Alcuin’s wound in Delaunay’s courtyard, desperately trying to staunch the warm, slick flow of blood. I remembered Alcuin, dying, in Delaunay’s library, his hand clenching hard on mine.
I lived it over that day, many times. I wept for them all, Cullach Gorrym and Tarbh Cro alike, prolonging their lives with the cool water they craved, while the ravens waited to claim their due.
We made camp there that night, a thousand fires blazing. A great victory had been won; Drustan did not deny them that, their celebration, though Moiread lay on a bier in state. I heard the stories that night, from Quintilius Rousse, who came limping to the fire, eyes gleaming, a great swath of bandage about his head and one tied about the calf of his left leg.
"Blessed Elua, but it was something to see!" he said, accepting a skin of wine with a sigh of relief. "Ah, Phèdre, they scattered before us, like autumn leaves before winter’s wind! And Drustan…Elua’s Balls! He went through them like a scythe, shouting for Maelcon. Savages, they are, but…ah! Eamonn and Grainne, oh, you should have seen it. The foot-soldiers surrounded the chariots, and they tore into that valley like, like…" Words failed him, and he took a swig of wine, shaking his head. "She was magnificent," he said. "But Eamonn…he fought like a tiger, I don’t mind telling you. Once that lad’s made up his mind, there’s no stopping him. But Drustan and Maelcon, oh, that was a battle."
He told it for us, then, how Maelcon came riding amid the slaughter, tall and haughty atop his grey horse. How they fought, how Drustan prevailed. And how Eamonn came to lash the Usurper’s corpse behind his chariot, Grainne his sister guarding him all the while, lashing her team so they raced in a circle about him.
It was a splendid tale, valiant and heroic.
Four of his D’Angeline sailors were dead.
"They knew, my lady," Quintilius Rousse said at last, catching my eye and hearing my silence. When had I become "my lady" to him? I tried to remember, and could not. "All those who sign on with me, you may believe it, know the risks. To die on land…it is a glorious thing. 'Tis the watery grave we fear." He looked sidelong at me in the firelight and cleared his throat. "I promised them somewhat."
"What?" He’d caught me wandering, I feared. "My lord Admiral?"
He cleared his throat again, and scratched at his bandaged skull. "I promised…I promised they’d be knighted, those that lived. At your own hand."
Doubly unawares, he’d caught me; I looked at him in surprise. "My hand?"
"You’re the Queen’s ambassador," he said gruffly. "They respect you. And you’ve the right."
"They do? I do?"
On the far side of the fire, Joscelin lifted his head. "You do, Phèdre."
It was the first he’d spoken since the cairn. I blinked at him. "If it is so, Joscelin, then you-"
"No." His voice was harsh. "Not I. I am Cassiel’s servant, and a poor one at that. But they, they deserve it."
I looked bewilderedly at Quintilius Rousse. "Let it be done, then, if they truly wish it at my hands. They’ve earned as much, and more."
The Admiral grinned and rose awkwardly, wounded leg stiff. With one hand, he placed fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle. With the other, he drew his sword and gave it unto me. It weighed more than I guessed, a curved blade, clean, but the grip still slick with the sweat of battle. I stood holding it, feeling like a child at a Masque, while the D’Angeline sailors filed one by one out of the darkness beyond the firelight.
I did it, then; Rousse supplied the words and I repeated them. In Elua’s name and that of Ysandre de la Courcel, Queen of Terre d’Ange, I bequeathed the title of Chevalier on twenty-odd D’Angeline sailors, feeling all the while an imposter. But their eyes, as they knelt, said I was somewhat else.
"Well done," Quintilius Rousse exclaimed, reclaiming his sword and clapping me on the back when it was done. "I’ll give them a fighting-name, I will. Phèdre’s Boys, I’ll call this lot! Let 'em take pride in that!"
"My lord," I said, not sure if I were laughing or weeping, "I wish you wouldn’t." Somewhere, beyond the fire, Joscelin’s eyes shone, red-rimmed with dire amusement and unshed tears.
"We are at war, little Night-Blooming Flower," the Admiral said, his breath smelling of wine. "Or so you tell me. What did you expect? If they will fight for you, well and good. If they take pride in dying for your name, so much the better. What did you think, when you bid me on this mission?"
"I don’t know," I whispered, and buried my face in my hands. I saw, in the darkness there, Waldemar Selig and twenty thousand Skaldi, the Allies of Camlach, glittering and fierce. It was not true. I had known. "Call them what you will."