Song Of Unmaking

Euan suspected that one other was privy to that knowledge. He bowed to his father, though Niall was too far gone to see. “I’ll be back,” he said to his mother. “Don’t let anyone else near him while I’m gone.”

Her eyes widened slightly, but she asked no questions. She took up her stitching again.

It was only after Euan had passed the door that it dawned on him. That was not a shirt she was making. It was a shroud.

Euan had a fair hunt to find Gothard. He was not in the priests’ house—as far as Euan dared to enter it—nor was he in the guesthouse or the young men’s house or the hall. At last, in the darkness before dawn, Euan clambered up the crumbling stair to the top of the tower.

It was a steep and dangerous way in the dark, but Euan had climbed it often enough when he was younger. His feet still remembered which steps were safe and which were rotten. There were more of the latter now, one or two of which nearly cost him his neck, but he made his way past them.

The tower’s roof had once been higher—by how much, even legend was not sure. It was high enough now that if Euan stood at the parapet he could see clear across the moor to the low squat of hill that was Dun Gralloch.

Gothard was in the middle of the roof, lying on his back with his eyes full of starlight. Euan considered throttling him, but that could grow tedious with repetition. He stood over Gothard instead, blocking the starlight, and said, “Take your spell off my father.”

Gothard blinked as if he had roused from a dream. “What? Spell? There is no—”

“Poison, then. Whatever it is, undo it.”

“I’ve done nothing,” Gothard said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can see why not,” said Gothard, “but it is true. He’s dying all by himself.”

“He was before you came here,” Euan said. “You’ve been kindly helping him on his way. Don’t try to deny it again. I can smell magic. He reeks of it.”

“Therefore it must be my magic?” Gothard inquired.

“Who else would it be? And don’t,” said Euan through clenched teeth, “go blaming my son.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gothard said. He sat up. “I have something for you. Look.”

He tossed it toward Euan. Euan caught it before it could fall.

It was a stone, round and flat and polished smooth. His hand tingled when he caught it. He almost flung it down, but his fingers closed over it instead. “What’s this? A spell to finish my father off?”

“It’s a seeing-stone,” said Gothard. “Look in it. Think of what you want to see, and there it will be. Wouldn’t you like to know where the emperor’s armies are?”

“You know I would,” Euan said. “What’s the price?”

“It’s part of our bargain,” said Gothard. “If it helps you win the war, so much the better.”

Euan looked down at the stone. It was the size and shape of the mirror that an imperial lady would carry with her to ascertain that her face was properly painted. Not, he thought, that one particular imperial woman would care for such a thing.

The stone shimmered as if reflecting starlight. Before he could turn his eyes away, the shimmer brightened and cleared. She was there, with the glow of lamplight on her face, turning the pages of a book.

Her hair was longer than he remembered but still cut short. She was wearing the grey coat of a rider-candidate. That was what, more than anything else, she had wanted. It seemed that she had won it.

He could have reached out and touched her. It was a great effort to resist.

She seemed unaware of his eyes on her. When he wondered who else was in the room with her, the stone showed him an empty room and, more to the point, an empty bed.

It surprised him how glad he was to see that. Euan was alive and standing on this tower because of her, but he was not the man she had chosen. That one…

The vision in the stone began to shift. Euan wrenched his mind away from Valeria’s lover. He did not want to see the man or know where he was or even if he was alive. He turned his thoughts to the emperor instead.

And there was Artorius to the life, asleep in a lofty bed, not only alive but clearly well—despite what Gothard had said of him.

“You see?” Gothard said in his ear. “Ask it to show you armies and it will—and all their plans and strategies, too. Imagine a king of the people with such a toy. For once in all the years of war between the people and the empire, one of our kings will have the same advantage as the emperor and his generals.”

“‘Our’ kings?” Euan asked. “You’ve taken sides, have you?”

“It’s not obvious?”

“With you, I never know.” Euan covered the stone and slipped it into his belt. “I don’t suppose there’s a way to stop the enemy from seeing what we’re up to.”

“There might be,” said Gothard. “It’s more magic. What will your father say to that?”

“When he wakes, I’ll ask him,” Euan said.

Gothard smiled. The words hung in the air, though he had not said them. Ah, but will he wake?

“If he doesn’t,” Euan said very softly, “I will know whose fault it is.”

“And then what will you do? Hand me over to the priests all over again? They’re afraid of me, cousin. They worship oblivion but none of them is in a great hurry to get there.”

“I am reminded,” said Euan, “of the man who took a snake for a wife. She cooked his dinner, wove his war cloaks, and bore his children for other women to suckle—because after all, snakes have no breasts. She was all the wife a man could ask for, and she served him in every way. Then one night, after she had fed him his dinner and made love to him until he roared like a bull, she sank her fangs in his neck.”

“And so he died,” said Gothard, “but he died happy. He had everything he wanted.”

“Except his life,” Euan said.

Gothard shrugged. “What’s life for a man who has to live weak, sick and old? Maybe she was giving him a gift. You worship the One, whose dearest child is nothingness. You should understand that.”

“Not when it comes to my father.”

“Is that sentiment, cousin?” said Gothard. “I’d never have thought to see it in you. The old man is dying of his own accord and in his own time. When he’s gone, you’ll be king of the Calletani—which is halfway to where you want to be. I should think you’d embrace it.”

Euan’s head was aching. Gothard’s voice buzzed in his ears. It was a webwork of lies and half lies and twisted truth, but he could not muster an answer to it. It wanted him to give up, lie back, and let it happen.

What else could he do? He had taken this snake to wife. He used it, just as it used him. He had to hope that when the fangs flashed toward his neck, he was fast enough to get away.

Nine

When Euan came down from the tower, the king was dead. He had no need to hear the wailing of the women from the hall. He felt it in his gut, a deep emptiness that left him cold and still.

It did not matter then who was to blame. The king was dead, and the clans must gather as soon as they could come to Dun Eidyn—not only to make war but to make a king.

By the evening of the day after the king died, Dun Gralloch’s chieftain and his warband had come in, and Dun Brenin’s warriors were close behind. By the third day, seven of the nine clans of the Calletani had gathered, including the royal clan. The others had sent messengers to promise that they would be there within a day or two.