to such men as I have heard fight to the death to amuse a Red Crest crowd, for the price of their next meal.’
‘Both Gault and Sinnoch will bear me out that at first I swore I’d not meddle with a kingship that was not mine.’
‘
Sa, sa
– what made you change your mind?’
There was a long silence, and Phaedrus heard by the changed sea-echoes in the cavern that the tide was on the turn. ‘Midir, as much as any other thing,’ he said at last. Then with a kind of defiance, ‘
Na
, it is simpler than that. Gault offered me a price – oh, not in gold; the whetted edge to life that I had missed somewhat since I gained my freedom from the Gladiators’ School. The price seemed to me a fair one, and so I am your man, in the way of any other Mercenary who strikes a fair bargain for his sword.’
‘So, you give us two reasons; and together, I find them good.’ Tuathal turned to the others beside the fire. ‘For myself, I am with Gault the Strong in this. How say you, my brothers?’
‘I also,’ Gallgoid said vehemently.
‘And I.’
‘And I.’
Only Andragius shrugged and held his hands to the fire. He would be able to say that he had warned them all along, he would even be able to claim that he had never agreed but been overruled by the rest of the Council, if trouble came later.
Presently they were all sitting about the fire, while the mead horn passed from hand to hand and Phaedrus, as the youngest man there, tended the thick hunks of pig-meat broiling on the red peat heart of the blaze.
They went over plans as they waited for the food to be ready; the plans that were to become action on the night before the Midwinter Fires. But, indeed, all things had been worked out long since (‘Already the horns are sounding in the hills, and the black goat dies,’ Gault had said, months ago in Corstopitum), and there was only some small point here and there to be altered because now, instead of a blinded prince to avenge, they had a long-lost prince to set back in his father’s place.
Even the mark that would tell friend from foe had been decided on, and every man of the Sun Party would wear the temple-locks of his hair plaited, the rest hanging loose. Conory, it seemed, was to manage that, setting the fashion and making sure that it spread naturally as a fashion does, between this and the night of the uprising.
Oscair said suddenly, ‘You are sure that Conory can handle it? He is more skilled with the sword than the ways of guile.’
‘He’ll handle it. He’s no fool, and he has only to cut the tip off his nose one day for half the young braves of the tribe to be lacking theirs the next.’
‘I still think,’ Gallgoid the Charioteer put in, ‘that we should have been telling Conory the truth of this matter.’
‘If he suspects—’
‘Why should he suspect?’ Gault demanded harshly. ‘It is seven years since he last saw Midir, and they were both fourteen. And in any case, it is a less risk than telling him would be. He’s as unpredictable as a woman and once told, it would be too late to untell the thing again.’
The Sun Priest, who had seemed to be far withdrawn into some inner distance of his own, looked up from the fire. ‘Furthermore, in Conory we have our one sure test. They were closer to each other than most brothers, those two; if Conory does not know that this is not Midir, then unless he makes some very great mistake, no one will ever know.’
Many torches burned at the upper end of the cavern, and in the unaccustomed light that leaped from his feet to the proudly antlered head high among the hearth smoke, the painted figure of the Horned God seemed to stand clear of the rock wall behind him. An apron of skins across the seaward entrance had been drawn tight over its pegs against the wild autumn night, and the storm-wind coughed and roared against it like the open palm of a giant on the stretched skin of some mighty drum. And between it and the driftwood fire on its raised hearth,
‘Both Gault and Sinnoch will bear me out that at first I swore I’d not meddle with a kingship that was not mine.’
‘
Sa, sa
– what made you change your mind?’
There was a long silence, and Phaedrus heard by the changed sea-echoes in the cavern that the tide was on the turn. ‘Midir, as much as any other thing,’ he said at last. Then with a kind of defiance, ‘
Na
, it is simpler than that. Gault offered me a price – oh, not in gold; the whetted edge to life that I had missed somewhat since I gained my freedom from the Gladiators’ School. The price seemed to me a fair one, and so I am your man, in the way of any other Mercenary who strikes a fair bargain for his sword.’
‘So, you give us two reasons; and together, I find them good.’ Tuathal turned to the others beside the fire. ‘For myself, I am with Gault the Strong in this. How say you, my brothers?’
‘I also,’ Gallgoid said vehemently.
‘And I.’
‘And I.’
Only Andragius shrugged and held his hands to the fire. He would be able to say that he had warned them all along, he would even be able to claim that he had never agreed but been overruled by the rest of the Council, if trouble came later.
Presently they were all sitting about the fire, while the mead horn passed from hand to hand and Phaedrus, as the youngest man there, tended the thick hunks of pig-meat broiling on the red peat heart of the blaze.
They went over plans as they waited for the food to be ready; the plans that were to become action on the night before the Midwinter Fires. But, indeed, all things had been worked out long since (‘Already the horns are sounding in the hills, and the black goat dies,’ Gault had said, months ago in Corstopitum), and there was only some small point here and there to be altered because now, instead of a blinded prince to avenge, they had a long-lost prince to set back in his father’s place.
Even the mark that would tell friend from foe had been decided on, and every man of the Sun Party would wear the temple-locks of his hair plaited, the rest hanging loose. Conory, it seemed, was to manage that, setting the fashion and making sure that it spread naturally as a fashion does, between this and the night of the uprising.
Oscair said suddenly, ‘You are sure that Conory can handle it? He is more skilled with the sword than the ways of guile.’
‘He’ll handle it. He’s no fool, and he has only to cut the tip off his nose one day for half the young braves of the tribe to be lacking theirs the next.’
‘I still think,’ Gallgoid the Charioteer put in, ‘that we should have been telling Conory the truth of this matter.’
‘If he suspects—’
‘Why should he suspect?’ Gault demanded harshly. ‘It is seven years since he last saw Midir, and they were both fourteen. And in any case, it is a less risk than telling him would be. He’s as unpredictable as a woman and once told, it would be too late to untell the thing again.’
The Sun Priest, who had seemed to be far withdrawn into some inner distance of his own, looked up from the fire. ‘Furthermore, in Conory we have our one sure test. They were closer to each other than most brothers, those two; if Conory does not know that this is not Midir, then unless he makes some very great mistake, no one will ever know.’
Many torches burned at the upper end of the cavern, and in the unaccustomed light that leaped from his feet to the proudly antlered head high among the hearth smoke, the painted figure of the Horned God seemed to stand clear of the rock wall behind him. An apron of skins across the seaward entrance had been drawn tight over its pegs against the wild autumn night, and the storm-wind coughed and roared against it like the open palm of a giant on the stretched skin of some mighty drum. And between it and the driftwood fire on its raised hearth,
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