The King's Peace (Sulien)

1 First came the Tanagans, hop along, hop along, then came the Vincans, dance along, dance along then came the Jarnsmen, run along, run along the gold-headed Jarnsmen to chase you all home! Children's step game If I had been armed on horseback, I could have taken them all out. Even afoot I could have made a good showing with a sword. Hand to hand I think I could have given one of them a fair match, for all they were full-grown men and I, at seventeen had not quiet all my woman's growth. I was already veteran of ten year's training and one brief battle against raiders the year before. I was strong, not just strong for a woman but strong by any measure. These were but common Jarnish ship-raiders, all but untrained in land fighting like most of their kind. They had not spent their childhoods as I had, lifting weights and swinging staves to develop their strength and speed. But here I was alone and unarmed, and there were six of them. Worst of all, they had taken me unawares. I was on my way home from one of the little farms that lay in those days inland about five miles, well within my father's lands. One of the farmers was ill, and my mother had sent me with a healing potion and a hymn to sing over her bed. I had stayed to teach the woman's son that hymn, which was needful to help keep up his mother's strength. He had a liking for tunes, so while I was there I taught him a few other lesser hymns to the Radiant Sun, two of them my own translations into the tongue of the people. The farmers in those days had their own names for the gods we all worshiped, few indeed had heard of the White God then in Derwen or elsewhere in our part of Tir Tanagiri. I was walking back singing across the fields. I was thirsty in the hot sun and thinking longingly about the little stream of good clear water that ran in the shade of the trees. I was looking up at the smoke rising over the wood from the direction of the house. I wondered who had put what on a bonfire to make such a billow on the wind. The wind was coming out of the southwest and blew the smoke away from me, the smell might have warned me. As it was, the fist I knew anything was amiss was the appearance out of the trees of half a dozen burly sea-raiders, yellow-haired, white-skinned, and ugly. I had seen a troop of them the summer before, but they still looked strange to me then. There were no Jarnsmen settled anywhere near this part of the realm in those days. They laughed to see me, showing their bad teeth, and shouted to each other in their own tongue. I fell at once into a fighting stance. I shifted my grip on the bottle that had held the potion. It was baked clay, not a good weapon but all I had. They came on, bunched together. I held my ground and looked around for what there was to help as they closed in. It was a meadow, grassy, covered in buttercups and daisies, a pleasant place where the farmers grazed the cows. There was earth to throw in their eyes. I could see no stones. The trees were not too far away, if I could make their cover I should know the ground better than the men and be able to get home. There would be fallen wood I could use for a club. Somehow I assumed without thinking about it that the raiders had just come out of their boat, and that these six were all there were of them. The first one reached me, only moments ahead of his companions. He carried a single-edged blade, typically Jarnish; it could be thought of a short sword or a long knife, as suitable for cutting brush as slashing an enemy. It was loose in his hand. He did not think me much of a challenge. I kicked his arm hard, aiming for the elbow. My foot connected with an impact I could feel all through my leg. I pun, completing the movement. He dropped the blade and clutched his arm. The second man was on me then, and I as facing him. I brought theJo Walton is the author of 'The King's Peace (Sulien)', published 2002 under ISBN 9780765343277 and ISBN 0765343274.