Free The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton Page B

was going to be quiet for a long time. She raised her chin affirmatively. But as soon as they were gone, Darag stirred.
    "You are festival born?" he said.
    "Yes," Elenn said. There was hardly any point in denying it. "But it's a Mystery. Leary shouldn't talk about it like that."
    "He shouldn't," Darag said, very quietly. "Or Ferdia either."
    "Ferdia didn't know," Elenn said. "I didn't know."
    "My mother didn't know who my father was," Darag said. "She told my uncle he was a god."
    "I have heard stories of that happening at the Feast of Bel," Elenn said. She was starting to wish she had gone with the others. "Nive, or Lew, or Govannon coming to join the feast."
    "But my mother wasn't married," Darag said. "So it must have been a god. Or maybe not. I've never known.
    Sometimes it seems that it was just some lucky man, and other times I think it must have beenmdash" He stopped and put his head in his hands.
    "It is a Mystery, truly," Elenn said. "But it would explain a lot if it was," she added.
    "Explain, yes, but what's left for me then?" he asked. "Who would want me, or even see me, when everything
    I touch turns to wonders?" He shook his head. Elenn saw Leary and Ferdia coming back slowly, talking to a pretty girl she didn't know, laughing with her. "I know I'm not a normal man.
    Strange things happen to me.
    Omens. Portents. And I keep dreaming such strange dreams."
    "About your mother and a god?" Elenn asked gently.
    "No. Not that. I keep dreaming about how they built this dun," Darag said. Elenn blinked, surprised. "There wasn't even a hill to start with. They brought all the earth here, piling it up and up, little horses pulling it up.
    It's this place, this dun, before it was a dun." He gestured around him, as if he could see it. "One of the horses is a mare, and she's pregnant, worse, she's actually giving birth, shuddering with it, and the man, the king, keeps on driving her up with load after load, whipping her, whipping all the horses, forcing them. And then she stops and gives birth to a filly, just over there, where the Red Hall is now. And the king takes the filly and draws his knife to cut her throat. And then, talk about mysteries, then the filly changes and grows and it's Beastmother he has hold of, Rhianna herself, and she's huge and powerful, like a horse but not, like a woman too, and black, black as night, flecked all over with blood and sweat. And she shakes the man in her great teeth, and then the hill is built, all finished, but the people are clutching themselves and crying out in pain, and the horses are gone."
    "That's horrible," Elenn said and shivered.
    "I don't know why I keep dreaming it," Darag said miserably. "I don't know what it means."
    "Have you asked ap Fathag?"
    "It's impossible to ask Inis anything," Darag said. "I haven't told him. Maybe I should try. But he always looks at me as if he isn't really seeing me, or he's seeing too many of me."
    "I think you should try," Elenn said. The others were nearly up to them. She wondered who the girl was.
    Ferdia seemed to be paying a lot of attention to her. "And tell me what he says. Now, quick, stop being upset about it. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. You and I, we know who our mothers are, and for both of us that's the important thing. Don't let anyone see you're upset."
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    "I have to fight anyone who says anything against my mother's honor," Darag said.
    "When you'd kill them? Where's the honor in that?" Elenn asked. "Besides, what's against her honor to say she lay with a god in the fields on the Feast of Bel? She was the king's own sister, after all."
    "Thank you for understanding," Darag said. Elenn gave him one of her best smiles. She wasn't at all sure she understood, but she wasn't about to let him know that.
    7
    (EMER)
    She thought the best thing would be if she could provoke him into saying something disparaging about
    Connat. Anything would do. Then she could fight him in honor, without making Conal a cause.
    She thought