The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 29

failing light of the long ago while vikings howled outside. What they had written was tinder, but tinder of a different sort, which later, in the courts of Charlemagne, had lit a different sort of fire. And now Charlemagne himself was legend, a subject of romance and fable, as distant from the present day as the Fall of Rome had been from his.

O Tubbaigh spoke in halting Danish. “Ship take hair yellow.” When David made no answer, a distant look came into his eyes. “Go with. Home see ahcheba. Ah, the grass, the grass.”

David pulled his knife and scabbard from his belt and handed it to the Muisce o Geogh captive, for such he had concluded the man was: one of the sacking horde in the wreckage of an empire, captured by a fleeing band of al-Goncuins, possibly even as the escape ship was casting forth. There were red stains on the cog’s decks that spoke of a desperate fight. O Tubbaigh hesitated. Then he snatched the knife from its scabbard and secreted it in the wraps of his turban, returning the empty scabbard to David. He said, “Smoke we two ahcheba.”

“We will smoke again,” David lied.

* * *

The o Flaherty Himself escorted David to the edge of Cill Cluanaigh and sat upon his pony beside him while the hill men disembarked from the boats and sorted themselves out for the long trek back to the Slieve ua Fhlainn.

“You’ll tell Cormac,” o Flaherty suggested.

“I’ll tell The McDermot everything I’ve seen.”

The king of Iar Connaught grunted over the careful phrasing, then he looked west, past his stronghold in the lough. “I don’t understand your loyalty to a weakling like Aedh.”

“A weakling he is, and a fool,” David admitted, “but if we demand our kings be worthy before we pay them the respect that kings are due, then all is chaos. Kings come, kings go. It’s the white rod that matters, not the fool that holds it.”

The o Flaherty pondered David’s words. “I see,” he said at last. “You are Felim’s man. You’ve been Felim’s man all along.”

“It would be awkward,” David explained, “if he killed his own brother. Turlough will see to that—should no cuckold step forward.”

O Flaherty grinned without humor. “And then Felim’s dogs will remove Turlough, with the iron shirts to back them? Sure, it’s a sad tale, then, that the Red Foreigners will upset his plans.”

David shrugged. “Life brims with the unexpected. Oh. I’m after losing my knife.”

“Are you now?”

“I think that red gilly is after taking it. I think he means to murder Tatamaigh.”

“Over the woman? She isn’t much to look at, but I don’t suppose looking is what he has in mind.”

“Maybe the woman. Maybe the smoke. It doesn’t matter. Warn Tatamaigh.”

The king of Iar Connaught scowled, suspecting some cleverness. “It would be better for you—and Felim and Cormac—if Tatamaigh were slain.”

David crossed himself piously. “The Lord commanded us to do good even for our enemies.”

* * *

David halted his party once again on the hill overlooking Lough Corrib and turned his pony round to gaze at The o Flaherty’s stronghold while awaiting the signal from the outriders that no ambush lurked. Gillapadraig trotted his pony to stand next to David’s.

“So it did come down to a woman in the end,” he said. “How much have you teased out?”

“They’re not coming,” David said. “They’ll never come; not to help Turlough, not for any reason.”

“Can you be so sure? The Normans found it worth the effort…”

David pulled on his moustache, gauged the position of the sun, and wondered if he could reach the monastery at Tuam before nightfall. “The Irish Sea is a shorter crossing than the Ocean Sea. But that is not the reason. The al-Goncuin empire is broken. The clans of the Muisce o Geogh light campfires with their books. Tatamaigh was desperate for a refuge and grasping at any straw. He would have promised o Flaherty anything. We may see a few more such boat-loads seeking the legend-lands the Danes sing of—but that is all.”

“What of these Muisce o Geogh folk, then? They are the victors, you say. Will they not come?”

“The o Flaherty is mad. Bad enough to invite the red Romans in; to invite the red Huns is pure Sweeney. They are horsemen, not sailors, and there is more wealth in the wreckage of an empire than on these poor shores. Yet they are a wild folk, and the horizon taunts them. Should o Tubbaigh escape to tell them of us…”

“Small chance of that.”

“How small is small enough? He is a bold man, and a clever one to survive as long as he has in the hands of his enemies. When Olaf steals the ship, will he not be aboard? Could I hazard his escape? Ah, darling, it’s a cruel and pitiless age we live in to spend such a life to buy a little time. Had they not burned the books, I might have hesitated.” David fell silent and tugged his chin. “There may be a blessing, though, in all this.”

“What is it?” Gillapadraig asked.

“That Tatamaigh’s crown was solid gold, was it not?”

“It had the look of it.”

“A bold man with a sword might carve himself a pretty kingdom over there, a greater one than he can ever find in these poor hills.”

Gillapadraig fell into open-mouthed silence. When he found his voice, he stammered, “Would you be leading the ui Fhlainn then into some foreign land?”

“I would not, but the prospect of gold and plunder is a sore temptation.” David turned his pony about and saw the outriders coming in from the east, signaling that it was safe to proceed. He kicked his pony in the ribs and the hill men set off at a slow mile-eating pace. “Maybe the Normans will go.”

CODY by Pat Cadigan

Pat Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and now lives in London with her family. She made her first professional sale in 1980, and has subsequently come to be regarded as one of the best new writers of her generation. Her story “Pretty Boy Crossover” has appeared on several critics’ lists as among the best science fiction stories of the 1980s, and her story “Angel” was a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the World Fantasy Award (one of the few stories ever to earn that rather unusual distinction). Her short fiction—which has appeared in most of the major markets, including Asimov’s Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—has been gathered in the collections Patterns and Dirty Work. Her first novel, Mindplayers, was released in 1987 to excellent critical response, and her second novel, Synners, released in 1991, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award as the year’s best science fiction novel, as did her third novel, Fools, making her the only writer ever to win the Clarke Award twice. Her other books include the novels Dervish Is Digital, Tea from an Empty Cup, and Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine, and, as editor, the anthology The Ultimate Cyberpunk, as well as two making-of movie books and four media tie-in novels, most recently Cellular.

Here she delivers an ingenious and suspenseful adventure that demonstrates that being the messenger can be dangerous, no matter what the message.

“Common wisdom has it,” said LaDene from where she was stretched out on the queen-sized bed, “that anyone with a tattoo on their face goes crazy within five years.”

Cody paused in his examination of his jawline in the mirror over the desk to give her a look. “You see any