The Last Light of the Sun
From the multiple award-winning author of Ysabel, Tigana and A Song for Arbonne, this powerful, moving saga evokes the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse cultures of a thousand years ago.There is nothing soft or silken about the north. The lives of men and women are as challenging as the climate and lands in which they dwell. For generations, the Erlings of Vinmark have taken their dragon-prowed ships across the seas, raiding the lands of the Cyngael and Anglcyn peoples, leaving fire and death behind. But times change, even in the north, and in a tale woven with consummate artistry, people of all three cultures find the threads of their lives unexpectedly brought together…Bern Thorkellson, punished for his father's sins, commits an act of vengeance and desperation that brings him face-to-face, across the sea, with a past he's been trying to leave behind.In the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred, the shrewd king, battling inner demons all the while, shores up his defenses with alliances and diplomacy-and with swords and arrows-while his exceptional, unpredictable sons and daughters pursue their own desires when battle comes and darkness falls in the woods.And in the valleys and shrouded hills of the Cyngael, whose voices carry music even as they feud and raid amongst each other, violence and love become deeply interwoven when the dragon ships come and Alun ab Owyn, chasing an enemy in the night, glimpses strange lights gleaming above forest pools.
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GUY GAVRIEL KAY
The Last Light of the Sun
Copyright
Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay 2004
Guy Gavriel Kay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007342075
Ebook Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780007352098 Version: 2016-10-14
for George Jonas
I have a tale for you: a stag bells;
winter pours summer has gone. The wind is high, cold; the sun is low; its course is short the sea is strong running. The bracken is very red; its shape has been hidden. The cry of the barnacle goose has become usual. Cold has taken the wings of birds. Season of ice; this is my tale.
—FROM THE LIBER HYMNORUM MANUSCRIPT
Contents
Characters
(A Partial Listing)
The Anglcyn
Aeldred, son of Gademar, King of the Anglcyn
Elswith, his queen
Osbert, son of Cuthwulf, Aeldred’s chamberlain Burgred, Earl of Denferth
The Erlings
Thorkell Einarson, “Red Thorkell,” exiled from Rabady Isle
Frigga, his wife, daughter of Skadi
Bern Thorkellson, his son
Siv, Athira, his daughters
Iord, seer of Rabady, at the women’s compound
Anrid, a woman serving at the compound
Halldr Thinshank, once governor of Rabady Isle, deceased Sturla Ulfarson “Sturla One-hand,” governor of Rabady Isle
Thira, a prostitute in Jormsvik
Kjarten Vidurson, ruling in Hlegest
Siggur Volganson, “the Volgan,” deceased
Ingemar Svidrirson, of Erlond, paying tribute to King Aeldred
Hakon Ingemarson, his son
The Cyngael
Ceinion of Llywerth, high cleric of the Cyngael, “Cingalus”
Dai ab Owyn, heir to Prince Owyn of Cadyr
Alun ab Owyn, his brother
Gryffeth ap Ludh, their cousin
Brynn ap Hywll, of Brynnfell in Arberth (and other residences), “Erling’s Bane”
Enid, his wife
Rhiannon mer Brynn, his daughter
Helda, Rania, Eirin, Rhiannon’s women
Siawn, leader of Brynn’s fighting band
Other
Firaz ibn Bakir, merchant of Fezana, in the Khalifate of Al-Rassan
Part One
Chapter I
A horse, he came to understand, was missing.
Until it was found nothing could proceed. The island marketplace was crowded on this grey morning in spring. Large, armed, bearded men were very much present, but they were not here for trade. Not today. The market would not open, no matter how appealing the goods on a ship from the south might be.
He had arrived, clearly, at the wrong time.
Firaz ibn Bakir, merchant of Fezana, deliberately embodying in his brightly coloured silks (not nearly warm enough in the cutting wind) the glorious Khalifate of Al-Rassan, could not help but see this delay as yet another trial imposed upon him for transgressions in a less than virtuous life.
It was hard for a merchant to live virtuously. Partners demanded profit, and profit was difficult to come by if one piously ignored the needs—and opportunities—of the world of the flesh. The asceticism of a desert zealot was not, ibn Bakir had long since decided, for him.
At the same time, it would be entirely unfair to suggest that he lived a life of idleness and comfort. He had just endured (with such composure as Ashar and the holy stars had granted him) three storms on the very long sea journey north and then east, afflicted, as always at sea, by a stomach that heaved like the waves, and with the roundship handled precariously by a continuously drunken captain. Drinking was a profanation of the laws of Ashar, of course, but in this matter ibn Bakir was not, lamentably, in a position to take a vigorous moral stand.
Vigour had been quite absent from him on the journey, in any case.
It was said among the Asharites, both in the eastern homelands of Ammuz and Soriyya, and in Al-Rassan, that the world of men could be divided into three groups: those living, those dead, and those at sea.
Ibn Bakir had been awake before dawn this morning, praying to the last stars of the night in thanks for his finally being numbered once more among those in the blessed first group.
Here in the remote, pagan north, at this wind-scoured island market of Rabady, he was anxious to begin trading his leather and cloth and spices and bladed weapons for furs and amber and salt and heavy barrels of dried cod (to sell in Ferrieres on the way home)—and to take immediate leave of these barbarian Erlings, who stank of fish and beer and bear grease, who could kill a man in a bargaining over prices, and who burned their leaders—savages that they were—on ships among their belongings when they died.
