The year 849. Autumn came. Evil portents troubled our High Priest Retyc. We wondered if Prince Maryn were truly meant to be king. But then a woman on temple lands gave birth to twins, and one died. Retyc declared this a good omen.

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

 

In summer, the fog from the Southern Sea crept in daily at sunset and covered Dun Cerrmor with grey mist, swirling so thick along the ground that one could see it move. On the evening before she gave birth to her second son, Princess Bellyra stood at a window in the women’s hall, high up in the royal broch, and watched the fog advance. The setting sun off to the west turned the first ranks to gold, promising splendour, but once the mist invested the town, the gold faded to a cold, relentless light.

“Your highness?’ Elyssa came up beside her. ‘What’s wrong? You look so distressed.’

‘I was watching the fog. Did you see it turn from gold to grey?’

‘It always does that, your highness, this time of year.’

‘I know, but I was just thinking that my life’s rather been like that, all gold when I married, and now . . .’

Elyssa stared, her dark blue eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Although the serving woman was the older by a few years, they had been friends since childhood, but now, Bellyra supposed, Elyssa hardly knew what to make of her. She hardly knew what to make of herself at times.

It’s just the baby,’ Elyssa said at last. ‘It should come soon.’

Very soon.’ Bellyra laid both hands on her swollen belly. ‘He feels ready to move down.’

‘You’re so sure it’s a lad.’ Elyssa smiled at her. ‘I hope you’re not disappointed.’

‘I won’t be. No lass would kick her mother’s guts as hard as this little beast has.’

‘Let’s hope, anyway.’ Elyssa considered her, the smile gone. ‘Are you frightened?’

Very, but not of the labour or suchlike. It’s what came after.’

Elyssa reached out and caught the princess’s hand twixt both of hers.

“You’ll do splendidly this time. I swear it. I’ve made ever so many prayers to the Goddess.’

‘But did the Goddess give you an answer back? Oh, I’m sorry, Lyss, please, don’t look so distressed. We’ll deal with what comes if it comes.’

In the middle of the night Bellyra woke sopping wet and in pain. Her water had broken. She got out of bed, stood for a moment considering her contraction - not too bad, but strong - then flung open her bedroom door and yelled to her serving women.

‘It’s begun. Send for the midwife!’

She sat down on a wooden chest and let herself sprawl, legs akimbo. In a few moments Elyssa and Degwa came hurrying in, carrying candle lanterns. Degwa’s dark hair hung in two tidy braids, while Elyssa’s fair hair tumbled down her back, all tousled.

‘Let me just put a dress over this nightgown,’ Degwa said, ‘and then I’ll go down and wake the pages.’

‘Send young Donno,’ Elyssa said. ‘He knows the town well. And get a couple of serving lasses up here to light a fire and suchlike,’

Panting from the pain, Bellyra leaned back against the wall and let their concern cover her like a warm quilt. Servant girls came soon, and after them the midwife. By the time the dawn broke, her labour filled her world. She clung to the birthing rope and thought of naught else but the child fighting within her to get out. The pain, oddly enough, helped keep the fear at bay. When the sun was well over the horizon, the baby came with one huge squall of rage at being shoved into the light,

‘A lad!’ the midwife crowed. ‘Ah, the Goddess has favoured you again, your highness.’

‘I told you,’ Bellyra whispered. ‘Give me some water.’

The afterbirth came clean and whole. Only then did she truly feel safe. Once again, she’d had an easy birth, or so the midwife told her. Laughing and chattering, her women washed her and brought her dry nightclothes, then tucked her up in her freshly-made bed. By the time they’d drawn the hangings around her, she was asleep.

In a little while they woke her. WTien Degwa brought the new prince to her bed, he mewled like a kitten. Bellyra took him with unsteady hands and settled him at her breast. He grabbed the nipple in his mouth and began to suck the false milk so hard that her breast ached.

‘Oh, he’s so beautiful,’ Degwa crooned. ‘What a little love, isn’t he?’

‘Just so,’ Elyssa said. ‘What lovely little hands he has!’

In truth, Bellyra thought, Marro was red, wrinkled, and squashed-looking about the face still. His sprinkling of pale hair lay coarsely on his skull. She lay back on the mounded pillows and stared up at the bed hangings, embroidered with a repeating design of three ships bound round with interlacements. The ships were brown, the waves blue, and the interlacements red. She could remember embroidering them, back when she was first married and still happy.

You must be so proud,’ Degwa said. Two sons for your lord!’

‘I’d hoped for a daughter, in truth,’ Bellyra said. ‘But you remind me. How is Casyl? Jealous?’

‘Of course.’ Elyssa was smiling. ‘But I explained to him that he’ll always be the oldest and the Marked Prince, while his brother will have to make do with a lordship. I don’t think he truly understood, but he was the happier for it.’

Bellyra smiled, and at that moment her new son opened his cloudy-blue eyes and looked up at her with such an intense animal devotion that she laughed.

You are precious!’

He shut his eyes tight and slept. When Bellyra handed him back to Degwa, she could read the profound relief in her dark eyes. Elyssa too was smiling.

‘We need to send the prince the news,’ Bellyra said.

‘I thought we’d best wait a few days,’ Elyssa said, hesitating. ‘Just to make sure that little Marro lives.’

‘True spoken. Unfortunately. Still, Casyl was healthy enough, so I have hope.’

Bellyra spent the next few days in a pleasant sort of exhaustion. Although all the important men in the kingdom had followed the prince off to war, the noblewomen who lived within a day’s ride all came to see the new princeling and to offer her their congratulations. All morning she would sit with the guests and gossip. In the middle of the day the sun poured into the women’s hall; she sat in a chair at a window with her women while they embroidered the pieces of the dress she would wear when her husband was finally invested as high king. Yet every night the fog slid over the town and turned her heart cold.

All too soon the morning came that she’d been fearing. She woke, sat up, pulled back a bed curtain and burst into tears at the sight of the chamber beyond. She flung the hanging closed. For a long while she wept, until Elyssa heard and came hurrying in. She pulled back the hanging and peered round the edge.

‘I’m just so tired,’ Bellyra stammered. ‘It’s all the visitors and such. Just let me sleep a bit more.’

And yet she stayed abed all that day. Finally in the evening, when Degwa carried in the new prince for a feeding, Elyssa insisted on pulling back the bed curtains.

‘To let some air in, your highness,’ Elyssa said. ‘There. Isn’t that better?’

The cold grey fog light hung in the chamber and seemed to pick out every detail in an unnatural glare. The streaks and chips on the stone wall, the grain on the wood windowsill all seemed marks in some mysterious writing. If she could read them, she knew, they would tell her tales horrible beyond her imagining. She forced herself to look away. In the breeze from the open window tbe hangings swayed. The ships seemed to bob up and down on their embroidered waves.

“Your highness?’ Elyssa’s voice had turned tentative. You seem so sad. Would you like us to sing to you?’

‘I wouldn’t.’ Bellyra looked at her suckling and wished she didn’t hate him. ‘Get him away from me! Get him a wet nurse! It’s all starting again.’

She felt the tears run, but sitting up to wipe them away lay beyond her. Clucking and murmuring, her serving women swept the squalling baby away and at last left her alone. She managed to flop onto her side and weep into the pillow. Some long while later, Elyssa came back.

‘One of the kitchen lasses has a year-old son and lots of milk. Degwa’s making her have a bath, and then she’ll come up and take little Marro over.’

‘It’s very odd, these tears,’ Bellyra said. “They fall of their own accord.’

‘Ah, my lady! It aches my heart to see you like this again! What - I wish I could - if we only understood -’

‘I want to go to sleep. Please leave me alone.’

‘It’s not good for you to —’

‘Get out of here!’ Bellyra propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Get out of here and leave me alone!’

Elyssa fled. Bellyra could hear her whispering with other women just beyond the door, but she could understand nothing of what they said. She flopped back down onto the pillows and stared at the hangings until at last she fell asleep.

Dun Deverry lay so far to the north of sea-coast Cerrmor that the son was nearly a fortnight old before his father learned he’d been born. The messenger rode in with the news late on a sticky-hot afternoon when low clouds threatened rain. Servants rushed every which way until they at last found Prince Maryn on an outer wall of the royal dun.

With the man everyone called ‘lord’ Nevyn, his most trusted councillor, the prince was leaning over the wall, looking down at the ruins of what had once been a flourishing city, now reduced to rubble by the long years of sieges and the fires they always seemed to bring. What was left of the houses and shops stretched across a valley to another low hill, crowned with the walls and the tree-tops of the sacred grove surrounding the temple of Bel,

‘I hope to all the gods that the folk come back to rebuild,’ Maryn was saying.

‘So do I,’ Nevyn said with a wry grin. ‘But remember, there are inducements you can offer.’

They heard voices calling and turned to see a pair of pages racing down the hill, their tabards flapping around them.

Your highness, your highness! Messages from Cerrmor! Your lady’s given you another son!’

‘Splendid!’ Maryn called to them. Where’s the messenger?’

‘Up in the great hall, your highness.’

Nevyn followed Maryn down the rickety ladder. Ahead of them the grassy hill, ringed by three more walls, climbed to the fortress at the crest. With the pages leading the way they trudged up the spiralling road toward the inner fortress. Black against grey, three ravens flew overhead, cawing. With their passing the day fell hushed in homage to the coming storm. Nevyn wiped enough sweat from his face onto his sleeve to leave a wet spot.

‘You look grim,’ Maryn said abruptly. Do I, my liege? I do hope the princess is truly well.’ And not as she was the last time? Ye gods, I’ve never seen a woman so sad, and all for no reason. I thought she’d gone daft.’

She hadn’t. There were medical reasons.’ Nevyn put steel in his voice. ‘Childbirth takes some women that way.’

‘Well, so you said at the time. My apologies.’

‘Watery humours collect in a woman’s womb to feed the child. These are expelled at birth. In a few cases, there are dregs left behind, and these corrupt to vapours, producing the illness.’

‘These women’s matters!’ Maryn shuddered. ‘I thank the gods for making me a man, frankly, when I think on such things. But here, Nevyn, if this illness falls upon her again, she’ll be more comfortable in Cerrmor, and safer as well. The journey upriver might be hard on her.’

‘Don’t you want her here?’

‘What? That’s not it! Of course I do! It’s just that - well, I fear for her, that’s all. My lady has given me another son. She’s done great service to the kingdom and to my line, and I’d not risk her health in any way.’

It was all true enough, yet Maryn couldn’t look him in the eye. Oho! Nevyn thought. What’s all this?

‘I see,’ Nevyn said aloud. ‘Well, we can wait to send for her. I’ll send a message to her women and see how she fares.’

‘That’s a splendid idea. And it will be good to have her here. She’s got more common sense than ten men, when she’s herself at least. I truly respect her opinions, you know. It’s a pity that she’s not able to rule in her own right. I’d give her the blasted Cerrmor rhan and put an end to all the cursed conniving over it.’

‘By rights it would belong to her, truly.’ Nevyn considered for a moment. ‘Alas, I doubt me if we could convince either your vassals or the priests.’

Maryn laughed, nodding his agreement.

‘Don’t let me forget,’ the prince went on, ‘to send messengers to my father with this news.’

‘I’m always mindful of Pyrdon, never fear. Once you’ve settled things with the Boar clan, it’ll be time to look west, and I fear me we won’t care for the view.’

‘Oh, I agree. As soon as I claim Pyrdon, we have a war with the Eldidd on our hands.’

‘Of course. The Eldidd king is likely to back your brother, you know, as a claimant for the Pyrdon throne.’

‘Riddmar has no claim. I’m the eldest by a great many years and I have sons.’

‘Just so. But I truly wish your father’s new wife had given him a daughter.’

As they walked on, Nevyn was feeling grim. Despite the prince’s spectacular victories of this summer, they had yet to achieve the final peace. Fighting over spoils had kept many a war alive before this. And hovering on the western horizon like a sunset storm lay the kingdom of Eldidd, whose tentative claim to the Deverry throne had helped prolong the civil wars for a hundred years.

Toward noon the rain finally hit, driving everyone indoors to the great hall of the royal broch. While servants set about bringing the men ale, Councillor Oggyn bustled in. He was a stout man, Oggyn, barrel-chested and egg-bald, though his brindled black and grey beard bristled with enough hair for two men. He climbed onto a bench so he could be seen and shouted at the top of his lungs for silence. When he got it, he called out the news of the birth of the prince’s second son. The noble lords in attendance, and there were a good many of them, all cheered and clapped at the prince’s good fortune.

‘It’s their good fortune, too,’ Maddyn said. ‘It’s a hard thing to fight for a new king only to see his line shrivel and die.’

‘Just so.’ Owaen raised his tankard in semi-salute, then drank the ale off in one long swallow. Two sons make a four-fold blessing for a lord.’ He burped profoundly. ‘Pardon.’

The two silver daggers were sitting near the hearth they shared with the riders in the various lords’ warbands, across the circular great hall from the noble-born themselves. Most of Prince Maryn’s enormous army still camped at the bottom of the hill behind the outer ring of dun fortifications. Custom, however, demanded that each lord have an escort of picked men near them at all times, and the prince had his guards as well, all quartered within the dun proper.

Or what was left the Prince’s Guard, all twenty-three of them, when once a hundred men had worn the silver dagger as their badge. They had lost the rest and their leader, Caradoc, in the summer’s fighting. Now Maddyn, who was something of a bard, and Owaen, one of the best swordsmen in the entire kingdom, were supposedly leading the unit together, as Caradoc had wished. Supposedly — Maddyn doubted that the arrangement would last much longer. He cared little for command, while to Owaen it was everything.

‘We need to recruit,’ Maddyn said. The prince needs more guards than our handful.’

‘Just so.’ Owaen wiped his blond moustache dry on the back of his left hand, which sported a clot of scar tissue where the little finger should have been. ‘I’ve been approached by some of the regular Cerrmor riders.’

‘Any of them any good?’

‘They weren’t. But I’ve got my eye on a couple of other lads who can swing a sword well enough. Don’t know if they’ll fit in. What about you talk with them? You’re better at that kind of thing.’

Very well. Point them out to me.’

Owaen swung a leg over the bench and stood straddling it while he looked round the great hall.

‘They’re not here,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s see if we can find them outside somewhere.’

‘Ye gods, it’s storming out there!’

Owaen gave him a look of such disgust that Maddyn rose to join him.

‘Oh very well. Truly, it won’t shorten my days to get wet.’

They left the hall but stood for a moment under the shelter of the doorway. Rain pounded down on the cobbled ward, one of many at the heart of the fortress. Dun Deverry stood on the crest of a high hill and spilled over it, too, trailing down the sides in a jumble of towers and barracks, storage sheds and brochs. Here and there low walls surrounded a particular cluster of buildings, marked off a random-seeming ward, or cut across open space for no particular reason. Most of the buildings were squat in the broch style, wider at the base than the top. A few slender towers rose up over the confusion, though they seemed to have been built off true, because they leaned over the wards below.

Thunder cracked overhead and rolled around the towers. Owaen looked up at the dark sky and scratched his stomach in a thoughtful sort of way.

‘They won’t be out and about,’ Maddyn said, ‘these lads of yours.’

‘Maybe not. Here! What’s that?’

At the gates someone was yelling, demanding entry, and men came running to swing them wide. Escorted by pages, a rider on a black horse jogged through. He was carrying a staff wound with many-coloured ribands, plastered down at the moment with rain. His boots and brigga and his mount’s legs and belly dripped dark mud.

‘It’s a herald,’ Owaen said.

‘True spoken,’ Maddyn said. ‘And isn’t that the Boar crest on his saddle-bags?’

The herald handed his staff down to a page, then dismounted and reclaimed the soggy emblem of his office. As a stableboy led the black away, the silver daggers could see the Boar rampant quite clearly, stamped on the saddle-skirts as well as the saddle-bags.

‘Isn’t that interesting:’’ Maddyn said. ‘I wonder what Lord Braemys has to say to our prince?’

‘The gall of the man!’ Prince Maryn snarled. The stinking spiteful gall!’

‘Well, truly, your highness,’ Oggyn said. ‘It bodes ill.’

Nevyn propped his elbows on the table and considered the piece of parchment lying in front of him. The three men were sitting in the prince’s private council chamber, where the prince had pressed Nevyn into service as a scribe to read privately the letter from Braemys of the Boar. A cold wind flapped the cowhides hanging over the windows and swirled round the stone room. The candles guttered dangerously low. Nevyn grabbed the parchment and held it flat.

‘I must admit,’ the prince said, ‘that I’m not looking forward to spending a winter here. The summer storms are bad enough. Listen to that rain come down!’

‘True spoken, my liege,’ Nevyn said. ‘But if this is how Braemys thinks a man sues for peace, then you’d best not leave Dun Deverry. He might move right in and call himself king.’

‘Just so, my prince,’ Oggyn put in. ‘His arrogance astounds me.’

‘He mentions Tibryn’s son, the new gwerbret. What is he, still a child?’

‘Just that, my liege, about seven years old,’ Oggyn said. ‘By a second wife. Nevyn, what did you say the child’s name was?’

Nevyn read the letter aloud once again. To the Usurper, Maryn, Prince of Pyrdon. It is my understanding that you hold among your court’s womenfolk Lillorigga, daughter of the Boar clan. Since she has been formally betrothed to me, I demand her immediate release and return to me at Cantrae. Braemys of the Boar, Regent to Lwvan, Gwerbret Cantrae.’

That was all, but the salutation spoke clearly enough for a stack of parchments.

So!’ the prince said. ‘He wants war.’

Just so, my liege,’ Nevyn said. ‘He’s taken on his father’s feud.’

‘Well, it’s his right, and he’s doing the honourable thing,’ Maryn frowned down at the table. ‘But I wish he’d seen his way clear to taking my pardon instead.’

Nevyn nodded agreement. Before this summer’s fighting had given Maryn control of Dun Deverry, the lords of the Boar clan - Braemys’s father and uncle - had ruled in their half of the divided kingdom, though technically in the name of another child, young Olaen, who claimed to be king. They were all dead now, the would-be king and the two Boar lords as well, but the civil wars, it seemed, were not yet over, not with the Boar’s son to carry them on.

‘Perhaps we can use the lass as a bargaining point,’ Oggyn said. ‘I always knew she would come in handy, like.’

‘Have you gone daft?’ Maryn leaned forward and looked Oggyn square in the face. Ye gods, after everything Lilli did for me, do you think I’d turn her over to my enemies?’

Oggyn blushed a sunset-red from his beard up and over his bald pate.

‘My apologies, my prince. I fear me I’ve overspoke myself.’

You have. Remember from now on that Lady Lillorigga is my guest, not some sort of hostage.’

‘I will, my prince. I most humbly beg your pardon.’

‘Granted, of course. But I’d not hear of this again.’

Slowly Oggyn’s colour faded to normal. Maryn leaned back in his chair and looked away absently.

‘Unless Lilli wants to many the man, of course,’ Nevyn said. ‘Then Braemys’s loyalty can be the bride-price you exact.’

Maryn turned to face him and looked for a brief moment murderous.

‘I’d not thought of that.’ The prince buried the rage in a brief smile. ‘Perhaps the lady should be asked.’

‘It would be courteous, my liege.’ Nevyn stood with a bow his way. ‘I’ll just go look for her. I hope you’ll forgive me if it takes some small while?’

‘Of course,’ Maryn said. This dun is as cursed confusing as a rabbit warren, I swear it!’

In actuality, Nevyn knew where to find Lilli, up in her chamber in the royal broch, a narrow wedge of a room with bare stone walls. Dressed in green, Lilli herself was sitting cross-legged on her bed and staring at a page of the big leather-bound book lying in front of her. When Nevyn came in she looked up and smiled. Her blonde hair, cropped short at the jawline, hung untidily around her slender face.

‘How are you doing with the reading?’ Nevyn nodded toward the book. ‘Do you remember all the letters?’

‘I do, but sounding them out one at a time is so tedious.’

‘No doubt, but it’s the best we can do for lessons. At the moment, anyway. When winter comes we’ll either be back in Cerrmor, or I’ll send for a scribe’s teaching book.’

‘Do you think we’ll go back?’

‘I have no idea.’ Nevyn sat down on a wooden chest under the single window. ‘The prince will winter here, certainly.’

Lilli glanced at the book and concentrated on closing it.

‘If the princess returns to Cerrmor,’ Nevyn went on, I’ll go, too. As my apprentice, you’ll come with me,’

‘Of course, my lord.’ Her voice held steady. ‘We’ll be much more comfortable there.’

‘And safer. We’ve heard from Braemys.’

Lilli looked up and laid a hand at her throat.

‘He still wants to many you,’ Nevyn said. ‘He claims you as his betrothed.’

‘Oh curse him!’

‘I just made a show in council of asking your opinion on the matter, but I’ll wager you don’t want to go through with the marriage.’

She shook her head.

‘Don’t let it trouble your heart,’ Nevyn said. ‘If he turns nasty and tries to press the matter, I’ll reveal the truth.’

‘That he’s my . . .’ Lilli forced out the word, ‘brother?’

‘Well, you only share a father, but that will be more than sufficient for the priests. They’ll forbid the marriage in an instant.’

‘Indeed. You know, sometimes I dream about my mother, and in the dreams I can feel just how much I hate her. She would have let me many Braemys. She would have let me — well, she saw naught wrong with sleeping in her own brother’s bed, did she?’ Lilli’s voice dropped. ‘Her brother. My father!’

‘Try not to hate her.’ Nevyn made his voice soft. ‘It will only bind you to her memory.’

Lilli started to speak, then coughed, a deep rasping noise that made her clap her hand over her mouth. She twisted round on the bed to hide her face, but he could hear her spitting something up. With her other hand she took a scrap of rag out of her kirtle and wiped her mouth and hand both.

‘That sounds nasty,’ Nevyn said. ‘How long have you been coughing like this?’

‘Just since this morning.’ Lilli turned back. ‘It’s the damp. I always get like this in the summer rains.’

‘Indeed? I’ll make you up some herbwater, and you’d best have a poultice for your chest, too.’

‘It’s naught.’

‘Huh! You’ll drink the herbwater anyway. As hot as you can stand it.’

‘Oh very well.’ Lilli reached up to shove a strand of her awkward hair back behind her ear. ‘It’ll be a comfort, I’ll admit it.’

‘I’ll be back as soon as the prince has no need of me.’

When Nevyn returned to the council chamber, he found Maryn waiting there alone, standing at the window and staring out at the rain. He turned when Nevyn shut the door.

‘I gave Oggyn leave to go,’ Maryn said. ‘His blunder was eating at him.’

‘That was kind of you, my liege.’

‘Politic, anyway.’ Maryn shrugged. ‘What does Lilli say?’

‘She has absolutely no desire to marry Braemys, your highness.’

‘Splendid! We’ll send the herald back with a message that will blister Lord Braemys’s ears for him.’

‘Shall we compose it now, my liege?’

‘Let me think on it a bit. We’ll consult later, and then I’ll summon a scribe - wait. Braemys sent his herald to carry a letter, but his herald shall hear my answer. Let it look like I’m not taking him seriously enough to have it written out.’

Nevyn left the prince and went up to his own chamber, a small round room perched at the very top of a tower. It held a narrow cot, a single chair, a small unsteady table, a charcoal brazier, and a large pile of his belongings — sacks and small chests, mostly crammed with packets of herbs and roots, as well as what few pieces of spare clothing he owned. Into an empty sack he put the medicaments he needed, mostly liquorice root and a few simples, then went back down.

But when he reached Lilli’s chamber, he found the door open and her gone. Inside, one of her maidservants was setting down a basket of charcoal near the bronze brazier that stood near the head of the bed.

Where’s your mistress, lass?’ Nevyn said.

‘Gone off somewhere, my lord. A man from the king’s guards came up a little while ago and asked her to talk with him.’

‘One of the silver daggers? Which one?’

‘Branoic, my lord.’

‘Ah. I thought it might be he.’ Nevyn paused as a thought struck him. ‘Here, about Prince Maryn? He’s not king yet.’

‘Oh, we all know what the priests say, my lord, but he’s king enough for us,’

‘I see.’ Nevyn had to smile, ‘Well, my thanks. I’ll just leave these things here, then, for later. Don’t touch them.’

‘Have no fear of that, my lord!’ The lass looked at his bundle with deep suspicion. ‘Are evil spirits going to pop out of that?’

‘} doubt it very much. Just don’t touch it, and you won’t be in any danger.’

Nevyn was walking back down the corridor to the stairs when he met Oggyn, hurrying toward him and carrying an armload of the sort of parchment rolls chamberlains use to note taxes and other dues.

‘Lord Nevyn, a moment of your time,’ Oggyn said. “There’s somewhat I want to lay before the prince, but after my horrible blunder, I’m afeared to.’

‘Oh here!’ Nevyn said. ‘I’d not worry about that if I were you. The prince has forgiven and forgotten.’

‘I truly hope you’re right. At any rate, it concerns the taxes and dues from this demesne, Dun Deverry’s own lands and holdings, I mean. Could you tell me when he’s well disposed to consider such things?’

‘Most assuredly, but I do think you could approach him yourself without harm.’

‘It’s not just that cursed blunder.’ Oggyn looked puzzled. ‘Lately he’s been much distracted. Deciphering bis moods is a difficult thing.’

‘Well, of course! Ye gods, he spent his whole life battling toward this day, when he’d have Dun Deverry for his own. Ever since he was a child, truly — and now he has it. And so it’s over, that entire part of his life. It’s left him feeling spent.’

‘I see. Ah, how I wish I had your wise knowledge of the hearts of men!’

Nevyn refrained from making a sharp remark about hearts that resort to flattering those they in truth dislike. It was better to have Oggyn indebted to him, after all, than at odds.

In the great hall of Dun Deverry low fires smouldered in the pair of hearths to drive off the damp. Although the draughts won the battle for the centre of the room, near the fire it was warm enough for Lilli to breathe easily. She sat with Branoic on a bench close to the honour hearth, where her noble birth gave her the right to be. Branoic looked so uneasy at being out of his usual place among the prince’s guard that she laughed at him. Every time someone walked toward them he would half-rise from his seat, an act that only made him the more noticeable. Even for a Deverry warrior he was a big man, a good head over six feet tall and broad in the shoulders. When she’d first met him, the spring past, she’d thought him beefy, but the summer’s fighting had turned him hard-muscled and lean.

‘Oh, do sit still!’ she said. ‘No one’s going to chase you away like a dog or suchlike.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. I keep wondering what your foster-brother would say if he saw me at your side.’

‘I doubt if he’d say anything.’

‘Huh! As if he doesn’t know that I’m common-born and a bastard to boot, while you’re a —’

‘A lady, sure enough, but one with no dowry, no land, and no kin but him. I see no reason to give myself airs.’

‘So!’ Branoic grinned at her. ‘You don’t really enjoy my company. I’m merely the best suitor you can get, eh?’

‘Oh hold your tongue! What would you do if I said you were right?’

They shared a laugh. Over the general noise in the hall, Lilli heard pages shouting, ‘The prince, the prince!’ She looked up and saw Maryn coming down the stone staircase with pages marching before him and Nevyn and Oggyn trailing after, hard-pressed to keep up. Maryn never simply walked; he strode, always ready to leap like a stag, it seemed, just for the sheer joy of it. Although he was a handsome man, with blond hair and deep-set grey eyes, he could have been ugly and still captivated. Whenever he walked into a room, it seemed that he brought with him life and power, spilling over onto everything he touched and everyone he acknowledged. The entire great hall fell silent to watch him do something as simple as coming down the stairs.

When she realized that Maryn was heading for them, Lilli stood and curtsied. Branoic slid off the bench and knelt on one knee, his head bent respectfully.

‘Good morrow, Lady Lillorigga,’ Maryn said. ‘Branno, you can get up if you’d like.’

‘My thanks, my prince,’Branoic said.’My apologies for being where I don’t belong.’

‘Oh come now!’ Maryn was smiling at him. ‘And how could I hold it against any man for wanting the company of such a beautiful lass as our Lilli?’

Lilli felt her face burning with a blush. Maryn glanced her way, and for a moment their eyes met, just the briefest of moments before his gaze travelled on, but all at once she wondered if her hopeless feeling for him was so hopeless after all. She hastily looked away and saw Nevyn, watching all of this with his hands on his hips and steel in his ice-blue eyes. Behind him Councillor Oggyn stood clasping an untidy heap of parchments to his chest.

‘My liege?’ Nevyn said. ‘My apprentice and I have work to do. If you’ll excuse us?’

‘Of course,’ Maryn said. ‘You have my leave to go.’

‘My thanks. Oggyn wishes to discuss some important matters of finance with you, should that please your highness. I strongly suggest that you do so. Lilli, come along.’

Nevyn turned on his heel and started back across the great hall. Lilli curtsied again to the prince, smiled at Branoic, then rushed after the old man.

In silence they walked up the stairway, slowly to let her catch her breath, but once they reached her chamber and the door was safely barred, Nevyn turned to her.

‘I’ve warned you before,’ he snapped. “The prince may amuse himself with women as he chooses. For the women in question, it’s not such a light-hearted thing.’

‘I know, my lord.’

‘Then try to remember it! Here, Lilli, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I don’t want to see you become a cast-off woman with a bastard child - and no place at court any more because the princess hates you. I doubt me if you’d like the life you’d have then.’

‘I wouldn’t, my lord. I know you’re right, but I feel ensorcelled or suchlike. When he walks into a room, it’s like the sun follows him in, and everything becomes larger and more alive.’

Nevyn stared at her for a moment, then did the last thing she would have expected: he laughed.

“Well, after a manner of speaking,’ Nevyn said at last, ‘you have been ensorcelled, you and half the kingdom with you. Some years ago, when I was desperately hoping for peace and doubting that I’d ever see it again, Maddyn the bard gave me a idea. If a prince came along who seemed be dweomer, everyone would flock to his banners. And so I found Maryn and made him look as magical as a king out of the Dawntime. Wildfolk follow him everywhere, Lilli. They cast glamours over him like cloaks.’

Caught without words, Lilli sat down on the edge of the bed.

You no doubt respond more than most people,’ Nevyn went on. You have the dweomer gifts, even if you can’t see the elemental spirits yet for yourself. In time you will, and then you’ll understand what I mean about the glamour.’

‘Oh ye gods! I feel like such a dolt.’

‘Why? I happen to cast a rather good spell. It’s fooled thousands of other people, after all.’

At that Lilli could look up and find him smiling at her. She started to laugh, but in the damp air of her chamber her lungs ached. The laugh turned into a racking cough.

‘Huh, that sounds worse and worse,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ve brought some medicinals for it. Let me brew you up some, and then I need to ask Oggyn about getting you a chamber with a proper hearth. I’d forgotten about this dun, how cold it always seems to be.’

‘Did you live here once?’

‘Once. Before you were born. A very very long time ago.’

Although Lilli wanted to ask more, he turned away and began to rummage through his sack of medicinals so resolutely that she knew the subject had been closed.

That evening the prince summoned Nevyn to his private quarters in the heart of the royal broch. A page led him up a winding stone stair to a heavy oak door, worn smooth and grimy with age and smoke. It opened into a dim suite of rooms hung with threadbare tapestries and stuffed with decrepit furniture. Fat candles burned in smoke-stained sconces on the stone walls. Nevyn picked his way around three carved chests to sit in one of the many chairs the prince offered him. It creaked alarmingly under him. The prince himself perched on the edge of a wobbly table.

‘The splendour of the royal palace!’ Maryn said, grinning.

‘Indeed, my liege. These people certainly never rid themselves of anything, did they?’

‘Not their chairs nor their kingdom, not willingly. Though if the siege had gone on all winter, most of this would have ended up as firewood.’

‘Most likely, truly.’

The prince paused, as if thinking something through. Nevyn folded his hands in his lap and waited. The guttering light from the candles threw shadows across the beamed ceiling and made him remember a time when torches had lit this room, two hundred years ago. He’d been young and a prince himself, then, and this broch new-built. More than two hundred years now, he thought. Gods! no wonder I grow weary!

‘There’s a matter I need attended to,’ Maryn said abruptly. ‘It concerns the Lady Lillorigga.’

‘How so, your highness?’

‘No matter how much we consider Lilli a daughter of the Rams of Hendyr, and certainly Tieryn Anasyn calls her naught but sister, by birthright she’s still a Boar. When I proscribe the Boar clan and attaint their lands, it will go ill with her if she falls under the dominion of the proclamation.’

‘I’m very glad you remembered that. I’m afraid I’d quite forgotten.’ Nevyn was more than a little annoyed with himself for it. ‘I’ll speak to the priests of Bel tomorrow and take Anasyn with me. Before the god they can proclaim her kinship.’

‘Splendid! Do that, please.’

‘I take it that you don’t hold out much hope for Braemys swearing fealty.’

‘Do you?’ Maryn smiled with a twist of his mouth.

‘None, my liege.’ Nevyn got up. ‘When do we ride out?’

‘Soon. We’ll give the herald a decent head start for the honour of the thing, but we can’t wait long. My vassals are growing restless. They need to return to their lands to receive the autumn taxes and suchlike. I’m hoping that Braemys’s loyal lords are just as eager to quit the field.’

‘No doubt. They can’t have much stomach for more fighting. There aren’t very many of them left.’

‘Just so. We have about four thousand fighting men in good health. Braemys can’t have more than a bare thousand at the uttermost.’

‘He does have one strong ally, of course. Distance. It’s well over two hundred miles from here to Cantrae.’

Maryn swore briefly.

‘The road runs through some hilly country as well.’ Nevyn went on. ‘If I may make a suggestion, my liege?’

‘Of course.’

You’d best hold a council of war soon.  Gwerbret Daeryc of Glasloc is going to be invaluable. Glasloc lies between here and Cantrae.’

‘It doesr’ Maryn stared in puzzlement. ‘What’s he doing as overlord to the Rams, then? Hendyr lies to the west.’

“You know, I haven’t the slightest idea. I’d best ask him.’

When Nevyn left the prince, he started to return to his own chamber, but living in Dun Deverry was bringing back memories. He himself had lived in a chamber in a side broch that no longer seemed to exist — if indeed he’d correctly puzzled out the overall plan of the palace. He glanced at the candle in the lantern he carried and judged it good for a long while’s burning. Much to his surprise, he went straight to the little door that led to an obscure stairwell. He remembered climbing these steeply wound stairs two at a time; now he paused several times to rest. The stairs led him to a window little more than an arrow slit. Just opposite it there had once been a door, leading into the side broch and, eventually, to his suite. When he held up the lantern, he saw that some of the stonework formed a patch, roughly door-shaped, and much newer than the rest. His old tower, then, was indeed gone.

The stairs continued up, however, and out of curiosity he followed them to the old storeroom at the top of the royal broch. A splintering door hung at an angle from a single hinge. In his long-ago youth, two guards always stood before this door, which led to the royal treasury, but now, when Nevyn pushed the door open, he saw a pair of splayed wooden chests and a lot of dust. He heard little things scuttling away in the shadows, rats and spiders, he supposed. Holding the lantern high he took a few steps in.

Outside the tower, the wind howled, whistling through the arrow slits. In the draughts the candle flame danced, throwing drunken shadows. Nevyn hung the lantern on a rusty metal hook driven between two stones on the wall, then out of sheer idle curiosity opened the first chest. It held nothing but a pile of cloth so old it had turned stiff as straw. The other chest stood empty as well, except for a water-stain. With a shrug he turned his back on the door and retrieved his lantern.

Suddenly Nevyn knew that he wasn’t alone. He had heard no one walk up the stairs, heard no rustle of skirts or cloak, but the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Cold damp worse than that of the stones made him shiver. Someone — or something — had followed him in.

‘And a good evening to you,’ he said.

No answer. Holding the lantern high he turned around. In the doorway stood a woman, wrapped in a black mourning cloak. Her honey-blonde hair hung free, all matted and dishevelled, over her shoulders. She had built her illusions so well that had he not known dweomer, Nevyn would have thought her human. As it was, he noticed that her eyes never blinked. He turned his head to look at her with his peripheral vision and saw etheric substance playing at the edges of her form like glimmers of far-distant lightning.

‘A spirit, then,’ Nevyn said aloud. ‘What do you want here?’

Her lips parted, but instead of speaking she moaned.

“What torments you?’ he said. ‘Let me help you find peace.’

‘My child.’

Nevyn felt his stomach clench. There had been a dead baby buried with the tablet that cursed Prince Maryn.

‘Your new-born son?’ he said.

‘Nah, nah, nah! My daughter, my beautiful little daughter. They plan to steal her away from me.’

‘Who? Let me help you!’

She flickered like a dying candle and vanished. Nevyn swore under his breath. She was no ghost, he was sure of that, but a being of great power from some other plane. He remembered the apparition he’d seen when he had sent Lady Merodda’s ghost to the Great Ones. Could this be the same being? He would have to meditate on that, but for now, he no longer wanted to stay here, alone with the wind’s howls. He hurried down the stairs and retreated to his chamber, where Wildfolk danced to greet him. Late into the night, he studied his dweomer books, hunting for clues as to what sort of spirit the apparition may have been. He found none.

By the morrow morning the storm had travelled on, leaving wet roofs steaming in the summer sun. In the ward outside the great hall, Prince Maryn, with Neyvn in attendance, summoned his highest ranking allies to witness his message to Braemys. A foraging servant had found a length of cloth in the green and brown plaid of the royal city; Maryn wore it as a makeshift cloak, pinned at one shoulder with the pair of silver ring brooches that marked him Prince of Pyrdon and Gwerbret Cerrmor.

It was interesting, Nevyn thought, to see how the lords arranged themselves. Those who had fought alongside the prince from the beginning, such as Tieryn Gauryc, stood to one side of their liege lord, while those who had gone over to him during the summer, such as Tieryn Anasyn, Lilli’s foster-brother, stood on the other. Aside from this self-imposed sorting, they seemed friendly enough here in the prince’s presence. Over the winter, Nevyn supposed, a few old grudges would be settled by the sword off in the countryside, a secretive distance from their new overlord’s justice.

The Cantrae herald, Avyr, was waiting in the ward. While a page held his black horse by the gates, Gavlyn, the prince’s own herald, escorted Avyr into the presence of the noble-born. Avyr bowed, then knelt with a swing of his staff that sent the ribands swirling. Maryn acknowledged him with a small nod.

‘Now, concerning the Lady Lillorigga, tell Lord Braemys this,’ Maryn said. ‘The lady now belongs to the Rams of Hendyr. Her brother has proclaimed the betrothal broken and disavowed. From me, tell him this: I shall forgive him for referring to me as a usurper provided he forswear his rebellious behaviour. He may swear fealty to me or leave my lands forever. Those are his choices.’

‘I see, your highness.’ The herald looked away — rudeness in another man, but in his case, a sign that he was memorizing the prince’s exact words. ‘I shall tell him.’

‘Good. Here’s more: I’ll be riding out soon for Cantrae. He may meet me along the road to parley if he chooses.’

Very well, your highness. I shall convey your answer with all speed.’

‘My thanks. Let us aJI hope the gods let your lord choose peace.’

Avyr smiled and rose, bowing. Not one man in the crowd expected Braemys to swear the vow of fealty — Nevyn would have wagered high on that - but there were rituals to these things, as unforgiving as those of any temple.

Once the herald had ridden on his way, the little crowd around the prince began to thin out. Nevyn noticed Gwerbret Daeryc strolling off toward the stables and hurried to catch up with him.

‘Your grace!’ Nevyn called out. ‘A word with you?’

The gwerbret stopped and turned around, smiling pleasantly, or rather, he smiled in a way he meant to be pleasant. Since he’d lost all the teeth on one side of his mouth, he kept his lips shut and twisted, giving him the look of a bear in pain.

‘The prince asked me to lay this question before you,’ Nevyn said. ‘It concerns the Rams of Hendyr. Glasloc’s well off to the east of Dun Deveny, and Hendyr’s in the west, and yet you’re overlord to the Rams.’

‘Ah. No doubt that pricked his curiosity, truly. Glasloc’s mine in name only, good councillor. My lands lie north of Hendyr. My father inherited a goodly demesne near Mabyndyr, and when we lost Glasloc, we made them our home.’

‘Lost Glasloc?’

‘Well, I call it as a loss. My father traded it away for the right to rule as gwerbret in Mabyndyr. A lot of the common folk who fled Dun Deverry settled near there, which meant dues and taxes to support a gwerbretrhyn. So the Boars proclaimed the new rhan for him, you see, because they coveted the lands near Glasloc. He could give them Glasloc or lose everything - that was the bargain they offered.’

‘But he kept the honorific?’

‘My father didn’t. I took it back when I inherited, and there was naught that Regent Burcan could say or do, because the slimy bastard knew he needed me and my men.’

‘Ah. You say the Boars did the proclaiming?’

‘Well, the words came out of the mouth of the king - poor little Olaen’s grandfather, that was — but we all knew who’d put them there.’ Daeryc paused to spit onto the cobbles. ‘Burcan’s father was gwerbret then, and a worse man than his sons.’ He looked up. ‘A word to the wise, councillor. Some of the northern lords will desert back to Braemys over the winter, and I’d bet a good horse that Nantyn will be one of them. But I won’t. You have my sworn word on that.’

‘My thanks, but you know, I never doubted you for an instant.’

‘Indeed? Why?’

‘Tieryn Peddyc would never have honoured a man who changed sides out of anything less than true conviction.’

‘My thanks.’ Daeryc nodded, looking down at the ground. ‘I’ll miss Peddyc. Closest thing to a friend I ever had. Ah well, the fortunes of war, eh?’

The gwerbret turned on his heel and strode off fast. Let us hope, Nevyn thought, that the fighting stays over. It was a feeble hope, he supposed. With a shake of his head he went into the royal broch to find Oggyn, who had by default as much as merit managed to appoint himself chamberlain.

Much to his surprise he saw his fellow councillor over by the riders’ hearth, talking with one of the men from the Cerrmor warband. As he walked over, Nevyn saw the rider give Oggyn a coin, but he thought little of it - some wager, perhaps. When Oggyn saw him approaching, he came bustling over, all smiles.

‘My apprentice needs a better chamber,’ Nevyn said. ‘One with a proper hearth and suchlike.’

‘Of course. Just come upstairs with me.’

‘We’ll just collect Lilli on the way.’

As they climbed the stairs, Nevyn glanced back and noticed the Cerrmor rider watching Oggyn still. He could have sworn that the man looked furious.

‘What about this one?’ Oggyn said. ‘It’s much larger and it has a hearth.’

‘Oh, this will do splendidly!’ Lilli said, but she glanced at Nevyn. ‘I’ve never had so much room.’

‘I heartily approve.’ Nevyn answered her unspoken question. The air here should be quite wholesome.’

They were standing in a bedchamber once set aside for guests. As well as the hearth, it sported a big window with proper wooden shutters, braided rushes on the floor, and a sufficiency of tapestries, faded and torn though they were, to keep the damp off the walls. Near the hearth stood a chair and a solid round table. The morning sun poured in and fell across the bed like a gold blanket. Lilli sat down on the edge of the mattress and stretched out her arms to the warmth.

‘This is lovely!’

‘Very well, then,’ Oggyn said. ‘I’ll be on my way. I’ll send a couple of pages to help your servants move your things over.’

‘And make sure they fetch firewood, too,’ Nevyn said to him. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all, my pleasure.’ With a bow to Lilli, Oggyn bustled out, shutting the door behind him.

‘My thanks, Nevyn!’ Lilli said. ‘Oggyn never would have given me such a fine chamber if I’d asked him myself.’

‘Most welcome. And once you’re settled, I expect you to get right to the work I set you.’

‘I will, my lord.’

‘Good. I’ll be gone all afternoon, running an errand with your foster-brother.’

‘So he told me, my lord. It will gladden my heart to be a true daughter of the Ram.’

Lilli kept her promise after Clodda and Nalla had brought her possessions to the new chamber. Thanks to Nevyn’s confession about the spells he’d cast on Prince Maryn, she was particularly eager to learn how to see the elemental spirits, or the Wildfolk as they were commonly called. On her table she placed a silver basin filled with water, then sat in the chair and let her breathing slow as Nevyn had taught her. The shaft of sunlight had moved on to fall upon the floor. Motes danced in the slight breeze, while tbe surface of the water in the silver bowl trembled. She waited, she watched her breaths, she became aware of nothing but moving air, sunlight, water, dancing dust.

Like a shadow flitting something moved at the edge of her vision. She concentrated on breathing. The shadow came a little closer, grew solid, then disappeared. She waited still longer, while the shaft of sunlight crept across the floor. All at once a creature appeared, a strange grey fellow, about two feet high and shaped roughly like a human child, with a big head and a protruding belly. It looked at her out of narrow purple eyes. Lilli gasped aloud, and it vanished. Though she sat a long while more, nothing, or no one, appeared to her.

‘Still,’ Nevyn said when he returned, ‘you’ve made a splendid start. I’m very proud of the progress you’re making.’

Lilli felt her face warm with a blush. No praise had ever meant so much to her as his.

‘I have a message for you. Your brother wants you to dine with him tonight in his chambers,’ Nevyn went on. ‘I told him that you’d doubtless agree.’

‘Of course! What did the priests say?’

‘That neither they nor their god had any objections to your adoption by the clan of the Ram. There’s a small matter of a fee for the drawing up of the proclamation, but we’ll take care of that on the morrow, and the matter will be settled.’

‘I’m glad it was so easy.’

‘Well, the prince proclaimed your new kinship in the ward this morning. That certainly didn’t hurt your cause.’

When the sun hung low in the sky, Lilli went to her foster-brother’s quarters. Since Anasyn was newly married, he’d been given chambers in the royal broch itself - a decent-sized suite with a small wedge-shaped reception chamber as well as a bedroom. When she knocked, his page opened the door and ushered her inside- Some of the chairs she recognized and the table as well - once this furniture had been her mother’s, but it had joined the general booty of the dun, handed out to the victors. A pair of maidservants were laying out a cold meal from a pair of big baskets onto the table. She could remember the bowl of black ink sitting on that same cloth, waiting to swallow her mind. She shuddered, suddenly cold.

What’s wrong, Lilli?’ Abrwnna said,

‘Oh naught. Just geese walking on my grave.’

Abrwnna, Anasyn’s wife, was sitting in a high-backed chair by the empty hearth. She was beautiful, Abrwnna, with long red hair and big green eyes, but Lilli found herself thinking of her as a child - odd, since Abrwnna was near her own age and twice-married now, not that her first marriage, to the child-king, had ever been consummated. She smiled and waved Lilli over.

‘Come in, sister,’ Abrwnna said. ‘My lord is off somewhere, but no doubt he’ll join us soon. Do have that chair with the cushions.’

‘My thanks.’ Lilli nearly dropped her a curtsey out of sheer habit. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘Am I? Truly, I count myself the luckiest of women these days. When I think of what might have happened to me after the siege was over —’ Abrwnna laid a pale hand on her paler throat. ‘We should all be thankful that our prince is a merciful man.’

‘Just so.’

Abrwnna hesitated, glancing at the servants. Until they’d done setting out the food, she said nothing more, then dismissed them. The page hovered near the door.

‘Do go see if you can find our lord, will you?’ Abrwnna said. Tell him his sister is here.’

‘I will, my lady,’ the page bowed, then hurried off.

Once the door had closed behind him, Abrwnna leaned back in her chair and let out her breath in a long sigh.

‘I’ve not seen you to have two private words together, truly,’ Abrwnna said, ‘not since the dun fell. Why, Lilli? Why did you run away like that and go over to the prince?’

Silence hung between them like smoke. Lilli felt like a dolt for being surprised - of course Abrwnna would want to know, of course all the women left behind to suffer in the taking of Dun Deverry would want to know.

‘Why did I betray you?’ Lilli said at last. ‘Is that what you mean?’

‘It’s not, truly it isn’t. I - well, I just wanted to know - well, was it because of Lady Bevyan?’

‘It was. After my mother had her murdered, how could I stay here and pretend to be her dutiful daughter?’

You couldn’t.’ Abrwnna hesitated for a long moment. ‘But I still don’t understand what happened. The servants told me that Merodda murdered Bevyan. I thought she’d been killed by Cerrmor raiders. I don’t understand.’

‘Hasn’t Anasyn told you?’

‘Not a word.’ Abrwnna’s voice was shaking badly. ‘I’ll tell you somewhat. In the great hall that day, when your brother asked the prince for me, I truly thought he only wanted vengeance. I feared he was going to beat me to death, once I was his wife and no one could say him nay.’

‘Sanno would never!’

‘I know that now.’ Abrwnna was whispering again. ‘But at first I was afraid to say two words to him. He did tell me Bewa’s death was none of my doing. When I asked why, he swore at me and said never to mention it again.’

‘Well, those Cerrmor raiders? They weren’t real. After you sent Bevyan away, Uncle Burcan followed her with some of his men and killed her and everyone with her. They left some Cerrmor shields behind as a ruse. But my mother was the one who wanted Bewa dead. She put him up to it.’

Abrwnna dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. Lilli sat stone-still, barely able to think, watching her weep, rocking back and forth like a troubled child.

‘Here, here,’ Lilli said at last. ‘What’s so wrong?’

‘What’s wrong?’ Abrwnna let her hands drop. ‘I sent her away, just as you said. It’s my fault she was out on the roads. Oh ye gods, you must hate me!’ She paused, wiping her face on the sleeve of her dress. ‘And your mother was the one — ah, Goddess! I thought she was my friend.’

Lilli stood and walked over to lay a hand on Abrwnna’s trembling shoulder.

‘I don’t hate you. I’ve no doubt at all that my mother worked on you to send Bewa away. I’ll wager you didn’t even know she was using you, either.’

‘We did talk, truly, just before.’ Abrwnna stared up at her and shook. ‘She told me, well, things. She told me Bewa was telling people I was a slut or suchlike.’

‘Never! Bewa never would have done that. You see? It’s not your fault. If you’d not sent her away, then my mother only would have poisoned her or found some other way to do her murdering.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I truly do.’

You don’t hate me?’

‘Did you think I would?’

Abrwnna nodded, then leaned her head back against the chair.

‘Do you hate me for aiding the prince?’ Lilli went on.

‘I don’t. You know what the worst thing is? I keep dreaming about the taking of the dun, that last awful day. Or sometimes I dream about poor little Olaen, and the way he died, poisoned like that. And in the dreams I can’t stop screaming. I see all the horrible things all over again and just keep screaming and screaming.’ Abrwnna paused to run shaking hands through her hair. ‘But then I wake up. And there’s Anasyn next to me, and I know I’m safe. And I can’t help thinking, I’m glad Prince Maryn won. I’m glad I’m Anasyn’s lady and not queen any more. And I feel so horrible because I’m glad.’

Abrwnna began to weep again, a thin trickle of silent tears. Lilli took a napkin from the table and handed it to her, then sat down again.

‘If you’re a traitor, Lilli, then so am I.’ Abrwnna began to wipe her face. ‘A thousand times a day.’

‘Oh here! The gods are the ones who ordained Maryn the true king, aren’t they? It’s his Wyrd, and there’s naught that you or I can do about it. It must be your Wyrd, too, that you’re the lady of Hendyr now.’

Abrwnna merely shrugged, then wiped her face. The linen napkin shook in her hands.

Would you like me to pour you a little mead?’ Lilli said.

‘None, but my thanks.’ Abrwnna let the napkin fall onto her lap. Your mother! Ah gods, it was all true, then, the gossip. She truly was some sort of witch.’

‘She was.’ Lilli felt as if the words had stuck in her throat and were choking her. ‘I suppose there was a lot of gossip that I never heard.’

‘How could anyone tell you? It was evil evil stuff, and I refused to believe any of it, truly I did, but you know what? Now I suppose I should have.’

‘About her poisons, you mean?’

‘Just that. And spells and things. Everyone thought she cast spells on herself to look so young.’

‘That was only herbs and some sort of elixir she brewed up.’

‘Ah. Truly? And here I believed it about the spells! Some of the women said she had lots of lovers, you see, and that’s why she’d use magic to keep her looks.’

Lilli’s breath caught in her chest. Had anyone guessed that Merodda’s brother had sired her daughter?

‘Lovers?’ Lilli said. ‘Why would they think that?’

‘Well, I don’t remember exactly.’ Abrwnna thought for a moment. ‘It all seems so paltry now, the gossip I mean.’

Lilli found it hard to breathe. Old gossip, swept away by the summer’s tide of blood and the horrors of siege — of course the other women would scorn such chatter now. But to her, it might mean the difference between having a place at court or losing one as a landless bastard.

‘I do wonder,’ Lilli said. ‘There must have been a lot of talk that I was never allowed to hear.’

‘Well, it was all nasty stuff. There were a few tales that would have branded her a fiend if they were true. Like that child, the one she birthed after your father was slain, and everyone told me it wasn’t really his anyway.’

‘What? What child? I never knew about that.’

Well, it died a little while after it was born. Merodda left court and shut herself up in Dun Cantrae to birth it, and all the old gossips said she ran away because she was so shamed, but I wasn’t at court then, so I wouldn’t know the truth of that. When she came back in the spring she told everyone the child had died of fever. But ah Goddess, knowing what I know now, maybe the gossip was all true, and it wasn’t Lord Garedd’s child, and she smothered it or suchlike.’

‘Indeed?’ Lilli found it harder and harder to talk. ‘And whose was the child, then? Did they say?’

‘A demon’s.’ Abrwnna leaned forward in her chair to look at Lilli wide-eyed. “They said she’d been got with child by a demon she’d conjured up, and that’s why the baby was so sickly. But that couldn’t be true, could it?’

‘I doubt it very much.’ Lilli nearly laughed from sheer relief. ‘I truly do. Don’t the priests always say that demons don’t have real bodies? How could they sire anything without them?’

You’re right, aren’t you? But that didn’t stop the gossip. All the old cats were still talking about the scandal when my father brought me to court to marry Olaen.’

No doubt it was sickly, Lilli thought. It was another child of incest, wasn’t it?

‘And then the gossips said that one of Merodda’s retainers was a demon, too, so they thought he was the father.’ Abrwnna paused, listening. ‘I hear voices in the hall. It’s probably Sanno.’

The chamber door opened: Anasyn indeed, followed by his page. The tieryn was by no means a handsome man, though not ugly, either, with his long face and long thin nose, but Abrwnna smiled at him as if he were a vision of Bel himself.

‘There you are, beloved,’ Abrwnna said.

‘My apologies for being late,’ Anasyn said. ‘I met old Gauryc in the great hall, and he wouldn’t let me go till he’d had his say.’

‘About what?’ Lilli put in.

‘The gwerbretrhyn of Cerrmor. When he’s seated as king, the prince will have to give it up. Gauryc wants it. Badly.’ Anasyn smiled briefly. ‘And to get it, he’ll need every ally on the Council of Electors that he can scrounge up. He’s not the only one with his eye on the rhan.’

‘No doubt.’ Lilli glanced at Abrwnna. ‘I’ve been there, and ye gods! It’s the richest place I’ve ever seen.’

‘You simply must tell me all about it.’ Abrwnna turned to the page. ‘Very well, you may serve your lord, and then Lilli and I will serve ourselves, and then you may take what you wish.’

For the rest of that evening their talk centred on the politics of the new court that Maryn was forming. Every now and then, though, Abrwnna would fall silent for a long while, and Lilli would notice her staring at the empty air as if she were seeing horrors drawn upon it.

Over the next two days the prince held councils of war. In the oldest broch stood a big round room that had been the great hall when Nevyn was young. Maryn took it over for his councils, and servants carried in all the extra chairs they could find for the assembly. By ancient laws and courtesies both, every noble-born man in Deverry who served royalty had the right to speak out in council when a high king was making plans for war. As a mere prince, Maryn had to be more respectful of these rights and customs than a king would have been. A wrong word or act of arrogance would lose him allies.

Although Daeryc’s clan no longer ruled Glasloc, he knew the territory between Dun Deverry and Cantrae well. So did Nevyn, but he mostly held his tongue. Admitting his knowledge of the area would mean admitting when he’d lived there, and that in turn would bring awkward questions about his unnaturally long life. Dun Cantrae, the stronghold of the Boar clan, lay inside the town of Cantrae proper, which meant a double ring of walls to take should the matter come to siege. The town lay on what was at that time the furthest border of the kingdom, a good two hundred and thirty miles to the north-east.

‘For the first part of the journey,’ Daeryc said, ‘the roads will be good ones, and the country’s flat. But past Glasloc you get into the hills.’

‘That’s not good,’ Maryn said. ‘The army moves slow enough on the flat.’

‘Just so.’ Tieryn Gauryc, a skinny man with hair cropped close to his skull, rose to speak. ‘We made what? Twelve miles a day when we marched from Cerrmor?’

‘No more than that, truly,’ Maryn said.

In the back of the chamber some lord or other let out a loud long snore. Everyone laughed and woke the man, who grinned sheepishly while he rubbed his eyes.

‘My lords, I think we’ve had an omen,’ Maryn said, smiling. ‘Let’s leave this lie for today.’

The assembled company cheered him. When the council disbanded, Maryn held Nevyn back for a private word.

‘I need your opinion on somewhat,’ Maryn said. ‘Oggyn approached me with this daft-sounding scheme. He wants to take a couple of scribes and ride around the royal demesne, writing down everything he finds there. Well, not everything, but how many farms, and how many bondmen, and so on and so forth.’

‘That doesn’t sound daft to me, my liege. It sounds cursed sensible. We don’t have the slightest idea of what you can expect in dues and taxes.’

So Oggyn says.’ Maryn considered for a moment. ‘Well, rebuilding the Holy City is going to take coin, not just bound labour.’

‘True spoken. Oggyn’s real worth lies in such matters. He understands coin, and more to the point he understands mustering labour and assigning duties and so on.’

Very well. I’ll tell him to go ahead and start the survey. There’s no use in his coming along with the army, when we’re only riding on what amounts to a feint.’

When he left the prince, Nevyn went looking for Lady Merodda’s old chambers. He’d not forgotten the mysterious spirit presence who had appeared to him, and Merodda was the only clue he had. When he asked the servants about the chambers, they pointed them out readily enough. Since the taking of the dun, they’d stood empty, because no one wanted to sleep in a room where someone had practised witchcraft and poisoning. It was amazing, he thought, how quickly the rumours about the lady had spread. The men of Maryn’s army and retinue hadn’t even known she existed six months ago. Now they all feared her, even in death.

When Nevyn walked into the suite, he found it bare. Not so much as a stick of furniture or firewood remained. She might have been feared, but apparently her possessions weren’t. In the emptiness Nevyn’s footsteps echoed; dust puffed and fell at his feet. He asked himself what exactly he expected to find, but he had no answer. He wandered into the empty bedchamber, looked around for a moment, and wandered back out. Near the hearth a half-round chair had appeared, and in it sat JVlerodda — or a perfect illusion of her. Nevyn turned cold with little gasp of breath. The spirit had reproduced her image down to the unnatural shininess of her skin - a blonde woman, once beautiful, dressed in flowing blue, she sat with a simulacrum of a book open in her lap.

‘I know you’re not her ghost,’ Nevyn said. ‘I exorcised her myself.’

‘Oh, I remember that,’ the spirit said — in Elvish.

‘Very well. Then what are you doing, mimicking her?’

‘I’ll not answer that unless you answer me a question.’

‘I’ll agree to that if you answer mine first.’

The spirit considered him with eyes that never blinked. In her lap the book turned transparent and disappeared.

‘Done then,’ she said at last. ‘Becoming her I know her.’

‘I see. What’s your question?’

You stole her daughter from her, didn’t you? Just like they plan to steal mine.’

‘I didn’t. Her daughter left her of her own will.’

The spirit screamed in such murderous rage that Nevyn stepped back. In that instant spirit and chair both vanished.

By all the gods! he thought. What is she? And why did that anger her so?

With a shake of his head Nevyn left the room. He would have to meditate on the question. LilH might well know something, too, if her mother had ever mentioned having some sort of astral visitor.

But although he looked in her chamber and in the great hall, he couldn’t find Lilli to ask her. Finally he stopped a passing page,

‘Have you seen Lady Lillorigga of the Ram?’

‘I’ve not, my lord,’ the boy said.

‘Well, then, have you seen Branoic the Silver Dagger?’

‘Not him either, my lord.’ The boy smiled in a sly sort of way, ‘Shall I look for them?’

‘Most definitely not. She’ll turn up sooner or later of her own accord.’

Maddyn had no illusions about his skill as a harper. Over the years he’d brutalized his hands with sword and shield until his fingers could bend only so far and travel the strings only so fast and no more. He did, however, take his music seriously, and every morning he found a private spot in one of the dun’s many odd corners to practise far away from the noise and crowds in barracks and great hall. Sound carries, of course, and thanks to his music he was always easy to find.

‘Ah, uh, captain?’

Maddyn looked up, startled. Standing in front of him was a young man who looked vaguely familiar - pale hair, pale eyes, and the high cheekbones of a southern man to go with the Cerrmor blazons on his shirt.

‘I hate to disturb you,’ the fellow went on, ‘but one of the silver daggers, that truly tall fellow with the broad shoulders, told me I should speak to you.’

‘Branoic, was it?’

‘That’s his name. Mine’s Alwyn.’

‘Very well. What did you want to speak to me about?’

Alwyn turned and looked behind him, then glanced off in the direction of the broch complex.

‘Well, it’s about Councillor Oggyn,’ Alwyn said at last. ‘I want to join the silver daggers, you see. Oggyn told me that it would cost a silver piece for him to introduce me to Owaen.’

‘What? The filthy gall of the man!’

‘Branoic said somewhat like that, too. I paid the coin over, you see, and Owaen talked with me and had me meet some of the other men in the troop. And so I was drinking with Branoic last night, and I mentioned the councillor and his silver piece. And some of the other new men spoke up and said the same had happened to them. Branoic was fair furious, he was.’

‘Cursed right, too! That little pissproud glorified scribe! Come along, lad. Let me stow my harp in the barracks, and then we’ll go find Owaen.’

Owaen, however, turned out to be in the barracks, sitting on his bunk and polishing his mail. His sword belt lay beside him on the blanket, but even unarmed there was something dangerous about Owaen. He was frowning as he pulled a scrap of rag through each ring with a quick gesture born of years of practice; his ice-blue eyes glared as if he were killing Boarsmen, not rust. Maddyn knew better than to get too close to him when he was in such a reverie. He stopped a couple of bunks away and called out.

‘Owaen? A word with you?’

Startled, Owaen was on his feet and reaching for his sword. The mail slid off his lap and chimed onto the floor.

‘Oh.’ Owaen said. ‘It’s just you.’

He sat back down and picked up the mail. Maddyn led Alwyn over.

‘This lad has a very interesting tale to tell. Councillor Oggyn’s been charging a fee to send men our way.’

While Alwyn repeated his story, Owaen said not a word. His expression went perfectly calm, perfectly blank, and when the lad was done, Owaen merely nodded. He laid the mai! aside, got up, and buckled on his sword belt.

‘Let’s have a word with our councillor.’ Owaen’s voice was perfectly soft and calm. ‘Follow me.’

Afwyn hesitated, visibly puzzled, as if perhaps he wondered if he’d been believed. Maddyn winked at him and shepherded him out of the barracks. They followed Owaen’s broad back across the ward and into the great hall, which here in mid-morning stood mostly empty. A few riders lingered on their side of the big round room; a few servants wandered back and forth, wiping up scraps from the tables and throwing them to the waiting dogs. Oggyn was standing by the honour hearth and gazing at the staircase, as if he were waiting for someone. Owaen paused and turned to Alwyn.

You’ll swear to this?’

‘I will, and there’s six other lads in the same spot as me.’

‘Done, then.’ Owaen allowed himself a brief twitch of his mouth that might have been a smile. ‘Follow me.’

As they strode over, Oggyn looked up and saw them coming. He froze, started to back away, realized that Owaen was too close to outrun, and finally arranged a commanding stare on his face and crossed his arms over his chest as well.

‘You wish to speak with me?’ Oggyn bellowed.

Owaen took one long stride, grabbed him by the shirt with both hands, and slammed him back against the wall. Oggyn squeaked and howled and kicked; Owaen slammed him again, and Oggyn held still, gasping for breath. Those few people in the hall stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. Maddyn glanced around, but no one was rushing to the councillor’s aid,

‘Listen, you,’ Owaen said. ‘You’ve been extorting fees, haven’t you? Demanding coin from men who want to meet me or Maddyn?’

‘Not! Lies!’

‘Horseshit! There are seven men ready to swear you took their coins.’ Owaen shook him. You’re paying every copper back.’

‘Won’t! Cant! It’s not true!’

‘Then you won’t object if we go straight to the prince with this matter.’

‘I’ll pay!’

Owaen smiled and let Oggyn go. Moaning and fussing, the councillor smoothed down his shirt, then reached inside it and pulled out a fat pouch, hanging round his neck from a gold chain. Alwyn was staring at Owaen with a look suitable to viewing a god come down to earth. Swearing under his breath, Oggyn gave Alwyn a silver piece, then counted out six more into Owaen’s waiting palm.

‘And one more,’ Owaen said, ‘for the troop’s general coffer. Consider it Iwdd.’

‘May the gods piss upon you!’ Oggyn snarled — but he paid.

Still muttering, Oggyn trotted to the staircase on the far side of the great hall to the accompaniment of snickers and downright laughter from the servants and riders present. Owaen’s face had gone blank again, but he stood jingling the coins and watching the councillor hurry up the stairs.

‘Branoic’s good for somewhat after all,’ Owaen said at last.

‘Truly,’ Maddyn said. ‘I’m glad our new men found him easy to talk to.’

Where is he, anyway?’ Owaen glanced around.

‘I’ve no idea.’

The bard, however, was lying. Branoic was off courting the Lady Lillorigga, and Maddyn knew it. He simply saw no reason to give Owaen anything more to hold over Branno’s head.

Although Dun Deverry sported no proper gardens like those in Cerrmor, it did have a kitchen garden out behind the cookhouses ‘and storage sheds. In search of a little privacy, Lilli and Branoic found it one morning when the summer air hung warm and heavy. They sat down on a wood bench and breathed the scents of rosemary, sage and spicy thyme. Branoic lounged back and laid one long arm on the bench back behind her. She could feel the warmth of it, it seemed, and she stared straight out ahead of her.

In a little eddy of dust a big grey gnome appeared. He set his twiggy hands on his hips and cocked his head to one side like a miniature silver dagger. Lilli felt herself smiling, then stifled it. What if Branoic had noticed her watching invisible things? But when she glanced his way, she found him smiling as well, his eyes moving as the gnome strutted back and forth.

“You see him,’ she whispered,

Ye gods!’ Branoic swung his head round to look at her. ‘So do you.’

For a long moment they merely stared at each other, each a little aghast. I don’t know this man, Lilli thought. I thought I knew exactly what he was, but I was wrong!

‘Ah well,’ Branoic said, and his voice was just barely above a whisper. ‘Either we’re both daft, or the cursed little things do exist after all.’

‘Not daft,’ Lilli said. ‘Does Nevyn know you see them?’

‘He doesn’t, and I’ll beg you, my lady, to never let him know. Or anyone else, either.’

‘Why not?’

‘What do you mean why not?’ Branoic turned on the bench and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Should be cursed obvious.’

‘It isn’t.’

He scowled at her, and then, without any reason that she could see, they both burst out laughing.

‘Well, I do understand,’ Lilli said. ‘I shan’t say a word to anyone. I was just teasing you.’

‘I’d rather have teasing from you than flattery from any other lass.’ All at once he turned solemn. ‘We’re riding out tomorrow. Will you miss me?’

Because he deserved an honest answer, she considered her feelings while he waited, watching her solemnly.

‘I will,’ she said at last. ‘It aches my heart, having someone to fear for, but I do worry about what could happen to you. Please ride back again?’

‘If my Wyrd allows it, I will. And you stay safe for me.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

For a moment they sat smiling at each other. She thought that he might kiss her, but he rose and bowed instead.

‘Shall we walk back, my lady? I’d not have anyone speaking scandal about you.’

‘My thanks, but I doubt if they would.’ She rose to join him. ‘I’m not important enough.’

‘Well, most likely that’s a blessing, you know.’

‘True spoken.’

When he offered her his arm, she slipped hers through it, and they walked together back to the great hall. At the door, however, she heard Nevyn calling her name and turned to see the old man striding toward them. His energy always amazed her; with his white hair and frog-spotted skin he looked ancient in repose, but when he moved, he seemed more vigorous than many a young warrior. She gave Branoic’s arm a pat, then pulled hers free.

You go on in,’ Lilli said. ‘Nevyn seems to need me for somewhat.’

‘Well and good, then, my lady.’ Branoic bowed to her. ‘It’s doubtless best that the noble-born don’t see us together, anyway.’

Nevyn did indeed wish to speak with her, as it turned out. Cautioning secrecy, he escorted her up to her new chamber, where the maids had finished tidying up her things. Lilli sat down on the chair while Nevyn perched on the wide windowsill.

‘I need you to put your memory to the test,’ Nevyn said. ‘About your mother.’

Very well.’ Lilli folded her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking.

‘I hate to distress you, but this could be extremely important.’ Oh, I do understand. I just hate thinking about the way — the way she died.’

‘No doubt.’ Nevyn hesitated, his ice-blue eyes sympathetic. ‘But did she ever talk with you much about her dweomer workings?’

‘At times, my lord, and Brour did let things slip now and then.’ Good. Did either of them ever mention that she talked with spirits? Or to be precise, one particular spirit, who would have appeared to her as a woman?’

I don’t think so, although — wait.’ Lilli paused, letting her mind wander around an image of her mother, sitting in a candle-lit room and speaking. ‘She did mention once that she had seen a ghost walking these halls, a woman dressed in mourning.’

‘Indeed? Go on.’

‘Brour remarked that a lot of women had died miserably here, in childbed and suchlike, and my mother laughed and agreed.’

‘Laughed?’

‘Well, it was one of those ghastly nervous laughs. She didn’t see any humour in it or suchlike. And then she said that mayhap she’d try to find out what the poor restless soul wanted. But that’s all I remember.’

‘It may very well be enough. My thanks.’ Nevyn rose, glancing at the table and the book lying upon it. ‘I’d like you to work upon your studies this afternoon. We have much to cover before I leave with the prince and his army.’

When Prince Maryn rode out, some days later, he left over half of his army behind on fortguard. As much as he wanted to make an overwhelming show of force, the full contingent of four thousand men would travel too slowly. Time and supplies were both running out. Every day the night fell a little faster. If they stripped much more food from the countryside, farm families would begin to starve, and then, as Nevyn was quick to point out, who would grow the next crop? The vassals talked openly of riding home to their own lands as soon as the prince would allow.

‘If Braemys meets us on the road, well and good,’ Maryn told Nevyn. ‘If not, we won’t be able to ride all the way to Cantrae, and we couldn’t mount a siege if we got there, and I suspect he knows that as well as I do.’

‘No doubt,’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s a pity, though. I can’t help wondering how many of your newest allies will come to your muster in the spring.’

‘Some, certainly. More than we had before, which will mean Braemys will have less, and that will be all to the good. Even if they all desert, what will it amount to? Another five hundred riders, more or less, and we’ll still outnumber Braemys handily. I doubt if any of the northern lords will strip their fortguards for the Boar cause again.’

‘Now that’s true spoken. Well, it’s in the laps of the gods now.’

For three days the army travelled north-east, following the main road that led from Dun Deverry to Cantrae. Every dun they passed belonged to one or another of the prince’s new allies. At each, the lord who held it would open the gates to the prince himself and greet him by grasping his stirrup in a show of fealty. These lords, Nevyn decided, were likely to hold true to Maryn’s cause - not because of their ritual greeting, but because their duns were too small and shabby to stand off an attack by the prince’s forces.

The army was still a fair ways from Glasloc, and it had just made camp for the night in a meadow, when the Cantrae herald returned. Nevyn heard the commotion among the camp guards and trotted out to see what was wrong. His beribboned staff in one hand, his black horse’s reins in the other, Avyr was walking into camp with two guards on either side of him.

‘Good morrow, good herald,’ Nevyn said. ‘I trust you’ve got a message for the prince?’

‘Just so. If his lordship would be so kind as to take me to him?’

They found Maryn sitting in a chair in front of his tent with some of his lords standing nearby, talking over the day’s ride. Behind him, stiff at attention, stood Branoic and another silver dagger. A page boy took the herald’s horse, and Avyr bowed low to the prince.

‘Lord Braemys would have me speak to several points, your highness,’ Avyr began. ‘First, if the Rams of Hendyr refuse to honour the betrothal of Lady Lillorigga, they then owe him twenty-five horses as Iwdd for their offence.’

Maryn laughed, one sharp bark of utter amazement. The men standing nearby either did tbe same or shook their heads in disbelief.

Your lord doesn’t lack for gall, does he?’ Maryn said.

‘There’s naught I can say about that, your highness.’

‘Well, of course you can’t. What else does Lord Braemys wish me to hear?’

Avyr hesitated, looking round the circle of lords. Nevyn had the distinct feeling that the man was wondering if he’d live out the night. At length he licked his lips and began.

Lord Braemys begs to point out, your highness, that as yet you are but Prince of Pyrdon and Gwerbret Cerrmor. He has received no word that the priests of Bel have declared you king. If such should happen, that is, if the priests should so declare, he begs you to send him a messenger with all speed so that he may reconsider your claim to be his liege lord.’

Maryn’s face went dead white, then reddened. The herald stepped back as if to put himself out of reach of a blow and nearly stepped on Gwerbret Daeryc’s feet. Daeryc patted him on the shoulder with the same motion he’d use to calm a nervous horse.

‘Here, here, lad,’ Daeryc muttered. ‘Our prince is an honourable man. He doesn’t go about slaying heralds.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn’s voice was more of a growl; he paused to collect himself with a pair of deep breaths. Very well, good herald. Rest in our camp tonight, and on the morrow I’ll give you a message to take back to your lord the regent.’

The news spread fast. Before Maryn could call for a council, it assembled itself as his noble-born allies came running to his tent. Nevyn had never seen Maryn so angry. The entire time he talked, he paced back and forth, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Yet there was little that anyone could suggest that would ease the situation or end it. After wrangling deep into the night, the lords disbanded at last to get some sleep, but for most of the night Maryn waked, walking back and forth in front of his tent with a lantern in his hand. Toward dawn Nevyn gave up on sleep and went over to join him there.

‘My liege?’ Nevyn said. ‘Is somewhat wrong?’

‘Naught,’ Maryn said, yawning. ‘I’ve been thinking about my answer to Braemys, that’s all.’

‘I rather did assume you were.’

‘Oh of course.’ Maryn suddenly grinned at him. ‘Do you remember a dream I had once, back when I was but a little child, and you’d just become my tutor? I dreamt that I was in a battle in Cantrae, and everyone was calling me the king of all Deverry.’

‘I do remember it, oddly enough. It was a very important dream.’

‘So it was, and you know, it looks like it’s going to come true.’ Maryn yawned again, hugely, covering his mouth with both hands. ‘So, I told myself, I shouldn’t be surprised that Braemys is spoiling for a fight. It’s a thing of Wyrd for both of us, and there’s no arguing with Wyrd.’

‘So there’s not, your highness. And that said, I suggest you get some sleep.’

In the morning, the camp slept late, but the prince was up before many of his men. After he’d eaten, Maryn called the herald and his allies as well to him to hear his answer. Avyr bowed, then stood ready to memorize.

‘Tell your lord this for me,’ Maryn said. ‘The high priest of Bel in Dun Deverry charged me with the holy task of bringing peace to the kingdom. If your lord refuses to make peace, then he defies the will of the gods themselves. If he surrenders now, the Boar clan will continue to hold the Cantrae rhan. Should he continue to defy the gods, he will lose it.’

The herald winced and bowed for want of anything else he could do.

‘As for the other thing,’ Maryn went on. ‘I cannot settle this matter betwixt him and Tieryn Anasyn of the Ram because Lord Braemys refuses to acknowledge me as heir to the kingship. Should he wish me to hold malover upon the matter, he may swear fealty to me, and then I’ll be happy to give him a fair hearing.’

‘So I shall tell him, your highness,’ Avyr said. ‘Every word.’

The prince, his councillor, and some of his lords walked with the herald to the edge of the camp, where a servant stood holding his black horse. Avyr bowed all round, mounted, and rode out fast. Maryn stood by the road and watched until the dust of his leaving had settled.

‘Cursed little bastard,’ Maryn remarked. ‘And I don’t mean the herald.’

‘He’s much like his father,’ Anasyn said. ‘There always was a lot of inbreeding among the Boars. My mother used to say that if they were dogs their kennelman would have to drown half their pups for having two tails.’

‘Braemys may not live to grow old, dog or not, if he keeps on like this, not that I’ll be drowning him, exactly.’ Maryn was glaring down the road as if he could see his enemy lurking on the horizon. ‘Pissproud little whoreson! He drew me out of Dun Deverry just to make us waste our days and provisions.’

‘And to infuriate you,’ Nevyn said. ‘Angry men don’t think as clearly as they might.’

“Your point is well taken.’ Maryn took another long deep breath. Very well, my lords. Let’s get our men ready to ride. The sooner we return to the Holy City, the sooner you may all disperse to your own lands.’

By the time the army left camp, the sun hung near its zenith. At the very head of the line rode two men carrying the red wyvern banners; next were Maryn and Nevyn, who generally rode beside the prince. Just behind them came the silver daggers, with Owaen and Maddyn at their head. Branoic rode about half-way back in the troop, out of reach of Owaen’s sarcasm. Although he understood why Caradoc had made Owaen his heir, he didn’t have to like it. Ever since he’d taken over, Owaen had made Branoic’s life miserable - assigning him the worst duties, giving him the worst horses, chewing him out over every petty thing he could find. It was time, Branoic decided, to ask the prince for that boon he’d promised. Although he never would have left the silver daggers while Caradoc lived, Caradoc was riding in the Otherlands these days. Branoic decided that he’d rather be cursed than ride under Owaen for another summer’s fighting.

With such a late start the army didn’t get far. They camped in fallow fields near a stream that fed into a farmer’s duck pond. Although a couple of the silver daggers speculated about those ducks and how easy they’d be to catch, the prince himself forbade the stealing of a single one.

‘And not a single apple from that tree, either,’ Maryn said. ‘Pass the word around the riders, will you? We’ve taken enough from my people, and we’re not taking any more.’

Once the silver daggers had pitched their tents, Owaen strolled through their section of the camp and assigned guard duty. Branoic wasn’t in the least surprised that he drew the middle watch - the worst, as it broke a man’s sleep and then sent him back to his blankets with only a few hours left before dawn. Oddly enough, though, in the event he would be grateful to Owaen.

In the dark of the night, when his predecessor woke him, Branoic went to Maryn’s tent to stand guard. Yawning and shivering in the chilly air, he stood outside the tent flap on the off-chance, he supposed, that an enemy would manage to creep unseen and unheard through an army of several thousand to murder the prince. He had just taken up a comfortable stance when he heard Maryn moving around inside. In a few moments more the prince came out to join him.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Maryn remarked. ‘I’ve been having trouble that way, just of late.’

‘That saddens my heart to hear, your highness,’ Branoic said. ‘Can’t Nevyn brew you up some herbs?’

‘He won’t. I did ask, but he says a man gets used to them after a while and then can’t sleep without them.’

‘Well, then, they sound a bit dangerous.’

For a few moments they stood looking up at the clear sky, where the Snowy Road glittered and the bright stars hung like candles in a vast lantern. By the sky’s light Branoic could distinguish the dark shapes of the tents, spread out through the silent camp, and beyond them the supply wagons.

‘Excuse me, your highness,’ Branoic said. ‘I’ll just be taking a look round back, like.’

Maryn nodded his permission. Branoic glanced this way and that as he strolled around the tent, found nothing, then paused for a moment. He had a clear view, between two straight rows of tents, of the tethered horses in the distant meadow. Something - someone - was moving among them. Several someones, and he saw a glint of light that might have come from a knife. Branoic yelled the alarm at the top of his lungs.

‘Guards! Wake up! Raiders!’

He kept screaming until he could see and hear others rousing. Since his first duty lay with the prince, he started round the tent only to find Maryn coming to meet him and buckling on his sword belt as he moved.

‘Let’s go!’ Maryn was laughing. ‘Well spread the alarm!’

They both drew their weapons, then ran, yelling like banshees, through the camp. By then they were part of a mob, men half-dressed and half-awake, waving swords as they rushed to defend their mounts. Out in the meadow they found chaos. Panicked horses raced away, trailing cut tether ropes, whilst others reared neighing as they tried to pull their tethers and run. Over the general noise Branoic heard one he recognized all too well.

‘Armed men riding!’ he bellowed. “Ware!’

In the uncertain light he could see mounted riders turning off the road. They charged across the meadow straight for the horses. Branoic had one dreadful moment to realize that while the Cantrae men were fully armed, he was one of the few men in the entire army wearing his mail. He sheathed his sword and grabbed Maryn by the arm.

‘Your highness! I’m getting you out of here!’

‘Don’t! You get your hands off me!’

Branoic ignored him and yanked him back. Although Maryn was no weakling, few men could argue with Branoic when it came to brute strength. Branoic threw both arms around the prince from behind, clasped him in an unbreakable grip, and began frog-marching him back toward the tents while the prince yelled and swore and cursed him with every foul thing he could think of. Behind them they heard a roar and shouting, men screaming, horses neighing and shrieking, and the unmistakable sound of metal clashing with metal.

‘Good lad!’ It was Nevyn, running toward him. ‘Owaen’s right behind me.’

Owaen and twenty silver daggers as well — they poured around Branoic and the struggling prince like water round a stone. Branoic felt in his heart that they were all doomed. In this sort of surprise attack their superior numbers meant little. Nevyn reappeared with the prince’s mail. The men passed it back, and Branoic helped Maryn get it on and laced. Maddyn raced up, his arms full of shields. In the confusion Maryn ended up with a shield bearing the blue device of Glasloc, but no one bothered to change it.

As the fighting in the meadow raged on, more men came running from the tents, some fully dressed and armed, others half-naked and barefoot, waving their weapons as they ran. Owaen began commandeering the battle-ready men to make a stand around their prince. Grimly they fell into position in the living wall.

‘For the gods’ sakes!’ Maryn snapped. ‘I can’t stand here forever! We’ve got to get to the fighting.’

Owaen considered, then nodded,

‘Formation round the prince!’ Owaen yelled. ‘Then march!’

Like a ragged animal with too many legs, they headed for the battle. They had just reached the edge of camp when Branoic spotted Nevyn again. The old man was standing among the last row of tents with his arms held high over his head as if he were waiting for someone to throw him something from above. Branoic stared, wondering if Nevyn had gone daft, but a sudden shout and a flare of light from the battle distracted him.

On the far side of the yelling, neighing mob of men and horses in the meadow, a line of horsemen was trotting purposefully along, wheeling around the edge of the field and heading for the tents. Each carried a flaming torch.

‘May the gods rot their balls!’ Owaen snarled. They’re going to fire the camp!’

‘We’ve got to stop them,’ Maryn shouted. ‘Form up and we’ll make a stand,’

Maryn broke free of his guards and started running to meet the oncoming charge. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Branoic took out after him. He could hear Owaen swearing and the rest of their pack pounding along behind. The light from the torches flared, and he could see the Boar blazon on the horsemen’s shields - and they must have seen the shield Maryn was carrying and its Glasloc device. The leader of the torchbearers was yelling out commands, a young man whose voice cracked with excitement.

‘Swing around, lads, swing around! Get the tents! Don’t stop to fight!’

Braemys’s very cleverness cost him the chance to kill Maryn and gain a throne. The line of torchbearers swung their horses’ heads round and bypassed the prince’s ragged, half-armed line. Maryn and his men turned to follow them just as thunder boomed from the clear sky above. Or not so clear now - Branoic glanced up and saw clouds racing in from only the gods knew where. Prince Maryn threw his head back and howled with berserk laughter. The thunder crashed again, rolling around the battlefield.

‘There wasn’t any lightning!’ Branoic yelled.

For an answer Maryn went on laughing, half-choking, half-screaming with it. The torchbearers were shouting and reining in their spooked horses just a bare hundred yards from the first line of tents. Branoic could hear their leader screaming in rage. All at once rain poured from the massive clouds, a deluge as solid as if the gods had emptied giant buckets onto the earth below. The torches went out. Yelling in rage and frustration the horsemen turned and swept back into the battlefield, but Branoic could hear silver horns crying out through the rain as the Boar sounded the retreat.

All at once lightning did flash, and in the brief glare Branoic could see that the battle on the meadow was disintegrating into chaos. The prince’s forces were falling back toward camp. The Boarsmen were galloping away northward. The lightning flashed down and struck the road behind them, as if the gods were ordering them to keep riding. They did. Maryn had stopped his berserk laughter and stood panting for breath.

‘Surround the prince,’ Owaen called out. ‘Let’s get him back to camp.’

Slipping in the sudden mud, the clumsy formation staggered back to the tents. The rain slacked, and when Branoic looked up, he saw the clouds scudding away before a fast wind. In the east the sky was turning the colour of steel. He’d never been so glad to see a sunrise in his life. Nevyn trotted up and fell in beside the prince.

‘My thanks,’ Maryn said.

‘Most welcome,’ Nevyn said casually. ‘And from now on I think I’d best do a little scrying every night. Those blasted Boars caught me off-guard.’

It took the army the entire day to get itself ordered. All morning soldiers carried a steady procession of the wounded over to the wagons where the chirurgeons had set up an improvised surgery. Without armour of any kind, the men had sustained some of the ugliest stabs and tears that Nevyn, or any of the other physicians, had ever seen. Most of the badly wounded died under their hands. No wounded Cantrae men found on the field lived to reach the chirurgeons.

When the sun had reached its height, Nevyn poured a couple of buckets of water over himself to clean up and returned to the prince’s side to find Maryn holding a council of sorts. Various lords would hurry up to him and recount their losses or tell him how the horse hunt was going. They had detailed most of their riders to go out and search for the lost mounts; some had been found, and others over the course of the day returned voluntarily to their herd. Still, several hundred head of battle-ready mounts were gone - and doubtless into Cantrae hands.

By late afternoon Nevyn and Maryn managed to sort out what had happened. Braemys’s men had crept up on the outer ring of guards and murdered them where they stood. They then had slipped in among the horses to cut tethers before the main body of Cantrae men charged the sleeping camp. If Branoic hadn’t chanced to see them and give the alarm early, Braemys might well have ridden straight through the camp and managed to kill an unarmed Prince Maryn or at the least trampled a good many of his vassals. Their tents and food would have gone up in flames as well.

‘Slimy little cub!’ Tieryn Gauryc snapped. ‘A coward and the son of a pig, all right.’

The other lords in council nodded their agreement.

‘Tonight we put up double rings of guards,’ Maryn said. ‘And when we march tomorrow, we put men at point and off to our flanks. We’d best dispose guards along the supply train, as well.’

No one argued with him.

That night passed without any further attacks, and in the morning the army set off even more slowly than before, what with all the extra scouts to come and go from the main line of march and the wounded men to nurse along, Despite the banners and the show offeree, every man in the army knew that they were crawling for home, and that against all odds and despite the dweomer on their side, Braemys had scored a victory.

Since the prince sent messengers on ahead to announce his return, those left behind turned out to cheer him on the day that he marched home. His men swarmed the walls, the main wards, even the road leading uphill to the broch so thickly that Lilli went upstairs in one of the side towers rather than fight for a place. She found a window that gave her a good view down into the main ward. She had just perched on the wide stone sill when she heard the distant shouting that meant the prince was arriving. She leaned out at a dangerous angle to watch the army climbing the hill.

Just behind the banners she could make out Prince IVlaryn, riding unhelmed, with his golden hair gleaming in the sunlight. Her heart pounded just at this distant sight of him, but then she spotted Nevyn, riding alongside like a warning. Behind them came the silver daggers. Even in the middle of the troop Branoic stood out because of his height. She realized that he was looking up, studying the windows above him as if he were hoping to see a particular someone. As the troop filed into the main ward, she leaned out a little farther.

‘Branoic!’ she called out. ‘Branno!’

With a laugh he waved at her, and she waved back. Perhaps the prince would notice and realize that she wasn’t lacking in suitors. She left the window and hurried down to the main ward, a thundering confusion of men and horses. It took her some while to make her way across. In the great hall Nevyn was nowhere to be seen, but a page had heard him remark that he was going to his chamber.

‘More stairs!’ Lilli said. ‘I don’t know why he had to pick the highest chamber in the whole wretched palace!’

By the time she reached his door, Lilli was gasping for breath. Nevyn opened it before she knocked and ushered her’in.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘It gladdens my heart to see you, but there was no need to run all the way here.’

‘I didn’t,’ Lilli gasped. ‘Took my time.’

She sat on the offered chair and let herself simply breathe. Nevyn cocked his head to one side and considered her with eyes that seemed oddly out of focus. After a moment he glanced away, back to normal.

‘This illness is beginning to worry me,’ Nevyn said.

‘But I’ve not been ill.’

“You may not have been aware of it, but you were and are. I’m glad I’m back.’

‘Well, so am I. Which reminds me.’ Lilli reached into her kirtle and brought out a silver message tube. ‘While you were gone, my lord, a messenger brought you a letter from the princess’s women.’ Lilli handed it over. ‘He gave it to me for safekeeping.’

‘My thanks.’ Nevyn cracked the wax seal and slid the rolled parchment out. ‘I hope this isn’t the news I’ve been dreading.’

Yet on the outermost bit of the roll Lilli saw the words, ‘a return of her old trouble’. Swearing under his breath, Nevyn smoothed the parchment out and read it silently - a great marvel in those days, for someone to read without speaking each word to hear its meaning.

‘Bad news indeed,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘It’s the madness again. From childbirth, I mean — her mother was prone to this as well, from what the servants told me. It’s a terrible sadness that overwhelms her rational faculties. Have you ever seen this disease?’

‘I have,’ Lilli said. ‘One of the women here in the dun got that way with her first baby. Bewa told me it was vapours from the womb.’

‘Precisely. In time they dissipate of their own accord, and a good thing, too, because I’ve never found the cure, not in books nor from midwives.’

“Will we go back to Cerrmor to care for her?’

‘I don’t know. It depends on when the prince summons her here.’

‘Of course. I’d forgotten that.’

Lilli knew that he was studying her, waiting to see how she would take the news that Bellyra would some day join her husband. Lilli got up, casually she hoped, and began to straighten the clutter on his table - parchments, dirty cups, magical diagrams, little cloth sacks of herbs, and books, all jumbled together.

‘Naught else of import happened while you were gone,’ she said. She was pleased that her voice sounded steady. ‘I was ever so glad to see Branoic safe.’

‘Good. We had entirely too much excitement one night, but doubtless he’ll want to tell you about it himself. He saved the prince’s life.’

‘He did? How splendid!’

‘It was. Tell me somewhat, Lilli. Did you know Braemys well?’

‘I did when he was a child, but once he went back to his father I barely saw him.’

‘] see. When he was a lad, did he impress people as being quite clever?’

‘Oh, he did, truly. I remember him beating everyone at games like carnoic and gwyddbwcl, and he was always leading the other boys in mock battles and suchlike. Everyone said that it was a pity he wouldn’t inherit Cantrae instead of Uncle Tibryn’s son.’

‘I see. Life would be much simpler if only he were stupid.’

After Nevyn gave her leave to go, Lilli sought out Branoic and found him in the great hall, sitting with Maddyn and a few other silver daggers on the riders’ side of the room. The men from the various warbands filled the tables around him, and they were drinking heavily, teasing the servant girls who were trying to bring them ale and bread. Lilli had no desire to walk through the mob, nor did she want to ask a page to take him a message, not here where half the people in the dun could see. As she stood by the honour hearth, debating what to do, Branoic solved the problem by looking up and seeing her. He stood, waved at her, and came trotting over.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ Branoic said.

‘And it gladdens my heart to see you safe,’ Lilli said. ‘Old Nevyn told me an interesting thing about you, just now.’

‘Oh, did he? What?’

‘That your quick thinking saved our prince’s life.’

Branoic looked modestly down at the floor.

‘Ah well,’ he said at last. ‘I did naught that any other man wouldn’t have done.’

‘Truly?’

He shrugged and sat on the bench. Lilli glanced around and realized that Maryn and his retinue were coming down the staircase.

‘Somewhat like that deserves a reward,’ Lilli said. She leaned over and kissed Branoic on the cheek.

‘I’ll take that for a reward over any favour of princes or priests,’ he said, smiling. ‘My thanks, my lady.’

Lilli sat down next to him hut a decorous distance away. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of Maryn, walking across the great hall with Nevyn while pages trailed along behind. If Maryn had seen the kiss, he showed no sign of caring one way or the other. The two men sat down at the honour table some distance away, well out of earshot. She turned her attention resolutely to Branoic.

‘You must tell me about the battle,’ Lilli said. ‘Nevyn didn’t tell me much.’

‘Well, the details aren’t fit for your ears, my lady. Our prince acquitted himself well, though. Maybe a little too well. All I really did was keep him from making some kind of hopeless charge into the thick of the enemy.’

‘Well, tell me about it!’

Branoic rolled his eyes heavenward, but tell her he did, though she knew he was leaving out a fair bit of mayhem. Speaking of their prince together was oddly satisfying, she realized. Branoic could show her the part of Maryn’s life that otherwise she wouldn’t see, and it was fascinating. Now and then she’d glance up, but she looked directly only at Nevyn, who smiled at her in approval. Yet always she was aware of the prince, sitting at his distance, like a fire blazing with warmth felt half-way across a room.

After the evening meal in the great hall, Nevyn retired to his chamber. He lit candles, then laid a leather-bound book, as tall as his forearm, onto the table. Although he’d owned this book for many years, it had only recently returned to him after spending some time in the hands of a thief, and he couldn’t remember if it held the information he wanted or not. He had just found a page listing the various kinds of spirits when he heard someone coming up the stairs with a tread far too heavy to belong to Lilli.

‘My lord Nevyn!’ It was Oggyn’s voice, puffing from the climb. ‘Nevyn, are you in?’

‘I am!’ Nevyn laid a scrap of cloth in to keep his place, then closed the book. ‘I’m on my way.’

Nevyn got up and opened the door to find a winded Oggyn, his arms full of parchments. In the dim light spilling out of the chamber, he looked terrified.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Nevyn said.

‘A private word with you, if I may. Somewhat’s very wrong indeed.’

Nevyn ushered him inside. Oggyn dumped his parchments onto the table and then sank onto the only chair. He pulled a rag out of his pocket and mopped the sweat from his bald scalp. Nevyn sat down opposite on the edge of his bed.

‘Whilst you were gone, I rode around the royal demesnes to draw up my lists, just as I’d planned.’ Oggyn waved at the heap on the table. ‘I made some very unpleasant discoveries. As soon as he gives up Cerrmor, our liege is going to be a poor man.’

‘Oh ye gods,’ Nevyn felt as if he’d been slapped awake. ‘I should have realized! After all these years of war —’

‘Precisely, and it was the territory around Dun Deverry that bore the worst of the fighting. I mean, by the Lord of Hells balls! Look at the city! Well, the royal farmlands are in much the same condition.’

‘But we’ve passed prosperous-looking —’

‘Those all belong to the priesthood of Bel,’ Oggyn paused, scowling within his black beard. ‘No one was going to risk the wrath of the gods by overrunning them, were they? Over the years the Boars wangled plenty of favours from the priests, and their rewards always came out of the king’s lands, not theirs.’

Nevyn swore like a silver dagger about the personal habits of the Boar clan. Oggyn nodded in vigorous approval.

‘We’ve been wondering, you and I,’ Oggyn went on, just how the Boars got such an upper hand over the kings. Well, now we know. The kings needed them, Nevyn, needed them desperately. By the end, the royal house couldn’t have been able to raise and feed more than a hundred men from their own holdings.’

Nevyn found he couldn’t even swear. Oggyn mopped his head one last time and stuffed the rag back into his pocket,

‘Have you spoken to our liege about this?’ Nevyn said at last.

‘I’ve not. I wanted to consult with you first. You’re the man who knows the priests. I was wondering, is there any chance they’d turn some of that land back over to the royal line?’

‘On the same day that horses sprout wings and fly.’

‘I feared that, truly. Ah ye gods, I don’t know what we’re going to do! Our prince is going to be at the mercy of his vassals now, just like Olaen was. Whoever holds the Cerrmor rhan is going to hold a knife at Maryn’s throat.’

For some while they sat without speaking, watching the candle-thrown shadows dance over the walls. Nevyn could see all his schemes, his hopes, his long campaign to end the wars crumble like a lump of sand on the Cerrmor beach, washed out on a tide of ambition and arrogance. The ocean, indeed, and all those merchant taxes and dues that had made both Cerrmor and its gwerbret rich.

‘Oh ye gods!’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘I don’t,’ Oggyn said gloomily. ‘I know my place, my lord. I can see the little things, how they lie close at hand, but the long view escapes me.’

Only then did Nevyn realize how frightened Oggyn truly was, that he’d be so honest to a man he saw as a rival.

‘Well, this may not work,’ Nevyn said. ‘But what if Cerrmor and its attendant lands remained in the prince’s control”?’

‘It would save the entire situation. He’d have eight hundred riders of his own and the contingent of spearmen as well, though truly, I think me the town will balk at such a large levy once the wars are done.’

‘What if the levy made them a free city for a hundred years and a day?’

Oggyn’s smile shone like the sun through storm clouds.

‘I thought so,’ Nevyn went on. ‘Now listen, I don’t know if we can bring this off, but if we can, it will catch a pair of rabbits in one snare. Maryn will be free of the burden of apportioning the rhan to someone, thereby disappointing everyone else, and he’ll have troops sworn to him alone. The taxes due him from the merchant trade will support those riders, while the town can easily outfit the spearmen from what they save in gwerbretal dues and have a good bit left over.’

Oggyn nodded and went on smiling.

‘First things first,’ Nevyn said. “You’re an important man in Cerrmor. Can you get the town council to agree to such a scheme?’

‘My dear Nevyn, an idiot child could get the council to agree to this! They’ll be free of one entire set of taxes and so will their children and grandchildren. There’s going to be grumbling from the noble-born, though.’

‘Grumbling is a mild word for it. Especially the circle around Gauryc. I don’t want them pulling out of the alliance.’

‘I was worrying about them, truly. Gauryc’s been sidling up to me, flattering and suchlike, just because I have the ear of the prince.’

‘Truly?’ Nevyn made a great effort and managed to look surprised.

‘Truly. A sad sad thing! But here, I just had another thought. Once he gets rid of Braemys, the prince will have Cantrae to hand out for a prize. It’s not as rich as Cerrmor, but it’ll be a goodly sop nonetheless.’

‘Just so.’

‘One last thing.’ Oggyn hesitated, staring down at the table. ‘What will our prince think of breaking precedents and precedence this way?’

‘I think we’d best go ask him.’

Prince Maryn, it turned out, had already retired to his private chambers. Since Nevyn was one of the few men in the kingdom who could follow him there, he got a candle-lantern and led the way with a nervous Oggyn trailing behind him. Maryn greeted them both courteously and ushered them into his reception chamber, now free of most of the battered furniture. A low fire smouldered in the hearth, and candles blazed in their wall sconces.

‘I was tired of the noise in the great hall,’ Maryn said. This business of not sleeping all night - it wears a man down.’

‘My apologies, my liege,’ Nevyn said, ‘if we woke you.’

‘No such luck. Be seated, good councillors.’

Maryn flopped into a half-round chair and slouched down, crossing his long legs in front of him at the ankle. In the candlelight his skin looked as smooth as a child’s, and Nevyn found himself remembering that handsome little boy of years past, who had been so eager to be king.

‘Oggyn?’ Nevyn said. ‘I suggest you lay your findings before our prince.’

Oggyn explained, with much flapping of parchments, the poverty of Maryn’s new realm. Maryn listened intently, but his face was absolutely unreadable, and he said not a word, not even when Oggyn read off the dismal lists of burnt villages and unploughed fields. When Oggyn fell silent, Nevyn laid out their plan to grant Cerrmor a limited charter in return for revenues. He’d not quite finished when the prince interrupted.

‘I can’t do that,’ Maryn snapped. ‘What will happen when the hundred years are over and the town refuses to accept a gwerbret?’

‘My liege!’ Oggyn said. ‘None of us will be alive in a hundred years.’

‘So?’ Maryn got to his feet and began pacing back and forth by the fire. ‘That’s not the point. It’s the honour of the thing.’

Since the prince was standing, Nevyn and Oggyn had to stand as well. Oggyn laid his parchments down carefully on a table and tried again.

‘My liege, do you disagree with my words about the state of affairs here in Dun Deverry?’

‘Not at all,’ Maryn said. ‘I meant to commend you on your hard work, in fact. There’s no doubt it’s worrisome, but by Great Bel himself, how can I release Cerrmor from the dues it owes its rightful lords?’

‘Once you’re seated as king, my liege,’ Nevyn said, ‘Cerrmor will have no rightful lord.’

‘Oh come now!’ Maryn stopped pacing and turned to face him. ‘Aren’t you the one who taught me how important order and the laws and honour and such are to the kingdom? There have always been gwerbretion in Cerrmor. That’s the way the gods and the laws both intend the city to be ruled. How can I take my place as high king if I overthrow those laws, even to -’ Maryn hesitated for a long moment. ‘Even to save my rule”?’

‘There are times,’ Nevyn said, ‘when a man must break the words of laws in order to honour their spirit. If the kingdom’s to have peace, there absolutely must be strong kings in Dun Deverry.’

‘Well then! How can my vassals respect me if I’ve thrown Cerrmor to the common folk?’

At that point Nevyn realized that he would never change the prince’s mind, not if he argued the entire winter through. He glanced at Oggyn, standing head down and defeated nearby.

‘Our liege has spoken,’ Nevyn said. ‘Good councillor, I think we’d best come up with some other remedy.’

‘Just so.’ Oggyn made the prince a low bow. ‘If your highness will excuse us?’

‘Of course. And please understand that I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.’

‘My prince?’ Nevyn said. ‘A boon, if I may be so bold.’

‘When couldn’t you ask me for anything?’

‘My thanks. Your silence on this matter is absolutely necessary until your councillors find a solution.’

‘That I can promise you.’

‘Splendid! And my thanks yet once again.’

Maryn crossed to a window and stood staring out at the night whilst Oggyn, with Nevyn’s help, gathered up his parchments. They let themselves out, shut the heavy door carefully, and stood staring at each other by the light of Nevyn’s lantern.

‘Stubborn mule of a man!’ Nevyn whispered. ‘I wish he were still a lad so I could give him a good clout. Knock some sense into him!’

‘But he’s not,’ Oggyn too kept his voice barely audible. ‘Shall we retire and discuss this further?’

To spare Oggyn the stairs they went to the quarters he, as chamberlain, had assigned himself, a pair of large rooms that during the day would be sunny and cheerful. During the leisurely sack of the dun after the siege, Oggyn had acquired some of the best chairs, the newest cushions, and a selection of tapestries that were if not splendid then at least less threadbare than most. On his mantel sat a small silver wyvern and a silver flagon. He dumped his parchments onto a long oak table banded with delicate carving, then took Nevyn’s candle and trotted around, lighting more in their silver sconces,

‘May I offer you mead?’ Oggyn said when he was done.

‘None for me, but my thanks. I need to think.’

‘True.’ Oggyn sat down in a chair opposite him. ‘I see no use in trying to hide my deep disappointment in our prince’s opinion.’

‘I see none either. Ye gods!’

‘We’re at such a critical juncture of the war. If we could only keep the problem at bay till Maryn’s brought Braemys to heel!’

“Well, he remains Gwerbret Cerrmor till the priests declare him king.’

‘A most excellent point! But afterwards —’

‘Indeed. Let me think on this. There has to be a solution.’

‘I hope to every god that you come up with it, whatever it may be.’

‘Until then, no one else had better learn of this situation.’

‘Just so. You can count on my silence.’ Oggyn rose and began tidying his parchments. ‘But if the prince sees this as a matter of honour, then he’ll start his reign so heavily indebted that he’ll be king in name only.’

On the morrow morning, the prince’s vassals, released from their summer’s service to their liege lord, assembled their men and broke camp, heading for their own lands. Lilli sat in her tower window and watched as one after the other the lords knelt before Maryn to promise him their prompt return, either in the spring or in his great need, whichever came the sooner. By then Lilli saw the Wildfolk as easily as she saw objects on the physical plane, and she studied them as the spirits swarmed around the prince and lent him their energies to augment his own. They supplied the brightness in the air, the private breeze that ruffled his hair, the spring in his walk, even. The Wildfolk of Aethyr swelled his aura to an enormous golden cloud, a crackling globe of sheer astral force that enlivened everyone who came in contact with it.

Lilli had to admit that she understood now what Nevyn had meant. Maryn’s unnatural allure did lie in the dweomers his councillor worked. She also realized that the admission had brought her to the edge of tears.

‘Oh stop it!’ she told herself. “You’ve got more important things to do, anyway, than day-dreaming about Prince Maryn.’

Tieryn Anasyn, her true brother now, was among the last to leave Dun Deverry. All of the northern lords who’d come over to Maryn the summer past were leaving behind some of their men - technically an extra levy for the prince’s fortguard, but in actuality hostages of a sort. Lilli waited down in the ward while Anasyn commended ten of his best riders to the prince’s care. Abrwnna was already mounted on her palfrey at the head of her husband’s warband. Seeing her there, the new lady of Hendyr, made Lilli weep. Her sister-in-law’s position was the final, irrevocable sign that Lady Bevyan lay dead, that never again would she preside in Hendyr’s great hall.

Anasyn came hurrying over and flung one arm around Lilli’s shoulders.

‘Here, here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in the spring.’

‘Oh, I know.’ Lilli snuffled back tears. ‘I was thinking about Bewa.’

Anasyn nodded, suddenly solemn.

‘Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about her and Father, too,’ Anasyn said finally. ‘Which reminds me. Father wanted you properly settled in life. Abrwnna tells me that there’s been gossip about you and Branoic the silver dagger.’

‘What? The gall! What sort of gossip?’

‘Naught terrible.’ He grinned, and she realized that he was teasing her. ‘He’s a fine man, Branno. But I doubt me if he can support a wife.’

‘Well, he told me that the prince has promised him a boon, and that he’s going to ask for land.’

‘Oh? Oh, well then! If he can support you decently, I’ve no objections to him.’

‘My thanks, brother. It gladdens my heart.’

‘I thought it might. And now I’d best be off. If you want to come visit us this winter, send me a messenger, and I’ll send men to fetch you.’

‘My thanks! I will!’

Yet Lilli knew that she’d not have the courage to return to Hendyr so soon, not with Bevyan’s death so fresh in her mind. She ran to the gates of the main ward to wave Anasyn and Abrwnna out, then slowly, thinking of very little, she walked back to the cluster of brochs. Maryn was standing on the steps, waiting for her. She stopped and stared at the wonder of it, that he would wait for her, standing on the steps alone like an ordinary man.

‘Good morrow, Lady Lillorigga,’ the prince said.

‘A good morrow to you, your highness.’ Lilli curtsied and felt her heart flutter like a trapped bird. ‘I was just seeing my brother off.’

‘So I noticed. He’s a good man, Anasyn.’

She smiled, Maryn smiled, and neither, it seemed, could think of a word to say. The Wildfolk swarmed round them both, gnomes and sprites and like crystals in the air, the sylphs, but she could strip the dweomer away, she realized, and see the man himself. He’s still splendid, she thought. I’d find him wondrous if he were the kitchen boy.

‘Lilli!’ It was Nevyn’s voice, and the Wildfolk vanished in a burst of fear. There you are, eh?’

Lilli spun around, blushing so hard she felt her face burning. Nevyn was striding across the ward.

‘I am, my lord,’ she stammered. ‘Have you need of me?’

‘I do.’ Nevyn glanced at the prince. ‘If you’ll excuse me, your highness? My apprentice and I have important work to do.’

‘Of course,’ Maryn said. ‘And I need to talk with the gwerbret of Yvrodur. He’s doubtless impatient to be on the road.’

All the way up to Nevyn’s chamber Lilli trembled, sure she was in for the worst lecture of her life. Instead he merely opened his book of dweomers and set her to work memorizing the names and formal terms of address for all the spirits of all the Elemental Courts, kings, queens, champions and princesses, every last one of them. It was so tedious that, she realized, he’d given her work of a sort to drive all thoughts of Maryn out of her mind.

In the council chamber of the royal broch the last of the afternoon’s sun fell across the maps spread across the table. The three men studying them stood leaning over the tattered parchments. Although each map purported to show Deverry and the bordering lands, each was so different from the others that Nevyn despaired of ever forming a clear idea of the shape of the kingdom.

‘What matters, though,’ Nevyn said, ‘is simple enough. Eldidd lies west of Deverry, and so does Pyrdon. Pyrdon lies north of Eldidd. When Maryn becomes king of Deverry and Pyrdon, Eldidd will be like a piece of meat between two jaws.’

‘Just so,’ Maddyn said. ‘And I doubt me if Aenycyr of Eldidd is so blind that he hasn’t seen it too.’

‘It’s a bad situation, all right,’ Owaen said. ‘But we’ve all known about it for years. You called us here for some cursed reason, councillor. Why don’t you just drop this feint and tell us?’

Maddyn glared at his fellow silver dagger, but Owaen ignored the black look. There were times when Nevyn wished he actually could blast a man with fire or turn one into a frog, and Owaen always seemed to be the person who inspired those moments.

Very well,’ Nevyn said. ‘I want to know how your recruiting efforts are going. I’d like to see the silver daggers brought up to strength as soon as possible.’

‘Do you think I wouldn’t?’ Owaen said.

‘Oh hold your tongue, you hound!’ Maddyn broke in. ‘We’re doing pretty well, Nevyn. We’ve now got fifty-six men, fifty-seven if Red-haired Trevyr can ever fight again.’

Owaen ostentatiously picked up a map and carried it over to the window to study. With him gone, a blue sprite materialized on the table, a pretty little thing except for her mouthful of fangs. She stuck her tongue out at Owaen, then hopped onto Maddyn’s shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t count Trevyr,’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s a miracle that he lived at all.’

‘So we tell him. Daily.’ Maddyn smiled in a wry sort of way. You must be expecting trouble soon, if you’re worrying about the prince’s guard.’

‘I am. In Eldidd the winters are mild. There’s no reason for King Aenycyr to wait till spring to cause trouble. I’ve had reports that he’s considering how he might exploit Maryn’s half-brother to keep Pyrdon out of Deverry hands.’

‘Ah horseshit! That’s the last thing we need. How old is Riddmar, anyway? He’s but a child, isn’t he?’

‘He was born nine summers ago, if I remember rightly. Casyl of Pyrdon’s not in good health, When he dies, who can blame his wife if she’s ambitious for her son? She’s never so much as met Maryn, and he’s the living memorial to Casyl’s first wife, anyway.’

Owaen turned round and lowered the map to listen. The sprite, whom of course he couldn’t see, stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers at him.

‘I hadn’t heard about King Casyl being ill. Maddyn said. That saddens my heart. He was generous to us silver daggers when we were in Pyrdon.’

‘He’s a good man, truly.’ Nevyn sighed, genuinely saddened himself. ‘But be that as it may, when Casyl dies, Maryn inherits, Pyrdon becomes part of Deverry, and there’s Eldidd, squeezed on both its borders. Aenycyr will do anything he can to stop it.’

‘And Riddmar’s the logical weapon for him to wield.’ Maddyn considered for a moment. ‘Is there any way to bind Riddmar to Maryn? Some practical thing, that is. Family sentiment never seems to burn brightly among the noble-born.’

‘That’s it!’ Nevyn suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Maddo, you’ve done it again!’

‘Er, I beg your pardon?’ Maddyn said.

‘Given me a splendid idea, that is.’ Nevyn did a few quick steps of a jig, then calmed himself. ‘I must go speak with Councillor Oggyn. Do carry on, lads, with your recruiting. The more men in the prince’s guard, the better.’

Nevyn practically ran down to the great hall. He found a page and sent him off to look for Oggyn, who appeared promptly. They stood in the curve of the wall out of the general confusion to talk.

‘My apologies for disturbing you,’ Nevyn said. ‘But I’ve had an idea about that problem we discussed the other night. I suggest that we lay it before the prince straightaway.’

But the prince proved much harder to find. Nevyn and Oggyn sat at a table in the great hall whilst the pages searched all over the broch complex. No one had seen the prince ride out of the dun, no one had seen him retire to his private chambers. After a long irritating while, Nevyn suddenly realized where Maryn must be.

‘If you’ll come with me, Oggyn,’ Nevyn said, ‘let’s go up to my chamber while the pages keep looking. I’ll tell you this idea privately.’

‘A wise move, no doubt,’ Oggyn said.

Sure enough, when Nevyn opened the door to his chamber, there was Maryn, half-sitting, half-leaning on the table while Lilli sat opposite, the book open in front of her. She was giggling, smiling up at the prince while he grinned back at her, but at the sight of Nevyn she yelped like a kicked dog. The prince blushed sunset-red and stood up. Nevyn bowed to him.

‘Ah, my apologies, my liege,’ Nevyn said. ‘But we have a grave matter to lay before you. Lady Lillorigga, if you would attend to the work I set you? It’s of the utmost importance, tedious though I know it must be.’

In the council chamber the maps still lay on the table where Owaen and Maddyn had left them, but the sun had sunk below the walls of the dun, and shadows filled the room. Nevyn glanced around, saw half-burnt candles in the sconces, and lit them all with one quick flick of his wrist. Oggyn shuddered.

‘I’ve not got used to that yet,’ the councillor said with a small sigh. ‘I doubt me if I ever will.’

‘My apologies.’ Nevyn turned to the prince. Your highness, you’ll remember the problem of the Cerrmor rhan?’

‘I do, indeed,’ Maryn said. ‘It kept me awake half the night past.’

‘Councillor Oggyn,’ Nevyn went on, ‘how many years do you think must pass before the royal demesnes are prosperous again?’

‘I’m not truly sure.’ Oggyn frowned, thinking. ‘Much depends upon the number of men available to farm them and of course the weather. There are bondfolk still in the villages, but they’ve been too dispirited to work very hard, and truly, who can blame them? If we fed them decently and got them the seed corn they need, in but three or four years the fields would bloom again. Five, mayhap.’

‘Good,’ Nevyn said. ‘And in five or six years, Riddmar of Pyrdon, our prince’s half-brother, will be on the edge of manhood - and able to rule Cerrmor without his brother’s aid as regent.’

For a long moment both prince and councillor stared at him. Then Maryn laughed, tossing back his head.

‘Oh, splendid, splendid!’ Maryn said, grinning. “Why should Riddmar listen to Eldidd if I give him such a splendid prize?’

‘And how can he deny you troops, with you as regent?’ Nevyn said. ‘And who among your vassals will argue with you about it? Gauryc can nurse his disappointments all he wants, but he knows you have to hold Eldidd at bay. He’s greedy, not stupid.’

Oggyn was smiling as if the Goddess of the Fields had appeared to him, her arms laden with bounty.

‘The long view,’ Oggyn said. ‘Lord Nevyn, truly you’re a master of the long view.’

‘My thanks.’ Nevyn wondered what Oggyn would think if he knew just how long his view was. ‘But it was Maddyn the bard who started me thinking about this.’

‘Then he shall eat at my table tonight,’ Maryn said. ‘When shall we announce our choice, good councillors?’

‘First, my liege, I suggest we get messengers on their way to Pyrdon,’ Nevyn said, ‘before the snows set in.’

‘I’ll fetch a scribe, my liege,’ Oggyn said, all smiles, ‘should you wish me to.’

‘My thanks.’ Maryn nodded at him. You have my leave to go.’

With Oggyn gone, another matter occurred to Nevyn, now that he had a moment of the prince’s attention.

‘If I have my liege’s permission, I’d like to travel to Cerrmor,’ Nevyn said. ‘There are a few things I left behind that I want to fetch, things that servants have no business handling, if you take my meaning.’

‘Of course. Here, can you leave soon? One of the Cerrmor galleys is standing on the river down past the falls. I could send a messenger to hold it there, and you could ride down and take it over.’

‘My thanks, my liege. That would save a great deal of time.’

‘And what about your apprentice?’ Maryn made a slight bit too much of a show of looking away. ‘Will she accompany you?’

Until that moment Nevyn had been planning on leaving Lilli behind.

‘She will, my liege. I’ll need her help with packing these things for the journey.’

Maryn’s eyes had gone cold and distant. Nevyn could work out what he was trying to hide: disappointed lust. When Oggyn came bustling in with the scribe, Nevyn was glad to turn his mind elsewhere.

Toward the end of summer in Cerrmor, the fog disappeared and left the weather glorious. In the hot afternoons Princess Bellyra and her women would take their needlework out to the rose garden by the marble fountain. Even though she knew the sun would be good for her, it took all of Bellyra’s courage and a good bit of coaxing as well to get her into the garden each day. The bright light seemed to turn the world as flat and as unreal as the red wyverns she embroidered upon a shirt for her husband. Often she would run her needle into the cloth and let the work lie in her lap while she stared out across the garden, splashed with scarlet roses, to the trees beyond. She could never remember what she thought about during these lapses.

The new prince turned two months old on a particularly lovely day. The nursemaids brought both children into the garden, Marro to sleep in his basket, Casso to play at his mother’s feet, and Bellyra found that she could smile at them now and again. She caught her serving women watching her, though, and snarled.

‘I wish you wouldn’t stare at me like that!’

‘My apologies, your highness,’ Degwa said.

‘Lyrra, we’re just concerned.’ Elyssa shot back. ‘Can you blame us?’

‘I can’t, truly, but -’

‘I have a surprise for you.’ Elyssa spoke firmly, cutting her off- ‘I was looking for more thread in one of the chests, and I saw this.’ She leaned down to rummage in her work basket, then brought out a book, or more precisely, a codex. ‘I didn’t know what it might be, so I showed it to the scribe, and he told me it was somewhat that you’d treasured, back when you were a lass.’

With her first laugh in two months Bellyra took it, a history of Dun Cerrmor started long ago by some anonymous scribe. In the blank pages at the back, however, she had added to the story with precise descriptions of the dun as she’d known it as a child.

‘If we might be so bold,’ Degwa said7 ‘could we ask her highness to read to us? It would make the time pass so pleasantly.’

‘And truly,’ Elyssa chimed in, ‘it’s such a marvel to know a woman who can read.’

‘Oh huh!’ Bellyra wrinkled her nose at them. “You rehearsed that, didn’t you? But you know, I think I’d like to. Here’s a bit about King Glyn’s sorcerer that I used to love when I was a child. His name was Nevyn, too, and our Nevyn is his grandson.’

‘Indeed?’ Degwa’s eyes grew wide. ‘I never knew that! But the first Nevyn — that’s the man who helped my clan keep its name.’

‘Truly? Well, then, we simply have to read about him.’

Bellyra cleared her throat and began, Her small audience listened with a flattering attention, caught by the magic that allowed her to turn little marks on parchment into words that they could understand. And perhaps that book did have dweomer of a sort. As she read, she felt her black mood lightening; later that evening, after all her servants and serving women had gone to bed, she sat in the women’s hall and read the passages she’d written as a girl until the flickering candlelight made her eyes water. When at last she went to bed, she lay awake for a while, considering entries she might make to continue her description of the buildings and rooms. She fell asleep happy.

In the morning the pleasant mood stayed with her so long as she kept her mind on her book. As soon as the daily life of the dun intruded, she felt the black sadness take her over again, but the book had one last dweomer to offer. Late in the afternoon, while she read to her women, Nevyn himself arrived. She looked up from the book to see him striding through the garden with pages scurrying ahead of him and the Lady Lillorigga trotting after, unable to keep up with the old man. Bellyra shut the book with a snap.

‘I swear it, we’ve conjured him up!’ Bellyra said, pointing. ‘Look!’

Degwa and Elyssa turned on the bench and burst out laughing.

‘So it seems, your highness,’ Elyssa said.

‘And our little Boarswoman too,’ Degwa murmured. ‘How very nice.’

‘Oh Decci, stop it!’ Elyssa snapped. ‘She belongs to the Rams of Hendyr now.’

‘Once a person has been raised in an unwholesome manner,’ Degwa said, ‘it’s very hard for them to change their ways.’

‘Hush!’ Bellyra said. ‘Or she’ll hear you!’

Degwa arranged a smile and held her tongue. In a flurry of greetings and laughter, Nevyn and Lilli joined them. Lilli sank down onto the bench next to Elyssa to catch her breath, but as always Nevyn seemed full of boundless energy.

‘And what brings you here, Nevyn?’ Bellyra said.

‘A great many small errands,’ Nevyn said.

‘Ah, I see. And how long will you stay?’

‘Not too long, alas. Your husband has need of me back in the Holy City.’

‘It’s too bad he has no need of me.’

The words had slipped out unbidden. Beilyra laid a hand over her mouth as if she might shove them back in. They were all watching her, staring at her in undeniable pity, a soft sad-eyed patronizing pity. She leapt up, clutching her book to her chest.

‘Well, do you think I don’t know?’ Bellyra snapped. ‘My husband hasn’t seen fit to invite me to his new demesne, has he? He’s not so much as mentioned my joining him in Dun Deverry now that he has the victory.’

No one spoke, no one moved. Bellyra felt tears running down her face. All at once she could no longer bear the sight of any of them.

‘Leave me alone!’ She knew that she was screaming and no longer cared. ‘Go away, all of you! Just go away and leave me alone!’

The nursemaids jumped up and scooped up the children. The other women rose more slowly, but at a sign from Nevyn they left as well, following the servant girls back to the dun. Nevyn sat himself down on the bench.

‘I’m not leaving,’ he said, ‘Why don’t you join me?’

The tears had stopped. Bellyra wiped her face on the silk sleeve of her dress, then sat back down in her chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘For what? Speaking the truths of your heart?’

‘A princess isn’t supposed to have a heart. If she had a second womb instead the men would be well-pleased.’

Nevyn winced.

‘Well,’ Bellyra went on. ‘Do you think I’m wrong?’

‘I’ve never lied to you, have I? I told you from the first that your position was a difficult one.’

‘So you did.’ She held up the codex. ‘I wrote that down, too, all those years ago. I suppose I’ve no right to complain. It was exceptionally stupid of me to fall in love with my husband. Most women in my position have the good sense to avoid that particular trap, but then, most of them have rather repellent husbands, so it’s easier for them.’

Nevyn laughed, and after a moment, she smiled.

‘If you didn’t have so much common sense,’ Nevyn said, ‘your life would be easier. You could find comfort in throwing fits.’

‘Mayhap, mayhap not. I’ve no mind to try.’

‘I certainly do understand how it must rankle, sitting here in Cerrmor and wondering when you’ll be summoned.’

Bellyra nodded, sighed, looked away at the green view, glowing in the sun.

‘I’m also truly sorry you’ve been ill.’ Nevyn went on.

‘So am I. But you know, I do think it’s beginning to pass off.’

‘I cannot tell you how much that gladdens my heart to hear.’

‘If my monthly bleeding would only start again!’

‘It will. The Goddess hasn’t cursed you. You have my word on that.’

Bellyra managed a smile.

‘And I’ll tell you somewhat,’ Nevyn went on, ‘and it’s the very soul of truth and not some fancy I’m telling you for comfort’s sake. Maryn hasn’t sent for you because he worries about your well-being. Dun Deverry’s a grim place, as shabby as a hunting lodge after all these years of war, and the fighting’s not yet over. He told me in so many words that he’d not risk you in any way.’

‘Oh!’ Bellyra felt tears threaten, but she managed to choke them back. ‘Really?’

‘Really. Maryn has the greatest respect for you. He told me that he values your opinion above those of ten men. I know it’s not what you’d hoped for, but -’

‘But it’s a far greater thing than most noble wives are ever offered. I’m mindful of that, Nevyn. Truly I am.’

He smiled, but sadly. Bellyra rose, holding her book in one hand and smoothing down her dress with the other. He got up to join her.

‘Shall we go in?’ she said. ‘You must be weary after your journey.’

‘I wouldn’t mind getting out of this sun. It’s blazing out here.’

‘I suppose it is. Often I feel so cold, no matter where I am.’ When she looked around, the world seemed to have turned flat and pale, as if some demon had sucked all the colour from it. ‘But truly, I’m ready to go in.’

‘That’s what we’ve come to fetch,’ Nevyn said, pointing.

‘I thought it might be,’ Lilli said.

The silver casket, engraved with a design of roses, sat gleaming in the sunlight on the table. Although Wildfolk swarmed all over the women’s hall, they refused to go anywhere near the casket itself. Other than the Wildfolk, they had the big sunny room to themselves. Bellyra was sleeping, and Elyssa and Degwa had gone off about their own business in the dun.

‘I bitterly regret leaving the casket with the princess,’ Nevyn said. ‘But I didn’t know what else to do with the wretched thing. I couldn’t trust anyone else with it, and I could hardly take it with me on campaign.’

‘I should think not, my lord!’ Lilli said. ‘It might have got you killed.’

‘Or the prince, worse yet.’

‘Is that what’s made her so ill, the casket I mean?’

‘It’s not. That’s quite another matter.’

A greenish-grey gnome climbed into Lilli’s lap like a cat. She stroked its nubbly back and almost, it seemed, could hear it sigh in contentment. Nevyn walked over to the table and stood scowling at the casket as if he could force it to speak.

‘My lord? You’ve never told me what’s in it,’ Lilli said. ‘All I know is that I can’t bear to touch it.’

‘And that’s a mystery in itself. I put so many dweomer seals on it that I doubt if the Kings of the Elements themselves could get through them, yet you felt the evil without half-trying.’ He shook his head in irritation. ‘But what it’s hiding is at root simple: a curse tablet. Have you ever seen one of those?’

‘I’ve not.’

‘They’re strips of soft lead, hammered very thin - you engrave the words of your curse on it with a sharp bit of stick or suchlike.’

‘What did this one say?’

‘As this so that. Maryn king Maryn king Maryn. Death never dying. Aranrhodda rica rica rica Bubo lubo.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Are you any the wiser?’

‘Well, everyone knows who Aranrhodda is, and the death part is clear enough.’

‘Unfortunately. Tell me, did your mother ever talk of Aranrhodda?’

‘Not that I remember. What I wonder about is the bit that says ‘as this so that’. It bothers me. What’s the ‘this’?’

‘Ah, here’s the nastiest thing of all. It had been buried in a box with the corpse of an infant boy.’

‘They didn’t kill the child on purpose, did they, just for this spell?’

‘I’m afraid they must have. He was badly mutilated, too. It takes a lot to shake me, but I was shaken, I’ll admit it.’

‘How horrible.’ Lilli felt on the edge of nausea. The baby’s not in there, is it?’

“What? Of course not! I had the local priests bury the poor little fellow properly.’

‘That gladdens my heart. How long have you had this casket?’

‘Six years or so. I found it buried in Pyrdon, just before Maryn started his march to Cerrmor. The Lords of the Elements warned me that there was dark dweomer nearby, you see. They told me where the cursed little bastards had sheltered, and I found the child’s grave when I was poking around.’

‘Dark dweomer? You mean like that retainer of my mothers, the one my uncle killed?’

‘Exactly. I’m guessing that it was the same man, in fact.’

The nausea rose with a taste of bile in her mouth. Six years ago. Olaen was but five summers old when he died, and he’d been betrothed to Abrwnna when he was new-born.

‘Is somewhat wrong?’ Nevyn said.

‘I’m not sure. I’m trying to think - there’s a thing I heard - but I’m not sure when it happened.’ She hesitated for a silent prayer that she might be wrong. ‘That child, the one buried with the tablet. How old was it?’

‘Some weeks. I’m afraid it had been dead for some time, and I couldn’t be sure of its age. Lilli, you’ve gone pale as death! What’s so wrong?’

‘I think the child was my brother.’

Nevyn goggled at her, his mouth slack.

‘Abrwnna told me some gossip about my mother,’ Lilli went on. ‘Abrwnna came to court about five years ago, but there was still talk of somewhat that had happened when my father — I mean, my mother’s husband - died, the year before she arrived. My mother left the court to give birth to a child. When she returned, she said the baby had died of a fever, just a few weeks after it was born.’

Nevyn shut his mouth with a snap. He left the table and half-sat, half-leaned on the windowsill. She had never known anyone who could turn as quiet as the old man could.

‘We’ll need to find out more about this,’ he said at last.

‘If I’m right -’ Lilli said. ‘Oh ych! it’s too disgusting!’

‘Quite so.’Nevyn made a sour face. ‘Are you thinking that Merodda gave the child over to her tame wizard?’

‘I am.’

‘If the baby was your blood kin, it would certainly explain your peculiar link to the casket. Or to the evil within it, I should say.’

‘How can we find out if it’s true? I suppose some of the older servants in Dun Deverry might remember things, but I don’t know if I could bear to ask them.’

‘They wouldn’t tell you anyway, most likely. When we get back, leave this task to me.’

‘Gladly. Ah ye gods, if it’s true? It’s just too vile!’

‘It is that. I -’ Nevyn paused, holding up his hand for silence.

A footstep scraped in the hall outside. Lilli rose, thinking that Degwa might be eavesdropping, but when the door opened, Bellyra stood there. As the princess came in, Nevyn got up to bow, and Lilli curtsied.

‘Did you rest well, your highness?’ Lilli said.

‘I did, truly.’

Lilli fetched Bellyra’s favourite chair, and the princess sat down with a murmur of thanks. Lilli was shocked at how thin Bellyra had become. Her pale skin stretched over the bones of her face so tightly that it seemed a smile might crack it and make her bleed.

‘We were discussing the casket, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s time I took it away.’

‘I’ll be glad of that.’

The silence hung there, heavy in the room. Lilli desperately searched for something pleasant to say, but the casket, glittering in the sun like a vial of poison, seemed to make any pleasant chatter impossible. Nevyn at last took pity on her.

‘Lilli, would you find a page to bring me some ale?’ he said. ‘And perhaps some sweetmeats for her highness.’

‘And for you,’ Bellyra broke in, ‘if you’d like some, Lilli.’

‘My thanks.’ Lilli rose. ‘I’ll go down to the kitchens and see what Cook has on hand.’

Lilli curtsied, then fled the women’s hall. Her mother’s curse -had she been as desperate as all that, to sacrifice her own son to serve the Boar clan’s cause?

‘Will we never be free of these wars?’ Lilli whispered.

She stepped out of the broch to the pleasant sunshine, bright on the pale slate roofs of Dun Cerrmor, but to her inner sight it seemed that storm clouds gathered, dark and evil, over them all.

With the summer’s fighting past and done, time lay heavy on the silver daggers. Every morning Branoic would groom his horse, sweep out its stall, then go riding for some short while to keep the horse fit and himself as well. He filled part of his day with talking with the new men, like Alwyn. Every now and then the prince wanted to go riding around his new lands; the entire troop of silver daggers went with him on these occasions. But for the most part, life reduced itself to drinking in the great hall and wishing that Lilli would get herself back from Cerrmor.

‘Tell me,’ Maddyn said one evening, ‘how’s your suit proceeding? I haven’t forgotten our wager.’

Branoic had. ‘What suit?’

‘Your courtship of Lady Lillorigga. You bet me one silver piece to ten that you could gain her favour.’

‘Oh, that suit! It’s going well, truly.’

‘Indeed? Words are cheap, my friend. What counts is the horse race.’

‘Maddo, lad, cheap or not, you’d best watch how you spend yours.

Say one wrong thing about the lady, and I’ll cram the words down your throat.’

Maddyn stared at him for a long moment.

‘My apologies,’ the bard said at last. ‘I’d not realized that this was a serious thing to you.’

‘It is. I’ve been trying to get up my courage to ask our prince for that boon he promised me.’

‘And what do you want to ask for?’

‘Enough land to support a wife.’

‘Truly serious, then.’ Maddyn whistled under his breath. You’ll never hear a wrong word about the lady from me.’

‘My thanks. I figured I could rely on you to see things right, like.’

Maddyn waved down a passing servant and had her refill their tankards. For a while they drank in silence, watching Prince Maryn on the far side of the hall. The prince never allowed himself to sit at the head of the table of honour, a place reserved for the king; instead he sat in the place that would have been at the king’s right. Tonight Councillor Oggyn was kneeling beside him, talking earnestly with much waving of hands.

‘I wonder what Slimy Oggo’s up to,’ Maddyn said.

‘No good, no doubt,’ Branoic said.

‘I’ve not trusted the man since I caught him out over those weevily oats he gave our horses.’

‘I remember that, truly. You should make a song about him, Maddo.’

‘There’s a thought.’ Maddyn suddenly grinned. ‘I wouldn’t mention his name of course. An animal song, mayhap.’ He hummed a few notes of a tune. ‘Oh, the fox went to the henhouse once too often, he found a wolf on guard. That kind of song.’

‘Sounds like a splendid idea!’

Across the hall Oggyn rose, bowed, and hurried out.

‘Tell me somewhat, Maddo,’ Branoic said. ‘Can the prince settle land upon a man now or will he have to wait till he’s proclaimed king?’

‘I’ve not the slightest idea. You’ll have to ask Nevyn when he gets back. But here, are you that eager to leave the silver daggers?’

‘It’s not the leaving of the troop, you dolt. It’s the gaining of the wife.’

‘Oh. Well, I suppose so. I’ve never cared that much about a woman in my life.’

‘Huh!’ Branoic gave him a grin. ‘Don’t brag where the gods can hear you, Maddo lad. You’ll tempt them.’

Maddyn laughed.

‘Scoff all you want,’ Branoic went on. ‘But as for me, I’m looking forward to settling down, like, with my lady.’

On the morrow, Branoic got the answers he needed from the prince himself. He was walking rather aimlessly through the ward when he chanced upon Maryn, doing much the same though with two pages and Councillor Oggyn in attendance. Branoic bowed low, then went down on one knee to let him pass, but the prince stopped and hailed him.

‘Good morrow, Branno. Are things well with you?’

‘They are, your highness,’ Branoic said.

‘Splendid! When are you going to ask me for that boon?’

The prince was smiling, as if perhaps he were making a small jest, but Branoic decided that he might as well test his Wyrd right there and then.

I’ve been thinking about that, your highness,’ Branoic said. ‘I’ve just not been sure when the fit time to ask you might be.’

‘Now, if you’d like.’ Maryn turned solemn. ‘I gave my word, and I meant it.’

Very well, then, your highness.’ Branoic took a deep breath. ‘I’d like a holding with enough land to support a wife, your highness, if that’s not too much to be asking for.’

‘Not in the least! The gods all know there are plenty of demesnes that have lost their lords in the wars, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t have one and the title to go with it.’

Branoic tried to speak, but the words failed him. He could feel himself grinning like a half-wit. Maryn laughed and gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder.

‘Tell you what, Branno,’ Maryn said, ‘when you get that title, we’ll give you your eagle device back.’

Ye gods! You remember that, your highness?’

‘How could I not, with Owaen ragging you about it for all these years?’

Had protocol allowed, Branoic would have grabbed the prince’s hand and kissed it. It’s the little things, he told himself, the things like this, that make us all willing to risk our necks for him!

‘Oggyn?’ Maryn went on. ‘I charge you with finding a solid demesne and a lordship for our Branoic here. Once I’m truly the king, we’ll bestow it upon him right and proper.’

Very well, my liege’ Oggyn looked sour but resigned.

‘Tell me, Branno,’ Maryn said, grinning. ‘You must have the wife in mind to be asking me for the land. Who is she?’

‘Well, begging your pardon, your highness, but I’d like to keep her name to myself until I’m sure she’ll have me.’

Maryn laughed, and Oggyn smiled, doubtless because the prince was and for no other reason.

‘A wise policy,’ the prince said. ‘Done, then. I’ll get you the land, and you get yourself the lass, and that will be that.’

‘My thanks, your highness. I - ah ye gods! My humble thanks!’

The next few days Branoic spent mostly pacing back and forth, wondering when Lilli would arrive. He took to going down to the town walls, where he could climb to the catwalks and watch the river road that ran to Cerrmor. On the fourth day after Maryn granted his boon, his patience paid off, late on a golden afternoon, when he saw a cloud of dust coming up from the south. Slowly it resolved itself into horses and riders. A small company of armed guards, with the three ships blazon on their shield, surrounded an old man with white hair, and next to him, riding astride like a lad, a blonde lass. Behind them came a cart and more riders.

Branoic let out a whoop, climbed down the ladder, and ran to his horse, tied nearby in the shade. By the time he mounted, the party was just coming in through the gates. Branoic paused his horse by the side of the road till they reached him, then fell in beside Lilli. She turned in the saddle to laugh at him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

‘What do you think? Waiting for you, of course.’ Branoic leaned forward and called to Nevyn. ‘Good morrow, my lord!’

Nevyn waved. Branoic turned his attention back to Lilli.

‘I thought you travelled by galley,’ Branoic said.

‘We did on the way down,’ Lilli said. ‘But it’s too hard a row back with passengers and suchlike, and barges are too slow.’

‘Ah. Well, it gladdens my heart to see you safe. I hope you didn’t meet with any trouble on the road.’

‘None. I doubt me if there’d be any bandits around, with all of Maryn’s vassals gone back to patrol their lands.’

‘True spoken.’ He paused, gathering courage. ‘Uh, speaking of lands, like —’

Lilli caught her breath. For a long moment they stared at each other, half-smiling, half-afraid. Their horses ambled on, following the others just ahead.

‘I asked him.’ Branoic could think of no other way than a blurt. ‘He granted it.’

Lilli laughed, one boyish whoop of delight, cut short when Nevyn turned in the saddle and frowned at her. Branoic concentrated on the road ahead, but he could feel his heart pounding. She’s willing to many me, he thought. She wouldn’t be so blasted pleased if she weren’t.

Although the previous king’s high-ranking servants as well as his noble-born servitors had left Dun Deverry after Maryn’s victory, the lowest ranks stayed for the simple reason that they had nowhere else to go. Many of them had been born in the royal dun and inherited their work and its meagre privileges from their parents. By asking here and there, Nevyn found such an old woman, the swineherd’s widow, Vena, still living in a hut upwind of the pigsties, who had spun wool for the queens of Dun Deverry for many a long year. White-haired and thin as a stick, she was nearly blind, and throwing a drop-spindle for days and years on end had left her hands and wrists swollen and twisted.

While he brewed up herbs to ease her pain, Nevyn chatted with her and decided that her mind was still sharper than many a youngster’s. A low fire crackled in her little hearth under a big cast-iron hook. He hung his iron pot of herbs and water from the hook, then added a few sticks of wood to the fire.

‘It’s good of you to leave off physicking the prince to help an old woman,’ Vena said.

‘The prince is young. He doesn’t need much in the way of herbcraft.’

‘As long as there be no battles, eh?’

‘True spoken. And as long as no one tries to poison him.’

‘Let’s pray that never happens.’ For a moment she sat silently. ‘Well, I heard they were a-hanging of Lady Merodda, so mayhap he’s safe enough.’

‘You think she was a poisoner, then? Most people in the dun seem to.’

‘I do, and not only from the gossip, neither. Many a long year it was now, but she did give my man a handful of copper coins for a piglet. We found the thing dead out on the dung heap some while later, and when one of the dogs did eat of it, he died too, and slowly, poor beast.’

Nevyn whistled under his breath. She smiled and turned on her wooden chair toward the sound.

You think the same, eh?’ she said, ‘that she was a-making sure her evil potions would do the job,’

‘I do indeed. You know, ever since I’ve been in this dun I’ve heard tales of Lady Merodda’s misdeeds, but that’s a new one.’

‘Well, don’t believe everything you hear, good sir. You know how the gossips are. Many a time I’d be attending to my work, and the lasses with me would be spinning more tales than wool. And every time a tale got itself told, the more exciting, like, it would be.’

Nevyn nodded, smiling. ‘Now, someone told me a thing about Merodda just the other day,’ he said. That she’d had a bastard child after her husband was slain.’

‘She had a child, sure enough, but it were only some seven months after he’d ridden away to war. So it could have been his easy enough,’

‘They say the baby died. Did she poison it, do you think?’

‘Well, when she come back in the spring, she was all tears, weeping for her dead little son. A fever, said she. Didn’t believe the tears, I didn’t, but the winter’s a powerful bad time to get yourself born. It could have been a fever.’

‘A son, huh?’

‘It was. Now, the lady’s maidservant told us that she’d never seen the poor little thing’s body, and so some of the lasses did insist that a demon had carried the child off in the middle of the night. That’s what I mean about tales getting puffed up, like. A demon! Now I ask you!’

‘A ridiculous idea, indeed.’

But what if a man of flesh and blood had taken the baby away? Nevyn asked himself. Not so ridiculous, and in fact, entirely too possible.

‘Now, I’ll leave these herbs with you,’ Nevyn said at last. You heat them up and soak your hands in them twice a day. The willow bark will help ease the pain. I’ll stop back by in a few days to see how you fare.’

‘I’ll do that, my lord, and you have my humble thanks.’

Nevyn went back to the great hall to look for a servant lass named Pawa. By chance he’d run across her when the prince had first taken the dun, and he remembered her as having some association with Lady Merodda. It was late in the day, and most of the servants were in the great hall, laying out food for the evening meal while a few at time, the men from the dun’s garrison strolled in and sat down. Not far from the table of honour, a small mob of silver daggers were standing around some central point. Fearing trouble, Nevyn walked over, but in their midst he saw Maddyn, sitting cross-legged on a table and tuning his harp.

‘Good morrow, my lord,’ Branoic said to Nevyn. ‘Maddyn’s going to sing us a new song.’

‘Indeed? Well, that’ll be worth hearing.’

‘I think so, truly.’ Branoic grinned, profoundly sly. ‘Let me know what you think of the words, like.’

Nevyn would have asked more, but Maddyn began. He had a decent voice for a man who’d never received a moment’s training, particularly suitable for songs such as the new one proved to be, a light little tune with lyrics concerning a fox who tried to steal chickens from a farmer named Owaen. As Nevyn listened, though, he realized that the fox was meant to be a human being, Councillor Oggyn, in fact. Not only was the fox stout from being so greedy but by the end of the song he was bald. The farmer’s trap caught him by the hair on his head and pulled it all off when he escaped. Back in his den the foolish animal decided to cut some hair from his tail to cover the bald spot, but he glued it under his chin by mistake.

‘So instead of plump fowl he ate beard for his dinner’ was the closing sentiment before the final chorus.

At the end the silver daggers howled with laughter. Even Owaen managed to crack a smile. Nevyn was about to say something to Branoic when he realized that Oggyn had been standing on the staircase the entire time. Branoic saw him there as well.

‘And what’s he going to say?’ Branoic said to Nevyn. If he takes umbrage, he’ll have to admit the song’s about him.’

‘Oh, you won’t hear a word about it,’ Nevyn said. ‘But Maddyn’s made himself an enemy all the same. Oggyn will remember this, never fear.’

‘So will Owaen.’ Branoic grinned at him. ‘And that’s where I’d lay my money for a wager.’

‘That’s not going to make the situation better, lad.’

At that moment Nevyn saw Pawa coming in the back door. She was carrying an armful of bread loaves, while her baby slept, strapped on her back.

‘My apologies, Bran.no,’ Nevyn said. ‘But I’ve got to be off.’

Nevyn caught up with the girl as she deposited the bread in an enormous basket by the riders’ hearth. Since she was going back to the kitchen hut, he walked with her.

‘Tell me, Pawa,’ Nevyn said, ‘how long did you know Lady Merodda? Were you in her service?’

‘I wasn’t, my lord. She never took no notice of me till that last horrible day. Of the siege, I mean.’

‘I see. Did you ever hear a tale about a baby she was supposed to have had, one sired by a demon?’

‘Oh, that!’ Pawa laughed, wrinkling her nose. The women did say the strangest things about that, but I never believed none of it.’

‘I don’t suppose you know when she supposedly had this child?’

‘I don’t, my lord.’

Nevyn handed her a couple of coppers and let her get back to work. By then he’d forgotten the flyting song. Later, of course, he would curse himself for a fool.

‘Good morrow, Lilli.’

Lilli spun around and curtsied. Lost in shadows the prince was standing in the doorway of the main broch. Out in the sunny day she’d walked straight past without seeing him.

‘My apologies, my liege,’ she said. ‘I’m much distracted, I fear, with my studies.’

‘So it would seem.’ Maryn turned, glanced into the great hall, then stepped outside. “Will you honour me by taking a little stroll?’

‘If my liege commands.’

Maryn stepped back as if she’d slapped him. Lilli looked demurely down at the cobbles, but she felt as if she were shaking with fever. Never in her life had she wanted anything, it seemed, as badly as she wanted the prince.

‘I’d not command anything,’ Maryn said at last. ‘It was just a passing thought.’

‘I thank my liege for thinking of me, but -’

‘But you have work on hand for Nevyn?’    .

‘Just that, my liege.’

‘Oh well, then, far be it from me to interfere.’ Maryn turned on his heel and strode back into the great hall.

Lilli let out her breath in a sharp sigh and walked on, heading for the side broch and Nevyn’s chamber. She found Nevyn downstairs, however, standing just inside the outer door, where he’d apparently watched her exchange with the prince,

‘That was very well done,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m proud of you.’

‘My thanks.’ Lilli felt tears gathering and irritably wiped them away on the back of her hand. ‘I keep thinking about the princess, my lord.’

‘Good. I was hoping that was the case. Maryn’s a man like any other, and he’ll take his amusements as they do, but the princess, unfortunately, is not the usual noble-born wife.’

‘So I can see. And she’s been so good and so generous to me.’

‘So she has.’

‘Did you see the prince lurking and come down to meet me?’

‘I didn’t. I’m waiting for Otho, the silver daggers’ smith.’ Nevyn suddenly smiled. You look so surprised! But don’t forget, Otho’s the man who made our wretched casket. I want to discuss it with him.’

Otho arrived not long after, carrying a leather bag, clanking with tools. A short man but heavily muscled, with a neatly trimmed grey beard and grey grizzled hair, he wore a leather apron over a dirty pair of brigga and linen shirt pock-marked with tiny burns.

‘Morrow,’ he said. ‘So. What’s happened to the casket?’

‘Naught, I think,’ Nevyn said. ‘But I have to be sure.’

The three of them went up to Nevyn’s chamber. Nevyn had carried the casket back from Cerrmor wrapped in straw inside a rough wooden box, decorated on each side with five-pointed stars and other magical symbols, which he’d drawn with a swab of cloth dipped into ink to make bold lines. In turn he’d hidden his handiwork inside three old cloth sacks. This whole arrangement had been sitting under his table ever since they’d arrived back.

Nevyn dragged it out, stripped off the outer layers, and set the silver casket on the table. Otho picked it up and studied it, turning it this way and that, holding it over his head to examine the bottom.

‘Well, now,’ Otho said. ‘It looks solid. If someone had tampered with it, my lord, I’d know it.’

When he pressed the catch, the lid popped open to reveal the smooth silver interior.

‘No marks on it here, either.’ Otho tapped the flat bottom with one finger. ‘Under this, Lady Lilli, is the curse tablet, in a sealed compartment of its own.’

‘And of course, there are magical seals set upon it as well,’ Nevyn said. ‘Can you see them, Lilli? Let your eyes go slack, the way I showed you, and look at it out of the corner of your eye.’

Lilli did as she was told. In a moment she could see, hovering just above the surface, tiny five-pointed stars that seemed to be woven of strands of golden light, about as thick as straws. She let her normal vision, with all its expectations of how the world should look, focus on the far wall and waited, merely waited, to see what more might show up. All at once she realized that the casket lay in the centre of a six-pointed star - no, many such stars, shimmering and floating until it seemed they formed a sphere of light around and over the casket.

‘Oh! I do see them!’

Her delight, however, lost her the vision.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nevyn said, you’re doing well. One of these days you’ll be able to concentrate on such things. But did you see any trace that struck you as evil? Any sign that someone had tampered with the seal?’

‘I’m not sure what that would be. A demon face or suchlike?’

‘Nothing so spectacular. Now, the emanations we’re looking for are very strange. They don’t exist in the physical world, but they send shadows on to the physical. Think of a fire burning in a room - it sends light through the window, and if some object is standing in that light, its shadow will fall upon the ground. So, the curse exists on the astral and radiates evil onto the lead tablet.’

‘And the shadow on the ground is what I see or feel here, like the way the casket hurts my hands?’

‘Exactly! Now, these astral shadows are so cloudy and tenuous that your mind has to cloak them in images before you can be aware of them at all. You’d think you were seeing smoke, perhaps, or dust in the air, or perhaps mould or slime on the surface.’

‘I saw none of that.’ Lilli held her hand over the casket. ‘But I don’t even need to touch it. It feels cold and horrid even when I hold my hand this far away.’

‘That’s how your mind represents the shadow, then. It doesn’t have to be an image. A sensation will do as well. Well, Otho, I was thinking. Shall we have that curse tablet out?’

‘Have you gone daft?’ Otho snapped.

‘Not so as I’ve noticed. I thought if we removed the tablet, the princess could have her casket back, and I could get another good look at the wretched thing.’

“You’re the sorcerer, not me,’ Otho said. ‘I can dig out the tablet right here, but I’ll have to take the casket to my forge to repair the damage, and I’m not so sure I want it anywhere near my place of working.’

‘With the tablet out, it’ll just be an ordinary bit of silver.’

‘Imph.’ Otho stroked his beard whilst he studied the casket. ‘Do I have your sworn word on that, my lord?’

‘You do.’

‘Well and good, then. Let’s see what we can do.’

Otho opened his leather sack, peered inside, then brought out, one after the other, little hammers and tiny chisels. He laid them in a row on the table, then spent some time examining the base of the casket. Finally he picked up a chisel and hammer. Lilli watched fascinated while he tapped round the edge of the base. What had seemed so solid began to split apart along a seam, as neatly as if the smith ran a knife through leather. Otho laid the tools down, took the casket and deftly twirled it right side up with a little shake. The entire bottom dropped out, and with it came a strip of lead, hammered into a narrow sheet as thin as parchment.

Lilli nearly screamed. She stuffed the side of her hand into her mouth and took two fast steps back from the table.

‘What do you see?’ Nevyn said softly.

‘Maggots. The whole thing is crawling with them!’

‘Those are just the shadows.’

The moment she heard his words, the maggots disappeared.

Ye gods,’ she whispered. That’s horrible.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Nevyn took one of the sacks that had hidden the crate, wrapped it around his hand, and only then picked up the lead strip. He dropped it into the symbol-dec orated wood box.

‘I’ll seal this up again and hide it,’ Nevyn said. You leave with Otho, though. You’re not quite ready to witness this working. But before you do, try touching the silver casket again.’

When Lilli laid her fingers on the lid, she felt nothing but smooth cool metal.

‘It’s not cursed any more,’ she said. Truly, Otho, I don’t think you have to worry.’

“You’d better be right,’ Otho growled. Very well, lass, come along. We’ll leave your master to his spells, and let’s all hope they work.’

As they walked across the ward, Lilli saw Prince Maryn again, but he was discussing something with the captain of his guard while Oggyn and a pair of pages waited nearby. She gained the safety of the great hall without his seeing her.

For several days Nevyn considered what he might do about Princess Bellyra. On the one hand, Maryn was right enough that Dun Deverry offered plenty of discomforts and dangers. On the other, a private danger threatened her in Dun Cerrmor. The memory of her grief haunted him until at length he made his decision.

Just that morning he’d received letters from High Priest Retyc of Lughcarn, and he used those as an excuse for a confidential audience with the prince. Since last he’d been in Maryn’s chambers, servants had made some effort to give Maryn’s reception room a royal air. They’d found Bardek carpets for the floor and laid them over each other in such a way as to hide the threadbare portions. The tapestries on the walls had been washed and mended as well, with patches of new yarn embroidered over torn weaving. All the furniture had cushions, now, and the brass work at the hearth and the silver sconces on the walls glittered in the morning sun. On the mantel sat the silver wyvern that Nevyn had seen previously in Oggyn’s quarters.

‘This all looks most impressive, my liege,’ Nevyn said.

‘Oggyn set some of the dun’s women to work,’ Maryn said, glancing around. ‘I suppose it’s necessary. I needed somewhere to receive my vassals and such.’

‘You did, truly.’

Maryn sat down on the wide sill of one of the windows and gestured to a nearby chair. Nevyn sat, then reached into his shirt and took out the letters. The prince waved them away.

‘Just tell me what they say.’

‘As his highness wishes.’

Nevyn felt suddenly troubled. Never before had he seen Maryn so careless about affairs of state. Even while Nevyn summarized the letters, Maryn seemed as much interested in the view from his window as he did in the news from the second most powerful priest in Deverry. At length Nevyn stopped talking and waited to see if the prince would notice. After some moments, he did.

‘My apologies,’ Maryn said. ‘Did they say they’d found the white mare?’

‘Only that they’d sent to your father in Pyrdon for one. My liege seems much distracted today.’

‘Your liege hasn’t slept well in too long.’

‘As your physician, my liege, as well as your councillor, may I make a recommendation?’

‘Of course.’

‘Bring your wife here.’

Maryn looked away again, his jaw set so tightly that Nevyn could see a vein throbbing on his forehead.

‘A good thought,’ Maryn said at last. ‘But who will be my regent in Cerrmor?’

‘Your highness has a seneschal and a chamberlain who are both fine men and quite capable of keeping the dun from sliding into the sea. The only thing they cannot do is hold malover, and neither can the princess.’

‘True spoken. Very well. Send me a scribe, and I’ll get the messengers on the way.’

When Nevyn rose to leave, the prince walked with him to the door,

‘Oh, by the way,’ Maryn said with a studied casualness, ‘how does your apprentice fare these days?’

‘She has a gift for dweomer, your highness,’ Nevyn said, ‘and she works very hard at her studies. I’m quite pleased with her progress.’

‘Good, good, it gladdens my heart to hear that.’

‘Not everyone with a gift can use it well, of course. The dweomer makes enormous demands on a person. Concentration, the power of the will, and above all, time — developing the gift the gods gave her requires all of those.’

‘No doubt. She’s lucky she’s found such a good teacher.’

‘My thanks, my liege. She truly is my apprentice, you know, as much as she might be apprenticed to weaving or some other craft. Her well-being is my responsibility now, and it’s one I take quite seriously.’

Maryn tossed up his head like a startled horse. The message had struck home. Nevyn smiled pleasantly and waited.

You have my leave to go,’ Maryn snapped.

The prince turned and stalked back to his seat in the window. Nevyn allowed himself a sour smile at his retreating back, then let himself out the door.

Since Retyc had asked him to take the letters on to High Priest Gwaevyr, Nevyn had an ostler saddle him a horse, then left the dun. He rode through the valley ruins and up the road that spiralled around the second highest hill in the city. On its crest, behind high walls, stood the temple of Bel, the holiest land in all Deverry, or so its priests claimed. Since Nevyn was known there, the two neophytes guarding the gates let him in without a challenge, and a third ran off to deliver the news of his coming to the high priest.

While he waited, Nevyn handed his horse over to a servant and walked in the sacred oak grove among the graves of Deverry’s high kings. Fresh grass was growing on the newest, a pitifully short mound over little Olaen. Nevyn stood for a moment with bowed head and asked the child’s soul to forgive him. Although he knew that Councillor Oggyn had murdered the child-king, he’d done nothing to bring him to justice. Oggyn was proving his worth now, with his surveys and prudent plans, just as Nevyn had known he would. Still the memory haunted him, of the child’s death-pale face and unseeing eyes as he lay on his soiled bed.

‘Lord Nevyn?’ A soft voice hailed him from behind.

Nevyn spun around to find a middle-aged priest, shaved bald as his kind always were and wearing a simple linen tunic with a rope belt. At his waist hung a small golden sickle.

‘My name is Trinyn. I’m afraid His Holiness is unwell and not receiving visitors.’

‘Is there anything I can do? I’ve studied physic for many a long year.’

‘We have our own healers.’

‘Of course.’ Nevyn inclined his head in Trinyn’s direction. ‘I don’t mean to intrude.’

Trinyn smiled thinly. Nevyn reached into his shirt and brought out the message tube.

‘Letters from Retyc of Lughcarn,’ Nevyn said. ‘He asked me to ensure that His Holiness received them.’

‘My thanks.’ Trinyn’s smile grew a trifle more hospitable. ‘I appreciate your delivering these yourself.’

‘No doubt they contain important matters. I’d best leave you to the reading of them.’

As he rode back to the dun, Nevyn puzzled over the cold reception he’d received. Retyc’s letters had been nothing but reassuring; the Lughcarn temple was confident that they would find a white mare, all the omens seemed good, and the politicking between their temple and Dun Deverry had died down to a caution born of old distrust, ‘I don’t understand,’ Nevyn said to the prince. ‘I see no real obstacles to their proclaiming you king once the white mare turns up.’

‘If you don’t understand it,’ Maryn said, ‘then I fear the worst.’

What?’ Nevyn went on. That they’ll never make the proclamation? I doubt that, my liege, very much indeed.’

‘So do I. I’m afraid that they’ll wait so long that my allies will start deserting. I’ve cobbled together this reign on Wyrd and fancy promises, after all. Some men lose patience with such.’

Nevyn sighed. The candle-flames in their sconces bobbed in the draught from the windows as if agreeing.

‘That’s real enough,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘Ah well, there’s naught to do about it now. We’ll have to fight that battle when it rides our way - if indeed it does.’

‘All right, lads,’ Owaen said. The prince has asked me to detail some men to ride to Cerrmor and escort the princess on her journey here. Branoic, you’ll be going with them.’

‘Now here!’ Maddyn snapped. ‘Branno’s got important matters afoot here in the dun.’

Branoic started to speak, but Owaen was too fast for him.

‘So what if he does?’ Owaen said. ‘I say he’s going. Are you going to argue with me, bard?’

‘Am I going to make a song about you that will have the great hall howling with laughter?’

Owaen took a step back, his face dangerously blank. They were standing in one of the many odd private corners found in Dun Deverry’s wards, an awkward triangle twixt a narrow tower and a wall. If there had been onlookers, Branoic would never have given in to Owaen, but as it was, keeping peace in the troop mattered.

‘Maddo, it’s not worth fighting about,’ Branoic said. ‘It’ll be a pleasant thing, seeing Cerrmor again.’

‘If you’re sure?’ Maddyn said.

‘I am. Come with me, why not?’

‘I’ll do that.’ Maddyn turned to Owaen. ‘One of us should go anyway, out of deference to the prince’s lady.’

‘You’re right. If you want the duty, take it.’

‘I will, then. I take it you’ll have no objection if I choose the men to go with us?’

‘None.’ Owaen kept his voice flat. The prince wants you on your way on the morrow.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ Branoic said. ‘It’ll be an honour to bring his lady to her new home.’

Without another word Owaen stomped away. Maddyn set his hands on his hips and glowered until his co-captain was well out of earshot.

‘One of these days,’ Maddyn said quietly, ‘I’m going to make such a flyting song about Owaen that he’ll never hold his ugly head up again. I’m beginning to understand why you want to get out of the troop.’

‘I never would have left it before the prince came into his own,’ Branoic said. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

‘I do.’ Maddyn hesitated on the verge of speaking, then shrugged. ‘Ah well. Let’s think about the matter at hand. I say we take Red-Haired Trevyr with us, for starters. It’ll do him good.’

‘By all means. Let’s take all the men who -’ Much to his surprise, Branoic heard his voice catch. ‘Who rode under Caradoc.’

‘Good idea. You tell them. I’ll hunt up Slimy Oggo and get some supplies out of him.’

Getting the honour guard ready for the journey kept Branoic so busy that he had no time to speak to Lilli that day. In the morning, though, when the silver daggers were assembling in the main ward, she came down to say farewell. She was wearing a pair of green dresses, and her hair, once so short, was long enough to frame her face and lift in the early morning breeze. When she laid a soft hand on his arm he felt like the luckiest man in the world.

‘Take good care of our princess for me,’ Lilli said.

‘I will. And you take good care of yourself. You’re my princess.’

She smiled with such pleasure that he leaned down and kissed her, just a chaste brush of his mouth on hers, there in front of the troop. All at once he saw the Wildfolk, popping into manifestation, flapping their skinny little hands at him as if to warn him of some danger. Startled he looked up to see Prince Maryn striding over, accompanied by pages and his two councillors. Lilli went decidedly white about the mouth. With a murmured farewell she walked off fast, heading for nowhere, it seemed, disappearing among the confusion of walls and towers.

‘Branno, ‘ware,’ Maddyn whispered. ‘I think me the prince has some interest in your lady himself.’

Branoic felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, but he managed a decent bow. When he started to kneel, Maryn stopped him, smiling a little, but his eyes had gone as hard as steel.

‘My thanks, silver daggers,’ Maryn said. ‘I’ll charge you to bring my lady and her women back with all possible speed.’

‘Then so we shall, your highness,’ Maddyn said. ‘Nevyn, do you have letters for the princess?’

‘I do.’ Nevyn handed the bard a pair of silver message tubes. ‘And may your journey be a pleasant one.’

With the usual shouting of orders and the confusion of horses, the troop mounted up and rode out. Behind them creaked a slab-sided cart, filled with supplies for the journey. As they filed out of the dun, Branoic rode up and down the line, chivvying everyone into a decent marching order. He said a few cheery words to the pair of men stuck behind the cart in the dusty rearguard, then trotted back to fall in beside Maddyn. The troop rode clear of the final wall around the fortress and headed through the ruined city for the south gates.

‘What was that again, Maddo lad?’ Branoic said. ‘About the prince?’

Maddyn glanced back, judging the distance between them and the first pair of riders.

‘I can’t be sure,’ Maddyn said. ‘But I’ll wager that the prince envies you your lady. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.’

‘Ah. Oh horseshit!’

‘Just so.’

‘If I were a lass, and I had a choice twixt the high king of all Deverry and a silver dagger, and a silver dagger I am still, whether I get that land or no, I doubt me if I’d think twice about which I’d choose.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You’ve told Lilli you want an honourable marriage. Who knows how long the prince’s fancy for the lass will last? He has his pick of half the women in the kingdom, and the other half are too old.’

When Maddyn laughed, Branoic glowered at him until the bard fell silent.

‘My apologies,’ Maddyn said. ‘I don’t mean to twist a knife in a wound.’

Branoic shrugged the concern away. He thought hard, but he found only one thing worth saying.

‘Ah horseshit!’

Prince Maryn and his entourage stayed in the ward until the silver daggers had ridden out of sight. As he turned to go, Maryn hesitated and gestured Nevyn over. Oggyn and the pages waited expectantly, but the prince waved them away. The pages ran off shouting to join the other boys at the far end of the ward. Oggyn withdrew so slowly that he practically crawled into the great hall, Maryn waited until he was well gone.

‘Branoic told me wanted to marry,’ Maryn said. ‘I take it that Lilli is the woman.’

‘She is, your highness,’ Nevyn said.

Maryn’s face might have been carved of wood. For a moment the silence held.

‘Will you prevent them?’ Nevyn said finally.

‘Of course not! Ye gods, what do you think I am?’ Maryn’s composure splintered into rage. Your wretched apprentice has made it clear that she thinks me beneath her, and by the Lord of Hell’s arse, that’s that!’

Maryn stormed off, heading for the stables. So that’s what’s wounded him! Nevyn thought to himself. He allowed himself the luxury of wishing that he could take his apprentice and go off into the wilderness where they could both devote themselves to the dweomer and dweomer alone. Unfortunately, the kingdom needed him just where he was.

It seemed to Lilli that wherever she walked in the dun, Maryn would be waiting. Most times he was accompanied by his entourage, and he would restrain himself to a glance her way or a few pleasant words. She would curtsy and keep her eyes modestly turned down, just as Bevyan had taught her, until he walked on and released her. Every now and then, however, she would come face to face with him alone in some empty corridor or isolated corner of the ward. At those times court manners did her no good. He never pressed her, never came within two feet of her, in fact, but he could have been half-way across a room and still her traitor body would have responded to his smile.

On a rainy morning she woke suddenly to the sound of a rustle at the door. She sat up on the verge of screaming. The memory of her mother’s ghost oozing around her chamber was all too fresh in her mind. In the grey light and early shadows nothing moved. When she summoned her courage and looked at the door, she saw a scrap of something white lying on the floor. A letter of some sort? She rose, picked it up, and scurried back to her warm bed to study it. Although she was making good progress in learning to read, she still had to sound out most words a letter or so at a time.

‘There is someone whose heart aches each night when he dreams of you.’

That was all it said, no signature, no hint of who this someone might be. Maryn was her first thought, but she couldn’t imagine the prince entrusting this sort of sentiment to a scribe. She puzzled over the letter for a long while. Perfectly clear letters formed graceful words — perhaps she had captured the interest of one of the heralds? Finally she hid it under her pillow, then dressed and began her day. Down in the great hall she got chunks of bread and some apples, wrapped them in a napkin, then dashed through the rain to the half-broch that housed Nevyn’s chamber.

Just inside the door Maryn stood waiting for her. With her hands full of breakfast she couldn’t even drop a proper curtsy. He smiled at her, then looked her over with a hungry appreciation.

‘Tell me, Lady Lillorigga,’ he said at last. ‘Did you sleep well last night?’

Could he be referring to the note?

‘I did, my liege.’

He stepped toward her, she stepped back and reached the Wall. Maryn put one hand on the wall near her head and leaned toward her, but he kept himself from actually touching her. Lilli felt her heart pounding and clutched her bundle to her chest.

‘My liege,’ she stammered, ‘Nevyn could come down any moment.’

“Would it distress you if he did?’

‘It would most assuredly distress him!’

At that he laughed, straightened up, and stepped back.

‘My lady speaks true,’ Maryn said. ‘And it’s not a pretty sight, Nevyn distressed.’

The prince bowed to her, then left, striding across the ward as if not even a downpour could trouble his dignity. Lilli took to the stairs, but the climb bothered her more than usual. By the time she knocked on Nevyn’s door, she was gasping. Nevyn opened the door, caught her arm, and helped her inside. She laid the bundle down on the table and sat down heavily in the chair.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Nevyn said.

‘Rain. Thick air.’

‘I begin to worry about the winter. How it will affect you, I mean.’ Nevyn opened the napkin. ‘Ah, my thanks! You’d best rest before you try to eat.’

Lilli nodded for want of breath to speak. Nevyn took half the bread and one apple, then sat on the wide windowsill to eat. He was looking down at the ward, and all of a sudden he scowled.

‘I wish our prince had enough sense to get in out of the rain.’ Nevyn remarked.

‘Is he still out there?’

‘He is, staring up at this window. What was he doing, lying in wait when you walked over from the great hall?’

‘Just that. I don’t understand! He could have any woman in this dun. I’m not even that pretty. Everyone tells me I’m too thin, and I puff and gasp all the time.’

‘My dear child!’ Nevyn turned away from the window. ‘I’m afraid you’ve worked a mighty act of dweomer that’s captured his very soul.’

‘I never meant to! What did I do?’

“You said him nay. I don’t suppose there’s been one lass in his entire life who ever refused him before.’

Lilli stared, feeling utterly stupid. Nevyn was smiling, but in the most kindly way possible.

You see,’ he went on, ‘now that you’ve rebuffed him, he’s not able to leave you alone. It’s the challenge of the thing. Not, I hasten to add, that the challenge is more important than your charms. But the former adds considerably to the latter.’

‘I do see. And I suppose my being fond of Branoic’s not helped the matter any.’

‘It’s not. Are you truly fond of Branno?’

‘I am. He’s the only man I’ve ever met who listens to me. Well, except for you, my lord.’

‘That recommends him, indeed.’ Nevyn considered for a long moment. ‘I don’t know how your Wyrd will run, Lilli, when it comes to mastering the dweomer. You’ve got gifts, but many do, and it’s a rare soul who can master them. But I do know Tieryn Peddyc wanted to see you settled in a good place in life, and so do I. I’m not a young man any more, and I’d hate to think what might happen if I weren’t here to protect you.’

Lilli turned ice-cold and laid a hand at her throat.

‘I’d hate to think as well,’ she whispered. ‘If I couldn’t stay at court, I’d end up living on my brother’s charity.’

‘Now, here, I’ve upset you! Forgive me. I’m not planning on dying any time soon, I promise you.’ Nevyn smiled at her. ‘Eat your breakfast, and we’ll put these matters to one side.’ He glanced back down at the ward. ‘Ah, the prince has gone in. Later I’d best attend him to make sure he’s not given himself the rheum.’

Lilli giggled and helped herself to bread.

‘My lord?’ she said. The strangest thing happened this morning. Someone slipped a love-note under my door. I’ve not the slightest idea who did it.’

“The prince, most like.’

‘Well, but surely he wouldn’t let a scribe know”?’

‘Ah.’ Nevyn suddenly smiled. ‘Of course you don’t realize that Maryn can read and write. His father was a most far-seeing man and insisted upon it. Here, you’ve gone as red as a beet!’

‘Well, I was thinking that it couldn’t have been him, because I’ve never known a noble-born man who knew letters.’

‘This one, alas, does. Don’t answer it.’

‘I shan’t, my lord. Never fear.’

‘But ye gods! It gripes my soul to think of him sneaking through the corridors of the dun. There are times when even natural dignity fails a man, and when he makes a fool of himself over a lass is one of them.’

‘True spoken. Maybe he sent someone else to deliver it.’

‘I’ll hope so.’

Yet later Lilli wondered, when she was thinking over what Nevyn had told her, if not answering would only provoke Maryn further. She could not honestly say if she feared or hoped that it would.

Despite the rain the silver daggers had an easy ride down to Cerrmor and reached the dun after an eightnight on the road. Since the prince had sent speeded couriers ahead of them, Lord Tammael, the chamberlain, had their old barracks ready. They turned their horses over to the servants, stowed their gear, then went to the great hall for the evening meal.

It was just sunset, and the last bloom of light gilded the pale slate roofs of the towers. A sea breeze caught the pennants and snapped them out, while the red wyvem banners on the walls swelled and rustled. The ward stood empty and quiet, the cobbles freshly swept. The men walked slowly, in deference to Red-Haired Trevyr’s limp, and spoke only in low voices, as if they were afraid to break this moment of peace.

‘I’ll miss Cerrmor,’ Maddyn said.

‘It’s a better place to be barracked, truly,’ Branoic said. ‘Dun Deverry crimps a man’s soul.’

In the great hall candles glimmered; in both hearths peat fires smouldered to keep the autumnal chill off the stone walls. Up on the dais, at the table of honour, the princess and her women were already seated, wearing dresses of bright silks, green, gold, blue. The silver daggers reclaimed their old places at the tables directly below. Maddyn took the message tubes out of his shirt and walked over to the dais. When the princess acknowledged him with a nod, he bowed to her.

‘Letters from Nevyn, your highness.’

‘Oh, splendid!’Bellyra said. ‘Here, page! Fetch those from Maddyn, will you?’

A boy trotted over, and Maddyn handed the letters up.

‘Did you have a decent ride down?’ Bellyra went on. ‘I didn’t expect to see my escort so soon.’

‘We did, your highness. Your husband’s vassals gave us shelter and suchlike, so the horses never tired.’

‘Good, good. You’ll have a slower ride back, no doubt. Lord Tammael convinced me that we need to travel by barge.’

‘That’s wise, your highness. You’ll want to bring some of your fine furnishings with you. Dun Deverry’s a poor sort of place these days. It’s seen too much fighting.’

The three women exchanged grim glances.

‘My thanks for the warning,’ Bellyra said. ‘But don’t let me keep you standing there. You must be good and tired. Do sit down and have some ale and suchlike.’

‘My thanks.’

The rest of the silver daggers were already tearing into chunks of bread and washing them down with Cerrmor’s good dark ale. Maddyn took his place at the head of the table nearest the dais. As captain he had a proper chair, and it was good to lean back comfortably with a tankard.

‘The princess looks well,’ Branoic remarked.

‘She does at that. I’m glad to see it.’

The two serving women were discussing some matter, perhaps the furnishings, but Beflyra had opened Nevyn’s letters and was reading them, holding them up at an angle to catch the last of the sunlight in the room. Her pale hair, caught back in a little kerchief as casually as a farm wife’s, rippled down nearly to her waist and glimmered in the light. She was frowning, her striking green eyes narrowed in thought as she read, but now and again she smiled, no doubt at some jest of Nevyn’s.

Branoic had just said something to him. Maddyn turned to him with a smile.

What?’ Maddyn said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Do you want more ale? The lass is here with the flagon.’ Branoic jerked his thumb in the general direction of the servant girl.

‘I don’t, my thanks. I’ve barely tasted this.’

‘So I thought. Is somewhat wrong?’

‘It’s not. I’m tired, truly, after the long ride down. I’m not as old as Nevyn yet, but ye gods, there are times when I feel my years.’

Tired or no, in the morning Maddyn woke long before the rest of the silver daggers. He dressed without waking anyone, then took his harp in its big leather bag and crept out of the barracks. In the centre of Dun Cerrmor stood a royal garden, where an ancient willow tree grew next to a stream and roses bloomed. When the silver daggers had first come to Cerrmor, Princess Bellyra had given Maddyn leave to visit it as he wished, and it was his favourite place to sit and practise his music. Among the echoing stones the harp sounded so sweetly that he could almost convince himself that he was a decent harper.

When he played, the Wildfolk gathered to listen, sylphs and gnomes, while in the stream undines rose up and clustered at the grassy bank. This particular morning the music drew another listener as well. Maddyn had just finished a difficult set of runs when he heard the little door in the wall open behind him. He glanced back and saw the princess.

‘Don’t get up or suchlike,’ Bellyra said. ‘I’ll just join you if I may.’

‘I’d be honoured, your highness.’

Bellyra walked over and sat down facing him. She was wearing a pair of linen dresses, worn soft and shiny. She wiggled her bare feet in the grass like a child.

‘It’s nice out here, in the cool of the morning,’ she remarked.

‘It is, indeed. I hope I didn’t wake you.’

‘Oh, hardly! Degwa and Elyssa have been up since dawn, packing up things and running here and there to make sure they’ve not forgotten anything. We’ll need two barges if they keep this up. Is the royal dun truly awful?’

 ‘Truly. Black grim stone, and ye gods, it’s crammed with towers and broken walls and suchlike. I think half the furnishings must have gone as firewood during the sieges. I remember how Cerrmor was, when we first brought the prince here. Well, Dun Deverry’s far worse.’

Bellyra made a sour face.

‘Then Decci’s right,’ she said. ‘We do need to take lots of tapestries and carpets. And the silverwork, of course. That will help brighten things up.’

‘Which reminds me. Otho sends his best to you, your highness.’

‘Dear Otho! It gladdens my heart to hear that he’s well. I rather worried about him.’

You can rest assured that he went nowhere near the fighting. Now, the looting was another matter entirely. He asked me to tell you that he’s picked up some old silver here and there, for the melting down, and so he’ll have a surprise for you when you reach Dun Deverry.’

‘Ooh, lovely! What is it?’

‘I can’t tell you, your highness, Otho would skin me alive.’

She laughed, wrinkling her nose at him, then wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned back, looking up at the patch of sky above the pale stone walls.

‘Play something, Maddo,’ she said. ‘Songs or airs, it doesn’t matter. I do love the sound of that old harp of yours. You do know that the other bards would all love to get it away from you, don’t you?’

‘I do. Several of them have offered me gold, over the years, but I always turned it down.’

‘What makes it so sweet? It’s all nicked and suchlike.’

The Wildfolk enchanted it for me.’

She laughed again, and he smiled, but he’d told her naught but the simple truth. When he played, the gnomes swarmed closer, lying on the grass to listen with their little heads pillowed on their warty hands. One bold sprite even stroked the princess’s hair as if admiring its colour. He had no idea of how long they sat together while he played through the pieces he’d learned from the court bards.

‘Princess!’ The voice took them both by surprise. ‘My dear princess! Your highness!’

Bellyra jumped up like a guilty child. The owner of the voice, Lady Degwa of the Wolf, came trotting out of the door in the wall. All at once Maddyn realized that the woman meant to be queen of all Deverry had been unwise to sit around half-dressed with one of her husband’s retainers. All round eyes and fluttering hands, Degwa kept trying to be properly servile, but she was having trouble finding words.

‘Oh do stop it, Decci!’ Bellyra said at last. ‘I know I’ve been scandalous and terribly improper and all of that. But Maddyn’s known me since I was but a child, and I do so love the sound of his harp.’

‘My apologies, your highness.’ Degwa calmed, slightly. ‘I fear me I forgot myself. It was the surprise. We’ve been looking for you, and then I heard the music, and I thought I’d see if the harper had seen you, and never did I expect -’

‘I know.’ Bellyra cut her off. ‘But if I were going to besmirch my honour with a silver dagger, I wouldn’t do it in broad daylight out in the middle of a garden.’

‘Er.’ Degwa’s round little face had gone red. ‘Ah. Um. Of course not. Ah.’

‘Let’s go in.’ Bellyra smiled at Maddyn. ‘My thanks for the music.’

You’re most welcome, your highness.’

Bellyra slipped her arm through Degwa’s and marched her back into the broch. Maddyn slacked the strings on his harp, then slid it back into the leather bag. I have known her since she was a child, he thought to himself. He could remember her as a skinny girl who had just taken her hair out of plaits, married off to a boy she’d met but a fortnight before. It made him smile, remembering them as a pair of beautiful children thrust into a situation that would have drowned many a grown man. But they had survived, both prince and princess, and brought the kingdom with them safely into harbour.

She was a child no longer. Most certainly not a child.

Maddyn felt his heart turn over. He grabbed his harp and fled the garden for the safety of the great hall, where the rest of the silver daggers were already seated and eating. Maddyn laid his harp carefully on the floor next to his chair and sat down. Carrying his bowl of porridge, Branoic left another table to sit on the bench at his right.

‘Practising?’ Branoic nodded at the harp.

‘I was, truly. Here, Branno, I just had a thought. When you get that house and land, you’ll be needing a bard.’

‘So I will.’ Branoic grinned at him. You don’t need to hint around, you know. You’ll always be welcome at my table.’

‘My thanks. We’ll let Owaen have the prince’s guard to himself.

It will do us both good to get away from court.’

‘My dear princess,’ Degwa said. ‘I hate to rebuke someone so far above my station in life, but the queen’s honour is the very soul of the kingdom.’

‘Why do you think I don’t know that?’ Bellyra said.

Degwa stopped, her mouth open, and blinked rapidly several times. Finally she pursed her lips.

‘My apologies, your highness.’ Degwa curtsied, then glanced at Elyssa, as if for support.

Standing amidst baled tapestries, Elyssa said nothing. With a deep dramatic sigh, Degwa walked to the other side of the women’s hall, where a heap of straw and several wooden barrels stood ready to receive the princess’s collection of silver oddments. Bellyra flopped into her favourite chair and stared out the window at the blue sky.

‘Were I but a little bird, I’d fly unto my love,’ she sang, then merely spoke. ‘But instead of flying we’ll be absolutely crawling upriver on a barge.’

‘Better than remaining here,’ Elyssa said. ‘Or so I hope.’

‘Better for me, anyway,’ Bellyra said. ‘I do worry about you and Decci. If the dun’s as ghastly as everyone says, it won’t be very pleasant, living at court. Maybe you should stay here in Cerrmor till the new gwerbret’s named.’

You took us into your service when we had naught.’ Elyssa looked up sharply. ‘I’ll not be deserting you now.’

‘Nor I,’ Degwa put in, ‘Especially not now when it seems you need us more than ever.’

‘Oh, Decci! You’re still worrying about Maddo, aren’t you?’ Bellyra shook her head and grinned. ‘Don’t you ever let anything drop?’

With her hands full of straw, Degwa stopped wrapping to consider this seriously.

‘Perhaps I don’t,’ Degwa said at last. ‘But if I were you, your highness, I’d not be using his nickname so freely.’

Bellyra laid her head on the back of the chair and groaned. Don’t be a silly goose, Decci,’ Elyssa put in, amiably. ‘Your highness, I think we’ve got all the valuables packed, or we will when Decci finishes the silver. The servants can deal with the bedding and the rest.’

‘Splendid!’ Bellyra sat up straight again. ‘When shall we leave? On the morrow?’