KATHARINE KERR

THE FIRE DRAGON

Book Three of The Dragon Mage

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2000

Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2000

Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006482611

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007375387

Version: 2017-05-02

DEDICATION

For my grandfather,

John Brahtin

He gave me my social conscience

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author's Note

Part One

Part Two

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Appendices

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

AUTHOR’S NOTE

It occurs to me that readers might find it helpful to know something about the overall structure of the Deverry series. From the beginning of this rather large enterprise, I have had an actual ending in mind, a set of events that should wrap up all the books in a dramatic conclusion. It’s merely taken me much longer to get there than I ever thought it would.

If you think of Deverry as a stage play, the sets of books make up its acts. Act One consists of the Deverry books proper, that is, Daggerspell, Darkspell, Dawnspell, and Dragonspell. The ‘Westlands’ books, A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, A Time of War, and A Time of Justice, make up Act Two, while Act Three will unfold in the current quartet, ‘The Dragon Mage,’ that is, The Red Wyvern, The Black Raven, and its ‘sister’, The Fire Dragon. The Gold Falcon will bring the sequence to its end at last.

As for the way that the series alternates between past and present lives, think of the structure of a line of Celtic interlace, some examples of which have decorated the various books in this set. Although each knot appears to be a separate figure, when you look closely you can see that they are actually formed from one continuous line. Similarly, this line weaves over and under itself to form the figures. A small section of line seems to run over or under another line to form a knot.

The past incarnations of the characters in this book and their present tense story really are one continuous line, but this line interweaves to form the individual volumes. Eventually – soon, I hope – the pattern will complete itself, and you will be able to see that the set of books forms a circle of knots.

Katharine Kerr

PART ONE
Deverry Spring, 850

The year 850. The gods saw fit to give our prince the victory, but never had we dreamt how high a price they would set for it.

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

Sunlight streamed into the tower room and pooled on the wooden floor. Grey gnomes with spindle legs and warty faces materialized in the warmth and lolled like cats. Despite his great age, Nevyn felt tempted to join them. He sat in the chamber’s only chair and considered his apprentice, who was sitting cross-legged among the gnomes. She turned her face up to the sun and ran one hand through her blond hair, which fell to her shoulders in a ragged wave.

‘Spring’s truly here,’ Lilli said. ‘I’m so glad of it, and yet I dread summer. You must, too.’

‘I do,’ Nevyn said. ‘It won’t be long now before the army rides out, and the gods only know what the battles will bring.’

‘Just so. All I can do is pray that Branoic rides home safely.’

‘You’ve grown truly fond of Branoic, haven’t you?’

‘I have. The prince doesn’t like it much.’ Lilli opened her eyes and turned to look up at him. ‘You don’t think he’d do anything dishonourable, would you?’

‘Prince Maryn, you mean? What sort of dishonour –’

‘Letting Branno be killed in battle. Putting him in harm’s way somehow. It sounds so horrid when I say it aloud. I can’t imagine Maryn doing such a thing, truly. I’m just frightened, I suppose, and it’s colouring my fancies.’

‘No doubt.’ Nevyn hesitated, wondering if her fear were only fancy or some half-seen omen. As apprentices so often did, she picked up his thought.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you somewhat,’ Lilli went on. ‘You know how the omens used to come to me? I’d be sewing or thinking of some ordinary thing, and then all of a sudden the words would come bursting out of my mouth?’

‘I remember it well.’

‘It doesn’t happen any more.’

‘Good.’ Nevyn smiled at her. ‘It’s a common thing, that a person marked for the dweomer will have some wild gift, but when she starts a proper course of study, she loses the knack. Later, once you truly understand what you’re doing, the gift will return to you.’

‘I see. To tell you the truth, I’m just as glad. I’d be terrified if I could see – well, you know – someone’s death.’

‘Just so.’ Nevyn hesitated, thinking. It was likely that if grave harm befell either the prince or her betrothed, she would know, no matter how far away she was. He decided that worrying her the more would serve no purpose and changed the subject. ‘I need to be on my way. The prince is holding a council – at noon, he said, so I suppose I’d better get myself there.’ He stood up, stretching his arms above his head. ‘You may finish the lesson I set you from the dweomer book.’

‘Those awful lists?’

‘I realize that the memory work is tedious.’ Nevyn arranged a mock-fierce expression. ‘But those calls and invocations will come in handy some fine day. Learn that first page for today.’

‘I do understand. I’ve got part of them off by heart already.’

‘Splendid. Keep at it. But if you finish before I get back, there’s no need for you to stay shut up inside. The more sun you get, the better.’

Nevyn hurried down the stone stairs, which still exuded a wintry chill, and walked out to the sunlight and the main ward of Dun Deverry and the looming towers of the dun itself. Not even the bright spring day could turn the smoke-blackened stone cheerful. The fortress spread out over the top of a hill, bound by six high stone walls, lying at intervals down the hill like chains upon the earth. Tall towers, squat brochs, wooden sheds, long barracks and stables – they sprawled in a plan turned random by hundreds of years of decay, the fires of war, and the disasters of siege, followed by what new building and fortifying the kings had been able to afford. In among the buildings lay cobbled wards and plain dirt yards, cut up by stone walls, some isolated, all confusing.

In the centre of this tangle, however, lay a proper ward, and in its centre rose the tidy cluster of brochs and towers that housed the prince, his family, his personal guards, and the many officials and servants that made up his court. Against the black stone bright banners displayed a red wyvern on a cream ground, lifting and trembling in the breeze. As Nevyn was crossing this ward, he saw Princess Bellyra just leaving the main broch tower. With two pages and one of her husband’s bards in attendance, she was heading for the door of one of the side buildings. Dressed in blue linen, she walked slowly, her hands resting on her belly, heavy with her third child. Her honey-coloured hair was bound up in a scarf stiff with embroidery, as befitted a married woman of her rank.

‘Nevyn!’ she called out. ‘Are you off to the high council?’

‘I am, your highness. Why are you going inside in this lovely weather?’

‘It’s that bit of old map you found for me. I simply have to go see the room it refers to.’

‘Ah, indeed. I’m curious about it myself, actually. If you could let me know what you find?’

‘I will. But you’d best hurry. Maryn’s been looking for you.’

Nevyn bowed, then hurried through the double doors of the central broch. The great hall covered the entire ground floor, a huge round room scattered with wooden tables, benches, and a small collection of chairs at the table reserved for the prince himself. At either side stood enormous stone hearths, one for the prince’s riders and the servants, the other, far grander, for the noble-born. Despite the spring warmth outside, fires smouldered in each to drive off the damp.

Nevyn wove his way through the tables and the dogs scattered on the straw-strewn floor. About halfway between doors and hearths a stone staircase spiralled up the wall. He’d climbed only a few steps when someone hailed him from below. He turned to see Councillor Oggyn just mounting the stairs himself. He was a stout man, Oggyn, and egg-bald, though he sported a bristling black beard. He was carrying an armful of rolled parchments.

‘Good day,’ Nevyn said. ‘Are those the ledgers?’

They are, my lord,’ Oggyn said. ‘I’ve recorded all the dues and taxes owed our prince by the royal demesne. I’m cursed glad he can count on the Cerrmor taxes for a while longer.’

‘So am I. Getting the army fit to march would strip his local holdings bare.’

‘Just so. We’ll have to wait for provisions from the south, and that’s that. I just hope our prince sees reason. I know he’s impatient to be on the move.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he will. I’m hoping that our enemies are as badly off as we are.’

They climbed in silence to the first landing, where Oggyn paused to catch his breath. He looked out over the great hall below while he mopped his bald head with a rag.

‘Somewhat else I wanted to lay before you, my lord,’ Oggyn said. ‘I saw our princess going about her investigations just now. Is that wise?’

‘Well, the midwives all swear that the walking will do her naught but good.’

‘Splendid, but that’s not quite my meaning. That bard. Is he fit company for her?’

‘Ah. I see.’

Nevyn considered his answer. During the winter past, Maddyn, the bard in question, had caught Oggyn out in some shameful doings and written a flyting song about them. It was his right as a bard to do so, but in his shame Oggyn wouldn’t be caring about rights and duties.

‘He is, truly.’ Nevyn decided that brevity was best. ‘I’ve never met a man more aware of his station in life. If anything, he’s perhaps too modest for a bard.’

Oggyn set his lips together hard and stared for a moment more.

‘Ah well,’ Oggyn said at last. ‘None of my affair, anyway. Shall we go up?’

‘By all means. We should find the prince and his brother there before us.’

‘I shan’t be able to climb around like this much longer.’ Bellyra laid both hands on her swollen belly. ‘But I couldn’t stand not knowing. I wonder if there truly is a secret passage. Tell me, Maddo. Doesn’t that mark look like it means a doorway of some kind?’

Maddyn held the fragment of mouldy parchment up to an arrow slit for the sunlight. They were standing in a wedge-shaped chamber part way up one of the half-brochs, which joined the central tower like petals round the centre of a daisy. According to the piece of map, this chamber should have had two doors, the one by which they’d entered and another directly across. Yet the inward bulge of the stone wall opposite showed nothing.

‘It does,’ Maddyn said at last. ‘Perhaps the door’s been walled up.’

The princess’s pages, however, gave up less easily. The two boys began poking at the mortar and pushing rather randomly on the stones. All at once the wall groaned, or so it sounded, a long sigh of pain. The boys yelped and jumped back.

‘So!’ Bellyra said. ‘I’ll wager we have a spy’s hole or suchlike here. The royal council chamber, the one on the second floor of the main broch, should be right near here.’

The pages set to again. Dark-haired and hazel-eyed, they were Gwerbret Ammerwdd’s sons, and apparently they had inherited that great lord’s stubbornness. They pushed, prodded, laid their backs against the wall and shoved until, all at once, a section of wall swung inward with an alarming collection of squeaks, groans, and rumbles.

‘Look, Your Highness!’ said Vertyc, the elder of the pair. ‘Here’s the door!’

‘Not a very secret one, I must say, with a noise like that.’ Bellyra took a few steps forward to peer through the opening. ‘It wants oiling, most like.’

Maddyn joined her and peered through the opening.

‘It’s more a passageway than a room inside,’ Maddyn said.

‘It might lead to the council chamber. I wonder if the kings had this made to eavesdrop on their councillors. There was a hidden chamber like this in Dun Cerrmor. By the end my father didn’t trust anyone, and so he had one built.’

‘Shall we find out?’ Maddyn said.

‘By all means!’ Bellyra gestured at the pages. ‘You two stay out here. If that door swings shut, we could be trapped. Don’t look so disappointed! You can explore it once we come out again, and we’ll watch the door for you.’

The narrow passage smelled heavily of mice. Some twenty feet along they heard voices: Nevyn and Councillor Oggyn. Grinning, Bellyra held a finger to her lips. When they stopped to listen, the sound came clearly.

‘The spring’s upon us,’ Oggyn was saying. ‘We need to requisition mules and suchlike.’

‘I’ve no idea how many we’ll need,’ Nevyn said. ‘It depends upon the muster.’

Bellyra could just make out Maryn’s voice. Apparently he was sitting at some distance from the wall. As the two councillors continued talking about provisions and transport, Bellyra felt on the edge of tears. The army would ride out soon, leaving her and the other women behind with only the familiar summer terrors for company.

When she glanced at Maddyn, she found him leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. It never ceased to amaze her how fighting men would sleep whenever they could, no matter how precarious their balance. Grey streaked Maddyn’s dark curly hair, and he was weather-beaten and gaunt from his soldier’s life, but it was his kindness that had snared her. This summer she would worry doubly, she realized, both for her husband and for the man upon whose devotion she had come to rely when dark moods overtook her. For a moment she found herself tempted to kiss him awake. The feeling brought a cold panic with it. As the queen of all Deverry, she would have to keep her honour as pure as a priest of Bel. She took a sharp step back, kicked a rattling stone, and woke him.

‘It’s stuffy in here,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s leave.’

Out in the cleaner air of the chamber Maddyn took a few deep breaths and rubbed his eyes. Bellyra sent the boys in for their look around, then watched him while he studied the fragment of map.

‘Truly interesting,’ Maddyn said at last. ‘So kings eavesdrop like commoners, do they?’

‘It looks as if the ones here did. The next time Maryn holds a full council I’ll remember this. I always wonder what he’s like when there are no women around. He must be quite different.’

‘One would hope.’

Bellyra laughed, and not very decorously, either. There was a time when that jest would have wounded her to the heart, she realized. Maddyn grinned at her.

‘Now the real question,’ she went on, ‘is when this passage was built. I’ve not found a thing about it in the records, which makes sense, of course. They could hardly keep it secret if they talked about it. But then, I wonder who did the building?’

‘Perhaps the king had them slain afterwards.’

‘Ych! I hope not. Although –’ Bellyra paused, thinking. ‘Nevyn has an ancient book called TALES OF THE DAWNTIME. According to that, the earliest brochs in Deverry weren’t built with proper floors and chambers and suchlike. They had double walls, with a good-sized space between them, you see, and they were empty like a chimney in the centre, because there would only be one big fire at the bottom to keep everyone warm. And in those double walls were little rooms and some sort of corridor called galleries.’

‘I see. This passage could be a remnant of a gallery, then. The heart of Dun Deverry’s very old, after all.’

‘Just so, and then the only thing the later king would have had to add would have been this door. And he might have been able to have that made secretly, if he paid the mason enough.’

‘True-spoken. And especially if the mason were as close-mouthed as Otho, say.’

‘Quite so. I wonder if our pages have had enough exploring in there? I hate to admit this, Maddo, but I’m tired and I want to sit down.’

Maddyn called to the boys, and in a few moments they hurried out. Cobwebs glistened in their hair.

‘There’s a little staircase at the end, your highness,’ Vertyc said. ‘But it doesn’t go up to anything.’

‘Unless it’s a false floor,’ his brother, Tanno, joined in, ‘but it would make ever so much noise to find out.’

‘We’d best wait till the prince’s council isn’t in session, then,’ Bellyra said. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll come back to look at it.’

They all hurried down the staircase and outside to find the sunlight leaving them. From the south, white clouds were gliding in, billowing up into the sky with the promise of a storm. Servants trotted back and forth, fetching firewood for the great hall while they kept an eye out for the rain. Bellyra picked her way slowly over the uneven cobblestones with Vertyc at her elbow to steady her. She was so intent on not falling that they were halfway across before she realized that she was hearing the sound of a man screaming in rage. She stopped walking and looked up, glancing around.

Across the ward by the main gate, two men had faced off. Their white shirts, embroidered with a grey dagger down the sleeves, marked them as silver daggers, members of the prince’s personal guard. They were both of them blond and burly, but one was a good head taller than the other – Branoic, she realized, and facing him Owaen, captain of the troop, pacing back and forth and shouting so angrily that his words made no sense.

‘Maddo, what’s that all about?’ Bellyra said.

‘Oh ye gods!’ Maddyn said. ‘I don’t know, my lady, but I’d best attend to it.’

‘By all means. Let’s go over. If I’m there Owaen will have to stop screaming like that.’

‘Truly, and my thanks.’

Indeed the royal presence did bring Owaen to his senses. He fell silent and bowed to the princess, but he trembled all over, and his face had gone dead-white. Branoic was smiling, Bellyra suddenly realized, a wicked tight curve of his mouth, as if he were enjoying each and every moment of Owaen’s rage.

‘Your highness.’ Branoic bowed low. ‘Your husband has given me a splendid boon, and I’ll thank you for it as well. I know you must have spoken with him about bestowing land upon me.’

‘I did, and you’re most welcome.’ She turned to Owaen with as pleasant a smile as she could muster. ‘But what’s so wrong, captain?’

‘Forgive me, your highness, but is your husband going to make him a lord as well.’

‘Of course.’

‘But the blazon – forgive me – you wouldn’t understand, your highness.’

‘Oh ye gods!’ Maddyn broke in. ‘He didn’t give Branno the eagles back?’

‘He did.’ Owaen could barely force the words out. ‘Just that.’

Branoic tossed back his head and howled with laughter. With one smooth curve of his body Owaen turned and hit him so hard in the stomach that Branoic doubled over. Maddyn grabbed Owaen’s arm, but he could hold him for only a brief moment – just long enough for Branoic to get his wind back.

‘You bastard!’ Branoic snarled.

Owaen shook Maddyn off and charged. Branoic met him with the slap of one huge hand, then swung on him with the other. Screaming curses Owaen grabbed his shirt with both hands and shook him like a rat whilst Branoic pounded on his enemy’s back. For a moment they swayed back and forth like drunken men; then Owaen tripped, and they both fell. Clasped in each other’s arms they rolled around on the cobbles while they swore and kicked and punched each other. All Maddyn could do was dance around them and try to make himself heard.

‘Stop it!’ Maddyn was screaming. ‘Not in front of the princess! You cursed hounds, stop it!’

‘Here!’ It was Nevyn, running with all the speed and grace of a young man. ‘What – by Lord of Hell!’

Nevyn flung up one hand, then snapped it down with the gesture of a man throwing dice. Silvery-blue flames shot from his fingers and struck the cobbles with a crack like thunder and a burst of light. With a yelp the two wrestlers broke their holds and rolled a little way apart. Owaen sat up, rubbing his right eye which was swelling shut. Maddyn darted forward and grabbed Branoic to keep him off his prey, but Branoic made no objection. He sat up, rested briefly, then got up and stood rubbing his bloody, bruised knuckles while he panted for breath. Owaen scrambled up after him. Dirt and muck smeared their white shirts and the rest of them as well.

‘There,’ Nevyn said mildly. ‘That’s better. Now what’s all this?’

‘Prince Maryn gave Branoic his grant of land and letters patent today,’ Maddyn said. ‘He gave Branoic the right to use eagles for his blazon.’

‘And?’ Nevyn said. ‘Oh wait. The feud. Ye gods, lads! When did it start? Over ten years ago at least!’

Branoic nodded, staring at the ground. Owaen started to speak, then suddenly turned to Bellyra and knelt. Blood ran down his cheeks. His face was so pale that it reminded her of a fish’s belly.

‘My apologies, your highness,’ Owaen stammered. ‘For losing my temper like this in front of you. I meant no insult. Ye gods, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?’

If she didn’t, Bellyra realized, Prince Maryn would have him flogged.

‘Of course I forgive you,’ she said hastily. ‘Do get up, Owaen! Branoic, I forgive you too. But I’d much prefer to never see such again.’

‘My lady is too generous.’ Branoic ducked his head in her direction. ‘I’ll do my best not to shame myself in front of her again.’

‘Good. Don’t. And now you owe me an explanation. What eagles?’

‘It was my father’s blazon, your highness,’ Branoic said. ‘Not that I was ever a legitimate son of his. But when I joined the silver daggers, Owaen had me take it off my gear. It looked like his mark, says he – that falcon he puts on everything he owns.’

Owaen crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at the cobbles.

‘And now my husband’s given you an eagle blazon?’ Bellyra thought for a moment. ‘Well, make them a different colour. That’s what the heralds did with the wyvern device, isn’t it? The usurper’s clan used green for theirs, and so we took the same wyvern but made it red.’

‘My lady is as clever as she is beautiful.’ Nevyn said. ‘Branoic?’

‘A wise thought, your highness, and do it I will. Here. Owaen’s falcon is red. What if I have a silver eagle? And I can have the heralds turn its head in the opposite direction, too.’

‘Owaen?’ Nevyn turned to the captain.

‘That will suit, my lord.’ Owaen looked up at last. ‘My apologies to you again, your highness.’

Bellyra collected her pages with a wave and turned to go. In the doorway to the main broch Lilli stood shading her eyes with one hand while she watched the scene in the ward. Yet when she saw Bellyra looking her way, she spun around and ran, disappearing into the shadows inside. Poor child! the princess thought. She’s still terrified of me, and here I would have liked her so much if only she weren’t Maryn’s mistress.

‘You’ve both had a silver dagger’s luck,’ Maddyn said. ‘The prince could have had you both flogged for this, fighting out in the ward like a pair of drunken bondmen.’

‘True-spoken,’ Owaen mumbled. He was gingerly exploring his injured eye with dirty fingers. ‘I didn’t know the princess would be right there.’

‘You might have looked.’ Maddyn turned to Branoic. ‘You, too.’

Branoic shrugged and refused to look at him.

‘Owaen?’ Nevyn put in. ‘You’d better stop poking at that eye. Let the chirurgeon look at it. Tell him I said to make you up a poultice to draw the swelling off.’

‘I will.’ Owaen hesitated, then turned on his heel and strode off.

‘Very well, lads,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’d best be getting back to my chamber. I –’ He stopped at the sight of Lilli, trotting across the cobblestones towards them. ‘So you’ve come down? No doubt you’re worried about your betrothed.’

‘I am, my lord,’ Lilli said, ‘if you’ll forgive me.’

‘Of course. The memory work can wait till later.’

Nevyn left Branoic in Lilli’s care and strode across the ward to the side broch that housed his tower room. He wondered if Lilli realized that Branoic had as much of a gift for dweomer as she did. Once the wars were done, and they married, he was planning on teaching both of them. Normally a dweomermaster could take only one apprentice at a time, but the circumstances were hardly normal. He owed Branoic a deep debt from an earlier life, when the person who was a burly silver dagger now had been not only a woman, but Nevyn’s betrothed, Brangwen. I failed her so badly then, he thought. May the Great Ones grant that I may redeem myself now! Yet even though the thought carried the force of a prayer, no omen came to him, as if the matter lay beyond the power of the Great Ones to control.

Up in the big half-round room of the women’s hall, warmth and comfort reigned. When Bellyra walked in, her maidservant took her cloak, curtsied, and hurried off to the bedchamber. Near the hearth, where a fire crackled, the princess’s serving women rose to greet her. Through the wickerwork partition that separated the hall from the sleeping rooms, she could hear the nursemaid’s voice, singing the two little princes to sleep for their nap.

‘Your highness, you look exhausted,’ Degwa said. ‘Do you think it’s wise, the way you climb around the towers and suchlike?’

‘Most unwise, I’m sure,’ Bellyra said. ‘But it’s better than brooding about the baby and wondering what’s going to happen to me once it’s born.’

Degwa winced. Bellyra took her usual chair close to the fire, but she sat spraddled, propped up by cushions. Degwa sat opposite. Elyssa brought a cushioned stool for the princess’s feet, then fetched a chair for herself and placed it beside.

‘My poor highness!’ Degwa said. You look so uncomfortable.’

‘I am,’ Bellyra said. ‘And tired, too.’

‘It’s all that climbing around in the dun,’ Elyssa joined in. ‘Do you truly think you should, my lady?’

‘You could quite wear yourself out,’ Degwa said.

‘You’re both right enough,’ Bellyra said. ‘But it gets tedious, sitting around all day. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I finish my book.’

‘That troubles me, truly,’ Elyssa said. ‘But mayhap you’ll think up another one. About the Holy City itself, say.’

‘It’s the oldest place in all Deverry, after all,’ Degwa put in. ‘There must be splendid tales about it.’

‘And all the legends, too,’ Elyssa went on. ‘About King Bran and how he saw the white sow and all of that. It would make a lovely beginning.’

‘Now there’s a good idea!’ Bellyra suddenly smiled. She could just see how to do the opening pages. ‘My thanks.’

Elyssa and Degwa glanced at each other, then away, as if perhaps they had planned this suggestion together. She should be grateful to them, Bellyra supposed. Yet she felt like snarling because they had reminded her of the birthing madness, prowling at the edge of her mind just as Braemys’s army prowled at the borders of her husband’s lands. It will be different this time, she told herself. She wished she could believe it.

The silence grew heavy around them. With a little shake of her head, Degwa stood up, stepping towards the hearth. In the firelight a silver brooch pinned to the left shoulder of her dress sparkled with a long glint of light.

‘There’s not a lot of firewood left, your highness. Shall I send one of the servants for more?’

‘Please do,’ Bellyra said. ‘Or wait! What’s that on your dress, Decci?’

‘A little gift.’ Degwa smiled, glancing away. ‘From an admirer.’

‘Not Councillor Oggyn?’ Bellyra clapped her hands together. ‘It’s quite pretty.’

‘So it is,’ Elyssa put in. ‘Is that real glass set in it?’

‘It is.’ Degwa’s face had turned a pleasant shade of pink.

Elyssa and Bellyra exchanged a pointed glance that made Degwa giggle.

‘If only he were noble-born!’ Degwa said. ‘As it is, I can hardly count him a true suitor.’

‘Oh now here!’ Bellyra said briskly. ‘After all the fine service he’s paid our prince, who would scorn you if you should marry him?’

Degwa blushed again. She was no longer a lass, but certainly not an old woman, though she’d been widowed for many years now. With her dark curly hair and fine dark eyes, she was attractive, as well, despite her weak mouth and weaker chin.

‘I’ll take pity on you, Decci,’ Elyssa said smiling, ‘and talk of somewhat else. Speaking of jewellery reminds me, your highness. I met Otho the smith down in the great hall this morning, after you’d left. He asked for news of you and sends his humble greetings.’

‘How kind of him. I hope you told him I was well.’

‘I did.’

‘Good. I’ve always had an easy time of it with the babies. Until afterwards.’

‘Oh, don’t!’ Elyssa leaned over and laid her hand on Bellyra’s arm. ‘Don’t think about it. Just don’t.’

‘You’re right. I’ll try not to.’

Bellyra wasn’t able to say why this mention of Otho gave her the idea, but it occurred to her that afternoon to give Maddyn a token of some sort, a little trinket such as queens often bestowed upon favoured courtiers, to take to the wars and bring him luck. That evening, she had Otho summoned and met him outside the door to the women’s hall, while her serving women stood with her for propriety’s sake.

‘I want to give my bard a pin to match that silver ring,’ Bellyra told the smith. ‘One with a rose design.’

‘Easy enough to do, your highness,’ Otho said. ‘I’ve still got a bit of silver left over from the – er well, let’s just say I found it, like, after your husband took Dun Deverry.’

‘I don’t want to know any details.’

‘Just as well, your highness. I’ll get right to work on that.’

‘My thanks, good smith.’

All smiles, Otho bowed, then stumped down the corridor to the stairway. Degwa waited till he was well out of earshot.

‘Your bard, your highness?’ Degwa raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, my husband’s, truly, but then, my husband was the one who set him guarding me.’

‘Of course.’ All at once Degwa blushed. ‘Er, ah, I’ll just see if the servant girls have swept out your chamber. I asked them rather a long while ago, and they’d best have done it properly.’

Degwa turned and rushed back into the women’s hall. Bellyra and Elyssa exchanged a weary smile, then followed her inside.

On a wet chilly morning Prince Maryn and his councillors assembled in the main ward. With them stood young Prince Riddmar, Maryn’s half-brother, who would receive the Cerrmor rhan when Maryn became king. He was a lean child, Riddmar, blond and grey-eyed like his brother, with the same sunny smile. At Nevyn’s urging, Maryn had taken the boy on as an apprentice in the craft of ruling. Riddmar accompanied the prince everywhere these days, listening and watching as Maryn prepared to claim the high kingship of all Deverry.

This particular morning Maryn was sending off a message to the rebel lord, Braemys. For one last time the prince was offering him a pardon if he would only swear fealty – a small price, in the eyes of the prince and his councillors both. Gavlyn, the leader of the prince’s heralds, knelt at Maryn’s feet; he would be taking this message himself, rather than entrusting it to one of his men.

‘His guards are waiting by the gates, my liege,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of providing our herald with an escort. The roads aren’t safe.’

‘I thought Braemys had taken all the bandits into his army,’ Maryn said.

‘He offered. Who knows how many took him up on it?’

‘A good point. They may be as suspicious of him as he is of me.’

‘True spoken.’ Nevyn held up the long silver tube containing the prince’s message and waved it vaguely at the sky. ‘I’d pray to the gods and ask them to make him take your pardon, but it would be a waste of breath.’

A fortnight later Nevyn’s remark proved true when the herald returned. After the noon meal Nevyn was sitting at the table of honour with the two princes when Gavlyn strode into the great hall, still carrying his beribboned staff. Maryn rose and beckoned him over.

‘I’m too impatient to send a page to summon him,’ Maryn remarked, grinning. ‘Once I’m king I’ll have to mind my formalities, I suppose.’

Nevyn nodded his agreement but said nothing. He was watching Gavlyn make his way through the crowded tables. Gavlyn walked fast, snapping at any servants in his path; he was scowling, Nevyn realized, more furious than he’d ever seen the man. As he passed, the men at each table fell silent so that it seemed he worked some dweomer spell to turn them all mute as he passed. By the time he reached the table of honour, the entire great hall, riders, servants, even the dogs, sat waiting in a deathly stillness to hear his news. When he started to kneel, Maryn waved him up.

‘Stand, if you’d not mind it,’ the prince said. ‘Your voice will carry better.’

‘Very well, my liege.’ Gavlyn turned towards the waiting crowd and cleared his throat.

Maryn picked up his tankard of ale and took a casual sip. Gavlyn raised his staff.

‘Lord Braemys, regent to Lwvan, Gwerbret Cantrae in his minority, sends his greetings and this message,’ Gavlyn paused, as if steadying himself. ‘He says: my ward, Lwvan of the Boar clan, is the closest living kin of King Olaen, once rightful high king of all Deverry, now dead, murdered by the usurper or mayhap his men. Therefore Lwvan, Gwerbret Cantrae, is the true heir to Dun Deverry. Lord Braemys requests that Maryn, Gwerbret Cerrmor, keep the holding in good order till Lwvan rides to claim it at Beltane.’

Maryn’s hand tightened so hard on the tankard that his knuckles went white. ‘Is there any more?’ Maryn’s voice held steady.

‘None, my liege. I thought it quite enough.’

Gavlyn lowered the staff and pounded it once upon the floor. His audience burst out talking and rage flooded the great hall. The riders were cursing and swearing, the servants gabbled together, the message went round and round, repeated in disbelief. With a final bow, Gavlyn left the prince’s presence. Maryn rose, glanced at Nevyn, then strode off, heading for the staircase. Young Riddmar got up and ran after him. More slowly Nevyn followed, and Oggyn joined him at the foot of the stairs.

‘The gall,’ Oggyn snapped. ‘My prince –’

Maryn pushed past him and started up, taking the stairs two at a time, too fast for Riddmar to keep up. Nevyn let Oggyn and the boy go ahead of him and paused, glancing around the crowd. He finally saw Owaen and Maddyn, standing at the rider’s hearth. Getting their attention was even harder, but at last Maddyn did look his way.

‘You and Owaen!’ Nevyn called out. ‘Come with me!’

They found the prince in the council chamber, standing at the head of a long table with Oggyn to one side. Afternoon sun spread over the polished wood and gilded the parchment maps lying upon it. In one smooth motion Maryn drew his table dagger and stabbed it into a map, right through the mark that signified Cantrae.

‘That arrogant little pissproud bastard,’ Maryn said, his voice still level. ‘I’ll have his head on a pike for this.’

No one spoke. With a shrug the prince pulled his dagger free and sheathed it, then turned to them with his usual sunny smile.

‘No doubt Lord Braemys planned to vex me,’ Maryn said. ‘An angry man takes foolish risks.’

‘Just so, my liege.’ Oggyn bowed to him. ‘Most well said.’

‘What gripes my soul the hardest,’ Maryn went on, ‘was that reference to poor little Olaen. Ye gods, if I ever find the man who murdered that child, I’ll hang him!’

Nevyn turned his attention to Oggyn, who was struggling to keep his face bland and composed despite it being beaded with sweat. Fortunately for Oggyn, Prince Maryn turned away and started for the door.

‘I need some time alone, good councillors,’ Maryn said, ‘to compose myself. We shall hold council later this afternoon.’

The door slammed behind him. When Riddmar started after, Nevyn caught the lad by the shoulder and kept him back. Oggyn caught his breath with a sob that drew him a curious look from the young prince.

‘Ah er well,’ Oggyn said, ‘I never know what to say when his highness flies into one of his tempers. I’ll confess it frightens me.’

‘Me, too,’ Riddmar said.

‘He does it so rarely, is why,’ Nevyn said. ‘Well, silver daggers, I’m sorry I took you away from your meal. Prince Riddmar? I suggest you go with your brother’s captains.’

‘I will, my lord,’ Riddmar said. ‘Owaen’s teaching me swordcraft, anyway. We could have a lesson.’

‘Good idea,’ Owaen said. ‘Maddo, come on.’

The silver daggers left, taking the boy with them. Once the door had shut behind them, Oggyn crumpled into a chair and covered his white face with both hands. ‘If he had let little Olaen live,’ he said into his palms, ‘the wars would never have ended.’

‘I know that as well as you do,’ Nevyn said.

With a groan Oggyn lowered his hands and stared at the floor. Nevyn itched to point out that Oggyn should have talked the prince round to a legal execution rather than poisoning the lad, but he held his tongue. He had chosen to keep silence at the time. Breaking it now would be unbearably self-righteous.

‘We’d best get back to the great hall,’ Nevyn said. ‘We both have our duties to attend to.’

In her sunny chamber, Lilli was sitting at her table and studying the dweomer book when the prince strode in. He slammed the door, then stood leaning against it with his hands behind his back. He’d set his mouth tight, and his eyes had turned as cold as storm clouds. Lilli shut the book and rose to curtsey to him.

‘What troubles your heart, my prince?’

‘Your cursed cousin, Braemys.’ Maryn paused, looking her over with cold eyes. ‘Your betrothed.’

‘He’s no longer my betrothed.’

‘He was once. What I wonder is if he ever claimed his rights.’

‘Never! I never bedded him.’

‘Unlike –’ Maryn broke the saying off.

His eyes had turned cold as steel in winter. Involuntarily Lilli took a step back. He neither moved nor spoke, merely studied her face as if he would flay it to see the soul beneath.

‘Were you happy when they betrothed you?’ Maryn said at last.

‘He was better than the other choice my uncles gave me, was all. Uncle Tibryn wanted to marry me off to Lord Nantyn.’

At that Maryn relaxed. ‘If I were a lass,’ he said, ‘I’d marry a kitchen lad before I’d marry Nantyn.’

‘And so would I have.’

‘No doubt Braemys looked like a prince by comparison.’ Maryn pried himself off the door and walked over to her. ‘But he’s refusing my offer of fealty.’

‘I was rather afraid he would.’

‘Me, too. Of course.’

Maryn hesitated, considering her, then put his hands either side of her face. ‘Do you love me, Lilli?’

‘I do.’

‘With all your heart?’

‘Of course.’

Maryn bent his head and kissed her. Lilli slipped her arms around his neck and let him take another. When they were together, it seemed to her that she’d never loved anyone or anything as much as she loved her prince.

‘Can you stay for a while?’ she whispered. ‘Please?’

‘I shouldn’t. I meant to ask you about Braemys, is all. Ye gods, I feel half-mad at times, when I think of you.’

For a moment she nearly wept, simply because he was leaving, but he bent his head and kissed her.

‘I’ll return in the evening, my lady,’ he whispered. ‘Hold me in your heart till then.’

Before Lilli could speak he turned and ran out of the room. The door slammed so hard behind him that it trembled. Despite the spring sun pouring in the window, she felt cold. It’s like I’m half-mad too, she thought. All at once she no longer wanted to be alone.

Lilli left her chamber and headed for the kitchen hut out back of the broch complex. Since she was terrified of meeting Bellyra face to face, she’d taken to begging her meals from the cook at odd moments of the day, but the only way out of the central broch lay through the great hall. Lilli paused on the spiral stairs, saw no sign of Bellyra, then crept down, keeping to the shadows near the wall. When she reached the last step, Degwa trotted up, so preoccupied that she nearly ran into Lilli. On the serving woman’s dress gleamed a silver brooch, set with glass.

‘Pardon,’ Degwa said briskly.

‘Granted,’ Lilli said. ‘How fares the princess?’

Degwa looked elsewhere and flounced off without saying a word more. Lilli choked back tears and rushed outside. She was hoping to find Nevyn in his chamber, but just as she reached the side broch she met him coming out, dressed in his best grey brigga and a clean shirt.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Nevyn said. ‘You look ill.’

‘I feel ill,’ Lilli said. ‘But not from my wretched lungs, my lord. It was only a woman’s matter. I don’t want to keep you. I can see you’re off on some important business or suchlike.’

‘I just came back from a visit to the temple of Bel, if you mean these fancy clothes. Now – what’s so wrong?’

‘It’s Degwa. She just snubbed me in the great hall, but that’s not the worst of it. Have you noticed the brooch she’s wearing today?’

‘I did at that.’ Nevyn looked puzzled. ‘What of it?’

‘It belonged to my mother.’

Nevyn pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle.

‘Someone must have looted it when the siege ended,’ Lilli went on. ‘And then given it to Decci.’

‘I’ll wager I know who it was,’ Nevyn said. ‘Councillor Oggyn kept a number of your mother’s things. He returned the dweomer book to me, but no doubt he kept whatever else he looted. Do you want the brooch back?’

‘I don’t, but do you think it might be cursed or suchlike?’

‘It might, at that. It’s a nasty thing to speak ill of the dead, but I fear me your mother brings out the worst in me. There are certain workings that can charge an ordinary thing as if it were a talisman. That blasted curse tablet is just such a thing, as no doubt you realize. Your mother might well have set a weaker spell on her jewellery to do harm to any who might steal it.’

‘I see. But I don’t dare ask Decci for it.’

‘Of course not. Leave it to me, but I can’t do it immediately. I’m going to attend upon the prince for a brief while. We’ll be writing out the formal declaration of the summer’s fighting. Tomorrow at dawn the messengers go out to announce the muster.’

‘I see.’ For a moment Lilli felt like vomiting out of simple terror. ‘Oh ye gods, I hope this summer sees the end to it.’

‘So do I.’ Nevyn sighed with a toss of his head. ‘So do I.’

The prince had sent out the call for his vassals to muster for war so often that the meeting went swiftly. Nevyn suggested a final flourish of words, the scribe wrote out the first copy, Nevyn read it aloud, and the prince approved it. Nevyn and Maryn left the scribes at their work of copying the message several dozen times and strolled together out in the ward. The sun was hanging low in the sky and sending a tangle of shadows over the cobbles, and the warm day was turning pleasantly cool. Prince and councillor climbed up to the catwalks that circled the main wall of the inner ward and leaned onto it, looking down the long slope of the grassy hill.

‘I need your advice on somewhat,’ Maryn said. ‘I didn’t want to ask publicly and embarrass the lad, but it’s about young Riddmar.’

‘Let me guess. He wants to ride to war with us.’

‘Just that.’ Maryn turned his head and grinned at him. ‘I like his spirit, but I don’t want him dead before he’s barely grown.’

‘A very good point, your highness. We need him in Cerrmor. In fact, I suggest you tell him just that.’

‘His safety’s too important to the continuing peace in the kingdom? Somewhat like that?’

‘Exactly. It has the virtue of being true. I remember you at about the same age. Whenever someone told you you were too young to do a thing, you wanted to do it three times as badly.’

Maryn nodded, smiling in a rueful sort of way. ‘My old tutor’s still giving me grand advice,’ he said at last. ‘My thanks.’

‘Most welcome, I’m sure. I have to confess that I’m not looking forward to riding out, myself.’

‘Doubtless not. I’ll be glad of the distraction.’

‘Distraction?’

Maryn leaned onto the top of the wall and looked out into nothing. Nevyn waited, considered asking again, then decided that Maryn would tell him about his troubles in his own good time.

When he left the prince, Nevyn went straight to the women’s hall, which his great age allowed him to enter. He was lucky enough to find Bellyra alone, sitting on a chair at the window. She’d put her feet up on a footstool and sat spraddled with her hands resting on her swollen belly.

‘You’re going to have that child soon, from the look of it,’ Nevyn said.

‘The midwife says another turning of the moon, at least – I’d wager on two, myself. It’s so big it must be another beastly son. Do sit down, Nevyn. What brings you to me?’

Nevyn perched on the wide stone of the window sill. ‘Where’s Degwa at the moment?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. If you’ll summon a page, I’ll have him look for her.’

‘No need. I wanted to talk with you about her, you see. Or rather, about that brooch Councillor Oggyn gave her.’

‘You’ve seen that? It’s quite pretty, isn’t it?’

‘It also belonged to Lady Merodda.’

‘Who? Oh, wait – you mean the sorceress who poisoned people.’ Bellyra hesitated briefly. ‘Lilli’s mother.’

‘Just so. I hate to bring Lilli up –’

‘Don’t apologize! I’m truly sorry I got so angry with her. It’s hardly her fault. Maryn’s very charming, and she’s very young.’ She leaned her head against the high back of the chair and seemed to be studying the ceiling beams. ‘Men are just like that, I suppose.’

Nevyn made a non-committal noise.

‘But about that brooch.’ Bellyra looked at him again. ‘Does Lilli want it back?’

‘Not in the least. I’m just afraid there might be a curse upon it.’

‘Like that other wretched thing? The lead tablet?’

‘Somewhat like that. Not as strong, surely, but even a little evil is too much. I can probably break it, the spell I mean, if Lady Degwa will let me have it for a night or so. That is, if it truly is ensorceled.’

Nevyn had his chance to examine the brooch in but a little while, when Degwa returned to the women’s hall with a basket of fresh-baked bread and a bowl of butter for the princess. She curtsied to Nevyn as well as she could with her hands full, then set her burdens down on a small table near Bellyra’s chair.

‘Would you like some of this bread, Lord Nevyn?’ Degwa said.

‘I wouldn’t, but my thanks.’

Degwa drew her table dagger and began to cut a chunk off the round loaf. ‘Your highness? It’s quite warm and nice.’

‘It smells wonderful,’ Bellyra said. ‘Slather on the butter, please. Don’t spare it.’

Degwa smiled and did as she’d been asked. Once the princess had her chunk of bread, Degwa pulled up another chair and sat down, facing Nevyn.

‘Her highness is looking quite well,’ Nevyn said. ‘You and Elyssa are taking splendid care of her.’

‘My thanks, my lord. We do try.’

‘Despite my nasty habit of climbing all over the dun?’ Bellyra joined in, smiling.

‘Er, well, your highness, I wouldn’t call it nasty. Worrisome, mayhap.’

Bellyra laughed and took another bite of bread.

‘That’s a lovely brooch,’ Nevyn said to Degwa. ‘May I see it?’

‘Certainly.’ Degwa unpinned it. ‘It was a gift from an admirer.’

When she handed it over, Nevyn examined it: a flat riband of silver, twisted into a knot and set with two pieces of ruby-red glass. The feel of it bothered him, and while the two women chatted, he opened his dweomer sight. Although metals have no auras, of course, it exuded a faint greyish mist, particularly thick around the glass sets. When he turned it over, he saw a small mark graved at one end of the band: the letter A, the first letter of the word for boar. He’d seen it used before as a clan mark for the Boars of Cantrae.

Although he disliked the idea of spoiling Degwa’s pleasure in the gift, he valued her safety more. He shut down the dweomer sight.

‘How very odd,’ Nevyn said. ‘This seems to have belonged to Lilli’s mother at one time.’

‘What, my lord?’ Degwa leaned forward. ‘How can you tell?’

‘Her mark is on the back. It’s quite small.’

Degwa took the brooch back and made a great show of looking for the mark, but like most women of her class, she’d weakened her eyes with long years of fine needlework. At length she gave it up with a shrug.

‘Well, if you say so, my lord,’ she said, and her disappointment trembled her voice. ‘I do wish it hadn’t. We’ve heard far too much about that woman from the servants since we’ve been here.’

‘I could be wrong,’ Nevyn said. ‘Would you mind if I took it to show Lilli? She’ll know for certain.’

‘If it has the Boar mark upon it, I shan’t want it.’ Degwa held it up, then tossed it to Nevyn. ‘Have the silversmith melt it down, for all I care.’

‘Now here,’ Bellyra joined in. ‘It’s still lovely, and Oggyn –’

‘I shall talk to the councillor about this,’ Degwa said. ‘I must say it doesn’t speak well of the man, that he’d give a woman friend a gift of battle loot and from her long sworn enemies at that.’

‘Oh come now,’ Bellyra said. ‘I’ve got lots of lovely things that Maryn got in ransom from some lord or another.’

‘I assure her highness that I meant no insult.’ Degwa turned slightly pink in the cheeks. ‘But I’d rather not accept cast-off jewellery from the Boar clan’s stye.’

With that Degwa got up and swept out, leaving Nevyn with the brooch. When the door slammed behind her, he winced.

‘My apologies, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘I seem to have botched that thoroughly.’

‘Better than letting her wear a thing with a curse on it,’ Bellyra said. ‘I take it, it must be cursed, or you wouldn’t have made up that story about wanting Lilli to see it.’

‘Just so. That’s what I get for lying.’

‘Not exactly lying. Stretching a point, mayhap. But poor Decci! She’s really quite demented when it comes to the Boars.’

That evening, when Nevyn was leaving the great hall after dinner, Oggyn followed him out, pulling on his beard and harrumphing under his breath. They walked a little way out into the open ward, where they couldn’t be overheard.

‘A word with you, if I may,’ Oggyn said.

‘Certainly. Did Degwa tell you about the brooch?’

‘She most assuredly did. I fear me I’ve greatly displeased her.’

Although Nevyn was expecting the councillor to be angry with him, in the twilight Oggyn looked mostly miserable. He shoved his hands into his brigga pockets and kicked at a loose cobblestone with the toe of his boot.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nevyn said. ‘But the brooch has some sort of spell on it, and she couldn’t go on wearing it.’

‘By the gods! I never thought of that.’ Oggyn looked up sharply. ‘That Merodda woman –’

‘Exactly. After this, if I might make a suggestion, could you consult with me before you give away any more of the lady’s possessions? They’re yours by right of conquest, but just in case –’

‘I understand, never fear! I’ll do that.’ Oggyn sighed heavily. ‘The true trouble is, I’m always short up for coin, and even if I had any, where would I find the smith to make Lady Degwa some new trinket?’

‘Otho is quite a bit more skilled than any Cerrmor silversmith.’

‘I do not traffic with silver daggers.’ Oggyn’s voice turned cold. ‘Good eve. My thanks for the warning.’

Oggyn turned on his heel and strode away, head held high. Ye gods! Nevyn thought. A matched pair!

Nevyn took the brooch up to Lilli’s chamber, where he found her sitting at her table. In front of her the open dweomer book lay in a pool of candlelight from a silver candelabra.

‘Is this enough light for you to read?’ Nevyn said.

‘Not truly.’ Lilli paused to rub her eyes with both hands. ‘It’s given me a bit of a headache.’ She shut the book and put it to one side. ‘What brings you to me?’

‘I thought you might want to see this brooch. It does have some sort of weak warding spell upon it.’

When he laid it upon the table, Lilli leaned forward to study it, but she left her hands in her lap. ‘I remember my mother wearing that,’ she said at length. ‘It was a gift from Uncle Tibryn.’

‘Can you see the dweomer upon it?’

‘I can. It looks like grease, dirty kitchen grease.’

‘Ah. I see it as a sort of grey mist. Do you remember what I told you about dark dweomer casting shadows?’

‘I do. And how the shadows will look different to different minds. It’s a good thing you got this away from Degwa. It must be nasty, though I can’t say what it would have done.’

‘No more can I, but let’s be rid of it.’

Nevyn raised one hand above his hand, then summoned the silver light. In his mind he saw it flow down from the astral like a trickle of water. He concentrated on the image, focused it, strengthened it with his imagination, then with a simple word of power brought it through to the physical. It swirled around his hand and burned like a torch, though without smoke. He heard Lilli gasp and knew she’d seen it.

‘Begone!’ Nevyn snapped his hand down and pointed at the brooch. Silver fire poured over silver metal, then vanished.

‘It’s lifted!’ Lilli said. ‘The shadow, I mean.’

‘Good. It was a weak spell, so it cost very little to banish it. Unlike that wretched curse tablet.’

‘Just so.’ Lilli reached for the brooch, then stopped. ‘May I?’

‘By all means. Do you want it back? Degwa refuses to have it, since it once belonged to the Boar clan.’

Lilli picked up the brooch and held it up to the candle-light. It gleamed as if it had been newly polished with ash and river sand. Most likely Merodda had cast the spell herself, Nevyn decided. Creating the curse tablet, however, had lain beyond her skill. Only a master of evil could have ensorceled that.

‘I think I do want it,’ Lilli said at last. ‘Not to wear, but to keep. There were times, you know, when I felt that my mother did love me. She gave me to Lady Bevyan to foster, and she made sure that Uncle Tibryn wouldn’t marry me off to Lord Nantyn, if naught else.’

‘Then keep it in remembrance of her better nature,’ Nevyn said. ‘Every soul has one, and it deserves a little honour.’

Five days after the call to muster, the first of Maryn’s vassals rode in to Dun Deverry. The gathering of the full contingent took some weeks, as Maryn’s most loyal – and most prosperous – vassals lived far to the south on the sea coast. With the lords and their warbands came carts, driven by servants and piled high with provisions, as each vassal owed Maryn not only men for his army but the food for three months’ campaigning – not such an easy thing to raise, here in the ravaged north. The long years of civil war had starved a good many farm families and killed their sons in battle as well.

As the fighting men arrived, Branoic started keeping a count by the twenties on a bit of smooth board, but when he got up to a thousand, he stopped. Councillor Oggyn would be doing a better job of it, as he remarked to Maddyn.

‘Just so,’ Maddyn said. ‘The prince must be happy to see such a good turnout.’

‘No doubt,’ Branoic said. ‘Well, we’re cursed near to the victory. That always inspires a little extra loyalty among the noble born.’

They shared a laugh. Since Maryn could not officially ennoble Branoic until he was proclaimed king, Branoic still lived among the silver daggers, and they were sitting together in the barracks on a blustery morning. As they talked, Branoic was polishing his mail shirt with a bit of rag. All around them other men were working on their gear: cleaning mail, replacing leather straps or wooden toggles wherever they needed fixing, talking together in low voices about the fighting ahead or boasting about their exploits of the summer past.

‘Are you looking forward to riding out?’ Maddyn said.

‘Not truly,’ Branoic said. ‘Odd of me. I used to be eager enough to get free of winter quarters.’

‘Well, you’ve got somewhat to stay for now.’

‘Lilli, you mean?’ Branoic concentrated on threading the rag through a rusty ring. ‘If our prince ever lets her go.’

Maddyn said nothing for a long moment. Branoic looked up to find him solemn.

‘He promised you,’ the bard said at length, ‘that you’d be wed once he had the victory. Our prince doesn’t break his promises.’

‘He’s never done it before.’ Branoic paused, groping for words. ‘But it’s like he’s half-mad or somewhat. Lilli tells me he’s starting to frighten her. He’s jealous, like, and all the time.’

Maddyn muttered something foul under his breath.

‘And him with his own lady, as beautiful and sweet as ever a man could want.’ Branoic felt his bitterness rise in his throat like bile. ‘It gripes my soul, Maddo lad, if you don’t mind me saying it.’

‘Not at all.’ Maddyn seemed to be measuring each word. ‘His lady’s devoted to him, as well.’

‘She is that.’ Branoic was about to continue his tirade, but he could see that Maddyn looked oddly distracted – no doubt all this talk of women was boring him. ‘Ah well, I don’t mean to croak like a frog, the same blasted chorus over and over. We made our bargain, the prince and me, and I’ve no call to be thinking he’ll break it till he does.’

Maddyn was about to reply, but from outside they suddenly heard shouting and cheers. Owaen got up and went to look out the window. ‘It’s Glasloc!’ he called out. ‘Gwerbret Daeryc’s held loyal to the prince!’

The silver daggers cheered as well, whether anyone could hear them or not, then went back to their work. Maddyn, however, neither spoke nor moved, merely sat staring out at nothing.

‘Here,’ Branoic said, ‘are you ill?’

‘In a way, truly.’ Maddyn turned to him with an odd twisted smile. ‘In a way.’

Once again Branoic wondered if he was understanding what Maddyn meant. Since his usual way of dealing with things he couldn’t understand was to shrug them off, he changed the subject.

Yet speaking of Lilli had brought his feelings for her to mind, and in but a little while he got up and left the barracks. Since Daeryc had just ridden in, no doubt Prince Maryn would be safely occupied by greeting his guest in the great hall. Sure enough, Daeryc’s riders and their horses filled the main ward with confusion. Near the gates a line of carts stood waiting to be unloaded. Servants rushed around, leading horses away, inviting the men inside to drink, and in general sorting things out as best they could.

Branoic left the ward proper and ducked around a half-destroyed wall. He knew a back way into the central broch complex. He was picking his way through the clutter of servant huts and animal pens when he caught sight of Councillor Oggyn, leaning against the wall of a shed ever so casually, as if he always took the air among the chickens and the onions. Branoic stopped and waited; Oggyn never looked his way. Slowly Branoic took a few steps to the side until he stood half concealed behind a big pile of stones kept in case of siege.

Not long after he saw a grey-haired man hobbling along with the aid of a long stick. He wore a stained, torn linen shirt and a filthy pair of brigga that once might have been grey, but for all that he looked like a beggar, Oggyn strode forward to meet him. They spoke just loudly enough for Branoic to catch part of the conversation. Apparently the lame fellow wished to speak with Prince Maryn, and apparently Oggyn was telling him that such was impossible. At length the man produced a silver coin from the pouch at his belt. Oggyn became all smiles as he took the coin; he bit it, then slid it into the pouch at his own belt. For a moment more they talked together; then Oggyn strode off back in the direction of the main broch complex. The other man wiped tears from his face on his dirty sleeve, then began to hobble off. Branoic left his hiding place and ran after him.

‘Wait! Good sir!’ Branoic caught up with him near the kitchen hut. ‘You’ve just been robbed.’

Uncomprehending, he stared up at Branoic with rheumy eyes.

‘The prince will listen to any one that comes to him,’ Branoic said. ‘You didn’t need to give Oggyn a copper, much less a blasted silver piece.’ He glanced around and saw the councillor lurking in the doorway to the side tower. ‘Slimy Oggo! Get yourself over here!’

With a toss of his head Oggyn disappeared inside. Branoic laid a friendly hand on the old man’s shoulder.

‘Just come with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll get that silver piece back for you at dinner tonight.’

‘My thanks, my profound thanks,’ the fellow said. ‘It’s all the coin I have in the world.’

Whether or not Maryn officially reigned as king, his decisions were the only justice that Dun Deverry had. Every night after dinner he lingered in the great hall so that suppliants could come to him with disputes and complaints they wished settled. And we’ll have a fine show tonight, Branoic thought. Slimy Oggo’s gone too far this time.

Just that morning, Otho the silversmith had finished the silver token for Maddyn, and Princess Bellyra took care to present it to her bard as openly as she could. With the muster nearly complete, close to a hundred lords ate in the great hall at the tables of honour. Servants had combed the dun and crammed every table and bench they could find into the riders’ side of the hall, but still, most of the men from the warbands ate outside. The prince’s silver daggers, however, stayed in his presence, eating just beyond the ranks of the noble-born.

As Maryn’s wife, Bellyra ate beside him and shared his trencher. That particular evening, before she and her women withdrew to the quiet safety of their hall, Bellyra took the pin from her kirtle.

‘I nearly forgot,’ she said to Maryn. ‘I’ve got a little gift for your bard, to thank him for being so patient all winter.’

‘Good.’ Maryn held out his hand. ‘May I?’

‘By all means.’ Bellyra gave him the pin. ‘It’s awfully nice, I thought.’

‘It is indeed.’ Maryn held the slender silver rose, barely an inch long, twixt thumb and forefinger. ‘Must be Otho’s work.’

‘It is. He looted some silver when you took the dun. Er, or I should say, he miraculously found some silver that no one was using.’

Grinning, Maryn handed it back, then got up, glancing around the hall. At length he gestured to one of the waiting pages.

‘Maddyn the bard’s sitting over by the front door,’ the prince said. ‘Go fetch him for me.’

With a bow the lad trotted off. Just as Maryn sat back down again, Branoic strode in the back door and headed for the prince’s chair. Limping along after him came a grey-haired man, dressed in a linen shirt and wool brigga made of cloth that had been once fine, but now was all frayed and patched. When Branoic knelt at Maryn’s side, the elderly man started to follow suit, but the stick he’d been leaning on nearly tripped him. Maryn swung round in his chair and caught his elbow in one hand.

‘Don’t kneel,’ the prince said. ‘My rank can give way to your age, sir.’

The prince let him go, then stood up. The man bowed as best he could with both hands clutched on his stick.

‘My thanks, my prince.’ The fellow was stammering. ‘I have a matter to lay before you, you see, and –’

‘Two matters,’ Branoic interrupted. ‘Your highness, Councillor Oggyn demanded a coin from this fellow for the privilege of coming to you for justice.’

‘Oh by the gods!’ Maryn snarled. He rose and spun around, looking out over the hall, then bellowed at the top of his lungs. ‘Oggyn! Get over here!’

With a tight little smile Branoic rose, dusting off the knees of his brigga, and escorted the old man and his stick out of the way. Bellyra slewed round in her chair and saw Oggyn making his way across the hall. Like a hound with chicken feathers still clinging to his muzzle, Oggyn slunk through the tables. The talk and jesting among the lords died down as they turned, a little puzzled, to see what the prince was up to. Bellyra also noticed Maddyn and the page, stopping a little distance away to wait their turn for the prince’s attention. At last Oggyn reached the table of honour and knelt at the prince’s feet.

‘Branoic tells me you extorted money again,’ the prince said.

‘My liege, I never did such a thing!’ Oggyn’s voice swooped on an obvious lie. ‘Truly, I –’

‘Can you look me in the face and deny it?’

Oggyn started to speak, then merely sighed and shook his head no.

‘I told you, no more of this.’ Maryn’s voice was level but cold. ‘My justice is free to all who ask. Do you understand that?’

‘I do, my prince.’ Oggyn spoke so softly that Bellyra could hardly hear him. ‘I welter in apologies. I beg your pardon most humbly.’

‘Give him the money back,’ Maryn said.

Slowly and with trembling hands Oggyn fumbled with the pouch at his belt. His lips trembled as well, and his face had turned scarlet all the way up and over his bald skull. When he held out a silver piece, the suppliant snatched it from his sweaty fingers. Oggyn slumped down and stared at the prince’s boots.

‘Good,’ Maryn went on. ‘Now then, what shall we do with you? I made you a threat the last time I caught you grafting. I think me I’d best live up to my word.’

‘Not that, my prince.’ Oggyn looked up, his lips working, his hands trembling. ‘I beg you –’

‘It behooves a noble born man to carry out what he threatens, councillor, lest his men think him weak-willed. Maddyn! Where’s your harp? There’s a song I want you to sing.’

‘My lord.’ Bellyra got up and laid a hand on the prince’s arm. ‘The poor man! Isn’t it a bit much?’

Maryn hesitated, glanced at Oggyn, who was studying the straw on the floor, then back to her. ‘It’s only what he deserves, but your kind heart becomes you, my lady.’

With a little sigh Bellyra took her chair again. For a few moments confusion swirled around the table of honour. Nevyn appeared from somewhere and rushed forward to speak with the suppliant. Maddyn and a Cerrmor bard talked earnestly; then the bard’s apprentice hurried forward and handed Maddyn a small lap harp. Through it all Oggyn stayed kneeling, folding over himself with his face as low to the floor as he could get it. At length Gwerbret Daeryc, who had been dining across the table from the princess, got up and pulled his chair out of the way so that Maddyn could climb up onto the table and sing.

For a moment or two Maddyn fiddled with the harp while the great hall gradually fell silent. Bellyra studied his face, carefully impassive. She should have known, she felt, that he would refrain from gloating. Maddyn looked up with a polite smile and a nod for the prince, cleared his throat, and began to sing the song of Farmer Owaen and the fox. At first the cheerful little melody and the subject matter made it sound like some sort of children’s song, and Bellyra could see Daeryc and the other nearby lords looking puzzled.

As the song progressed, however, and the fox found himself snatched bald by the farmer, the true import became clear. Verse after verse bounced by, and the resemblance to Oggyn grew more and more obvious. A few men snickered, a few others laughed. Bellyra could see some whispering and pointing at the councillor crouched at the prince’s feet, as if they were explaining the joke to those around them.

‘So a fox went to the henhouse,’ Maddyn finished, ‘but he found a wolf on guard. And he ended up as smooth and bald as any stone in the yard.’ He ran a trill up and down the strings, then struck a chord with a flourish of his wrist.

The great hall cheered and clapped, but Bellyra was watching Oggyn. Tears ran down his face. She leaned over and grabbed her husband’s arm.

‘It’s enough, Marro,’ Bellyra said in his ear. ‘Do let him go.’

Maryn nodded his agreement and pointed at Oggyn to give him leave to speak.

‘My liege!’ Oggyn howled, then choked on his words.

‘You may leave us, truly,’ Maryn said. ‘Don’t stand on ceremony.’

Blubbering thanks, Oggyn hauled himself to his feet. He turned and headed for the staircase on the other side of the great hall as fast as he could manage – not very in the clutter of tables and human bodies. Long before he reached it the laughter started, a huge wave of it that followed him up, lapping over the steps as he ran for the safety of the floor above. Scarlet-faced, Oggyn was puffing and panting so badly as he staggered up the staircase that Bellyra felt a sudden concern. She leaned over and yelled so that Maryn could hear.

‘What if he has an apoplexy or suchlike?’

‘Nevyn’s on his way after him,’ Maryn answered. ‘Fear not.’

Indeed, the dweomermaster had reached the staircase and was bounding up, as vigorously as a young warrior. He caught up with his fellow councillor, and for a moment Bellyra could see them both. Then, somehow, things got confused. She stopped watching the stairs, glanced back, found the two councillors no longer visible, glanced around and saw that no one else in the great hall seemed to be looking at the stairs either. I must ask Nevyn how he did that, she thought, but in a few beats of the heart she’d forgotten what she wanted to ask him. Out among the tables, the normal talk picked up again.

Maddyn had climbed down from the table and was handing the harp back to its owner. Bellyra waited till he’d done, then waved him over. He knelt in front of her and the prince.

‘Well sung, Maddo.’ Maryn was grinning. ‘Oggyn will think twice before he extorts any more coin from my subjects.’

‘So we may hope, your highness,’ Maddyn said.

‘I’ve got a little trinket for you,’ Bellyra said. ‘May it bring you luck in the wars.’

‘My lady is too generous,’ Maddyn said.

‘You deserve somewhat for escorting me round to all those dusty rooms all winter.’

Smiling, Maryn nodded at Maddyn, as if to say ‘take it’. When Maddyn held out his hand, Bellyra dropped it into his open palm. The bard looked at the rose pin, then grinned up at her.

‘It’s beautiful, my lady,’ Maddyn said. ‘You and your husband have my humble thanks.’

‘Most welcome,’ Bellyra said with a little nod.

Maddyn pinned the rose to his shirt collar. ‘I’ll treasure it always, your highness.’

‘That gladdens my heart. And now I think I’d best summon my women and get back to our hall.’ Bellyra rose, glancing idly away, as if Maddyn’s smile meant naught to her.

At the end of the table Elyssa stood waiting for her, but Degwa seemed to have left already. Oh gods! Bellyra thought. Poor Decci, having to watch all that! With a wave to Elyssa to follow, she left the table and hurried for the stairs, but by the time the two women reached the upper landing, neither Nevyn, Oggyn, nor Degwa were anywhere to be seen.

Nevyn had led Oggyn into the first empty chamber they came to, a tiny room containing naught but one chair. Oggyn sank down upon it and allowed himself to sob aloud. Repeatedly he ran his face over his sleeve, and eventually the tears stopped coming. Nevyn leaned against the wall and waited while Oggyn pulled a rag from his pocket and blew his nose. He shoved the rag back, then sat slumped, his hands hanging limply between his knees.

‘Ah ye gods,’ Oggyn moaned. ‘My life is over.’

‘Oh come now!’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’

‘But I’ll have to leave court. How can I possibly stay in the prince’s service now?’

‘The prince will consider you amply punished and forget the matter.’

‘But the shame! Ye gods, everyone will talk of this for years.’

‘They won’t. You forget their vanity.’

Oggyn looked up, startled.

‘The noble born in particular,’ Nevyn went on, ‘think of very little but their own doings. The servants will remember for a few days, truly, but with the wars starting, soon everyone will have plenty of gossip, fears, and bereavements to occupy them. Besides, you’ll be riding with the army, and you won’t even be here to snicker at.’

‘You’re right, truly. My thanks, Nevyn! A thousand thanks and more!’ Oggyn sat up, squaring his shoulders like a warrior. ‘If I can just get through the next few days …’

‘You’ll have plenty to keep you busy, with all the provisions to tally.’

‘Right again. But I don’t think I’ll go straight back to the great hall.’

‘I wouldn’t either if I were you.’ Nevyn stood up. ‘Shall we go?’

As they were leaving the chamber, they saw Lady Degwa, trotting towards them. Her widow’s black headscarf had slipped back, and locks of her curly dark hair dangled free around her face.

‘There you are!’ she burst out. ‘My poor Oggo! I simply had to see you. That awful bard, that awful song!’

When Oggyn held out his hands, she took them in hers and stared up at him. From her puffy eyes and trembling lower lip Nevyn could tell she’d been weeping. Nevyn made them both an unobserved bow.

‘My pardons,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ll just be getting back to the great hall.’

He strode off, but at the staircase he paused and turned to look back. Oggyn and Degwa stood just as he’d left them, hands clasped. Oggyn had bent his head to speak to her in what seemed to be an anguished flood of words, while Degwa stared up adoringly, nodding her agreement now and again. For the first time it occurred to Nevyn that his fellow councillor actually cared for the lady as much as he did for her title. The insight made him end his eavesdropping and hurry downstairs.

In the great hall Grodyn was waiting for him, leaning on his stick over by the hearth of honour. The winter had not been kind to the man who had formerly been the head chirurgeon in Dun Deverry. When Maryn’s forces had taken the dun the summer past, Grodyn had fled with the other servitors of the Boar clan, only to find that Lord Braemys distrusted him.

‘It’s been a long walk you’ve had,’ Nevyn said. ‘All the way here from Cantrae.’

‘I’m surprised I lived through it, good councillor,’ Grodyn said. ‘Especially after I ruined my knee in that fall. It gladdens my heart that you’d take an interest in my plight.’

‘Ah, I take it you don’t remember me.’

Grodyn blinked, stared at him, then swore under his breath. ‘The herbman,’ he said, ‘that old herbman who came to the dun – ye gods, how many years ago was it?’

‘I don’t remember either, but a good long while.’

‘I take it you were a spy?’

‘I wasn’t, oddly enough. I merely decided that I’d find no place in Dun Deverry, so I moved on to Pyrdon, where the prince’s father took me into his service. Here, let’s sit down.’

At Nevyn’s order, a page placed two chairs in the curve of the wall, where they could talk without being easily overheard. Grodyn sat down with a long sigh and propped his stick against the wall near at hand.

‘Did you ever get to plead your cause to the prince?’ Nevyn said.

‘I did, and a well-spoken man he is,’ Grodyn said. ‘But alas, he couldn’t help me. When I fled the dun, you see, I was forced to leave some books behind, and I was hoping to reclaim them. He knew naught about them.’

‘I may well have them. Any books came to me as my share of the looting – not that anyone else wanted them. Did yours discuss Bardekian physic and medicinals?’

‘They did. With those in hand, I might be able to find a place in some great lord’s dun. Without them, well, why should they believe a shabby beggar like me when I tell them I’m a chirurgeon?’

‘True spoken. You shall have them back.’ Nevyn hesitated, considering. ‘Or even – what would you think about staying here and taking the prince’s service?’

‘Would he have me?’

‘If I recommended you.’

Grodyn leaned back and looked out over the great hall. ‘I served the Boar clan for years,’ he said at length.

‘Not as I remember it. You served the king’s clan when I first met you, and I’m willing to wager high that you hated the Boars then and hated them even more later.’

‘You have sharp eyes.’ Grodyn smiled thinly. ‘Very well. If the prince can forgive me my former service, I’ll be glad to have done with all this cursed travelling.’

‘I’ll speak to him in the morning. There’s someone else here, by the by, who might well remember you: Caudyr, your young apprentice who got himself run out by the Boars.’

‘Ye gods! Did he end up in the prince’s service too?’

‘He did. He’s the chirurgeon for the prince’s bodyguard, the silver daggers.’

‘Ai.’ Grodyn shook his head. ‘How the world changes, eh?’

‘It does, it does.’ Nevyn rose and held out a hand. ‘The stairs to my chambers are a bit steep, but come with me. You can wait down at the foot.’

‘My thanks.’

As they were making their slow way across the ward, Nevyn saw Lilli walking alone and hailed her. ‘There’s my apprentice,’ he said to Grodyn. ‘We’ll just send her up instead.’

Grodyn clasped his stick with both hands and leaned on it while he stared open-mouthed at Lilli. ‘Your apprentice?’ he whispered. ‘Ye gods! That’s Lady Lillorigga of the Boar! Apprenticed to a chirurgeon?’

‘She’s a daughter of the Rams of Hendyr now, and I’m not exactly a chirurgeon.’

Smiling, Lilli trotted over, dropped them a curtsey, then suddenly stared at Grodyn in turn.

‘It is me,’ the chirurgeon said. ‘I fear me your cousin Braemys refused me shelter in Dun Cantrae last autumn, and wintering on the roads has left me changed.’

‘No doubt it would,’ Lilli said. ‘It saddens my heart to think of Braemys being so miserly. That’s not like him.’

‘Wasn’t miserliness.’ Grodyn’s voice turned sour. ‘He accused me of being a poisoner.’

Lilli considered him narrow-eyed.

‘It’s doubtless a long tale,’ Nevyn broke in. ‘Lilli, up in my chamber are three books of Bardekian medical lore. Would you bring them down? They belong to Grodyn here.’

‘I shall, my lord.’

Lilli curtsied again, then trotted off on her errand. Just then Branoic popped out of the back door to the great hall, looked around, made a sketchy bow Nevyn’s way, and took out running after her – a good thing, since the books were heavy. Nevyn turned back to Grodyn.

‘Tell me somewhat,’ Nevyn said. ‘This business of poisons. Is Lady Merodda mixed up in this?’

‘She was, truly,’ Grodyn said. ‘I heard, by the by, that your prince had her hanged. I have to admit that the news didn’t ache my heart. Braemys accused me of supplying her with poisons. I did naught of the sort, I assure you.’

‘Oh, I believe you. Here, why don’t you shelter in the dun tonight? The prince is a generous man and won’t begrudge you bread and board whether or not you take his service in the morning. I’d like to hear what you know about Lady Merodda.’

After he left the great hall, Maddyn considered going back to the barracks, then decided to climb up to the outer wall and make his way along the catwalk for some privacy. By then the sun was just setting, and a soft twilight was gathering over the dun. To the east a few stars gleamed against the darkening sky. With the firelight and lantern light flickering at the windows, the central broch looked for those few moments almost inviting. At the top of the wall Maddyn squeezed himself into a crenel and looked out over the hillside below. Near the bottom of the hill little fires bloomed in the encampment where the assembled warbands sheltered behind the outermost wall. For all its size, Dun Deverry could never have quartered the entire army.

Maddyn’s blue sprite materialized in mid-air, bringing a trace of silvery glow with her.

‘Well, there you are,’ Maddyn said. ‘I’ve not seen you in days.’

She smiled with a gleam of needle-sharp teeth.

‘You weren’t in the great hall just now,’ Maddyn went on. ‘And a cursed good thing, too. I played a song I wish I’d never composed.’

She cocked her head to one side as if she were trying to understand.

‘Having a bit of fun with Slimy Oggo is one thing. Tearing the poor bastard’s pride to bits was quite another. Ah ye gods! That was the sourest revenge I’ve ever taken.’

The sprite looked at him for a long solemn moment, then shrugged and disappeared. Maddyn climbed back down from the wall and headed for the barracks. He wanted the company of his own kind.

Lilli heard about Oggyn’s shaming from her maid, Clodda, who had watched the entire spectacle from the servant’s side of the hall. She had, she told Lilli, climbed up onto a table for a good view.

‘It was ever so awful, my lady,’ Clodda said, but she was grinning, and her eyes snapped with something suspiciously like delight. ‘Poor old Slimy Oggo. That’s what the silver daggers call him, you know.’

‘Oh really?’ Lilli was smiling herself. ‘And how would you know? You’ve not been consorting with silver daggers, have you?’

Clodda blushed scarlet and busied herself with straightening the bed clothes. Morning sun poured in the window. Lilli moved her chair round so that she could sit in the warmth.

‘It feels so good,’ she remarked. ‘Did you see Lord Nevyn in the great hall?’

‘I did, my lady. He told me he’d be up in a bit.’

Nevyn appeared but a few moments after. Clodda made a hurried excuse and fled the chamber; like most of the servants, she believed him to be a sorcerer of the sort found in bards’ tales, who can turn men into frogs and talk with the spirits of dead – though in a way, Nevyn told Lilli, he’d been if not raising a spirit then at least discussing one.

‘Grodyn told me many an interesting tale last night,’ Nevyn said. ‘About your mother, that is.’

‘Indeed?’ Lilli shivered, suddenly chilled. ‘The poor man! Did he truly walk all the way here from Cantrae?’

‘He rode at first, but his horse threw a shoe and stumbled badly. That’s how he injured the knee. But about your mother, unpleasant subject though she is? He confirmed my suspicions about that woman who died from the tainted meat.’

‘Lady Caetha?’

‘The very one. Grodyn attended both her and your mother when they were both supposedly so ill. Caetha was ill, all right. He caught your mother drinking an infusion of bitter herbs to make herself vomit convincingly. It wasn’t the meat they shared that killed Caetha.’

Lilli felt as if someone had slapped her. Tears gathered and threatened to fall. Nevyn leaned over and caught her hand in both of his.

‘I’ve upset you badly,’ Nevyn said. ‘My apologies.’

‘Not your fault,’ Lilli said. ‘She really was a murderess. Oh gods! My own mother!’

‘It’s not a pleasant bit of news, is it?’ Nevyn stood up. ‘And I’m afraid I have to leave you with it. The prince is holding a proper council of war this morning. The muster’s nearly complete.’

One of the last lords to lead his men to Dun Deverry was Tieryn Anasyn, the Ram of Dun Hendyr. A messenger had preceded him to ensure that the prince knew Anasyn was merely late, not traitorous, and that he’d be bringing a contingent of thirty riders, five more than demanded, to make up for his fault. On the day that he was due to arrive, Lilli kept a watch on the gates from her window. As eager as she was to see her foster-brother, she was frightened as well. How would he take the news that she was the prince’s mistress? She decided that it might be better to keep it from him, if she possibly could, but if his wife was coming with him to shelter with the princess during the summer’s fighting, the cause was hopeless. When it came to gossip, Lady Abrwnna could hunt with the best of them.

Lilli sat at the window with the dweomer book propped against her table. Every time she turned a page, she would pause and look out, watching the shadows of the towers creep across the cobbled ward. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the western-most broch when she finally heard shouting out in the ward, servants calling, ‘The Ram, the Ram!’ She laid the book on the table and leaned out of her window to see six men riding through the inner gate, each with the ram shield of Hendyr hanging from their saddle peaks.

She left her chamber, rushed down the stairs, and ran out to the ward in time to see Anasyn and his honour guard dismounting. He was a tall man, grown somewhat stouter since last she’d seen him, with a long face and a long thin nose. As well as the extra weight he’d also grown a full moustache, thick enough to hide most of his upper lip.

‘Sanno!’ Lilli called.

With a laugh he threw his reins to a waiting groom and ran to greet her with a bear hug. She threw her arms around his neck and let him swing her free of the ground, as he used to when they were small children. After a few circles he set her down again.

‘You look well, little sister.’ He was smiling at her. ‘Still as scrawny as ever, though.’

‘So do you, brother, though you’re getting fat about the middle, I see. Where’s your lady?’

‘Back in Hendyr.’ He smiled in an exceedingly sly way. ‘She’s too heavy with child to travel.’

‘My congratulations to you both!’

‘My thanks. It would be a splendid thing if the child were a son.’ His smile vanished. ‘I’d ride with a lighter heart if I knew Hendyr had an heir.’

‘Just so.’ Lilli felt her voice catch and looked away.

Murmuring among themselves, the grooms were leading away the horses, while Anasyn’s guard waited patiently by the door of the main broch. While Lilli watched, the view suddenly blurred. With a muttered oath she reached up and wiped the tears away.

‘Don’t weep, little sister.’ Anasyn laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s in the hands of Wyrd, and what man knows the ways of that?’ He shrugged the moment away. ‘I’d best go present myself to the prince, but dine with me tonight, will you? You can tell me how things stand here in the dun.’

Thinking of Bellyra, Lilli hesitated, but only briefly. ‘Of course, gladly. And you can tell me how Hendyr fares.’

Since as a mere tieryn Anasyn was seated some distance from the royal table, Lilli managed to keep a safe distance from the prince and princess both, though, just as the meal finished, she did see Degwa making her way through the crowded hall. Lilli smiled and waved, but Degwa hurried right past their table without a word.

‘And just who was that fine lady,’ Anasyn muttered, ‘to treat you so coldly?’

‘Someone who’s been my enemy from the day we rode into Cerrmor,’ Lilli said. ‘She’s a daughter of the Wolf clan, and she’s never forgiven me for having been born a Boar.’

Anasyn was about to reply when Gwerbret Daeryc strolled over. During the muster Lilli had only seen him from a distance, and now she noticed that he’d lost more teeth over the winter – one side of his face looked positively caved in. Anasyn scrambled up and bowed to his overlord, but Daeryc motioned to Lilli to stay seated.

‘I only want a word with your brother,’ Daeryc said, ‘about this business of the white mare.’

‘They’ve not found one, have they?’ Anasyn said.

‘They’ve not, or so they say.’ Daeryc looked profoundly gloomy. ‘Who can trust what priests say, eh? But without the mare, the temple won’t perform the kingship rite before the campaigning begins.’

‘Indeed?’ Lilli put in. ‘That’s a pity, but is it all that important?’

‘Important?’ Daeryc snorted. ‘You could say that twice and loudly, too.’

‘If the wretched priests of Bel,’ Anasyn said to her, ‘would condescend to proclaim our liege king before we all rode out, we could count on plenty of deserters from Braemys’s army. I’m willing to wager high that a lot of the lords still loyal to the Boars would come over if they had some noble reason to do it. They don’t want to besmirch their honour, but if Maryn were the king? Well, then.’

‘I’d wager along with you,’ Daeryc said. ‘Braemys just might have found his army disappearing like food on a glutton’s table. But now?’ He shrugged. ‘The good men will hold loyal till the end, most like.’

After the meal Lilli went up to Nevyn’s tower room, where she discovered that the delay in confirming Maryn’s kingship was preying upon her master’s mind as well. Nevyn delivered himself of a few choice oaths on the subject before explaining.

‘They have their reason all polished and ready, of course. The lack of the proper white mare for the rites. Huh. Let Maryn win the summer’s war, and white mares will doubtless pop up all over the landscape.’

‘There’s somewhat I don’t understand,’ Lilli said. ‘Does great Bel really care about the colour of Maryn’s horse? Would we really be cursed if he rode a grey mare in the procession?’

‘Of course not. But the lords and the priests and perhaps even the common folk would believe that he was cursed, and they’d look at him with different eyes. And Maryn himself – he’s as pious as any great lord is, which is to say, as pious as the times are hard, but he truly does believe that the gods have power over him. If he thought himself cursed, wouldn’t he doubt his judgment and his luck?’

‘I see. And he might do a reckless thing, or shrink back from a fight, and his men would think he’d lost his dweomer luck.’

‘Exactly. And they’ve followed him for many a long year now, through famine and battle, mostly because they believe in his luck and the gods both.’

Lilli considered this while the old man watched her from his seat on the window sill. ‘But then,’ she said finally, ‘the gods don’t truly care what happens to their worshippers. It that what you mean?’

‘Close enough. In time, I’ll tell you a great deal more about the gods – this autumn, when we have more leisure. But for now, remember that the gods want homage and little else from their ordinary worshippers. Does the high king care about each and every man who tends his fields? Not so long as that man hands over his taxes and dues.’

‘That makes the gods seem so cold, though, and so very far away.’

‘They are. Think well on this. Which you’ll have plenty of time to do once I’ve gone with the prince.’

‘Anasyn was the last lord to ride in, wasn’t he?’ Lilli felt her heart turn over. ‘You’ll all be marching on the morrow.’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Nevyn glanced away, abruptly sad. ‘And may the gods all grant that this summer sees the end of it.’

As she walked down the stairs of Nevyn’s tower, Lilli was thinking of Branoic. Although she wanted to say farewell to him, her rank kept her from going to a place as lowly as the silver daggers’ barracks. She stepped inside the great hall, stood in the doorway on the riders’ side, and tried to catch the attention of one of the servant lasses, who would be glad to carry a message for her in return for a copper. In the smoky room, crammed with fighting men of every rank, the lasses were trotting back and forth, bringing ale, serving bread, dodging the men’s wandering hands and answering back as smartly as they could to the various remarks they were getting. Lilli found herself thinking that she was as lucky as Prince Maryn. The summer past her clan had been destroyed, and she herself might have ended up carrying slops in some lord’s hall had it not been for Princess Bellyra’s generosity.

‘Lilli?’ A dark voice sounded behind her.

With a little shriek Lilli spun around to find Branoic grinning at her.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you out of your skin,’ he said. ‘I got one of my feelings, like, that mayhap you wanted to talk with me.’

‘I do.’ She managed a laugh. ‘I was just remembering last summer. It seems like a twenty’s worth of years ago, not just one.’

‘The best summer of my life, it was.’

‘Truly? Why?’

‘You silly goose!’ Branoic was grinning at her. ‘Because I met you, of course.’

‘I don’t deserve you, I truly don’t.’

‘Spare me that, if you please.’ Branoic reached out and engulfed her small soft hands with his, all battle-hard and callused. ‘If our prince objects to my kissing my betrothed farewell, then bad cess to him.’

Clasped tight in his arms she felt safe, as if his embrace could shut out the entire war-torn world around them. Oh dear Goddess! she prayed. Let him come home to me!

On the morrow, Prince Maryn rode out at the head of his army to settle things once and for all with Regent Braemys. At the head of the line of march rode a pair of young lads carrying the red wyvern banner of Dun Deverry and the three ships banner of Cerrmor. Behind them rode Prince Maryn with Nevyn for company, and directly after, his silver daggers. The rest of the army arranged itself behind, each warband headed by its own lord in order of rank. At the rear came the provision wagons, servants, grooms with extra horses, and chirurgeons, all guarded by the foot soldiers – spearmen, mostly, under Oggyn’s command – owed to the prince by the various free cities in his dominions. All in all, they numbered over four thousand men, less than the summer before, but still one of the largest armies Deverry had ever seen.

Thanks to the carts and their slab wheels, this massive force could make about twelve miles a day on flat terrain. In the hilly country that lay ahead, they would be lucky to manage ten. Since clever manoeuvres were out of the question, the prince had decided upon a simple strategy. In his message Braemys had announced his intention of riding to Dun Deverry by Beltane. Maryn saw no reason to doubt him; Braemys had not the men to take the dun or even besiege it successfully. Maryn’s vassals had agreed that they should lead their army east towards Cantrae, over two hundred miles away. Somewhere, when the gods and their Wyrd decided the time was right, they would meet Braemys and his men upon the road.

‘Which is not to say,’ Maryn said, ‘that the little pisspot won’t try some sort of trick. Last summer we saw how clever he can be.’

‘So we did, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s a good thing I can scout for you.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn turned in the saddle to give him a tight smile. ‘And I thank the gods for it.’

Since Nevyn had never seen Braemys in the flesh, simple scrying was impossible, and he was forced to resort to the etheric plane for his scouting. Every night when the army halted, he would assume the body of light and travel as far east as he dared. Below, the land would seem to burn with the vegetable auras of trees and grasses, pulsing with spring life. The streams and rivers swelled up into silver veils of elemental force, glittering and dangerous to a traveller such as he. To avoid them he flew above the dirt roads, but even they sported a faint russet glow. When the astral tides turned with the spring, the very earth came to the edge of life.

Yet, no matter how far Nevyn ranged, he saw nothing of Braemys and his army. He began to wonder if the message had been a ruse, if Braemys intended to stand a seige in Dun Cantrae. If so, taking it would cost another long effort and a good many men’s lives. We’ll bridge that ditch when we come to it, he told himself. After all, there was naught else he could do but wait.

The army had been gone only a few days when Bellyra went into labour. Lilli waited with the other women – the serving lasses, the cook, the swineherd’s wife, and the like – down in the great hall while the midwife and the princess’s serving women tended Bellyra during the birth. Out of habit they sat by the riders’ hearth, even though with the nobility gone except for young Prince Riddmar, they might have sat where they liked. Despite the size of the hall, the men left on fortguard went back to their barracks, as if they felt themselves in the way of these women’s matters. The young prince trailed after them.

‘I do hope it goes easy for her highness,’ said the cook.

‘She’s delivered two before,’ Lilli said, ‘and not had trouble.’

‘Huh!’ The cook snorted. ‘I had my first three easy as boiling barley, but my fourth? A lad, it was, and he cursed near killed me. I told him about it, too, I did, every year after.’

Despite the cook’s fears, the birth went fast. Bellyra’s labour had begun just after dawn, and not long after noon a triumphant Elyssa hurried down the staircase. She paused about halfway and called out, ‘Another healthy son for the prince! Our lady fares well.’ Everyone answered with cheers and loud good wishes. Elyssa paused for a moment, smiling at them, then came down to the floor of the hall. She hurried over to the table where Lilli was sitting.

‘Lilli?’ Elyssa said. ‘Could you spare me a moment?’

‘Of course.’ Lilli jumped up and curtsied. ‘What shall I do?’

‘Just come walk with me a while.’

Elyssa led her outside to the main ward. In the hot spring sun flies hovered, jewel-bright as they darted back and forth. Over by the watering trough a groom curried a dun palfrey, who stamped a lazy hoof and flicked his tail whenever a fly tried to land upon him. Otherwise the dun seemed wrapped in silence like some enchanted fortress. For a moment Elyssa stood staring at the cobbles; then she looked up with a little shrug.

‘I see no reason to mince words,’ Elyssa said. ‘Are you minded to forgive the princess her fit of temper?’

‘Me forgive her?’ Lilli heard her voice crack. ‘I’m the one who’s done her harm.’

‘You’re not. It’s Maryn who’s paid her the hurt she feels. In her worst moments she’s blamed you, certainly, but when she’s herself again she knows where the fault lies.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’ Elyssa gave a firm little nod. ‘Now, you know about the awful sadness that takes her after she’s given birth.’

‘I do. Is it happening again?’

‘Not yet. The other two times, at least, she’s done well for the first few days.’ Elyssa looked away, frowning. ‘I wish the midwife understood it. Neither she nor the herbwoman can say aught but “it passes, it passes.” So it always does, but ye gods! the cost it takes while it lies upon her!’

‘It’s terrible, indeed.’

‘So, I was wondering somewhat. Bellyra told me about that brooch of your mother’s, the one that had some sort of evil spell upon it. Nevyn said that a thief would feel uneasy or suchlike from the handling of it. Is there such a thing as a spell that would cheer someone up, like, rather than cursing them?’

‘There is.’ Lilli thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if I could make such a thing? I think I know how, but I’m not sure I have the skill. I’m but an apprentice.’

‘I know, but I thought mayhap you’d try.’ Elyssa reached into the folds of her kirtle and drew out a small silver ring brooch. ‘This belongs to her.’

‘I’ll gladly try.’ Lilli took the brooch and clasped it in her hand. ‘The worst I can do is naught. You can’t curse someone by accident or suchlike.’

‘I did wonder about that.’ Elyssa suddenly smiled. ‘It’s good to talk with you again. If the princess’s grief comes upon her, it would be a splendid thing if you’d come to the women’s hall. Any distraction would be a boon.’

‘Even her getting enraged at me?’

‘Even that, but I doubt me it would happen.’ Elyssa paused, glancing at the sky, when the sun had started its slide towards evening. ‘Is it too late in the day to send the messengers off?’

‘To the prince, you mean?’

‘Just that. You know the lay of the land around Dun Deverry. Is there a dun nearby that would shelter them for the night?’

‘A good day’s ride east. Most of the duns near the city have been razed and gone for years.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of. Very well. I’ll have the scribe compose the messages today, and we’ll get the men on the road tomorrow at dawn.’

They walked inside together and climbed the staircase, but when Elyssa went to the women’s hall, Lilli returned to her chamber. She laid the little brooch upon her table beside the book and for a moment gloated over the task ahead of her. She too needed a distraction from her worrying over Branoic and the prince both. It did occur to her to wonder if Nevyn would approve this independent foray into dweomerwork, but since he wasn’t there to ask, she went ahead with the job.

Nevyn’s dweomer book devoted a page to the process of charging a talisman, and Lilli had seen Nevyn work its opposite twice now as well. She would need to cleanse the brooch first of any and all evil influences it might have been exposed to over the years. That very evening, by candlelight she drew a magic circle around her table and chair to mark it as her place of working. The brooch she laid in the centre of the round table. Next, she sat down and meditated upon the Light to clear her own mind of troubled thoughts. That done, she rose and stood as she’d seen Nevyn stand, one hand in the air.

‘Lords of Light,’ she called out. ‘May my work be true.’

In her mind she visualized the Light, streaming across the starry sky. She imagined light pouring down like water to drench her, light swirling round her upraised arm, light gathering at her fingertips. With a snap she brought her arm down and washed the little brooch in a beam of silver light.

‘Begone!’

To her altered sight the brooch gleamed, as bright as molten silver from the jeweller’s ladle. The light flickered, then vanished. She broke the magic circle with a ceremonious stamp of her foot.

‘And any spirits trapped by this ceremony, go free!’

The chamber once again was an ordinary room, lit only by dim candlelight. She stamped again to earth herself with the feel of solid things, then let out her breath in a long sigh. She was trembling and sweaty, she realized. When she took a step, she nearly stumbled; she had to catch the back of the chair to steady herself, an effort that left her gasping for breath. There will be plenty of time, she told herself. You’ll simply have to work slowly, in stages. She wrapped the newly-purified brooch up in a bit of cloth to protect it, then went to bed.

Over the next few days Lilli worked on the talisman, stopping often to rest. The work was making her so tired, in fact, that she thought of leaving it undone, but she couldn’t bear to disappoint Elyssa. She saw the servingwoman often, generally in the great hall, where Elyssa would always stop to chat and let her know how the princess fared. Finally, on the morning that she finished the talisman, Elyssa told her the news they’d both been dreading.

‘When the princess woke this morning,’ Elyssa said, ‘she wasn’t herself. She wept so piteously that it wrung my heart.’

‘Ah ye gods! It aches my heart just to hear of it,’ Lilli said. ‘Her brooch is finished, by the by. Come up to my chamber with me, and I’ll give it to you.’

Wrapped in cloth, the brooch lay on Lilli’s table by the window. Lilli took it out and handed to Elyssa.

‘Well, this is a pretty thing!’ Elyssa said, smiling. ‘Did you have Otho polish it, too?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘But see how it glitters in the sun! I don’t remember it being so lovely.’

Lilli knew then that her working had succeeded. Elyssa took the brooch and hurried off to the women’s hall to give it to the princess. Lilli sat down to her studies, but her mind kept wandering to Bellyra’s plight and the brooch. Finally, when the morning was well advanced, Elyssa returned to the chamber.

‘How does she fare?’ Lilli blurted.

‘A bit better, though the sadness still grips her,’ Elyssa said. ‘The brooch did please her, though. She pinned it to her dress and swore she’d wear it always.’

‘That gladdens my heart!’ Lilli tapped the book with her fingers. ‘It says in here that sometimes talismans work slowly. Maybe it will help in a few days.’

‘I’ll pray so.’ Elyssa sighed, glancing out the window with exhausted eyes. ‘Anything for a little hope.’

‘Should we send off another messenger? Nevyn will want to know that she’s –’ Lilli could not bring herself to use the word mad, ‘– unwell.’

‘That’s true.’ Elyssa considered this for a moment. ‘But even if he does know, what can he do? He won’t be leaving the prince’s side.’

‘He can’t, truly. I suppose we’ll just have to wait till the men ride home again.’

‘Just so.’ Elyssa looked up, studying the sky as if it could report the prince’s progress. ‘Now, the messengers we sent off about the new baby? They should be reaching Maryn soon. He’ll send them back to us with news.’

‘And then I can write Nevyn a letter to go back with them. Well and good, then. Do you want me to come visit her highness?’

‘In a few days. This – this illness always seems to affect her the worst at the very beginning. In about an eightnight she settles down, like.’

After Elyssa left, Lilli spent some time trying to think of other ways she might help Bellyra. She failed, except for the one obvious course of action: end her love affair with the prince. That, she felt, would be a harder thing for her to work than the mightiest dweomer in the world.

The princess’s messengers caught up with the army just at sunset, as it was making camp in a grassy meadow beside a stream. In the midst of the purposeful confusion Nevyn was standing with the prince, waiting for the servants to finish setting up their tents. A sentry led up the two men, all dusty from the road.

‘Messages, your highness. From your lady.’

The messengers knelt to the prince. Maryn grabbed the silver tube and shook out the tightly rolled letter inside. He glanced at it, laughed, then began to read it aloud.

‘To my husband, greetings. I was delivered of yet another wretched son, who now awaits your choosing of a name. I had my heart so set upon a daughter that I neglected to think of any suitable for a lad. At the moment my women are calling him Dumpling which, while plebian, will serve until the end of your campaigning.’

At that point Maryn began reading to himself, a rare trick in those days and one he had learned from Nevyn. From his smile, Nevyn could guess that the message was unfit for public ears. At last Maryn looked up and turned to the messengers. ‘You must be hungry,’ the prince said. ‘My apologies for forgetting you. Here, sentry! Get these men fed, and then spread the news of the new prince among the noble-born.’

Soon enough, Maryn’s vassals began appearing in twos and threes to congratulate him on the new prince’s birth, but none of them lingered. The smell of cooking in the camp drew them quickly back to their own fires. When Gwerbret Daeryc arrived, though, Maryn bade him stay a while. The servants brought out a wooden stool, and he sat down by the fire with the prince and Nevyn.

‘From the maps I have,’ Maryn said, ‘we’re nearly to Glasloc. Do you think that’s correct?’

‘I do, my liege,’ Daeryc said. ‘Once we reach the lake, and that’ll be in about two more days, we’ll have arrived at the edge of the Boar clan’s holdings. If I remember rightly, Glasloc marks half the distance twixt the Holy City and Cantrae town.’

‘I see,’ Maryn said with a nod. ‘I’ll wager Braemys will meet us before we start trampling on his lands.’ He glanced at Nevyn. ‘Do you know the lay of the land twixt here and Glasloc? Is it flat?’

‘Mostly, my liege.’ Nevyn turned to Daeryc to explain. ‘When I was younger, your grace, I lived near Cantrae.’

‘Good, good,’ the gwerbret said. ‘I haven’t been there since I was but a little lad, and we’ll need someone who knows the lie of things better than I do.’ He rose with a bow Maryn’s way. ‘If you’ll forgive me, your highness, I’ll be leaving you. I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.’

Provisions for the silver daggers travelled in their own cart, tended by a stout carter and his skinny son. That particular night, Maddyn was sitting with Owaen when the son, young Garro, brought the two captains a chunk of salt pork impaled on a stick. Green mould marbled the fat.

‘My Da,’ Garro announced, ‘says it been in the barrel too long. Weren’t salted enough, either, Da says.’

‘Your Da’s no doubt right.’ Maddyn took the stick from the boy. ‘Owaen, what do you think?’

‘We’ve had worse,’ Owaen said. ‘Any maggots?’

Maddyn twirled the stick this way and that to catch the sunset light. ‘None that I can see.’

‘Weren’t none in the barrel, neither,’ Garro said.

‘Then it should do. Let’s see.’ Maddyn drew his dagger. He cut off the green streaks and took a few bites of the rest. ‘It’s not bad but it’s not good, either. It wouldn’t be worth fretting about, except I’ll wager this is Oggyn’s doing.’

Owaen swore so furiously that Garro cringed.

‘I’m not angry with you,’ Owaen snapped. ‘Go thank your da for us. Now. Give me that, Maddo. Let’s go shove it up the bald bastard’s arse.’

Unfortunately for Owaen’s plans, they found Oggyn attending upon the prince in front of the royal tent. Since not even Owaen could get away with violence there, the two silver daggers knelt not far from the prince’s chair and waited. Oggyn was congratulating Maryn for the birth of the new son in all sorts of long words and fulsome metaphors – as if, Maddyn thought bitterly, Bellyra had naught to do with it. Exposed to the open air, the pork began to announce that truly, it was rotten. Once Oggyn paused for breath, the two silver daggers, or their complaint, caught Maryn’s attention.

‘What’s that stench?’ Maryn glanced around. ‘Ye gods, Owaen! What have you brought me, a dead rat?’

‘I’ve not, my liege,’ Owaen said. ‘The rat is kneeling there beside you.’

In the firelight Maddyn could see Oggyn’s face blanch.

‘Spoiled rations, my liege,’ Owaen went on, waving the bit of pork. ‘Your councillor there assigns the provisions, and I think me he gave the silver daggers the last of the winter’s stores.’

‘What?’ Oggyn squeaked. ‘No such thing! If you received spoiled food, then one of the servants made a mistake.’ He glanced at Maryn. ‘Your highness, if you’ll release me, I’d best go have a look at the barrel that meat came from. I’ll wager it doesn’t have my mark upon it.’

‘I’ll do better that than,’ Maryn said, grinning. ‘I’ll come with you. Lead on, captains.’

Maddyn received a sudden portent of futility. No doubt Oggyn had been too clever to leave evidence lying about. The two silver daggers led the prince and his councillor back to their camp and the provision cart, where Garro and his da hauled down the offending barrel. By the light of a lantern Oggyn examined the lid with Maryn looking on.

‘Not a mark on it,’ Oggyn said triumphantly. ‘This barrel should have been emptied for the dun’s dogs, not carted for the army.’

‘Well, make sure it’s dumped now,’ Maryn said. ‘But a fair bit away. I don’t like the smell of it.’

‘Of course, your highness,’ Oggyn said. ‘I’ll have a replacement sent round from my personal stores.’

All at once Maddyn wondered if he should have sampled the pork. Too late now, he thought, and truly, we’ve eaten worse over the years. He put the matter out of his mind, but it remained, alas, in his stomach. He woke well before dawn, rolled out of his blankets, and rushed for the latrine ditch just beyond the encampment. He managed to reach it before the flux overwhelmed his self-control.

‘Nevyn, my lord Nevyn!’ The voice sounded both loud and urgent. ‘Your aid!’

Through the tent wall a dim light shone.

‘What’s all this?’ Nevyn sat up and yawned. ‘Who is it?’

‘Branoic, my lord. Maddyn’s been poisoned.’

Nevyn found himself both wide awake and standing. He pulled on his brigga, grabbed his sack of medicinals in one hand and a shirt in the other, and ducked through the tent flap. Branoic stood outside with a lantern raised in one hand.

‘He ate a bit of spoiled pork, Owaen told me,’ Branoic said. ‘But it came from a barrel that Oggyn gave us.’

Branoic led Nevyn to the bard’s tent. Just outside, his clothes lay stinking in a soiled heap. Inside Nevyn found Maddyn lying naked on a blanket. The tent smelled of vomit and diarrhoea. Owaen knelt beside him with a wet rag in one hand.

‘I’ve been wiping his face off,’ Owaen said. ‘I don’t think he’s going to heave any more.’

‘Naught left,’ Maddyn whispered.

‘How do you feel?’ Nevyn said.

‘Wrung out. My guts are cramping.’

The effort of talking was making him shiver. Nevyn grabbed a clean blanket and laid it over him. In the lantern light his white face, marked with dark circles under his eyes, shone with cold sweat. Nevyn sent Owaen off to wake a servant to heat some water, then knelt down beside his patient. Branoic hung the lantern from the tent pole and retreated.

‘Gods,’ Maddyn mumbled. ‘I stink.’

‘Good,’ Nevyn said. ‘Your body’s flushing the contagion out. I’m going to make you drink herb water, though, to ensure that every last bit’s gone. It won’t be pleasant, I’m afraid.’

‘Better than dying.’

‘Exactly.’

Maddyn sighed and turned his face away. The stench hanging in the tent was free of the taint of poison, or at least, Nevyn thought, free of any poison he’d recognize. While he waited for the hot water to arrive, Nevyn sat back on his heels and opened his dweomer sight. Maddyn’s aura curled tight around him, all shrunken and flabby, a pale brownish colour shot with sickly green. Yet it pulsed, as if it fought to regain its normal size, and brightened close to the skin. Nevyn closed his sight.

‘You’ll live,’ Nevyn announced.

‘Good.’ All at once Maddyn tried to sit up. ‘The rose pin.’

‘What?’ Nevyn pushed him down again. ‘Lie still!’

‘I’ve got to find the rose pin. On my shirt.’

All at once Nevyn remembered. ‘The token the princess gave you, you mean?’

‘It was on my shirt.’

‘All your clothes are right outside. It can wait.’

Maddyn shook his head and tried to sit up again. Fortunately, a servant provided a distraction when he came in, carrying in one hand a black kettle filled with steaming water.

‘My thanks,’ Nevyn said. ‘Put that down over there by the big cloth sack. I’ve got another errand for you. On the bard’s shirt outside –’

‘The rose pin, my lord?’ The servant held out his other hand. ‘Branoic told me to bring it to him.’

On his palm lay the token. Nevyn plucked it off and showed it to Maddyn, who lay back down.

‘I’ll pin this on my own shirt,’ Nevyn said, ‘so it won’t get lost.’

Maddyn smiled, his eyes closed. Nevyn set a packet of emetics to steeping, then called in Branoic. Together they carried Maddyn and the kettle outside, where the herb water could do its work while sparing the tent. The rest of the night passed unpleasantly, but towards dawn Nevyn realized that Maddyn was on the mend when the bard managed to drink some well-watered ale and keep it down. He sent young Garro off to wash Maddyn’s clothes and told Branoic to try feeding Maddyn a little bread soaked in ale the next time he woke.

‘I’ve got an errand to run,’ Nevyn said. ‘I wonder where Oggyn’s had his servant pitch his tent?’

‘Just back of the prince’s own,’ Branoic said. ‘He’s put a red pennant upon it.’

‘Just like the lord he wants to be, eh? Very well then.’

In the silver light of approaching dawn the tent proved easy enough to find. Nevyn lifted the flap and spoke Oggyn’s name.

‘I’m awake, my lord,’ Oggyn said, and he sounded exhausted. ‘Come in.’

Nevyn ducked through the tent flap and found Oggyn fully dressed, sitting on a little stool in the semi-darkness. Nevyn called upon the spirits of Aethyr and set a ball of dweomer light glowing. When he stuck it to the canvas Oggyn barely seemed to notice.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ Oggyn said. ‘I heard what happened to Maddyn. The gossip’s all over the camp. I suppose you think I made that wretched bard ill on purpose.’

‘I had thoughts that way, truly,’ Nevyn said. ‘Was it only the spoiled pork, or did you use a bit of Lady Merodda’s poisons?’

‘Neither, I swear it!’ Oggyn began to tremble, and by the dweomer light Nevyn could see that his face had gone pasty white around the eyes. ‘Even if I had given them that barrel, how could I insure that only Maddyn would eat the stuff? Nevyn, do you truly think I’d poison the entire troop to get at him?’

‘Shame is a bitter thing,’ Nevyn said, ‘and you had a score or two to settle with Owaen and Branoic as well.’

Oggyn slid off the stool and dropped to his knees. ‘Ah ye gods! Do you think I’d do anything that would harm our prince?’

‘What? Of course not!’

‘He depends upon the silver daggers.’ Oggyn looked up. Big drops of sweat ran down his face. ‘Think you I’d poison his guards?’

‘Well.’ Nevyn considered for a long moment. ‘Truly, I have to give you that. And there’s no doubt that spoiled meat will give a man the flux as surely as Merodda’s poisons would.’

Oggyn nodded repeatedly, as if urging him along this line of thought. Nevyn opened his dweomer sight and considered Oggyn’s aura, dancing a pale sickly grey in terror but free of guile.

‘Will you swear to me again?’ Nevyn said.

‘I will,’ Oggyn said. ‘May Great Bel strike me dead if I lie. I did not try to poison Maddyn or anyone else. That salt pork should have been left at the dun for the dogs.’

The aura pulsated with fear but fear alone.

‘Very well,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘You have my apology.’

Oggyn got up and ran a shaking hand over his face. ‘I can see why you’d suspect me,’ he whispered. ‘But I swear to you, I did no such thing. I’m just cursed glad you came to me in private and didn’t just blurt this in front of the prince.’

‘I did have my doubts.’

‘Ah ye gods! I’ll never be safe again. Any time the least little harm befalls that wretched bard, I’ll be blamed.’

‘Truly, you might devote some time to thinking up ways to keep him safe.’

Oggyn gave him a sickly smile. Without another word, Nevyn left him to recover his composure.

There remained the problem of what to do with Maddyn. He was too weak to ride with the army; jouncing around in a cart would only weaken him further. This deep into enemy territory leaving him behind would be a death sentence. The morning’s council of war, however, solved the problem. Gwerbret Ammerwdd pointed out that Braemys was most likely laying a trap or, at the least, leading them into some weak position.

‘He knows this country well,’ Ammerwdd said. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s got some trick in mind, or some battlefield that will be to his liking but not to ours.’

‘I agree,’ Maryn said. ‘I suggest we camp here today and send out scouts. They can cover a good deal of territory once they’re free of the army.’

After a great deal of discussion, the rest of the lords went along with the plan. All that morning the army waited as horsemen came and went, fanning out into the countryside in the hopes of getting a glimpse of Braemys’s position.

Nevyn spent much of the wait with Maddyn in his tent. Although the herbs had purged the worst of the contagion, the bard still lay ill, so exhausted he was cold and shivering despite the afternoon warmth. From the vomiting, his lips and the skin around them were cracking. When Nevyn rubbed herbed lard into them, he noticed that his skin had no resilience. Nevyn pinched a bit twixt thumb and forefinger so gently that Maddyn never noticed, but the little ridge of skin persisted rather than smoothing itself out.

Fortunately, near to camp some of the men had found a spring of pure water; Nevyn sent Branoic off with a clean bucket to fetch some back.

‘The contagion has depleted his watery humours,’ Nevyn told him. ‘We’ve got to replenish them.’

Sometimes Maddyn could keep the pure water down, and sometimes it came back up again, but eventually he did manage to drink enough to allay the worst of Nevyn’s fears. Through all of this Branoic hovered miserably outside, glad for every little errand that Nevyn found for him to do.

‘He’s been my friend from the day I joined the daggers,’ Branoic said. ‘I’ll do anything I can, my lord.’

‘Good,’ Nevyn said. ‘He needs water and food both, but he won’t be able to keep down more than a bite or swallow at a time.’

‘If all that arse-ugly pork’s gone, why is he still so sick?’

‘I wish I knew. Men who’ve eaten spoiled food often stay ill for a long time after, but I’ve no idea why.’

Branoic stared wide-eyed.

‘There’s a cursed lot of things I don’t know,’ Nevyn went on. ‘No other herbman I’ve ever met knows them either. Why contagion lingers is one of them, and how it spreads is another.’

‘I see.’ Branoic rubbed the back of his hand against his chin. ‘That’s not what I’d call reassuring, my lord.’

‘Honesty rarely is. Now, go tend Maddyn. I’ve got to make myself presentable for the prince’s council of war.’

In a darkening twilight two of Daeryc’s men galloped in with news. A herald led them to the prince, who was sitting in front of his tent with Nevyn and some of his vassals around him. In the firelight they knelt to him and told their tale. They’d ridden directly east – or so they’d reckoned from the position of the sun. Their shadows were stretching long in front of them by the time that they topped a low rise and saw, some miles further off, a huge cloud of dust drifting at the horizon.

‘It had to be the Cantrae men, your highness,’ one of the scouts said. ‘Naught but an army could raise that dust, and the gods all know there’s not enough men left for more than one.’

‘Just so,’ Maryn said, grinning. ‘How far away were they?’

‘From our camp, your highness?’ The scout thought for a moment. ‘Well, at least a day’s travel for an army that size, but not a cursed lot more, I’d say. We watched for a bit longer, too. The dust didn’t seem to come nearer.’

‘Looked like it were shrinking a bit,’ the second scout volunteered. ‘And I thought, I did, they be settling down for the night’s camp.’

‘Good.’ Maryn stood up and glanced at the noblemen. ‘I doubt me if we’ll see battle on the morrow.’

‘Mostly likely not,’ Gwerbret Ammerwdd said. ‘But I say we should stand ready for it anyway.’

The rest of the noble-born nodded, muttered a few words, and glanced back and forth among themselves. Nevyn was aware of Gwerbret Daeryc, watching him with one eyebrow raised. Nevyn smiled blandly in return. He had nothing to add to the scouts’ report, not at the moment, at least.

Late that night, when the camp lay asleep except for the night sentries, Nevyn went into his tent and summoned his body of light. He rose straight out through the tent’s roof into the etheric plane, where the stars hung down close, it seemed, as huge glittering silver spheres. With the scout’s report to guide him, he travelled fast over the red and glowing countryside below. Eventually he saw on the horizon a strange light, a flickering expanse of yellows and oranges, shot through with dancing reds, that looked just like a wildfire burning across a grassy plain would have looked in the physical world. He knew, however, that here on the etheric he was seeing the massed auras of Braemys’s army.

Although he now had a reasonable idea of their distance, he decided to risk going closer. The army had set up camp on his side of Loc Glas and the river that flowed south from it. He could approach them with no danger from the seething water veils, and Braemys had no dweomermaster in his retinue. Unchallenged Nevyn floated over the horse herd, drowsing at tether in a meadow. The tents lay just beyond. Nevyn rose up high for an overview; while he had no time to count them, he could tell that this force was a good bit smaller than Maryn’s.

Something about the camp struck him as odd. He let himself drift on the etheric flow, hovered like a hawk on the wind while he tried to think. The rational faculties function sluggishly if at all out on the etheric. Still, he studied the camp and stored up images of it before he turned back and returned to his tent.

As soon as he was back in his body and fully awake, he understood what he’d seen. No carts. No packsaddles, either, stacked at the edge of the meadow. With the first streak of grey dawn, he got up and trotted through the sleeping camp to Maryn’s tent. He found the prince awake, standing outside and yawning.

‘News, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘Braemys has left his baggage train behind. His men must be carrying what food they can in their saddlebags. He’s marching for a quick strike.’

Maryn tossed back his head and laughed. ‘Good,’ the prince said at last. ‘Today might see the end of this, then.’

‘Perhaps. I can’t help but wonder if Braemys has some tricky manoeuvre in mind.’

The camp went on armed alert. Under Oggyn’s command, the contingent of spearmen assembled the provision wagons, extra horses, servants, struck tents, bedrolls, and suchlike out in a meadow, then stood guard round the perimeter. The army saddled and bridled their horses, then donned armour, but rather than tire their mounts, they sat on the ground beside them to wait. Since the prince had sent some of his silver daggers out as scouts, they would have ample warning should Braemys be making a fast march to battle. In the dust and shouting that accompanied all these preparations Nevyn slipped away from camp. He walked about a mile back west to a copse of trees he’d spotted earlier. The matter of Braemys’s missing wagon train irked him.

In the shelter of an oak he lay down on the ground, crossed his arms over his chest, and went into trance. During daylight the etheric world glowed, pulsing with life, and the blue light shimmered and trembled all round him. The sun, a vast blazing sphere, shot huge arrows of gold down upon the earth. The reddish auras of grass and trees writhed and stretched out long tendrils of etheric substance to capture the gold and feed upon it. In all this confusion Nevyn could barely sort out east from west. He rose up high, where he could comprehend the view and pick out roads and rivers from the general splendour. With the silver cord paying out behind him, he travelled back east, heading for the spot where he’d seen Braemys’s army.

Nevyn was expecting to meet up with the enemy, and indeed, he overtook them some miles closer to Maryn than he’d left them the night past. The army straggled over a long stretch of road, and thanks to this loose formation he could see that not a single wagon followed the riders. He swung north to keep clear of the tangled mass of auras and physical dust, rose higher in the blue light, and saw off on the horizon northward a glow. It appeared as a dome of pale light, mostly yellow, shot here and there with red. On the etheric, with his physical body and its correlates far behind him, he was hard pressed to tell just how close it might have been.

Isn’t this interesting? Nevyn thought. A second force, perhaps. He angled away from the road and headed towards the pulsing dome of light. As he travelled, he noted landmarks below that might, once he’d returned to his normal intellect, give him some idea of distance and location. The dome itself never seemed to move or change its size. Once he drew close, he could see why. Not a second force, but Braemys’s missing baggage train spread out over long-deserted fields. It was enormous, as well, a good many times larger than Maryn’s – even though Braemys was leading a far smaller army. When Nevyn dropped down closer for a look, he saw many small auras, pale and trembling, among the larger glows: frightened children, he realized with a shock. Many of the large auras belonged to women, as well. What were they doing there? And why north, what must have been a good long distance north? A puzzle, all of it.

Nevyn hovered for a few moments, memorizing the lay of the camp and the land around it both, then turned and headed back south. Sped by his curiosity, he saw the landscape below unrolling as fast as a Bardek scroll dropped by a careless scribe. In what seemed like a few moments he once again hovered above Braemys’s army, which had stopped marching and stood in the road. Nevyn could feel the tug of the silver cord that connected him to his body; he was tiring fast, and staying too long in the etheric offered danger even to a master of dweomer such as he. But at the same time he felt an urgency to stay, some deep intuition from his innermost being. Like a hawk on the wind he hovered above the army and saw a small group of men sitting on horseback out in a meadow. Braemys and his lords, I’ll wager!

The thought caught him like a gust of wind and blew him to the cluster of men on horseback, but he was too late to join their conference. The lords all drew their swords, black smears of death in the golden auras, clashed them together as if sealing an oath, then turned their horses and trotted back to the waiting army. Once again Nevyn felt the tug of his silver cord. When he glanced down he saw his body of light growing dangerously thin. He focused his will and began to capture etheric light, wrapping it in long silvery blue strands around himself. His simulacrum soaked it up as cloth soaks water, and once again he felt strong and solid.

By this time the army below had begun to move. In an instant Nevyn understood why he’d forced himself to stay: the column was splitting itself into two parts. One, with the Boar banners at its head, was heading fast off to the southwest – to circle round from the Red Wyvern’s flank? Most likely. Only when that second column was well under way did the remains of the army set out westward again. At its head fluttered banners carrying the crossed sword device of Lughcarn. This time, when Nevyn felt the silver cord hauling at his body of light, he gave in to the impulse and sped back west to his body and Prince Maryn. He had some news for the council of war now, good and proper.

All that same day, Lilli had been restless. She would read a page in the book only to realize that she’d comprehended not one word of it. In the middle of the morning she gave up on her studies and headed downstairs. She was crossing the great hall when a boyish voice hailed her, and she turned to see Prince Riddmar trotting over to her. His pale-haired resemblance to Maryn struck her like an omen. If one day she had a son by the prince, he would look much like this, no doubt.

‘Good morrow, Lady Lilli,’ Riddmar said. ‘Are you going out for a ride or suchlike?’

‘I thought I’d just have a bit of a walk. Why?’

‘Oh, I’m bored.’ The boy pulled a long face. ‘It’s so wretched, not getting to go to the war. I wanted to ride down to the lake, but Lady Elyssa told me I couldn’t go alone.’

‘And quite rightly, too. You’re too valuable to risk to some traitor or Cantrae spy.’

‘That’s what my brother said.’ Riddmar sighed with deep drama. ‘May I walk with you?’

‘Of course. I’m just going for a stroll.’

Although Riddmar had lived in the dun for some months, he still had a great deal of trouble sorting out the warren of walls and towers that made up Dun Deverry. As they walked, Lilli pointed out various landmarks and showed him the main paths through the confusion.

‘Some of these buildings and suchlike look so clumsy,’ Riddmar remarked at one point. ‘Like that odd tower you can see from the main ward.’

‘The one that leans so badly? Your brother told me that it was built that way on purpose, so defenders could drop rocks down on attackers.’

‘Oh. That makes sense, truly.’

All at once Riddmar blushed and looked away.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lilli said.

‘Er, ah, well, I was just – well, remembering somewhat my brother told me.’

‘About me?’

The boy blushed again, betraying the answer.

‘What was it?’ Lilli said. ‘Everyone knows I’m his mistress. You don’t need to be embarrassed.’

‘I know that.’ Riddmar looked down at the hard-packed dirt of the ward. ‘It was just an odd thing.’

‘What?’

‘Well.’ Riddmar began drawing lines in the dirt with the toe of one boot. ‘He said he hoped that I never loved a woman the way he loves you.’ He looked up. ‘I don’t understand that.’

‘He should be more careful of what he tells you.’

‘I’ve not made you angry, have I? I’m sorry. He sort of blurted it out one night when he wanted me to go away so he could – could visit you.’

‘I’m not angry. Just weary all of a sudden. Here, let’s go back to the great hall. I need to rest.’

As they were walking up to the main broch complex, Elyssa came trotting out, lifting her skirts free of the muck as she hurried across the cobbles. She saw them, waved, and waited for them to catch up to her.

‘There you are, your highness,’ Elyssa said to Riddmar.

‘I stayed in the dun,’ Riddmar said. ‘Just like you told me.’

‘My thanks for that. The captain of the fortguard’s looking for you. He wants to give you another lesson in swordcraft.’

‘Splendid!’ Riddmar broke into a grin.

‘He’s down at the royal stables, the one the silver daggers use when they’re here.’

‘My thanks.’ Riddmar made her a sketchy bow and did the same to Lilli. ‘I’ll be in his company if you have need of me.’

The young prince turned on his heel and ran off, heading across the ward to the stable complex. Elyssa watched him go with a shake of her head.

‘He’s a fiery young colt,’ Elyssa said at last. ‘Which is all to the good.’

‘He’ll need that spirit when he’s Gwerbret Cerrmor. He’s so awfully young. Shouldn’t there be a regent for him?’

‘Well, Prince Maryn will hold that rank formally, but of course, he’ll be here in Dun Deverry. No doubt one of the councillors will go.’

‘It would be splendid if Nevyn were appointed to Cerrmor. Then I could go with him.’

‘Away from the prince?’

‘Just that.’ Lilli laid her hand at her throat. ‘Don’t you think I know the grief I’m causing our princess?’

‘It’s not you who’s doing the causing. But it’s honourable of you to consider her grief. Not many lasses would.’ She paused, her mouth twisting. ‘None of the others did.’

‘No doubt. But it’s not just the princess. Sometimes I want naught more than to get free of Maryn.’

Elyssa made an odd little gasp – out of surprise, Lilli assumed.

‘Lyss, I feel like I’ve got a fever, and it’s burning me up. No doubt if I had to go to Cerrmor I’d weep and carry on for days, but then I could recover.’

‘I see.’ Elyssa studied her for a long moment. ‘You truly mean that, don’t you? You know, the prince is not a man to force himself upon a woman who refuses him.’

‘I know that. It’s just when I see him, I can’t think of anything but him. It’s horrid, actually.’

‘It must be, at that.’ Elyssa considered for a moment. ‘Would you like to see the princess?’

‘I would, truly. How is she?’

‘Much the same. Every little thing makes her weep, and she’s so tired, so tired. Not even her needlework distracts her, and she’s not been able to put one word into her book. A visit might cheer her a bit.’

They went inside and climbed the staircase up to the women’s hall, but Degwa met them at the door and motioned for silence.

‘She’s sleeping,’ Degwa whispered. ‘At last, and I’d not wake her.’

‘Of course not,’ Elyssa said. ‘Lilli can come again later.’

Degwa stepped out and shut the door to the hall behind her. For a moment they all stood together out in the corridor. Degwa cocked her head to one side and considered Lilli with a nasty little smile.

‘I gather,’ Degwa said, ‘that you have a brooch that once belonged to me.’

Elyssa waved a hand and made a little clucking sound, which Degwa ignored.

‘I do,’ Lilli said. ‘But you may have it back, if you’d like. I took it only because I thought you didn’t want it.’

‘Well, I don’t, at that.’ Degwa held her head high in the air. ‘The Boar’s leavings should go to a Boar, no doubt.’

Degwa stomped off, her wooden clogs loud on the stone floor, and hurried down the staircase. Elyssa rolled her eyes to the heavens.

‘Ye gods!’ Elyssa whispered. ‘My apologies, Lilli.’

‘There’s no need for you to apologize. Ah well, Decci is what she is, and that’s true for all of us.’

When she returned to her chamber, Lilli opened her wooden chest and found the brooch that had once been her mother’s. She sat down in her chair and held the silver knot up, letting it catch the sunlight. Why was she keeping it? she wondered. Her mother – a murderess, a sorceress who had used Lilli’s own gifts ruthlessly for the clan’s advantage. And yet Merodda had put out considerable effort to save Lilli from a horrible marriage; at times she had been kind as well, for no reason other than that Lilli was her daughter. A token for those good things, Lilli decided. That’s why I keep it.

Thinking of her blood kin made Lilli remember Braemys, her cousin, her half-brother, and once, too, her betrothed. Dark thoughts gathered, that he was likely to die in the coming fighting. But what if he won the battle? What if Maryn were killed instead? One or the other of them would have to die to settle the feud between them. Deverry men always settled feuds that way, with the death of one or the other. With the brooch clasped tight in one hand, she rose and walked to the window. Outside the sky blazed with gold light, streaked with pink and orange against the darkening blue.

‘Dear Goddess,’ Lilli whispered. ‘Let Maryn be the victor. I beg you.’

And she wondered if she would ever get free of him.

Just at sunset the scouting parties returned to Maryn’s camp. Armed with Nevyn’s report, Maryn had sent Branoic with some of the silver daggers to the southeast, while a squad from Daeryc’s men had ridden straight east. Neither party had seen either half of Braemys’s army, which meant that the enemy was, most likely, making camp for the night.

‘I’ll wager they march here tomorrow, your highness,’ Branoic said. ‘This Braemys – he’s young, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders.’

‘So your betrothed told me once,’ Maryn said. ‘She knew him well, after all.’

‘I take it his highness discussed the matter with her?’

‘I did, truly. Why wouldn’t I?’

Branoic said nothing more, but his slight smile had turned dangerous. For a moment the two men stared at each other, their eyes narrow, their jaws tight-set, Maryn standing with his plaid cloak draped over one shoulder and his hands set on his hips, while Branoic, his clothes dust-stained, knelt at his feet. The other scouts, waiting behind Branoic, took a step back, but Maryn’s servant stopped, dead-still, at the mouth of the tent behind him. Nevyn felt a cold warning run down his back and strode forward, ready to intervene. His movement brought them both to their senses. Maryn forced out a smile and turned it impartially upon all of the waiting men, including Branoic.

‘Well done,’ the prince said. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your fires.’

‘My thanks, your highness.’ Branoic rose and bowed. ‘It’s been a long day’s ride.’

In the company of the other scouts Branoic strode off into the sea of tents. Maryn’s servant sighed aloud and darted away. Nevyn raised an eyebrow at Maryn, who shrugged.

‘My apologies,’ Maryn said. ‘I need to watch my tongue.’

‘A wise thought,’ Nevyn said.

‘That’s the worst of it, isn’t it? Being the prince, I mean. I’m not allowed to lapse like ordinary men.’

‘Even ordinary men need to watch their tongues now and again.’

Maryn gave him a sour smile, then turned and without another word ducked into his tent. In the gathering twilight Nevyn walked back to his own. The worst danger for the kingdom would arrive tomorrow with Braemys’s army, but the worst danger for the prince and those who loved him was waiting back in Dun Deverry.

Deep in the night, once the astral tide of Earth had settled into a steady flow, Nevyn scried again, and once again he found the two halves of Braemys’s army, one to the south, one to the east, camped under the stars without tents or campfires. They had sacrificed everything for speed. If Maryn had lacked the presence of a dweomermaster, he and his army would have found themselves caught between two forces like a bite of meat between two jaws.

As it was, of course, they were warned.

Well before dawn Maddyn woke. He sat up in the silent darkness of his tent and considered the odd sensation troubling him. In a few moments he realized that, for the first time in days, he felt hungry. Somewhere near at hand Branoic had left him a chunk of bread on just this chance, but he could see nothing but a triangle of lighter dark at the tent’s mouth.

‘Curse it all!’

Cautiously he got to his knees and began feeling the ground at the head of his blankets.

Behind him he heard a rustling and a sound that might have been a whisper. A silver glow cast sudden shadows. When he twisted round he saw his blue sprite, glowing like the moon and grinning at him.

‘My thanks,’ he said. ‘And there’s the bread.’

Branoic had left it wrapped in cloth upon his saddle, the only thing in the tent that would serve as a shelf. Maddyn found a covered tankard of watered ale nearby as well. With his sprite for company, Maddyn began dipping the bread in the ale and eating the moist bits, but he’d not got far into the chunk before he realized he was making a mistake. He tried a sip of plain ale and felt his stomach burn and twist.

‘So much for that.’

Maddyn wrapped the bread back up, then lay down again, but it took him a long while to sleep with his stomach cramping and complaining. When he finally dozed off, he dreamt of Aethan, lying dead on the battlefield, and woke in a cold sweat. This time, at least, dawn light streamed into the tent. From outside he heard voices, talking softly; then someone pulled the tent flap to one side and stuck his head in: Nevyn.

‘Ah,’ Nevyn said. ‘You’re awake.’

‘More or less, my lord.’ Maddyn sat up, then clutched his aching stomach with both arms. ‘I tried to eat somewhat in the night.’

‘With bad result, I see. The prince wants to see you.’

‘I’ll come out.’

Much to his relief, Maddyn found that he could crawl out of the tent with some effort and then, with Nevyn’s help, stand up. The prince had already donned his chain mail shirt, but the hood lay on his shoulders, and he wore no helm. In the dawn light his hair gleamed as if the sun itself were honouring him.

‘Don’t try to kneel or bow,’ Maryn said. ‘How do you fare?’

‘Not so well, your highness, I’m afraid.’

‘You look pale about the mouth still,’ Nevyn put in. ‘After the army rides out, I’ll have a better look at you.’

‘My thanks, my lord.’

‘Mine, too,’ the prince said, nodding Nevyn’s way. ‘I wanted to see you, Maddo, because I was just remembering how you and the silver daggers smuggled me from Pyrdon to Cerrmor, all those years ago. We had so little then, do you remember? And we hadn’t the slightest idea of what we were riding into.’

‘So we hadn’t.’ Maddyn smiled, the first time he’d felt like doing so in some days. ‘And you slept on the ground like an ordinary rider.’

‘I did.’ The prince smiled in return. ‘I remember sharing a fire with you and Branoic.’ The smile vanished, and for a moment the prince was silent. ‘Ah well,’ he said at last, ‘Long time ago now, but that ride began everything. And so I wanted to come thank you now that we’re about to end the matter.’ Maryn held out his hand. ‘I only wish that Caradoc were here.’

‘So do I, my liege, so do I.’

As he shook hands with the prince, Maddyn felt tears in his eyes, mourning not only Caradoc but all the men the silver daggers had lost in one battle or another. It had been a long road that they’d travelled to bring the prince to his rightful wyrd.

‘Well,’ the prince said, ‘I’d best be gone and let you rest. It’s time to get our men ready to march.’

Nevyn left with the prince, and Maddyn crawled back into his tent and lay down. The canvas roof, glowing from the light outside, seemed to spin around him. He’d not eaten a true meal in days, but was it hunger making him so light-headed? He doubted it. More likely it was the grief of war.

Nevyn accompanied the prince back to the royal tent. Out in front of it, his vassals were gathering to receive their orders for the battle ahead. Gwerbret Daeryc and Gwerbret Ammerwdd stood in front of the huge red and white banners of the wyvern throne, and the rising sun gilded their mail and glittered on their sword hilts. Behind them stood the tieryns, and behind them, the men who could only claim a lordship for their rank.

‘Good morrow, my lords,’ Maryn said, grinning. ‘Shall we go for a bit of a ride on this lovely morning?’

Some laughed, some cheered him.

‘Very well,’ Maryn went on. ‘We’re dividing our army to match Lord Braemys’s little plan.’

Nevyn merely listened as they worked out the battle plan. Gwerbret Ammerwdd would command approximately half the army and station it, looking east, across the main road. The other half, with Maryn in charge, would make its stand facing south at the rear of the other. As an extra precaution, Maryn decided to send some twenty men a few miles north to keep a watch for any further cleverness that Nevyn’s night travels might have missed.

‘Good idea,’ Gwerbret Daeryc said. ‘I don’t trust this son of a Boar.’

‘Indeed.’ Daeryc glanced at Ammerwdd. ‘The crux is this. Your men have to hold until Braemys charges the prince. We can’t be turning our line to join your fight until then.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’ Ammerwdd’s voice turned flat. ‘And I think our prince knows he may trust me on the matter.’

‘Of course!’ Maryn stepped in between them. ‘I have the highest regard for both of you.’ All at once he grinned. ‘I think me Lord Braemys is in for a bit of a surprise.’

‘So we may hope,’ Nevyn put in. ‘He’s badly outnumbered, and cleverness was the best weapon he had.’

‘Well, it’s blunted now. Still –’ Maryn hesitated. ‘Pray for us, and for the kingdom.’

‘Always, your highness. Always.’

When the army rode out, Nevyn stood at the edge of the camp and watched till they were out of sight. The cloud of dust that marked their going hung in the air, as cloying as smoke, for a long time. Perhaps, he told himself, perhaps today will be the last battle ever fought over the kingship. All he could do now to ensure it was to invoke the gods and hope. With a weary shake of his head, he walked over to the circle of wagons to meet with the other chirurgeons. They all needed to ready their supplies for the flood of wounded that would soon deluge them.

Like the others, Nevyn would work on the tail gate of a wagon, sluiced down with a bucket of water between patients. On the wagon bed itself he arranged herbs, tools, and bandages, then put a second set of supplies into a cloth sack. Eventually, if the prince won the battle, he would go to the battlefield to see what he could do for the wounded left there.

At the wagon to his right, Caudyr was doing the same. He was a stout fellow in the prime of life now, not the frightened lad Nevyn had first met as Grodyr’s apprentice all those years ago. Grey laced his blond hair – prematurely, really, but then he was often in pain. He had a club foot, which gave him an uneven, rolling gait for one thing but for another threw his entire body out of alignment. His hips and knees protested so badly that as he aged he had more and more trouble standing for any long while.

Today as Caudyr laid out his supplies he looked so pale, his mouth so twisted, that Nevyn went over to his wagon.

‘Are you all right?’ Nevyn said.

‘I will be.’ Caudyr paused to stretch his back and grimace. ‘I slept wrong or suchlike, is all. It’ll loosen up in a bit.’

Nevyn considered him, but he had nothing to offer to kill pain but strong drink, an impossibility since Caudyr would need all his wits about him.

‘Well,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘Try to sit down till the battle joins, at least. Though it won’t be long now. The prince will be making his stand only about a mile from here, but it’s going to take time for the Boar’s army to find us.’

‘Only a mile?’

‘He wants to be close at hand should Braemys decide to raid the camp.’

‘The wretched young pigling tried it last time, truly. He’s a clever man, young Braemys.’

‘He is. Unfortunately.’

Both men turned and looked beyond the huddled wagons. Outside of the ring, Oggyn was marching his company of spearmen into position. Beyond the wooden wall they stood shoulder to shoulder in an overlapping formation three men deep. With long spear and shield they made a living wall and a formidable one against an attack on the baggage train. Let’s hope they have naught to do but stand there, Nevyn thought. But who knows what the gods have in store for us?

In the hot spring sun Prince Maryn led his men to the chosen field. The army jounced and jingled down the road in a plume of dust that drifted across green pastures and rose high in the windless air, an invitation to Lord Braemys and his allies. As usual when the army marched to battle, the silver daggers rode at its head with Prince Maryn safely in their midst. As he always did, the prince grumbled and complained, too, as if after all these years of riding to war together he still feared that his men would think him a coward. And as usual, Branoic was the one to reassure him.

‘Ah for love of the gods, your highness!’ Branoic said. ‘If you fall in battle, all these cursed years of fighting won’t have been worth a pig’s fart.’

‘True spoken,’ Maryn said. ‘But it gripes my heart all the same.’

Not far from camp lay their destination, a stretch of fallow fields beside the east-running road. When they turned off the road they found the grass high enough to swish around their horses’ legs. With the silver daggers around him Maryn stationed himself at the road, facing south. As each unit arrived he rose in the stirrups and waved a javelin at the spot where he wanted them. Warband after warband trotted across the field till the grass lay trampled into the dirt. Over a thousand riders waited in a rough formation, a curving line some six men deep, an unpleasant surprise for Lord Braemys.

Acting at the prince’s request, Gwerbret Ammerwdd led the other half of the army past them. He arranged his units into a shallow crescent with the embrace facing east and blocking the road to greet their share of the enemy when it appeared. Their line stood at right angles to Maryn’s, like a bowstring with Maryn’s formation the arrow, nocked and ready. By the time the full army stood disposed, the sun had nearly reached the zenith. Ammerwdd rode up to the prince and made him a bow from the saddle.

‘My liege, if I may be so bold, it would best if you withdrew from the first rank.’

‘So it would,’ Maryn said. ‘Very well, silver daggers, follow me.’

Ammerwdd bowed again, then trotted back to his own line. Prince Maryn led his silver daggers through the ranks of the south-facing army and took a place behind the centre of the long line. The banners of the red wyvern stood off to one side, billowing as the wind rose.

‘Naught to do now but wait,’ Owaen remarked.

‘Not for long.’ Branoic rose in his stirrups, turned towards the east, and shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘I see dust coming. Ammerwdd’s men are going on alert.’

He heard Maryn burst out laughing, and on that laughter the command travelled through the ranks: draw javelins and stand ready to use them. With a jingle of mail the men leaned down and drew the short war javelins from the sheaths under their right legs. Horses stamped and tossed their heads; some men laughed, while others turned grim and quiet. Branoic was about make some jest when he saw the ravens, circling high above the assembled armies.

‘Look at that,’ he said to Owaen, ‘the cursed birds are eager, aren’t they? Three big ones!’

‘What birds?’ Owaen was looking up where Branoic was pointing. ‘I don’t see any birds.’

‘Oh.’ Branoic lowered his javelin. ‘Guess I was imagining things.’

He felt very cold, and very still, as if his vision, his mind, his heart, his very soul had all suddenly turned inward away from the world. As he looked out towards the south, where a second plume of dust had just appeared, it seemed that he was seeing not the day and the landscape but a thin grey picture of them. The Three, he thought to himself. Well, lad, you always knew it would come to this. When he looked Owaen’s way, he saw him rising in his stirrups and looking towards Ammerwdd’s position.

‘Here comes the first lot of rebels,’ Owaen said abruptly. ‘Hold your position, men! Wait for the Boar and his little pigs to arrive!’

Off to their left, beyond the crescent of Ammerwdd’s waiting line, noise exploded, men screaming war cries, galloping hooves, the whinny of frightened horses, and all the jingling chaos of a charge. All along Maryn’s line horses stamped and neighed in answer; the men had to fight to keep their mounts in position. Off to the south the plume of dust swelled like smoke high into the crystal blue sky. A few moments more, and figures appeared under the dust, a lot of them, mailed riders on horseback, following the grey banners of the Boar.

‘Here they come,’ Owaen whispered, then laughed, a little mutter under his breath.

Branoic could hear the horses. With a howl of war cries, Braemys’s men started their charge, expecting to slam into the rear of the fighting. Branoic settled his shield on his left arm, raised the javelin in his right, and waited.

At about the time that Braemys was leading his share of the rebel army towards the banners of the Red Wyvern, Lilli was sitting in her window, perched on the sill and looking down on the ward far below. Her intellect seemed to have deserted her – she could neither study nor think clearly thanks to the icy cold fear that gripped her. When she held up a hand, she found it shaking. Somewhat’s going to happen, she thought. Some evil thing. She gasped for air; her lungs ached, or so it felt, as if some invisible being was squeezing her ribs with huge hands.

Overhead a flock of little birds flew, chirping and twittering to themselves – sparrows, most likely, but suddenly in her mind they loomed huge and black, shrieking as they wheeled round the dun. The sunlight began to disappear, swallowed up by the black of raven wings. Lilli had just enough presence of mind to twist around and fall inside the chamber rather than out to her death. She lay huddled on the floor and heard herself moan as the vision overwhelmed her.

Over the battlefield she flew among the ravens. To her horror she realized that the birds were as real as the armies, that they rode the wind and waited for the feast being prepared for them below. In the vision state she heard nothing, not war cry nor clash of metal. The sunlight and the silence melted together into something thick and enveloping, as if she were drowning in honey. At first, too, she could barely make sense out of what she saw. The fields below glittered – armed men, she realized – their armour glittered as they charged together, broke apart, spun, rushed this way and that. Surges of movement carried ten, twenty, some uncountable number of horses and men forward, then turned on some tide of their own and swept them back again. At times the mobs below pulled apart, and she could see the ground, all trampled grass and red stain. At other times it seemed to her visionary sight that the red blood rose like a river in spate to pull the men and horses down under its drowning waves.

Slowly she began to pick out details: a sword held high, a javelin gleaming as it sped through the air. Banners rose out of the chaos. She saw the grey Boar of her old clan first, dipping and swaying in the midst of hard fighting. Like the ravens she wheeled and turned. Maryn! she thought. The red wyvern! At her thought she saw his banners, creeping forward in the midst of a tight squad of riders. These horsemen moved together like long time partners in some well-known dance. When the squad leader turned, they turned smoothly; when he charged, they leapt forward together. Silver daggers, Lilli thought.

‘Branoic!’

She heard her own voice speak his name, the first sound in this long ghastly vision. At the sound she saw him, or rather a rider whom she somehow knew must be him, up near the front of the squad. Swords flew and horses reared or stumbled. Wyvern shields flashed up, Boar shields answered them. A wedge came cutting its way through from the Boar’s side of the melee and slammed into the side of the silver daggers. Lilli heard herself scream and scream again as the wyvern banner swung, dipped, threatened to fall. She could look at nothing else until at last with a defiant swoop it straightened itself and soared once more above the melee.

The Boars began to retreat, but one silver dagger had ridden too far out. He was cut off, doomed – but another – Branoic – spurred his horse and came after, swinging hard, yelling a horrible hoarse cry that blended with her own screaming, the only sounds she could hear. Men fought and died in silence; horses wrenched their mouths open in agony; she heard nothing but Branoic’s berserk howl and her own terror matching it. It seemed to her that she hovered low over him as he swung and cut and shoved his way to the isolated rider’s side. For a moment the two held position, doomed together, it seemed.

Sudden flashes of metal filled her vision. Prince Maryn himself came charging in to the rescue with the other silver daggers right behind him.

She saw blood. Saw a sword rise and fall. Saw Branoic’s face run with blood. Heard his howl cut off, heard nothing but her own sobbing. Saw nothing but his face, slashed half-open like a torn mask hanging in blackness. Saw nothing.

‘My lady, oh my lady!’ Clodda’s voice sobbed in the blackness. ‘My lady, oh by the Goddess!’

Lilli opened her eyes and saw her maidservant’s face, perfectly sound and whole, leaning over her. She was lying on the floor, Clodda was kneeling next to her, they were in her chamber.

‘Oh thank the gods! My lady, I thought you were dying.’

‘Here.’ Elyssa’s voice came from some near distance. ‘Give her some water.’

Clodda put an arm around Lilli’s shoulders and helped her sit up enough to lean against the wall, then held the wooden cup while Lilli drank. Elyssa knelt down beside the maidservant.

‘What is it?’ Elyssa said. ‘Did you fall? Are you in pain?’

‘Should we get old Grodyr to attend you?’ Clodda said.

Lilli shook her head and took the cup, then gulped more water. The two women sat back on their heels and waited till she finished.

‘I had a vision.’ Lilli could hear her voice croak, all hoarse. ‘Branoic’s been wounded. Badly.’

They stared at her for a long silent moment. She braced herself against meaningless reassurances, but none came.

‘Oh gods, how horrible!’ Elyssa said. ‘I’ll pray for him, then.’

‘And so will I,’ Clodda said. ‘There’s not much else we can do.’

‘That’s true,’ Lilli whispered. ‘I wish it weren’t, but it is.’

The chirurgeons back in camp heard the battle begin, a distant shouting on the wind. For some while they paced back and forth beside their readied wagons, but soon enough the wounded began to arrive. Some men could still ride, others came in the company of friends who left them to rush back to the slaughter. With them came news: the Boar forces had received the shock of their life to see Maryn waiting for them. The other part of the enemy army, that under the command of Braemys’s allies, had broken fast – its men had been bandits, mostly, was the judgment of those men who could talk well enough to consider the matter.

The sun was still fairly high in the sky when the tide of wounded began to swell. This time the slightly wounded men brought in the badly wounded, and most of those died while the chirurgeons were trying to help them. Yet their presence meant that some troops had the leisure to help their comrades, that the battle was turning Maryn’s way. Distantly on the wind came the sound of silver horns, screeching for a retreat. Nevyn prayed that it was the Boars pulling back. A man with a bloody scrape down one arm confirmed Nevyn’s guess while he waited his turn.

‘The Boars are running like a lot of scared pigs,’ the rider said. ‘I’m no captain, my lord, but I think me they were only planning on making one try on the prince and then retreating if they couldn’t kill him straightaway.’

‘What?’ Nevyn turned briefly away from the patient lying on the wagon bed. ‘They were making straight for the prince?’

‘They were, my lord, but the silver daggers, they were right around him.’

For a moment Nevyn felt fear like a cold stone in his stomach. If the prince were slain? Yet he had only a little while to wait before he learned that Maryn was safe. He had just finished binding his informant’s arm when he heard someone yelling his name. He turned and saw the prince himself, his mail hood pushed back, his pale hair plastered to his skull with sweat, running towards him.

‘It’s Branoic! He’s bleeding too badly for us to bring him all the way in.’

Nevyn grabbed his readied sack of supplies and raced after Maryn as he led the way back. By then the tide of wounded had turned to a flood. Men brought them in fast, dumped them near the wagons, then rushed back to their horses to return to the field. Together Nevyn and Maryn picked their way across the camp, strewn with the dead and dying, horses and men both. In the middle of the worst of it they found Caudyr and a little clot of silver daggers clustered around someone who lay on ground turned muddy with blood. At the prince’s order, the men parted to let Nevyn through. He saw Branoic with Caudyr kneeling beside him, pressing a wad of bandages to Branoic’s face. Red oozed through the pale linen. Branoic struggled to sit up.

‘Lie still!’ Caudyr snarled.

Maryn fell to his knees behind Branoic’s head and shoved him back down by the shoulders. Caudyr gasped out a thanks.

‘Where is it?’ Nevyn knelt beside his fellow chirurgeon.

‘Cut his mouth in two,’ Caudyr said. ‘A lucky stroke just under the nasal of his helmet. It’s deep, and it won’t staunch.’

Caudyr lifted the wad quickly and pressed it back even quicker, but Nevyn had seen what he needed to. The blow had split both lips, shattered teeth, then bitten deep on either cheek, almost to the ear on the left side of his face. No doubt the skull lay cracked under that part of the wound as well. Branoic’s eyes sought him out, and in them Nevyn read a desperate resignation. He knows he’s going to die, Nevyn thought. Aloud he said,

‘Let’s get it stitched up. We daren’t move him till we do.’

Prince Maryn rose, glancing around him. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, you piss-proud lot of slackers! Get out there and find the rest of our wounded!’

The men rushed off at his order, but the prince himself lingered, staring down at his rival. Nevyn had no time to wonder if Maryn were glad or sorry to see Branoic at the gates of the Otherlands, and in a moment, the prince turned and walked away. Nevyn rummaged in his sack and found a long needle, threaded and ready.

‘Nevyn, your aid!’ Caudyr yelped.

Nevyn turned back to Branoic and found him choking on his own blood. Caudyr had put one arm under his massive shoulders and was trying to raise them whilst keeping the bandages pressed on the wound. Nevyn grabbed the wad and let Caudyr lift. Branoic’s face was dead-white and sweating; the skin of his eyelids stretched thin, a pale bluish white. Suddenly his cloudy eyes rolled back in his head. He coughed, spasmed, flailing with one arm and waving it near his head, as if he were trying to find his face.

‘It’s no use,’ Nevyn whispered.

Caudyr nodded. Branoic convulsed again, both arms working, and somehow managed to pull himself up to a sitting position. For the briefest of moments he stared unspeaking at Nevyn’s face; then he arched his back and fell in an oddly graceful gesture to die against Caudyr. With a sigh the chirurgeon laid the body down upon the ground and crossed its arms over its chest. Nevyn felt his cold skin crawl with the presence of spirits close at hand, clustering on the etheric plane.

‘Ah horseshit!’ Caudyr muttered. ‘That’s one death I’d hoped never to see.’

‘Me either.’ Nevyn could barely speak. ‘Well, there’s naught to be done here. You’d best get back to work. I’ll follow in a moment.’

Caudyr nodded, then got up, shaking his head, and hurried off, heading back to the circled wagons and his improvised surgery. Still kneeling, Nevyn opened his dweomer sight and looked up, searching for Branoic’s etheric double. Dimly he saw great shafts of silver light, vaguely man-shaped, surrounding the pale blue form that once had been Branoic’s soul. The Lords of the Elements had come to guide him – no, her – to the Light that lies beyond death. In her true female form she was staring down at the male body she had worn, as if perhaps in disbelief.

‘My thanks,’ he whispered to the lords. ‘My solemn thanks.’

They nodded his way. Nevyn closed down the sight and scrambled to his feet, grabbing his sack of supplies. There were other men dying on this field, and his duty lay with them, no matter how badly he wished he could say farewell to the soul that he would always think of as his Brangwen.

Maddyn had spent the battle lying under one of the wagons and cursing himself for a weakling for being unable to fight. Finally, when he heard men yelling, others sobbing or crying out, the hurrying of horses and the curses, he knew that the wounded were being brought in. He went out, found a couple of waterskins, and made himself useful as a water carrier for the wounded men. He had just refilled the skins for the fifth time when Caudyr hailed him.

‘Maddo, Maddo! Branoic’s dead.’

Maddyn turned fast to see the chirurgeon limping over. He felt nothing but a chill that seemed to have frozen his mouth shut. He shrugged, tried to speak, then merely stared at Caudyr in a blind hope that he’d misheard.

‘I thought mayhap we could dig him a proper grave,’ Caudyr went on. ‘When there’s time.’

Maddyn nodded to show that he understood, then turned on his heel and walked away. By then the men of the army were reclaiming their possessions from the heap in the middle of the protective wagons. Tents were already rising, men were talking about finding provisions and firewood. Maddyn found his own bedroll with Branoic’s piled under it. For a moment he nearly wept. He grabbed one of Branoic’s blankets, then headed for the long sprawl of dead men brought back to camp. He could see their friends wrapping them in blankets like the one he held to lay them out for the morrow’s burying. By then the sun hung low and striped the sky with pale gold at the horizon. As he walked down the long grim lines, Maddyn began to wonder if he’d be able to find Branoic’s body, but at length he saw Owaen, standing next to one of the dead.

‘Over here,’ Owaen called out. ‘I can guess who you’re looking for.’

Maddyn joined him. Owaen had cast off his mail to reveal his rust-stained and filthy shirt; his hair lay plastered against his skull with sweat. Branoic lay on the ground, stripped of his mail and sword. Maddyn swore at the sight of the wound, a ghastly gape of red as if Death herself smiled up at them. When he knelt, he threw the blanket over Branoic’s face first. With Owaen’s help he wrapped Branoic up. For a moment they knelt at his side.

‘Remember us in the Otherlands,’ Maddyn whispered. ‘The gods all know we’ll be joining you soon enough.’

Together they rose, then stood together, shoulders touching. Maddyn looked down at the old blue blanket wound round what was left of a man he’d known for more years than he could remember. He felt his grief like a blanket pressed into his face, smothering him. Involuntarily he shuddered, tossing his head as if to throw it off. He heard Owaen step back.

‘Did you see it happen?’ Maddyn said.

When Owaen didn’t answer, Maddyn looked up to find him staring off at the sunset, his head thrown a little back, his jaw set tight.

‘Ah well,’ Maddyn said. ‘See that stone wall over there, across the pasture? On the morrow, when they bury him, I’ll be wanting to haul some stones to set up a cairn. Will you help?’

Owaen nodded.

‘And what about his poor lass?’ Maddyn went on. ‘It aches my heart, thinking of her praying he’ll ride home soon, and here he’s already ridden through the gates of the Otherlands.’

‘Just so.’ Owaen kicked the ground hard with the toe of his boot. ‘Oh horseshit and a warm tub of it!’ He turned and ran, trotting down the long line of their dead.

Despite the warmth of the night, Lilli had her maid build a small fire in the hearth in her chamber. She wanted light, and lanterns would, she felt, cast only shadows. As she sat in her chair and tried to read, her mind kept turning to the war and to Branoic. No matter how hard she concentrated on the book in front of her, the horrors she’d seen earlier kept breaking into her studies. Finally she laid the book aside and stared into the flames. She found herself thinking of Branoic, remembering the blood sheeting from his face. Nevyn will save him – she told herself this repeatedly but didn’t believe it once.

Suddenly in the glowing coals she could see Nevyn, a tiny figure, it seemed, walking among the ashes. She leaned forward in her chair, concentrated on the image, saw the embers turn into the image of another fire as the darkness of a night camp appeared through the flames. The fire faded away, and it seemed to her that she walked beside Nevyn, who was carrying a cloth sack as he threaded his way through the tents. At length he returned to the tent she recognized as his from the past summer’s expedition. In a stone circle a tidy stack of wood waited for him. When Nevyn snapped his fingers, salamanders rushed forward to light it. He tossed the sack into his tent, then sat down on a stool in front of the fire. Lilli saw him lean forward – the view changed. It seemed to her that she sat on the other side of the fire and looked across at him.

‘Lilli!’ Nevyn’s voice sounded in her mind. ‘How did you reach me?’

‘I don’t know, my lord.’

‘Think to me, don’t speak aloud. I can’t hear you when you actually talk.’

‘Well and good, then. I was looking into the fire, and then I saw you. Can you hear me now?’

‘I can. You must be badly troubled, to reach me this way.’

‘It’s Branoic. I saw it – I mean, I had one of my visions, and I saw him take that wound. How does he fare?’

‘Oh my poor child! I’m afraid he died soon after.’

A flood of tears washed the vision away. Lilli covered her face with her hands and sobbed, rocking back and forth on the edge of her chair.

Although Nevyn tried for some while to reach Lilli again, he failed, picking up only her grief like the sound of distant keening. Finally he broke the link and threw a few more sticks onto his sputtering fire. As the flames leapt, he became aware that someone was standing in the shadows beyond the pool of light and watching him.

‘Who is it?’ Nevyn snapped. ‘How long have you been standing there?’

‘Owaen, my lord, and not long at all.’ The silver dagger captain took a few steps forward. ‘I – er, well – I wanted a bit of a talk with you.’

‘Very well. Come sit down.’

Owaen sat down on the ground about an arm’s length away. For a few moments they stared into the fire together. Owaen’s face was as expressionless as a mask.

‘Ah well,’ Owaen said at last. ‘It’s about Branoic’

‘I see. You’re surprised that you’re sorry he’s dead. You thought you’d be glad, but you’re not.’

‘Just that!’ Owaen looked up sharply. ‘Ye gods, you truly can see into a man’s soul, can’t you?’

‘Only when his feelings are obvious.’

Owaen tried to smile but failed. ‘He got that wound saving my worthless life. I got cut off at the head of our countercharge, and he came up to pull me out of a mob. Ye gods! I thought he hated me. Why would he do it?’

‘You’re a silver dagger and the captain,’ Nevyn said. ‘That’s reason enough.’

Abruptly Owaen raised one arm and buried his face in the crook, but in a brief moment he lowered it again. His voice shook. ‘I was thinking about his woman. She’s left with no one to protect her, if our prince tires of her, I mean. Do you think I should offer to marry her?’

Nevyn’s first impulse, quickly stifled, was to laugh.

‘That’s an honourable thought,’ he said instead. ‘But she has me and her studies. The prince would know better than to try to send her away from court or some such thing.’

‘True spoken.’ Owaen smiled, relieved. ‘I wouldn’t have made her much of a husband, anyway. But I felt I should offer.’

It seemed that the prince was worried about Lilli as well. The next morning, when the army was digging trenches to bury its dead, Maryn summoned Nevyn to his side. They escaped the noise and confusion by walking clear of the encampment. Out in the middle of what had once been a field, they could see a pair of men pulling stones off its boundary wall and carrying them out onto the grass.

The prince shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘That’s Maddyn and Owaen. I wonder what they’re doing.’

‘Building Branoic a cairn, most like,’ Nevyn said. ‘I saw Maddo earlier, and he said that he and a couple of the lads had dug him a proper grave.’

‘Oh.’ Maryn lowered his hand and looked at him with bleak eyes. ‘I thought I’d got used to men dying for my sake. I was wrong.’

‘Well, your highness, this particular death –’ Nevyn let his words trail away.

‘Indeed. Do you want me to find Lilli some other husband?’

‘I don’t. I think me the dweomer will give her all the position in court that she’ll need.’

Maryn nodded, staring at the ground. ‘I’m sending messengers back this morning. I tried to write her a letter, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I don’t know why. I felt as if I’d never known how to read and write.’

Nevyn choked back his own words: it’s because this death gladdens your secret heart. ‘Well, you could send a special messenger,’ he said instead.

‘Good thought. I know! Maddyn. He’s still blasted weak from that spoilt pork. We’re sending the wounded back to Dun Deverry, and he can join the escort.’

For a moment Nevyn felt struck dumb. The dweomer cold seemed to freeze his lips and fill his mouth with ice. Maryn glanced his way and considered him with narrow eyes.

‘What’s so wrong?’

‘My apologies, my liege.’ Nevyn had to force out the first few words; then his voice steadied. ‘That escort? Will it be substantial? I have the oddest feeling that Maddyn and the wounded will be in some sort of danger.’

‘I’ll double it, then.’ Maryn smiled briefly. ‘I know those odd feelings of yours by now.’

Lilli woke and found her chamber filled with cold grey light. For a moment she lay in bed. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed with pain. Did I sleep? she wondered. Did I sleep at all? I must have. All at once, she remembered.

‘Branno,’ she whispered.

Her hot and swollen eyes refused to deliver more tears. She sat up, pushing the blankets back. She had wept for half the night, or so it seemed as she looked back upon it. In her hearth a pile of ash testified to the fire in which she had seen Nevyn’s face and heard him speaking. It was odd, she realized, but never once, not even in the depths of her grief, had she tried to pretend to herself that the vision had been merely some unreal dream. She knew it beyond doubting. Branoic was dead.

Someone pounded on the door.

‘Who is it?’ Lilli called out.

‘Just me, my lady.’ Clodda’s normally cheerful voice trembled. ‘You’ve barred the door, and I can’t get in.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Lilli got up and went to the door. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you.’

She unbarred the door, opened it wide, and let Clodda come in. The maidservant dropped her a brief curtsy.

‘I was ever so afraid you’d been taken ill,’ Clodda said.

‘Not ill, truly.’ Lilli hesitated. Telling someone about Branoic’s death would make it horribly real – but it’s real anyway, she told herself. ‘Branoic’s dead. Nevyn told me last night. He used dweomer.’

Clodda’s face turned pale. ‘Oh my lady!’ Her voice shook with tears. ‘That wrings my heart.’

‘Mine, too.’

‘No doubt.’ Clodda pulled up a corner of her dirty apron and wiped her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s so sad. My poor lady.’

With a sigh Lilli sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It must be well into the morning. Why is the light so cold?’

‘Clouds, my lady.’ Clodda looked at her sharply, as if wondering if Lilli had gone mad with grief. ‘It’s going to rain, I wager.’

‘Oh. Rain. Could you go to the great hall and find me somewhat to eat? Bread would do.’

‘I will. Lady Elyssa has been asking for you. That’s why I came up and knocked.’

‘I’ll dress, then. If you see her, ask her if she’d just come to my chamber.’

Clodda must have seen the lady in the great hall, because Elyssa herself brought Lilli a basket of bread and butter in but a little while, just as Lilli had finished combing her hair. Elyssa set the basket on the table and considered Lilli for a moment in the harsh grey light streaming in the window.

‘Clodda’s right,’ Elyssa said. ‘You do look ill. Your cheeks – they’re all red and raw!’

‘I’m always a little bit ill.’

‘Or is it from tears? She told me that you’re convinced Branoic’s dead.’

‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘It was Clodda I was doubting, not you. I suppose you must have been – er, what does Nevyn call that?’

‘Scrying.’

‘My heart goes out to you, lass.’ Elyssa looked away, biting her lower lip. ‘Another good man gone.’

‘Oh ye gods, I wish I could weep some more. I feel like a bit of old rag the cook used to scrub a pot or suchlike. All soiled and wrung out and twisted.’

Elyssa nodded. She seemed to be searching for words, then sighed and held out the basket of bread.

‘Here. Do eat.’

Lilli took a piece of bread and bit into it. Her grief robbed it of all its savour, but she forced herself to keep eating to reassure Elyssa.

‘You look more than a little unwell,’ Elyssa said, watching her. ‘I was going to ask if you’d like to visit us up in the women’s hall, but I think me you’d best stay here and rest.’

After Elyssa left, Lilli threw the half-eaten chunk of bread back into the basket. She went to the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, knelt down and opened it. Right on top lay the pieces of Branoic’s wedding shirt, which she’d not quite finished embroidering. He’d never wear it now. He had died too far away to even be buried in it. Next to it lay the little knife she used for cutting thread, a short blade but sharp. She took it out and her little mirror with it.

She propped the mirror up on the mantel, and by twisting this way and that, she could see well enough to chop off her hair, a twist at a time, sawing it short with the sewing knife as a sign of her mourning for her betrothed. She’d heard bards recite old tales from back in the Dawntime, when mourning women gashed their faces as well. For a moment she was tempted – not to mourn Branoic but to keep Maryn away. With a shudder she laid the knife down. In the mirror her face looked back, puffy-eyed, pinched, the short hair all ragged. She turned away, remembering how he looked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

‘I did love you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll pray to the Goddess that you believed me.’

Lilli put the mirror and knife away, then wrapped up the cut-off hair in the sleeve of the shirt that would have been Branoic’s. She put the shirt away, then returned to her chair and stared out of the window. Every breath she drew made her chest ache, as if her grief had filled her lungs and turned them heavy.

The sun had barely started to climb into the sky when Nevyn left his tent and went to tend the wounded. He found Caudyr there ahead of them, and as they started their work, other chirurgeons came to join them and some of the servants as well. As Nevyn had feared, several men had died in the night. The servants wrapped them in blankets and carried them away. Nevyn had finished his rounds and was just washing the gore off his hands and arms when Gavlyn, the prince’s chief herald, came running, carrying a long staff bound with ribands.

‘My lord Nevyn!’ Gavlyn called out. ‘Lord Braemys wants to parley.’

‘Indeed?’ Nevyn said. ‘Well, that’s welcome news!’

Together they hurried across the camp. The night before, servants had pitched Maryn’s tent apart from those of the other noble-born; a good ten feet of bare ground surrounded it. Out in front a groom waited with Gavlyn’s dun gelding, saddled and bridled. In the horse’s black mane hung ribands of red and yellow. Maryn himself came out of the tent just as Nevyn arrived; he wore the red and white plaid of Cerrmor, pinned at one shoulder with the huge silver brooch that marked him as a prince.

‘This is good news,’ Maryn remarked to Nevyn. ‘I’m hoping and praying that Braemys wants to swear fealty and end this thing.’

‘So am I, your highness,’ Nevyn said, ‘so am I.’

‘We should know soon. Gavlyn, you have my leave to go.’

But in the end they waited a good long while to hear Lord Braemys’s decision. All that morning, while Maryn paced, stewing with impatience in front of his tent, the heralds rode back and forth, negotiating the conditions for the meeting between Prince Maryn and Lord Braemys. Each side suspected the other of having treachery in mind, and as Maryn remarked to Nevyn, he could understand why.

‘The war’s been hard enough fought,’ the prince said, ‘and my men did kill his father.’

‘And his men did his best to kill you,’ Nevyn said, ‘by a ruse.’

Over the next long while, Maryn’s vassals strolled over to join him in ones and twos. Daeryc and Ammerwdd paced up and down with him. The lower-ranked men sat on the ground and talked among themselves in low voices. Finally, not long before noon, Gavlyn returned, leading his horse with one hand and carrying the staff in the other. Everyone got up fast, but no one spoke, not even the prince. The groom trotted forward and took the dun gelding’s reins, but when he started to lead the horse away, Gavlyn stopped him.

‘I’ll be going back out, lad,’ Gavlyn said. He turned to the prince and bowed. ‘Your highness, this is going to be a long slow thing. We spent what, half the morning? And we’ve only got this far: Braemys wishes to discuss terms, but he’ll only do so under certain conditions.’

A good many of the lords swore, muttering among themselves. When Maryn raised a hand, they fell silent.

‘Oh ye gods!’ Maryn said. ‘And does he think he’s in any position to dictate these conditions?’

‘He doesn’t, your highness,’ Gavlyn said. ‘There’s no arrogance here, just fear. Their herald’s going to ride back to their camp when he gets my answer. A long ride, he said, but he refused to tell me the slightest thing that might tell me where the camp was. I take it that Lord Braemys’s army is much depleted.’

Everyone turned to look at Nevyn. Since he’d scried on the etheric during the night past, he had answer for them.

‘It is,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’d say he has no more than a thousand men, and that’s a very generous guess. A good many of his allies must have deserted him.’

‘Indeed?’ Ammerwdd stepped forward. ‘If we were to hunt him down, we’d have an easy victory and end the Boar clan forever.’

‘Your grace!’ Gavlyn turned dead-white. ‘The man’s asked for parley.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn smiled in a wry sort of way. ‘We’ve done our best to conduct ourselves honourably all through the war, and I’ve no desire to dishonour myself and my vassals now.’

Ammerwdd started to speak, then caught himself with a shrug.

‘Very well,’ Maryn went on. ‘What are these conditions?’

‘I’ve no idea, your highness. We’ve not got that far.’

‘Ye gods!’ Ammerwdd muttered. ‘How long will the little bastard weasel? It’s an insult, your highness, for a man to drag these things out. How long are we going to put up with him mocking our honour?’

‘Consider this, your grace,’ Maryn said. ‘Suppose we cut the parley short. Braemys and his men will flee. If they reach Cantrae safely, we could spend a year digging them out of it.’

‘True spoken.’ Ammerwdd gave in with a bow in the prince’s direction. ‘He won’t talk as long as all that.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn smiled, then turned to Gavlyn. ‘Tell the Boar clan’s herald that we’ll parley till we reach an honourable conclusion to the matter.’

‘My thanks, your highness. I’ll just be on my way, then.’

To pass the time till Gavlyn returned, Nevyn organized the wagon train that would carry the wounded home to Dun Deverry. Maryn designated fifty sound men for an escort, and Oggyn handed over supplies for everyone. By then the army had eaten enough of their supplies to free up six wagons. Others of the wounded men would be able to ride.

‘Just keep the pace slow,’ Nevyn told Maddyn. ‘Not that you’ll have much choice in that.’

‘True spoken,’ Maddyn said. ‘Do you have private letters you want delivered, my lord?’

‘I do.’ Nevyn reached into his shirt and handed him two silver message tubes. ‘One for Bellyra, one for Lilli. Go to Lilli first. She’ll read the headings and tell you which is which.’

‘The princess can read, too.’

‘I know, but I don’t want her getting a look at Lilli’s letter.’

‘I see.’ Maddyn smiled briefly. ‘Very well, my lord. Lilli first it is.’

Maddyn put the letters into his own shirt for safekeeping. Nevyn considered him, still pale and visibly thinner, but he had managed to keep some porridge down that morning.

‘Be careful of what you eat and drink,’ Nevyn said. ‘No dried beef and suchlike for you, bard.’

‘Oh, have no fear of that, my lord! One round of spoilt food is enough to last me for life.’

The wounded men left camp at noon. Nevyn stood in the road and watched them go until the dust cloud shrank to a smear on the distant view. He could only hope that they’d all reach the dun alive, but for many of them, he feared.

All that afternoon Gavlyn and the Boar’s herald held their talks out in a green pasture to the north of the camp. By evening, nothing had been truly settled, but Gavlyn felt confident that the herald was bargaining in good faith.

‘We’ll reach an end to this eventually,’ Gavlyn told Nevyn. ‘Not soon, but eventually.’

‘What exactly is Braemys so afraid of?’ Nevyn said. ‘Do you know?’

‘From what his herald told me, I’m guessing he fears capture more than death. He suspects our prince of wanting to hang him.’

‘Ah. That would explain it, then. It’s a terrible death for a fighting man.’

‘I don’t know how convincing I am, but I’ve tried to make clear to the herald that Maryn is the soul of honour.’

‘Well and good, then. There’s not much else you can do.’

On the morrow the negotiations started again. Soon after Gavlyn rode out, Nevyn noticed a few wisps of cloud streaking the western quadrant of the sky. A west wind picked up, and all morning the clouds came in, a few stipples at first, then a sky-spanning reach of them, like a spill of clabbered milk against a blue dish. Oh splendid! Nevyn thought. The most important parley in a hundred years, and it’s going to rain! Unless, of course, he did something about it. He left the prince to his vassals and hurried to his tent.

Outside, the noisy life of the camp strolled by: men laughing and jesting, or mourning some dead friend in an outburst of rage. Thanks to long practice Nevyn could withdraw his attention from it all. He sat down cross-legged, let his breathing calm, then visualized a ray of silver light circling him deosil, that is, in the direction of the sun’s travel through the sky. At each cardinal point he placed, again in his imagination, a five-pointed star of blue fire. When he spoke a word of power, the imaginary circle sprang into life on the etheric plane. While he couldn’t see it with his physical eyes, he could feel its energy trembling and surging all round him.

With the place of working prepared, Nevyn called to the Lords of Water. Streaks of silvery-blue light appeared in front of each pentagram, wavering at first, then solid, turning into pillars of light. Within each swam a vaguely human form. Nevyn could hear them as a chorus of thoughts within his own mind. How they might hear him lay beyond his knowledge. Yet they understood when he asked them to prevent the storm, and he understood when they told him it was impossible. They could, however, bring the storm to a head early, so that after a night’s rain the next day would dawn clear.

‘I thank you for that,’ Nevyn told them. ‘It will do splendidly.’

With a murmur of assent, they disappeared.

By sunset the iron-dark clouds seemed to hang so close to earth that it seemed one could reach up and touch them. The setting sun could do no more than stain the west with a sullen orange. Just before the night smothered even that faint glow, a weary Gavlyn returned to camp. After the evening meal, when Maryn’s vassals joined him around the fire in front of the royal tent, Gavlyn delivered his report.

‘Lord Braemys insists that Prince Maryn meet him in open country. He suggests that each side bring a personal guard of twenty men, a councillor, and a herald. The guards must stay some thirty yards away from the parley itself. Braemys has a field in mind, some ways from our camp, that’s free of trees and suchlike. He says that each side will be able to see the surrounding countryside clearly and thus be assured that no ambuscade has been laid by the other.’

‘Very well,’ Maryn said. ‘This all sounds fair to me. Nevyn, will you be able to tell if he has some treachery in mind?’

‘Most likely, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘But truly, think of the situation. Braemys is badly outnumbered. If he chose treachery, he’d lose the subsequent battle and his life.’

‘True spoken. Gavlyn, meet the herald tomorrow as early as you can and tell him we accept these conditions.’

‘I’ll ride out at first light, your highness.’ Gavlyn bowed to him. ‘I think he’s as eager to get this done as I am.’

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