‘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 –’
