Читать книгу Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr - Страница 14

The storm came at sunset, hard rain and wind that made the spring forest tremble. By dawn, the roof of the hut was leaking, a thin but steady trickle in the corner that grooved the dirt floor before it escaped under the wall. Rhegor stood with his hands on his hips and watched it run.

“The way out won’t be so easy for you.”

“I know,” the prince said. “But I’ll be back here before the Beltane feast. I swear it.”

Rhegor smiled as if he doubted it. He picked a couple of big logs off the woodpile in the corner and laid them on the small stone hearth. When he waved his hand over the logs, flames sprang up and flared along the bark. The prince let out his breath with a little hiss.

“You’ll have to get over your infatuation with these tricks,” Rhegor said. “The true dweomer lies deeper than that.”

“So you’ve said, but I can’t lie and say I’ve already gotten over it.”

“True enough. You’re a good lad in your way, Galrion.”

As supple as a cat, Rhegor stretched his back, regarding the prince with shrewd eyes. Rhegor looked like an old peasant, short, barrel-chested, dressed in a dirty pair of brown brigga and a patched plain shirt with a bit of rope round his waist for want of a proper belt. His gray hair hung cropped and untidy; his gray mustache always needed a trim. At times, when he wasn’t watching his thoughts, Prince Galrion wondered why he was so impressed with this man that he’d follow his orders blindly. It’s the dweomer, he told himself. Who needs wealth when you’ve got the dweomer?

“Have you been thinking about this betrothed of yours?” Rhegor said.

“I have. I’ll do what you told me.”

“You should be doing it because you understand the reasons, not just following my commands like a hunting dog.”

“Of course. But you’re sure? I can bring her with me?”

“If she’ll come. Marry her first, then bring her along.” Rhegor glanced around the skew-walled hut. “It’s not a palace, but we’ll build her a better home by winter.”

“But what if she doesn’t want to come?”

“If she chooses freely, then release her.” Rhegor paused for effect. “Freely, mind you.”

“But if she—if we—have a child?”

“What of it?” Rhegor caught his sulky glance and stared him down. “A vow is a vow, lad, and you swore one to her. If this were the usual arranged marriage, it would be different, but you sought her and won her. A man who can’t keep his word is of no use to the dweomer, none.”

“Very well then. I’ll ride to Brangwen before I go and lay the matter before my father.”

“Good. She deserves the news first.”

Wrapped in his cloak of scarlet-and-white plaid, Galrion mounted his black horse and rode off through the unbroken forest of ancient oaks. In a little while, he would return as a poverty-stricken exile to study the dweomer—if he could fight himself free of his old life.

Galrion was the third of the four sons of Adoryc, High King of all Deverry. With two healthy heirs ahead of him, and one behind in reserve, he was a disposable young man, encouraged all his life to spoil himself with his beloved horses and hunting, so that he’d present no coveting threat to his eldest brother’s claim on the throne. He saw no reason why he shouldn’t ride away from court, out of the way for good and no longer a drain on the royal treasury. Yet he doubted if his father would see things so simply. Adoryc the Second, the ruler of a recent and unstable dynasty, seldom saw anything simply.

And there was the matter of Brangwen, the lord’s daughter whom Galrion had won over many another suitor. Only a few months ago, he’d loved her so much that the wait of their betrothal time seemed an unjust torment. Now he saw her as a potential nuisance. Rhegor admitted that Galrion would make slower progress with his studies if he had a wife and children than if he were alone. There were duties a man had to fulfill if he were married, Rhegor always said, but after twenty-two years of having every one of his royal whims satisfied, Galrion was in no mood to hear talk of duty. He was used to having exactly what he wanted, and he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted dweomer power. He hungered after it and thirsted for it.

Or, as he thought about it during his damp ride through the forest, wanting the dweomer was a lust, a burning inside him. Once he’d thought he lusted for Brangwen, but now a new lust had driven that passion out. To delve into secret lore, to learn and master the secret ways of the universe, to stand in control of forces and powers that few people even knew existed—against rewards such as those, mere love looked as valuable as a pebble lying in the dirt.

The prince’s ride was a short one. One of the many things bemusing Galrion these days was the way that Rhegor had chosen to settle so close to the Falcon clan and Brangwen, where Galrion could stumble across him and dweomer both. If he’d been but ten miles farther south, I’d never have found him, Galrion thought. Truly, dweomer must be my Wyrd. It occurred to him that his love for Brangwen was probably just a tool in the hands of his Wyrd, drawing him to Rhegor. Rhegor himself, of course, had already hinted that there were other, important reasons that Galrion had fallen in love with her; Galrion’s heart sank as he remembered those hints.

Just as the drizzle died into a cloudy noon, he rode out of the woods into cleared fields and saw the Falcon dun, rising at the crest of an artificial hill, built for defense in this flat country. Round the base of this motte ran a pair of earthworks and ditches; at the top stood a wooden palisade with iron-bound gates. Inside stood the squat stone broch and a clutter of round wooden sheds and huts for the servants. As Galrion led his horse in, the muddy ward came alive with servants—a groom running to take his horse, a page to take his saddlebags, the chamberlain to greet him and escort him ceremoniously inside. As the aged chamberlain struggled with the heavy door, the prince glanced up. Over the lintel hung a severed head, blackened, weather-shrunken, with rain dripping from the remains of a blond beard. Brangwen’s father, Dwen, held to the ways of the Dawntime warriors. No matter how much the priests reproached him, no matter how often his daughter begged him to have it taken down, Dwen stubbornly kept his trophy up, the head of his worst enemy from a long blood feud.

The great hall was warm, smoky and light-shot from the fires burning at either side. Up by the bigger hearth, Dwen and Gerraent were drinking in their carved chairs with a pack of staghounds sleeping in the straw by their feet. Gerraent rose to greet Galrion, but Dwen stayed seated, sodden in his chair, a florid-faced man whose rheumy eyes glanced up through folds of skin. It was hard to believe that in his youth he must have looked much like his son, this tall blond warrior, square-shouldered, with an arrogant toss to his head.

“Good morrow, my liege,” Gerraent said. “My sister’s in her chamber. I’ll send a page for her.”

“My thanks.” Galrion bowed to Dwen. “My lord.”

“Sit down, lad, and have some ale.” Dwen wheezed as he spoke, then coughed and nearly choked.

Galrion felt a cold shudder, a bristling of hairs along the back of his neck as if a draft had touched him. Although Dwen had been ill for years and never seemed to sicken further, Galrion knew with a sharp stab of dweomer that soon he would die. A page brought Galrion ale, a welcome distraction from Dwen’s illness. When Galrion raised the tankard to Gerraent in friendly salute, Gerraent forced out a smile that was the barest twitch of his mouth. It didn’t take dweomer to know that Gerraent hated him. Galrion merely wondered why.

The door across the great hall opened, and Brangwen came in with her maidservant in attendance. A tall lass, willow slender in a dark green dress, she wore her long blond hair caught back in a simple clasp, as befitted an unmarried woman. Her eyes were as deep and blue as a winter river. The most beautiful lass in all Deverry, men called her, with a face that was dowry enough for any man in his right mind. Drawn by the love he’d thought he’d cast out, Galrion rose to greet her. He took both her hands in his.

“I didn’t think to see you soon, my prince,” Brangwen said. “This gladdens my heart.”

“And it gladdens mine, my lady.”

Galrion seated her in his chair, then took a footstool from the maidservant and put it down to keep Brangwen’s feet off the damp, straw-strewn floor. He perched on the edge of the stool and smiled up at her while she laughed, as merry as sunlight in the dark room.

“Will his highness honor me by riding with me to the hunt tomorrow?” Gerraent said.

“I won’t, by your leave,” Galrion said. “I have things to discuss with my lady.”

“She’s not your lady yet.” Gerraent turned on his heel and stalked out of the hall.

When he slammed the door shut behind him, Dwen roused from his doze, glanced round, then fell back asleep.

“Oh, here, Gwennie,” Galrion whispered. “I hope I haven’t offended your brother by not riding with him on the morrow.”

“Oh, Gerro’s in such a mood these days. I can’t talk a word of sense into him about anything. Here, my love, don’t you think it’s time he married? He’s put it off awfully late. He’ll be twenty at the turning of the summer.”

“True enough.” Galrion was remembering his dweomer-warning of Dwen’s coming death. “He’ll be the Falcon someday, after all. Is there any woman he favors?”

“Not truly. You men can be such beasts.” Brangwen giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “But, well, Gerro rides to hunt with Lord Blaen of the Boar, and his sister’s just absolutely mad for Gerro. I’ve been trying to speak well of her to him, but he doesn’t much listen.”

“I’ve seen the Lady Ysolla at court. She’s a lovely lass, but naught compared to you, of course.”

The compliment brought another giggle and a blush. At times Brangwen was a helpless little thing, unlike the women at the court, who were trained as partners in rulership. Once Galrion had looked forward to the chance to prune and form his wife’s character; now, he found himself thinking that she was going to absorb much of his time.

“Do you know what Ysolla told me?” Brangwen said. “She said that Blaen’s jealous of you.”

“Indeed? That would be a serious matter if it’s true.”

“Why?”

“Ye gods, think! The Boar Rampant was involved in many a plot against the last dynasty. A lover’s rivalry is a political matter when one of the rivals is a prince.”

“Truly, my apologies.”

She turned so woebegone over his snap that Galrion patted her hand. She bloomed instantly and bent down to allow him to kiss her cheek.

Circumstances conspired to keep the prince from having his necessary talk with his betrothed. All evening, Gerraent kept them sullen company. On the bright and sunny morrow, Brangwen settled her father outside in the ward, then sat down beside him with her needlework. Much to Galrion’s annoyance, the old man stayed wide awake. Finally, when Gerraent stopped by on his way to hunt, Galrion decided that since he might soon be Gerraent’s elder brother, he might as well put that authority to good use.

“Here, Gerro,” Galrion said. “I’ll ride a little way with you after all.”

“Well and good.” Gerraent shot him a glance that said the exact opposite. “Page, run and saddle the prince’s horse.”

Preceded by a pack of hounds and followed by a pair of servants, Galrion and Gerraent rode to the woods. The Falcon clan lay lonely on the edge of the kingdom. To the north, the clan’s farmlands stretched out until they met those of the Boar, their only near neighbor. To the east and south was nothing but unclaimed land, meadow, and primeval forest. It occurred to Galrion that Brangwen was doubtless looking forward to the splendid life at court that he could no longer give her.

“Well, young brother,” Galrion said at last. “There’s something I wanted to talk with you about. My lady Brangwen tells me that you’ve won the favor of Ysolla of the Boar. She’d make any man a fine wife.”

Gerraent stared straight ahead at the road.

“You’re a man now,” Galrion said. “It’s time you married for your clan’s sake. The head of a clan needs heirs.”

“True spoken. I know my duty to my clan.”

“Well, then? Blaen’s your sworn friend. It would be a fine match.”

“Did Gwennie put you up to this talk?”

“She did.”

Gerraent glanced his way with bitter eyes.

“My sister knows her duty to the clan, as well.”

As they rode on, Gerraent was lost in thought, his hand on his sword hilt. Galrion wondered how this proud man was going to take it when Galrion swept his sister off to a hut in the forest instead of the palace. The prince was vexed all over again at his stupidity in getting himself betrothed just as he had found the dweomer.

“Does Gwennie think Ysolla would have me?” Gerraent said.

“She does. She’d bring a fine dowry, too.”

They rode in silence for some minutes while Gerraent considered, his mouth working this way and that as if the thought of marrying a rich, pretty wife pained him. Finally he shrugged as if throwing off a weight from his shoulders.

“Grant me a boon, elder brother,” Gerraent said. “Will you ride to Blaen with me as my second in the betrothal?”

“Gladly. Shall we ride soon?”

“Why not? The soonest done, the best.”

That evening, dinner marked a celebration. While the Falcon’s demesne stretched broad and prosperous, there had been few sons born to the clan over the past generation. If Gerraent should die without an heir, the clan would die with him, its lands reverting back to the High King for reassignment. Every now and then, Galrion noticed Gerraent looking at the blade of his table dagger, where a falcon mark was graved, the clan’s symbol, and his whole life, his duty, and power.

After Brangwen escorted her father from the table, Galrion had a chance at a private word with Gerraent.

“My lady Brangwen was teasing me the other night,” Galrion said. “Saying Blaen’s jealous of me. Is that just a maid’s chatter?”

“It’s true enough.” Gerraent made the admission unwillingly. “But she’s dwelling on the thing to please her vanity. Blaen will forget her soon enough. Men in our position marry where we have to, not to please ourselves.”

Galrion felt a cold touch like a hand down his back, the dweomer-warning of danger. Never had that warning failed to be true, not since he’d felt it first as a little lad, climbing a tree and knowing without knowing how he knew that the branch was about to break under him.

The dun of the Boar clan lay a full day’s ride to the north. A stone broch rose three floors above a cobbled ward and proper wooden round houses for the important servants. Off to one side were the stables that also doubled as a barracks for the warband of twelve men. Lord Blaen’s great hall was fully forty feet across with a dressed stone floor. Two tapestries hung on either side of the honor hearth, and fine furniture stood round in profusion. As he walked in, Galrion had the thought that Brangwen would be far happier in that dun than she would be in a wilderness.

Blaen himself greeted them and took them to the table of honor. He was a slender man, sandy haired, good-looking in a rather bland way with blue eyes that always seemed to be smiling at a jest.

“Good morrow, my prince,” Blaen said. “What brings me the honor of having you in my hall?”

“My brother and I have come to beg an enormous favor. My brother has decided that it’s time for him to marry.”

“Oh, have you, now?” Blaen shot Gerraent a smile. “A wise decision, with no heirs for your clan.”

“If it’s so wise,” Gerraent snapped, “why haven’t you made one like it?”

Blaen went as stiff as a stag who sees the hunting pack.

“I have two brothers.”

The moment hung there. Gerraent stared into the hearth; Blaen stared at the prince; Galrion hardly knew where to look.

“Ah, curse it!’” Blaen snapped. “Can’t we dispense with all this mincing around? Gerro, do you want my sister or not?”

“I do. And my apologies.”

When Galrion let his eyes meet Blaen’s he saw only a man who wanted to be his friend—against great odds, perhaps, but he did. Yet the dweomer-warning slid down his back like snow.

In his role as a courting man’s second, Galrion went to the woman’s hall, a half-round of a room above the great hall. On the floor lay Bardek carpets in the clan colors of blue, green, and gold; silver candlesticks stood on an elaborately carved table. In a cushioned chair, Rodda, dowager of the clan, sat by the windows while Ysolla perched on a footstool at her mother s side. All around them lay wisps of wool from the spinning that must have been tidied away at the prince’s approach. Rodda was a stout woman with deep-set gray eyes and a firm but pleasant little smile; Galrion had always liked her when they’d met at court. Ysolla was a pretty lass of sixteen, all slender and golden with large eager eyes.

“I come as a supplicant, my lady,” Galrion knelt before the two women. “Lord Gerraent of the Falcon would have the Lady Ysolla marry him.”

When Ysolla caught her breath with a gasp, Rodda shot her a sharp look.

“This is a grave matter,” Rodda pronounced. “My daughter and I must consider this carefully.”

“But, Mother!”

“My lady?” Galrion said to Rodda. “Do you have any objections to Lord Gerraent?”

“None, but I have my objections to my daughter acting like a starving puppy grabbing a bone. You may tell Gerraent that we are considering the matter, but my son may start discussing the dowry if he wants—just in case Ysolla agrees.”

Blaen was expansive about the dowry. Ysolla, of course, had been filling her dower chest for years with embroidered coverlets, sets of dresses, and the embroidered shirt her husband would wear at his wedding. To go with it, Blaen offered ten geldings, five white cows, and a palfrey for Ysolla.

“Gerro?” Galrion said. “That’s splendidly generous.”

“What?” Gerraent looked up with a start. “Oh, whatever you think best.”

Yet that evening Gerraent acted the perfect suitor, happy to have his lady within his reach at last. At table, he and Ysolla shared a trencher, and Gerraent cut her tidbits of meat and fed her with his fingers as if they were already married, a gesture that made Ysolla beam with happiness. Galrion and Rodda, who were seated next to each other, found themselves watching the couple and occasionally turning to each other to share a thoughtful glance. Since the bard was singing, and Blaen laughing with his brother, Camlann, Galrion and Rodda could whisper in private.

“Tell me,” Rodda said. “Do you think Gerraent will come to love my daughter someday?”

“He’d be a fool not to.”

“Who knows what you men will do?”

Galrion broke a slice of bread in half and offered her one portion.

“Is this better than no bread at all?”

“You’re a wise one for someone so young, my prince.” Rodda accepted the bread. “Does that come from living at court?”

“It does, because if you want to live to be an old prince, you’d best keep your eyes on every little wave of everyone’s hand and your ears on every word they speak.”

“So I’ve been telling your little Gwennie. Life at court is going to be difficult for her at first. She’s lucky to have a man like you to watch over her interests.”

Galrion felt a stab of guilt. I’m as bad as Gerro, he thought. I’ll have to offer Gwennie at least the half a piece of bread—unless I find her a man who’d give her the whole loaf.

Courtesy demanded that Galrion and Gerraent take the Boar’s hospitality for several days. The more Galrion saw of Blaen, the more he liked him, a cultured man as well as a generous one, with a fine ear for the songs of his bard and a proper knowledge of the traditional tales and lore. Even more, Galrion came to admire Rodda, who carried out her dowager role with perfect tact. She would make Brangwen a splendid mother-in-law. At times, Galrion remembered Rhegor’s insistence that she choose freely, but he doubted if Gwennie, poor little innocent Gwennie, was capable of making such an important decision on her own.

Late on the second day, the prince escorted the dowager to the garden for a stroll. The spring sun lay warm on the glossy leaves and the first shy buds of the roses.

“I’m much impressed with your son,” Galrion said. “He should feel more at home at my court.”

“My thanks, my prince.” Rodda hesitated, wondering, no doubt, how to turn this unexpected honor to her son’s advantage. “I’m most grateful that you favor him.”

“There’s only one slight thing. You’ll forgive my bluntness, and I’ll swear an honest answer will do Blaen no harm. Just how much does he hold Gwennie against me?”

“My son knows his duty to the throne, no matter where his heart lies.”

“Never did I think otherwise. I was merely wondering how fine his honor might be in matters of the heart. Let me be blunt again. Suppose Brangwen was no longer betrothed to me. Would he spurn her as a cast-off woman?”

Briefly Rodda stared, as openmouthed as a farm lass, before she recovered her polished reserve.

“I think my prince is troubled at heart to speak this way.”

“He is, but he’ll beg you never to ask why. He’ll tell you this much: he’s troubled by the life ahead of Brangwen. Flatterers at court will come around her like flies to spilled mead.”

“Not just flies, my prince. Wasps come to spilled mead, and Gwennie is very beautiful.”

“She is.” Suddenly torn, Galrion wondered if he could truly let her go. “And I loved her once.”

“Once and not now?” Rodda raise a doubting eyebrow.

Galrion walked a little ways ahead, letting her catch up with him in the shade of the linden tree. He caught a low branch and stripped the leaves off a twig, to rub them between his fingers before he let them fall.

“My prince is deeply troubled,” Rodda said.

“The prince’s troubles are his own, my lady. But you never answered me. Would Blaen marry Gwennie if he could?”

“Oh, in a moment! My poor lad, I swear he’s been ensorcled by Gwennie’s blue eyes. He put off marrying until she came of age, and then, well—”

“The prince stepped in, giving the Boar another reason to chafe under the High King’s rule. How would the Boar take it if his mother hinted that the prince was yielding to a prior claim?”

“I’ve no doubt he’d honor the prince always.”

Smiling, Galrion made her a deep bow. It could work out well, he told himself. Yet at the thought of Brangwen lying in another man’s arms, his heart flared rage.

When the day came for Prince Galrion to ride back to court, Gerraent accompanied him for a few miles simply because he was expected to. The prince smiled and chattered until Gerraent wanted to murder him and leave his body in a ditch by the road. At last they reached the turning, and Gerraent sat on his horse and watched the prince’s scarlet-and-white plaid cloak disappear into the distance. Three more weeks, only three more weeks, and the prince would return from Dun Deverry to take Brangwen away. With her, Gerraent’s heart would go, breaking.

When he rode back to the dun, Gerraent found Brangwen sitting outside in the sun and sewing. He gave his horse to Brythu, his page, and sat down at her feet like a dog. Her golden hair shone in the sun like finespun thread, wisping around the soft skin of her cheeks. When she smiled at him, Gerraent felt stabbed to the heart.

“What are you sewing?” Gerraent said. “Somewhat for your dower chest?”

“It’s not, but a shirt for you. The last one I’ll ever make, but don’t worry, Ysolla does splendid needlework. I’ll wager that your wedding shirt is ever so much nicer than my poor Galrion’s.”

Gerraent rose to his feet, hesitated, then sat again, trapped in his old torment, that his beautiful sister, the one beautiful thing in his world, would turn him into something ugly and unclean, despised by the gods and men alike, if ever they knew of his secret fault. All at once she cried out. He jumped to his feet before he knew what he was doing.

“I just pricked my finger on the beastly needle,” Brangwen said, grinning at him. “Don’t look so alarmed, Gerro. But, oh, here, I’ve gotten a drop of blood on your shirt. Blast it!”

The little red smear lay in the midst of red interlaced bands of spirals.

“No one’s ever going to notice it,” Gerraent said.

“As long as it’s not a bad omen, you’re right enough. Doubtless you’ll get more gore on it than this. You do get so filthy when you hunt, Gerro.”

“I won’t wear it hunting until it starts to wear out. It’ll be my best shirt, the last one you ever sewed for me.” Gerraent caught her hand and kissed the drop of blood away.

Late that night, Gerraent went out to the dark, silent ward and paced restlessly back and forth. In the moonlight, he could see the severed head of old Samoryc glaring down at him with empty eye sockets. Once every dun and warrior’s home would have been graced with such trophies, but some years past, the priests had seen visions stating that taking heads had come to displease great Bel. Of all the lords round about, Dwen was the last to defy the change. Gerraent remembered the day when the priests came to implore him to take the trophy down. A tiny lad, then, Gerraent hid behind his mother’s skirts as Dwen refused, roaring with laughter, saying that if the gods truly wanted it down, they’d make it rot soon enough. Chanting a ritual curse, the priests left defeated.

“I’m the curse,” Gerraent said to Samoryc. “I’m the curse the gods sent to our clan.”

He sat down on the ground and wept.

The days passed slowly, long days of torment, until Gerraent fled his sister’s presence and rode to Blaen on the pretense of seeing his new betrothed. He and Blaen were more than friends; the year before, when they’d ridden to war together, they’d sworn an oath that they would fight at each other’s side until both were dead or both victorious, and they had sealed that oath with drops of their own blood.

In his blood-sworn friend’s soothing company Gerraent spent a pleasant pair of days, drinking at Blaen’s hearth, hunting out in his forest preserve, or riding aimlessly across his lands with the warband behind them. Gerraent envied Blaen for having a warband. He was determined to get one of his own; the ten horses that he’d receive in Ysolla’s dowry would be a splendid start, and soon Brangwen’s royal marriage would bring wealth to the Falcon, a lwdd, a blood price of sorts—but too small a compensation for the losing of her.

On the third day, late in the afternoon, Gerraent and Blaen rode out alone. Enjoying each others silent company, they ambled through the fields until they reached a low rise that overlooked meadowlands. Tended by a pair of boys and a dog, Blaen’s herd of white cattle with rusty-red ears grazed below.

“Let’s hope there’s no war this summer,” Blaen said.

“What? What are you doing, turning into an old woman?”

“I’m not ready to start sucking eggs yet, but I’ll tell you somewhat I’d never tell any other man. There are times when I wish I’d been born a bard, singing about wars instead of fighting them.”

Thinking it a jest, Gerraent started to laugh, then stopped at the quiet seriousness in Blaen’s eyes. All the way home, he puzzled over it, remembering Blaen’s calm courage in battle and wondering how any man would want to be a bard rather than a warrior. They returned to the dun at sunset. As he dismounted, Gerraent saw Brythu running out of the broch.

“My lord!” the boy panted out. “I just got here. Your father’s dying.”

“Take the best horse in my stable,” Blaen said. “Break him if you have to.”

When he rode out, Gerraent left the page behind so that he could make good speed. He galloped through the twilight, alternately trotted and galloped even when dark fell, though the road lay treacherous in the pale moonlight. Not for one moment did it occur to him that he might be thrown. All he could think of was his father, dying without a last sight of his son, and of Brangwen, tending the dying alone. Whenever the horse stumbled, he would let it walk to rest, then spur it on again. At last he reached the small village on the edge of his lands. He banged on the tavern door until the tavernman came hurrying down in his nightshirt with a candle lantern in his hand.

“Can you change my horse?” Gerraent said.

“Lady Brangwen had the gray brought here to wait for you.”

The gray was the fastest horse in the Falcon’s stable. Gerraent switched saddle and bridle, flung the tavernman a coin, then kicked the gray to a gallop, plunging out of the candlelight and into the night-shrouded road. At last he saw the dun rising, the palisade dark against the starry sky. He spurred one last burst of speed out of the gray and galloped through the open gates. As he dismounted, the chamberlain ran out of the broch.

“He still lives,” Draudd called out. “I’ll tend the horse.”

Gerraent ran up the spiral staircase and down the hall to his father’s chamber. Propped up on pillows, Dwen was lying in bed, his face gray, his mouth slack as he fought for every breath. Brangwen sat beside him and clutched his hand in both of hers.

“He’s home. Da,” she said. “Gerro’s here.”

As Gerraent walked over, Dwen raised his head and searched for him with rheumy eyes. Dwen tried to speak, then coughed, spitting up a slime of blood-tinged phlegm, slipping and glistening as his head fell back. He was dead. Gerraent wiped the spittle off his father’s mouth with the edge of the blanket, then closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. The chamberlain came in, glanced at the bed, then flung himself down to kneel at Gerraent’s feet—at the feet of the new Falcon, head of the clan and its only hope.

“My lord, I’d best send a page to the King straightaway. We’ve got to catch the wedding party before it leaves.”

“So we do. Get him on the way at dawn.”

It would take three days to get the message to Dun Deverry that Brangwen’s wedding would have to wait for a time of mourning. All at once, as he looked at his father’s face, Gerraent turned sick with self-loathing. He would have given anything to stop that marriage, anything but this. He threw his head back and keened, cry after wordless cry, as if he could drive his thoughts away with the sound.

In the morning, the priests of Bel came from the temple to preside over the burial. Under their direction, Brangwen and her serving maid washed the body, dressed it in Dwen’s best court clothes, and laid it on a litter. While the servants dug the grave, Gerraent groomed and saddled his father’s best horse. The procession assembled out in the ward, servants carrying the litter, the priests just behind, then Gerraent, leading the horse. Supported by her maid and the chamberlain, Brangwen brought up the rear. The head priest gave Gerraent a cold smile, then pointed to the lintel of the door.

“That head comes down today, or I won’t bury your father.”

Since he refused to order a servant to do such a hideous task, Gerraent climbed the broch, working his way up the rough stone while the priest waited below with a basket. When Gerraent reached the door, he clung to the lintel and examined the head. There was little left, a stretch of blackening skin over a skull, shreds of hair, a few cracked teeth.

“Well and good, Samoryc. Both you and your old enemy are going to be buried today.”

Gerraent pulled his dagger and pried out the crumbling nails until the head dropped into the priest’s basket with a sickening little thud. The maidservant screamed; then the ward was silent except for the stamp and snort of the restless horse.

The priests led the procession out and down around the hill to the small grove, the burial ground of the Falcon clan. At the sight of their mother’s grave, Brangwen began to weep. The fresh grave lay beside it, a deep trench, some eight feet wide and ten long. When Gerraent let the horse up, it pulled at the reins and danced in fear, as if it knew the Wyrd in store for it. Gerraent threw the reins to a waiting servant. As the horse tossed up its head, Gerraent drew his sword and struck, killing it cleanly with one blow to the throat. With a gush of blood, the horse staggered forward, its legs buckling, and fell headlong into the grave. Gerraent stepped back and unthinkingly wiped the sword blade clean on his brigga. For the rest of the ceremony, he stood there with the sword in his hand, because he never thought to sheathe it.

At first Gerraent managed to cling to his warrior’s calm, even when a sobbing Brangwen poured milk and honey over their father’s body. But the first spadeful of earth, the dark mud settling over his father’s face, broke him. Keening, he fell to his knees, tossed his head back and sobbed that high strange note over and over. Dimly he felt Brangwen’s hands on his shoulders.

“Gerro! Gerro, Gerro, please stop, please.”

Gerraent let her lead him away, leaning on her as if she were the warrior and he the lass. She took him back to the hall and shoved him into a chair by the hearth. He saw the priests come back, saw them fussing around Brangwen and talking in low voices. She came over to him with a tankard of ale in her hand. Reflexively Gerraent took it, sipped from it, then nearly threw it in her face. It reeked of medicinal herbs.

“Drink it,” Brangwen snapped. “Drink it down, Gerro. You’ve got to sleep.”

For her sake Gerraent choked the bitter stuff down. She took the empty tankard from his hands just as he fell asleep in his chair, drowning, or so he felt, in the warm sunlight. When he woke, he was lying on his bed with a torch burning in an iron sconce on the wall. Blaen was sitting on the floor and watching him.

“Ah, ye gods,” Gerraent said. “How long did I sleep?”

“It’s just past sunset. We all rode in an hour or so ago. My mother and your betrothed wanted to be with Gwennie.”

Blaen got up and poured water from the clay pitcher on the windowsill. Gerraent drank greedily to wash the bitter aftertaste of the drug out of his mouth.

“How long will you set the period of mourning?” Blaen said.

“For my sake I’d say a year, but that would be cruel to our sisters, wouldn’t it? I can go on mourning after they’re both married.”

“Say to the turning of the fall, then?”

Gerraent nodded in agreement, thinking that Gwennie would be his for one more summer. Then he remembered why he would have the summer. Keening, he threw the clay cup against the wall so hard that it shattered. Blaen sat down beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Here, here, he’s gone,” Blaen said. “There’s naught more to do or say.”

Gerraent rested his head against Blaen’s chest and wept. I love him like a brother, he thought. I’ll thank all the gods that Gwennie’s not marrying him.

Prince Galrion’s first week back at court was one long frustration, with never a chance to speak to his father except in full, formal court. He knew that he was holding back, too, letting slip a chance here and there, because his heart worried like a terrier with a rat at the question of marrying Brangwen or letting Blaen have her. Finally, he decided to enlist the aid of the one ally he could always trust: his mother. On an afternoon so warm and balmy that it reminded him Beltane was close at hand, Galrion left the city and rode out to find the Queen’s hawking party down by Loc Gwerconydd, the vast lake where three rivers came together west of Dun Deverry.

The Queen and her attendants were having their noon meal at the southern shore. In their bright dresses, the serving women and maidservants looked like flowers scattered through the grass. Queen Ylaena sat in their midst; a young page, dressed in white, stood behind her with the Queen’s favorite little merlin on his wrist. Off to one side menservants tended the horses and other hawks. When Galrion dismounted, the Queen waved him over with an impatient flick of her hand.

“I’ve hardly seen you since you rode home,” Ylaena said. “Are you well?”

“By all means. What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’ve been brooding over somewhat. I can always tell.” The Queen turned to her women. “Go down to the lakeshore or suchlike, all of you. Leave us.”

The women sprang up like birds taking flight and ran off, laughing and calling to one another. The page followed more slowly, chirruping to the hawk to keep it calm. Ylaena watched them go with a small satisfied nod. For all that she had four grown sons, she was a beautiful woman still, with large, dark eyes, a slender face, and only a few streaks of gray in her chestnut hair. She reached into the basket beside her, brought out a piece of sweet bread, and handed it to Galrion.

“My thanks. Tell me somewhat, Mother. When you first came to court, did the other women envy your beauty?”

“Of course. Are you thinking about your betrothed?”

“Just that. I’m beginning to think you were right to doubt my choice.”

“Now’s a fine time for that, when you’ve already pledged your vow to the poor child.”

“What son ever listens to his mother until it’s too late?”

Ylaena gave him an indulgent smile. Galrion nibbled on the sweet bread and considered strategies.

“You know,” Ylaena said. “There’s not a lass alive who wouldn’t want to be known as the most beautiful woman in all Deverry, but it’s a harsh Wyrd in its own way. Your little Gwennie never had the education I had, either. She’s such a trusting little soul.”

“Just that. I spoke with Lady Rodda of the Boar about the matter, too, when I went with Gerraent for his betrothal. Lord Blaen of the Boar is much enamoured of the lass.”

“Indeed? And does that mean trouble coming?”

“It doesn’t, but only because Blaen is an honorable man. It’s odd, truly. Most lords care naught about their wives one way or another, just so long as they bear sons.”

“Great beauty can act on the roughest lord like dweomer.” Ylaena smiled briefly. “Or on a prince.”

Galrion winced at her unfortunate choice of imagery.

“What are you scheming?” Ylaena went on. “Leaving Gwennie to Blaen and finding another wife?”

“Well, somewhat like that. There’s one small difficulty to that plan. I still love her, in my way.”

“Love may be a luxury that a prince can’t afford. I don’t remember Blaen well from his few visits to court. Is he like his father?”

“As different as mead from mud.”

“Then that’s one blessing. I’m sure that if his father hadn’t been killed in that hunting accident, he’d be plotting against the king right now.”

Ylaena glanced away, sincerely troubled. The Deverry kingship was a risky thing. The lords and tieryns remembered well that in the old days of the Dawntime, kings were elected from among their fellow nobles, and families held the throne only as long as their heirs held the respect of the lords. Under the pressures of colonizing the new kingdom, that custom had died away hundreds of years before, but it was far from unknown for the nobility to organize a rebellion against an unpopular king in order to replace him with a better one.

“Lady Rodda assures me that Blaen will hold loyal,” Galrion said.

“Indeed? Well, I respect her opinion. You truly don’t want to give Brangwen up, do you?”

“I don’t know.” Galrion tossed the remains of the bread into the grass. “I truly don’t know.”

“Here’s somewhat else you might think about. Your eldest brother has always been far too fond of the lasses as it is.”

All at once Galrion found himself standing, his hand on his sword hilt.

“I’d kill him if he laid one hand on my Gwennie. My apologies, Mother, but I’d kill him.”

Her face pale, Ylaena rose and caught his arm. Galrion let go of the hilt and calmed himself.

“Think about this marriage carefully,” Ylaena said, her voice shaking. “I beg you—think carefully.”

“I will. And my apologies.”

Her talk with the prince seemed to have spoiled the Queen’s pleasure in her hawking, because she called her servants to her and announced that they were returning to the city.

At that time, Dun Deverry was confined to a low rise about a mile from the marshy shores of Loc Gwerconydd. Ringed with stone walls, it lay on both sides of a rushing river, which was spanned by two stone bridges as well as two defensible arches in the city walls. Clustered inside were round stone houses, scattered along randomly curving streets, that sheltered about twenty thousand people. At either end of the city rose two small hills. The southern one bore the great temple of Bel, the palace of the high priest of the kingdom, and an oak grove. The northern hill held the royal compound, which had stood there in one form or another for six hundred years.

Galrion’s clan, the Wyvern, had been living on the royal hill for only forty-eight years. Galrion’s grandfather, Adoryc the First, had ended a long period of anarchy by finally winning a war among the great clans over the kingship. Although the Wyvern was descended from a member of King Bran’s original warband and thus was entitled to be called a great clan, Adoryc the First had forged an alliance among the lesser clans, the merchants, and anyone else who’d support his claim to the throne. Although he’d been scorned for stooping so low, he’d also taken the victory.

As the Queen’s party rode through the streets, the townsfolk bowed and cheered her. No matter what they might have thought of her husband in private, they honestly loved Ylaena, who’d endowed many a temple to give aid to the poor and who spoke up often for a poor man to make the King show him mercy. For all his thickheadedness, the King did know what a treasure he had in his wife. She was the only person whose advice he would take and trust—at least, when it suited him to do so. Galrion’s main hope lay in getting her to advise the King to let his third son leave court for the dweomer. Soon, he knew, he would have to tell his mother the truth.

A stone wall with iron-bound gates ringed the bottom of the royal hill. Beyond was a grassy parkland, where white, red-eared cattle grazed along with the royal horses. Near the crest stood a second ring of walls, sheltering a village within the city—the royal compound, the huts for servants, sheds, stables, barracks, and the like. In the middle of this clutter and bustle rose the great broch of the Wyvern clan.

The main building was a six-story tower; around it clustered three two-story half towers like chicks nestling around a hen. In case of fighting, the broch would become a slaughterhouse for the baffled enemy, because the only way into the half towers lay through the main one. Besides the King and his family, the broch complex housed all the noble-born retainers of the court in a virtual rabbit warren of corridors and small wedge-shaped chambers, where constant intrigues and scheming over power and the King’s favor were a way of life not only for the retainers, but for the various princes and their wives. Getting out of that broch had always been the consummate goal of Galrion’s life.

As befitted a prince, Galrion had a suite of rooms on the second floor of the main tower. His reception chamber took up a generous wedge of the round floor plan, with a high, beamed ceiling, a stone hearth, and a polished wooden floor. On the wood-paneled walls hung fine tapestries from the far-off land of Bardek, gifts from various traders who hoped that the prince would speak of them to the King. Since he was honorable in his bribe taking, Galrion always dutifully spoke. The chamber was richly furnished with carved chests, a cushioned chair, and a table, where stood, between bronze wyverns, his greatest treasure: seven books. When Galrion had first learned to read, the King was furious, raging that letters were no fit thing for a man, but in his usual stubborn way, Galrion had persevered until now, after some four years of study, he could read almost as well as a scribe.

To avoid the bustle and clamor of the formal dinner in the great hall, Galrion dined privately in his chamber that night. He did, however, receive a guest after the meal to share a silver goblet of mead: Gwerbret Madoc of Glasloc, in whose jurisdiction lay the lands of the Falcon and the Boar. Although below members of the royal family, of course, the rank of gwerbret was the highest in the kingdom, and the title went back to ancient times. In the Gaulish homeland, the Dawntime tribes elected magistrates called vergobreti to administer their laws and to speak for the wartime assemblies. Generally the vergobreti were chosen from the noble-born, and at about the time that word became gwerbret in their new land of Deverry, the position began to pass from father to son. Since a man who made judgments and distributed booty was in a good position to build up his power, in time the gwerbrets became great, wealthy, and in possession of small armies to enforce their legal rulings on the tieryns and lords beneath them. One last remnant of the Dawntime survived, however, in the council of electors who, if a gwerbret’s line died out, would choose the noble clan to succeed it.

Thus, every gwerbret in the kingdom was a force to be reckoned with, and Galrion fussed over Madoc as if he were a prince himself, offering him the cushioned chair, pouring him mead with his own hands, and sending the page away so that they could speak privately. The object of these attentions merely smiled benignly. A solid man with a thick streak of gray in his raven-dark hair, Madoc cared more for fine horses than honors and for a good battle more than rank. That night he was in a jesting mood, pledging the prince with his goblet of mead in mock solemnity.

“To your wedding, my prince!” Madoc said. “For a man who doesn’t say much, you’re a sly one. Fancy you nipping in and getting the most beautiful lass in the kingdom.”

“I was rather surprised she accepted me. No one could ever call me the most beautiful lad.”

“Oh, don’t give yourself short value. Brangwen sees beyond a lad’s face, which is more than many a lass does.” Madoc had a swallow of mead, long enough to burn an ordinary drinkers throat. “I don’t mind saying that every man in the kingdom is going to envy you your wedding night. Or have you already claimed your rights as her betrothed?”

“I haven’t. I had no desire to set her brother against me just for one night in her bed.”

Although Galrion was merely speaking casually, Madoc turned troubled, watching him over the rim of his goblet.

“Well?” Galrion went on. “How do you think Gerraent would have taken it, if I’d bedded his sister under his roof?”

“He’s a strange lad.” Madoc looked idly away. “He’s been out there alone on the edge of that cursed forest too much, but he’s a good lad withal. I rode with him in that last rebellion against your father. By the hell ice itself, our Gerro can fight. I’ve never seen a man swing a sword as well as he does, and that’s not idle praise, my prince, but my considered judgment.”

“Then coming from you, that’s high praise indeed.”

Madoc nodded absently and had another sip of mead. When he spoke again, it was to change the subject to the legal doings of his gwerbretrhyn—and he kept it there.

It was late, and Madoc long gone, when a page came with a summons from the King. Since the King scorned luxury as unfit for a fighting man, even a regal one, his large chamber was perfectly plain, with the torches in their iron sconces the only decoration on the stone walls. Near the hearth, where a small fire burned to ward off the spring chill, King Adoryc was sitting on a plain wooden chair, with Ylaena beside him on a footstool. When Galrion came in, the King stood up, setting his hands on his hips. Adoryc the Second was a massive man, broad shouldered, tall, with a bull’s neck and a perpetually ruddy face. His gray hair and thick mustache were still touched with blond.

“So, you young cub! I’ve got somewhat to say to you.”

“Indeed, my liege?”

“Indeed. What by all the hells have you been doing out in the forest with that daft old man?”

Caught off guard, Galrion could only stare at him.

“Don’t you think I have you followed?” Adoryc went on. “You may be fool enough to ride alone, but I’m not fool enough to let you.”

“Curse your very soul!” Galrion snapped. “Spying on me.”

“Listen to your insolent little hound!” Adoryc glanced at Ylaena. “Cursing his own father. But answer me, lad. What have you been doing? The village folk tell my men that this Rhegor’s a daft old herbman. I can get you an apothecary if the prince has royal boils or suchlike.”

Galrion knew that the moment had come for truth, even though he had never been less willing to tell it in his life.

“He earns his living with his herbs, sure enough, but he’s a dweomermaster.”

Ylaena caught her breath in an audible gasp.

“Horsedung!” Adoryc snarled. “Do you truly think I’ll believe such babble? I want to know what you’re doing, spending so much time with him when you tell me you’re at the Falcon dun.”

“Studying with him. Why shouldn’t a prince study the dweomer?”

“Ah, ye gods!” Ylaena burst out. “I’ve always known you’d leave me for that!”

Adoryc turned to stare his wife into silence.

“Why not?” the King said. “Why not? Because I forbid it.”

“Oh, here, you just called it horsedung. Why are you raging now?”

Swinging too fast to be dodged, Adoryc slapped him hard across the face. When Ylaena cried out, Adoryc turned on her.

“Get out of here, woman! Now.”

Ylaena fled through the curtained archway that led to the women’s hall. Adoryc drew his dagger, then stabbed it into the back of a chair so hard that when he took his hand away, the dagger quivered for a moment. Galrion held his ground and stared steadily at him.

“I want a vow out of you,” Adoryc said. “A solemn vow that you’ll never touch this nonsense again.”

“Never could I lie to my own father. So I can’t swear it.”

Adoryc slapped him backhanded.

“By the names of the gods, Father! What do you hold so much against it?”

“What any man would hold. Whose stomach wouldn’t turn at somewhat unclean?”

“It’s not unclean. That’s a tale the priests make up to frighten women away from witchcraft.”

The barb hit its mark. Adoryc made a visible effort to be calm.

“I can’t give it up,” Galrion went on. “It’s too late. I know too much already for it to let me rest.”

When Adoryc took a sharp step back, Galrion finally realized that his father was afraid, and him a man who would ride straight into a hopeless battle and take no quarter from man or god.

“Just what do you know?” the King whispered.

Galrion had Rhegor’s permission to display one small trick to persuade his father. He raised his hand and imagined that it was glowing with blue fire. Only when the image lived no matter where he turned his mind did he call upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr, who rushed to do his bidding and bring the blue light through to the physical plane, where it flared up and raged round his fingers. Adoryc flung himself back, his arm over his face as if to ward a blow.

“Stop it!” Adoryc bellowed out. “I say stop it!”

Galrion forced the fire away just as the King’s guard flung open the door and rushed into the chamber with drawn swords. Adoryc pulled himself together with a will almost as strong as his son’s.

“You can all go.” Adoryc smiled impartially all round. “My thanks, but I’m only arguing with the stubbornest whelp in the litter.”

The captain of the guard bowed, glancing Galrion’s way with a wink. As soon as the men were gone and the door shut, Adoryc pulled the dagger free of the chair back.

“I’m half minded to slit your throat and put a clean end to this,” Adoryc remarked, in a casual tone of voice. “Don’t you ever do that round me again.”

“I won’t, then, but it makes a handy thing on a dark night when you’ve dropped your torch.”

“Hold your tongue!” Adoryc clutched the dagger tight. “To think a son of mine—and as cold as ice about it!”

“But ye gods, Father, can’t you see? It’s too late to go back. I want to leave the court and study. There’s no other road open to me.”

Adoryc held the dagger so that the blade caught the torchlight.

“Get out,” Adoryc whispered. “Get out of my presence before I do a dishonorable thing.”

Galrion turned and walked slowly toward the door. The flesh on his back prickled. Once he was safely out, Galrion allowed himself one long sigh of relief that the dagger was still in his father’s hand, not in his back.

On the morrow, Galrion went early in search of his mother only to find her talking urgently with her serving women. To pass the time until he could speak with her, he decided to go for a walk through the parkland. As he walked down the hill to the first gate, he was thinking that it should have come as no surprise that the King would fear a prince with dweomer—Adoryc feared every possible rival to his throne. If Galrion had been a schemer, there was no doubt that magic would have given him a powerful edge. At the gate, two guards stepped forward and blocked his path.

“My humble apologies, my prince. The King’s given orders that you not be allowed to pass by.”

“Oh, has he, now? And would you raise your hand to stop me?”

“My apologies, my prince.” The guard licked nervous lips. “But at the King’s orders, I would.”

Galrion stalked back to the broch, determined to have it out with his father over this insult no matter what it cost him. As he strode down the corridors, servants scattered in front of him like frightened birds. Galrion slammed into the council chamber, knocked aside a page who tried to stop him, and found the King standing by the window and talking with a dusty, travel-stained lad kneeling at his feet.

“Well and good,” Adoryc was saying. “Tomorrow you can take back the message of condolences to Lord Gerraent. Our heart sorrows for the Falcon.”

Only then did Galrion recognize one of the pages from the Falcon dun. Ah, ye gods, he thought, Dwen is dead! All at once, he felt his subtle plans slipping away from him, just as when a child builds a tower out of bits of wood only to see it tumble down at the first breath of wind.

“And here is the prince,” Adoryc said. “Does your lord have any message of import for him?”

“He does, Your Highness. My prince, Lord Gerraent has set the period of mourning until the turning of the fall. He humbly begs your understanding on this matter.”

“He has it, truly. Come to me before you return to the Falcon. I’ll give you a message for my lady.”

Adoryc dismissed the page in the care of another. Once they were alone, the King dropped his false civility.

“So. You seem to know what’s going on well enough. Did your foul dweomer show you Dwen’s death?”

“It did, but I never thought it would come so soon.”

The King’s face first paled, then went scarlet, but Galrion got his thrust in first.

“Why have you told the guards to keep me in?”

“Why do you think? I’m not having you ride out of here on the sly to your cursed old hermit. Here, this evil news of Lord Dwen made me remember your betrothed. What were you planning on doing? Marrying her and taking her to a hut in the forest while you dabble about with spells?”

“Just that, if she’ll go.”

“You stinking dog!” Adoryc’s mouth moved, seeking insults. “You arrogant little—”

“Oh, here, where do I get my arrogance but from you? Why shouldn’t a woman follow where her man wills to go?”

“No reason in the world—unless she’s the noble-born daughter of a great clan.” Adoryc stepped closer. “You ugly little dolt, haven’t you thought of the insult to the Falcon? Gerraent’s uncle died for the sake of our throne, and now you dare to treat their kin this way! Do you want to drive them to rebellion?” He gave Galrion a backhanded slap. “Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see you until you’ve gotten sense into your head.”

Galrion stalked back to his chamber, slammed the door behind him, and flung himself down into his chair to think. There was nothing for it now but to break his betrothal—but the King would never allow that insult to the Falcon, either. I could slip away somehow, Galrion thought, climb the walls at night and be in the forest before they catch me—and break Gwennie’s heart by deserting her without even a message to explain. He had the horrible feeling that Rhegor was going to be displeased by the way he was handling things. With the period of mourning, you’ve got time, he told himself. At the thought, the dweomer-warning flared up so strongly that he shivered. For some reason that the dweomer couldn’t tell him, there was no time at all. Galrion got up and paced over to the window. When he looked down, he saw two armed guards standing at the foot of the broch directly below his window. Galrion rushed to his door and flung it open to find four more guards in the corridor. The captain managed to give him a sickly smile.

“My apologies, my prince. The King orders that you remain in your chamber. We’re only allowed to let your page through.”

Galrion slammed the door and returned to his chair. He wondered how long the King would make him wait before summoning him.

Four days, it turned out, four tedious days with no company but his books and his page, who brought him food and took away the leavings silently, furtively, because servants of an out-of-favor master often met ill ends at court. Every now and then, Galrion would open the door and chat with the guards, who were friendly enough, being as their place was secure no matter what happened to the prince. Once Galrion sent a message to the Queen and begged her to come see him. The answer came back that she didn’t dare.

Finally, on the fourth night, the guards announced that they were taking him to the King. When they marched Galrion into the royal chamber, Adoryc dismissed them. There was no sign of Ylaena.

“Very well. Have you had enough time to think about swearing me that vow? Leave this dweomer nonsense behind, and everything will be as it was before.”

“Father, believe me—I have no choice but to say you nay. I can’t leave the dweomer because it won’t leave me. It’s not like breaking your sword and retiring to the temple.”

“So—you’ve got plenty of fancy words to justify disobeying the King, do you? For your mother’s sake, I’ll give you one last chance. We’ll see what Brangwen can do to talk you round.”

“Are you going to pen me like a hog till autumn?”

“I’m sending for her to come to court. Curse the mourning! I’m sending a speeded courier to Lord Gerraent tomorrow. My apologies will go with him, but I want them both here as fast as they can ride. I’m going to tell Lady Brangwen what her dolt of a betrothed is planning on doing, and I’ll order her to talk you round.”

“And if she can’t?”

“Then neither of you will ever leave the palace. Ever.”

Galrion nearly wept. Never leave—never ride through his beloved forest again—never see the snow hanging thick on leafless branch nor a river in spate—never? And Brangwen, too, would be shut up as a prisoner for years, all for her husband’s fault. Then, only then, when it seemed too late for them both, did he realize that he truly loved her, not just her god-cursed beauty, but her.

That night Galrion had no hope of sleep. He paced back and forth in his chambers, his mind a confused babble of dread, remorse, and futile schemes of escape. It would take a hard-riding courier three days to reach the Falcon, then another five for Brangwen and Gerraent to reach Dun Deverry. I’ll have to meet them on the road, he thought, if I can get out—out of the best-guarded fortress in the kingdom. His dweomer could never help him. He was the merest apprentice, with only an apprentice’s feeble tricks at his disposal. A little knowledge, a few wretched herbs, Galrion reproached himself. You’re no better than a woman dabbling in witchcraft! All at once, his plan came to him, and he laughed aloud. But he would need help. As much as he hated to put her at risk, he had no one to turn to but the Queen.

In the morning, Galrion sent his page to Ylaena with the urgent message that she come see him. She sent back the answer that she would try, but it depended on the King’s whim. For three days Galrion waited, counting in his mind every mile that the King’s courier was riding, closer and closer to the Falcon keep. Finally, he sent the page with a pair of torn brigga and the request that his mother’s servants mend them. Such an errand would allay the King’s suspicions, if indeed he ever heard of anything so trivial. The ruse worked. On the next morning, the Queen herself brought the mended brigga back, slipping into his room like a servant lass.

“Mother,” Galrion said. “Do you know the King’s plan?”

“I do, and I weep for little Brangwen as much as you.”

“Weep for her more, because I’m unworthy of her. Here, will you help me for her sake? All I ask is this. If I give you some clothes to mend, will you take them and have your maids leave them out in the women’s hall tonight? Tell them to put them on the table by the door.”

“I will.” Ylaena shuddered lightly. “I don’t dare know more.”

After the noon meal, when the guards were bound to be bored with their light duty, Galrion opened his door for a chat. His luck was with him—they were sitting on the floor and playing dice for coppers.

“Can I join you? If I sit on this side of the doorway, we won’t be breaking the King’s orders.”

Obligingly the guards moved their game closer. Normally Galrion never wagered on the dice, simply because his dweomer sight would always tell him which way they would fall. Now, to get sympathy from his guards, he used the sight to place his bets so that he lost.

“By every god and his wife,” the captain said finally. “Your luck is bad today, my prince.”

“How could it be otherwise? It’s been against me for weeks now. If you’ve ever envied the prince, let this be a lesson for you. It’s a hard thing to fall from your own father’s favor.”

The captain nodded in melancholy agreement.

“I don’t mind telling you, my prince, that I think I’d go daft, shut up like you are.”

“I’m close to it, and the nights are more wearisome than the days, because I can’t sleep. Oh, here, I know the King’s orders allow you to bring me things. Would that hold true of a woman?”

“I don’t see why not.” The captain shared a grin with his men. “Is there one of your mother’s maids you fancy?”

“Do you know Mae, the golden-haired lass? She’s taken a tumble with me before this.”

“Well and good, then. We’ll do our best to smuggle her in tonight, when things are all quietlike.”

At the dinner hour, Galrion had his page bring him a flagon of mead and two goblets. He dug down into a chest and found his packets of dried herbs. Rhegor was teaching him simple herbcraft, and he’d brought his student work home mostly as a pleasant reminder of his days in the forest. Now he had a real need for that packet of valerian, the most potent soporific in an herbman’s stock. He ground up only a spare dose. He had no desire to make Mae ill with too much, and besides, the musty, thick taste of the herb could give his whole game away.

Toward midnight, Galrion heard Mae giggling in the corridor and the captain telling her to hush. He opened the door and saw that she was wearing a cloak with the hood up to hide her face, exactly as he’d hoped.

“Greetings, my sweet. How kind you are to a dishonored man.”

When Mae giggled, Galrion clapped his hand over her mouth in pretend alarm.

“Keep her quiet when you take her back, will you?” Galrion said to the captain.

“Hear that, lass?” the captain said. “Not one word out of you on the way back.”

Mae nodded, her big blue eyes as solemn as a child’s when it’s been let into a secret. Galrion ushered her inside and barred the door behind them. Mae took off her cloak, revealing a loose, flowing dress—loose enough, Galrion thought, to fit his shoulders nicely. He’d chosen her deliberately because she was tall for a lass.

“I’ve had the page bring us mead. Sit and drink with me awhile.”

“You’re always so gallant, my prince. It aches my heart to see you out of favor.”

“My thanks. And what about my marriage? Does that ache your heart, too?”

Mae merely shrugged and followed him into the bedchamber. Galrion handed her the drugged goblet, then took a sip from his own, a gesture that automatically made her sip hers. They sat down together on the edge of the bed.

“Ah, well, we’ve had our good times, and a prince marries where the kingdom needs him to.” Mae grinned, winking. “I only hope your new wife never hears of me.”

“Oh, here—you must have a new man to be so agreeable.”

Mae had another long swallow of the mead and winked again.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but no one will find out where I’ve been tonight, and so what if he does? He won’t be arguing with the prince, I’ll wager, even if you are out of favor for now.” She had still another sip. “These bad times will pass, my prince. Your mothers ever so upset, but she’ll talk the King round.”

“So I hope.”

Mae yawned, shaking her head, then had a sip of mead.

“This mead tastes so sweet,” she said. “It’s awfully good.”

“Only the best for you. Drink that up, and we’ll have a bit more.”

A bit more proved unnecessary. By the time she had finished that first goblet, Mae was yawning, shutting her eyes, then forcing them open. When she leaned over to set the goblet on the table beside the bed, she dropped it. Galrion grabbed her just as she fell forward into his arms.

Galrion undressed her, tucked her up comfortably into his bed, then got out the packet of herbs and left it by her goblet to make it clear that she’d been drugged, an unwilling accomplice. He paced restlessly round, letting enough time lapse to satisfy the guards. When he could bear to wait no longer, he changed into her clothes, drew the hood of the cloak around his face, and slipped out into the hall. Suspecting nothing, the guards gave him a leer and a wink, then escorted him along the dark corridors. At the door of the women’s hall, the captain gave him a friendly pat on the behind, told him that he was a good lass, and gallantly opened the door for him.

Dim moonlight filtered through the windows of the silent room. Galrion found the table, his clothes, and a dagger in a sheath, left under his brigga. Thanking his mother in his heart, he changed into his clothes and settled the dagger inside his shirt. When he looked out, the ward below lay empty. Carefully he edged out onto the window ledge, turned precariously, and started down the rough stonework. Praying that no one would walk by, he clambered down, his hands aching and bleeding on the stone, until at last he reached the ward.

Galrion ran from hut to hut and shed to shed until he reached the stables. Abutting directly on the wall was a storage shed that he could climb easily. He swung from the roof to the wall, then crawled on his stomach until he reached a place where an oak grew on the far side. He swung into the branches, climbed down, then lingered in the safe shadows. He could see down the long slope of parkland to the outer ring, where, against the starry sky moved the dark shapes of the night guards, patrolling the ramparts. The most dangerous part of the escape lay ahead.

Galrion circled the inner ring until he could see the road leading down to the outer gates. He crawled downhill in the long grass until he was out of sight of the guard at the inner gates, then stood up and boldly walked down the road. When he came close to the guard station, he broke into a run.

“Here!” Galrion made his voice as high and unsteady as a lad’s. “Open up! An errand for the cook.”

“Hold, lad.” A guard stepped forward to peer at him in the darkness. “That’s a likely tale.”

“Nerdda’s having her child,” Galrion said. “And it’s bad. The midwife needs the apothecary. Please hurry.”

“That’s the kitchen wench,” another guard called out. “She’s been heavy for weeks now.”

Hardly daring to believe in his success, Galrion raced through the postern gate and kept running until he was well into the silent city. He crouched among some empty ale barrels behind a tavern and caught his breath while he considered his next move. Not the best trick in the world would get him past the guards at the city gates, but the river flowed through the arches in the walls without asking anyone’s permission. Cautiously he stood up and began slipping through the alleys behind the buildings. He was halfway to the river when he heard footsteps behind him. He flung himself into a doorway and crouched in the shadows as a pair of drunken riders from the King’s warband staggered past. They weren’t more than two yards beyond him when one of them burst out singing at the top of his lungs. Galrion cursed him and prayed that the city guards wouldn’t come running to deal with the nuisance.

At last the riders were gone, and the street silent again. With a constant eye out for trouble, Galrion made his way down to the riverbank and waded out to the deep part of the channel. As he let the current take him, he saw, far above, guards pacing back and forth on the city wall. Closer, closer—the river was sweeping him along fast to the point where they might look down and see him. He held his breath and plunged deep. In the murky water it was hard to see, but he thought he saw the darker stone of the arches sweep by him. His lungs ached, began to burn like fire, but he forced himself to stay down until the desperate pain drove him, panting and gasping, to the surface. He swung himself over on his back like a seal and barely swam while he breathed in the blessed air. The guards and city both lay far behind him, and no one else was out on the riverbank.

Galrion made his way to the bank and crawled out under a copse of willow trees. Free, he thought. Now all I’ve got to do is get to Brangwen. Galrion wrung the worst of the water out of his clothes and put them back on damp. The sky told him that he had about five hours till dawn. His page wouldn’t find Mae for about another hour after that, and there was bound to be another hour’s confusion before the King’s warband rode out to hunt him down. It wasn’t much of a lead, but if he could only reach the wild forest, they would never find him. He knew the tracks through it, while the riders would be blundering around, making too much noise to surprise any kind of game.

Galrion set off across the meadows to the neighboring farms and the horse he had in mind to steal. It was an easy theft; he’d often ridden this way and stopped to admire the sleek bay gelding, who remembered his kind words and pats. When Galrion approached, the bay came right up and let him take its halter. Since there was no lead rein and no time to steal one, Galrion tore a strip of cloth off the bottom of his shirt and prayed that it would hold. The bay was well trained, responding to the touch of this improvised rein along its neck. Galrion set off at a gallop down the east-running road. If the King’s messenger wasn’t already with Gerraent, he would reach the Falcon on the morrow.

After a few minutes he slowed the bay to a walk to save its strength. Alternately walking and trotting in short bursts, they traveled all night and reached, just at dawn, the border of the King’s personal demesne. Galrion turned south, heading for the wild heath to avoid the well-traveled road. On this roundabout route, it would take longer to reach the forest, but he had no choice. By noon, the horse was weary and stumbling under him. Galrion dismounted and led it along until they came to an unkempt woodland on the edge of pasture land. He found a stream and let the bay drink. It was when the bay began grazing on the grassy bank that Galrion realized he was starving. In his hurry, he’d forgotten to bring any coin, not so much as a copper. He could no longer ride up to a noble lord’s door and expect to be fed simply because he was a prince.

“I’m not quite as clever as I need to be,” he said to the horse. “Well, I wonder how you go about stealing food from farmers?”

The horse needed to rest, and Galrion was weaving with exhaustion. Letting the improvised halter rope trail for want of a proper tether, he left the horse to its grass, then sat down with his back to a tree. Although he told himself that he would rest only for one watch of the day, when he woke, it was late in the afternoon, and he heard voices nearby. He jumped to his feet and pulled the dagger out of his shirt.

“I don’t know whose it is,” a man was saying. “A stolen horse, from the look of this bit of cloth.”

Galrion crept through the trees and came upon a farmer and a young lad, who was holding the bay by the halter. When the horse saw Galrion, it nickered out a greeting. The farmer spun round, raising his heavy staff.

“You!” he called out. “Do you claim this horse?”

“I do.” Galrion stepped out of cover.

The lad started urging the horse out of the way, but he kept frightened eyes on his father and this dirty, dangerous stranger. When Galrion took a step forward, the farmer dropped to a fighting crouch. Galrion took another step, then another—all at once, the farmer laughed, dropped the staff, and knelt at the princes feet.

“By the sun and his rays, my liege,” the farmer said. “So you’re out of the palace. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“I’m out indeed. How do you know so much?”

“What’s better gossip than the doings of the King? Truly, my prince, the news of your disgrace is all over the marketplace. Everyone’s as sad as sad for your mother’s sake, her such a good woman and all.”

“She is at that. Will you help me for her sake? All I ask is a bit of rope for this halter and a meal.”

“Done, but I’ve got a bridle to spare.” The farmer rose, dusting dead leaves off his knees. “The King’s warband rode by on the east road today. The tailor’s daughter saw them when she went out to pick violets.”

The farmer was even better than his word. Not only did he give the prince the bridle and a hot dinner, but he insisted on packing a sack with loaves of bread, dried apples, and oats for the gelding—more food, no doubt, than he could truly spare. When Galrion left at nightfall, he was sure that the King’s men would hear nothing but lies from this loyal man.

It hardly mattered what the farmer would have told them, if indeed they did ride his way, because by mid-morning of the next day, Galrion led his weary horse into the virgin forest. He found water, gave the horse a meager ration of oats, then sat down to think. He was tempted simply to go to Rhegor and let Brangwen think what she liked about him, but he had the distinct feeling that Rhegor would be furious. For the first time in his pampered life, Galrion knew what it was to fail. He’d been a fool, dishonorable, plain and simply stupid—he cursed himself with every insult he could think of. Around him the forest stretched silent, dappled with sunlight, indifferent to him and his short-lived human worries.

Husbanding every scrap of food, scrounging what fodder he could for his horse, Galrion made his way east through the forest for two days. He stayed close to the road and tried to calculate where the Falcon’s party might be, because he’d made up his mind to intercept it. Late one afternoon, he risked coming out onto the road and riding up to the crest of a low hill. Far away, hanging over the road, was a faint pall of dust—horses coming. Hurriedly he pulled back into the forest and waited, but the Falcon’s party never rode past. With Brangwen and her maidservants along, they would be making early camps to spare the women’s strength. As it grew dark, Galrion led the bay through the forest and worked his way toward the camp. From the top of the next hill he saw it: not just Lord Gerraent and his retainers, but the King’s entire warband.

“May every god curse them,” Galrion whispered. “They knew she’d be the best bait to draw me.”

Galrion tied his horse securely in the woods, then ran across the road and began making his cautious way to the camp. Every snap of a twig under his foot made him freeze and wait. Halfway downhill, the trees thinned somewhat, giving him a good look at the sprawling, disorganized camp. In the clearing along the stream, horses were tethered; nearby, the warband was gathered round two fires. Off to one side among the trees stood a high-peaked canvas tent, doubtless for Brangwen’s privacy, away from the ill-mannered riders.

The true and dangerous question, of course, was where Gerraent might be. The firelight below shone too dim for Galrion to make out anyone’s face. He lay flat in the underbrush and watched until after about an hour a blond man came out of the tent and strolled over to one of the fires. No man but her brother would have been allowed in that tent in the first place. As soon as Gerraent was safely occupied with his dinner, Galrion got up, drawing his dagger, then circled through the underbrush, moving downhill and heading for the tent. The warband was laughing and talking, making blessed noise to cover his approach.

Galrion slit the tent down the back with his dagger, a rip of taut cloth. He heard someone moving inside.

“Galrion?” Brangwen whispered.

“It is.”

Galrion slipped back into cover. Wearing only her long nightdress, her golden hair loose over her shoulders, Brangwen crawled out the rip and crept to join him.

“I knew you’d come for me,” she whispered. “We’ve got to go right now.”

“Ah, ye gods! Will you come with me?”

“Did you ever doubt it? I’d follow you anywhere. I don’t care what you’ve done.”

“But you don’t even have a scrap of extra clothing.”

“Do you think that matters to me?”

Galrion felt as if he’d never truly looked at her before: his poor weak child, grinning like a berserker at the thought of riding away with an exile.

“Forgive me,” Galrion said. “Come along—I’ve got a horse.”

Then Galrion heard the sound, the softest crack of a branch.

“Run!” Brangwen screamed.

Galrion swirled round—too late. The guards sprang out of the trees and circled him like a cornered stag. Galrion dropped to a fighting crouch, raised the dagger, and promised himself he’d get one of them before he died. A man shoved his way through the pack of guards.

“That’ll do you no good, lad,” Adoryc said.

Galrion straightened up—he could never kill his own father. When he threw the dagger onto the ground at Adoryc’s feet, the King stooped and retrieved it, his smile as cold as the winter wind. Galrion heard Brangwen behind him, weeping in long sobs, and Gerraent’s voice murmuring as he tried to comfort her.

“Nothing like a bitch to bring a dog to heel,” Adoryc remarked. “Bring him round to the fire. I want to look at this cub of mine.”

The guards marched Galrion round the tent and over to the bigger campfire, where the King took up his stance, feet spread apart, hands on hips. When someone brought Brangwen a cloak, she wrapped it round her and stared hopelessly at Galrion. Gerraent laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and drew her close.

“So, you little whelp,” Adoryc said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Naught, Father. I’ll only ask you for a single boon.”

“What makes you think you have the right to ask for any?” Adoryc drew his own dagger and began to fiddle with it as he talked.

“No right at all, but I’m asking for my lady’s sake. Send her away out of sight before you kill me.”

“Fair enough. Granted.”

Brangwen screamed, shoved Gerraent so hard that he stumbled, and ran forward to throw herself at the King’s feet.

“Please, please,” Brangwen went on. “For the sake of his mother, I beg you. If you must have blood, take mine.”

Brangwen clutched the hem of the King’s shirt and turned her throat up to him. She was so beautiful, with her hair streaming down her shoulders, with tears running down her perfect face, that even the King’s riders sighed aloud in pity for her.

“Ah, ye gods,” Adoryc said. “Do you love this lout as much as that?”

“I do. I’d go with him anywhere, even to the Otherlands.”

Adoryc glanced at the dagger, then sheathed it with a sigh.

“Gerraent!” the King bellowed.

Gerraent came forward, took Brangwen by the shoulders, and tried to lead her away, but she shook him off. Galrion was so sick he could barely stand. He was unworthy of her, or so he saw it, and this second failure shattered him.

“Well, by the hells,” Adoryc said mildly. “If I can’t slit your throat, Galrion, how am I going to solve this little matter?”

“You could let me and my lady go into exile. It would spare us all much trouble.”

“You little bastard!” Adoryc stepped forward and slapped him across the face. “How dare you!”

Galrion staggered from the force of the blow, but he held his ground.

“Do you want me to tell everyone else what this quarrel between us is all about? Do you, Father? I will.”

Adoryc went as still as a hunted animal.

“Or shall I just accept exile?” Galrion went on. “And no man need know the cause of it.”

“You bastard.” Adoryc whispered so low that Galrion could barely hear him. “Or truly, not a bastard, because of all my sons, you’re the one most like me.” Then he raised his voice. “The cause need not be known, but we hereby do pronounce our son, Galrion, as stripped of all his rank and honor, as turned out of our presence and our demesne, forever and beyond forever. We forbid him our lands, we forbid him the shelter of those sworn to us as loyal vassals, all on pain of death.” He paused to laugh under his breath. “And we hereby strip him of the name we gave him at his miserable birth. We proclaim his new name as Nevyn. Do you hear me, lad? Nevyn—no one—nobody at all—that’s your new name.”

“Done! I’ll bear it proudly.”

Brangwen shook herself free of Gerraent’s arm. She smiled as proudly as the princess she might have been as she started over to her banished man. Galrion held out his hand to her.

“Hold!” Gerraent forced himself between them. “My liege, my King, what is this? Am I to marry my only sister to an exile?”

“She’s my betrothed already,” Galrion snapped. “Your father pledged her, not you.”

“Hold your tongue, Nevyn!” Adoryc slapped him across the face. “My lord Gerraent, you have our leave to speak.”

“My liege.” As he knelt before the King, Gerraent was shaking. “Truly, my father pledged her, and as his son, all I can do is honor the pledge. But my father betrothed her to a good life, one of comfort and honor. He loved his daughter. What will she have now?”

As Adoryc considered, Galrion felt the dweomer-warning like ice, shuddering down his back. He stepped forward.

“Father!”

“Never call me that again.” Adoryc motioned to the guards. “Keep our no one here quiet.”

Before Galrion could dodge, two men grabbed him and twisted his arms behind him. One of them clapped a firm hand over his mouth. Brangwen stood frozen, her face so pale that Galrion was afraid she would faint.

“I beg you, my liege,” Gerraent went on. “If I allow this marriage, what kind of a brother am I? How can I claim to be head of my clan if I have so little honor? My liege, if ever the Falcon has paid you any service, I beg you—don’t let this happen.”

“Done, then,” Adoryc said. “We hereby release you from your fathers pledge.”

“Gerro!” Brangwen sobbed out. “You can’t! I want to go, Gerro, let me go.”

“Hush.” Gerraent rose, turning and sweeping her into his arms. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what kind of life you’ll have, wandering the roads like beggars.”

“I don’t care.” Brangwen tried to struggle free. “Gerro, Gerro, how can you do this to me? Let me go.”

Gerraent weakened; then he tossed his head.

“I won’t! I won’t have you die in childbirth someday, just because your man doesn’t have the price of a midwife, or starve some winter on the road. I’d die myself first.”

It was touching, perfectly said, but Galrion knew that Gerraent was lying, that all those fine words were cruel, deadly poisoned lies. The dweomer was making him tremble and choke. He bit his guard in the hand, but all he got for his effort was a blow on the head that made the world dance.

“You’re wrong, Gerro!” Brangwen struggled like a wild creature. “I know you’re wrong. I want to go with him.”

“Right or wrong, I’m the Falcon now, and you’re not disobeying me.”

Brangwen made one last wrench, but he was too strong for her. As he dragged her away bodily, she wept, sobbing hysterically and helplessly as Gerraent shoved her into her tent. Adoryc motioned to the guards to let Galrion go.

“Get this Nevyn out of my sight forever.” The King handed Galrion his dagger. “Here’s the one weapon allowed to a banished man. You must have a horse, or you wouldn’t be here.” He took the pouch at his side and drew out a coin. “And here’s the silver of a banished man.” He pressed the coin into Galrion’s hand.

Galrion glanced at it, then flung it into his father’s face.

“I’d rather starve.”

As the guards fell back in front of him, Galrion strode out of the camp. At the top of the rise he turned for a last look at Brangwen’s tent. Then he broke into a run, crashing through the underbrush, running across the road, and tripping at last to fall on his knees near the bay gelding. He wept, but for Brangwen’s sake, not his own.

II

The women’s hall was sunny, and through the windows, Brangwen could see apple trees, so white with perfumed blossoms that it seemed clouds were caught in the branches. Nearby, Rodda and Ysolla were talking as they worked at their sewing, but Brangwen let her work lie in her lap. She wanted to weep, but it was so tedious to weep all the time. She prayed that Prince Galrion might be well and wondered where he was riding on his lonely road of exile.

“Gwennie?” Lady Rodda said. “Shall we walk in the meadows this afternoon?”

“If you wish, my lady.”

“Well, if you’d rather, Gwennie,” Ysolla put in, “we could go riding.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Here, child,” Rodda said. “Truly, it’s time you got over this brooding. Your brother did what was best for you.”

“If my lady says so.”

“It would have been ghastly,” Ysolla broke in. “Riding behind a banished man? How can you even think of it! It’s the shame. No one would even take you in.”

“It would have been their loss, not ours.”

Rodda sighed and ran her needle into her embroidery.

“And what about when he got you with child?”

“Galrion never would have let our child starve. You don’t understand. I should have gone with him. It would have been all right. I just know it would have been.”

“Now, Gwennie, lamb, you’re just not thinking clearly,” Rodda said.

“As clearly as I need to,” Brangwen snapped. “Oh! My pardons, my lady. But you don’t understand. I know I should have gone.”

Both her friends stared, eyes narrow in honest concern. They think I’m daft, Brangwen thought, and maybe I am, but I know it!

“Well, there are a lot of men in the kingdom,” Ysolla said, in an obvious attempt to be helpful. “I’ll wager you won’t have any trouble getting another one. I’ll wager he’ll be better than Galrion, too. He must have done something awful to get himself exiled.”

“At court a man has to do very little to get himself out of favor,” Rodda said. “There are plenty of others to do it for him. Now, here, lamb, I won’t have Galrion spoken ill of in my hall. He may have failed, but truly, Gwennie, he tried to spare you this. He let me know that he saw trouble coming, and he was hoping he’d have time to release you from the betrothal before the blow fell.” She shook her head sadly. “The King is a very stubborn man.”

“I can’t believe that,” Brangwen snapped. “He never would have cast me off to my shame. I know he loves me. I don’t care what you say.”

“Of course he loved you, child,” Rodda said patiently. “That’s what I’ve just been saying. He wanted to release you in such a way as to spare you the slightest hint of shame. When he failed, he planned to take you with him.”

“If it weren’t for Gerro,” Brangwen said.

Rodda and Ysolla glanced at each other, their eyes meeting in silent conference. This argument had come full circle again, in its tediously predictable way. Brangwen looked out the window at the apple trees and wondered why everything in life seemed tedious.

Brangwen and Gerraent were visiting at the Boar’s dun for a few days, and Brangwen knew that Gerraent had arranged the visit for her sake. That night at dinner, she watched her brother as he sat across the table and shared a trencher with Ysolla. He still has his betrothed, Brangwen thought bitterly. It would have been a wonderful release to hate him, but she knew that he had done only what he thought best for her, whether it truly was best or not. Her beloved brother. While their parents and uncles always doted on Gerraent, the precious son and heir, they had mostly ignored Brangwen, the unnecessary daughter. Gerraent himself, however, had loved her, played with her, helped care for her and led her round with him in a way that was surprising for a lad. She remembered him explaining how to straighten an arrow or build a toy dun with stones, and he was always dragging her out of danger—away from a fierce dog, away from the river’s edge, and now, away from a man he considered unworthy of her.

All through the meal, Gerraent would sometimes look up, catch her looking at him, and give her a timid smile. Eventually Brangwen could no longer bear the crowded hall and made her escape into the cool twilight of Rodda’s garden. Red as drops of blood, the roses bloomed thickly. She picked one, cradled it in her hand, and remembered Galrion telling her that she was his one true rose.

“My lady? Are you distressed about somewhat?”

It was Blaen, hurrying across the garden. Brangwen knew perfectly well that he was in love with her. Every soft look, every longing smile that he gave her stabbed her like a knife.

“How can I not be distressed, my lord?”

“Well, true spoken. But every dark time comes to an end.”

“My lord, I doubt if the dark will ever end for me.”

“Oh, here, things are never as bad as all that.”

As shy as a young lad, Blaen smiled at her. Brangwen wondered why she was even bothering to fight. Sooner or later, Gerraent would hand her over to his blood-sworn friend whether she wanted to marry him or not.

“My lord is very kind. I hardly know what I say these days.”

Blaen picked another rose and held it out. Rather than be rude, Brangwen took it.

“Let me be blunt, my lady,” Blaen said. “You must know that my heart aches to marry you, but I understand what you say about your dark time. Will you think of me this time next year, when these roses are blooming again? That’s all I ask of you.”

“I will, then, if we both live.”

Blaen looked up sharply, caught by her words, even though it was only an empty phrase, a pious acknowledgment that the gods are stronger than men. As Brangwen groped for something to say to dispel the chill round them, Gerraent came out into the garden.

“Making sure that I’m treating your sister honorably?” Blaen said with a grin.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’d always be honorable. I was just wondering what happened to Gwennie.”

Gerraent escorted her back to the women’s hall. Since Rodda and Ysolla were still at table, Brangwen allowed him to come in with her. He perched uneasily on the edge of the open window while a servant lit the candles in the sconces with a taper. After the servant left, they were alone, face to face with each other in the silent room. Restlessly Brangwen turned away and saw a moth fluttering dangerously close to a candle flame. She caught it softly in cupped hands and set it free at the window.

“You’ve got the softest heart in the world,” Gerraent said.

“Well, the poor things are too stupid to know better.”

Gerraent caught both her hands in his.

“Gwennie, do you hate me?”

“I could never hate you. Never.”

For a moment Brangwen thought that he would weep.

“I know that marriage means everything to a lass. But we’ll find you a better man than an exile. Has Blaen declared himself to you?”

“He has, but please, I can’t bear thinking of marrying anyone right now.”

“Gwennie, I’ll make you a solemn promise. Head of our clan or not, I’ll never make you marry until you truly want to.”

Brangwen threw her arms around his neck and wept against his shoulder. As he stroked her hair, she felt him trembling against her.

“Take me home, Gerro. Please, I want to go home.”

“Well, then, that’s what we’ll do.”

Yet once they were back in the Falcon dun, Brangwen bitterly regretted leaving Rodda and Ysolla’s company. Everything she saw at home reminded her either of her father or her prince, both irrevocably gone. Up in her bedchamber, she had a wooden box filled with courting gifts from Galrion—brooches, rings, and a silver goblet with her name inscribed on it. He would have had his name put next to hers once they were married. Although she couldn’t read, Brangwen would at times take out the goblet and weep as she traced the writing with her fingertip.

The dailiness of her life eventually drew her back from her despair. Brangwen had the servants to supervise, the chamberlain to consult, the household spinning and sewing to oversee and to take up herself. She and her serving woman, Ludda, spent long afternoons working on the household clothes and taking turns singing old songs and ballads to each other. Soon, as well, she had a new worry in Gerraent. Often she caught him weeping on their father’s grave, and in the evenings, he turned oddly silent. As he sat in his father’s chair—his chair, now—he drank steadily and watched the flames playing in the fireplace. Although Brangwen sat beside him out of sisterly duty, he rarely spoke more than two words at a time.

On a day when Gerraent was hunting, Gwerbret Madoc came for a visit with six men of his warband for an escort. As she curtsied to the gwerbret, Brangwen noticed the men staring at her—sly eyes, little half smiles, an undisguised lust that she had seen a thousand times on the faces of men. She hated them for it.

“Greetings, my lady,” Madoc said. “I’ve come to pay my respects to your father’s grave.”

After sending the servants to care for his men, Brangwen took Madoc into the hall and poured him ale with her own hands, then sat across from him at the honor table. Madoc pledged her with the tankard.

“My thanks, Brangwen. Truly, I wanted to see how you fared.”

“As well as I can, Your Grace.”

“And your brother?”

“He’s still mourning our father. I can only hope he’ll put his grief away soon.” Brangwen saw that he was truly worried, not merely being courteous, and his worry made her own flare. “Gerro hasn’t been himself of late. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Ah, I wondered. Well, here, you know that your brother and yourself are under my protection. If ever you need my aid, you send a page to me straightaway. That’s no idle courtesy, either. Sometimes when a man gets to brooding, he’s a bit much for his sister to handle, so send me a message, and I’ll ride by to cheer Gerro up a bit.”

“Oh, my thanks, truly, my thanks! That gladdens my heart, Your Grace.”

Soon Gerraent rode in from hunting, bringing a doe for the cook to clean and hang. Since the two men had important matters to discuss, Brangwen withdrew and went outside to look for Ludda. Out by the wall, Brythu was helping the cook dress the deer. They’d cut off the head and thrown it to the pack of dogs, who were growling and worrying it. Although she’d grown up seeing game cleaned, Brangwen felt sick. The velvet eyes looked up at her; then a dog dragged it away. Brangwen turned and ran back to the broch.

On the morrow, Madoc took leave of them early. As Brangwen and Gerraent were eating their noon meal, Gerraent told her a bit about His Grace’s talk. It looked as if there might be trouble out on the western border where a few clans still grumbled at the King’s rule.

“I’d hate to see you ride to another war so soon,” Brangwen said.

“Why?”

“You’re all I have in the world.”

Suddenly thoughtful, Gerraent nodded, then cut up a bit of the roast fowl on their trencher with his dagger. He picked up a tidbit and fed it to her with his fingers.

“Well, little sister. I try to be mindful of my duty to you.”

Although it was pleasantly said, Brangwen suddenly felt a cold chill down her back, as if something were trying to warn her of danger.

Yet when the danger finally came, she had no warning at all. On a sunny afternoon they rode out together into the wild meadowlands to the east, a vast stretch of rolling hills that neither the Falcon nor the Boar had men enough to till or defend. At a little stream they stopped to water their horses. When they were children, this stream had marked the limit of the land they were allowed to ride without an adult along. It was odd to think that now, when she could have ridden as far as she wanted, she had no desire to wander away from home. While Gerraent tended the horses, Brangwen sat down in the grass and looked for daisies, but she couldn’t bear to pluck those innocent symbols of a lass’s first love. She’d had her love and lost him, and she doubted if she’d ever find another—not merely a husband, but a love. Eventually Gerraent sat down beside her.

“Going to make a daisy chain?” he remarked.

“I’m not. It’s too late for things like that.”

Gerraent looked sharply away.

“Gwennie? There’s something I’d best ask you. It aches my heart to pry, but it’s going to matter someday if I have to bargain out your betrothal.”

Brangwen knew perfectly well what was on his mind.

“I didn’t bed him. Don’t trouble your heart over it for a minute.”

Gerraent smiled in such a fierce, gloating relief that all at once she saw him as the falcon, poised hovering on the wind, seemingly motionless although it fights to keep its place. Then he struck, catching her by the shoulders and kissing her before she could shove him away.

“Gerro!”

Although Brangwen tried to twist free, he was far too strong for her. He held her tight, kissed her, then pinned her down in the grass to give her a long greedy kiss that set her heart pounding only partly in fear. All at once, as silently as he’d caught her, he let her go and sat back on the grass with tears running down his face. Her shoulders ached from those greedy hands, her brother’s hands, as she sat up, watching him warily. Gerraent pulled his dagger and handed it to her hilt first.

“Take it and slit my throat. I’ll kneel here and let you do it.”

“Never.”

“Then I’ll do it myself. Go home. Get Ludda and ride to Madoc. By the time he rides back, I’ll be dead.”

Brangwen felt as if she were a bit of wire, being pulled between a jeweler’s tools until it’s as fine as a single hair. This last loss was too much to bear, her brother, her beloved brother, kneeling before her as a supplicant. If he did kill himself, no one would know the truth of it, thinking him mad over his mourning, not an unclean man who’d broken the laws of the gods. But she would know. And she would never see him again. The wire was being pulled tighter and tighter.

“Will you forgive me before I die?” Gerraent said.

She wanted to speak, but no words came. When he misread her silence, his eyes filled with tears.

“Done, then. It was too much to hope for.”

The wire broke. In a rush of tears, Brangwen flung herself against him.

“Gerro, Gerro, Gerro, you can’t die.”

Gerraent dropped the dagger and slowly, hesitantly, put his hands on her waist, as if to shove her away, then clasped her tight in his arms.

“Gerro, please, live for my sake.”

“How can I? What shall I do, live hating my blood-sworn friend if you marry Blaen? Every time you looked at me, I’d know you were remembering my fault.”

“But the clan! If you die, the clan dies with you. Ah, by the Goddess of the Moon, if you kill yourself, I might as well do the same. What else would be left for me?”

He held her a little ways away from him, and as they looked into each other’s eyes, she felt Death standing beside her, a palpable presence.

“Does my maidenhead mean so much to you?”

Gerraent shrugged, refusing to answer.

“Then you might as well take it. You wouldn’t force me for it, so I’ll give it to you.”

He stared at her like a drunken man. Brangwen wondered why he couldn’t see what was so clear to her: if they were doomed, they might as well live an hour longer in each other’s arms. She put her hands alongside his face and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands dug into her shoulders so tightly that it hurt, but she let him kiss her again. As his passion for her flared, it was frightening, wrapping her round, catching her up like a branch in a fire. When she let herself go limp in his arms, Brangwen felt more like a priestess in a rite than a lover. She felt nothing but the force of him, the solid weight of him, her mind so far away that she felt she was watching their love-making in a dream.

When they finished, he lay next to her and pillowed his head on her naked breasts, his mouth moving on her skin, a gentle, nuzzling kiss of gratitude. She ran her fingers through his hair and thought of the dagger lying ready for them. I never wanted to die a maid, she thought, and who better than Gerro? He raised his head and smiled at her, a soft drunken smile of pleasure and love.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Brangwen said.

“Why? Not yet, my love, not after this. There’ll be time enough later for the pair of us to die. I know we will, and the gods know it, too, and that’s enough for them. We’ll have our summer first.”

Brangwen looked up at the sky, a pure blue, glittering like a fiery reproach from the gods. Her hand groped for the dagger.

“Not yet!”

Gerraent caught her wrist, those heavy calloused hands circling it, mastering her, grabbing the dagger away. He sat up and threw it. It glittered through the air and plunged into the stream. Brangwen thought of protesting, but his beauty caught her, a cruel flaming beauty like the angry sun. He ran his hand down her body, then lay down beside her and kissed her. This time she felt her desire rise to match his, a bittersweet lust, born of despair.

When they rode home that evening, Brangwen was surprised that everyone treated them so normally and easily. She was expecting that everyone would see if not their dishonor then at least their coming death, as if death should cast a glow around them that could be seen for miles. But Brythu merely took their horses and bowed; the chamberlain came hurrying over to Gerraent with some tedious news from the village; Ludda met Brangwen and asked if she should set the kitchen maid to laying the table. The evening turned so normal that Brangwen wanted to scream.

After the meal, the servants settled in at their hearth and Gerraent, with a tankard in his hand, at his. The great hall was dark except for the crossed and battling glows from the two small fires. Brangwen watched her brother’s shadowed face and wondered if he was happy. She hardly knew what she felt. For the past year, she’d been readying herself for marriage, when she would swear an oath to her husband and bind herself under his will. Instead, she’d sworn a blood oath, giving up her will to a pledge of death. There was nothing left but to center herself on Gerraent, her first man, her brother, just as she’d planned to do with her prince. Until she let Gerraent slit her throat, she would serve him as her lord. The decision gave her a precarious peace, as if she had closed a door in her mind on the tragedy of the past. Galrion was gone, and all the promise he’d held out of a different kind of life.

“Gerro? What are you thinking about?”

“That rebellion. If there’s a war this summer, I won’t go, I promise you that—I’ll find a way out.”

Brangwen smiled, her heart bursting with love. He was making the biggest sacrifice a man like him could, giving up his glory to live with her in the summer and die with her in the fall.

Brangwen would have liked to have slept in his bed, as was her place, but it was of course far too risky with so many servants in the dun. If the priests in the village ever learned of their evil, they would come tear them apart. Often, over the next few weeks, they rode out together to lie down in the soft grass. Wrapped in his arms, Brangwen could think of Gerraent as her husband. Her calm continued, as fair as the weather, summer day after summer day slipping by, like water in a full stream, silent, smooth as glass, glistening. Nothing could disturb her calm, not even her occasional thought of Ysolla, whose betrothed she had taken away. At first, it seemed that Gerraent, too, was happy, but slowly his brooding and his rages returned.

Gerraent was growing more and more like their father, dark as a storm when he was idle, glowering into the fire and pacing restlessly around the ward. One evening, when Brythu brought him ale, the lad slipped and spilled it. Gerraent swung and slapped him so hard that the lad fell to his knees.

“You clumsy little bastard.”

As the lad cowered back, Gerraent’s hand went to his dagger almost of its own will. Brangwen threw herself in between them.

“Hold your hand, Gerro! You’ll be weeping with remorse not five minutes later if you hurt the lad.”

Sobbing, Brythu fled the hall. Brangwen saw the rest of the servants watching with pale faces and terrified eyes. She grabbed Gerraent by the shoulders and shook him hard.

“Oh, by the hells,” Gerraent said. “My thanks.”

Brangwen fetched him more ale herself, then went out to the stable, where, as she expected, she found Brythu weeping in the hay loft. She hung her candle lantern on a nail in the wall, then sat down and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was only twelve, a skinny little thing for his age.

“Here, here,” Brangwen said. “Let me have a look.”

Brythu wiped the tears away on his sleeve and turned his face up to her. An ugly red puff was swelling on his cheek, but his eye was unharmed.

“Lord Gerraent’s sorry already. He won’t do this again.”

“My thanks, my lady,” Brythu stammered. “What’s so wrong with Lord Gerraent these days?”

“He’s half mad from mourning his father, that’s all.”

Brythu considered, touching the swelling on his cheek.

“He would have killed me if it wasn’t for you. If ever you want me to do anything for you, I swear I will.”

Late that night, when everyone was asleep, Brangwen crept out of her chamber and went to Gerraent, who was sleeping in their father’s room and in their father’s bed—the great carved bedstead with embroidered hangings, marked with falcons and the privilege of the head of the clan. She slipped in beside him, kissed him awake, and let him take her for the sake of peace in the house. Afterward, when he lay drowsy in her arms, every muscle at ease, she felt for the first time the one power allowed to her as a woman, to use her beauty and her body to bring her man to the place where he would listen to her instead of only to his whims. It would have been different with my prince, she thought. Tears ran down her cheeks, mercifully hidden from her brother by the darkness.

Though Brangwen was careful to leave his bed and return to her own, that next morning she had her first intimation that the rest of the household was beginning to suspect. The men seemed utterly unaware, but at times Brangwen caught Ludda watching her with a frightened wondering in her eyes. Brangwen took Gerraent aside and told him to go hunting and leave her alone.

Over the next few days, he ignored her for long hours at a time, going hunting or riding round the demesne; he even began talking of visiting Madoc or Blaen. But always she felt him watching her whenever they were in the same room, as if he were guarding her like a treasure. Although she tried to put him off, finally he insisted that she ride with him into the hills.

That afternoon they found a copse of willows for their lovemaking. She had never seen him so passionate, making love to her as if every time he had her made him want her more rather than satisfying him. Afterward, he fell asleep in her arms. She stroked his hair and held him, but she felt weary, so tired that she wanted to sink into the earth and never see the sky again. When Gerraent woke, he sat up, stretching, smiling at her. Beside him, tangled in his clothes, lay his dagger.

“Gerro, kill me now.”

“I won’t. Not yet.”

All at once, Brangwen knew it was time to die, that they had to die now, this very afternoon. She sat up and grabbed his arm.

“Kill me now. I beg you.”

Gerraent slapped her across the face, the first blow he’d ever given her. When she began to cry, he flung his arms around her, kissed her, and begged her to forgive him. She did forgive him, simply because she had no choice—he was more than her whole life; he was her death as well. All during the ride home, she felt her urgency ache her: they should be dead. When they rode into the ward, she saw horses tied up outside. Lord Blaen had come to visit.

Blaen stayed for three days, hunting with Gerraent, while Brangwen crept round and tried to avoid them both. Only once did she have to talk with Blaen alone, and then he held to his pledge and said not one word about marriage.

On his last night there, however, he begged her to stay at the table after dinner. Gerraent brooded, staring into the fire and drinking as steadily as if he’d forgotten they had a guest. When Blaen started talking to Brangwen about his mother, she could only listen miserably, hardly able to answer, because she was wondering what Rodda would say when she learned the truth. Apparently Blaen misread her silence.

“Now, here, my lady,” Blaen said. “I promised you that I’d never even speak of marriage till the spring, and I keep my word.”

“What’s this?” Gerraent swiveled round in his chair.

“I’ve spoken to you before about paying court to your sister.”

“So you have,” Gerraent said, smiling. “I’ve made her a promise, you see. I told her that I’d never make her marry unless she chooses to.”

“Indeed? Even if she stays under your roof all her life?”

“Just that.”

Blaen hesitated, his eyes darkening.

“Well, my lady,” he said to Brangwen. “You’re lucky in your brother, aren’t you?”

“I think so. I honor him.”

Blaen smiled, but all at once, Brangwen was frightened. The glow from the smoky fire danced, but it seemed to her that the fire came from Gerraent, as if long tendrils of flame were reaching out for Blaen against all their wills.

With summer at its height, the sun lay hot along the dusty road, its light as gold as the grain ripening in the fields. Nevyn, who had once been Prince Galrion, led a pack mule laden with baled herbs across the border of the Falcon lands. As he walked, he kept a constant lookout for Gerraent, who might well be riding his roads. Nevyn doubted if anyone else would recognize the prince in this dusty peddler with his shabby clothes, shaggy hair, and old mule. He was learning that a man could be invisible without mighty dweomer-workings merely by acting in unexpected ways in unexpected places. No one would expect the prince to dare come near the Falcon again.

When he came to the village, Nevyn even risked buying a tankard of ale from the tavernman, who barely glanced his way after he’d taken his copper. Nevyn sat in the corner near an old woman and asked her foolish questions about the countryside, as if he’d traveled from far away. When he left, no one even noticed him go.

It was toward evening when he reached his destination, a wooden hut on the edge of the wild forest. Out in front, two goats were grazing on the stubby grass, while Ynna sat on her stoop and watched them, an old woman, thin as a stick, with long twiglike fingers, gnarled from her long years of hard work. Her white hair was carelessly caught up in a dirty scarf. An herbwoman and midwife, she was thought by some folk to be a witch, but in truth, she merely loved her solitude.

“Good morrow, lad,” Ynna said. “Looks like old Rhegor’s sent me a pretty thing or two.”

“He has. This supply should last you through the winter.”

Nevyn unloaded the mule and carried the herbs inside, then watered the animal and sent it out to graze with the goats. He came back to the hut to find Ynna laying bread and cheese on her small unsteady table. When she handed him a wooden cup of water and told him to set to, Nevyn dug in, spreading the soft pungent goat’s cheese on the dark bread. Ynna nibbled a bit of bread and studied him so curiously that Nevyn wondered if she knew he’d once been the prince.

“It’s wearisome, having old Rhegor gone from this part of the forest,” Ynna said. “And so sudden it was, him coming by one day to tell me he was going. Has he ever told you why?”

“Well, good dame, I do what my master says and hold my tongue.”

“Always best with a strange one like our Rhegor. Well, if he sends you to me with herbs every now and then, I’ll manage.”

Ynna cut a few more slices from the loaf and laid them on Nevyn’s plate.

“I miss Rhegor, though. I could always count on his counsel, like, when there was some troubling thing.”

Nevyn felt the dweomer-warning down his back.

“And how fares Lord Gerraent these days?”

“You’re almost as sharp as your master, aren’t you, lad? Well, here, tell Rhegor this tale for me. He always kept an eye, like, on poor little Brangwen.”

“Did he, now? I never knew that.”

“Oh, truly, he did, just from a fatherly distance, like. So tell him about this. About a month ago, it was, the page up at the dun got a bit of fever, and a stubborn thing it was. I must have been back there five times before the lad was right again. And Lord Gerraent gives me a joint of venison for it. He says, do you have an herb to take madness away, Ynna? He was jesting, I suppose, but he smiled so coldlike it troubled my heart. And then the last time I went up the hill, I see Gerraent sobbing on his father’s grave.”

“You can rest assured I’ll tell Rhegor about it. How does Brangwen fare, shut up with a man like that?”

“Now, there’s the strangest thing of all. You think she’d be heartsick, but she goes around like a woman in a dream. I’ve never seen the lass look so broody like. I’d say she was with child, but whose would it be? She’s just as broody as if her belly was swelling, but that betrothed of hers has been gone too long now. Well, tell Rhegor for me.”

On the ride home, Nevyn pushed the balky mule as fast as it would go, but it still took him over two days to reach his new home. Up in the wild forest north of the Boar’s demesne, Nevyn and Rhegor had cleared a good space of land near a creek. They’d used the logs to build a round house and the land to plant beans, turnips, and suchlike. Because Rhegor’s reputation as a healer moved north with him, they had plenty of food and even a few coins, since farmers and bondsmen alike were willing to pay with chickens and cheese for Rhegor’s herbs. Now, when it was too late, Nevyn clearly saw that he and Brangwen would have had a comfortable if spare life in the forest. If only you hadn’t been such a dolt, Nevyn cursed himself, such a stupid fool!

Rhegor was out in front of the house, treating the running eye of a little boy while the mother squatted nearby. From her ragged brown tunic, Nevyn saw that she was a bondwoman, her thin face utterly blank, as if she hardly cared whether the lad was cured or not, even though she’d brought him all this way. On her face was her brand, the old scar pale on dirty skin. Although he was barely three, the lad was already branded, too, marked out as Lord Blaen’s property for the rest of his life. Rhegor stood the lad on a tree stump and wiped the infected eye with a bit of rag dipped in herbal salve.

Nevyn went to stable the mule alongside the bay gelding. When he came back, the bondwoman looked at him with feigned disinterest. Even from ten feet away he could smell her unwashed flesh and rags. Rhegor called her over, gave her a pot of salve, and told her how to apply it. She listened, her face showing a brief flicker of hope.

“I can’t pay you much, my lord,” she said. “I brought some of the first apples.”

“You and the lad eat those on your way home.”

“My thanks.” She stared at the ground. “I heard you tended poor folk, but I didn’t believe it at first.”

“It’s true. Spread the tale around.”

“I was so frightened.” She went on staring at the ground. “If the lad went blind, they’d kill him because he couldn’t work.”

“What?” Nevyn broke in. “Lord Blaen would never do such a thing.”