Читать книгу The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage - Katharine Kerr - Страница 10

The year 849. The spring brought terrible omens in the sky above the Holy City. A cloud shaped like a dragon flew overhead, and there was lightning. The sky turned the colour of copper, and a huge cloud like a spindle of black wool drew water from Lake Gwerconydd only to spit it out upon the land. So many refugees fled to Lughcarn that the city could not take them all in. High Priest Retyc gave them what food he could gather and sent them further east, where the farmlands had need of them.

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

In the midst of a clamour, Lillorigga, daughter of the Boar clan, sat on a bench in the curve of the wall and wished that she were invisible. The King’s great hall roiled with armed men, standing, talking, sitting, eating, calling out to one another and calling for ale. Spring had come and brought with it the annual muster of the King’s loyal lords and their warbands, but in the two enormous hearths at either side the hall, fires blazed and sent wafts of smoke into the hazy room. The stone walls of the enormous round hall oozed cold, for the attacking sun never made more than a brief sally into the tangled complex of brochs and outbuildings that made up the royal palace of Dun Deverry.

Not that the hall looked particularly royal these days – a hundred long years of civil war had left the King poor in everything but men. Tapestries sagged threadbare and faded on the rough stone walls; straw and torn Bardek carpets lay together on the floor; the tables and benches listed and leaned, all cracked and pitted. The lords and the servants alike ate from wooden trenchers and drank from pottery stoups. Only the King’s own table retained some semblance of royal splendour. From where she sat Lillorigga could just see a page spreading a much-mended and somewhat stained linen cloth over it while others stood by with silver dishes and pewter mugs. Behind the boys came the royal nursemaid with cushions to raise the seat of the royal chair; King Olaen had been born just five summers ago.

Lilli was the King’s cousin – they shared a great-grandmother through the maternal line – and her uncle, Burcan of the Boar, stood as regent to his young highness. Her rank brought her bows and curtsies every time someone passed her bench or looked her way. She answered each one with a nod or a smile, but she hated the way the various lords looked her over, as if they were appraising a prize mare ready for market. Soon her mother would be arranging her betrothal to some son or another of one of the King’s loyal men. She could only hope that when the time came, her husband would treat her decently.

Across the hall a herald called out for the men to make way. A procession of women was descending the huge stone staircase, with at their head Queen Abrwnna, who, older than her royal husband, was almost a woman, no longer a girl. Behind her came her retinue of maidservants and noble-born serving women, who included Lillorigga’s mother, Merodda, a widow and sister to both Tibryn, Gwerbret Cantrae, and Regent Burcan. In the flickering dim light, Merodda looked no older than the young Queen. Her yellow hair lay smooth and oddly shiny, caught by a silver clasp at the nape of her neck. Her skin was the envy of every woman at court: smooth and rosy just like a lass, they said, and her with a marriageable daughter and all! She walked like a lass, too, and tossed her head and laughed with spirit. A marvel, everyone said, how beautiful she is still. If they only knew, Lilli thought bitterly. If they only knew – her and her potions!

At the bottom step Merodda paused, looking over the great hall, then turned to speak to a page before she rejoined the Queen’s retinue at table. When Lilli realized that the page was heading for her, she rose, briefly considered bolting, then decided that if she angered her mother now, she’d only pay for it later. The page trotted over and made her a sketchy bow.

‘Honoured Lillorigga,’ he said, ‘your mother says you’re to come to her chambers when she’s finished eating.’

Lilli felt fear clutch her with cold, wet hands.

‘Very well.’ She just managed to arrange a smile. ‘Please tell her that I’ll wait upon her as she wishes.’

With barely a glance her way he turned and trotted back to the Queen’s table. Lilli saw him speak to Merodda, then take up his station for serving the meal. Lilli herself was supposed to eat at one of the tables reserved for unmarried women of noble birth. Instead she grabbed a chunk of bread from a serving basket as a page carried it by and left the press and clamour of the hall.

Outside the sun was setting, dragging cold shadow over the courtyard, one of the many among the warren of brochs and outbuildings. Lilli hurried past the cookhouse, dodged between storage sheds, and slipped out a small gate into a much bigger court, the next ward out, ringed round by high stone walls that guarded pigsties, stables, cow sheds, a smithy, a pair of deep water wells – everything the dun needed to withstand a siege.

At the gates of this ward someone was shouting. When Lilli saw servants hurry past with lit torches, she drifted after them, but she kept to the shadows. Down at the wall, the torchlight glittered on chain mail and a confusion of men, arguing about who would do what, a debate the captain of the watch finally ended – he ordered his guards to man the winch that opened the enormous iron-bound gates. They creaked open a bare six feet to let an exhausted rider stumble through, leading a muddy horse.

‘Messages for the King,’ he croaked. ‘From the Gwerbret of Belgwergyr.’

Servants rushed to take his horse. Lilli trailed after the messenger and the watch captain as they hurried up to the main broch.

‘Good news, I hope,’ said the captain.

‘Bad,’ the messenger said. ‘His Grace the gwerbret’s lost more vassals to the false king.’

Lilli felt suddenly sick.

She trailed after the messenger and his escort as they hurried to the great hall. By then all the important lords had gathered around the King. On his cushions at the table’s head Olaen, a pretty child with thick pale hair, was eating bread and honey. At either side of him Lilli’s two uncles – Tibryn, Gwerbret Cantrae, and his younger brother, Burcan, the Regent – sat as a matched pair between the King and the rest of the gwerbretion and other such powerful lords who dined at this table. Both of them were handsome men, tall and warrior-straight, with the wide-set blue eyes they shared with their sister, Merodda, but unlike her they showed their age in grey hair and weather-beaten faces.

As the guards hurried up, everyone stopped eating and turned to look. The messenger knelt before the King, then pulled a silver tube out of his shirt and handed it to Olaen with a flourish. Burcan leaned forward and snatched it, then gestured at the man to speak. The great lords huddled around, narrow-eyed and grim. At the Queen’s table the women fell silent and turned, leaning to hear the news. From her distance Lilli could hear nothing of what the messenger said, but a rustle of talk broke out, first at the royal table, then spreading through the great hall: more lords gone over to Cerrmor. With a curt nod, Burcan dismissed the messenger. King Olaen was watching the Regent with eyes full of tears.

Lilli saw her mother turn and leave the Queen’s table, hurry up the staircase, and disappear into the shadows at the top. With a wrench of will, Lilli forced herself to follow. On the far side of the hall, near the stairway, a page was seating the messenger while a serving lass brought him ale. Lilli hesitated, then stopped beside the messenger, who hastily swallowed his mouthful of ale and started to rise.

‘Oh, do sit,’ Lilli said. ‘You must be exhausted. I just wanted to ask you if Tieryn Peddyc of Hendyr’s gone over to the rebels.’

‘Not him, my lady. He’s steady as a stone.’

‘I’m so glad. He’s my foster-father.’

‘Ah.’ The rider smiled briefly. ‘No wonder you wanted to know. He and the Lady Bevyan are in good health and as loyal as ever.’

‘My thanks.’

Lilli hurried away and climbed the staircase. Maybe Bevyan would come to court, then, with her husband when he joined the muster. She hoped – no, she prayed so, as hard as she could to the Lady of the Moon. Merodda had sent her and her wet nurse to Bevyan when Lilli had been a few weeks old; until she’d seen twelve summers, Bevyan had been the only mother she’d known. If only I could have stayed with Bevva – her eyes threatened tears, but she squelched them and at the top of the stairs paused for a moment to catch her breath. The fear clutched at her heart again, but she had nowhere to run or hide. With one last gasp, she hurried down to her mother’s chambers.

Merodda herself opened the door. She was carrying a long taper in a holder, and in the candlelight her face, her hands, glistened like wax.

‘Good. You’re prompt tonight.’

In a pool of candle-light near the chamber windows stood Brour, the man her mother called her scribe – a skinny little fellow, with an oversize head for his body and wispy blond hair, so that at times he looked like a child, especially since his full lips stuck out in a perennial pout. Merodda laid her hand on Lilli’s shoulder and marched her down the length of the room. On the table in front of Brour, among the candles, stood a grinding stone, a chunk of something black that looked like charcoal, and a flagon of water. Apparently the scribe had been making ink, and a prodigious amount of it at that. He put a handful of powder ground from the ink block into a heavy silver bowl, then added water from a pitcher a little at a time, while he pounded and stirred with a pestle.

‘Here she is,’ Merodda said.

Brour put his tools down on the table, then considered Lilli so coldly that she took an involuntary step back. Her mother’s hand tightened on her shoulder. In a hand black with dry ink Brour took the taper from Merodda and held it up to consider Lilli’s face.

‘No one’s going to hurt you, lass,’ Brour said at last. ‘We’ve just got a new trick we’d like you to try.’

‘You have strange gifts, my sweet,’ Merodda said. ‘And we have need of them again.’

For a moment Lilli’s fear threatened to choke her. She wanted to blurt out a no, to pull free and run away, but her mother’s cold stare had impaled her, or so she felt, like a long metal pin pushing into her very soul.

‘Come now!’ Merodda snapped. ‘We women must do what we can to serve the King.’

‘Of course, Mother. Of course I want to.’

‘Of course? Don’t lie to me.’

Lilli blushed and tore her gaze away.

‘But I don’t care if you do or not,’ Merodda went on. ‘Let’s get started, shall we?’

Brour grunted and set the taper down among the others. On the table the candles danced and sent light glinting onto the black pool in the silver bowl. Lilli found herself watching the glints, staring at them, caught by them while her mother’s hand slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck. She felt her head nodding forward, pressed down by the weight of a hand grown suddenly heavy. The ink pool seemed to surge and heave like waves on a black sea that swelled to fill her sight, to fill the room, it seemed, and then her world. As she sank down into the blackness, she heard Merodda’s voice chanting, low and soft, but she could distinguish not a single word. The syllables clanged like brass and seemed to reverberate in her ears, foreign sounds linked into alien words.

In the blackness, a point of candlelight, dancing – Lilli swam toward it but felt her body turn to dead weight, as if she hauled it behind her when she moved. The point brightened, then dilated into a circle of light that she could look through, as if she’d pulled back a shutter from a round window and peered out at the sunny world beyond. From some great distance she heard Merodda’s voice.

‘What do you see, Lilli? Tell us what you see.’

She felt her mouth moving and words slip out like pebbles, falling into the black. In the window things appeared, creatures, vast creatures, all wing and long tails. Around them a bluish light formed and brightened, glinting on coppery scales, blood-red scales, a pair of beasts sleeping, curled next to one another. One of them stirred and stretched, lifting its wings to reveal two thick legs and clawed feet. A huge copper head lifted, the mouth gaped in a long yawn of fangs.

‘Wyverns. I see red wyverns, and now they’re flying.’

‘Good, good.’ Her mother’s voice slid out like drops of oil. ‘Where do you see them?’

‘Over a grassy plain.’

Down from the mountains they swept, their massive wings slapping the air, and to Lilli it seemed that she flew with them while her voice babbled of its own accord. They circled round a meadow where a herd of swine fed, then suddenly stooped and plunged like hawks. Shrieking and cackling they struck. The blood-red wyvern rose, flapping hard, with a big grey boar clutched limp and bleeding in its talons.

In her vision Lilli flew too close. The wyvern’s enormous head swung her way. The black eyes glittered, narrowed, and seemed to pierce the darkness and stare directly at her. Lilli screamed and broke the spell. She staggered, stumbling forward, knocking into the table. A candle tottered and fell with a hiss and a stench into the black ink.

‘You clumsy little dolt!’

Merodda grabbed her by the hair and swung her round, then slapped her with her other hand. Lilli yelped and sank to her knees. Pain burned and crawled on her face.

‘Stop it!’ Brour snarled. ‘She can’t help it. She can’t control the trance.’

Merodda stepped away, but Lilli could hear her panting in ebbing rage.

‘She needs to be trained.’ Brour’s voice had turned calm again. ‘I don’t see why you won’t let me –’

‘We will not discuss this in front of her.’ Merodda leaned down. ‘Oh, do get up!’

Lilli scrambled to her feet.

‘You may go to your chamber,’ Merodda said. ‘Leave us. And if you ever tell anyone what happened here –’

‘Never, I promise. Never.’ Lilli could hear her own voice swooping and trembling. ‘I’ve never told before, have I?’

‘You haven’t, truly.’ Merodda considered her for a long cold moment. ‘You have some wits. Now go!’

Lilli gathered up her long skirts and raced from the chamber. She dashed down the hall, ran into her tiny chamber at the far end, and barred the door behind her. For a long moment she stood in the twilight grey and wept, leaning against the cold wall; then she flung herself down on her narrow bed and fell asleep, as suddenly as a stone dropped from a tower hits the ground.

That same spring evening, at the stillness before the sunset, Lady Bevyan of Hendyr stood at her bedchamber’s narrow window and considered the ward of her husband’s dun. Stone framed her view: the stone sides of the window slit when she looked through, the stone billow of the squat broch tower when she looked down, the stone walls of encircling fort when she looked toward the distant west and the silent gold of an ending day. All her life, stone had meant safety thanks to the civil wars, just as winter had meant peace, despite the snows, the storms, and the ever-present threat of hunger. Only lately had she come to think of stone as meaning imprisonment. Only lately had she come to wonder about a world in which summer, too, might mean peace.

Not that such a world coincided with her world, not yet at least. Below her, deep in shadow, the preparations of war filled the cobbled ward: extra horses, tethered out for want of room in the stables; provision carts, packed for the morrow’s march. Her husband, Tieryn Peddyc of Hendyr, had called in his allies and vassals for the summer’s fighting, defending the true king in Dun Deverry from the would-be usurpers gathering on the kingdom’s southern borders. Or so her husband and his allies always called Maryn, Gwerbret Cerrmor, prince of distant Pyrdon – usurper, pretender, rebel. At times, when she wasn’t watching her thoughts, Bevyan wondered about the truth of those names.

From behind her Bevyan heard a door opening and a soft voice.

‘My lady?’ Sarra, one of her serving women, stepped in the door. ‘Are you unwell?’

‘I’m not, dear.’ Bevyan turned from the window. ‘Just taking a moment’s solitude. I’m trying to make up my mind about going to court. Tell me, do you want to go to Dun Deverry?’

Sarra hesitated, thinking. She’d come to Bevyan as an orphaned girl-child, long enough ago now that grey streaked her dark hair at the temples.

‘Well,’ Sarra said at last. ‘Our place is at Queen Abrwnna’s side, but oh, my lady, I shouldn’t admit such a shameful thing, but I’m ever so frightened of being caught in a siege.’

‘So am I. The Cerrmor men are nearly to our lands, aren’t they? Sometimes I wonder what the summer will bring.’

Sarra laid a hand over her throat.

‘But we mustn’t give up hope yet.’ Bevyan make her voice brisk. ‘The gods will give us the Wyrd they choose, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.’

‘True spoken.’

‘As for things we can do something about,’ Bevyan paused for a sigh, ‘I’m worried about little Lillorigga. She’s the only reason I’ll be going, frankly, if I do go. I keep asking for news of her, but no one ever sends me any.’

‘Well, certainly her mother wouldn’t bother.’ Steel crept into Sarra’s voice. ‘Do you think we could persuade the Lady Merodda to let us bring her daughter back here? For the cleaner air and all. When you had the fostering of her, she thrived, poor child.’

‘Merodda might well be glad to be rid of her. It’s worth a try. I’ll tell you what. Let’s ride with my lord on the morrow, but there’s no reason that we need to spend all summer in Dun Deverry. If things do look grim, the lords will be sending their womenfolk away, anyway.’

‘That’s true. Shall I tell the pages, then?’

‘You should, indeed. We’ll need them to get our palfreys ready, and we need to fill a chest to go into one of the carts. There. I feel better already, with the decision made.’

But Bevyan paused to glance out the window. The sun was setting in a haze that sent long banners of gold across the sky, as if they were the pennons of some approaching army. The traitorous thought returned full-force. What if Maryn’s army ended the war this summer? He’d promised amnesty if he should conquer, promised full pardons even to the lords who’d fought most bitterly against him. What if next summer there would be no march to war?

‘My lady?’ Sarra said. ‘You look so distant.’

‘Do I, dear? Well, perhaps I’ve got a bit of the headache. Let’s go down to the great hall and get somewhat to eat.’

In the great hall lords and riders gathered, standing more than sitting, drinking ale, talking in urgent voices, but they stood out of nerves, not for want of benches, and their voices seemed oddly quiet in the half-empty hall. Bevva ran a quick count of lords: a mere four of them, and each obliged to bring no more than forty men a-piece to augment her husband’s eighty and the gwerbret’s one-hundred-and-sixty. At the head of the table of honour sat her husband’s overlord, Daeryc, Gwerbret Belgwergyr, while Tieryn Peddyc sat to his right and their last living son, Anasyn, stood behind His Grace to wait upon him like a page. No one who saw them together would ever have doubted that Anasyn was Peddyc’s son. They shared a long face, long thin nose, and a pair of deep-set brown eyes, though Peddyc’s hair had turned solidly grey and Anasyn’s was still chestnut. When he saw his wife enter, Peddyc rose, swinging himself clear of the bench and smiling as he strode over to meet her.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I’d wondered if you were ill.’

‘Not ill, my love, merely thinking. I’ve decided I’d best ride with you when you go to Dun Deverry.’

‘Good.’ He let his smile disappear. ‘You’ll be safer there. I’m stripping the fort guard.’

Bevyan laid a hand on her throat. She wondered if she’d gone pale – her face felt so suddenly cold.

‘Well, we’ve not lost yet.’ Peddyc pitched his voice low. ‘If the time comes for you and your women to leave Dun Deverry, I’ll send you back with a full escort of men. Don’t worry about that. You’ll need to hold the gates long enough to negotiate a settlement with the Pretender.’

‘I see.’ Bevyan swallowed heavily and freed her voice. ‘As my lord thinks best, of course.’

He smiled and touched her face with the side of his hand.

‘Let’s pray I don’t need to do that kind of thinking, Bevva. Come entertain our gwerbret. You and I will ride to court together, at least, and after that, only the gods know.’

Peddyc looked up, and when Bevyan followed his glance she realized that he was looking at the row of cloth banners in gold and green cloth, faded and stained with age, that hung above the main hearth – the blazons of the Ram from time beyond remembering. She could only wonder if someday soon an enemy hand would rip them down.

‘The omens?’ Merodda said. ‘The omens are hideous.’

‘You sound frightened,’ Burcan said.

‘Of course I’m frightened. I suppose that makes me a poor weak woman and beneath contempt.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Burcan, second son of the Boar clan and Regent to the King, allowed himself a wry twist of a smile. ‘I’d say it makes you sensible.’

Merodda sighed once and sharply.

Close to the mid-watch of the night they were sitting in her private chamber, she in a carved chair by the fire, he in another near the table. The candles burning there were freshly lit, and Brour and his bowl of black ink both had long since been tidied away.

‘I wish I had better news to tell you,’ she went on. ‘But we have an enemy here at court.’

‘I don’t need omens to tell me that. Everyone envies our clan.’

‘This is different. In the omen a red wyvern dropped out of the sky and slew a boar.’

‘What? I wish you wouldn’t speak in riddles.’

‘I thought it was clear enough. The King’s blazon is a green wyvern, and so someone close to but not of the royal family must be plotting to drop down upon us and supplant us.’

Burcan started to speak, then merely stroked his thick grey moustaches while he considered.

‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘It’s perfectly clear, now that you’ve explained it. I don’t know why, but I just can’t seem to grasp things like omens.’

‘You don’t need to. You have me.’

They shared a smile. In the hearth the fire showered sparks as a log burned through and fell. Burcan rose, then strode over to take wood from the basket and lay it upon the flames. For a moment he stood watching it burn.

‘Any idea of who this enemy might be?’ he said.

‘Not yet. You’re right about the envy. There are a lot of clans with reason to hate us. I just hadn’t realized how deep the hatred must run.’

‘I’ll think about it. A wyvern, was it? Someone with a touch of royal blood themselves, maybe.’

‘There! You’re beginning to puzzle this out.’

‘Am I? Maybe so. Don’t know if I like it, though. That so-called scribe of yours – are you sure we can trust him?’

‘I don’t know. He came to me for the coin, and if someone offered him more, I can’t swear he wouldn’t change his loyalties.’

‘Thought so. I don’t like the man.’

‘Why?’

‘He comes from the south coast, doesn’t he?’

‘Not truly. He’s from the northern lands, though he did live for some years in Cerrmor.’

‘Still! How do you know he isn’t a Cerrmor spy?’

‘I have ways to tell when someone’s lying, as you know perfectly well. There’s somewhat else, isn’t there?’

Burcan scowled at the floor.

‘I don’t like the way he treats you,’ he said at last.

‘What? He’s always courteous.’

Burcan raised his head and looked at her. His eyes searched her face, probing for some secret. Merodda stood with a little laugh.

‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous of poor Brour.’

‘I don’t like the way he’s always in your company.’

When Burcan rose to join her, she laid one hand flat on his chest and looked up, smiling at him. In a moment he laid his hand over hers.

‘My dear brother,’ she said. ‘He’s little and ugly. You’ve got no reason to vex yourself on his account.’

‘Good. And the moment you think he might turn disloyal, tell me. I’ll have the matter taken care of.’

Travelling with Gwerbret Daeryc’s entourage, his attendant lords and their joined warbands, plus their servants and retainers, was no speedy thing, especially with carts along and a whole herd of horses. Rather than jounce around in a cart with the maidservants, Bevyan wore a pair of her son’s old brigga under her dresses and rode her palfrey, as did Sarra. In the long line of march they travelled just behind the noble lords, although at times Peddyc would drop back and ride beside Bevyan for a few miles. It was pleasant, riding in the spring weather through the ripening winter wheat and the apple trees, heavy with blossoms, so pleasant that Bevyan found herself remembering the first days of her marriage, when she and Peddyc would ride together around his lands, alone except for a page trailing at a discreet distance. They had brought such a shock, those days, when she realized that she’d been married to a man that she would learn to love.

Now of course her lord, his hair streaked with grey, rode grim and silent, and behind them came what of an army he and his overlord could muster.

Along the way the entourage sheltered at the duns of various lords who owed men to either the tieryn or the gwerbret, or at least, they’d been planning to do so. Their first night, when they came to the dun of a certain Lord Daryl, they found the place empty. Not a chicken pecked out in the ward, not a servant stood in the broch. While Daeryc and the men waited out in the ward, Bevyan followed Peddyc through rooms stripped bare.

‘They even took the furniture,’ Bevyan said. ‘Even the bedsteads. It’ll be a long hard haul of it they’ll have, getting those all the way to Cerrmor.’

Peddyc nodded, glancing around what had once been the lord and lady’s bedchamber. All at once he smiled, stooped, and pulled something out of a crack between two planks.

‘A silver piece,’ he said, grinning. ‘Well, I’ll take that as tribute. Here’s one bit of coin that won’t buy a horse for the Usurper’s army.’

Their second night on the road brought an even nastier surprise. Lord Ganedd’s dun was shut against them, the gates barred from inside. Daeryc and Peddyc sat on their horses and yelled out Ganedd’s name, but no voice ever answered. No one appeared on the walls, not even to insult the two lords. Yet the place felt alive and inhabited. In the long silences Bevyan heard the occasional dog bark or horse whinny. Once she thought she saw a face at a window, high up in the broch. When Peddyc and Daeryc rode back to their waiting entourage, they were red-faced and swearing.

‘Are they neutral, then?’ Anasyn asked. ‘Or gone over to the Usurper?’

‘How would I know, you young dolt?’ Peddyc snarled. ‘Oh, here, forgive me, Sanno. No use in taking this out on you.’

When the entourage camped, out in a grassy field stripped of its cows, Bevyan had the servants build a separate fire for the womenfolk. All evening, as they sat whispering gossip and fears, they would keep looking to the men’s fire, some twenty feet away, where Peddyc and Daeryc paced back and forth, talking together with their heads bent.

The third evening, then, they rode up to Lord Camlyn’s dun with dread as a member of their entourage, but the gates stood open, and Camlyn himself, a tall young man with a shock of red hair, came running out to the ward to greet them with four grey boarhounds barking after him. He yelled the dogs into silence, then grabbed the gwerbret’s stirrup in a show of fealty and blurted, ‘Your Grace, what greeting did you get at Ganedd’s door?’

‘A cursed poor one,’ Daeryc said. ‘I’m glad to see you held loyal to the true king. This autumn, when we ride against Ganedd, his lands are yours.’

At dinner that night the talk centred itself upon broken fealties – who had gone over to the Usurper, who was threatening neutrality, who was weaselling any way he could to get out of his obligations for fighting men and the provisions to feed them. Since in the poverty of Camlyn’s hall stood but one honour table, Bevyan heard it all. She shared a trencher with Camlyn’s wife, Varylla, at the foot of the table. In unspoken agreement the two women spoke little, merely listened. By the time the page poured the men mead, Gwerbret Daeryc had forgotten tact.

‘It’s the cursed Boar clan that’s the trouble,’ he snarled. ‘Men would rally to the King, but why should they rally to the Boar?’

‘Just so,’ Camlyn said. ‘The wars have made them rich while the rest of us – huh, we’ll be out on the roads like beggars one fine day.’

The two men were looking at Peddyc and waiting.

‘I’ve no love for Burcan or Tibryn,’ he said. ‘But if the King had chosen them, I’d serve in their cause.’

‘I like that if –’ Daeryc paused for a careful bite of food; he could chew only one side of his mouth, since most of his teeth were gone. ‘I’d do the same. If –’

Peddyc glanced down the table and caught Bevyan’s glance. She answered the unspoken question with a small shrug. It seemed safe enough to voice their long doubts here.

‘Well,’ Peddyc went on. ‘They say that King Daen made Burcan regent when he was dying. I wasn’t there to hear him.’

‘No more was I,’ Camlyn snapped.

‘Nor I either. And with Daen’s widow such close kin to the Boar …’ Daeryc let his words trail off into a swallow of mead.

‘Hogs root,’ Camlyn said, seemingly absently. ‘If you let hogs into a field, they’ll tear it up with tusk and trotter till the grass all dies.’

‘There’s only one thing to do in that case,’ Peddyc said. ‘And that’s turn them out of it.’

‘Only the one, truly.’ Daeryc hesitated for a long time. ‘But you’d best have a swineherd with well-trained dogs.’

The three men looked back and forth at one another while Bevyan felt herself turn, very slowly, as cold as if a winter wind had blown into the hall. She glanced at Varylla.

‘I should so like to see the embroideries you’ve been making,’ Bevyan said. ‘You do such lovely work.’

‘My thanks, my lady.’ Varylla allowed herself a shy smile. ‘If you’ll come with me to my chambers?’

As they headed for the staircase up, Bevyan caught Peddyc’s eye. He winked at her in thanks, but his smile was forced. Why shouldn’t it be, she thought, if they’ll be talking treason?

Late on the next day, with Lord Camlyn and his men as part of the army, Gwerbret Daeryc’s entourage came to the city, which rose high on its four hills behind massive double rings of stone walls, ramparted and towered. A cobbled road led up to the main gates, ironbound and carved with the King’s blazon of the wyvern rampant. To either side honour guards in thickly embroidered shirts stood, bowing as the gwerbret and his party rode through. Yet as soon as they came inside to the city itself, the impression of splendour vanished.

Ruins filled the space inside the walls – heaps of stone among rotting, charred timbers from the most recent siege; heaps of dirt covering stone razed long years past. Most of the remaining houses stood abandoned, with weed-choked yards and empty windows, the thatch blowing rotten through the streets. In the centre of the city, though, around and between the two main hills, Bevyan did see some tenanted homes, surrounded by kitchen gardens. A few children played in the muddy lanes; more often the people she saw were old, stooped as they tended their produce or sat on a bench at their front door to watch the gwerbret’s army ride by. No one called out a greeting or a cheer. Bevyan turned in her saddle to look her husband’s way.

‘It’s even worse this summer,’ she remarked. ‘The city I mean. It’s so desolate.’

‘Just so,’ Peddyc said. ‘Everyone who could get out of here did.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘To kinsfolk, I suppose. The gods all know that there’s plenty of farmland lying fallow these days. Hands to work it would be welcome enough.’

‘It’s so eerie, seeing all these empty houses. There can’t be any militia left to help hold the city walls.’

‘There’s not, truly.’ Peddyc looked abruptly away. ‘If there’s a siege this summer, we’ll have to cede the Usurper the town and hold the dun.’

Or try to – Bevyan seemed to hear that thought hanging in the air like a rebel lord. All at once she realized that this summer could easily bring her husband’s death. She had faced widowhood for so many years that the thought merely angered rather than frightened her.

The dun at least seemed in good repair. Through ring after ring of warding stone they rode, winding round on a spiral path to the top of the hill. A small village huddled around the final wall – the houses sheltering the King’s important servants, the blacksmiths and the like. Inside the palace ward itself Bevyan saw plenty of armed men, and these did cheer when they saw Gwerbret Daeryc and his contingent. Outside the double doors to the great hall, pages and servants stood waiting to take horses and unload carts. Bevyan waited until Peddyc had dismounted, then allowed him to help her down.

‘I have to attend upon the gwerbret,’ Peddyc said.

‘Of course, my love.’ Bevyan patted his arm. ‘I’ve been here often enough to take care of myself and my women.’

With a nod Peddyc strode off, yelling orders to his men. Anasyn followed his father without even a look back. Bevyan smiled – her son was growing up, all right, at home in the King’s own dun.

‘Bevva!’

Dashing like a dog greeting its master, Lillorigga raced across the ward and flung herself into her foster-mother’s arms. Laughing, half on the edge of tears, Bevyan hugged her tight, then held her by the shoulders.

‘Let me look at you, dear,’ Bevyan said. ‘Oh, you are so tall now! Oh, it’s so good to see you!’

Lillorigga beamed. She was tall, yes, and far too thin, far too pale, with her long blonde hair hanging limp and dead around her face. Bevyan first suspected roundworms, always a problem in a winter dun, even the King’s, but then she wondered, thinking of Lady Merodda. In the bustle of the open ward, with armed men trotting by, with servants flocking around, they could not talk openly, not even of matters of health.

‘Come with me, dear,’ Bevyan said. ‘I’ve got to get our things into our chambers, and then we can talk.’

At the Queen’s orders, or so the servant said, Lady Bevyan and her serving woman had been given a large suite in the King’s own broch. While the servants hauled up chests and satchels, and Sarra fussed over each, Bevyan and Lilli stood by a window and looked down into the inner ward. This high up, sunlight could gain the walls and stream into the room. Lilli held her hands out to the warmth and laughed.

‘It’s been a hard winter, has it?’ Bevyan said.

‘It has, truly. I’m so glad of the spring, although …’ Lilli let her voice trail away.

‘Although it brings the wars again?’

‘Just that. Oh Bevva, I’m so sick of being frightened.’

‘Well, we all are, dear, but the gods will end it when they will and not before. There’s so little that we womenfolk can do.’

Lilli turned to her with a look so furtive that Bevyan forgot what she’d been about to say.

‘Lilli, is somewhat wrong?’

‘Naught, naught.’ Yet she laid a skinny hand on her pale throat.

‘You’ve been ill, haven’t you, dear?’ Bevyan said.

‘A bit. I’m fine now though, truly I am.’ Lilli turned her back and looked out over the chamber. ‘Sarra, there you are! Did you have a decent journey?’

And what was the child hiding? Soon enough, Bevva knew, she’d unburden herself of the secret. She could wait until Lilli was ready to tell her.

The dun, it seemed, held more than one trouble. At the evening meal in the great hall, Peddyc was seated at the King’s table as a mark of honour, while Anasyn went with a pack of unmarried lords. Bevyan and Lilli sat together at one of the tables for the noble women and shared a trencher, though they talked more than ate. Although the young king came down early, escorted by Regent Burcan, the Queen made a much later appearance, sweeping into the hall in a crowd of young women. Queen Abrwnna was a pretty girl, about Lilli’s age, with striking green eyes and coppery hair that in the uncertain firelight shone with streaks of gold among the red. That evening it seemed the Queen had been weeping; her eyes were bloodshot and her full mouth screwed up into a most decidedly unpretty scowl. As the retinue walked by on their way to the table reserved for the royal womenfolk, Bevyan noticed that one of the Queen’s serving women, also young and lovely, had a scowl of her own and a rising purple bruise on the side of her face.

‘Oooh, that’s nasty,’ Lilli whispered. ‘I take it Abrwnna found out about Galla and Lord Aedar.’

‘Some sort of love affair?’

‘Just that, and I’ll wager Abrwnna’s ever so jealous. There’s a sort of fellowship of young lords devoted to her, you see – the Queen that is, not Galla. They all wear her token into battle, a bit of one of her old dresses I think it is. Anyway, she absolutely hates it when one of her serving women dallies with one of them – her sworn lords I mean.’

Bevyan laid her table dagger down and considered the Queen’s retinue, settling itself at table.

‘How interesting,’ Bevyan said mildly. ‘How many of these lords are there?’

‘Only six. It’s ever so great an honour to be taken among them.’

‘No doubt. I do hope their devotion’s an innocent one.’

Lilli blinked in some confusion.

‘Well,’ Bevyan went on. ‘The King’s wife absolutely has to be above suspicion. How else will men believe that she’s carrying the true heir once she’s with child?’

‘Oh, that!’ Lilli smiled, her confusion lifting. ‘Well, the King’s but five summers old, and he won’t be getting her with child soon anyway.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh.’ Lilli turned solemn. ‘Oh, I do see what you mean.’

During the rest of the meal, Lilli pointed out the various lords of the Queen’s Fellowship, all of whom were reasonably good-looking and generally wealthy. Bevyan told herself that she was turning into a small-minded old woman, but she couldn’t help but wonder about the safety of this arrangement when she saw the various lords bowing over the Queen’s hand and kissing it. Upon the virtue of the Queen rested the honour of the blood royal; not for her the small freedoms of other noblewomen. As the wife of a mere tieryn, Bevyan’s own rank would hardly allow her to admonish the Queen. She did her best, therefore, to put the matter out of her mind.

Toward the end of the meal, Bevyan and Lilli were sharing dried apples when a page came trotting over. He bowed low to Bevyan, then turned to Lilli.

‘Your mother wishes to see you,’ he announced. ‘In her chambers.’

Lilli turned dead-white.

‘What’s so wrong, dear?’ Bevyan said softly.

‘Oh, she’ll want to talk about my marriage.’ Lilli turned anguished eyes her way. ‘I hate it when she does.’

Plausible, yes, but Bevyan had fostered too many children to miss a lie when she heard one. Lilli got up and ran across the great hall. As she watched her go, Bevyan was thanking the Goddess in her heart for her decision to come to Dun Deverry.

And yet, that evening Lilli had inadvertently spoken the truth. When she arrived at her mother’s chamber, she found both her uncles waiting. For the occasion the table had been spread with a white cloth; candles gleamed and among them stood a dented silver flagon and pottery goblets. Burcan sat across from Merodda in a cushioned chair while Gwerbret Tibryn stood by the hearth, where a small fire burned to take off the chill.

‘Come in, child.’ Merodda pointed to a footstool placed near her chair. ‘Sit down.’

With a curtsy to her uncles, Lilli did so. Both Burcan and Tibryn considered her for a long cold moment.

‘It’s time you married,’ Merodda announced. ‘You’ve been out of fosterage for what? Two winters now?’

‘It’s been that, Mother.’

‘Very well, then. We’ve been discussing the matter. We need to determine how best your marriage could serve the clan, you see.’

They all seemed to be waiting for her to say something. Lilli pushed out a watery smile and clasped her hands tightly to hide their shaking. After a moment Merodda went on.

‘Your uncle Tibryn wants to marry you to one of his allies in Cantrae, up in the Northlands. Tieryn Nantyn.’

‘He’s so old!’ Lilli regretted the blurt the moment she’d said it and shrank back, expecting her mother to slap her.

Instead, Merodda laid a warning hand on her shoulder and squeezed, but not painfully hard. Tibryn glowered, his mouth set in a thin line under his heavy moustaches.

‘Worse than that,’ Burcan snarled. ‘He’s a brutal man who’s already buried one wife.’

‘So he did,’ Tibryn said levelly. ‘But who’s to say he had somewhat to do with her dying? Or have you been listening to women’s gossip?’ His eyes flicked to his sister and then away again.

‘And why shouldn’t she listen?’ Burcan snapped. ‘Lilli’s her only daughter.’

‘Your Grace?’ Merodda broke in. ‘To have her only daughter sent so far away would grieve any woman in her old age.’

‘Oh ye gods!’ Tibryn rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘You should have been a bard, Rhodi! The poor old woman and her daughter!’

‘Don’t be such a beast! I do want Lilli near court. You’re my eld brother and the head of our clan, but surely I’m not forbidden to speak as a mother?’

‘The gods could forbid it, and it wouldn’t keep you quiet.’ Tibryn allowed himself a short bark of a laugh. ‘So why would you listen to a mere mortal man? Nantyn is important to me. So far all the northern lords have held loyal to us, but this talk of the Usurper’s pardons is troubling a lot of hearts.’

‘There are other ways to bind a man to his gwerbret,’ Burcan said. ‘There’s that bit of land in dispute twixt him and me. I’ll cede it if you think it necessary.’

Tibryn turned toward his younger brother, seemed to be about to speak, then hesitated. Burcan looked steadily back at him.

‘If the matter vexes you as much as that,’ Tibryn said at last, ‘then very well.’

‘My thanks, Your Grace.’

‘And mine, too,’ Merodda put in. She let Lilli’s shoulder go and leaned back in her chair. ‘My humble, humble thanks.’

Tibryn made a snorting sound, no doubt at the thought of Merodda being humble. Lilli realized that she’d been holding her breath and let it out with a small sigh.

‘Who else, then?’ the gwerbret said. ‘If we’re not to send her off to a northern lord, where’s the best place for us to spend this coin?’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Burcan said. ‘Perhaps it would be best to keep it in the clan. All things considered. Do you want your niece and her child held hostage one day by someone who just went over to the Usurper? Turning Lilli over might be a good way for a new man to prove his loyalty.’

‘True enough.’ Tibryn paused to swear with a shake of his head. ‘There’s your lad Braemys.’

‘Hmph, well,’ Burcan said. ‘I was thinking about one of the conjoint lords –’

‘Why? If we’re keeping her close to the clan’s hearth, then let’s do so. Some of our distant cousins would slit my throat gladly if it came to saving their own necks with the Usurper. They’d do the same for you.’

‘I can’t argue with that, but –’

‘But what?’ Tibryn waved the objection away. ‘A cousin marriage is a grand way to keep land in a great clan, anyway. Lilli will bring her late father’s land as a dowry, of course, since her brothers are dead, too. I’d like to see Braemys have it. The holding will be worth keeping in the Boar’s hands.’ He turned to Merodda. ‘As the Regent’s son, he and his wife will be living at court much of the time.’

‘Just so, Your Grace.’ Merodda favoured him with a brilliant smile. ‘Brother? You look troubled.’

Actually, Lilli decided, Burcan looked furious enough to choke her; then the look vanished in a wry smile.

‘It makes a man feel old, seeing his youngest son marry,’ Burcan said and smoothly.

‘Happened to me, too.’ Tibryn nodded. ‘Well, let’s consider the matter settled. Rhodi, how about pouring some of that mead?’

‘Of course.’ Merodda got up from her chair and started toward the table, then glanced back. ‘Lilli, you don’t have any objections, do you?’

‘None, Mother. I’ve always known I’d marry where the clan wished.’

‘Good,’ Tibryn said. ‘Good child. Braemys is a well-favoured lad, anyway, and a good man with a horse.’

‘And what about you?’ Merodda turned to Burcan. ‘Does this suit you well enough, brother?’

Burcan raised bland eyes.

‘Well enough,’ he said. ‘We’d best start discussing the dowry and the bride-price.’

‘Oh come now,’ Tibryn said. ‘The land she brings should be enough for any man, Burco!’

‘Very true.’ Merodda turned to Lilli. ‘You may leave us now.’

Lilli rose, curtsied, and gladly fled. She hurried down the stone staircase to the first turn, then paused, looking out over the great hall, roaring with armed men in the firelight. Braemys had left Dun Deverry some days earlier, she knew, gone off to his father’s lands to muster their allies, but then, his father would have to be the one to inform him of the betrothal, anyway. Perhaps Uncle Burcan would send him a messenger; more likely the matter would wait until her cousin returned to court. She wondered if he would be pleased instead of feeling merely relieved she wasn’t someone else.

Lilli did however spot Lady Bevyan, standing by the royal table with two of Queen Abrwnna’s serving women. Smiling, Lilli trotted down the steps and made her way over to her foster-mother, who greeted her by holding out one arm. Lilli slipped into that familiar embrace with a comfortable sigh. With nods and farewells, the serving women drifted away.

‘My, you look pleased!’ Bevyan said. ‘The talk with your mother wasn’t as bad as all that, then.’

‘It wasn’t. They’ve settled my betrothal, and it’s not to one of Uncle Tibryn’s awful vassals.’

‘Good! I was afraid they’d be considering Nantyn.’

‘They were, but Uncle Burcan spoke up for me. It was such an odd thing, Bevva! He even offered to cede Nantyn some land somewhere if Uncle Tibryn wanted to give the old sot that instead of me.’

‘Well, may our goddess bless him for it!’ Bevyan’s voice sounded oddly wary. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d do such a thing, Burcan that is.’

‘But he did, and now I’ll be marrying Braemys, my cousin, you know?’

Bevyan’s arm tightened fast and sharp around her shoulders, then released her. Lilli stepped away and looked at her foster-mother, whose face had gone as bland as her uncle’s had, a few minutes before.

‘Is somewhat wrong with him?’ Lilli said.

‘Not in the least. A decent young man and quite well-spoken, he is.’ Her voice wavered ever so slightly. ‘Well. I’ll wager you’re glad to have it settled, dear.’

‘I am, truly. And this way I’ll be staying at court, and I’ll still be able to see you, now and again.’

‘Just so, and that will be lovely.’

But the distant look in Bevva’s eyes – it was fear, Lilli realized suddenly – bespoke thoughts that were far from lovely. She hovered, wondering what could be so wrong, until Bevyan broke the mood with a little laugh.

‘It’s so noisy here,’ Bevva said. ‘Shall we go up to my chambers? Sarra will want to hear all about your betrothal.’

With that, both Bevyan and the evening returned to their normal selves. Up in Bevva’s suite various court ladies joined them for a long gossip. Lilli felt like a cat lying down for a good nap by a fire, all safe and warm at last. Here in the company of other women she could forget, for at least a little while, the black ink and its secrets.

In the morning Bevyan’s suspicions woke with her. While she dressed, they seemed to sit on the edge of her bed, muttering in low voices, ‘Could it be? Could it really be?’ One never knew what Merodda might be thinking; she did, after all, lie as easily as a bard sang. Finally she could stand it no longer and went to Merodda’s chambers, just to hear what she could hear, she told herself, just to prove herself wrong. When Merodda’s maidservant let Bevyan in, she found the lady washing her face. In the corner of her bedroom stood a crockery basin on a wooden stand. Dressed in a plain white shift, Merodda was dabbling a thin cloth in strange-smelling water.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Bevyan. I shan’t be able to talk while I’m doing this.’

‘Of course. I’m in no hurry. Is it a herb bath, dear?’

Merodda gave her a brief smile for her only answer, then wrung out her cloth and began wiping her face with it. Every now and then she’d dip a corner of the rag back in the basin, but Bevyan noticed that she never let it get too wet and that she kept her lips tightly closed the while. No doubt the stuff tasted as bad as it smelled. When she finished, she laid the cloth at her windowsill to dry, then rinsed her hands with clean water from a crockery pitcher that stood on the floor.

‘Now then,’ Merodda said. ‘What did you wish to speak with me about?’

‘Lilli told me about her betrothal last night.’

‘Ah, did she? What do you think of Braemys?’

‘He’s a very decent lad. A bit close kin, perhaps.’

‘Oh, Burcan wanted a cousin marriage. It’s the lands, of course. With my sons dead, my poor dear Geredd’s lands came to Lilli. It’s a nice holding.’

‘It is, indeed, and worth the Boar’s keeping.’

Merodda picked up a bone comb and began combing her hair, starkly gold in the sunlight. Another herb potion, or so Bevyan supposed, kept it that girlish colour.

‘I did foster the lass,’ Bevyan said. ‘I’m not merely prying.’

‘Of course not! And you did a fine job, I must say. Lilli’s turned out to be a lovely child with very courtly ways.’

‘My thanks. I’m so glad you’re pleased.’

‘And I am.’ Merodda hesitated, glancing away. ‘I did the best I could for her, with this marriage. I hope you believe me about that. I did the best I could.’

‘What? Of course I believe you! No doubt your brothers did the real deciding, anyway. I’m just so glad that Tibryn didn’t send her off to Nantyn to be beaten to death.’

‘That was my worst fear.’ Merodda looked at her again, and never had Bevyan seen a woman more sincere. ‘It truly was.’

‘Then we can both thank the Goddess – and Burcan – that it didn’t happen.’

‘Ah. Lilli told you about the way he intervened.’

‘She did. It was very good of him.’

For a moment they considered each other.

‘It was,’ Merodda said at last. ‘But Braemys is a decent lad. Lilli will be very well provided for, and I’ll be able to keep her near me at court much of the time. She’s my last child, after all, the last one these wars have left me. I know that you can understand how I feel.’

‘Unfortunately, I can. You know, dear, I’d never do anything that would ever harm Lilli.’

Merodda nodded, then hesitated, studying Bevyan’s face. It was a habit of hers, to peer at someone so intently you would have thought she was reading omens in their eyes. Bevyan had always assumed that she was nearsighted and nothing more, but this morning the scrutiny bothered her.

‘I shouldn’t take up more of your time,’ Bevyan said.

‘Oh, Bevva, don’t be foolish! It’s good to see you. In fact, may I ask you a favour?’

‘Of course.’

‘Come with me on an errand. I’ve got to consult with the heralds on an odd matter. Unless perhaps you know: is there a clan named the Red Wyvern among the Usurper’s following?’

‘I have no idea. I vaguely remember hearing the name once, years and years ago, but that’s all.’

‘Then let me dress, and we’ll pay the heralds a visit.’

Merodda smiled; Bevyan smiled; the suspicions began their nattering again. And yet what was she to do, Bevva asked herself? Come right out and ask: Lilli is Burcan’s child, isn’t she? You’re marrying her off to her own brother, aren’t you?

In one of the side brochs the King’s heralds lived and had their scriptorium, where they copied over and preserved the genealogies of the various clans and their intermarryings as well as the devices proper to each. When the two women arrived, a servant trotted off to fetch the chief herald himself, leaving them in the sunny room. A row of tables with slanted tops sat underneath the windows, while on the walls hung small shields, each about a foot high, the official record of each device. Merodda began circling the room and studying the shields, but what caught Bevyan’s attention was a glass sphere filled with water that sat upon the window ledge. She was just puzzling over it when the chief herald himself, Dennyc, trotted in with low bows for the Regent’s sister and her companion.

‘Ah, there you are, good herald,’ Merodda said. ‘My thanks for attending upon us.’

‘It’s my honour, your ladyship. And what may I do for you?’

‘I’ve a question,’ Merodda said, pointing. ‘On this shield here, whose device is this? The red wyvern, I mean.’

‘Sadly, the clan that bore it is long gone.’ Dennyc ambled over to join her. ‘The last heir died before I was born, and so I know only what my predecessor told me. They held land off in the west and were related to the blood royal of both Deverry and Pyrdon. Just exactly how I don’t remember, though I could of course look it up for you.’

‘Oh, do spare yourself the effort. It doesn’t matter.’ Merodda suddenly laughed. ‘Since they’re long gone.’

Bevyan could only wonder why, but there was no doubt that Merodda looked profoundly relieved. Dennyc bowed again.

‘I’d been hoping for a word with your ladyship,’ the herald said. ‘I understand that she’s betrothed her daughter to Braemys of the Boar.’

‘I have, indeed.’

‘Ah, I was thinking, you see, being as I do study such things, your ladyship, the best to serve my king and all who serve him, that perhaps the marriage is a bit too much of a close one.’

For the briefest of moments Merodda went as a still as a rabbit in the bracken when it hears the hounds. Perhaps it was merely the bright light in the room, but she went a little pale around the mouth as well – again, for a brief moment. With what must have been an effort, she smiled.

‘Cousin marriages are common in all the great clans,’ Merodda said.

‘Just so, my lady.’ Dennyc bowed with the air of a man who wasn’t quite sure of what else to do. ‘But there have been so many first cousin marriages among the Boar that I thought perhaps it was my duty to warn her ladyship, merely warn her of course as the decision will always remain hers and her brothers, but,’ he paused for a brief breath, ‘perhaps if there were some other candidate who pleased her ladyship equally well –’

‘There’s not.’ Merodda spoke firmly but politely. ‘My thanks, good Dennyc. Lady Bevyan, shall we go?’

‘As you wish, my lady.’

Bevyan and Merodda parted company at the door of the King’s broch, but all that morning, as she walked in the gardens as part of the Queen’s retinue, Bevyan found her worry gnawing at her. Apparently the news of Lady Lillorigga’s marriage had reached royalty as well as the heralds. With a wave of one slender hand, Abrwnna motioned Bevyan up to walk beside her.

‘I hear your foster-daughter is to marry Lord Braemys,’ the Queen said.

‘She is, Your Highness.’

‘And here I was going to take him into my fellowship.’ Abrwnna tossed her head with a ripple of red-gold hair in the sunlight. ‘I’m glad now I didn’t.’

‘I see, Your Highness.’

They walked a bit further down a gravelled path to a wall where climbing roses were just beginning to bud. The Queen picked one and forced the tiny petals open with her thumb.

‘I let your son know that he’d be welcome to join my fellowship. He declined. Did you know that?’

‘I didn’t, Your Highness. I hope you weren’t offended.’

‘Of course I was. But it’s not your fault.’

Before Bevyan could think of a tactful comment, the Queen dismissed her again.

As Bevyan was entering the great hall for dinner with her women behind her, chance brought her face to face with Regent Burcan, followed by his own retinue. They smiled and exchanged pleasantries, but Bevyan found herself studying his broad face, the distinctive wide blue eyes, the thin mouth, both so like Lilli’s – but like her mother’s as well, she reminded herself.

‘I must congratulate you, Regent,’ Bevyan said at last. ‘I hear you’ve made a good marriage for young Braemys.’

Burcan’s expression changed; he kept smiling, but his entire face went tight from the effort of doing so.

‘Lilli will make him a good wife,’ Burcan said, and his voice was oddly tight as well. ‘And she brings a nice parcel of land with her.’

‘So she does. My congratulations to the lad.’

As Bevyan made their way through the tables to her own seat, she glanced back to find Burcan staring after her, his face set and unreadable. All at once she realized that letting him see her suspicions would be dangerous.

After the meal, there in the great hall before the assembled lords and the King himself Tibryn announced the betrothal of his niece to his nephew. Everyone cheered and called out their congratulations while Lilli smiled and blushed – everyone but the Queen, that is, who pouted. Bevyan could only hope that Lilli could keep her happiness safe from jealousy as well as death, that little bit of happiness allowed to a woman in the midst of the endless wars.

As always, the black ink seemed to rise out of the basin in a vast wave, catching her, pulling her under. This time the wave seemed so real that Lilli gagged and coughed, sure that she would drown. She could feel her mother’s hand pressing on her neck and pushing her down into trance. All at once she floated in blackness, and the choking vanished.

‘Tell us what you see.’ The words swam after her, imploring. ‘What do you see, Lilli?’

At first, nothing – then in the blackness the familiar circle of light appeared. Lilli floated through and found herself back in the dun, back in her mother’s chambers, in fact, but a pale sunlight poured in through the open windows. ‘Who’s there, Lilli?’ The voice sounded so strange, all syrupy and drawn out, that she could not tell if Brour or Merodda spoke. ‘Who do you see?’

‘No one. But there are things.’

A wooden chest stood open; dresses lay scattered on the floor; an empty silver flagon lay in the ashes on the hearth. In one corner sat a little doll, made of cloth scraps stuffed with hay. Lilli recognized it as something that had belonged to her years ago; Sarra had made it for her, and Bevyan had embroidered the little face. With a laugh she ran to it and picked it up, hugged it to her chest as she used to do, back in Hendyr.

‘Can you leave the room?’ The voice poured into her ears.

‘There’s no door to be seen.’

‘Look into the chest.’

Still holding her doll, Lilli skipped across the chamber. She leaned over the chest and nearly screamed. Only her fear of her mother’s slap kept her from screaming. Yet she must have made some sound, because the voice sounded urgent.

‘What is it?’

‘Brour’s head, just his head, and the neck’s all black with old blood.’

‘Come back!’ Her mother’s voice said, and this time it was clearly her mother’s. ‘Come back now. Go through the window.’

Lilli found herself floating up and out, as light as a dandelion seed, up up into the blue sky and through the sky to candle flame. She found herself on her knees by the table in her mother’s chamber. Merodda knelt in front of her, her waxy face sweaty-pale in the dancing candlelight.

‘We’ve done enough for one night,’ Merodda said. ‘You need to rest.’

‘Just so,’ Brour said. ‘Just so.’

With Merodda’s help Lilli got to her feet. In a moment her head cleared enough for her to stand without help.

‘Shall I go with you to your chamber?’ Brour said. ‘Will you get there safely?’

‘I will, truly.’ Lilli couldn’t bear to look at him, not with the vision of his severed head still hanging behind her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Lilli hurried across the chamber and out, but as she closed the door she paused briefly and glanced back to see Brour and Merodda standing facing each other like a pair of swordsmen. She shut the door quietly and for a moment leaned against it to gather her strength. All at once she realized that she was – of course – no longer holding the doll. She would have wept, but she was learning that tears were merely her reaction to the scrying sessions and no true thing.

Yet all that evening and on into the night she found herself missing that doll. In her dreams she searched for it in strange chambers filled with armed men, who never noticed her as she crept along the walls and slipped through half-open doors. In the morning when she woke, she reached for the doll, which had always slept with her when she’d been a child.

‘Of course it’s not there, you dolt,’ she told herself. ‘You lost it when they brought you back here.’

What if somehow her mother had found and kept it? Perhaps it really was in that chamber, where she’d seen it in vision. Toward the middle of the morning, when she was sitting in the great hall, she saw her mother and Bevyan both in attendance upon the Queen. No doubt the three of them would go to the royal women’s hall and be busy there for some long while. Although she felt foolish for doing so, Lilli hurried upstairs.

In her mother’s chambers she found not the doll but Brour, sitting sideways by the window so that the sunlight could fall upon the pages of an enormous book, about as tall as a man’s forearm and half-again as wide, that he’d laid upon the table. With his lower lip stuck out, and his big head bent in concentration, he looked more like a child than ever. When she walked in, he shut the book with some effort. She could smell ancient damp exhaling from its pages. Grey stains marred the dark leather of its bindings.

‘I can’t read, you know,’ Lilli said. ‘You don’t have to worry about me seeing your secrets.’

‘Well, that’s true.’ Brour smiled briefly. ‘Are you looking for your mother, lass? She told me that she’d be waiting upon the Queen all day.’

‘Ah, I thought so. I just wanted to see if I’d left a little thing here.’

‘Look all you please.’ Brour waved his hand vaguely at the chamber.

Feeling more foolish than ever Lilli walked around, glancing behind the furniture, opening the carved chests, which held nothing but her mother’s clothes. Brour clasped his book in his arms and watched her.

‘You don’t see my head in there again, do you?’ he said at last.

‘I don’t, and may the Goddess be thanked. That was truly horrible.’

‘I didn’t find the omen amusing, either.’ His voice turned flat.

Lilli shut the last chest, then leaned in the curve of the wall to watch him watch her. His short thick fingers dug into the leather bindings of his book.

‘It must have scared you,’ she said.

‘A fair bit, truly. What do you think the meaning was?’

‘I’ve no idea. My mother never tells me how to interpret the things I see.’

‘No doubt.’ Brour made a little grunt of disgust. ‘She treats you like an infant, doesn’t she? You should be learning how to use your gifts.’

Lilli laid one hand at her throat.

‘Does that frighten you?’ Brour went on. ‘A pity, if so.’

‘I never asked for any of this. I hate doing it, I just hate it.’

Brour considered her for a moment, then laid his book on the table.

‘You hate it because you don’t understand it. If you understood it, you wouldn’t hate it.’ All at once he smiled at her. ‘I’ll make you a promise about that.’

Lilli hesitated, then glanced at the door. She could leave, she should just leave, and find some of the court women to keep her company.

‘By all means, go if you want,’ Brour said. ‘But don’t you even want to know what it is you’re doing, when you scry at your mother’s whim?’

‘I’m seeing omens,’ Lilli snapped. ‘I know that much.’

‘Ah, but where are you seeing them?’

The question caught her. She’d so often wondered just that.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

‘I do indeed.’ Brour smiled again, and he seemed much kinder than she’d ever thought him to be. ‘Come now, won’t you sit down? Explaining where portents come from is no short matter.’

Lilli took a step toward the table, then stopped.

‘If my mother finds out about this, she’ll beat me.’

‘Then we’d best make sure she knows nothing.’ Brour pointed at the chair across from his. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered why Merodda doesn’t want you to learn dweomer?’

‘I have, truly.’

‘She wants to use your powers for herself, that’s why. When you learn about your gifts, you’ll be able to use them for yourself, and she won’t be able to force you to do what she wants.’

Lilli walked over and sat down. Brour smiled and opened his book.

‘There’s a picture in here that I want to show you,’ he said. ‘It shows what the universe looks like.’

Circles within circles, drawn in black ink – at the centre sat the Earth, or so Brour called it, and each circle around it bore a name.

‘This is Greggyn lore,’ Brour said. ‘It came over with King Bran during the Great Migration. The sphere – that’s what these circles represent, spheres – above and surrounding the sphere of the Earth belongs to the Moon. The next one belongs to the Sun. We’ll learn about those higher ones when it’s time. There’s too much for you to remember all at once.’

‘That’s certainly true.’ Lilli put her elbows on the table and leaned forward to study the picture. ‘It gives me such an odd feeling, seeing this.’

‘Ah, no doubt the knowledge is calling to you.’

In truth the feeling was more like terror, but she decided against telling him that. She listened carefully as he explained how the matter of each sphere interpenetrates the one below it.

‘Only on the earthly world do all the others exist,’ Brour finished up. ‘Here they reach completion. And that means from here you can reach all the others. That’s what you do when you go into trance. You leave your body and go to one of these other worlds.’

The terror stuck in her throat. That’s what people do when they die, Lilli thought. They leave their bodies and go to the Otherlands.

‘Now, omens of the future exist in the upper astral,’ Brour pointed at a circle. ‘That’s where your mother sends you.’

‘My mother sends me there? I thought you were the one who did that.’

‘Not I, child. Your mother knows as much about these things as I do.’ Abruptly he looked away.

In the hall, a noise – someone walking, several people, all talking at once. Lilli leapt to her feet. Brour shut the book. The sounds grew louder – and went on past. Lilli let out her breath in a long sigh and realized that Brour had lost the colour in his face.

‘You’re scared of her, too, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘I can’t deny it.’

Lilli stared. She’d never thought to see a man frightened of a woman, not anywhere in her world.

‘I’d best go.’ She got up. ‘I don’t dare have her find me here.’

‘Just so. But come back when you can, and I’ll tell you more.’

Lilli ran out of the chamber, slammed the door, and raced down the hall. At the staircase she paused to smooth her hair and catch her breath, then decorously descended to the great hall below. I’ll never go back, she told herself. I’ll never look at that book again.

At dinner that evening she sat next to Bevyan, whose warmth drove all thoughts of dangerous magic from her mind. They discussed Lilli’s dower chest, which she’d started filling while she was still at Hendyr, although, as she admitted, she’d been lax of late.

‘Well, dear, Sarra and I are here to help,’ Bevyan said. ‘The first thing we’ll want to do is the wedding shirt for Braemys, and then the coverlet for your new bed.’

‘We should have all summer,’ Sarra put in. ‘They won’t be holding the wedding till the campaigning’s over.’

‘That’s true.’ Lilli felt oddly cold, and she rubbed her hands together. ‘I hope naught ill happens to Braemys.’

‘Ai!’ Bevyan shook her head. ‘You’re a woman now truly, aren’t you, dear? You’ve joined the rest of us in worrying about one man or another.’

That night, as she lay in bed and tried to sleep, Lilli was thinking about Braemys. She’d always liked her cousin, who had also been fostered out to Peddyc and Bevyan. Whether or not they married, she certainly didn’t want him to die in the summer’s fighting. And now, if he did die, whom would she be forced to marry in the autumn? Nantyn or some other old and drink-besotted northern lord like him. Uncle Tibryn would never allow his mind to be changed a second time; the miracle was that he’d allowed it once.

Her mind like a traitor turned up Brour’s image, saying: you could use your gifts for yourself. What if she could read omens about Braemys’s wyrd? What if she could know what was going to happen to her, instead of feeling like a twig floating on a river, twisting this way and that with the current beyond her power to break free? She sat up in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. Through the window she could see a slender moon, rising between two towers, enjoying all the freedom of the sky.

In the morning, when Lady Merodda announced a hawking party, Lilli feigned a headache and stayed behind, moaning against her pillows like an invalid. As soon as she could be sure that they were well and truly gone, she got up, dressed, and hurried to Lady Bevyan’s suite. She needed advice, even though she could never mention dweomer to Bevyan. Merely being around her foster-mother would help her think, Lilli decided. Bevyan would give her a kind of touchstone to judge the worth of these strange things. But Sarra met her at the door.

‘Oh, Bevva’s not here.’ Sarra paused for a triumphant smile ‘She was invited to go hawking with the Queen.’

‘She was?’

‘She truly was, and I’m ever so pleased. It’s such an honour!’

Of course, but Lilli was wishing that Bevyan had been honoured on some other day. She went downstairs, hung around the great hall for a miserable while, then found herself thinking again and again of Brour’s book and the secrets it held. At last, with a feeling of surrender, she returned to her mother’s chambers.

Brour was sitting at the table by the window, but instead of his book, parchment and ink lay in front of him.

‘Ah,’ he said, grinning. ‘You came back.’

‘I did. Did you really mean what you said, about I could use my gifts for myself?’

‘I did. I’ll swear that by any god you like. Now, I’m just writing a message for your uncle, telling his son that you and he will marry. When I’m done, I’ll take it back to Lord Burcan, and then we can look at my book again.’

Lilli sat down, elbows on the table, and watched him write, forming each black letter carefully on a parchment used so many times that it had been scraped as thin and flabby as cloth. The scribe who lived in Burcan’s dun would be able to look at those marks and turn them into speech again – Lilli shuddered, but pleasurably. It seemed a dweomer of its own.

‘My congratulations, by the by.’ Brour paused to pick up a little pen knife. ‘Or is the betrothal a bad one?’

‘It’s not, but one I’m well-pleased with.’

‘Good.’ He smiled, and it seemed to her that he was sincere. ‘I’m glad of that. Some day you’ll be able to use your gifts to help your husband, then, as well.’

‘I’d like that. I just hope my mother doesn’t find us out. She can always tell when I’m lying, you know. Is that dweomer?’

‘It is, most certainly.’

Lilli caught her breath.

‘Ah,’ Brour went on, ‘but what you don’t understand is that dweomer can be countered with dweomer. I’ll teach you how to defend yourself against your mother’s prying.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. It’s a beginner’s sort of trick but a useful thing to know.’

Lilli smiled.

‘I’m beginning to think I’ll like these studies.’

‘Oh,’ Brour said, solemn-faced, ‘I’m sure you will. I truly am.’

After a morning’s desultory hunt, the Queen’s party rode down to the grassy shore of Lake Gwerconydd for a meal. While the pages bustled around, spreading out a cloth and opening baskets of food, the women turned their horses over to the men of the Queen’s guard and their hawks to the falconers. With Merodda and Bevyan in tow, the Queen ran down to the water’s edge, where small waves lapped on clean sand. She threw herself down on her back in the thick grass and laughed up at the sky while Bevyan and Merodda sat more decorously beside her.

‘It feels so good to be out of the dun,’ the Queen said. ‘Don’t you think so, Lady Bevyan?’

‘I do, Your Highness.’ Bevyan paused for a hurried glance back – the men were all staring at the Queen. ‘It’s a lovely sunny day.’

‘Perhaps Her Highness might sit up?’ Merodda said, smiling. ‘She has a great many men in her retinue, and dignity is never amiss.’

Abrwnna stuck out her tongue at Merodda, but she did sit, smoothing her white riding dresses down over her knees.

‘I’m quite sure my guards know their duty,’ the Queen said. ‘And they’re all very loyal to the King. Well, to your brother, my lady Merodda. He picked them, after all.’

‘My brother acts purely in the King’s interests,’ Merodda said. ‘Any loyalty paid to him is loyalty paid to our liege.’

‘Oh please!’ Abrwnna wrinkled her nose. ‘You don’t have to pretend around me. We all know who really rules the kingdom.’

A page was approaching. Bevyan laid a warning finger across her lips.

‘Your Highness?’ the boy said. ‘The meal is ready.’

‘Very well.’ Abrwnna rose and nodded his way. ‘Shall we go, my ladies?’

While they ate, with the pages hovering around in attendance, Abrwnna kept the conversation to court gossip. Her maidservants supplied her with every scrap of scandal in the dun, apparently, to augment what she gleaned herself. She ran through various love affairs or the possibility of them as if she were reciting the lists for a tournament.

‘So you can see, Bevva,’ Abrwnna finished up, ‘all sorts of things happened this winter while you were gone.’

‘Indeed,’ Bevyan said. She reminded herself to tell Peddyc about this use of her nickname. ‘Long winters do that to people, and with so many widows sheltering here under your protection, I suppose things might get a bit complicated.’

‘Very, and I haven’t told you the best bit yet. Lady Merodda’s brother was the biggest prize of all. The Regent might as well be a nice fat partridge, for all the hawks that are set upon him.’

Merodda, who was buttering bread, smiled indulgently.

‘Well, Your Highness,’ Bevyan said. ‘He has access to the King, and that does make a man attractive.’

‘Just so. The worst thing happened though. It was right before the thaw. Two of the court ladies were fighting over Burcan, just like dogs fighting over scraps of meat. It was Varra and Caetha.’

‘Caetha? I’d heard she left us for the Otherlands.’

‘She did, and here’s the thing. It looked like she was gaining the Regent’s favour – everyone said he was much taken with her – when suddenly she died. Everyone said Varra poisoned her, it was so sudden. And then Varra left court and went home to her brother, which makes me think she really did do it.’

‘Oh, my dear liege!’ Merodda looked up with a little shake of her head. ‘I doubt that very much. Here – it was at the bitter end of winter, and we all know what happens then to the food, even in a king’s dun.’ She glanced at Bevyan. ‘The poor woman died after eating tainted meat. It was horrible.’

‘But she’s not the only one who ate it.’ Abrwnna leaned forward. ‘Merodda had some, too.’

‘And, Your Highness, I was quite ill.’ Merodda shuddered as if at the memory. ‘Caetha wasn’t strong enough to recover, I’m afraid. It happens.’

‘Indeed, it does happen, and a sad sad thing,’ Bevyan said. ‘There’s really no need to talk about poisoning people.’

And yet, despite her sensible words, Bevyan found herself wondering about Merodda’s herbcraft. If she could wash her face with ill-smelling water and keep her skin as smooth as a lass’s, what other lore did she know? No doubt the Queen had no idea that poor dead Caetha’s real rival had been Lord Burcan’s sister.

Since it was the Queen’s pleasure to ride, the women returned to the dun late in the afternoon. Side by side Merodda and Bevyan walked into the great hall, where the men were already congregating for the evening meal. They watched the Queen and her maidservants flit through the crowd like chattering birds and chase each other, giggling, up the stone staircase. Bevyan could just see on the landing a handful of young lords, each marked as a member of the Queen’s fellowship by a twist of green silk around their right sleeve. They bowed to the ladies and walked with them up the stairway and out of sight.

‘Bevva?’ Merodda said suddenly. ‘You don’t suppose Abrwnna has a lover, do you?’

‘It’s one of my fears, truly. She talks of little else.’

‘Just so. Being married to a child is a difficult thing for a lass like her.’

They exchanged a grim glance, for that moment at least allies.

Later that evening, Bevyan remembered to ask Lilli about the lady Caetha in the privacy of her suite. Lilli repeated the story of the tainted meat and added that Caetha had died clutching her stomach in agony.

‘How terrible!’ Bevyan said. ‘I take it that your mother was ill as well.’

‘She was. She’d eaten from that same meat.’ Lilli considered with a small frown. ‘But she wasn’t anywhere as ill as poor Caetha, though she threw up ever so much and told us all how much pain she was in.’

‘That’s an odd way of putting it, dear. Do you think she wasn’t in pain?’

‘Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’ Lilli laid a pale hand at her throat. ‘She was; of course she was. It was awful to hear her moan and not be able to do anything for it.’

‘No doubt. You poor child! Well, I’m so sorry about poor Caetha.’

‘Oh, indeed. We all were.’

Yet once again Bevyan wondered.

Often over the next few days Lilli found herself drawn back to her mother’s chamber and Brour. She felt as if she were living the lives of two different girls. In the afternoons, she would sit and sew with Bevyan and the other women, talking over the news of the royal dun while the embroidery grew thick on the pieces of Braemys’s wedding shirt. But in the morning, she would watch her mother to get some idea of Merodda’s plans, and once they were established – a country ride, perhaps, or a session in the Queen’s chambers – Lilli would slip upstairs for a lesson. Oddly enough, Brour always seemed to know that she was coming and would be waiting for her.

‘Is that dweomer?’ she demanded one morning. ‘The way you know I’m coming?’

‘It’s not. I am your mother’s scribe, after all. She tells me when she’ll be occupied, and then I assume you’ll be coming up here. Although, to tell you the truth, sometimes I worry about her laying a trap for us, like.’

‘So do I. But today I know she’s gone with the Queen to the temple down in the city, so she should be busy for a fair long while.’

‘Good.’ Brour considered, tapping his fingers on the closed book. ‘I’ve got a thing of great import to tell you. Repeat back to me what I told you about the Wildfolk.’

‘They are creatures of the Sphere of the Moon as we are of the Earth. They have eyes that see and ears that hear but not true wits. The dweomermaster can command them at will but should never trust them.’

‘Excellent! And what of the Lords of the Elements?’

‘They too are spirits, but of the Spheres of the Planets. They have the beginnings of true wits and thus are wily and hard to command.’

‘Well done again. You have a fine mind, lass.’

Lilli blushed.

‘What I’m thinking of doing,’ Brour went on, ‘is the evocation of one of the Lords of Earth. There’s a thing I need to find, buried in the earth around this dun. I’ve asked here and there among the servants and the retainers, but no one knows where it lies.’

‘What is it?’

‘Haven’t you ever thought it odd that this dun doesn’t have a bolthole, a way out in case of siege?’

‘You mean it doesn’t?’

‘Not so as anyone remembers. And yet I’ve looked over the chronicles of the kings, as the bards and the priests have kept them. This war’s raged a long time, a hundred years and more, and as will happen in a war, the fortunes ebb and sway. There were times back in the early days when it looked black indeed for the true king here in Dun Deverry, times when one usurper or another had this city sieged. And each time the King disappeared from the dun and just like dweomer turned up in the Boar’s own city of Cantrae, where he could rally his loyal men and ride back with an army to lift the siege.’

‘Was it dweomer, then?’

‘I doubt it very much.’ Brour smiled briefly. ‘I think there was a bolthole, some underground way out of this dun, and it must surface a fair distance from the city, too. Doubtless it was a well-kept secret, and it may have been too well-kept. It seems to have died with the last king to use it, and that was fifty years and more ago.’

‘If you could find it again, then you’d have the King’s favour for a certainty. I’ll bet Uncle Burcan would be ever so pleased.’

‘No doubt. So much so that I’m going to ask you to keep this a secret. Your uncle hates me, and I want to win him round, you see. I don’t want someone else running to him first.’

‘I’ll keep it secret, I promise.’

‘My thanks, lass. Now, let me tell you what we’re going to be doing. The best time for this ritual is in the dark of night, but we’ll need to practise it first.’

‘I get to help?’

‘You do indeed. You’ll have to slip out and join me once I find a place where it’s safe to study it. But pay attention now. There are many strange things you need to learn.’

‘Well, I’m glad we’ve got a few moments to ourselves, love,’ Peddyc said. ‘When we’re both awake.’

‘So am I,’ Bevyan said. ‘I’ve stationed Sarra in the antechamber for a sentinel.’

He laughed and sat down in the chair opposite hers. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows and fell across them, a golden blanket. Peddyc yawned and stretched his legs out in front of him.

‘You look weary,’ she said.

‘I am that. I’ve spent the afternoon with our Burcan. That’s enough to weary any man. At least good news is coming in. None of the northern lords have gone over to the Usurper. They’ll hold firm while the border holds.’

‘And how long will that be?’

Peddyc shrugged.

‘For this summer at least,’ he said finally. ‘Hendyr’s become important. I find myself being courted.’

‘Ah. That’s interesting.’

‘Well, ours is the last big dun on the border to the west of here. The King’s forces have to hold it. If it falls to the enemy, then Prince Maryn can outflank us and start moving into the northlands.’

‘Prince Maryn? I’ve never heard you call him that before.’

Peddyc winced.

‘A foolish slip, my love. May the gods keep me from doing it in front of Burcan.’ He hesitated for a long moment. ‘Well, Maryn’s a prince over his own lands, no matter what any of us think of his claim to the throne of Deverry.’

‘Pyrdon – just so.’

They fell silent, considering each other, considering – Bevyan supposed – just how much it was safe to say aloud, even in the privacy of their chambers.

‘I’d best get back.’ Peddyc rose and glanced toward the window. ‘The sun’s getting low, and there’s to be yet another council of war.’

‘When will the army march?’

‘I’ve no idea. Soon. It will have to be soon, or we’ll find the Usurper at our gates.’ He paused to rub his face with both hands. ‘Gwerbret Daeryc brought that up this afternoon. Burcan said that he was waiting for more messages from the Northlands. One of the younger lords took offence for some reason, and everything turned into wrangling. A lot of pounding on the table and reminding each other of our rank.’

‘That sounds awful.’

‘Oh, it was. I’m of two minds, my love. You know how I feel about the Regent as a man, but he’s the only leader we’ve got or are going to have. And without a leader, we’re all –’ He paused for a long moment. ‘Well, I’d best be gone. No doubt I’ll be back late tonight, but if you’re awake, I’ll tell you what decision we’ve reached.’

‘My thanks. Queen Abrwnna has asked me to join her women tonight after the meal, so I may have gossip to tell you.’

‘Good. It gladdens my heart to see you in her favour.’

‘Is it her favour? Or are we being watched?’

Peddyc considered, his head tilted a bit to one side.

‘Well,’ Bevyan went on. ‘You’ve just told me how important Hendyr is. I keep thinking of the dinner we had in Lord Camlyn’s dun, and I wonder how skilled Daeryc is at hiding what his heart feels.’

‘Not very.’ Peddyc gave her an ironic smile. ‘You speak very true, my love. I hadn’t thought of that. There are times when Daeryc looks at the Regent, and the look on his face – you’d think he’d bitten into rotten meat.’

‘Just so. I’ve seen it. And Daeryc is our overlord. If they suspect him, won’t they suspect you?’

Peddyc nodded, thinking.

‘My thanks for the warning,’ he said at last. ‘I need your sharp eyes. I’ll do my best to act the loyal vassal around Burcan, then, and I just might have a private caution for His Grace Daeryc, too.’

Although Bevyan was undoubtedly rising in the Queen’s favour, as yet she hadn’t been invited to eat at the royal women’s table. Her usual bench stood close enough to the Queen, however, for her to watch Abrwnna and her women as they sat giggling together over their meat and bread. Not far away, though at enough distance for propriety, the Queen’s Fellowship shared a table while immediately behind them sat the sons of various high-ranking nobility, Anasyn among them. Bevyan enjoyed watching her son, grown so tall and strong, taken into the company of his peers. She had tried over the years to distance herself from him; she had mourned his brothers too bitterly to wish to repeat that particular grief. Yet she was proud of him and his courtly manners as well. Although the lords around him were drinking hard and laughing, Sanno watched his ale and spoke only quietly if at all.

Instead of ale, the young men of the Queen’s Fellowship had been drinking mead, or so Bevyan heard later, and rather a lot of it. All at once one of them shouted, someone else swore, a third oath rang out and stilled the general clamour. Bevyan rose to look just as the Queen’s men leapt up, knocking over benches, to rush the lords at Anasyn’s table. Bevyan saw Anasyn jump free and grab a friend from behind just in time to keep the lad’s sword in its sheath.

The fight devolved into shoving and cursing. A table went over with the crack of breaking pottery. Someone swung a punch, someone else reeled back with a bloody nose, but the older lords were on their feet and running, calling out to one another like hounds coursing for game. They grabbed the combatants and dragged them apart, then for good measure dragged them clear out of the great hall.

‘And what was all that about?’ Lilli said.

‘Oh, who knows?’ Bevyan said with a shrug. ‘Men will take insult and so easily, too.’

And yet she saw Anasyn, hurrying across to her through the confusion and beckoning her to join him. With a gesture to Lilli to stay put, Bevyan headed to the curve of the wall and a little space free of gawkers, where he joined her. His right sleeve was soaked through with mead, as if someone had thrown a goblet-full.

‘There you are, Mother,’ Anasyn said. ‘Father said I should tell you what happened.’

‘Oh did he? It was more than some stupid insult, then.’

‘Truly. Someone proposed a wager, you see, on how soon one of the Queen’s Fellowship would bed the Queen, and which one it would be. Well, they overheard, and –’

‘Oh ye gods! So the gossip’s got as bad as all that? Who started it?’

Anasyn shrugged for an answer. Out in the great hall everyone was sitting back down; a pair of pages were righting the overturned benches and picking up trenchers from the straw while assorted dogs wagged their tails and watched, hoping for another spill and sudden meal.

‘Your father was right to let me know,’ Bevyan said. ‘I’ll have a word with Merodda about this. As far as I can tell, she’s the only one with any influence over the lass.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Which reminds me, dear. The Queen tells me you were offered a place in her fellowship.’

‘I turned it down.’

‘So she said. I was just curious –’

‘I’ve never wanted to be anyone’s lap dog and run with a pack of them. It’s disgusting, watching them fawn over her.’

I see, Bevyan thought. So my lad’s fallen in love! Aloud, she said, ‘And quite right, too. Well, I’d best see how the poor lass fares.’

The Queen’s hall in Dun Deverry occupied an entire floor of the royal broch. Carved chairs, heaped with faded and torn cushions, stood on threadbare Bardek carpets, while sagging tapestries covered the walls between the windows. When Bevyan came in, she expected to find the Queen in tears over this insult to her honour, but instead Abrwnna was pacing back and forth in front of a cold hearth while her maidservants cowered out of her way in the curve of the wall. One of the girls was crying, and her messy hair, pulled every which way in long strands, gave evidence of her royal mistress’s bad temper. Merodda, however, was calmly sitting on one of the wide windowsills as if to take the air. None of the Queen’s other serving women were in evidence.

‘There you are, Lady Bevyan,’ the Queen said. ‘I have need of your counsel.’

‘Indeed, Your Highness?’ Bevyan made a curtsey in her general direction, since she kept pacing.

‘Indeed. Lady Merodda tells me I should disband my fellowship.’

‘Ah. I fear me that I agree with her.’

‘I don’t want to!’ Abrwnna swung round and threw one arm up, as if she were thinking of slapping the older women down. ‘They’re mine and I don’t want to!’

‘No one can force Your Highness,’ Merodda put in. ‘Bevyan, Her Highness asked my opinion, and so I gave it.’

‘As I have given mine,’ Bevyan said. ‘And there we’ll let the matter drop if Her Highness commands.’

‘Well, I cursed well do!’ With a deep breath Abrwnna caught herself and lowered her hand. ‘We do not wish to hear this matter discussed in our presence.’

‘Very well, Your Highness,’ Bevyan said. ‘So be it.’

In years past Dun Deverry had sheltered three times the men who lived there now. In its tangle of wards and towers stood many an empty building – sheds and stables, mostly, but in a small ward far from the King’s residence rose a deserted broch. Its lower floors stored arrows, stones, and poles for pushing siege-ladders off walls, but the top floor stood empty except for a stack of tanned hides, all stiff and crumbling from age. These Lilli and Brour hung over the windows until, after a lot of struggling and cursing, not a crack of sunlight gleamed.

‘Good,’ Brour said. ‘We don’t want anyone seeing our lantern and coming up here.’

‘How did you find this place?’

‘I’ve been searching for the bolthole for weeks, so I’ve been prying into all sorts of deserted places. I remembered this one when I decided to try a ritual.’

‘Do you think anyone else comes up here?’

‘There weren’t any tracks in the dust.’

Lilli looked around the room – an ordinary sort of room for Dun Deverry, yet no one had been up here for years, if the dust and the cobwebs could be trusted.

‘I hope my mother doesn’t want me to scry this evening.’

‘She won’t,’ Brour said. ‘She told me she’d be attending upon the Queen again. Is somewhat wrong with Her Highness, do you know?’

‘I don’t, but I’ll wager it’s that fight in the great hall last night. Everyone is saying that the Queen’s honour was insulted, and no doubt she’s ever so upset.’

‘No doubt. Well, that should keep your mother nicely occupied, then.’

‘Truly.’ Lilli paused for a sneeze. ‘It’s so dusty up here! Will the Lords of Earth like that?’

‘I’ll sweep up a bit before we start. Now you’d best run along before someone misses you. I’ll go back later. We don’t want anyone seeing us come in together.’

When Lilli returned to the royal broch, she found servants standing around gossiping about the insult to the Queen’s Fellowship, if not the Queen herself. During their afternoon of sewing, Bevyan seemed worried about the incident as well.

‘What’s causing the trouble,’ Bevyan said, ‘is having all these young hotheads packed in together, waiting for the summer’s fighting to start. The Regent needs to lead his men out soon.’

‘I don’t understand why he hasn’t already,’ Lilli said. ‘Do you, Bevva?’

‘Well, I don’t truly know, but Peddyc’s shared his guesses with me.’ Bevyan hesitated, thinking something through. ‘I’d say that the Regent doesn’t have enough men to stand against the Usurper, and they’re trying to round up more.’

‘Oh. Oh, that means we’re going to lose, doesn’t it?’

Bevyan and Sarra both looked up from their sewing and stared at her. Lilli felt her face grow hot.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lilli stammered. ‘I shouldn’t have – oh gods! I always say the wrong thing – I’m sorry.’

‘No need to apologize, dear,’ Bevyan said. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to lose. The Regent thinks he can find the men we need, and Peddyc seems to agree with him. One good victory, and a lot of the lords who went over to the Usurper will swing back to the King’s side.’

If, Lilli thought, if we can gain the victory in the first place.

‘The waiting’s just so awful,’ she said aloud.

‘Just so, dear, just so.’

Bevyan sighed and bent her head back to her work, but all at once she seemed old, and to Lilli’s sight the streaks of grey in her pale hair suddenly spread and turned dead-white while her skin turned a cold dead grey to match it. Lilli nearly cried out. She’s just weary! she told herself sharply. You’re just seeing things again.

As soon as the evening meal was finished, Merodda and Bevyan went to wait upon the Queen, and Lilli could slip unnoticed from the great hall. In the abandoned tower she found Brour waiting for her. As she climbed the stairs, she saw a broom leaning against the wall on the landing, and the wooden floor inside had been swept clean. Brour himself was sitting in the middle of the circular room, while all around him huge shadows danced on the rough stone walls. He’d lit four lanterns and set them equidistant from one another.

‘They sit at the four directions, as far as I can reckon them anyway.’ Brour rose to greet her. ‘East west, north south. It’s in the pillar of light above each lantern that you’re to imagine the great lords of the elements when the time comes.’

‘Very well,’ Lilli said. ‘We’re going to practise this a lot, aren’t we?’

‘Many times over, truly. It has to be done just precisely right. Tonight I’m merely going to tell you the different parts and what they mean. Oh, and I want to give you a lesson on hardening your aura.’

‘My what?’

‘It’s like an egg of invisible light that surrounds every living person. It’s the effect of the etheric plane interpenetrating the physical. When you throw a stone into a pond, the ripples spread. And what are the ripples? A pattern in the same water as fills the pond. Think of the aura as being somewhat like that.’

Lilli stared at the floor and tried to think.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said at last.

‘It’s not an easy thing to understand.’ Brour sounded amused. ‘But spend some time thinking on it, and see what comes to your mind. But the point is, once you learn to control yours, your mother won’t be able to pry into your mind again.’

‘Splendid!’ Lilli looked up and found him smiling. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more!’

‘No doubt. Let’s begin.’

‘Braemys rode in this afternoon,’ Burcan said. ‘He’s brought the news I’ve been waiting for.’

‘Indeed?’ Merodda said. ‘Good or ill?’

‘Good. The northern lords have agreed to strip their fort guards. We’ll have a full army when we march.’

Merodda allowed herself a brief smile, which he returned. Late in the evening, they were sitting alone in her chamber by the light of a smoky fire. Outside, rain hammered against the walls, and every now and then the south wind lifted the leather hides hung at the windows.

‘Have there been any omens?’ Burcan said.

‘I’ve not had Lilli scry this past few days. I was waiting to hear your news. You need to have some knowledge of how things are before you can interpret an omen, you see.’

‘Very well, then. Huh, I’ll have to remind Brae to have a word with her. About their betrothal, I mean.’

‘If he’s not too busy for a courtly gesture, of course.’

Her sarcasm earned her a sour smile. Burcan hesitated, studying her face. She knew what he wanted to know, what they all wanted to know, Bevva and that beastly little herald, too, and her women servants – they’d all suspected for years, after all, who her lover might be. She could see it in their narrowed eyes, hear it in the hesitations of their speech. In the hearth a log burned through and dropped in a gush of flame and a scatter of coals on stone.

‘Rhodi?’ His voice hesitated, stumbled. ‘Do you really think this marriage is an, um, er, well, allowable thing?’

She smiled into the fire. On the hearthstone the coals were winking out, one at a time. She heard him move uneasily in his chair, then sigh.

‘I’d best get on my way,’ Burcan said. ‘Daeryc and the other gwerbretion are waiting for me.’

‘So late?’

‘I promised I’d tell them when we’ll march as soon as I’d spoken to the King. He was asleep when I stopped in there, but I spoke, anyway.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I didn’t say I’d wait for his answer.’

‘And when will you march?’

‘As soon as the full northern contingents ride in. They’re on their way.’

In the morning, when Lilli came down to the great hall, she found Braemys waiting for her near the foot of the staircase. He was a tall lad, as all the Boarsmen were, blond and blue-eyed and with the clan’s squarish face as well. Since last they’d met, his upper lip had sprouted a line of hair that could be called a moustache for courtesy’s sake if naught else. When he saw her, he strode over and bowed. She curtsied in return.

‘My lady,’ Braemys said. ‘Does this betrothal please you?’

‘It does. What about you, my lord?’

‘Well enough.’ He turned to look away – when she followed his glance, Lilli could see Uncle Burcan standing near the doorway. ‘I’d best get myself to the council of war.’

He turned and strode off to join his father. Lilli watched them as they made their way through the crowded hall and out. Ah well, she reminded herself, he’s ever so much better than Nantyn.

Over the next few days Lilli had scant time to worry about her betrothed. He was much involved with the councils of war, while she and Brour had their practising to do. Once as well, late of a rainy night, her mother called her to scry in the black ink. With Brour holding the long candle as usual, Lilli stared into the silver bowl, where shadows danced, black on a deeper black. She could hear the wind howling around the broch, and as the spell took her over, the sound transmuted into voices, screaming and crying out.

‘Tears and rage.’ It was the only thing Lilli could say about the wailing. ‘I hear tears and terror.’

She could feel her mother’s hand squeezing the back of her neck.

‘Try to listen,’ Merodda hissed. ‘What are they saying?’

‘No words. Weeping and fear.’

In the blackness images were beginning to form of headless riders on black horses, huge, towering over entire cities as they galloped through a stormy night. The wailing faded away, and Lilli heard her own voice start describing the omens. Swords that burned with blue fire formed a huge wall in front of Dun Deverry. An army all dressed in red threw itself against the wall but fell back, tattered and dying, only to regroup on a far hill.

‘They’re riding again,’ Lilli said. ‘I see them riding – wait. It’s going away, it’s all going away.’

In the basin the flaming swords winked out like sparks on a hearth stone. The images turned pale and watery, then faded in turn. For a moment, blackness – then lantern-light revealed a pleasant chamber with bright-coloured tapestries on the walls. In the middle of the chamber stood an elderly man with a shock of untidy white hair. He was leaning over a table and staring into a basin of water. All at once he looked up – looked right at her with ice-blue eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul.

‘Well, here’s a surprise!’ He sounded amused, and his voice was oddly resonant for someone who looked so old. ‘Who are you, lass? You’ll hurt yourself spying on me like this, if you’re not careful.’

Lilli started to answer but found she couldn’t speak. All at once the vision broke. The image separated into pie-slice fragments like the design on a shattered plate – then disappeared. A white-faced Brour was shaking her by the shoulder.

‘Are you back? Are you back?’

‘I am, Brour. What’s so wrong?’

‘I’d rather like to know that myself,’ Merodda said. ‘Why did you stop her?’

‘Because that old man is dangerous. He’s the Usurper’s personal advisor and a sorcerer of the greatest power.’

‘I saw into Cerrmor?’ Lilli said.

‘You did.’ Brour paused to wipe his sweaty face on his sleeve. ‘Or Nevyn tricked you into revealing yourself.’

‘Who?’ Merodda broke in. ‘No one? Don’t talk in riddles.’

‘I’m not. That’s his name, nevyn, Nevyn, some miserable jest of his father’s, it was, naming his son no one.’

Merodda was studying her scribe with her mouth caught in a sour twist. With a long sigh Brour composed himself.

‘I studied under the man,’ Brour said. ‘I know him quite well.’

‘He wasn’t trying to trick me,’ Lilli said. ‘He was as surprised as I was.’

‘Ah.’ Brour considered this for a long moment. ‘Still, you’d best not scry again tonight. He’ll be looking for you. It’s too dangerous.’

‘What?’ Merodda snapped. ‘But the omens –’

‘Will have to wait,’ Brour said. ‘It’s too dangerous, my lady. Truly it is. I’ll gladly explain.’

‘Do so.’ Merodda turned to Lilli. ‘Leave us.’

When Lilli hesitated, Merodda raised a ringed hand. Lilli left and hurried down the corridor to her chamber. Once safely inside, she went to the window – the floor was soaked with rain, but outside the storm had ended. Overhead a pale moon seemed to race through the sky as torn clouds scudded past.

‘He looked kind,’ Lilli whispered. ‘Truly kind. If he’s the sort of man Cerrmor has on his side –’

She shook her head to drive the traitorous thoughts away.

Yet that night she dreamt about Cerrmor, or some dream image of it, at any rate, since she’d never been there, and of Nevyn, who seemed to be trying to find her in the middle of a vast maze of stone walls and hedgerows. When she woke to a flood of sunlight across her bed, the dream stayed with her. She dressed and was just thinking of looking for Brour when he knocked at her door.

‘It’s me,’ he called out. ‘Are you there, Lilli?’

‘I am.’ She unbarred the door. ‘Come in. I’ve had the oddest dream.’

‘I thought you might.’

Brour hurried in, then shut the door behind him. His round child’s face was pale and stubbled, as if he’d waked all night.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Lilli said.

‘A number of small things that all add up to trouble. Nevyn spotting you, and then your dear mother’s lack of sense. She refuses to stop this dangerous scrying.’

‘Dangerous because of Nevyn?’

‘Just so. If he makes a link with you, he’ll be able to spy through your eyes.’

‘Well, it’s not as if I know very much about the King’s plans.’

‘You’d be surprised what you know without knowing you know it.’ Brour smiled briefly. ‘What troubles my heart is a selfish fear, though. I don’t want Nevyn tracking me down.’

‘Oh. Why not?’

Brour’s eyes blinked rapidly; then he shrugged.

‘I was a cursed poor student,’ he said. ‘And I left before I truly should have.’

Lilli hesitated, hearing pain in his voice. Something more than that had gone wrong, she suspected – something too shameful for Brour to admit.

‘It was all a long time ago.’ Brour paced over to the window, paced back again. ‘But I’ve made up my mind. Once we work the ritual and find the bolthole, I’m leaving Dun Deverry.’

‘Oh, don’t go!’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here. Your mother and uncle have grown suspicious of me for some reason, and they’ll kill me when the time seems ripe. You remember the omen of my head in a chest? Well, I’m sure it was quite true. I was hoping to win your uncle round by finding the bolthole, but now I think I’ll just leave by it. Safer all round. Then once I’m gone, you can tell Burcan about it, and you’ll get the gain and favour.’

‘My thanks. But I wish you weren’t going.’

‘You could come with me.’

Lilli gasped and laid her hand at her throat.

‘Just think about it,’ Brour said. ‘My offer is strictly honourable. I’ll treat you like my daughter. Come with me and be my apprentice. And save your skin, too, when this miserable dun falls to the enemy.’

Lilli felt the blood pound in her throat.

‘I’ve got to get back to your lady mother.’ Brour looked as if he might spit at the mention of her name. ‘But think on it, Lilli. I beg you.’

After he left, Lilli wandered over to the window. For a long time she stared out at the many-towered view without truly seeing it. She had a decision to make, and for the first time in her life, she couldn’t go running to Bevva with it.

Over the past few days, Merodda had become more and more aware of Lady Bevyan’s growing influence over the young Queen. Abrwnna included Bevyan in every royal progress through the town and every hawking party, visit to the temples, or special evening meal in the royal hall. At times, when Merodda went up to the women’s quarters, she would find Bevyan there alone, listening to one of the Queen’s rambling conversations.

‘I was glad at first,’ Merodda remarked to Brour. ‘Abrwnna can be a tiresome little thing.’

‘Indeed, my lady? But you’re not pleased now?’

‘Well, I don’t want to see myself displaced in the Queen’s favour.’

‘Ah. That would be a great loss, truly.’

Merodda considered him for a long moment. His head bent over his work, he was writing out a proclamation of Lilli’s betrothal for the heralds. She would regret his death when Burcan killed him, but Burcan’s favour was the centre of her life, the one thing she desperately needed, far beyond even the favour of the Queen. If he wanted Brour gone, then gone he’d be. Brour stuck his reed pen into a hole in the side of his ink pot, then picked up a handful of sand from a tray behind him and sprinkled it over wet words.

‘What do you think of Bevyan?’ Merodda said.

‘I rather like her, my lady, from what little I know of her, but I don’t know much at all.’

‘Well, true-spoken.’ She hesitated, wondering what she wanted him to say. ‘It’s of no matter. Tonight I’ll be in the Queen’s quarters, attending upon Her Highness. If anyone else wishes to see me, they’ll have to wait.’

‘Very good, my lady.’

Brour picked up the sheet of parchment and tipped the sand back into its tray, then laid it down and got back to work.

That evening Merodda tried to reach the Queen’s side early, but it seemed that the entire court was conspiring against her. As she made her way from the great hall, one person after another stopped her – servants asking for orders, lords hoping to wangle some favour from the Regent, ladies wanting to chat, a page with a message from Burcan. By the time she reached the women’s hall Bevyan was there ahead of her, sitting at Abrwnna’s side on a footstool while the Queen lounged in a cushioned chair. Her maidservants were laying a little fire in the hearth and lighting candles, while two serving women sang a song of love, trading off verses, and a third played a clumsy harp, all to keep the Queen amused.

In vain, that – Abrwnna was scowling. When Merodda came in, she turned her head to acknowledge her, then waved a hand at the music-makers.

‘Oh don’t!’ Abrwnna snapped. ‘I hate that song.’

The music stopped. The singers glanced at each other, then arranged smiles. The would-be harpist looked close to tears.

‘This is all unbelievably tedious.’ Abrwnna lay back with her head resting on the chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘I think I’m going to die of boredom.’

‘Well, Your Highness,’ Bevyan said. ‘We could play a game of carnoic or wooden wisdom.’

‘I’m sick of games.’

‘Your Highness?’ the lass with the harp said. ‘If your husband the King joined us, we could have a proper bard come in to entertain.’

‘I don’t want my beastly husband here. He sucks his thumb when he listens.’

All the women glanced sideways at each other. Merodda found an empty chair and sat down. Their tasks done, the maidservants scurried away.

‘I want to go for a walk in the night air,’ Abrwnna announced.

‘Very well, Your Highness,’ Bevyan said. ‘We’ll all have a nice stroll in the gardens.’

‘I don’t want anyone to come with me.’

‘Your Highness!’ Merodda broke in. ‘That would be most unwise.’

‘I don’t care if it’s unwise or not! I want to be alone.’

The serving women all began talking at once, but Bevyan rose, faced Abrwnna, and caught the lass’s glance with hers.

‘My poor dear child,’ Bevyan said. ‘I know how unbelievably dreadful this all is. My heart aches for you. I can hear in your voice just how tired and lonely and frightened you are.’

‘Well, I am, and all of those things!’ Abrwnna seemed on the edge of tears. ‘When we were riding today, I just wanted to turn my horse and gallop away, just ride off somewhere and be lost. Anything would be better than another summer of this beastly war.’

Merodda felt a sudden chill – so! Bevyan had been riding with the Queen, while she’d been left behind.

‘Well, we can all understand that.’ Bevyan sat again, but she turned the footstool so the Queen could see her face. ‘But you feel it much more keenly than any of us.’

‘I’m just so tired,’ Abrwnna whispered. ‘It’s just not fair.’

‘It’s not, truly,’ Bevyan said. ‘We did ride such a long way today. Shall I comb out your hair for you? And then perhaps you can sleep. The morning will bring the sun and better things.’

‘I’d like that.’ Abrwnna turned to one of her women. ‘Fetch my combs for me.’

While Bevyan combed the Queen’s hair, she kept up a flow of chatter in her soft, dark voice that soothed the Queen the way stroking will soothe a frightened cat. She allowed Bevva to lead her to her bedchamber, too, and tuck her in. When Merodda left the women’s hall that night, she wondered if everyone she met could smell her fear – it seemed to trail behind her like smoke. To be supplanted this way! How could she possibly allow it?

Out in the deserted broch Lilli and Brour were ready at last to work the ritual of evocation. At each of the four directions stood a candle lantern which Brour lit from a fifth. In one curve of the wall lay a couple of cloth sacks – supplies, he said. On the floor he’d drawn a big circle with flour.

‘It’s a bit wobbly, isn’t it?’ Brour said, frowning at the mark. ‘Well, the circle that really matters is the one I’ll visualize, anyway.’

Lilli sat down cross-legged in the centre of the circle, facing their approximate east. Brour had brought a big pottery bowl for her scrying; they didn’t dare risk Merodda noticing that the silver basin had gone missing. He filled it with ink from a leather bottle and set it down in front of her.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’

‘I am.’ Lilli took a deep breath to steady her nerves. ‘Let’s begin.’

Brour stood directly in front of her, again facing east, and raised his arms high above his head. For a moment he gathered breath; then he began to chant in an odd vibrating growl of a voice. The words themselves meant nothing to her; they were Greggyn, she supposed, or some other ancient tongue. From his telling, however, she knew that he was invoking the Light that dwelt beyond the gods and drawing it down into himself to give power for the working.

He lowered his arms till they were straight out from his shoulders and chanted again, waited, then let his arms drop. To Lilli it seemed that the room had suddenly become larger – and crowded. Although she could hear nothing but Brour’s hard breathing, she felt that the room buzzed with life and noise, like the great hall on some state occasion. Brour held out one hand as if he were holding a sword and began to chant again. As he growled out the sacred words, he slowly turned, east to south to west to north and east again, drawing a circle of blue light out on the astral plane – or so he’d told her. Again, she could see nothing of this, but all at once she realized that the stone walls of the broch shimmered in a faint silvery light, as if some reflection of the magic had come through to her sight.

‘I invoke thee!’ Brour began to intone in Deverrian. ‘I call unto thee! O Great King of the Element of Earth, I invoke thee into my presence! Show thyself and be known, in the names of the great sigils of the elements and the Lords of Light!’

Brour turned toward the north, and Lilli twisted round so that she could see. The candle lantern set there threw a mottled pillar of light up the stone wall, at first no different than any of the others in the room.

‘I invoke thee! Lord of Earth and the North, home of the greatest darkness, come to me and show thyself!’