Kitabı oxu: «A Time of Omens»

A Note on the Pronunciation of Deverry Words

The language spoken in Deverry is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.

Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.

A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.

O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.

W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short.

Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.

E as in pen.

I as in pin.

U as in pun.

Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.

Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.

AE as the a in mane.

AI as in aisle.

AU as the ow in how.

EO as a combination of eh and oh.

EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.

IE as in pier.

OE as the oy in boy.

UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee.

Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic, (KAR-noh-ik).

Consonants are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:

C is always hard as in cat.

G is always hard as in get.

DD is the voiced th as in thin, or breathe, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in th or breath. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)

R is heavily rolled.

RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd, the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.

DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.

Y is never a consonant.

I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.

Doubled consonants are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.

Accent is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.

I have used this system of transcription for the Bardekian and Elvish alphabets as well as the Deverrian, which is, of course, based upon the Greek rather than the Roman model. In spite of the ridiculous controversy still continuing in certain university circles, I see no reason to confuse the ordinary reader with the technical method of Elvish transcription in common use among linguists and scholars. Anyone who wishes to learn this system may of course refer to the standard works upon the subject available from the University of Aberwyn Press; the average reader of popular fiction would no doubt rather forego such a formidable experience. I am surprised at the stubbornness of certain professors of Elvish, to say nothing of a certain Elvish professor, which has forced me to append such a self-evident remark to these notes. One can only assume that these persons are under-employed by their academic institutions if they have the leisure to write scurrilous articles about contemporary novelists rather than devoting themselves to their proper areas of expertise.

PROLOGUE
Wmmglaedd
1096

On the Inner Planes, Time as we know it no longer exists. This is why an omen may refer to things which we perceive as long over and done with as well as to things in process at the moment in which the omen is cast and to things which we have yet to perceive at all. Past, Present, Future – these states do not exist in the world from which an omen proceeds, yet there is no denying, of course, that they do exist in ours …

The Pseudo-Iamblichus Scroll

In those days the eastern border of the elven lands lay in the middle of a forest. A traveller leaving the high plains and heading east came down a long gentle decline into the oaks to find several rivers that might mark a border – if only anyone at all had lived on either side of them. In that vast tangle of tree and shrub, bracken and thorn, finding the lands of men (that is, the three western provinces – Eldidd, Pyrdon, Arcodd – of the kingdom of Deverry) was no easy job. If you wanted to go from west to east, the sandy coast of the Southern Sea made a much more reliable road, if, of course, you could fight your way south to reach it. The ancient forest had a way of tricking travellers unless they or their companions knew the route well.

The woman who rode out of the forest late on a summer day travelled with a horde of such companions – not that most human beings would have seen them. Sylphs and sprites hovered round her in the air, gnomes clung to her saddle or perched on the back of the spare horse she was leading, undines rose out of every stream and pool she passed to wave a friendly greeting. Her friends weren’t the only odd thing about Jill. If you looked carefully at her silver hair, cropped short like a lad’s, and the fine lines that webbed her eyes round and latticed her cheeks, you realized that she had to be at least fifty years old if not somewhat more, but she radiated so much vitality, the way a fire gives off heat, that it was impossible to think of her as anything but young. She was, you see, the most powerful sorcerer in all of Deverry.

The first human settlement that any traveller coming from the west reached on the coast was the holy precinct of Wmmglaedd, although in those days, before the silting of the river and the meddling of humans had extended the shore, the temple lay a little ways out to sea on a low-lying cluster of islands. Jill rode along the sea cliffs through meadows of tall grass to a rocky beach, where the waves washed over gravel with a mutter, as if the sea were endlessly regretting some poor decision. A fair mile offshore, she could see the rise of the main island against the glitter of the Southern Sea.

She led her pair of horses down to the two stone pillars that marked the entrance to a stone causeway, still underwater at the moment, though when she looked at the water lapping at the carved notches along the edge of one pillar, she found each wave falling a little lower than the one before. Crying and mewling, sea birds swooped overhead, graceful gulls and the ungainly pelicans who were sacred to the god Wmm, all come to feed as the dropping tide exposed the rocky shallows. At last the causeway emerged, streaming water like a silver sea-snake, to let her lead her horses across the uncertain footing. At the far end of the causeway stood a stone arch inlaid with coloured marble in panels of interlace and roundels decorated with pelicans; it sported an inscription, too, ‘water covers and reveals all things.’

About ten miles long and seven wide, with a central hill standing in the midst of meadows of coarse sea-grass, the island sheltered four different temple complexes at that time, brochs as tall as a lord’s dun, clusters of wooden guest houses, cattle-barns and riding stables as well as a series of holy shrines placed at picturesque locations. Although the temple had been founded in the year 690 as a modest refuge for scholars and mystics, during the long Civil Wars of the ninth century its priests had the shrewdness and the good fortune to play a crucial role in placing the True King on his throne. When the wars were over, their fame drew an occasional desperate soul seeking an oracle, and as the long years went by, the rare case became a swarm of pilgrims, all laden with gifts to earn the favour of the god.

Now Wmm was rich. Still leading her horses rather than riding, Jill left the causeway and followed a fine road, paved with limestone blocks, through the smallish town that had sprung up near the temples. In among the round, thatched houses townsfolk and visitors strolled around or sat in the windows of one of the many inns, and pedlars kept accosting her with trays of sweetmeats or baskets of little silver medals and pottery souvenirs. She brushed them all off and strode on her way, skirting the main complex, too, bustling with visitors and priests here in the summer season, and took a little-used path that ran south-east through pine trees, all twisted and bowed down from the constant wind. In a little bay of rocky shore a jetty stood with a ferry bobbing at anchor beside it. Beyond, a scant mile away, she could see the rise of East Island, a long sliver of land that most visitors knew or cared nothing about.

‘Jill, halloo!’ The ferryman, a stout priest draped in an orange cloak, waved both hands at her as she led her horses gingerly down the steep path. ‘Back so soon?’

‘I am, at that. How have things been? Quiet?’

‘They always are, out our way.’ He grinned, revealing brown and broken teeth. ‘His holiness has pains in his joints again.’

‘I’m surprised you aren’t all as bent and stiff as village crones, frankly, out here in the fog.’

‘True, true. But well, we’ve got a bit of sun today at least. Enjoy it while we can, say I.’

Since the tide was running out, the journey was quick and easy, though the ferryman was bound to have a harder trip rowing back by himself. Jill coaxed her horses off, left him sighing at the job ahead, and headed across a wind-scoured meadow to a complex much smaller and plainer than those of the main island. At the base of a low hill stood a clutter of roundhouses and a stable, shaded by a few stunted oaks. Dust drifted and swirled over the threadbare lawns and sickly vegetable gardens. She turned her horses over to a groom, carried her saddle-bags and bedroll to a hut that did for a guest house, dumped her gear onto the narrow cot, and decided that she’d unpacked. With a deferential bob of his head, a servant came in, bringing her a wash basin and a pitcher of water.

‘His holiness is in the library.’

‘I’ll join him there.’

After she washed, she lingered in the silence for a moment to get her questions clear in her mind. Like all the other pilgrims, she’d come to Wmm’s temple for help in making a decision, in her case about a voyage to the far-lying islands of the Bardekian archipelago, a very major undertaking indeed in those days. It was likely that she’d be gone for years and almost as likely that she wouldn’t even find what she was looking for, the translation of a single word that she’d found inscribed inside a ring. The word, written in Elvish characters though it made no sense at all in any language, might have been a name or sheer nonsense for all that she knew. What she did know, in the mysterious way that dweomer-masters have, was that the inscription would make the difference between life and death to thousands of people, men and elves alike. When, she didn’t exactly know. Someday, perhaps even soon.

She suspected – but only suspected – that the answer lay in Bardek. She was hoping that the priests of Wmm could either confirm her suspicion or lay it to rest.

The library of Wmm was at that time an oblong building in the Bardek style of whitewashed stucco, roofed in clay tiles to cut down the fire danger. Inside, in a row of hearths peat fires constantly smouldered to keep the chill and damp off the collection of over five hundred books and scrolls – a vast wealth of learning for the time. Jill found the chief librarian, Suryn, standing at his lectern by a window with a view of the oak trees beyond. Unrolled in front of him was a Bardekian scroll. He looked up and smiled at her; as always, his weak eyes were watering from the effort of reading.

‘Oh, there you are, Jill! I’ve been looking for that reference you wanted.’

‘The history scroll? You’ve found it?’

‘I have indeed, and just now, so it’s a good thing you wandered in like this. Must be an omen.’

Although he was joking, Jill felt a line of cold run down her back.

‘In fact, I’ve found both of the sources you were talking about.’ He tapped the papyrus in front of him with a bone stylus. ‘Here’s the scroll, and it does indeed have a reference to elves living in the islands. Well, maybe they’re elves, anyway. Take a look at it, and I’ll just fetch the codex.’

The scroll was an ancient chronicle of the city-state of Arbarat, lying far south in the Bardekian islands. Since Jill had learned to read Bardekian only recently it took her some minutes to puzzle out the brief entry.

‘A shipwrecked man was washed up on shore near the harbour. His name was Terrso, a merchant of Mangorat …’ There was a long bit here about the archon’s attempt to repatriate the man, which Jill skipped through. ‘Before he left us, Terrso told of his adventures. He claimed to have travelled far far south, beyond even Anmurdio, and to have discovered a strange people who dwelt in the jungles. These people, he claimed, were more akin to animals than men because they lived in trees and had long pointed ears. Because he was so ravaged by fever, none took his words seriously.’

‘Curse them all!’ Jill snapped.

‘They don’t truly go into detail, do they?’ Suryn came up at her elbow. ‘Here’s the Lughcarn codex. Do be careful with it, won’t you? It’s very old.’

‘Of course I will, your holiness. Don’t trouble your heart about that. May I take it back to the guest house to read? I need to rest from my journey.’

Suryn blinked at her for a moment.

‘Oh, you’ve been gone. Of course – silly of me. By all means, keep it with you if you’d like. There’s a lectern in the hut?’

‘A good one, and a candle-spike, too.’

Jill bathed and ate a sparse dinner before she got around to looking at the codex. By then, early in the evening, the fog was coming in thick, darkening the hut and turning it chilly, too. She laid a fire in the hearth, lit it by the simple means of invoking the Wildfolk of Fire with a snap of her fingers, then stuck a reading candle, as long and thick as a child’s arm, onto the cast-iron spike built into the lectern. Before she lit the candle, though, she sat down on the floor by the fire to watch the salamanders playing in the flames and to think for a while about the work she had in hand, gathering every scrap of available information about the mysterious inscription. Although it was a pretty thing, made of dwarven silver and graven with roses, the ring itself carried no particular magic. It might, however, be important as a clue.

She already knew much of its history. Once it had belonged to a human bard named Maddyn, who had travelled to the western lands and given it to an elven dweomer-master as a gift. That master had in turn given it to a mysterious race of not-truly-corporeal beings called the Guardians. She was assuming that the Guardians had added the unintelligible inscription for the simple reason that the ring hadn’t been inscribed before they’d got hold of it, but, when one of their kind returned it to the physical world by giving it to another bard, elven this time and named Devaberiel, it carried its little riddle. As far as dweomer-masters could tell, the Guardians perceived important omens about future possibilities as easily as most men see the sun. Since they insisted that the inscription had some important Wyrd to fulfil, Jill saw no reason to doubt them. Abstract terms like ‘why’, however, seemed to have no meaning for them, and there was much in the way of explanation that they’d left out of their tale.

As she always did toward evening, she found herself thinking about her old master in the dweomer and missing him. Although Nevyn had been dead for months now, at times her grief stabbed so sharply that it seemed he’d died just the day before. If only he were here, she would think, he’d unravel this wretched puzzle fast enough! A grey gnome, a creature she’d known for years, materialized next to her and climbed into her lap. All spindly arms and legs and long warty nose, he looked up at her with his pinched little face twisted into a creditable imitation of human sadness.

‘You miss Nevyn too, don’t you?’ Jill said. ‘Well, he’s gone on now like he had to. All of us do in our time.’

Although the gnome nodded, she doubted if he understood. In a moment he jumped Off her lap, found a copper coin wedged into a crack in the floor and became engrossed with pulling it out. Jill wondered if she would ever meet Nevyn again in the long cycles of death and rebirth. Only if she needed to, she supposed, and she knew that it would be years and years before he would be reborn again, long after her own death, no doubt, though well before her next birth. Although all souls rest in the Inner Lands between lives, Nevyn’s life had been so unnaturally prolonged by dweomer – he’d lived well over four hundred years, all told – that his corresponding interval of rest would doubtless be unusually long as well, or so she could speculate. It was for the Lords of Wyrd to decide, not her. She told herself that often, even as her heart ached to see him again.

Finally, in a fit of annoyance over her mood, she got up and went to the lectern to read, but the chronicle only made her melancholy worse. She’d been trying to recall an event that had happened in one of her own previous lives, but she could remember it only dimly, because even a great dweomer-master like her could call to mind only the most general outlines and the occasional tiny memory-picture of former lives. She was sure, though, from that dim memory, that she – or rather her previous incarnation, because she’d been born into a male body in that cycle – had been present at the forging of the rose ring. During that life, as the warrior known as Branoic, she’d ridden with a very important band of soldiers, the True King’s personal guard in the civil wars – that much, she could remember.

What she’d forgotten was that Nevyn had been not only present but very much an important actor in those events, perhaps the most important figure of all. There was his name, written on practically every page. As she read the composed speeches the chronicler had put into his mouth, she found herself shaking her head in irritation: he never would have sounded so stiff, so formal! All at once, she realized that she was crying. The flood of long-buried grief, not only for Nevyn but for other friends her soul had forgotten this two hundred years and more, seemed to work a dweomer of its own. Rather than merely reading the chronicler’s dry account, she found herself remembering the isolated lake fort, of Dun Drwloc, where Nevyn had tutored the young prince who was destined to become king, and the long ride that the Silver Daggers had taken to bring the prince to Cerrmor and his destiny. All night she stood there, reading some parts of the tale, remembering others, until the sheer fascination of the puzzle buried her grief again.

PAST
Pyrdon and Deverry
843

Nothing is ever lost.

The Pseudo-Iamblichus Scroll

ONE

The year 843. In Cerrmor that winter, near the shortest day, there were double rings round the moon for two nights running. On the third night King Glyn died in agony after drinking a goblet of mead …

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

The morning dawned clear if cold, with a snap of winter left in the wind, but toward noon the wind died and the day turned warm. As he led his horse and the prince’s out of the stables, Branoic was whistling at the prospect of getting free of the fortress for a few hours. After a long winter shut up in Dun Drwloc, he felt as if the high stone walls had marched in and made everything smaller.

‘Going out for a ride, lad?’

Branoic swirled round to see the prince’s councillor, Nevyn, standing in the cobbled ward next to a broken wagon. Although the silver dagger couldn’t say why, Nevyn always startled him. For one thing, for all that he had a shock of snow-white hair and a face as wrinkled as burlap, the old man strode around as vigorously as a young warrior. For another, his ice-blue eyes seemed to bore into a man’s soul.

‘We are, sir,’ Branoic said, with a bob of his head that would pass for a humble gesture. ‘I’m just bringing out the prince’s horse, too, you see. We’ve all been stable-bound too long this winter.’

‘True enough. But ride carefully, will you? Guard the prince well.’

‘Of course, sir. We always do.’

‘Do it doubly, this morning. I’ve received an omen.’

Branoic turned even colder than the brisk morning wind would explain. As he led the horses away, he was glad that he was going to be riding out with the prince rather than stuck home with his tame sorcerer.

All winter Nevyn had been wondering when the king in Cerrmor would die, but he didn’t get the news until that very day, just before the spring equinox. The night before, it had rained over Dun Drwloc, dissolving the last pockets of snow in the shade of the walls and leaving pools of brown mud in their stead. About two hours before noon, when the sky started clearing in earnest, the old man climbed to the ramparts and looked out over the slate-grey lake, choppy in the chill wind. He was troubled, wondering why he’d received no news from Cerrmor in five months. With those who followed the dark dweomer keeping a watch on the dun, he’d been afraid to contact other dweomer-masters through the fire in case they were overheard, but now he was considering taking the risk. All the omens indicated that the time was ripe for King Glyn’s Wyrd to come upon him.

Yet, as he stood there debating, he got his news in a way that he had never expected. Down below in the ward there was a whooping and a clatter that broke his concentration. In extreme annoyance he turned on the rampart and looked down to see Maryn galloping in the gates at the head of his squad of ten men. The prince was holding something shiny in his right hand and waving it about as he pulled his horse to a halt.

‘Page! Go find Nevyn right now!’

‘I’m up here, lad!’ Nevyn called back. ‘I’ll come down.’

‘Don’t! I’ll come up. It’ll be private that way.’

Maryn dismounted, tossed his reins to a page, and raced for the ladder. Over the winter he had grown another two inches, and his voice had deepened, as well, so that more and more he looked the perfect figure of the king to be, blond and handsome with a far-seeing look in his grey eyes. Yet he was still lad enough to shove whatever it was he was holding into his shirt and scramble up the ladder to the ramparts. Nevyn could tell from the haunted look in his eyes that something had disturbed him.

‘What’s all this, my liege?’

‘We found somewhat, Nevyn, the silver daggers and me, I mean. After you saw us leave we went down the east-running road. It was about three miles from here that we found them.’

‘Found who?’

‘The corpses. They’d all been slain by the sword. There were three dead horses but only two men in the road, but we found the third man out in a field, as if he’d tried to run away before they killed him.’

With a grunt of near-physical pain Nevyn leaned back against the cold stone wall.

‘How long ago were they killed?’

‘Oh, a ghastly long time.’ Maryn looked half-sick at the memory. ‘Maddyn says it was probably a couple of months. They froze first, he said, and then thawed probably just last week. The ravens have been working on them. It was truly grim. And all their gear was pulled apart and strewn around, as if someone had been searching through it.’

‘Oh, no doubt they were. Could you tell anything about these poor wretches?’

‘They were Cerrmor men. Here.’ Maryn reached into his shirt and pulled out a much-tarnished message tube. ‘This was empty when we found it, but look at the device. I rubbed part of it clean on the ride home.’

Nevyn turned the tube and found the polished strip, graven with three tiny ships.

‘You could still see the paint on one shield, too,’ Maryn went on. ‘It was the ship blazon. I wish we had the messages that were in that tube.’

‘So do I, your highness, but I think me I know what they said. We’d best go down and collect the entire troop. No doubt we’re months too late, but I won’t rest easy until we have a look round for the murderers.’

As they hurried back to the broch, it occurred to Nevyn that he no longer had to worry about communicating with his allies by dweomer. It was obvious that their enemies already knew everything they needed to know.

Even though Maddyn considered hunting the murderers a waste of time, and he knew that every other man in the troop was dreading camping out in the chilly damp, no one so much as suggested arguing with Nevyn’s scheme. If anyone had, Maddyn himself would have been the one to do it, because he was a bard of sorts, with a bard’s freedom to speak on any matter at all, as well as being second in command of this troop of mercenaries newly become the prince’s guard. The true commander, Caradoc, was too afraid of Nevyn to say one wrong word to the old man, while Maddyn was, in some ways, the only real friend Nevyn had. Carrying what provisions the dun could spare them at the end of winter’s lean times, the silver daggers, with the prince and old Nevyn riding at the head of the line, clattered out of the gates just at noon. With them was a wagon and a couple of servants with shovels to give the bodies a decent burial.

‘At least the blasted clouds have all blown away,’ Caradoc said with a sigh. ‘I had a chance of a word with the king’s chief huntsman, by the by. He says that there’s an old hunting lodge about ten, twelve miles to the north-east, right on the river. If we can find it, it might still have a roof of sorts.’

‘If we’re riding that way to begin with.’

They found the murdered men and their horses where they’d left them, and it ached Maddyn’s heart to think how close they’d been to safety when their Wyrd fell upon them. While the servants looked for a place where the thawing ground was good and soft, Nevyn coursed back and forth like a hunting dog and examined everything – the dead men, the horses, the soggy ground around them.

‘You and the men certainly trampled all over everything, Maddo,’he grumbled.

‘Well, we looked for footprints and tracks and suchlike. If they’d left a trail we would have found it, but you’ve got to remember that the ground was frozen hard when this happened.’

‘True enough. Where’s the third lad, the one who almost got away?’

Maddyn took him across the field to the sprawled and puffing corpse. In the warming day the smell was loathsome enough to make the bard keep his distance, but Nevyn knelt right down next to the thing and began to examine the ground as carefully as if he were looking for a precious jewel. Finally he stood up and walked away with one last disgusted shake of his head.

‘Find anything?’

‘Naught. I’m not even sure what I was hoping to get, to tell you the truth. It just seems that …’ Nevyn let his words trail away and stood there slack-mouthed for a moment. ‘I want to wash my hands off, and I see a stream over there.’

Maddyn went with him while he knelt down and, swearing at the coldness of the water, scrubbed his hands in the rivulet. All at once the old man went tense, his eyes unfocused, his mouth slack again, his head tilted a little as if he listened to a distant voice. Only then did Maddyn notice that the streamlet brimmed with glassy-blue undines, rising up in crests and wavelets. In their midst, and yet somehow beyond them, like a man coming through a doorway from some other place, was a presence. Maddyn could barely see it, a vast silvery shimmer that seemed to partake of both water and air like some preternatural fog, forming itself into shapes that might not even have existed beyond his desire to see it as a shape. Then it was gone, and Maddyn shuddered once with a toss of his head.

‘Geese walking on your grave?’ Nevyn said mildly.

When Maddyn looked around he saw Owaen and the prince walking over to them and well within earshot.

‘Must be, truly. Here, Owaen, did you and the lads find anything new?’

‘Doubt me if there’s aught to find. Young Branoic did come up with this, though. Insisted it might be important, but he couldn’t say why.’ Owaen looked positively sour as he handed Nevyn a thin sliver of bone about six inches long, barely a half-inch wide, but pointed at both ends. ‘Sometimes I think that lad is daft, I truly do.’

‘Not at all.’ Nevyn was turning the sliver round and round in his thin gnarled fingers. ‘It’s human bone, to begin with. And look how someone’s worked it – smoothed it, shaped it, and then polished it.’

‘What?’ Owaen’s sourness deepened to disgust. ‘What is it, some kind of knife handle?’

‘It’s not, but a stylus to rule lines on parchment.’

‘A stylus?’ Maddyn broke in. ‘Who would make a thing like that out of human bone?’

‘Who indeed, Maddo lad? That’s the answer I’d very much like to have: who indeed?’

In his role as a learned man Nevyn recited a few suitable lines of Dawntime poetry over the corpses; then the silver daggers mounted up and left the servants to get On with the burying. Since, when they rode out they headed for the river, Maddyn spurred his horse up next to the old man’s and mentioned the decrepit hunting lodge.

‘It’ll be better shelter than none, truly,’ Nevyn said.

‘You don’t suppose our enemies camped there, do you?’

‘They might have once, but they’re long gone by now.’ He gave Maddyn a wink. ‘I have some rather reliable information to that effect. Tell the men we won’t be out hunting wild geese long, Maddo. I just want one last look around, that’s all.’

Only then was Maddyn sure that he had indeed seen some exalted personage in the stream.

Just at sunset they reached the lodge, a wooden roundhouse, its thatch half-gone, standing along with a stable behind a palisade that was missing as many logs as a peasant has teeth. As soon as they rode within five hundred yards of the place the horses turned nervous, tossing their heads and blowing, dancing a little in the muddy road. Maddyn had the feeling that they would have bolted if they hadn’t been tired from their long day’s ride.

‘Oho!’ Nevyn said. ‘My liege, you wait here with Caradoc and most of the men. Maddyn, you, Owaen, and Branoic come with me.’

‘You’d better take more men than that, Councillor,’ Maryn said.

‘I won’t need a small army, my liege. Most like there’s naught left here but bad memories, anyway.’

‘But the horses –’

‘See things men don’t see, but men know things that horses don’t know. And with that riddle, you’ll have to rest content.’

Nevyn was right enough, in the event, although the ‘bad memory’ turned out to be bad indeed. The men dismounted and walked the last of the way to the lodge, and as soon as they stepped through the gap they saw and smelled what had been spooking the animals. Nailed to the inside of the palisade, like a shrike nailed to a farmer’s barn, was the corpse of a man, half-eaten by ravens and well ripened by the spring weather. Yet the worst thing wasn’t the stench. The corpse was hung upside down and mutilated – the head cut off and nailed between its legs with what seemed to be – from the fragment left – its private parts stuffed into its mouth. Branoic stared for a long moment, then turned and ran to the shelter of the palisade to vomit heavily and noisily.

‘Uh gods!’ Owaen whispered. ‘What?!’

For all his aplomb earlier, Nevyn looked half-sick now, his face dead-white and looking with all its wrinkles more like old parchment than ever. He ran his tongue over dry lips and spoke at last.

‘A would-be deserter, most like, or a traitor of some sort. They left him that way so he’d roam as a haunt forever. All right, lads, get back to the troop. I think they’ll all agree that we don’t truly want to camp here tonight, shelter or not.’

‘I should think not, by the asses of the gods!’ Owaen turned to Maddyn. ‘I know the horses are tired, but we’d best put a couple of miles between ourselves and this place if there’s a haunt about.’

‘You’re going to, certainly,’ Nevyn broke in. ‘I’m going to stay here.’

‘Not alone you aren’t,’ Maddyn snapped.

‘I don’t need guards with swords, lad. I’m not in danger. If I can’t handle one haunt, what kind of sorcerer am I?’

‘What about this poor bastard?’ Owaen jerked his thumb at the corpse. ‘We should give him some kind of burial.’

‘Oh, I’ll tend to that, too.’ Nevyn started walking for the gate. ‘I’ll just get my horse, and then you all go on your way. Come fetch me first thing in the morning.’

Somewhat later, when they were all making camp – in a meadow about a mile and a half downriver – it occurred to Maddyn that Nevyn seemed to know an awful lot about these mysterious people who had left that ugly bit of sacrilege on the palisade. Although he was normally a curious man, he decided that he could live without asking him to explain.

With the last of the sunset, Nevyn brought his horse inside the tumbledown lodge, tied him on a loose rope to the wall and tended him, then dumped his bedroll and saddle-bags near the hearth, where there lay a sizable if dusty pile of firewood already cut, left by the hirelings of the dark dweomer-master behind this plot – or so he assumed, anyway. As assumptions went, it was a solid one. After he confirmed that the chimney was clear by sticking his head up it for a look, he piled up some logs and lit them with a wave of his hand. Once the fire had blazed up enough to illumine the room, he searched it thoroughly, even poking at the rotting walls with the point of his table-dagger. His patience paid off when under a pile of leaves that had drifted in through a window he found a pewter disc about the size of a thumbnail, of the kind sewn on saddle-bags and other horse gear as decorations. Stamped into it was the head of a boar.

‘I wonder,’ he said aloud. ‘The Boar clan’s territory lies a long way from here but still, if they thought the journey worth it for some purpose … are they in league with the dark dweomer then?’

The idea made him shudder. He slipped the disc into his brigga pocket, then paced back and forth before the fire as he considered what he was going to do about the possible haunt. First, of course, he had to discover if indeed that poor soul whose body rotted outside was still hanging about the site of his death. He laid more wood on the fire, poked it around with a green stick until it burned nice and evenly, then gathered up a mucky little pile of the damp and mildewed thatch that had slid from the roof over the years. If he needed it, the stuff would produce dense smoke. Then he sat down in front of the hearth, let himself relax, and waited.

It was close to an hour later when he felt the presence. At first it seemed only that a cold draught had wafted in from the door behind him, but he saw the salamanders in the fire turn their heads and look up in the direction of some thing. The room turned thick with silence. Still he said nothing, nor did he move, not even when the hair on the back of his neck prickled at the etheric force oozing from the haunt. There was a sound, too, a wet snuffling as if a hound were searching for a scent all over the floor, and every now and then a scrabbling, as if some animal scratched at the floor with its nails. As the air around him grew colder he concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and steady and his mind at peace. With a burst of sparks the salamanders disappeared. The thing was standing right behind him.

‘Have you left somewhat here that won’t let you rest, lad?’

He could feel puzzlement; then it drifted away, snuffling and scrabbling round the joining of floor and wall.

‘Somewhat’s buried, is it?’

The coldness approached him, hesitated, hovering some five feet off to his left. He could feel its desperate panic as clearly as he could feel the cold. Casually, slowly, Nevyn reached out and picked up a handful of the grubby thatch.

‘I wager you’d like to feel solid again, nice and solid and warm. Come over to the fire, lad.’

As the presence drifted into the warm light Nevyn could feel its panic reaching out like tendrils to clutch at him. Slowly he rose to his knees and tossed the half-rotten hay onto the hottest part of the fire. For a moment it merely stank; then grey smoke began to billow and swirl. As if it were a nail rushing to a lodestone the presence threw itself into the fire. Since it ‘lived’ as a pattern of etheric force, the matrix immediately sucked the smoke up and arranged the fine particles of ash to conform to that pattern. Hovering above the fire appeared the shape of a youngish man, naked but of course perfectly whole, since his killers’ knives could do no harm to his etheric body. Nevyn tossed in another handful of thatch to keep the smoke coming, then sat back on his heels.

‘You can’t stay here. You have to travel forward, lad, and go on to a new life. There’s no coming back to this one.’

The smoke-shape shook its head in a furious no, then threw itself out of the fire, leaving the smoke swirling and spreading, but ordinary smoke. Yet enough of the particles clung to the matrix to make the haunt clearly visible as it drifted across the room and began scrabbling again at a loose board between floor and wall. Nevyn could see, too, that it was making the snuffling noise inadvertently, rustling and lifting dead leaves and other such trash as it passed by.

‘What’s under there? Let me help. You don’t have the hands to dig any more.’

The presence drifted to one side and gave no sign of interfering as Nevyn came over and knelt down. When he drew his table-dagger and began to pry up the board, the haunt knelt too, as if to watch. Although that particular board was somewhat newer than those around it, still the rotted wood broke away from its nails and came up in shreds and splinters. Underneath, in a shallow hole in the ground, was an oblong box, about two feet long but only some ten inches wide.

‘Your treasure?’

Although it was faint now, a bare wisp of smoke in the firelight, the thing shook its head no and lifted both hands – imploring him, Nevyn thought, to forgive it or do something or perhaps both. When he reached in and lifted the box, some weight inside lurched and slid with a waft of unpleasant smell from the crack around the lid. Since he considered himself hardened to all forms of death, Nevyn threw open the lid and nearly gagged – not from the smell, this time, but from the sight. Crammed inside lay the corpse of an infant boy, preserved with some mixture of spices and liquids. Only a few days old when it died, it had been mutilated in the exact same way as the corpse nailed to the palisade.

Since the box brought a lot of dust up with it, the haunt kneeling nearby looked briefly solid, or at least its face and hands were visible as it tossed its head back and threw up its arms in a silent keen.

‘Your child?’

It shook its head no, then slumped, doubling over to lay its head on the ground in front of him like a criminal begging a great lord for mercy.

‘You helped kill it? Or – I see – your friends were going to kill it. You protested, and they made you share its Wyrd.’

The dust scattered to the floor. The haunt was gone.

For some minutes Nevyn merely stared at the pitiful corpse in its tiny coffin. Although he’d never had the misfortune to see such mutilations before, he’d heard something about their significance – some half-forgotten lore that nagged at the edges of his memory and insisted that he examine the corpse more carefully. Finally he summoned up all his will and took the box over to the fire where there was light to work in, but he got bits of rag from his saddle-bags to wrap his hands before he reached in and took the mutilated pieces of the tiny mummy out. Underneath he found a thin lead plate, about two inches by four, much like the curse-talismans that ignorant peasants still bury in hopes of doing an enemy harm. Graven on it were words in the ancient tongue of the Dawntime, known only to scholars and priests – and some words that not even Nevyn could translate.

‘As this so that. Maryn king Maryn king Maryn. Death never dying. Aranrhodda ricca ricca ricca Bubo lubo.’

His face and hands seemed to turn to ice, cold and numb and stiff. He looked up to find the room filled with Wildfolk, staring at him solemnly, some wide-eyed, some sucking an anxious finger, some gape-mouthed with terror.

‘Evil men did this, didn’t they?’

They nodded a yes. In the fire a towering golden flame leapt up, then died down to a vaguely human face burning within the blaze.

‘Help me,’ Nevyn said to the Lord of Fire. ‘I want to get that corpse outside in here, and then burn it and this pitiful thing both. Then both souls can go to their rest.’

Sparks showered in agreement.

Nevyn slipped the lead plate into his pocket, lest melting it cause Maryn some harm. He gathered his gear and loaded up his mount, then untied the horse and led it about a quarter mile down the river, where he tethered it out in safety. When he got back to the lodge he found that the fire had already leapt from the hearth to smoulder in the woodpile. With the Wildfolk pulling as he pushed, Nevyn got the rotting log that bore the corpse free of the ground and hauled it inside. He positioned the corpse and log as close to the fire as possible, then laid the mutilated baby on the desecrated breast of the man who’d tried to save it. Although he felt more like vomiting than ever, he forced himself calm and raised his hands over his head to invoke the Great Ones.

‘Take them to their rest. Come to meet them when they go free.’

From the sky outside, booming around the lodge, came three great knocks like the claps of godly hands. Nevyn began to shudder, and in the fire the flames fell low in worship.

Even though Nevyn had asserted, and quite calmly, too, that there was no danger, none of the silver daggers were inclined to believe him. After the men had tethered out the horses and eaten dinner, Caradoc gave orders to scrounge all the dry wood they could find and build a couple of campfires. Maddyn suspected that the captain was as troubled as any man there by this talk of a haunt and wanted the light as badly, too.

‘Full watches tonight, lads,’ Maddyn said. ‘Shall we draw straws?’

Instead so many men volunteered that his only problem was sorting out who was going to stand when. Once the first ring of guards was posted, some of the men rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep – or at least pretended to in a fine show of bravado – but most sat near one fire or another, keeping them going with sticks and bits of bark as devotedly as any priest ever tended a sacral flame. After about an hour, Maddyn left the prince to Caradoc’s and Owaen’s care at one of the fires and went for a turn round the guards. Most were calm enough, joking with him about ghosts and even making light of their own nerves, but when he came up to Branoic, who was posted out near the herd of horses, he found the younger man as tense as a harp-string.

‘Oh now here, lad! Look at the horses, standing there all peaceful like. If there was some fell thing about, they’d warn us.’

‘You heard what Nevyn said, and he’s right. There are some things horses can’t know. Maddyn, you can mock me all you like, but some evil thing walks this stretch of country. I can practically smell it.’

Maddyn was about to make a joke when the knocks sounded, three distant rolls booming out like thunder from a clear sky. Branoic yelped like a kicked dog and spun round to point as a tower of pale silver flame shot up through the night. As far as Maddyn could tell, it was coming from the old hunting lodge. Even though they were over a mile away, Maddyn saw the river flash with reflected light as it seemed that the flames would lick at the sky itself. Then they fell back, leaving both men blind and blinking in the darkness. In the camp, yells and curses broke like a rainstorm. Around them horses neighed and reared, pulling at their tethers.

‘Come on!’ Maddyn grabbed Branoic’s arm. ‘Somewhat’s happened to Nevyn.’

Stumbling and swearing, they took off downriver, running because it would take too long to calm and saddle horses. Just as Maddyn’s sight was finally clear someone hailed them: Nevyn himself, leading his horse along as calmly as you please.

‘Ye gods, my lord! We thought you slain.’

‘Naught of the sort. I did get a little carried away with that fire, didn’t I? I’ve never tried anything quite like that before, and I think me I need to refine my hand.’

Nevyn refused to say anything more until they reached the camp. Shouting for answers the men surrounded him until Maryn yelled at them to shut up and let the councillor through. It was a good measure of the prince’s authority that they all fell back and did so. Once Nevyn reached the pool of firelight, he mugged a look of mild surprise.

‘I told you I’d lay the haunt to rest, lads, and I did. There’s naught more to worry about.’ He glanced around with a deliberate vagueness. ‘If someone would take my horse, I’d be grateful.’

Owaen grabbed the reins and led the trembling beast away to join its fellows.

‘Oh come now, good councillor.’ With all the flexible courage of youth Maryn was grinning at him. ‘You can’t expect to put us off so easily.’

‘Well, perhaps not.’ The old man thought for a moment, but Maddyn was sure that he had his little speech all prepared and was only pretending to hesitate. ‘To lay a haunt you’ve got to bum its corpse. So I made a huge fire and shoved the ghastly thing in. But I stupidly forgot about the corpse-gas, and up went the whole lodge. I hope your father won’t be vexed, my liege. I’ve destroyed one of his holdings, old and decrepit though it was.’

Much to Maddyn’s surprise, everyone believed this to him less-than-satisfying tale. They wanted to believe it, he supposed, so they could stop thinking about these dark and troubling things. Later, when most of the men, including the prince and the captain, were asleep in their blankets, Maddyn heard a bit more of the truth as he and Aethan sat up with the old man at a dying fire.

‘You’re just the man I want,’ Nevyn said to Aethan. ‘You rode for the Boar up in Cantrae, didn’t you? Take a look at this pewter roundel. Is that pig the same heraldic device or some other version of a boar?’

‘It’s the gwerbret’s, sure enough.’ Aethan angled the bit of metal close to the last blazing log. ‘The curve of those long tusks gives it away, and I’ve been told that pointed mark on the back is the first letter of the word apred.’

‘So it is. That settles it, then. There was at least one Boarsman in that lodge this winter – although, truly, he could have been someone who was ousted from the warband, I suppose, and brought his old gear with him.’

‘I can’t imagine any of the lads I used to ride with treating a dead man that way.’

‘Ah. Well, the man this belonged to might well have been the man who was killed. He was murdered for trying to do an honourable thing. I did find out that much.’

‘You talked with the haunt?’ Maddyn found it hard to speak, and Aethan was staring horrified.

‘Not to say talked, but I asked questions and he could nod yes or no.’ The old man gave him a sly grin. ‘Don’t look so shocked, lad. You were mistaken for a ghost yourself once, if I remember rightly.’

‘True enough, but I wasn’t exactly dead.’

‘Well, while this poor fellow was a good bit less alive than you, he wasn’t exactly dead either. He is now, and gone to the gods for a reward, or so I hope.’ Nevyn considered for a moment, frowning at the roundel. ‘Tell me somewhat, Aethan. When you rode for Cantrae, did you ever hear any rumours of witchcraft and dark wizardry? Did anyone ever say that so-and-so had strange powers or the second sight or suchlike?’

Aethan started to shrug indifferently, then stiffened and winced, like a man who shifts his weight in the saddle only to pinch an old bruise.

‘An odd thing happened once, years back. I rode as a guard over the gwerbret’s widowed sister, you see, and once we went out into the countryside. It was late in the fall, but she insisted on taking a hawk with her. There’s naught to set it on, say I, but she laughed and said that she’d find the game she wanted. And she did, because cursed if she didn’t fly the thing at a common crow, and of course the hawk brought it right down. She took feathers from its wings and its tail and threw the rest away.’ He was silent for a long moment. ‘And what do you want those for, say I, and she laughed again and said she was going to ensorcel my heart. And she did, truly, but whether she used the wretched feathers or not, I wouldn’t know. She didn’t need them.’ Abruptly Aethan rose to his feet. ‘Is there aught else you want from me, my lord?’

‘They thought he was me!’ Maryn burst out. ‘They might have k-k-killed him, thinking him me! I’d never forgive myself if they had.’

‘Better him than you, your highness,’ Caradoc said drily. ‘And I know Branno would agree with me a thousand times over.’

‘Just so,’ Nevyn said. ‘You know, my liege, I’ll wager they think you’re the prince’s page. Excellent. Let’s let them go on wallowing in their error, shall we?’

‘What shall I do? S-s-saddle and c-c-comb his horse on the morrow? I will and gladly if it’ll help.’

‘Too obvious,’ Caradoc said. ‘We’ll just go on like we were doing, your highness, if it’s all the same to you. Seems to have worked splendidly so far.’

‘So it has.’ Nevyn thought for a moment. ‘Do you think I should go take a look at our Maddyn?’

‘Leave him alone with his grief, my lord. There’s naught any of us can do to heal that wound, much as it aches my heart. Ah by the hells, he knew Aethan these twenty years at least, more maybe, ever since he was a young cub and fresh to a warband.’

‘That’s a hard kind of friend to lose, then, and you’re right. I’ll leave him be.’

For a few minutes they sat there silently, looking into the flames, which swarmed with salamanders – though of course, only Nevyn could see them. Now that he’d rolled his dice in plain sight, he saw no reason to try to lie about his score, and Wildfolk wandered all over the camp, peering at every man and into every barge. Later, after the camp was asleep, he used the dying fire to contact the priests in Cerrmor. They needed to know that the one True King was only some three days’ ride away and that his enemies had tried to slay him upon the road.

TWO

The year 843. We discovered that Bellyra, the eldest daughter of Glyn the Second, King in Cerrmor, was born upon the night of Samaen. The High Priest declared it an omen. Just as she was born on the night that lies between two worlds, and thus partook of the nature of both, so she was destined to be the mother of two kingdoms. Yet some within the temple grumbled and said that no good thing could come from such a birth that bridged the worlds of the living and of the dead, because she would belong to the Otherlands and only be a real woman on Samaen itself. She was, or so these impious traitors said, the lass who wasn’t there …

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

In the very heart of Dun Cerrmor, at the centre of all the earthworks and the rings of stone walls and the vast looming circles of joined brochs and towers, lay a garden. Although it was only about thirty yards across, it sported a tiny stream with an equally tiny bridge, a rolling stretch of lawn, some rose bushes, and an ancient willow-tree, all gnarled and drooping, that (or so they said) was planted by the ancient sorcerer who once had served King Glyn the First, back at the very beginning of the civil wars. By hiking up her dresses and watching where she put her feet, Bellyra could climb a good way up into this tree and settle into a comfortable fork where the main trunk provided a backrest. In the spring and summer, when the leaves draped down like the fringe on a Bardek shawl, no one could see her there, and she would often sit for hours, watching the sun glint on the stream and thinking about the history of Dun Cerrmor and her clan, and indeed, at times, about that legendary sorcerer himself.

Some years before she’d found a dusty old codex in a storage room up at the top of a tower. Since her father had insisted that all his children be taught letters, she’d been able to puzzle out the eccentric script and discover that her new treasure was a history of Dun Cerrmor, starting when it was built – some ninety years before the war – and proceeding, year by year, down to 822, when, much to her annoyance, the history broke off in mid-page, indeed in mid-sentence. Over the past few years she’d used the old book as a guide to explore every room in every tower that she was allowed into and, by using a bit of cunning, most of the ones that she wasn’t. With a stolen bottle of ink and reed pens that she made herself, she’d even continued the history, until almost all of the blank pages were full of scraps of information, gleaned from the scribes and the chamberlain, about the more recent additions and remodellings.

No one had ever noticed her poking around. For most of her life, no one had paid much attention to her at all, other than to make sure she was fed, clothed, and put to bed whenever someone remembered that it was growing late. Even her lessons, in reading, singing, needlework, and riding, came at irregular intervals when some servant or other had time for her. When she was nine her brother the heir died, and then, for a brief while, she became important – but only until her mother had another baby boy.

She could still remember the wonderful feasts and musical entertainments her father had given to mark the birth of the new heir. She could also remember the lies, the whispers behind his back, and the moaning coming from her mother’s chambers when the truth became inescapable: his second son had been born stone-blind and could never rule as king. Just a year after his birth, the baby disappeared. Bellyra never did learn what had happened to him, and she was still afraid to ask. She had, however, recorded his disappearance in her book with a note speculating that the Wildfolk had taken him away. And now her father was dead, and her mother living on Bardek wine in a darkened bedchamber. There would be no more heirs unless she herself provided them to some man the regent and the court would pick out for her.

On that particular day she held the codex in her lap as she drowsed the afternoon away in the willow-tree. She would read a few lines, almost at random, then daydream about how splendid the old days must have been when her clan was strong and powerful, when its great kings had coffers filled with tribute and its mighty warriors had a chance of winning the civil wars. Now victory seemed profoundly unlikely, even though Cerrmor’s loyal lords all told her that the gods would help them put her on a queen’s throne in Dun Deverry. Every now and then Bellyra would look up through the leaves and consider the top of the tallest tower in the dun, just visible over the main broch. Once, or so her book told her, a hostage prince of Eldidd had languished in that tower for over twenty years. At times she had the awful feeling that she too would languish there, a prisoner for the rest of her life, until she died of old age and the Cerrmor line was dead.

‘They might just strangle me, of course,’ she remarked to the tree. She often talked to the old willow, for want of anyone else to listen. ‘You hear about that every now and then, women being strangled or smothered to make sure they never have any babies. I don’t know which would be worse, I truly don’t, being dead or being shut up for ever and ever. The servants all say I belong in the Otherlands anyway, so maybe it would be better to get smothered and be done with it. Or I could take poison. That would be more romantic somehow. I could write in my book, you see, as the poison was coming on, “The noble Princess Bellyra raised the golden cup of sweet death to her lips and laughed a harsh mocking laugh of scorn for the beastly old Cantrae men pounding on her door. Hah hah you dogs, soon I will be far beyond your ugly …” ugly what? hands? schemes? Or here, how about, “far beyond your murdering base-born hands.” I like that better, truly. It has a ring to it.’

The willow sighed in the breeze as if agreeing. Bellyra chewed on her lower lip and considered her plan. It would look splendid, once the Cantrae men broke down the door, if she were lying on her bed, her hair artistically draped across the pillow, a last sneer of defiance on her face. She would have to remember to put on her best dress, the one of purple Bardek silk that her nursemaid had cut from an old banqueting cloth they’d found in another storeroom. The Cantrae king might even shed a tear for her beauty and be sorry he’d been planning to smother her. On the whole, though, judging from what she’d heard about Cantrae lords, she doubted if they’d feel any remorse. Relief, more like, that she’d spared them the job.

Across the garden came a scrape of sound, the door into the broch opening on unoiled hinges. She went still, her hands freezing on her book.

‘Bellyra! Princess!’

The voice belonged to Tieryn Elyc, and through the leaves she could just see him, standing on the edge of the little bridge across the stream. To Bellyra the tieryn always seemed as ancient as the sorcerer of her day-dreams, but in truth he was just forty that year and still as lean and muscled as many a younger man, even though his blonde hair was indeed going heavily grey and fine lines webbed round his blue eyes.

‘Bellyra! Come along, I know you’re out here. The cook told me where you’d be.’

With a sour thought for Nerra’s treachery, Bellyra tucked her book into her kirtle and began to climb down. As the tree began to shake he crossed the bridge.

‘There you are,’ he said with a low laugh. ‘You’re getting a bit old to climb trees like a lad, aren’t you?’

‘Just the opposite, my lord. The older you get the easier it is, because your legs are longer.’

‘Ah. I see. Well, you know, you’d best take care, your highness, because you’re the only heir Cerrmor has.’

‘Oh come now. No one’s going to let me rule in the female line.’

‘The point, your highness, is to keep you safe so you can marry the one True King when he reaches Cerrmor.’

‘And when, my lord, will that be? When the moon turns into a boat and sails down from the sky with him on it?’

Elyc let out his breath in a little puff and ran both hands through his hair. With something of a sense of shock, Bellyra realized that he was close to tears.

‘My apologies, my lord. Oh here, don’t cry. I truly am sorry.’

Elyc looked up, his eyes murderous – then he laughed.

‘I feel as weepy as a wench, true enough, your highness. You have sharp eyes for one so young.’

‘It comes from living here, actually. You’d have them too if you had to grow up in the palace.’

‘No doubt. But listen, lass, for lass you are though a royal one: it doesn’t do to tread on men’s hopes when hope is all they have. Remember that.’

‘Indeed? Well, how do you think I feel, knowing I’ll probably get smothered before I’m fifteen and even betrothed, much less married to anyone?’

Elyc winced, and for a moment she was afraid that he truly would cry this time.

‘Your highness,’ he said at last. ‘Cerrmor can still field an army of over three thousand loyal men …’

‘And Cantrae’s got close to seven thousand. I heard you telling Lord Tammael that.’

‘You little sneak! What were you doing, creeping around the great hall when we thought you were in bed?’

‘Just that. It’s my hall, isn’t it? Since I’m the heir and all, and so I’ll sneak around in it if I want to.’

All at once he laughed in genuine good cheer.

‘You know, your highness, at times you truly do have the royal spirit. But listen to me. Once the True King comes, a good thousand of those Cantrae men are ours again. Their lords have gone over to Dun Deverry out of fear and naught else, and they have a hundred years’ worth of reasons to hate the Boars and their false king. Give them hope, and they’ll flock to our banner.’

‘Well and good, my lord.’ She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to act regally at moments like these, not slang her cadvridoc like a fishwife. ‘Truly, we have great faith in your understanding of matters military.’

Although it seemed to her that Elyc was suppressing a smile, he did make her a passable bow.

‘Now, good regent, did you want me for some reason?’

‘Not truly. I was just worried, wondering where you’d got to.’ He paused to glance round at the towering rise of stone. ‘You’re probably safe enough out here.’

‘Unless an assassin comes creeping under the walls.’

‘Oh indeed? Has the bard been amusing you with lurid tales?’

‘He hasn’t. Look, see where the stream comes out from under the wall over there? Well, that water comes from the dairyroom, where they store the cheeses and suchlike. The running water keeps them cool in summer. But it gets into the dairyroom through this underground tunnel that leads all the way outside the dun walls to that big stream that goes through the market district down to the river. The tunnel was built in 769 by Glyn the First when the sorcerer was here, the one who posed as a gardener to gain the king’s confidence and …’

‘Sorcerer? Don’t prattle about some wretched sorcerer!’ He was close to shouting. ‘I never knew about any cursed tunnel. Ye gods, your highness, this is a serious matter!’

‘Well, so I thought. That’s what I meant about assassins.’

‘We’ll have to brick the tunnel up, or, wait, if things come to a siege, we’ll need the water.’

Muttering about portcullises and blacksmiths, Tieryn Elyc rushed off with barely a bow in her direction. Although Bellyra considered climbing back into her tree, her day-dreaming mood was broken. It was also getting late; in a few moments the sun would drop below the circling walls, and the garden turn cold. She crossed the bridge and went inside a tower, climbed up a spiral staircase to a landing, crossed it to another set of stairs, which led down to still another door, which finally got her out to the ward. As she was going to the kitchen hut, she saw two of the scullery boys cleaning a butchered pig. Its liver lay steaming and bleeding on the cobbles.

‘Modd, please, slice me off a bit of that liver, will you?’

‘For that scraggly cat of yours, your highness?’

‘She won’t be scraggly when she’s not half-starved. How’s she going to have her kits if she can’t make milk?’

When she gave him one of her most brilliant smiles, he relented, smiling in return, pushing back his forelock with a blood-crusted wrist and glancing round at the littered ward.

‘Fetch me those cabbage leaves over there for a wrap,’ he said to the younger boy. ‘And we’ll slice the royal puss up a bit of supper.’

‘She is the royal puss now. So there!’

The cat in question lived with her up in her chambers, the old nursery, which took up the floor above the women’s hall. Half the round floor plan was filled by a single big room with a hearth, where she and her brother and younger sister had once had their baths and eaten their meals. Lying by the hearth were a pair of little wooden horses, left there by Caturyc on the night when he’d fallen ill. Somehow no one wanted to pick them up and put them away, even though he’d been dead for years. The other half was divided into small wedge-shaped chambers, one each for the children and one for their old nurse who had accompanied Gwerna, Bellyra’s eight-year-old sister, when she’d been sent off to an aunt’s in a country dun – for her delicate health, everyone said, but Bellyra knew that they were keeping her safe, as the younger heir, in case Cerrmor was besieged at the end of the summer. As Princess of the Blood it was Bellyra’s Wyrd to stay through the siege. She would have to be very brave, she supposed, and keep out of everyone’s way.

Her own chamber held a single bed, a dower chest, one horribly faded tapestry on the wall, and the bottom of a cracked ale-barrel which the carpenter had sawn down for her, ostensibly to make a bed for her dolls, but in reality for Melynna, a very pregnant ginger cat whom Bellyra had found starving in the stables with a paw hurt badly enough to keep her from hunting. By now the paw was healing and she was sleek again from being fed as many times a day as the princess could beg or steal food for her, but Bellyra hated to give her up and Melynna certainly saw no reason to leave. As soon as Bellyra put the liver scraps down on the floor she lumbered out of her bed, lined with a torn-up linen shift that the princess had outgrown, and settled in for a good bloody munch.

‘How’s your basket of sand? Not too dirty? Good. When your kits are born, we’re going to have trouble hiding them, aren’t we? Well, I’ll think of some clever plan then. I don’t want anybody drowning any of them.’

Melynna looked up, licked a whisker, and purred a throaty thanks.

Just outside the bedchamber, right by a window, was Bellyra’s writing table, with her pot of ink, her stylus, and her pens laid out in a neat row. She laid the book down next to them, then sat on her stool and looked out the window at the main ward and the great iron-bound gates (built in 724 by Glyn the First’s father, Gwerbret Ladoic) which were standing open to reveal the city street beyond. The iron hinges and reinforcements were rusty and pitted – iron did pit in Cerrmor’s salt air.

‘It’s all very well for Elyc to talk of putting in a portcullis,’ she said to the cat. ‘But where, pray tell, are the blacksmiths going to get the metal for it?’

At that precise moment, just like an omen sent by the gods, servants began running toward the gates and shouting in welcome. With an enormous rumble and clatter, ox-cart after ox-cart pulled into the ward, and from her high perch Bellyra could see that they were loaded to the brim with rough-smelted iron ingots. All round swarmed mounted riders, some mercenary troop she supposed, hired to guard this precious cargo on its long slow journey down from the north. She felt her heart pounding as she rose.

‘O dear Goddess, do let it be an omen. It would be a splendid one, coming just like that. O dear Goddess, I do want to live to grow up.’

She felt the tears pressing behind her eyes, hot and shameful. With a toss of her head she willed them away and ran for the door and the staircase. She should be in the great hall to welcome the merchants who’d brought her this treasure, she decided, be there and smile upon them and show them her favour, so they’d feel well-rewarded beyond the coin her chamberlain would pay over.

By the time she reached the great hall, Tieryn Elyc, Lord Tammael the chamberlain, the seneschal, and the two stewards were already standing round the table of honour up on the dais with three merchants in checked brigga, two quite young, the other very old indeed, with a mop of thick white hair and a face as lined as an old burlap sack. Since everyone was arguing about paying for the iron no one noticed her make her entrance. Down on the floor of the hall servants rushed frantically round, trying to assemble enough ale-tankards for the mercenary troop as the men strode in, laughing and talking, each with a dagger-hilt made of silver gleaming at his belt. Bellyra hovered uncertainly behind Tieryn Elyc and waited for a chance to deliver her speech of thanks until, at last, the old merchant happened to look her way.

‘Ah, the Princess of the Blood, no doubt,’ he said with an amazingly deep and agile bow. ‘I do have the honour of addressing Bellyra of Cerrmor, do I not?’

‘You do, good sir.’ Bellyra drew herself up to full height and held out her hand for him to kiss. ‘You have our royal thanks for the risk you’ve run to bring us this black iron more precious than shining gold.’

‘Your highness is welcome from the bottom of my heart.’

Bellyra was annoyed to see Elyc smiling again, but the old man didn’t seem to notice.

‘And your name, good sir?’

‘My name, your highness, contains a jest, but it’s a name nonetheless. It’s Nevyn.’

‘Just like the sorcerer!’ She blushed, hating herself for blurting like a child. ‘I mean, I’ve read of a sorcerer with that name.’

Elyc was downright laughing at her by then, and she decided she hated him, too, loyal regent or not.

‘You’ll forgive the princess, good sir.’ He stepped forward to take command of the situation. ‘She’s a bit young for her position, truly, and –’

‘Too young? Oh, she’s not that, Your Grace, but unusually attentive to her lessons, I’d say. I’ve read the same book myself, I’ll wager, because there was indeed a sorcerer named Nevyn who once lived in this very city – or so I heard.’ He gave Bellyra a conspiratorial wink. ‘Perhaps that’s why my mother gave me that name, your highness, because it was famous in its own small way.’

Elyc arranged a polite smile. Nevyn bowed and made room for the two young merchants to continue their earnest talk of due recompense. Bellyra could only hope that the treasury held enough silver to pay them; she rather doubted it. By then the royal warband was piling into the hall to see what all the excitement was about. Even though it was early in the spring, some of the lords faithful to Cerrmor had already brought their warbands to court, and they too, appeared, the noble-born sitting down at tables on the dais, their men finding places on the lower level. Bellyra collared a couple of pages and told them to run tell Cook to get some sort of refreshments for the noble-born and to find the cellarer and fetch another barrel of ale for the warbands. As they trotted off she noticed that Elyc had left the discussion about payment to the chamberlain and wandered over to the edge of the dais. He seemed to be staring at one of the mercenaries sitting below. All at once he laughed and jumped down from the dais.

‘Caradoc! It is you, by every god and his wife!’

Grinning in a kind of stunned delight a man was working his way through the tables, a tall man with blond hair heavily laced with grey and hard blue eyes. Although he was filthy and unshaven from the road he moved with such a natural dignity that Bellyra wasn’t even surprised when Elyc threw his arms around him and hugged him like a brother. For the second time that day she saw the tieryn close to tears.

‘You remember me, Your Grace?’ Caradoc said.

‘Don’t talk like a blathering lackwit! Do I remember you? Would I ever forget you? O dear gods, you’ve given me one happy day at least in the midst of this cursed mess!’ Elyc paused to look over the scruffy pack of mercenaries, who had fallen silent to watch all this with understandable interest. ‘These are your men, are they?’

‘What makes you think I’d be the captain?’

‘Knowing you so well, that’s what. Come up on the dais with me. We’ll have mead to celebrate this, we will.’ Then he turned and found Bellyra hovering nearby. ‘Well, if her highness would allow?’

‘Of course, Lord Regent, provided you tell me who your friend is.’

‘A fair bargain, your highness. May I present my foster brother, Caradoc of Cerrmor, who was forced into exile by an act of honour and naught more.’

‘That’s a fancy way of putting it, Elyc, but you always were a slick one with your words.’ The mercenary bowed to her. ‘Your highness, I’m honoured to be in your presence.’

‘My thanks, captain. You and your men are more than welcome, but I don’t know if we’ve got the coin to pay you what you usually get for fighting for someone.’

‘Bellyra! I mean, your highness!’ Elyc snapped. ‘If you’d leave such things to me …’

‘Ah, why should she?’ Caradoc said with a grin. ‘It’s her kingdom, isn’t it? Your highness, I’d be honoured to fight in your cause for the maintaining of me and my men and naught more.’

Bellyra decided that she liked him immensely.

‘Done, then, captain. No doubt you and your foster brother have much to confer about, and I shall leave matters of war to you.’

Then she turned on her heel and marched off before Elyc could slight her again, only to run straight into the elderly merchant, who’d apparently been standing close by.

‘My apologies!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, I can’t do anything properly today!’

‘I think, your highness, that you’re doing a great many things properly, and besides, you didn’t knock me down or suchlike.’

‘My thanks, good sir. Everyone’s always telling me I’m doing things wrong, but they never tell what I should do. Oh, it’s so beastly, knowing everyone only wants you for your womb!’

She blushed, shocked that she could be so coarse in front of someone she’d just met, but Nevyn smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

‘It must be, indeed, but your life does have a great deal more to offer. You’ve just got to learn how to find it. Come sit at the table of honour – not way down there! Take your rightful place at the regent’s right hand.’ Nevyn pulled out a chair for her, then sat down at her left without waiting to be asked.

When Bellyra shot a nervous glance Elyc’s way she found him scowling at her, but with Nevyn for support she scowled right back and motioned him over with a wave of her hand.

‘Your foster brother is welcome to sit at our table, at your left hand, even, if you so choose.’

‘My thanks, your highness.’ Somewhat unwillingly, Elyc obeyed her indirect order and came over to sit down with Caradoc following along. ‘May I order drink for me and my guest?’

Bellyra ignored the sarcasm, nodded her approval, then turned pointedly to speak to Nevyn. The noise in the great hall picked up in a buzz of whispers and speculation at the princess’s rare appearance among important men.

‘You said you read about this sorcerer in a book, your highness?’ Nevyn said. ‘May I inquire as to which one?’

‘It was just a record book of sorts that I found up in one of the towers. There’s bales and bales of stuff crammed into the upper rooms, you see. Actually this was a codex, not a true book. The head scribe told me the difference, and he says it’s very important. But anyway, someone – it never does give his name – wrote the history of Dun Cerrmor, when everything was built, and who lived here, and sometimes he even puts in what they spent on a feast or suchlike. And whenever he talks about the years from 760 to 790 he mentions the great sorcerer named Nevyn, who planted the old willow-tree we’ve got in the inner garden and who ended up advising the king.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, by all accounts my grandfather was an amazing man, but I doubt me very much if he was a sorcerer. For a man to rise from gardener to councillor is very, very rare, your highness, and I imagine it must have looked like sorcery to some.’

‘Oh.’ Bellyra was bitterly disappointed. ‘No doubt you’re right, good sir, but I had so hoped he was a real sorcerer! But still, it’s rather splendid to get to meet his grandson after reading about him and all. I take it your family became merchants with the inheritance he left?’

‘In a way, truly. I used to deal in herbals and medicinals, but the times are grave enough for me to lay aside my old trade and do what I can for the True King.’

‘Well, iron is the best medicinal for the army, sure enough. Do you really believe the True King will ever come?’

‘I do, and with all my heart, your highness, I believe it will be very soon.’

‘I hope so. We can’t go on like this much longer. I’m going to have to marry him, you know. I hope he won’t be too ugly, or old like Tieryn Elyc, but it doesn’t truly matter. Cook says that all cats are grey in the dark.’

‘I take it you and your mother will have no objections to such a match.’

‘My poor mother! The only thing she ever objects to any more is her wine jug running empty. And as for me, well, if he really is the one True King of all Deverry, I’d be awfully stupid to turn him down, wouldn’t I? I don’t want to moulder here the rest of my life.’

‘Your highness has a very direct and refreshing way of expressing herself, and I think, if I may speak so boldly, that you’re going to make an excellent queen.’

‘My thanks, good sir. You’re the only one who seems to think so.’ With a sigh she rested her chin on one hand and looked away out to the floor of the hall, where the men were drinking and laughing over their perennial dice games. ‘But then, we’ve got a lot in common. You’re named “no one”, and I was never properly born.’

‘What, your highness?’

‘I was born on Samaen – just after sunset, the worst time of all. The midwife sat on my mother’s legs to try to stop me coming so soon, and when that didn’t work she tried to shove me back in, but my mother hurt so badly that she made her stop shoving. So the midwife ran screaming out of the chamber and my mother’s serving women had to deliver me. They had all sorts of priests in and everything to bless me straightaway so the Wildfolk or the dead spirits couldn’t get me. I don’t remember any of that, of course. They told me when I was older.’

‘That’s an amazing tale! But you know, children are born on Samaen every now and then. Most of them are quite ordinary, too.’

‘I’ve always felt quite ordinary, actually.’ She pinched her wrist. ‘Rather solid, don’t you think?’

‘It looks that way to me, your highness.’

By then the pages and serving lasses were bringing round baskets of bread and plates of cold meats and cheeses along with goblets of mead for the noble-born and ale for their men, including, of course, the mercenaries belonging to Elyc’s foster brother. Bellyra took a slice of ham and nibbled on it while she considered the regent and the captain, who were discussing old times with a deliberate intensity as if they were trying to keep the present moment far away. Every now and then one of them would hit the other on the shoulder or arm, which she took as meaning they truly loved each other. Nevyn coughed politely to regain her attention.

‘Have there been many omens of the coming of the True King, your highness?’

‘There have indeed, good sir. Let’s see, Elyc talks about them all the time, so I should be able to remember them. First of all, he’s supposed to come before the last full moon before Beltane, which means he’d better get here soon, because that’s tomorrow night. And then he’s supposed to be from the west, but not from Eldidd. And then there’s lots of stuff about stallions running before him or bearing him, which I think is truly odd, because no one rides a stallion as a battlehorse. He’s supposed to come in an army that’s not an army, be a man but not a man –’