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.
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.