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.