Peddyc leapt onto the table of honor and raised his arms for silence.
“Listen, all of you,” he said. “I’ve somewhat to tell you. Some of you already know the truth of my wife’s death, how it was Lady Merodda of the Boar who had her murdered upon the roads.”
Not an oath, not a word—the men, the retainers, the very servants, all stared at him and waited, though here and there a few nodded, as if to say they’d suspected somewhat like that.
“My lady Lillorigga!” Peddyc called out. “Stand up and tell the tale again.”
The servants listened to her tale with an attention more rapt than the king’s best bard had ever received, while the warband listened again and as grimly as they’d taken the news the first time.
“And I beg you to forgive me,” she finished up. “Oh please, forgive me? I didn’t realize what she was planning until it was too late.”
At that she heard a few murmurs, saw a few kind nods or a grimace of pain as the men looked at her with pity in their eyes. When Peddyc raised his right arm, everyone turned toward him.
“Tomorrow at dawn I’m riding south,” he said, as calmly as if he remarked upon the warmth of the evening. “To join with the True King in Cerrmor. Who rides with me?”
His warband roared, they flung fists into the air, they cheered him while the tieryn threw back his head and howled, laughing like a berserker. At last the shouting died down and his mad laughter with it.
“All the rest of you,” Peddyc said, “freeborn and bondman alike, either come with us or run for your lives. The Boarsmen will be taking Hendyr as soon as they hear the news.” He looked up at the row of faded, tattered banners. “May my ancestors forgive me, but I can’t hold the dun against them, not and serve my king.”
CHAPTER TWO
In the midst of the towers and walls of Dun Cerrmor stood a garden. Although it was an odd-shaped bit of ground and a mere thirty feet across, it sported a tiny stream with a wooden bridge, a rolling stretch of green grass, some rosebushes, and an ancient willow tree, all gnarled and drooping, that, or so some people said, had been planted by the ancient sorcerer who once had served King Glyn the First, back at the very beginning of the civil wars. Others dismissed the sorcerer as a bard’s fancy, but they of course were wrong.
At the base of the willow tree Maddyn sat in the shade, tuning his harp. Although he considered himself a mere minstrel, everyone treated him these days as an important man, the sworn bard of the prince’s personal guard. Every now and then he would have to shake his head and laugh, when he considered just how long a road the silver daggers had ridden. Not many years before they’d been naught but a ragged troop of mercenaries without a scrap of honor; now they lived in what splendor Dun Cerrmor could offer, and all because their leader, Caradoc, could recognize an omen when he saw one.
As he worked, the Wildfolk gathered around him, sprites and gnomes, mostly, though occasionally an undine rose out of the stream to shake the water from her long silver hair and listen for a moment. Close beside the bard sat his favorite blue sprite, a beautiful little thing until she smiled, revealing a mouthful of sharp fangs. Whenever some gnome would try to get too close to Maddyn, she would leap upon it, biting and scratching, until it fled and she had the privileged position to herself again. Once he’d finished tuning and began to play, they all sat solemnly on the grass and listened, sucking warty fingers or picking dirty fangs.
“Maddo! Ah, there you are.”
The Wildfolk leapt up and disappeared. Maddyn looked up to see the prince’s closest friend—in truth, perhaps his only friend—striding across the lawn toward him. He was an old man, Councillor Nevyn, with a shock of untidy white hair and skin as wrinkled as tree bark, but he strode along with all the vigor of a young warrior. It’s his herbcraft that keeps him so strong, everyone said. After all, the councillor had been a physician before he’d come to serve the prince. Maddyn, however, figured that the old man’s undoubted knowledge of the dweomer had more to do with it than any herbs or roots.
“I’m here, indeed,” Maddyn said. “Do you need me for somewhat?”
“I do, as a witness. You can be the representative of the prince’s guard at the council session.”
“What council session?”
“The one that’s about to begin. Come along and you’ll see.”
In the royal council chamber of Dun Cerrmor, the prince himself was waiting with another pair of trusted advisors. Gavlyn, the bald and portly chief herald of the royal court, stood at a long oak table and unrolled three large parchments, which he snapped out like bedsheets, then lay down smooth with great ceremony. Councillor Oggyn, a barrel-chested man and egg-bald, leaned from the other side and considered them while he stroked his brindled grey and black beard.
Sunlight poured in through a narrow window and fell across the polished oak table to gleam on the prince’s honey-blond hair and glint on the enormous silver ring brooch that pinned his plaid at one shoulder. In the five years of his rule as Gwerbret Cerrmor and Marked Prince of what of Deverry he could hold, Maryn had aged ten, it seemed. He was a man, now, not that innocent laughing boy the silver daggers had sworn to serve so long ago. His grey eyes seemed to look at the world from a distance denied to ordinary men, and when he spoke, his low voice crackled with authority.
“Very well,” Maryn said. “We’re assembled. Let’s get to the matter at hand.”
“It’s a matter of choosing a new emblem for the future kingdom.” Councillor Oggyn nodded Maddyn’s way.
“The question is legitimacy,” Nevyn put in. “The stallion blazon will always mean a foreigner from Pyrdon to most people.”
“I suppose so.” Prince Maryn frowned at the spread parchments. “These are the ancient clans, then?”
“They are clans upon which His Highness has some claim.” The chief herald, Gavlyn, stepped forward. “As the learned councillor says, the crucial thing is legitimacy.”
From his seat in the corner of the council chambers, Maddyn sat quietly and merely watched the others. He felt too honored at merely being present to speak up as the debate went on over the merits of one device or another. Finally Nevyn leaned forward to tap one long finger on a page.
“The Red Wyvern has possibilities,” Nevyn said. “The false king’s device is a green one, and I like the arrogance of appropriating it nearly whole.”
Maryn laughed, glancing round the circle.
“I like that as well,” he said. “What do you think, Oggyn? Shall we filch their device like the Usurper they call us?”
“And why should you not, Your Highness? This clan was very well connected in its day.”
“Good herald, and what about you?”
“My liege, it seems a good choice,” Gavlyn said. “I would suggest a wyvern rampant, in the same posture thus as the stallion of Pyrdon.”
All at once Maddyn was aware of distant shouting, realized in fact that he’d been hearing it for some little time. He got up and walked to the window, looked out to see dusty men and tired horses walking into the ward below while servants swarmed around them. Some ally arriving for the muster, then, but as one of the men dismounted, his shield swung free of his gear.
“The Ram!” Maddyn forgot himself and spoke aloud. “By all the gods, the Rams of Hendyr have come over!”
“What?” Maryn swung round and grinned. “Then truly the gods do favor us! This is a thing I’d never thought to see.”
“No more I, Your Highness,” Oggyn said. “If I may be so forward and impertinent to suggest a thing, I’d suggest that your royal self would deign to welcome Tieryn Peddyc personally.”
“And so I shall, good councillor, so I shall.”
During the long journey south from Hendyr, Lilli had ridden at the head of the line with Peddyc and Anasyn, but she’d kept her boy’s clothing. Now all three of them stood beside their horses and gawked at the clustered towers of Dun Cerrmor, built of pale limestone with dark slate roofs. Bright banners with the three ships blazon
hung above the doorways, and white and blue pennants snapped in the rising sea wind. The doors to the main broch glittered with brass hinges. The well-fed servants and soldiers hurrying toward them wore clothes that were mostly new or barely patched.
“This is a splendid place,” she whispered to Anasyn.
“It is, but let’s see what kind of man this prince is.”
In the growing crowd no one greeted them; everyone merely looked them over unsmiling. Lilli found herself remembering her first trip to Dun Deverry after her years in fosterage at Hendyr. She had stood beside her horse this same way, waiting while a page ran off to fetch her mother and tell her that Tieryn Peddyc and his foster-child had arrived. She had felt this same mixture of dread and eagerness then, wondering what her mother would look like and how generously she’d treat her returned daughter. In that instance, the dread had proved the more accurate omen.
From inside Dun Cerrmor a silver horn sounded; the doors were flung back. At the head of an armed guard, a tall and handsome man strode out; the plaid of Cerrmor flung over one shoulder and pinned with a huge silver brooch marked him as Maryn, prince and would-be king. Lilli stared. It seemed that the sunlight shone brighter around him than it did anywhere else, and that some private breeze lifted his blond hair. Where he stood the world seemed oddly larger. She found herself remembering the Great Lord of Earth and how the room had come alive when Brour chanted his invocation.
Without a word every man in the tieryn’s army knelt, and Peddyc was the first to do so. Lilli and Anasyn sank to their knees beside their lord as the prince strode over. His walk captivated her; he seemed to be holding back some enormous urge to run and leap like a boy. Behind him came guards in matching linen shirts, each with a grey dagger embroidered on one sleeve, and one old man, striding along like a warrior himself. Lilli recognized him instantly, and while Peddyc and the others watched the prince, she was studying Nevyn’s face. He did look kind, but she remembered Brour calling him dangerous and a sorcerer.
“So,” Maryn said. “What brings you to me, Tieryn Peddyc?”
“I’ve come to beg a pardon for me and mine, Your Highness, for ever raising a sword against you.”
“I’ve never heard a request I was more minded to grant.” The prince smiled and held out one hand. “Rise, then. Come into my hall, and we’ll drink mead together. I offered my pardon freely, and freely it shall be yours.”
It was so beautifully done, just like something out of an old saga, that Lilli felt her eyes fill with tears. Peddyc tried to speak, then merely wept. The prince leaned down and with his own hands helped him rise. Lilli glanced at Anasyn, who seemed to be staring at a god, not a prince, just from the instant worship in his eyes. As everyone got to their feet, Peddyc’s men broke out cheering. With a laugh the prince acknowledged them.
“And are you ready to ride back to Dun Deverry?” he called out. “With me?”
“We are!” The sound rang like bells around the ward. “The king! the king!” One man started the chant, and the others joined in until Maryn flung up his hands for silence.
“Not yet a king,” he called out. “I’ll not claim that name until the high priest of Dun Deverry tells me that the gods have allowed it as my right.”
While he spoke, Lilli could have sworn that a beam of sunlight brighter than all the rest fell upon him. The men stood transfixed and listened.
“Many years ago,” Maryn went on, “when I first rode to Cerrmor, I did fancy myself already king. But the priests came to me and told me that Great Bel demands humility from those he would favor. Until I won the brooch of kingship, they told me, I had no right to call myself High King. And so I did what the god asked of me and laid that name aside.”
The men nodded, wide-eyed and worshipful.
“And so,” Maryn said, grinning, “we’d cursed well better get ourselves to Dun Deverry, hadn’t we? Ride we shall, and soon enough. For now, come in and rest.”
They cheered again, one brief whoop of agreement. Laughing, the prince summoned the waiting servants forward to take the horses and show the men to the barracks and suchlike. Peddyc wiped his eyes on his sleeve and recovered his voice.
“My liege,” he said to Maryn. “May I present my son Anasyn and my foster-daughter, Lillorigga?”
“Indeed you may.” The prince turned to Lilli in surprise and bowed with swift grace. “My apologies, my lady, for thinking you a lad. You must be weary from all this travelling. I’ll have one of the women escort you to my wife’s hall, where I’m sure she’ll make you welcome.”
“My thanks, my liege.” Lilli found it very hard to speak. “You’re very generous to such as I.”
“My liege?” Nevyn stepped forward. “May I have the honor of escorting the lady? Oddly enough, we’ve met.”
Although the old man smiled pleasantly, Lilli felt herself begin to tremble. His ice-blue eyes seemed to catch hers and bore into her very soul. When she tried hardening her aura, he raised one bushy eyebrow in surprise; then he looked away.
“You need to rest, my lady,” Nevyn said. “And then we’ll have a little chat.”
“Lilli?” Anasyn stepped forward. “Will you be all right on your own?” He glanced at Nevyn. “We all owe my sister a great debt, my lord, and I’d see her well treated.”
“It shall be so,” Prince Maryn said. “I’ll stand personal surety for it, Lord Anasyn.”
Anasyn bowed low. With a quick smile for his sake, Lilli allowed herself to be led off. Once again, she remembered those first hours in Dun Deverry, when it had seemed so huge and convoluted that she feared she would never learn her way around on her own. And the people! Soon here too she would be meeting a flood of new people, who would all have to be sorted out and their ways learned. Now at least she was no longer the child who’d entered Dun Deverry all trust and good will; now at least she knew what being at court meant.
While they crossed the ward, Nevyn said nothing at all, and when they stepped into one of the side brochs, he merely remarked that the princess’s hall lay two flights up.
“I’m allowed in,” he said. “Because of my great age, you see.”
“Very good, my lord,” was all she found to say in answer.
The princess’s hall turned out to be large and sunny, an entire half of one round floor of the broch. Bardek carpets in blue and green lay scattered across the polished planks, and new tapestries hung between all the windows, which sported wooden shutters carved with interlacements and ships. Scattered about were chairs and big floor cushions; on little tables stood glittering silver oddments—a dragon folding her wings, a spray of lavender so cunningly worked it seemed you could smell it, a silver casket engraved with a rose design. Under one table an elderly yellow cat was licking her stomach, propped up on front paws.
Sitting near a window was a young blond woman, heavy with child, with a boy of about two sitting at her feet. Two other women in embroidered dresses sat near her, and a plain and plainly dressed lass lounged on the floor nearby.
When Nevyn bowed to the woman near the window, Lilli curtsied.
“Your Highness,” Nevyn said. “May I present to you Lillorigga of the Ram, who comes to us seeking shelter as her menfolk have come to seek your husband’s pardon.”
“Of course.” The princess’s voice was pleasant and lively. “You’re welcome in my hall, Lillorigga.”
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Your Highness.” Lilli curtsied again, as best she could wearing brigga. “The Ram is truly my clan now, for they’ve taken me in when my own would cast me out.”
“Well and good, then.” The princess glanced at Nevyn. “You’re supposed to tell her my name, you know. I’m trying to get all this courtesy stuff right for once.”
Everyone laughed, except Lilli, who kept herself to a smile.
“My apologies,” Nevyn said, grinning. “Princess Bellyra, may I present to you Lillorigga of the Ram?”
“You may.” Bellyra returned his smile. “But shall we call
you Lilli?”
“I’d be honored, Your Highness.”
“And this is Elyssa and Degwa,” the princess waved at the two women, “and my son, Casyl, and his nurse, Arda.”
Lilli smiled; everyone smiled in return. She realized that she was beginning to feel safe and wondered if it was a dangerous luxury, especially since Nevyn stood nearby, watching her with his gaze as sharp as any dagger.
“Have you proper clothing?” Bellyra said. “If not, I’ve got lots, and you shall have some of mine.”
“Her highness is too generous,” Lilli said. “I’m afraid that I had to run for my life, and so I don’t have anything but a couple of blankets and these clothes.”
“Very well, then.” The princess turned to Degwa. “The chest carved with the dragons has dresses in it that Lilli can have. I need to go speak with my husband. Arda, take Casso to the nursery, will you? Lady Degwa, if you’ll take care of seeing Lilli settled?”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Degwa, stout and dark-haired, curtsied to the princess, then turned to Lilli. Her dark eyes flicked this way and that, appraising her. “I’ll have the pages bring you up bath water.”
“Oh, thank you! There’s nothing I’d like more!”
“Good,” Nevyn said briskly. “I’ll leave you to get settled among the women, my lady Lillorigga. But if you will do me the honor of allowing me to attend upon you this afternoon?”
“My thanks, my lord.” Lilli was thinking that she’d rather chat with vipers, but she would owe everything to these people’s charity from now on. “The honor will be mine.”
• • •
When Nevyn returned to the great hall, he found Maryn and his new allies sitting at table up on the royal dais. The prince waved him up to the table with an expansive sweep of one arm.