“I want a word with the lady,” Nevyn said. “Alone.”
“Of course, my lord.” He glanced around. “Here’s an empty room. We’ll be right outside here should you need us.”
After the soldiers hustled the prisoner inside, Nevyn shut the heavy door and leaned against it. Smashed furniture lay across the stone floor of the narrow chamber. Merodda glanced at it, then back to him.
“Who are you, old man?”
“Brour’s teacher.”
She flung up her head and took a step back.
“Indeed.” Nevyn said, smiling. “I understand a great deal more than the prince does about this supposed ‘witchcraft’ of yours, my lady.”
“What do you want with me?”
“The answer to a question. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll do my level best to help you escape. Your nephew Braemys escaped with some of his men. He’s doubtless in Cantrae, waiting to bargain from a position of strength. You’d have somewhere to go. I can get you a good horse and plenty of provisions for the journey.”
“I see.” Life flooded back to her eyes. “Will you swear you’ll get me out of here if I tell you what you want to know?”
“I’ll swear on the dweomer itself, and I’ll wager that Brour told you just what that means.”
“He did. Ask your question.”
“Many years ago, when Maryn was still a prince in Pyrdon, a retainer of yours worked an evil spell. A lead tablet, it was, carved with words right out of the Dawntime. What do they mean? How do I lift it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why that?” Merodda tossed her head and looked away, her mouth working in pain. “Why of all the things in the world must you ask that?”
“Oh here, do tell me.” Nevyn softened his voice. “What’s it to you now? The spell failed, after all.”
“Now you’re the liar.” With a grimace she began pacing back and forth on a tight and narrow track. “You wouldn’t be here questioning me if you thought the dweomer spent and over with.”
“True spoken. I’ll admit it.”
Merodda stopped and turned to face him.
“Not that! I’d tell you anything but that, but by the Dark Goddess herself, I’d rather die than lift that spell. Or will you put me to the torture? Do your worst! You won’t break me.”
“Never would I use torture, not even for a matter this grave.”
She started to speak, her mouth half a sneer, then stopped.
“Nor would I let anyone else do such a thing.” Nevyn kept his voice quiet. “The dweomer of Light would never allow it. Please tell me, and I’ll protect you, no matter what boon the prince granted.”
She was searching his face as if she were scrying out the truth of what he said. For a moment he thought he had her—he could see the beginning of something like trust in her eyes—but she tossed her head and stepped back.
“Your prince has his wretched victory,” Merodda said. “The man who loved me lies dead, and even if I got away, with the prince’s judgment upon me I’d end up begging some temple for sanctuary. My clan is dead, my king’s imprisoned, you and your precious prince have stripped everything from me, even my daughter.” Her voice caught, but she steadied it. “Well, you shan’t take my vengeance, too! I’d rather hang than give that up.”
“Vengeance, is it?”
She swore and turned her back, her hands so tight in fists that her knuckles went white. Nevyn calmly walked around to face her.
“So, my lady, a slip on your part! I’m beginning to puzzle this out. The dead infant buried along with the tablet—the ensorcelment’s meant to ruin the beginnings of things, isn’t it? His victory, his reign, poisoned from the start! You’ve told me much already, no matter how clever you think you are.”
Merodda smiled, a narrow-eyed gloat.
“Indeed, old man?” She spat on the floor at his feet. “Then stop it if you can!”
“Guards!” Nevyn turned away. “Come take her!”
Nevyn unbarred the door and flung it wide. The soldiers hurried in, and as she strode over to meet them, Merodda burst out laughing.
When Nevyn returned to the great hall, the sight of the empty High King’s chair next to Maryn hit him like a blow. No wonder a white mare had proven impossible to find! Merodda’s curse had begun its work even then.
It was late in the evening before Nevyn had a chance to talk with Maddyn. He searched for him through the dun, then went out to the encampment on the hillside below and found where the silver daggers had pitched their tents. Maddyn sat by a small fire under the open sky and played his harp in a medley of songs, while all around him the Wildfolk danced and leapt like the flames. Nevyn sat down on a stump of log, and Maddyn let the music die away.
“Have you come to scold me? Because I had the king crush a viper?”
“I’ve not,” Nevyn said. “Because I doubt me you’d listen.”
“Well, by the gods!” Maddyn smacked his open hand on the harp strings and made them chime a discord. “What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t avenge my friend?”
“I don’t know.”
“And then there’s Lilli’s foster-mother, too. Merodda had her butchered like a hog.”
“So she did, but I doubt me if you were remembering Lady Bevyan today.”
“Well, what of it? I want Merodda dead. Tomorrow I’m going to stand in the crowd and laugh when the hangman shoves her off the drop. And then Aethan will finally have peace in the Otherlands.”
Nevyn merely sighed. In the fire a log burned through and fell, sending a long plume of flame into the dark above. And what am I going to say? Nevyn thought. How could he explain without touching on the great secret, that each soul lives many lives, not one? Aethan was doubtless long reborn, and Merodda and Maddyn both would be, but now a chain of Wyrd would link them, whether they wanted the binding or not.
When Lilli asked, one of Maryn’s pages told her where Lady Merodda had been taken, a proper room in a side broch instead of the common jail as a small sign of respect to the noble-born. She’d brought coins to bribe the guards at the door, but one of them, a stout man with greying hair, recognized her.
“It’s the lady’s daughter,” he said to the others. “I don’t see any harm in letting her say farewell to her mother.”
The others nodded; one of them lifted the heavy bar while the second opened the door a crack and let her slip in.
By the light of a single candle Merodda was sitting on a narrow bed, little more than a straw mattress and a blanket. In the uncertain light, and, with her blond hair down and untidy, she looked no older than her daughter. Lilli felt herself gasp for breath while Merodda considered her with shadowed eyes.
“Why are you here?” she said at last.
“I don’t know,” Lilli said. “But I had to come.”
Merodda sighed and leaned back against the wall.
“Do you want me to leave?” Lilli went on.
“I don’t. I’ve been wondering somewhat myself. Would you have spoken for me if Anasyn had let you?”
Lilli’s heart pounded once.
“It’s because of Bevva,” Lilli said. “I felt torn apart.”
“Ah. So you wouldn’t have spoken.”
“I don’t know. It was too late, anyway.” Lilli heard her voice choke and tremble. “But there’s Brour, too. He’s dead, isn’t he? You had him killed.”
“Not I, but Burcan. That was his doing.” Merodda got up to face her. “And you’re a fine one to talk, betraying your kin and clan! What did you tell your precious Prince Maryn? Where all the gates are in the dun? How many men we had? It must have been somewhat like that. I heard him talking about all you’d done for him. You traitorous little bitch!”
Lilli stepped back and found herself against the door.
“You little slut!” Merodda snarled. “I rue the day I ever birthed you. I wish I’d smothered you with your swaddling bands. You’ve betrayed your own mother
and your clan.”
“Oh, have I now? The Boars were never my clan!”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“You gave me away, didn’t you? Bevva was my real mother, not you. And when you killed her, you gave me away again. What do I owe to you? Just a lot of misery! And if my father had lived, I’d have been part of his clan anyway.”
“Oh, indeed?” All at once Merodda laughed, a cold little mutter under her breath. “You’re sure of that, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway.” All at once Lilli realized what she had come to learn. “Why did you have Bevva killed? Why?”
“It doesn’t matter? Oh, doesn’t it? You would have inherited Garedd’s lands, but he wasn’t your father. I’ve lied your whole life, my precious little daughter, lied to give you something that wasn’t rightfully yours. You’re a bastard, my fine Lillorigga! You can tell that to your precious prince.”
With a gasp for air Lilli leaned back against the door. Merodda laughed with a toss of her head and stepped closer.
“So how does that sit with you?” Merodda went on. “Your ever-so-dear Bevyan had guessed the truth. So I silenced her before she could shame you and get you stripped of your inheritance.”
“She never would have. Bevva never would have hurt me.”
“Oh, are you so sure? I’m not!”
Lilli forced herself to raise her head and look at her mother, smirking in the candlelight. It can’t be true, she told herself. It’s not true, it’s not! But a flood of memory was rising, threatening to drown her—little remarks overheard, the expression on a face when someone mentioned her inheritance, the gossip about her mother’s tarnished honor. Drop by drop the flood built.
“And who was my father, then?” Her voice shook on a whisper.
“And why should I tell you? Soon I’ll be dead, and you’ll never know.”
“Fair enough. No doubt I owe you that much, a little torment to get some of your own back.”
Rage bloomed on Merodda’s face. So! Lilli thought. I was supposed to wheedle and beg!
“Farewell, Mother,” Lilli said. “I’ll leave you now, since you can’t stand the sight of me.”
Lilli turned and laid one hand on the door.
“Wait!” Merodda snapped.
Lilli turned back.
“Think about your uncle, Lilli. Surely you heard the gossip about him and me.”
“I never listened. I knew they just envied you.”
“Oh, envy me they did, but the gossip was true enough. You’re twice cursed, my bastard daughter. Burcan was your father—your uncle, my brother. His love was the one good thing the gods ever gave me in life, and I would have been a fool to throw it away.”
“You’re lying!”
“I’m not!” Merodda smiled, and the curve of her lips seemed to drip poison in Lilli’s dweomer-touched sight. “It’s the cold truth. And when you were going to marry Braemys, didn’t the old cats in the dun hiss and mutter about that? You must have heard them, wondering if I’d marry you off to your own brother. You were a Boar twice over, Lilli, as much a daughter of your clan as any woman could be.”
With a shriek Lilli spun around and slammed her fists against the door. A guard pulled it open from the other side. As she stepped out she could hear her mother laughing in a long peal of hysteria behind her.
“Well now,” the guard said, “I don’t know what she said to you, lass, but remember that she’s beside herself. In a bit you’ll remember the good things, eh?”
Lilli burst out sobbing and ran down the corridor, flung herself down the stairs so fast that she nearly fell and preceded her mother to the Otherlands. She fled outside and into the middle of the silent ward, stood sobbing for a moment until she could collect herself.
“It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
The flood of memory rose up and broke over her. Burcan defended me from Tibryn. He offered land to keep me safe.
“Bevva!” Lilli howled the name as if her grief could truly wake the dead. “Bevva, Bevva!”
Gasping and stumbling she ran again, ran blindly, careening through the ward. She found the gate out by sheer luck and ran again until her burning lungs pulled her up. Gasping and choking, she leaned against a cold stone wall and looked around her. She’d fetched up in the main ward, and over her rose the royal broch. Torchlight spilled out the windows, and she could hear men laughing and singing.
When she slipped in, they were all too drunk to notice her. She crept upstairs, found her chamber, and collapsed onto the bed. Sleep rose up and took her.
“My lord! My lord Nevyn!” The voice came bellowing through the dark. “Are you in there?”
Someone was shaking the tent-flap as well. Nevyn sat up and threw his blankets back.
“I am! Who is it?”
“Caudyr sent me. The little false king is dying.”
Nevyn pulled on his brigga and boots, grabbed a shirt, and ran out of the tent. The servant—little more than a boy—carried a lantern, and Nevyn followed its gleam as they hurried up the hill. At the door to the royal broch he paused and pulled the shirt over his head.
“Where are Caudyr and the lad?”
“In the false king’s old chambers. Prince Maryn had him put there under guard.”
As soon as Nevyn opened the door to the royal suite he smelled vomit, and the stench had a bitter tinge. He ran into the bedroom and found it ablaze with lantern light. On his narrow bed the child-king lay, his wooden horse beside him, while Caudyr stood at a table littered with packets of herbs and medicaments. The room stank of vomit and excrement. Nevyn crossed it in two strides and flung the shutters open at the windows.
“What have you been doing for him?”
“Salt water and lots of it. He’s been vomiting on his own, and I’ve been trying to wash his insides clean.”
Nevyn went to the bedside and laid a hand on the boy’s face: clammy and cold, and his skin had a greyish tinge. At the touch he opened his eyes, then closed them again. A vomit stain lay on the blanket near his face.
“Blood,” Nevyn said. “You can see the tinge. Let’s hope it’s just the straining.”
Caudyr turned and pointed to a basin on the floor. Blood and a lot of it clotted in the watery vomit. Nevyn squatted down beside the boy and touched him again. He wanted a look at the child’s pupils, but this time Olaen kept his eyes shut.
“Come now, lad, look at me,” Nevyn whispered. “We’re here to help you. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Not a twitch, not a stir, not even when Nevyn gave him a gentle shake. Carefully he pried the lad’s eyes open and found the pupils widely dilated even though it seemed he slept. When Nevyn swore under his breath, Caudyr came limping over.
“Is it too late?” Caudyr said.
“I fear me it is. He’s slipping away from us.”
Caudyr let out his breath in a long sigh. Nevyn got up and pulled a blanket over the boy’s thin shoulders—a futile gesture, but he had to do something.
“When did this happen?”
“Well, a guard fetched me some while after midnight,” Caudyr said. “He’d looked for the regular chirurgeons but couldn’t find them. Someone thought of me, and so I gathered up my supplies and got here as fast as I could.”
“He’s been poisoned, of course.”
“Of course. The last person to see him was his nursemaid. The guards told me she brought him up some honeycake—a little treat, she said, from the kitchens.”
Nevyn glanced around and saw, lying broken on the floor, a pottery plate. When he picked the pieces up, he found them sticky. One trampled bit of cake lay near the table, which he scooped up with a fragment of plate. When he sniffed it, he smelled nothing unusual. With a shrug he laid it on the table.
“I want to talk with the nursemaid.”
“Through there.” Caudyr pointed at a little door in the wooden partition. “Come to think of it, I wonder why she didn’t hear the noise I’ve been making?”
Nevyn felt abruptly cold. He flung open the little door, stepped into the tiny chamber, and in the spill of lantern light saw what he’d feared to see, a middle-aged woman lying twisted and dead on the floor. A rumpled pallet, all stained with excrement and vomit, lay nearby. She must have lost control of herself, Nevyn supposed, and got up to get a chamberpot, only to fall and die. He knelt beside her and laid a hand on her face—barely cold. If Caudyr had only known about her, lying there helpless, he might have saved her. With a shake of his head he rose to see Caudyr in the doorway.
“Ye gods! I never heard her moan or cry out.”
“She looks frail. The poison might have killed her very quickly. No doubt she shared the little treat someone had so kindly sent the lad.”
Despite the sound of their voices, Olaen never moved, not even a twitch. Nevyn strode to the window and leaned out to breathe the cleaner air.
“So,” Caudyr said. “Who did this, do you think? Councillor Oggyn?”
“It’s a good guess. He feared our Maryn’s talent for mercy.”
“Where do you think the old sot got the poison?”
“I don’t—oh ye gods! I do know. From Lady Merodda’s things, the ones the guards brought him along with my book.”
“Do we go to the prince about this?”
“How can we? We don’t have a scrap of evidence.”
“Evidence?” Caudyr looked as if he’d spit. “Ask Oggyn outright. You can always tell when a man is lying. The prince will take your word for it.”
“So? My word’s not evidence under the laws. As much as I’d like to see this poor woman avenged, it would be a grievous thing if the prince broke the laws to do it.”
Caudyr stared at him for a long time, then sighed.
“Sometimes,” Caudyr said, “I think that I’ll never understand you, no matter how long I know you.”