.
do you see, Lilli? Tell us what you see.’
She felt her mouth moving and words slip out like pebbles, falling into the black. In the window things appeared, creatures, vast creatures, all wing and long tails. Around them a bluish light formed and brightened, glinting on coppery scales, blood-red scales, a pair of beasts sleeping, curled next to one another. One of them stirred and stretched, lifting its wings to reveal two thick legs and clawed feet. A huge copper head lifted, the mouth gaped in a long yawn of fangs.
‘Wyverns. I see red wyverns, and now they’re flying.’
‘Good, good.’ Her mother’s voice slid out like drops of oil. ‘Where do you see them?’
‘Over a grassy plain.’
Down from the mountains they swept, their massive wings slapping the air, and to Lilli it seemed that she flew with them while her voice babbled of its own accord. They circled round a meadow where a herd of swine fed, then suddenly stooped and plunged like hawks. Shrieking and cackling they struck. The blood-red wyvern rose, flapping hard, with a big grey boar clutched limp and bleeding in its talons.
In her vision Lilli flew too close. The wyvern’s enormous head swung her way. The black eyes glittered, narrowed, and seemed to pierce the darkness and stare directly at her. Lilli screamed and broke the spell. She staggered, stumbling forward, knocking into the table. A candle tottered and fell with a hiss and a stench into the black ink.
‘You clumsy little dolt!’
Merodda grabbed her by the hair and swung her round, then slapped her with her other hand. Lilli yelped and sank to her knees. Pain burned and crawled on her face.
‘Stop it!’ Brour snarled. ‘She can’t help it. She can’t control the trance.’
Merodda stepped away, but Lilli could hear her panting in ebbing rage.
‘She needs to be trained.’ Brour’s voice had turned calm again. ‘I don’t see why you won’t let me –’
‘We will not discuss this in front of her.’ Merodda leaned down. ‘Oh, do get up!’
Lilli scrambled to her feet.
‘You may go to your chamber,’ Merodda said. ‘Leave us. And if you ever tell anyone what happened here –’
‘Never, I promise. Never.’ Lilli could hear her own voice swooping and trembling. ‘I’ve never told before, have I?’
‘You haven’t, truly.’ Merodda considered her for a long cold moment. ‘You have some wits. Now go!’
Lilli gathered up her long skirts and raced from the chamber. She dashed down the hall, ran into her tiny chamber at the far end, and barred the door behind her. For a long moment she stood in the twilight grey and wept, leaning against the cold wall; then she flung herself down on her narrow bed and fell asleep, as suddenly as a stone dropped from a tower hits the ground.
That same spring evening, at the stillness before the sunset, Lady Bevyan of Hendyr stood at her bedchamber’s narrow window and considered the ward of her husband’s dun. Stone framed her view: the stone sides of the window slit when she looked through, the stone billow of the squat broch tower when she looked down, the stone walls of encircling fort when she looked toward the distant west and the silent gold of an ending day. All her life, stone had meant safety thanks to the civil wars, just as winter had meant peace, despite the snows, the storms, and the ever-present threat of hunger. Only lately had she come to think of stone as meaning imprisonment. Only lately had she come to wonder about a world in which summer, too, might mean peace.
Not that such a world coincided with her world, not yet at least. Below her, deep in shadow, the preparations of war filled the cobbled ward: extra horses, tethered out for want of room in the stables; provision carts, packed for the morrow’s march. Her husband, Tieryn Peddyc of Hendyr, had called in his allies and vassals for the summer’s fighting, defending the true king in Dun Deverry from the would-be usurpers gathering on the kingdom’s southern borders. Or so her husband and his allies always called Maryn, Gwerbret Cerrmor, prince of distant Pyrdon – usurper, pretender, rebel. At times, when she wasn’t watching her thoughts, Bevyan wondered about the truth of those names.
From behind her Bevyan heard a door opening and a soft voice.
‘My lady?’ Sarra, one of her serving women, stepped in the door. ‘Are you unwell?’
‘I’m not, dear.’ Bevyan turned from the window. ‘Just taking a moment’s solitude. I’m trying to make up my mind about going to court. Tell me, do you want to go to Dun Deverry?’
Sarra hesitated, thinking. She’d come to Bevyan as an orphaned girl-child, long enough ago now that grey streaked her dark hair at the temples.
‘Well,’ Sarra said at last. ‘Our place is at Queen Abrwnna’s side, but oh, my lady, I shouldn’t admit such a shameful thing, but I’m ever so frightened of being caught in a siege.’
‘So am I. The Cerrmor men are nearly to our lands, aren’t they? Sometimes I wonder what the summer will bring.’
Sarra laid a hand over her throat.
‘But we mustn’t give up hope yet.’ Bevyan make her voice brisk. ‘The gods will give us the Wyrd they choose, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.’
‘True spoken.’
‘As for things we can do something about,’ Bevyan paused for a sigh, ‘I’m worried about little Lillorigga. She’s the only reason I’ll be going, frankly, if I do go. I keep asking for news of her, but no one ever sends me any.’
‘Well, certainly her mother wouldn’t bother.’ Steel crept into Sarra’s voice. ‘Do you think we could persuade the Lady Merodda to let us bring her daughter back here? For the cleaner air and all. When you had the fostering of her, she thrived, poor child.’
‘Merodda might well be glad to be rid of her. It’s worth a try. I’ll tell you what. Let’s ride with my lord on the morrow, but there’s no reason that we need to spend all summer in Dun Deverry. If things do look grim, the lords will be sending their womenfolk away, anyway.’
‘That’s true. Shall I tell the pages, then?’
‘You should, indeed. We’ll need them to get our palfreys ready, and we need to fill a chest to go into one of the carts. There. I feel better already, with the decision made.’
But Bevyan paused to glance out the window. The sun was setting in a haze that sent long banners of gold across the sky, as if they were the pennons of some approaching army. The traitorous thought returned full-force. What if Maryn’s army ended the war this summer? He’d promised amnesty if he should conquer, promised full pardons even to the lords who’d fought most bitterly against him. What if next summer there would be no march to war?
‘My lady?’ Sarra said. ‘You look so distant.’
‘Do I, dear? Well, perhaps I’ve got a bit of the headache. Let’s go down to the great hall and get somewhat to eat.’
In the great hall lords and riders gathered, standing more than sitting, drinking ale, talking in urgent voices, but they stood out of nerves, not for want of benches, and their voices seemed oddly quiet in the half-empty hall. Bevva ran a quick count of lords: a mere four of them, and each obliged to bring no more than forty men a-piece to augment her husband’s eighty and the gwerbret’s one-hundred-and-sixty. At the head of the table of honour sat her husband’s overlord, Daeryc, Gwerbret Belgwergyr, while Tieryn Peddyc sat to his right and their last living son, Anasyn, stood behind His Grace to wait upon him like a page. No one who saw them together would ever have doubted that Anasyn was Peddyc’s son. They shared a long face, long thin nose, and a pair of deep-set brown eyes, though Peddyc’s hair had turned solidly grey and Anasyn’s was still chestnut. When he saw his wife enter, Peddyc rose, swinging himself clear of the bench and smiling as he strode over to meet her.
‘There you are,’