A Time Of Omens Part 6

"You know, Your Highness, at times you truly do have the royal spirit. But listen to me. Once the true king comes, a good thousand of those Cantrae men are ours again. Their lords have gone over to Dun Deverry out of fear and naught else, and they have a hundred years' worth of reasons to hate the Boars and their false king. Give them hope, and they'll flock to our banner."

"Well and good, my lord." She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to act regally at moments like these, not slang her cadvridoc like a fishwife. "Truly, we have great faith in your understanding of matters military."

Although it seemed to her that Elyc was suppressing a smile, he did make her a pa.s.sable bow.

"Now, good regent, did you want me for some reason?"

"Not truly. I was just worried, wondering where you'd got to." He paused to glance round at the towering rise of stone. "You're probably safe enough out here."

"Unless an a.s.sa.s.sin comes creeping under the walls."

"Oh, indeed? Has the bard been amusing you with lurid tales?"

"He hasn't. Look, see where the stream comes out from under the wall over there? Well, that water comes from the dairy room, where they store the cheeses and suchlike. The running water keeps them cool in summer. But it gets into the dairy room through this underground tunnel that leads all the way outside the dun walls to that big stream that goes through the market district down to the river. The tunnel was built in 769 by Glyn the First when the sorcerer was here, the one who posed as a gardener to gain the king's confidence and..."

"Sorcerer? Don't prattle about some wretched sorcerer!" He was close to shouting. "I never knew about any cursed tunnel. Ye G.o.ds, Your Highness, this is a serious matter!"

"Well, so I thought. That's what I meant about a.s.sa.s.sins."

"We'll have to brick the tunnel up, or, wait, if things come to a siege, we'll need the water."

Muttering about portcullises and blacksmiths, Tieryn Elyc rushed off with barely a bow in her direction. Although Bellyra considered climbing back into her tree, her daydreaming mood was broken. It was also getting late; in a few moments the sun would drop below the circling walls, and the garden turn cold. She crossed the bridge and went inside a tower, climbed up a spiral staircase to a landing, crossed it to another set of stairs, which led down to still another door, which finally got her out to the ward. As she was going to the kitchen hut, she saw two of the scullery boys cleaning a butchered pig. Its liver lay steaming and bleeding on the cobbles.

"Modd, please, slice me off a bit of that liver, will you?"

"For that scraggly cat of yours, Your Highness?"

"She won't be scraggly when she's not half-starved. How's she going to have her kits if she can't make milk?"

When she gave him one of her most brilliant smiles, he relented, smiling in return, pushing back his forelock with a blood-crusted wrist and glancing round at the littered ward.

"Fetch me those cabbage leaves over there for a wrap," he said to the younger boy. "And we'll slice the royal puss up a bit of supper."

"She is the royal puss now. So there!"

The cat in question lived with her up in her chambers, the old nursery, which took up the floor above the women's hall. Half the round floor plan was filled by a single big room with a hearth, where she and her brother and younger sister had once had their baths and eaten their meals. Lying by the hearth were a pair of little wooden horses, left there by Caturyc on the night when he'd fallen ill. Somehow no one wanted to pick them up and put them away, even though he'd been dead for years. The other half was divided into small wedge-shaped chambers, one each for the children and one for their old nurse, who had accompanied Gwerna, Bellyra's eight-year-old sister, when she'd been sent off to an aunt's in a country dun-for her delicate health, everyone said, but Bellyra knew that they were keeping her safe, as the younger heir, in case Cerrmor was besieged at the end of the summer. As Princess of the Blood it was Bellyra's Wyrd to stay through the siege. She would have to be very brave, she supposed, and keep out of everyone's way.

Her own chamber held a single bed, a dower chest, one horribly faded tapestry on the wall, and the bottom of a cracked ale barrel that the carpenter had sawn down for her, ostensibly to make a bed for her dolls, but in reality for Melynna, a very pregnant ginger cat, whom Bellyra had found starving in the stables with a paw hurt badly enough to keep her from hunting. By now the paw was healing, and she was sleek again from being fed as many times a day as the princess could beg or steal food for her, but Bellyra hated to give her up, and Melynna certainly saw no reason to leave. As soon as Bellyra put the liver sc.r.a.ps down on the floor she lumbered out of her bed, lined with a torn-up linen shift that the princess had outgrown, and settled in for a good b.l.o.o.d.y munch.

"How's your basket of sand? Not too dirty? Good. When your kits are born, we're going to have trouble hiding them, aren't we? Well, I'll think of some clever plan then. I don't want anybody drowning any of them."

Melynna looked up, licked a whisker, and purred a throaty thanks.

Just outside the bedchamber, right by a window, was Bellyra's writing table, with her pot of ink, her stylus, and her pens laid out in a neat row. She laid the book down next to them, then sat on her stool and looked out the window at the main ward and the great iron-bound gates (built in 724 by Glyn the First's father, Gwerbret Ladoic), which were standing open to reveal the city street beyond. The iron hinges and reinforcements were rusty and pitted-iron did pit, in Cerrmor's salt air.

"It's all very well for Elyc to talk of putting in a portcullis," she said to the cat. "But where, pray tell, are the blacksmiths going to get the metal for it?"

At that precise moment, just like an omen sent by the G.o.ds, servants began running toward the gates and shouting in welcome. With an enormous rumble and clatter, ox cart after ox cart pulled into the ward, and from her high perch Bellyra could see that they were loaded to the brim with rough-smelted iron ingots. All round swarmed mounted riders, some mercenary troop, she supposed, hired to guard this precious cargo on its long, slow journey down from the north, She felt her heart pounding as she rose.

"O dear G.o.ddess, do let it be an omen. It would be a splendid one, coming just like that. O dear G.o.ddess, I do want to live to grow up."

She felt the tears pressing behind her eyes, hot and shameful. With a toss of her head she willed them away and ran for the door and the staircase. She should be in the great hall to welcome the merchants who'd brought her this treasure, she decided, be there and smile upon them and show them her favor, so they'd feel well rewarded beyond the coin her chamberlain would pay over.

By the time she reached the great hall, Tieryn Elyc, Lord Tammael the chamberlain, the seneschal, and the two stewards were already standing round the table of honor, up on the dais, with three merchants in checked brigga, two quite young, the other very old indeed, with a mop of thick white hair and a face as lined as an old burlap sack. Since everyone was arguing about paying for the iron no one noticed her make her entrance. Down on the floor of the hall servants rushed frantically round, trying to a.s.semble enough ale tankards for the mercenary troop as the men strode in, laughing and talking, each with a dagger hilt made of silver gleaming at his belt. Bellyra hovered uncertainly behind Tieryn Elyc and waited for a chance to deliver her speech of thanks until, at last, the old merchant happened to look her way.

"Ah, the Princess of the Blood, no doubt," he said with an amazingly deep and agile bow. "I do have the honor of addressing Bellyra of Cerrmor, do I not?"

"You do, good sir." Bellyra drew herself up to full height and held out her hand for him to kiss. "You have our royal thanks for the risk you've run to bring us this black iron more precious than shining gold."

"Your Highness is welcome from the bottom of my heart."

Bellyra was annoyed to see Elyc smiling again, but the old man didn't seem to notice.

"And your name, good sir?"

"My name, Your Highness, contains a jest, but it's a name nonetheless. It's Nevyn."

"Just like the sorcerer!" She blushed, hating herself for blurting like a child. "I mean, I've read of a sorcerer with that name."

Elyc was downright laughing at her by then, and she decided she hated him, too, loyal regent or not.

"You'll forgive the princess, good sir." He stepped forward to take command of the situation. "She's a bit young for her position, truly, and-"

"Too young? Oh, she's not that, Your Grace, but unusually attentive to her lessons, I'd say. I've read the same book myself, I'll wager, because there was indeed a sorcerer named Nevyn who once lived in this very city-or so I heard." He gave Bellyra a conspiratorial wink. "Perhaps that's why my mother gave me that name, Your Highness, because it was famous in its own small way."

Elyc arranged a polite smile. Nevyn bowed and made room for the two young merchants to continue their earnest talk of due recompense. Bellyra could only hope that the treasury held enough silver to pay them; she rather doubted it. By then the royal warband was piling into the hall to see what all the excitement was about. Even though it was early in the spring, some of the lords faithful to Cerrmor had already brought their warbands to court, and they too appeared, the n.o.ble-born sitting down at tables on the dais, their men finding places on the lower level. Bellyra collared a couple of pages and told them to run tell Cook to get some sort of refreshments for the n.o.ble-born and to find the cellarer and fetch another barrel of ale for the warbands. As they trotted off she noticed that Elyc had left the discussion about payment to the chamberlain and wandered over to the edge of the dais. He seemed to be staring at one of the mercenaries sitting below. All at once he laughed and jumped down from the dais.

"Caradoc! It is you, by every G.o.d and his wife!"

Grinning in a stunned kind of delight, a man was working his way through the tables, a tall man with blond hair heavily laced with gray and hard blue eyes. Although he was filthy and unshaven from the road, he moved with such a natural dignity that Bellyra wasn't even surprised when Elyc threw his arms around him and hugged him like a brother. For the second time that day she saw the tieryn close to tears.

"You remember me, Your Grace?" Caradoc said.

"Don't talk like a blathering lackwit! Do I remember you? Would I ever forget you? O dear G.o.ds, you've given me one happy day at least in the midst of this cursed mess!" Elyc paused to look over the scruffy pack of mercenaries, who had fallen silent to watch all this with understandable interest. "These are your men, are they?"

"What makes you think I'd be the captain?"

"Knowing you so well, that's what. Come up on the dais with me. We'll have mead to celebrate this, we will." Then he turned and found Bellyra hovering nearby. "Well, if her highness would allow?"

"Of course, Lord Regent, provided you tell me who your friend is."

"A fair bargain, Your Highness. May I present my foster brother, Caradoc of Cerrmor, who was forced into exile by an act of honor and naught more."

"That's a fancy way of putting it, Elyc, but you always were a slick one with your words." The mercenary bowed to her. "Your Highness, I'm honored to be in your presence."

"My thanks, Captain. You and your men are more than welcome, but I don't know if we've got the coin to pay you what you usually get for lighting for someone."

"Bellyra! I mean, Your Highness!" Elyc snapped. "If you'd leave such things to me..."

"Ah, why should she?" Caradoc said with a grin. "It's her kingdom, isn't it? Your Highness, I'd be honored to fight in your cause for the maintaining of me and my men and naught more."

Bellyra decided that she liked him immensely.

"Done, then, Captain. No doubt you and your foster brother have much to confer about, and I shall leave matters of war to you."

Then she turned on her heel and marched off before Elyc could slight her again, only to run straight into the elderly merchant, who'd apparently been standing close by.

"My apologies!" she gasped. "Oh, I can't do anything properly today!"

"I think, Your Highness, that you're doing a great many things properly, and besides, you didn't knock me down or suchlike."

"My thanks, good sir. Everyone's always telling me I'm doing things wrong, but they never tell what I should do. Oh, it's so beastly, knowing everyone only wants you for your womb!"

She blushed, shocked that she could be so coa.r.s.e in front of someone she'd just met, but Nevyn smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

"It must be, indeed, but your life does have a great deal more to offer. You've just got to learn how to find it. Come sit at the table of honor-not way down there! Take your rightful place at the regent's right hand." Nevyn pulled out a chair for her, then sat down at her left without waiting to be asked.

When Bellyra shot a nervous glance Elyc's way, she found him scowling at her, but with Nevyn for support she scowled right hack and motioned him over with a wave of her hand.

"Your foster brother is welcome to sit at our table, at your left hand, even, if you so choose."

"My thanks, Your Highness." Somewhat unwillingly, Elyc obeyed her indirect order and came over to sit down with Caradoc following along. "May I order drink for me and my guest?"

Bellyra ignored the sarcasm, nodded her approval, then turned pointedly to speak to Nevyn. The noise in the great hall picked up in a buzz of whispers and speculation at the princess's rare appearance among important men.

"You said you read about this sorcerer in a book, Your Highness?" Nevyn said. "May I inquire as to which one?"

"It was just a record book of sorts that I found up in one of the towers. There's bales and bales of stuff crammed into the upper rooms, you see. Actually this was a codex, not a true book. The head scribe told me the difference, and he says it's very important. But anyway, someone-it never does give his name-wrote the history of Dun Cerrmor, when everything was built, and who lived here, and sometimes he even puts in what they spent on a feast or suchlike. And whenever he talks about the years from 760 to 790, he mentions the great sorcerer named Nevyn, who planted the old willow tree we've got in the inner garden and who ended up advising the king."

"Ah, I see. Well, by all accounts my grandfather was an amazing man, but I doubt me very much if he was a sorcerer. For a man to rise from gardener to councillor is very, very rare, Your Highness, and I imagine it must have looked like sorcery to some."

"Oh." Bellyra was bitterly disappointed. "No doubt you're right, good sir, but I had so hoped he was a real sorcerer! But still, it's rather splendid to get to meet his grandson after reading about him and all. I take it your family became merchants with the inheritance he left?"

"In a way, truly. I used to deal in herbals and medicinals, but the times are grave enough for me to lay aside my old trade and do what I can for the true king."

"Well, iron is the best medicinal for the army, sure enough. Do you really believe the true king will ever come?"

"I do, and with all my heart, Your Highness, I believe it will be very soon."

"I hope so. We can't go on like this much longer. I'm going to have to marry him, you know. I hope he won't be too ugly, or old like Tieryn Elyc, but it doesn't truly matter. Cook says that all cats are gray in the dark."

"I take it you and your mother will have no objections to such a match."

"My poor mother! The only thing she ever objects to anymore is her wine jug running empty. And as for me, well, if he really is the one true king of all Deverry, I'd be awfully stupid to turn him down, wouldn't I? I don't want to molder here the rest of my life."

"Your Highness has a very direct and refreshing way of expressing herself, and I think, if I may speak so boldly, that you're going to make an excellent queen."

"My thanks, good sir. You're the only one who seems to think so." With a sigh she rested her chin on one hand and looked away out to the floor of the hall, where the men were drinking and laughing over their perennial dice games. "But then, we've got a lot in common. You're named 'no one,' and I was never properly born."

"What, Your Highness?"

"I was born on Samaen-just after sunset, the worst time of all. The midwife sat on my mother's legs to try to stop me coming so soon, and when that didn't work she tried to shove me back in, but my mother hurt so bad that she made her stop shoving. So the midwife ran screaming out of the chamber and my mother's serving women had to deliver me. They had all sorts of priests in and everything to bless me straightaway so the Wildfolk or the dead spirits couldn't get me. I don't remember any of that, of course. They told me when I was older."

"That's an amazing tale! But you know, children are born on Samaen every now and then. Most of them are quite ordinary, too."

"I've always felt quite ordinary, actually." She pinched her wrist. "Rather solid, don't you think?"

"It looks that way to me, Your Highness."

By then the pages and serving la.s.ses were bringing round baskets of bread and plates of cold meats and cheeses along with goblets of mead for the n.o.ble-born and ale for their men, including, of course, the mercenaries who belonged to Elyc's foster brother. Bellyra took a slice of ham and nibbled on it while she considered the regent and the captain, who were discussing old times with a deliberate intensity, as if they were trying to keep the present moment far away. Every now and then one of them would hit the other on the shoulder or arm, which she took as meaning they truly loved each other. Nevyn coughed politely to regain her attention.

"Have there been many omens of the coming of the true king, Your Highness?"

"There have indeed, good sir. Let's see, Elyc talks about them all the time, so I should be able to remember them. First of all, he's supposed to come before the last full moon before Beltane, which means he'd better get here soon, because that's tomorrow night. And then he's supposed to be from the west, but not from Eldidd. And then there's lots of stuff about stallions running before him or bearing him, which I think is truly odd, because no one rides a stallion as a battle horse. He's supposed to come in an army that's not an army, be a man but not a man-"

"Uh, excuse me?"

"Odd, isn't it? I mean, either you're a man or you're a woman, and there's not a lot in between, is there? But omens are that way sometimes. Let's see, what else? Some say he'll come as practically a beggar to his own gates, which I guess means Dun Cerrmor...." She paused, struck all at once by a number of odd things. "Here! They say no one will be his herald."

"Do they indeed?"

"They do, at that. And a mercenary troop is an army that isn't an army, and that full moon is tomorrow night, isn't it?" She looked out over the hall, found herself staring at each mercenary in turn as her heart started to pound. She knew that Nevyn was smiling, but she was afraid to look at the old man for fear he'd break her hopes again. "A man that isn't a man? What about someone who's still a lad but who rides with the men and fights like one. He doesn't even have a beard yet, does he?"

"Who, Your Highness?"

"That blond lad over there at the last table, the one who's sitting next to that great big tall fellow with the scar on his face and not talking to anyone. Do you know his name?"

"The tall fellow's?"

"I don't mean him. Don't tease, Nevyn. Who's that lad?"

"His name is Maryn. It's a common name in Pyrdon, where he's from."

"The Pyrdon blazon's a stallion."

"It is, truly."

Her heart was pounding so badly that she felt it might thud into her mouth and keep her from speaking.

"What made you pick out that lad?" the old man said, and his voice had dropped to a whisper.

"I don't know. Or, you know, I think he's been looking at me."

"He has, truly. Her highness is a very beautiful la.s.s."

"Oh, don't flatter! I know I'm plain."

"You're not plain in the least. I can see that until perhaps a year ago you were all long legs and stumbles, and your face must have been too thin and pinched-but that, Your Highness, was a year ago. We shall have to get you a proper mirror."