and mistrust between the Haig and Kilkry Bloods were too deep-rooted to be wholly set aside for even a single night.
Musicians came and paraded up and down the hall. Falconers displayed Lheanor’s finest hunting hawks. A trickster made coins disappear. None of it did much to ease the evening’s latent tension. At length a storyteller was ushered in. As he bowed to Lheanor a hush fell across the room.
“In the Storm Years,” the storyteller began, “not long after the Kingship fell, a man called Rase oc Rainur — tall and red and strong-handed — had a hall at Drinan, which was then but a village. In the summer, the people grazed their cattle far out through the forest. Now, there was a girl called Fianna, daughter of Evinn, who often stood watch over her father’s cattle, taking only his two black dogs with her.”
Aewult nan Haig leaned too close to Orisian, his breath heavy with wine and grease.
“I think I’ve heard this before,” the Bloodheir said.
“It’s a common tale here,” Orisian replied. “It’s called ‘The Maid and the Woodwight’.”
“A miserable one, isn’t it? Doesn’t everybody die?”
“Not quite everyone.”
The storyteller pressed on, but he had clearly failed to catch the Bloodheir’s attention. As a scattering of discussions resumed around the hall, Aewult turned his attention to Anyara.
“You’ve a very fair face, my lady.” He flicked a wide grin at Orisian. “Has your sister given her affections to anyone, Thane?”
“My affections are my own,” Anyara said, “and I don’t give them away. I’m sure your own lady would say the same thing.” She glanced pointedly at the beautiful young woman who sat amongst the Haig captains at the long table.
Orisian was not certain of her name — Ishbel, he thought — but it was already common knowledge in Kolkyre that she shared a bed with the Bloodheir. It was said that he had smuggled her all the way from Vaymouth in one of the supply wagons. Apparently Aewult’s mother, Abeh oc Haig, had forbidden the liaison, as she disapproved of the woman’s background or breeding. Whatever the truth of it, Orisian suspected it was not wise ground for Anyara to start digging in.
To his relief, Aewult appeared to be amused rather than annoyed.
“A pretty face but a pointed tongue, I see,” the Bloodheir said through a mouthful of mutton. “You’ll have to blunt that a bit if you want to marry her off, you know.”
“I don’t mean to marry her off,” Orisian said quickly. He pressed forward against the table, hoping to put a barrier between Aewult and his sister. “How long do you expect to remain here in Kolkyre?”
“Keen to see us off to battle?” Aewult asked, with a smirk. “You don’t need to worry. We’ll be on our way soon enough. We’ll get your lands back for you, Thane, and sit you on your throne in Anduran. Believe me, I’ll not spend a day more than I must up here. It’s too cold and too wet.”
“It’ll get colder yet,” Orisian said. “Our winters aren’t really made for fighting.”
“Ha! A bit of weather won’t hinder us. I’ve an army here big enough to cut a path all the way to Kan Dredar if we needed to.” The Bloodheir waved a bone from which he had picked all the meat, as if that somehow proved his point. “It’ll be a massacre. You’ll see. It’s only Horin-Gyre that’s come south, from the sound of it. Stupid, but then they’re all a bit mad on the cold side of the Stone Vale, aren’t they?”
“It was Inkallim and White Owls that attacked Kolglas at Winterbirth, not Horin-Gyre,” Orisian muttered. There was a patronising, dismissive strand in Aewult’s demeanour that annoyed him. Apart from anything else, it belittled the price that Croesan, Kennet and all the others had already paid for Horin-Gyre ambition.
The Bloodheir snorted, flourishing his empty goblet to attract the attention of a serving girl.
“There’s not enough ravens or woodwights in all the world to trouble ten thousand determined men. Have you ever ridden to battle, Thane? Too young, I suppose. Have you even killed a man yet?”
Orisian could not help but look away. He remembered driving his knife into the chest of a fallen Tarbain warrior; remembered a torrent of blood that only grew in his memory. And the emptiness that came after that act, leaving unsated whatever hunger for revenge had preceded it.
Anyara was tearing at a slab of bread, concentrating with a fierce intensity that made Orisian glad he was seated between her and the Bloodheir.
Aewult drew his own conclusions from Orisian’s silence.
“No, eh? Well, don’t worry. You can rest here while we cleanse the Glas valley for you. You’re the last of your Blood, Thane. There’s no one to come after you. Can’t risk anything unfortunate happening to you, can we? Haig warriors will do the dying that’s needed to open the path back to your throne.”
Orisian gazed at the storyteller, who was still manfully persisting in his efforts to make himself heard above the soft drone of conversation. Those last phrases had sounded glib, almost rehearsed, in Aewult’s mouth, as if he was repeating a thought crafted by someone else. Orisian wondered whether Mordyn Jerain held even the Bloodheir’s reins.
“There’s been no shortage of dying already,” he said.
“Maybe, but it’s not gained you much, has it?” grunted Aewult. There was a blush in his cheeks, whether born of drink or heat or anger Orisian could not tell. But the Bloodheir’s speech was losing its shape a little; his eyes were gleaming. He regarded Orisian with what seemed to be naked contempt.
“Those who’ve died did so fighting,” Orisian snapped.
“Fighting and losing.” Aewult’s lips were stained red with wine. “Make no mistake, it’ll take the strength of Haig to win you back your seat, Thane.”
“At least you remember that my brother is Thane,” Anyara hissed from beyond Orisian. “The way you talk, I’d thought you had forgotten. Bloodheir.”
For once, Orisian hardly cared if Anyara wanted to pick a fight. His own jaw was tightening in anger, and a kind of furious shame burned in him: so little did Haig think of his Blood, and of him as its Thane, that he was treated as nothing more than a child. He was uncertain whether Aewult deliberately meant to goad him into some mistake or whether the Bloodheir simply did not care.
“Bloodheir to Gryvan,” Aewult said, and grinned. He turned his attention to his plate, cutting into the joint of a chicken leg on his platter. His movements were crude and imprecise. The knife glanced off bone. “I speak with my father’s authority. And I say Lannis stays behind when I march.”
“We’ll see,” Orisian said. He turned to Anyara, urging her to silence with the slightest shake of his head.
The noise was so sudden and sharp that he started, almost lifting from his chair. Aewult had punched his knife into the table top and it stood there, trembling. The Bloodheir glared at Orisian.
“We’ll see you do as the High Thane commands,” he said. “That’s what we’ll see.”
Lheanor had turned at the sound of blade splitting wood. Beyond the Thane, Orisian saw Mordyn Jerain leaning forward and looking down along the table. He thought he detected a momentary narrowing of the Shadowhand’s eyes, a pinch of displeasure on his lips.
“I can’t hear the tale with so much noise,” Lheanor said, clear and strangely solemn. “It is almost done.”
Slowly Aewult nan Haig sank back into his chair. He tugged the knife from the table and dropped it back onto his plate.
“Of course,” he said, looking pointedly at the storyteller rather than at Lheanor. “Let’s hear it.”
The storyteller struggled on to the end of his tale amidst a taut silence. Once done, he retired with a look of undisguised relief on his face. There was some thin applause. The evening rolled uncomfortably on. Aewult nan Haig spoke not one more word to Orisian and Anyara. Before long, he abandoned the high table altogether. With a sour glance in Orisian’s direction, he went down the hall and took the seat next to Ishbel for himself, leaving its evicted occupant to go in search of space elsewhere.
“Let’s go,” Anyara whispered to Orisian. “Tell Lheanor we want to call on Yvane, to see how she is. He won’t mind that.”
Orisian doubted whether Lheanor would mind if every single guest rose as one and left him alone in his hall. Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig had been trying hard — keeping a smile on her face, laughing at whatever nothings the Shadowhand whispered to her — but her eyes betrayed the effort it took to maintain the appearance of pleasure, of levity. Apparently, it was an effort of which her husband was incapable.
Orisian looked from the Thane and his wife out over the rest of the gathering. Aewult was laughing at his own crude stories, Ishbel listening with rapt attention. Further down the table a Kolkyre merchant was arguing with
