They walked together back towards the Tower of Thrones, the three of them surrounded by more than a score of shieldmen and attendants. The streets were emptying out with the approach of night, but those who were still abroad stood aside without protest as the Thane processed through his city. Lheanor walked slowly — whether through age or weariness, Anyara was not sure. She matched her pace to his. For all his talk of setting aside worries, his demeanour was not that of a man with a light heart.
“Do you really think there will be trouble, if Aewult feels my brother’s cheated him of something?” Anyara asked him.
“There might be,” Lheanor said softly. “It’s not so much Aewult’s anger that concerns me, as what channel the Shadowhand might dig for it. The Chancellor and the High Thane are not well known for resigning themselves to disappointment.”
“You didn’t tell Orisian to stay here, though, did you?”
“No. I’m an old man, and one with more than a trace of fear clouding his eyes. I have no right to try to dissuade a young Thane whose Blood is fighting for its life from whatever course of action he chooses. Anyway, we — your Blood and mine — have an army of quarrels with Haig already. One more will make little difference.”
“He would have listened to your advice, I’m sure.”
Lheanor gave her a kindly smile. “I did give him some, though not on the matter of staying here. But whatever the subject, he needs it less than he — or you — might imagine. He’s no fool, your brother. He gave me some advice of his own, and it was welcome. And wise.”
The Thane hung his head then, and watched the cobblestones flowing beneath his feet as he walked. He appeared disinclined to expand upon what had passed between him and Orisian. Anyara restrained her curiosity. She could not guess what advice her brother had seen fit to give this powerful old, man. But then, she reflected with a touch of sadness, Orisian was Thane now. He had ceased to be just her younger brother, who she could by turns tease and protect. Now, he stood at the head of the Blood. He could march away into strife and leave her behind; he could exchange advice with Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig; he could choose to risk the enmity of the High Thane himself. Everything, all the world in all its smallest details, had changed since the night of Winterbirth. Even Orisian.
They followed the flagstone path up the mound, through the wintry gardens, and into the Tower of Thrones.
Lagair Haldyn sat with his wife, both of them sullen and uncommunicative. They formed a cold island in the lapping water of merriment, their eyes resolutely downcast. Roaric was glowering at the Steward.
“I don’t know why they don’t just leave, since they make their boredom so obvious,” the Bloodheir muttered under his breath.
Anyara glanced over at Lagair. He had a slab of meat impaled on his knife, and took a bite from it as she watched. He caught her eye and flicked her an unconvincing smile before turning to his wife. An air of disapproval hung about the two of them, Anyara thought. Perhaps they were offended by the way the departure of the Haig army was being marked. If so, their stubbornly glum presence at this feast served as an effective reminder that Gryvan oc Haig was never truly absent; the High Thane’s shadow was not removed merely because his warriors had marched on.
“I don’t suppose they’ll stay much longer,” Anyara said to Roaric. “Just long enough to remind you they’re still here.”
“No, no,” Lheanor was crying in exasperation. “I want wine, more wine.”
A harassed girl, her efforts to fill the Thane’s beaker with ale thus rebuffed, hurried away. She looked, to Anyara, as though she was close to tears. Lheanor rattled his empty cup on the table and cast about for someone who could give him what he wanted. Ilessa, his wife, laid a gently restraining hand on his arm. He calmed at once.
“Some sickness, a disturbance of the guts, has sent half the kitchen girls to their beds,” he explained to Anyara. “We’ve had to borrow hands from everywhere else. There’s stable boys carving meat and washerwomen baking bread. Most of them have no idea what they’re doing.”
Now that it was pointed out to her, Anyara could see that the servants rushing about the hall did not have the usual air of proficiency. She could see old women and red-faced men, boys carrying overladen plates. As she watched, two of them almost collided in their haste to keep the supply of food and drink flowing.
“It’s bad luck to have so many fall sick,” she murmured.
Lheanor grunted. “Life’s way of reminding us that no day is ever so sunny that a little cloud may not appear. Still, it’s no great trial. There’ll be a few sore feet and aching backs by the end of the night, that’s all.”
Coinach was sitting at the near end of the table running down the length of the hall. Anyara watched him trying to fish something out of a flagon of ale that stood before him. He had half-risen from his bench, and wore a frown of concentration as he chased whatever had fallen in there with a finger. He looked, Anyara thought, like some ordinary village boy just then.
Someone further down the table was picking out a tune on a whistle. The melody danced its shrill way up and up, accompanied by shouts and laughs of encouragement, then collapsed in a flurry of missed notes. There was mocking applause.
“Ah, here we are,” Lheanor said. An old woman — short and a little hunch-shouldered — had brought a jug of wine and was refilling his cup.
“Do you see, Anyara?” the Thane said with as broad a smile as Anyara had seen on him since she arrived in Kolkyre. “Us old folk have our uses still. It took an old, wise head to find me my wine. How long since you’ve served at table here, Cailla?”
The woman edged away from the table, clearly unwelcoming of such attention.
“Many years, sire. I keep to the kitchens these days.”
“Yes. You served me when I first ate in this hall as Thane, though. I remember.”
Cailla nodded and headed off with the empty jug. Someone set a fresh loaf of bread down on the table in front of Anyara and she caught the rich, hot smell of it. It was a smell she loved, but it carried some bitter memories with it now: the kitchens in Castle Kolglas, where rows of loaves would stand cooling; the hall there, where her father would never again feast as Lheanor did now. She was not even certain if that hall survived. Everyone said that the castle in the sea had burned, but how much of it was ruined she did not know.
Those thoughts occupied Anyara for a time. She ate sparingly, watching all that happened and feeling very much alone. She almost wished that she could sit alongside Coinach on the benches of the long table. However warm and welcoming Lheanor and the others might be, Coinach was the only one of her Blood who was here. No matter how little she knew of him, that one fact was enough to mean that they shared something important.
The meat and bread were cleared away. It was a messy, clumsy process, since so many of the servants were new to it. Eventually, though, the platters of sweet cakes and dried fruits, honey and oatbreads, began to emerge from the kitchens. The mood of the hall softened. Thoughts were drifting towards sleep. Anyara could feel weariness settling over her, and wondered whether tonight she might be granted a dreamless, gentle slumber.
She heard Lheanor make a contented, approving noise in his throat, and turned to look. Cailla, the aged kitchen maid, was leaning over the Thane’s shoulder, setting down a bowl of stewed apples. She did it carefully, with a deftness that belied her years. Anyara’s head began to turn away. Her eyes lingered for only an instant, but it was long enough to see — if not, at first, to understand — what happened next.
Cailla was straightening. Her right hand slipped smoothly beneath the cuff of her left sleeve and drew something out. Lheanor was glancing up at her, smiling, even as he reached for his cup of wine. The thing that Cailla was holding caught a spark of yellow light from the torches. She made a sudden movement. Lheanor jerked in his chair; his cup went flying. Roaric turned to look. Beyond the Thane, Anyara saw Ilessa’s old, kind face as she too glanced round. Anyara was frozen, paralysed by incomprehension. Her mind stumbled over what her eyes told her. Ilessa’s features were stretching themselves into a mask of horror.
Roaric was starting to move, surging up. Cailla was reaching, thrusting her knife at the Bloodheir’s face. Roaric dodged the blow. Ilessa’s mouth was open, screaming or wailing. Roaric bore Cailla backwards and down. Anyara’s stare swung back onto Lheanor, and stayed there.
The grey-haired Thane of the Kilkry Blood was slumped limply, sinking. His head lolled to one side. He was looking at Anyara, his eyes quite still and clear. And his blood was pumping out of the wound in his neck, spilling on his shoulder and down his chest and onto the table, a terrible dark red flood that did not stop.
There was a cacophony then. An eruption of sound and movement that overwhelmed the senses. Within it,
