flames, as if there was nothing in his world save that fire, and whatever burned within him.
Cailla the kitchen maid had been put into an unmarked grave outside the city walls. On the very night of her burial, so Anyara had heard, someone had dug up and dismembered the old woman’s body. Roaric had spoken of Cailla only once within Anyara’s earshot.
“I would have her alive if it was possible,” he had said, “so that I could kill her again.”
Now the Thane was silent, like everyone else gathered about the crackling pyre. Lagair Haldyn was there, his expression unreadable, a knot of Haig warriors around him and his wife. Aewult had left a hundred or more men in the city, under the Steward’s command; just enough to keep resentment simmering amongst Kolkyre’s inhabitants.
A rising, gusting wind whipped the flames back and forth. Waves of heat came and went across Anyara’s face. She grieved for Lheanor. She had liked him. But the thoughts that smudged her vision with unshed tears were of her own dead father, Kennet, and of Croesan her uncle, and all the others of her family who had died. No one was left now save Orisian, and he had gone from her, out into an unsafe world.
Coinach her shieldman moved a little at her side, breaking her mournful reverie. He turned his face away from a blast of hot wind, and in doing so caught her eye for a moment. He gave her a faint, sympathetic smile.
The flames were dwindling, past the peak of their intensity. The centre of the pyre fell in, belching out a swarm of sparks. The wind took them and tumbled them away. They flared and died amongst the apple trees. Horns were blown. Their mournful voices drowned out the roar of the fire for a time, echoing off the smooth stone of the Tower. It was that sound, filling the whole world, that made Anyara weep at last. It carried every loss, every grief, within it, and it was, briefly, too much to bear.
She saw, as she brushed a tear from her cheek, Lagair the Steward moving away. He and his wife and their accompanying warriors turned and shuffled through the crowd. Roaric was watching them go. The Thane’s gaze was so sharp with loathing that Anyara feared, then, for the future.
On the day after Lheanor’s burning, Anyara went to visit Jaen Narran in her chambers in the town barracks. Coinach accompanied her, as always. She would be surprised now if one day she turned around and did not find him there, silent, attentive and observant.
If Anyara did not know better, she might have thought Taim’s wife flustered by her arrival. The woman rushed around, clearing unnecessary space on the table, searching for her own cloak. They were to go together to visit the few dozen Lannis folk who still lived in squalor in Kolkyre’s northern parts. The plan had been agreed the day before, so Anyara knew it was not surprise that made Jaen fuss so. Rather, she imagined, it was the anxiety that affected everyone in the city, like an affliction leaping from one warm body to the next through touch or breath or glance. And for Jaen, as for Anyara, its edge could only be sharpened by the knowledge that someone precious to her was still facing immeasurable danger.
“I brought as much as I could from the Tower kitchens,” Anyara said. Coinach, who had carried the sack of ham and bread and apples for her, set it down on the table with a thump.
“Good, good,” Jaen replied without looking up. She was burrowing now in a chest, digging amongst blankets in search of something.
“How is your daughter?” Anyara asked.
Jaen straightened, clutching a thin shawl in her hands. She settled it about her shoulders.
“Well, thank you, lady. Her husband takes good care of her. He will make a good father to the child, luck allowing.”
“Luck allowing,” Anyara said, nodding.
“I have some stew I made,” Jaen said, pointing to a lidded iron pot that sat by the fire. “I thought some warmth would be welcomed, now that the weather’s set in its cold path. Nothing worse than not having hot food in winter.”
“No,” agreed Anyara.
“You’ve no word, I suppose, from the north. From home?” Jaen asked the question almost nervously, almost as if she doubted her right to venture it. Or perhaps it was the possibility of an answer that she shied away from.
“Nothing,” Anyara said, with a shake of her head. “The Bloodheir must be in Kolglas by now, but there’s been no word of what’s happening come back to the Tower of Thrones yet. Not that I’ve heard, anyway. You’ll be one of the first to hear, Jaen, when there is anything.”
The woman nodded, and smiled sadly.
“Should we go, then?” she suggested.
They went out into the streets, wrapped against the wind-driven flecks of snow, and headed north. A couple of Taim’s warriors — some of the handful he had left behind when he marched for Kolglas — went with them, carrying the food. They walked a little ahead, to clear the way, but in truth there were no crowds to part. The streets of Kolkyre, emptied by cold air and cold hearts, were seldom busy these days. The faces of those others they did encounter were grim. The death of a Thane would always dispirit his people, but the manner of Lheanor’s demise had done more than that: it had made them bitter and suspicious as well as grief-stricken. None — so Anyara hoped and believed, at least — looked upon her with hostility. Perhaps it was only that she reminded all those who recognised her of the cruelty of the times they lived in.
They heard the mob before they saw it: a maelstrom of angry voices. At once, Coinach slowed and put a restraining hand on Anyara’s arm. The noise was fat with violence. Jaen pulled her shawl tighter about her. A crowd of figures poured around a corner and onto the street ahead of them. It came surging up like a debris-laden flood wave. Two men ran at its head, fleeing it, but unable to outpace it. They were Haig warriors.
Coinach pushed Anyara unceremoniously towards a doorway. She did not resist, but managed to grab hold of Jaen’s shoulder and pull her along with them. The mob came rushing on. The objects of its fury crashed past the two Lannis men before they could get out of the way. The sack of food from the Tower’s kitchens fell and emptied its contents across the roadway. The pot of Jaen’s stew clattered down. The crowd poured around the Lannis warriors without pause, blind to them.
“What’s happening?” gasped Jaen.
Anyara, pressed into the doorway by Coinach, said nothing, but she had no doubt of what would happen if the crowd caught their quarry.
Peering over Coinach’s shoulder, she saw one of the Haig men go down, the other turn, trying to draw his sword. The mass of their pursuers broke over them and boiled around them like wild dogs biting at sheep. Bodies crashed against Coinach — Anyara felt the impacts through his chest — but no one had eyes for anything except the two fallen men. Anyara saw a heavy lumber axe rising and falling, a long staff beating down again and again. Fists. Boots. Jaen was hiding her eyes. Anyara longed to, but did not.
The storm blew itself out. The crowd scattered. Some of its members fled, running as if pursued by the horror of what had happened. Other lingered. Some spat on the two battered, crumpled corpses; some simply stared down at them, as if surprised by their own handiwork. Coinach carefully stepped away from Anyara. He had his sword in his hand.
“We should get back to the Tower,” he said.
Anyara, still standing in the doorway, her arm around Jaen, nodded.
Late that evening, Anyara was alone in her room in the Tower of Thrones, repairing the stitching in the sleeve of a dress. It was not even her dress — just one of those that Ilessa had found for her — and she could have summoned a seamstress to undertake the task, but she found the repetitive, precise movement went some way towards calming her thoughts. It required just enough concentration to keep at bay the worst of the memories and worries that might otherwise intrude.
Coinach admitted one of the Tower’s maids. The young girl bobbed her head respectfully.
“The Thane has asked for you, my lady, in the hall.”
Anyara hesitated. She was not dressed for an appearance before Roaric oc Kilkry-Haig and any others of Kolkyre’s elite who might be present.
“I should change,” she said.
“N-no need, my lady. The Thane… he said to bring you as I find you. As quickly as I could.”
Anyara set aside the dress on which she had been working and stood up. She did not want to leave this quiet room and submit herself once again to the grim atmosphere that prevailed beyond its door, but at the best of times it would be unwise to refuse a summons from a Thane. And these were not the best of times, and Roaric was not
