the most even-tempered of Thanes.
She and Coinach followed the maid down the long spiral stair and were ushered into the hall through a small side door. Many others were there before them: officials of the Tower, Ilessa and the Thane himself, sitting straight-backed and hard-faced on his great wooden seat. Roaric noticed Anyara as soon as she entered and beckoned her over. She went, with no little trepidation, and bent her head to listen to his murmur.
“I am glad you could join us. I wanted you to see what is about to happen. To see that the Kilkry Blood is unbroken, and still mindful of its enemies as well as its friends. Stand close.” He gestured towards a nearby gap in the ranks of the assembled audience. Anyara went to stand there and await events. She glanced questioningly at Coinach, but the shieldman just gave a shrug. He looked no more happy to be there than Anyara felt.
The main doors swung open and Lagair Haldyn marched purposefully in, flanked by Haig warriors dressed in ceremonial finery. Anyara’s heart sank.
“Steward,” Roaric said equably before Lagair could utter a word, “I heard you wished to speak with us. I am at your disposal.”
“With you, sire. Not with your entire household.”
“Well, on this occasion I think you had best take what you find,” Roaric said, much less warmly now. “I will be retiring to my chambers shortly, and interring my father’s ashes tomorrow. My time is limited.”
“Very well.” Lagair was, as far as Anyara could tell, untroubled by the hostility of his reception. “What I have to say is no secret. My demand is a just one, and I will gladly let any hear it who wish to listen.”
“Demand? This is not the place for demands, Steward. This is the Tower of Thrones, and I am Thane in it. Not Bloodheir, mark. Thane.”
“You may call it what you wish, Thane, once you have heard it,” Lagair said tightly. “Whatever name you give to it, though, I will have it answered. Two men of the Haig Blood were slain today. Men who marched from their homes to come to the defence of your Blood, and who would have died in that defence if called upon to do so. Instead they died like animals in a backstreet of this city, set upon by your people. Beaten to death like-”
“I heard that they brought trouble upon themselves,” Roaric interrupted him.
Anyara realised she had clenched her hands into fists. She forced her fingers to uncurl, willed herself to conceal the tension she felt. She had the sense that everyone around her was holding their breath.
“Did you?” cried Lagair, outraged. “Brought it upon themselves? Invited a mob of savages to murder them in the street?”
Roaric leaned forwards a fraction. “I heard that they were drunk, and were abusing the memory of my own dead father. I heard that they said none but an old fool would die by the hand of a kitchen maid. I heard that they said the Kilkry Blood could not keep its own Thane safe, let alone its borders. That we would be nothing without the Haig Blood to fight our battles for us.”
“You mean to excuse this deed by reporting gossip and rumour, then?” the Steward snapped.
Anyara did not know if either of these two men possessed enough restraint to back down. Roaric, she imagined in alarm, might even be capable of assaulting the High Thane’s Steward.
“I make no excuses,” the Thane said.
“Because you think none are required,” Lagair said accusingly.
Looking beyond Roaric, Anyara could see Ilessa, his mother, sitting at his side. She was staring down at the hands cupped in her lap, but Anyara could see the sorrow and alarm on her face. She knows, Anyara thought, what dangerous territory her son ventures into.
“Aewult nan Haig himself left those men under my command,” Lagair shouted. “I will have an answer to their deaths! I want the men who killed them brought to judgement.”
“Not possible. We have no names. The Guard found nothing but the two bodies, no sign that anyone else had been there.”
“I want them brought to judgement,” Lagair repeated, low and firm. “And I want rightful payment for their families, their widows.”
“Rightful payment?”
“A silver bar for each child they left behind them when they marched. Five, I believe.”
“For two drunkards?”
“Warriors! Men who served your master, Thane, and marched upon his command to defend your lands from the Black Road.”
“While he lived, and while I was Bloodheir, my father was my only master,” Roaric said. “I may be Bloodheir in name no longer, but still I am gladly subject to him. To his memory, to the honour he is due. The men who died soiled that honour.”
Anyara saw the slightest movement of Ilessa’s hand. The Thane’s mother reached discreetly out and touched him on the arm. At first Anyara was not sure whether Roaric had even noticed, but he moistened his lips and his gaze went for a moment to the arched stone roof of the hall.
“I have heard your petition, Steward,” the Thane said. “Let me think on it.”
“Not for long, sire,” Lagair muttered. “Not for long.”
“I will not yield!” Roaric cried, red-faced with anger.
Anyara could hardly bear to watch. The Thane and his mother confronted each other across a narrow table in one of the side rooms off the hall. All Roaric’s fury, so barely controlled during his exchanges with the Steward, had burst out now, in the privacy of this tiny chamber. Anyara alone had been brought — by Ilessa, not by Roaric — to stand witness. Why, she could not imagine. It was a scene that should have been played out between the two of them alone.
“I will not,” the Thane repeated. “They died the death they deserved, and Gryvan oc Haig will get nothing from this Blood in answer to their deaths. You think he’ll shed a tear when word reaches him of my father’s death? Do you think so? Or do you think he’ll laugh, and fill his cup with wine, and drink to the health of the bitch who killed him?”
“I do not care what the High Thane does or thinks,” Ilessa said wearily. “Your father — my husband — is dead and will remain so whether Gryvan laughs or weeps at the news. He will remain so no matter how loudly you argue with the Steward. It is not something that can be undone, any more than can your brother’s death.”
Roaric thumped the table with his fist and spun away.
“I am not a child, needing lessons in my own grief.”
“You are no child,” Ilessa agreed quietly, “but you are my son. And you are not so old that there are no lessons left for you to learn. None of us are.”
Roaric slumped into a chair against the wall. He glared at his mother, but could not maintain his indignation.
“What would you have me do?” he asked her.
“You could take counsel with our friends, if nothing else,” Ilessa said, glancing meaningfully at Anyara. “This is thin ice, Roaric. Every time you deal with the High Thane, or his heir, or his Shadowhand or Steward, it is thin ice. And if you stamp so hard that it cracks beneath your feet, it will never be just you who’ll fall through it. Never.”
Roaric glared at Anyara. She longed to be elsewhere. It was not her presence that so infuriated Roaric — she hoped not, at least — but his anger, or grief, was so all-encompassing that she did not trust him to see clearly.
“Your brother is not here,” Ilessa said to her gently, “but in times such as these Lannis and Kilkry have always walked in step. We both stand to lose — have already lost — a great deal. There should be no secrets between us.”
“No,” Anyara agreed, “but I don’t think I can speak for Orisian, if that’s what you want. He didn’t…” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what he would want me to say.”
“I don’t ask you to speak for him, though I do not doubt he would be happy to have you do so. I only ask you to tell my son whether you are content to see him risk an open breach with the Haig Blood, now that their armies are your best chance of recovering your home.”
Anyara thought she caught a glimpse in Ilessa’s face, just for a moment, of the great ocean of weariness and sorrow that lay behind her words. After all the loss the older woman had suffered, she was still trying to hold on to what remained of her family, to protect her people. She knew her son too well, Anyara suspected. She was afraid of what Roaric might do. That was why she had brought Anyara into this little room: she had feared she was not
