the history, until almost all of the blank pages were full of scraps of information, gleaned from the scribes and the chamberlain, about the more recent additions and remodellings.
No one had ever noticed her poking around. For most of her life, no one had paid much attention to her at all, other than to make sure she was fed, clothed, and put to bed whenever someone remembered that it was growing late. Even her lessons, in reading, singing, needlework, and riding, came at irregular intervals when some servant or other had time for her. When she was nine her brother the heir died, and then, for a brief while, she became important – but only until her mother had another baby boy.
She could still remember the wonderful feasts and musical entertainments her father had given to mark the birth of the new heir. She could also remember the lies, the whispers behind his back, and the moaning coming from her mother’s chambers when the truth became inescapable: his second son had been born stone-blind and could never rule as king. Just a year after his birth, the baby disappeared. Bellyra never did learn what had happened to him, and she was still afraid to ask. She had, however, recorded his disappearance in her book with a note speculating that the Wildfolk had taken him away. And now her father was dead, and her mother living on Bardek wine in a darkened bedchamber. There would be no more heirs unless she herself provided them to some man the regent and the court would pick out for her.
On that particular day she held the codex in her lap as she drowsed the afternoon away in the willow-tree. She would read a few lines, almost at random, then daydream about how splendid the old days must have been when her clan was strong and powerful, when its great kings had coffers filled with tribute and its mighty warriors had a chance of winning the civil wars. Now victory seemed profoundly unlikely, even though Cerrmor’s loyal lords all told her that the gods would help them put her on a queen’s throne in Dun Deverry. Every now and then Bellyra would look up through the leaves and consider the top of the tallest tower in the dun, just visible over the main broch. Once, or so her book told her, a hostage prince of Eldidd had languished in that tower for over twenty years. At times she had the awful feeling that she too would languish there, a prisoner for the rest of her life, until she died of old age and the Cerrmor line was dead.
‘They might just strangle me, of course,’ she remarked to the tree. She often talked to the old willow, for want of anyone else to listen. ‘You hear about that every now and then, women being strangled or smothered to make sure they never have any babies. I don’t know which would be worse, I truly don’t, being dead or being shut up for ever and ever. The servants all say I belong in the Otherlands anyway, so maybe it would be better to get smothered and be done with it. Or I could take poison. That would be more romantic somehow. I could write in my book, you see, as the poison was coming on, “The noble Princess Bellyra raised the golden cup of sweet death to her lips and laughed a harsh mocking laugh of scorn for the beastly old Cantrae men pounding on her door. Hah hah you dogs, soon I will be far beyond your ugly …” ugly what? hands? schemes? Or here, how about, “far beyond your murdering base-born hands.” I like that better, truly. It has a ring to it.’
The willow sighed in the breeze as if agreeing. Bellyra chewed on her lower lip and considered her plan. It would look splendid, once the Cantrae men broke down the door, if she were lying on her bed, her hair artistically draped across the pillow, a last sneer of defiance on her face. She would have to remember to put on her best dress, the one of purple Bardek silk that her nursemaid had cut from an old banqueting cloth they’d found in another storeroom. The Cantrae king might even shed a tear for her beauty and be sorry he’d been planning to smother her. On the whole, though, judging from what she’d heard about Cantrae lords, she doubted if they’d feel any remorse. Relief, more like, that she’d spared them the job.
Across the garden came a scrape of sound, the door into the broch opening on unoiled hinges. She went still, her hands freezing on her book.
‘Bellyra! Princess!’
The voice belonged to Tieryn Elyc, and through the leaves she could just see him, standing on the edge of the little bridge across the stream. To Bellyra the tieryn always seemed as ancient as the sorcerer of her day-dreams, but in truth he was just forty that year and still as lean and muscled as many a younger man, even though his blonde hair was indeed going heavily grey and fine lines webbed round his blue eyes.
‘Bellyra! Come along, I know you’re out here. The cook told me where you’d be.’
With a sour thought for Nerra’s treachery, Bellyra tucked her book into her kirtle and began to climb down. As the tree began to shake he crossed the bridge.
‘There you are,’ he said with a low laugh. ‘You’re getting a bit old to climb trees like a lad, aren’t you?’
‘Just the opposite, my lord. The older you get the easier it is, because your legs are longer.’
‘Ah. I see. Well, you know, you’d best take care, your highness, because you’re the only heir Cerrmor has.’
‘Oh come now. No one’s going to let me rule in the female line.’
‘The point, your highness, is to keep you safe so you can marry the one True King when he reaches Cerrmor.’
‘And when, my lord, will that be? When the moon turns into a boat and sails down from the sky with him on it?’
Elyc let out his breath in a little puff and ran both hands through his hair. With something of a sense of shock, Bellyra realized that he was close to tears.
‘My apologies, my lord. Oh here, don’t cry. I truly am sorry.’
Elyc looked up, his eyes murderous – then he laughed.
‘I feel as weepy as a wench, true enough, your highness. You have sharp eyes for one so young.’
‘It comes from living here, actually. You’d have them too if you had to grow up in the palace.’
‘No doubt. But listen, lass, for lass you are though a royal one: it doesn’t do to tread on men’s hopes when hope is all they have. Remember that.’
‘Indeed? Well, how do you think I feel, knowing I’ll probably get smothered before I’m fifteen and even betrothed, much less married to anyone?’
Elyc winced, and for a moment she was afraid that he truly would cry this time.
‘Your highness,’ he said at last. ‘Cerrmor can still field an army of over three thousand loyal men …’
‘And Cantrae’s got close to seven thousand. I heard you telling Lord Tammael that.’
‘You little sneak! What were you doing, creeping around the great hall when we thought you were in bed?’
‘Just that. It’s my hall, isn’t it? Since I’m the heir and all, and so I’ll sneak around in it if I want to.’
All at once he laughed in genuine good cheer.
‘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
