The Last Light of the Sun

EIGHT

Ingavin and Thünir were many things, but they were soul-reapers before all else, and the ravens that followed them, the birds of the battlefield and the banners, were emblems of that. So was the blood-eagle: a sacrifice and a message. A vanquished king or war-leader stripped naked under the holy sky, thrown on the ground, his face to the churned earth. If he wasn't dead he would be restrained by strong warriors, or with ropes tied to pegs hammered into the earth, or both.

His back would be carved vertically with a long knife or an axe, the bloody opening pulled wide, his ribs cracked back on each side and his lungs drawn out through the opening thus made. They would be draped upon the exposed cage of his ribs: the folded wings of an eagle, blood-crimson, god offering.

It was said that Siggur Volganson, the Volgan, had been so precise and swift in performing the ritual that some of his victims remained alive for a time with their lungs exposed to the watching gods.

Ivarr had not yet been able to achieve this. In fairness, he'd had less opportunity than his grandfather had enjoyed during the years and seasons of the great raids. Times changed.

Times changed. Burgred of Denferth, viciously cursing himself for carelessness, nonetheless knew that none of the other leaders at court or of the fyrd would have taken more than seven or eight riders to investigate the rumour of a ship, or ships, seen along the coast. He'd had five men, two of them new—using the ride south to assess them.

Three of those men were dead now. Assessment rendered meaningless. But no one was raiding the Anglcyn coast these days. How could he have expected what he'd found—or what had found his small party tonight? Aeldred had burhs all along the coast, watchtowers between them, a standing army, and—as of this summer—the beginnings of a proper fleet for the first time.

The Erlings themselves were different in this generation: settlers in the eastern lands, half of them (or something like that) were Jaddite now, trimming their sails to the winds of faith. Times changed, men changed. Those still roaming the seas in dragon-ships pursuing sanctuary treasures and ransom and slaves went to Ferrieres now, or east, where Burgred had no idea (and didn't care) what they found.

The lands of King Aeldred were defended, that was what mattered. And if some Erlings remembered this king as a hunted fugitive in wintry swamplands… well, those same Erlings were humbly sending their household warriors or their sons with tribute to Esferth these days, and fearing Aeldred's reprisals if they were late.

None of which unassailable truths was of any help to Burgred now.

It was night. Summer stars, ocean breeze, a waning blue moon. They had camped on open ground, less than a day's ride from Esferth, between the burh of Drengest, where the new shipyard was, and the watchtower west of it. He could have reached either place, but he was training men, testing them. It was a mild, sweet night. Had been.

The two on guard had shouted their warnings properly. Thinking back, Burgred decided that he and his men had surprised the Erling party as much as they'd been surprised themselves. Unfortunately, there were at least twenty Erlings—almost half a longship's worth—and they were skilled fighters. Disturbingly so, in fact. Commands had been barked, registered, implemented in a night skirmish. It hadn't taken him long to realize where these men were from, and to accept what life and ill fortune had doled out tonight.

He'd ordered his men to drop their weapons, though not before the two guards and one other of his company—Otho, who was a good man—lay dead. No great shame surrendering to a score of Jormsvik mercenaries mad enough to be ashore this near to Esferth. He had no idea why they were here: the mercenaries were far too pragmatic to offer themselves for raids as foolhardy as this one would be. Who would pay them enough to even consider it? And why?

It made too little sense. And it was not a puzzle worth having more men die while he tried to solve it. Best surrender, much as it burned to do that, let them sell him back to Aeldred for silver and safe passage to wherever they were really going.

"We yield ourselves!" he cried loudly, and dropped his sword on the moonlit grass. They would understand him. The two languages borrowed from each other, and the older Jormsvik raiders would have been here many times in their youth. "You have been foolish beyond all credit to come here, but sometimes folly is rewarded, for Jad works in ways we do not understand."

The largest of the Erlings—eyes behind a helm—grinned and spat. "Jad, you say? I think not. Your name?" he rasped. He already knew what this was about.

No reason to hide it. Indeed, the whole point was his name, and what it was worth. It would save his life, and the lives of his three surviving men. These were mercenaries. "I am Burgred, Earl of Denferth," he said. "Captain of King Aeldred's fyrd and his Household Guard."

"Hah!" roared the big man in front of him. Laughter and shouts from the others, raucous and triumphant, unable to believe their good fortune. They knew him. Of course they knew him. And experienced men would also know that Aeldred would pay to have him back. Burgred cursed again, under his breath.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, angrily. "Do you not know how little you can win along this coast now? When did the men of Jormsvik begin selling themselves for small coin and certain battle?"

He had spent his entire life, it seemed, fighting them and studying them. He was aware of a hesitation.

"We were told Drengest could be taken," the man in front of him said, finally.

Burgred blinked. "Drengest? You are mocking me."

There was a silence. They weren't mocking him. Burgred laughed. "What fool told you that? What fools listened to him? Have you seen Drengest yet? You must have."

The Erling planted his sword in the earth, removed his helm. His long yellow hair was plastered to his head. "We've seen it," he said.

"You understand there are nearly one hundred men of the fyrd in there, over and above the rest of the people inside the walls? You've seen the walls? You've seen the fleet being built? You were going to attack Drengest? You know how close you are to Esferth here? What do you have, thirty longships? Forty? Fifty? Is Jormsvik emptied for this folly? Are you all summer-mad?"

"Five ships," the Erling said at length, shifting his feet. A professional, not a madman, aware of everything Burgred was saying, which made this even harder to understand.

Five longships meant two hundred men. Fewer, if they had horses. A large raid, an expensive one. But not nearly enough to come here. "You were led to believe you could take that burh, where our fleet's being built and guarded, with five ships? Someone lied to you," Burgred of Denferth said flatly.

Last words spoken in a worthy life.

He had time to recall, bewildered again, that the Erlings had always seen bows as the weapon of a coward, before the moonlight left his eyes and he went to seek the god with an arrow in his chest.

Guthrum Skallson blinked in the moonlight, not quite believing what he'd just seen. Then he did believe it, and turned.

He wasn't a berserkir, had never been that wild on a battlefield, was happy to wear armour, thank you, but the rage that filled him in that moment was very great and he moved swiftly with it. Crossed to the man with the bow and swung his arm in a full backhanded sweep, smashing it into the archer's face, sending him sprawling in the blue-tinted grass.

He followed, still in a fury, swearing. Bent over the crumpled form, seized the fallen bow, cracked it over his knee, then grabbed the belt-quiver and scattered the arrows with one furious, wide, wheeling motion in an arc across the summer field. He was breathing hard, at the edge of murder.

"You'll die for doing that," the man on the ground said, through a smashed mouth, in his eerie voice.

Guthrum blinked again. He shook his head, as if stunned. It was not to be borne. He lifted the man with one hand; he weighed less than any of them, by a good deal. Holding him in the air by the bunched-up tunic, so his feet swung free, Guthrum pulled the knife from his belt.

"No!" shouted Atli, behind him. Guthrum ignored that.

"Say it to me again," he grunted to the little man dangling in front of him.

"I will kill you for that blow," said the man he held at his mercy. The words came out half a whistle, through bleeding lips. "Right, then," said Guthrum.

He moved the knife, in a short, practised motion. And was brought up hard by a heavy hand seizing his wrist, gripping fiercely, pulling it back.

"We won't get final payment if he dies," Atli grunted. "Hold!" Guthrum swore at him. "Do you know how much silver he just cost us?"

"Of course I know!"

"You heard the white-faced coward threaten my life? Mine!" "You struck him a blow."

"Ingavin's blood! He killed our ransom, you thick-headed fool!"

Atli nodded. "Right. He's also paying us. And he's a Volganson. The last one. You want to go home with that blood on your blade? We'll settle this on the ships. Best get out of here now, and off this coast. Aeldred'll be coming soon as they find these bodies."

"Of course he will."

"Then let's go. We kill the last two?" Atli awaited orders.

"Of course we kill them," gasped the little man Guthrum was still holding in the air. Guthrum threw him away, into the grass. He lay there, crumpled and small, not moving.

Guthrum swore. What he wanted to do was send the last two Anglcyn back to Esferth to explain, to say the killing was unintended. That they were leaving these shores. There were a great many Erlings hereabouts, or living not far east of here. The last thing Jormsvik needed was their own people enraged because the Anglcyn had cut off trading rights, or raised the tribute tax, or decided to kill a score of them and display the heads on pikes for the death of Aeldred's earl and friend. It could happen. It had happened.

But he couldn't let them go back. There was no explanation that would achieve anything useful. Living men would name the Jormsvik raiders as the men who'd killed an earl of the Anglcyn with a coward's bow, after he'd surrendered. It wouldn't do at all.

He sighed, glared at the figure in the grass again.

"Kill them," he said, reluctantly. "Then we move."

It is a truth hardly to be challenged that most men prefer not to have others decree the manner and time of their dying. Jormsvik mercenaries, responsible on an individual and collective basis for so many deaths, were not unaware of this. At the same time, the engrossing and unsettling events in that moonlit meadow, from the time the Anglcyn was shot to the moment Guthrum issued that last order, had compelled attention—and diverted it.

One of the captive Anglcyn twisted, in the moment Guthrum spoke, grabbed a boot-top knife, stabbed the nearest of the men guarding him, ripped free of the belated clutch of another, and tore off into the night. Not, normally, a problem. There were twenty of them here, they were swift and experienced fighters.

They did not, however, have horses.

And a moment later the fleeing Anglcyn did. Six mounts had been tethered nearby. They ought to have been claimed already. They hadn't been. The arrow, the loss of an earl's ransom, Guthrum's assault on the man paying them. There were reasons, obviously, but it was a mistake.

Running hard, they reached the other horses. Five of them mounted up without an order spoken. No need for orders here. They gave chase. They were not horsemen, however, these Erlings, these dragon-ship raiders, scourges of the white wave, sea foam. They could ride, but not as an Anglcyn did. And he had chosen the best horse—the earl's, almost certainly. The dead earl's, their lost ransom. It was all bad. Then it got worse.

They heard his horn sound, shattering the night.

The riders reined up hard. The others on foot behind them in the meadow looked at each other, and then at Guthrum, who was leading this party. Every man there knew they were in enormous peril suddenly. Inland. On foot, all but five of them. A full day from the ships, at least, with a fortified burh and a guard tower nearby, and Esferth itself just to the north. It would be day, bright and deadly, long before they got back to the shore.

Guthrum swore again, viciously. He killed the last Anglcyn himself, almost absently, a sword in the chest, ripped out as soon as it went in, wiped dry on the grass, sheathed again. The riders came back. The accursed horn was still sounding, shredding the dark.

"You five ride back," he rasped. "Tell Brand to land a ship's worth of men, start this way. You guide them. Look for us. We'll be coming fast as we can, the way we came. But if we're chased we might be caught, and we'll need more men in a fight."

"Forty enough?" Atli asked.

"No idea, but I can't risk more. Let's go."

"I want a horse!" said the small, vicious man who'd caused all this, sitting up now on the grass. "I'll lead them back."

"Fuck that forever!" said Guthrum savagely. "You wanted to come ashore with us, you'll run back with us. And if you can't keep up we'll leave you for Aeldred. They'd like a Volganson, I imagine. Get on your feet. Steady run, all of you. Riders, go!"

The horn was still blowing, fading east as they started back west themselves. Ivarr got up promptly enough, Guthrum saw. Ragnarson wiped at his mouth, spat blood, then started running with them. He was light-boned, quick-footed. Kept spitting blood for a time, but said nothing more. In the moonlight his features were stranger than ever, the whiteness not entirely human. Ought to have been exposed at birth, Guthrum thought grimly, looking like that as he came into the middle-world. Would have been, in any other family. He'd been threatened with death by this one, Siggur Volganson's heir. It didn't occur to him to be afraid but he did regret not killing him.

An earl, he kept thinking, as they went. An earl! Aeldred's friend from childhood. They could have taken the prodigious ransom for Burgred of Denferth, turned straight around, and rowed home for a rich and easy winter in the Jormsvik taverns. Instead, they had a hard, dangerous run ahead; the horn would bring riders in the dark—riders who would learn what had happened, and who knew the terrain far better than they did. They could die here.

He might have been a farmer by now, Guthrum thought. Repairing fences, eyeing rainclouds before harvest time. He actually amused himself, briefly, with the thought, running through night in Anglcyn lands. It had never been likely. Farmers didn't go to Ingavin's halls, or drink from Thünir's horn when they were called from the middle-world. He'd chosen his life a long time ago. No regrets, under the blue moon and the stars.

+

The moon was over the woods, Bern saw, awakening. Then he grasped that he was lying on grass, looking up at trees, beside a river in the dark.

He'd been pissing in the alley and…

He sat up. Too quickly. The moon lurched, stars described arcs as if falling. He gasped. Touched his head: a lump, the stickiness of blood. He cursed, confused, his heart hammering. Looked around, too quickly again: the dizziness assaulted him, blood loud in his ears. He seemed to be holding something. Looked down at the object in his hand.

Knew his father's neck chain and hammer, immediately.

No doubt, no hesitation, even here, so far away from home, from childhood. Small sons could be like that, memorizing each and every thing about the father, a figure larger than anything in the world, filling the house, then emptying it when he left, on the dragon-ships again. There were thousands of necklaces like this one, and there was not one like it in the world the gods had made.

He was very still, listening to the river running over stones, the crickets and frogs. There were fireflies above the water and the reeds. The forest was black beyond the stream. Something had just happened that he could never even have imagined.

He tried to think clearly, but his head was hurting. His father was here. Had been in Esferth, had knocked him out—or rescued him? — and taken him outside the walls and left… this.

As a sign of what? Bern swore again. His father had never been a man to make anything clear or easy. But if he could take any idea from being here and holding Thorkell's necklace, it was that his father wanted him out of Esferth.

Suddenly, belatedly, he thought about Ecca, who was—significantly—not here outside the walls. Bern stood up then, wincing, unsteady. He couldn't stay where he was. There were always people outside a city, especially now with the king present, and all his household, and a late-summer fair beginning soon. There was a second city's worth of tents around to the north. They'd seen them earlier, when they'd come up.

Finding so many people here had been a large issue. Ecca had wrestled with considerable anger as they'd come to understand what was happening in Esferth and near it. That supposedly unfinished burh on the coast, Drengest, was entirely complete, walls secure, defended, a number of ships already built in the harbour.

Not even remotely a place where five ships' worth of men could raid and run, which is what they'd been told they could do. And Esferth itself, which was supposed to be half empty, exposed to an attack that would shape a legend, was thronged with merchants and the Anglcyn fyrd, and Aeldred himself was here with his household guard. It was not a mistake, not a misreading of signs, Ecca had snarled. It appeared they had been lied to, by the man who'd paid them to come.

Ivarr Ragnarson, the Volgan's heir. The one everyone whispered ought surely to have been killed when he came out of his mother's womb white as a spirit, hairless, a malformed freak of nature, unworthy of life and his lineage.

It was that lineage that had saved him. Everyone knew the tale: how a volur in her trance had spoken to his father and forbidden him to expose the child. Ragnar Siggurson, hesitant by nature, too careful, never the strongest man (following a father who had been the strongest of men), had let the child live, to grow up strange and estranged, and vicious.

Bern had his own thoughts about volurs and their trances. Not that it mattered. He was desperately unsure what to do. Ecca was a shipmate, his companion on this scouting mission. A Jormsvik raider didn't leave companions behind unless he had no choice at all; they were bound to each other, by oath and history. But this was Bern's first raid, he didn't know enough yet, didn't know if this was a time when you did leave to carry an urgent message back. Should he return to Esferth when the gates opened at sunrise and look for Ecca, or find Gyllir in the wood where they'd left the horses and hurry to the ships with a warning?

Was that the meaning in Thorkell's necklace, in his being out here alone? Was Ecca taken? Dead? And if not, what would happen if he returned to the ships after Bern did and asked why his companion had left without him? And just how, in fact, Bern had gotten outside the walls? How he'd explain that, Bern had no idea. And what if Ecca rode back and the ships were gone because Bern had told them it was wiser to cast off?

Too many conflicting needs, conjured thoughts. Hesitations of his own devising (another son of a strong father?). He didn't know, standing unsteadily alone by the water, if he was… direct enough for this raiding life. He'd be dealing more easily with all of this, he thought, if his head didn't hurt so much.

Something caught his eye, south and east. A bonfire burning on a hill. He watched that light in the darkness, saw it occluded, reappear, vanish again, return. He realized, after a moment, that this was a message. Knew it could not possibly be good for him, or for those waiting by the ships… or for Guthrum's party ashore to the south.

The bonfire made his decision for him. He placed his father's necklace over his head and slipped it inside his tunic.

The necklace was meant to tell him that it was a friend (his father a friend, the irony in that) who'd taken him out of Esferth. If he was supposed to be out of Esferth, that meant trouble inside. And he knew there was trouble, they'd seen it this morning, passing through the gates amid the crowds for the fair. They had planned to stay only tonight, learn what they could in the taverns, ride back to the coast in the morning, carrying their message—and warning.

And now a message in fire was lighting the night. This was, in no possible way, a safe place to be coming ashore to raid. The burh was walled and garrisoned, they already knew that, and Esferth was thronged to bursting. He had that message to deliver, above anything else. He took a breath, put aside, as best he could, the fierce, hard awareness that his father was out here somewhere in the night not far away, and had, evidently, carried him to this place like a child. Bern turned his back on torchlit Esferth and entered the stream to cross it.

He was midway into the river, which wasn't cold, when he heard voices. He dropped down instantly, silent amid reeds and lilies, only his head above water in the dark, and listened to the voices and the pounding of his heart.

+

Alun had seen the glimmering twice on the journey east, travelling here with Ceinion. Once in the branches of a tree, when they'd camped by a stream running out of the wood and he awoke in the night, and once on a hillside behind them, when he looked back after dark: a shining at twilight, though the sun had set.

He'd known it was her. Wasn't sure if he'd been meant to see, or if she'd come closer than she'd intended. Cafall had been rest-less all through that coastal journey. The Erling had thought it was the nearness of the spirit wood.

She was following him. He ought, perhaps, to have been afraid, but that wasn't what he felt. Alun had thought about Dai, the night he died, that pool in the wood, souls lost and taken, and it had occurred to him that he might never make music again.

His mother had taken to her chambers when he and Gryffeth and the cleric had brought the tidings home. She had stayed there a fourteen-night, opening only to her women. When she'd come out her hair had changed colour. Not as a faerie's did, shimmering through hues, but as a mortal woman's did, when grief has come too suddenly.

Owyn had covered his face with a hand, Alun remembered, and turned and walked away, at first word of Dai's death. He had drunk a great deal for two days and nights, then stopped. Had spoken after, privately, with Ceinion of Llywerth. There was a history there, not entirely a benign one, but whatever lay behind the two men seemed altered by this. Owyn ap Glynn was a hard man, everyone knew that, and he was a prince with tasks in the world. Brynn had said that same thing to Alun, too. He had a new role, himself. He was heir to Cadyr.

His brother was dead. More than that. Those who told him that time and faith would assuage, meaning well, drawing on experience and wisdom—even his father, even King Aeldred, here—were unaware, had to be unaware, of what Alun knew about Dai.

Armoured in faith, as Ceinion and the Anglcyn king were, you could anneal the burning of loss with a belief that the souls of those who had gone were with Jad and would be until all the worlds ended and the god's purposes were revealed and fulfilled.

Faith was no help at all when you knew your brother's soul had been stolen by faeries on a moonless night.

Alun prayed, as required, morning and evening, with urgency. It seemed to him sometimes that he heard his own voice echoing oddly as he chanted the responses of the liturgy.

He knew things, had seen what he had seen. And heard the music in that forest clearing, as the fairies passed him by, moving across the water.

There was a blue moon tonight, spirit moon, high above the woods, hanging over them like some dark blue candle in a doorway. These were part of the same forest they had skirted to the south. A valley sliced westward, pushing the trees back halfway down to the sea, and the old tale was that the colder danger lay in the south, but this was still named a ghost wood, whatever the clerics might say.

He stood a moment, looking at the trees. He needed to walk through this doorway. Had known he would, from first sighting of her that night when he'd woken, and again on the hill two days later, at twilight. Forbidden, heresy: words that meant much, but so little to him now. He had seen her. And his brother. Dai's hand in the faerie queen's, walking on water, after he died. Alun was unmoored and knew it, a ship without rudder or sails, no charts by which to navigate.

He had left the king's feast, made his excuses as courteously as he could, aware that the Anglcyn court—alerted by Ceinion—would feel genuine compassion for what they thought was his pain.

They had no idea.

He'd bowed to the king—a compact man, trimmed grey beard, bright blue eyes—and to the queen, made his way from that crowded, loud, smoky room, dense with the living and their concerns, and gone alone to the chapel he'd seen earlier in the day.

Not the royal one. This one was small, dimly lit, almost an afterthought on a street of taverns and inns, and empty this late at night. What he needed. Silence, shadow, the sun disk above the altar barely visible in this still space. He had knelt, and prayed for the god to lend him the power to resist what was pulling him. But in the end, rising, he gave himself dispensation for being mortal, and frail, and so not strong enough. There was a need in him, and there was also fear.

He had a thought, a memory, and paused by the door of the chapel. In that gloom, lit only by a handful of guttering lamps too far apart on the walls, Alun ab Owyn unbuckled his dagger and belt and set them down on a stone ledge in the half-darkness. He'd worn no sword tonight. Not to a royal feast, as an honoured guest. He turned in the chapel doorway, looked back in the gloom a last time to where the sun disk hung.

Then he went out into the night streets of Esferth. Cafall fell in beside him, as always now. He spoke to a guard at the gates and was allowed to pass. He'd known—with certainty—that it would be so. There were forces at work tonight, beyond any adequate understanding.

Alun went into the meadow beyond the Esferth gates and walked steadily west. The direction of home, but not really. Home was too far away. He came to the stream, crossed through, water to his waist, Cafall splashing beside him, and on the other side he stopped and looked at the woods and turned to Brynn's dog—his dog—and said quietly, "No farther now. Wait here."

Cafall pushed his head against Alun's wet hip and thigh, but when he said it again, "No farther," the dog obeyed, staying there beside the rushing water, a grey shape, almost invisible, as Alun went alone into the trees.

She knows the instant he enters among the first oaks and alders, apprehending his aura before she sees him. She stands in a glade by a beech tree, as she did the first time, a hand laid on it for sustenance, sap-strength. She is afraid. But not only that.

He appears at the edge of the glade and stops. Her hair goes to silver. Purest hue, essence of what she is, what they all are: silver around them in the first mound, gleaming. Now lost, undersea. They sing to greet the white moon when it rises.

Only the blue one tonight, hidden from where they stand within the wood. She knows exactly where it is, however. They always know where both moons are. The blue is different, more… inward; hues one does not always share with others. Just as she has not shared her coming east, this journey. She took a soul for the queen at the beginning of summer, will not suffer for this following. Or not at the hands of the Ride. There are others in the wood, though, nearby and south. To be feared.

She sees him step forward, approaching over grass, amid trees. A dark wood, far from home (for both of them). There is a spruaugh somewhere about, which had angered and surprised her, for she dislikes them all, their green hovering. She'd shown her hair violet to him earlier, and seethed, and he'd retreated, chattering, agitated. She scans with the eye of her mind, doesn't find his aura now. Didn't think he would be anywhere near after seeing her.

She makes herself let go of the tree. Takes a step forward. He is near enough to touch, to be touched. Her hair is shining. She is all the light in this glade, the trees in summer leaf occluding stars and moon, shielding the two of them. A shelter, between worlds, though there are dangers all around. She remembers touching his face on the slope above the farm and the blood-soaked yard, as he knelt before her.

The memory changes the colour of her hair again. It is not only fear she feels. He does not kneel this time. No iron about him. He has left it behind, coming to her, knowing.

They are silent, leaves and branches a canopy above, the grass of the glade shimmering. A breeze, slight sound, it dies away.

He says, "I saw you, twice, coming here. Was I meant to?"

She can feel herself tremble. Wonders if he sees it. They are speaking to each other. It is not to happen. It is a crossing-over, a transgressing. She doesn't entirely understand his words. Meant to? Mortals: the world they live within, time different for them. The speed of their dying.

She says, "You can see me. Since the pool." Isn't sure if that is what he meant. They are speaking, and alone here. She reaches a hand backwards, after all, touches the tree again.

"I should hate you," he says. Said that, also, the other time.

She answers, as before, "I don't know what that means. Hate."

A word they use… fire in how they live. A flame and then gone. That fire a reason she has always been drawn. But unseen, until now.

He closes his eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I followed you." She lets go of the tree.

He looks at her again. "I know. I know that. Why?"

They think in this way. It has to do with time. One thing, then another thing from it, and then a next. The way the world takes shape for them. She has a thought.

Alun felt as if his mouth were dry as earth. Her voice, a handful of words, made him despair again of the idea of making music, of ever hearing anything to match. There was a woodland scent to her, night flowers, and the light—changing, always—about her, in her hair, the only illumination here, where they were. She was shining for him in a forest, and he knew all the tales. Mortals entangled and ensnared within the half-world who never made their way back or were found all changed when they did, companions and lovers dead, or aged, bent into hoops.

Dai was with the faerie queen, walking upon water amid music, coupling in the forested night. Dai was dead, his soul stolen away.

"Why are you here?" he managed.

"I followed you."

Not his answer. He looked at her. "I know. I know that. Why?" She said, "Because you put away… your iron when you came up the slope to me? Before?"

A question in it. She was asking him if this was good enough, as an answer. She spoke Cyngael in the old fashion, the way his grandfather had talked. It frightened him to think how old she might be. He didn't want to think of that, or ask. How long did faeries live? He felt light-headed. It was difficult to breathe. He said, a little desperately, "Will you do me harm?"

Her laughter then, first time, rippling. "What harm could I do?"

She lifted her arms, as if to show him how delicate she was, slender, her fingers very long. He could not have named the colour of the tunic she wore, could see the pale, sleek curve of her below it. She extended a hand towards him. He closed his eyes just before she touched his face with her fingers for the second time.

He was lost, knew he was, whatever the tales might say in warning. He had been lost when he left the chapel to come out from behind mortal walls and enter this wood where men did not go.

He took her fingers in his hand, and brought them to his mouth and kissed them, then turned her palm to his lips. Felt her trembling, as leaves did in wind. Heard her say, — very faintly, music, "Will you do me harm?"

Alun opened his eyes. She was a silver shining in the wood, beyond imagining. He saw the trees around them and the summer grass.

"Not for all the light in all the worlds," he said, and took her in his arms.

+

There was very little light in the great hall now: amber pools spilling from the two fires, or where a cluster of men continued to throw dice at one end of the room, and another pair of lamps at the head table where two men remained awake and talking and a third listened quietly, A fourth figure slept there, snoring softly, his head on the board among the last uncleared platters.

Aeldred of the Anglcyn looked at the sleeping cleric from Ferrieres and then turned the other way, smiling a little.

"We have exhausted him," he said.

The cleric on his other side set down his cup. "It is late."

"Is it? Sometimes sleep feels wrong. A surrendering of opportunity." The king sipped his own wine. "He quoted Cingalus at you. You were very kind, then."

"No need to embarrass him."

Aeldred snorted. "While he was citing you to yourself?" Ceinion of Llywerth shrugged. "I was flattered."

"He didn't know you wrote it. He was patronizing you." "That wouldn't have mattered if he'd been right in what he argued."

A small sound at that, from the third man. Both turned to him, both smiling.

"Not weary of us yet, my heart?" Aeldred asked.

His younger son shook his head. "Weary, but not of this." Gareth cleared his throat. "Father's right. He… didn't even have the quotation properly."

"True enough, my lord prince." Ceinion was still smiling, still cradling his wine. "I'm honoured that you knew it. He was doing it from memory, in fairness."

"But he turned the meaning. He argued against you with your own thought turned backwards. You wrote the Patriarch that there was no error in images unless they were made to be worshipped, and he—"

"He cited me as saying images would be worshipped." "So he was wrong."

"I suppose, if you agree with what I wrote." Ceinion's expression was wry. "It could have been worse. He might have cited me as saying clerics should live chaste and unmarried."

The king laughed aloud. Young Gareth's brow remained furrowed. "Why didn't he know it was you who wrote it?"

The subject of their conversation remained where he'd slumped, asleep with most of the men in the darkened hall. Ceinion glanced from the son to the father. He shrugged again.

"Ferrieres tends to look down on the Cyngael. Much of the world does, my lord. Even here, if we are being honest. You call us horse thieves and eaters of oats, don't you?" His tone was mild, unoffended. "He would find it alarming that a scholar cited and endorsed by the Patriarch was from a place so… marginal. They used a Rhodian name for me, after all, when they put my phrases in the Pronouncement. An easy error for him to make, not knowing."

"You didn't sign it as Cingalus?"

"I sign everything I write," said the other man gravely, "as Ceinion of Llywerth, cleric of the Cyngael."

There was a little silence.

"He wouldn't even have expected you to be able to write in Trakesian, I imagine," Aeldred murmured. "Or you to read it, for that matter, Gareth."

"The prince reads Trakesian? Wonderful," Ceinion said. "I'm beginning, only," Gareth remonstrated.

"There's no `only' in that," the cleric said. "Perhaps we shall read together while I am here?"

"I'd be honoured," Gareth said. His mouth quirked. "It'll keep you from our horses."

A startled silence, then Ceinion burst out laughing and so did the king. The cleric mimed a blow at the prince.

"My children are a great trial," Aeldred said, shaking his head. "All four of them, but Gareth reminds me, I have new texts to show you."

Ceinion turned to him. "Indeed?"

Aeldred allowed himself a satisfied smile. "Indeed. In the morning after prayers we shall go see what is being copied."

"And it is?" Ceinion was unable to mask eagerness.

"Nothing so very much," said the king, with a show of indifference. "Only a physician's tract. One Rustem of Esperaña, on the eye."

"Collating Galinus and adding his own remedies? Oh, glorious! My lord, how in the god's name did you—?"

"A ship from Al-Rassan stopped at Drengest earlier this summer on its way back from trading with the Erlings at Rabady. They know I am buying manuscripts."

"Rustem? That's three hundred years old. A treasure!" Ceinion exclaimed, though softly among the sleepers. "In Trakesian?"

Aeldred smiled again. "In two languages, friend. Trakesian… and his original Bassanid."

"Holy Jad! But who reads Bassanid? The language is gone, since the Asharites."

"No one yet, but with both texts now we will soon be able to. I have someone working on that. The Trakesian text unlocks the other one."

"This is a glory and a wonder," Ceinion said. He made the sign of the disk.

"I know it is. You'll see it in the morning."

"It will give me great joy."

There was another silence. "That opens a doorway for me, actually," the king said; his tone remained light. "The question I've been waiting to ask."

The cleric looked at him, an exchange of glances in the island of light. Far down the room someone laughed as dice rolled and stopped and fortune smiled, however briefly.

"My lord, I cannot stay," Ceinion said quietly.

"Ah. And thus the door closes," Aeldred murmured.

Ceinion held his gaze in the lamplight. "You know I cannot, my lord. There are people who need me. We were speaking of them, remember? The oat-eaters no one respects? At the edge of the world?"

"We're as much at the edge, ourselves," Aeldred said.

"No. You aren't. Not at this court, my lord. All praise to you for that."

"But you won't help me take it further?"

"I am here now," Ceinion said simply.

"And you will come back?"

"As often as I may." Another small, rueful smile. "For the nourishing of my own spirit. Unworthy as that might be. You know what I think of this court. You are a light to us all, my lord."

The king did not move. "You would make us brighter, Ceinion."

The cleric sipped from his cup before answering. "It would nourish my own desires to do so, to sit here and share learning as old age comes. Do not think I am not tempted. But I have tasks in the west. We Cyngael live where the farthest light of Jad falls. The last light of the sun. It needs attending to, my lord, lest it fail."

The king shook his head. "It is all… marginal, here in the northlands," Aeldred said. "How do we build anything to last, when it might come down at any time?"

"That is true of all men, my lord. Of everything we do, anywhere."

"And not more so here? Truly?"

Ceinion inclined his head. "You know I agree with you. I merely—"

"Cite text and doctrine. Yes. But if you refrain from doing that? If you answer honestly? What happens here if the harvest fails in a year the Erlings decide to come back in numbers, not just raiding? Do you think I have forgotten the marshes? Do you think any of us who were there lie down at night, any night, without remembering?"

Ceinion said nothing.

Aeldred went on, "What happens to us if Carloman or his sons in Ferrieres quell the Karchites, as they likely will, and decide they want more land for themselves?" He looked at the sleeping man on his other side.

"You'll beat them back," Ceinion said, "or your sons will. I do believe there is that here which will endure. I am… less certain of my people, still fighting each other, still seduced by pagan heresies." He paused, looked away again, and then back.

He shrugged. "You spoke of the marsh. Tell me of your fevers, my lord."

Aeldred made an impatient gesture, one that served as a reminder—if one were needed—that this was a king. "I have physicians, Ceinion."

"Who have done little enough to ease them. Osbert tells me—" "Osbert tells you too much."

"And that, you know well, is untrue. I brought something with me. Do I give it to you, or to him, or whichever physician you trust?"

"I trust none of them." This time it was the king who shrugged. "Give it to Osbert, if you must. Jad will ease my affliction when it pleases him to do so. I am reconciled to that."

"Does that mean we who love you must be?" Ceinion's voice carried just enough amusement to make Aeldred look closely at him, and then shake his head.

"I am made to feel like a child sometimes, by these fevers."

"And why not? We are all still children in some fashion. I can remember skipping stones into the sea as a boy. Then learning my letters. My wedding day… there is no shame in that, my lord."

"There is in helplessness."

That stopped him. In the silence, young Gareth rose, took the flask—there were no servants near them now—and poured for the cleric and his father.

Ceinion sipped at the wine. Changed the subject, again. "Tell me of the wedding, my lord."

"Judit's?"

"Unless there is another in the offing." The cleric smiled.

"The ceremonies will be there during the midwinter rites. She goes north to Rheden to make babies and bind two peoples again, the way her mother did, marrying me."

"What do we know of the prince?"

"Calum? He's young. Younger than she is."

Ceinion looked down the hall, back to the king. "It is a good union."

"An obvious one." Aeldred hesitated. His turn to look away. "Her mother has asked me to let her go, after the wedding." It was news. A confiding. "To Jad's house?"

Aeldred nodded. Took up his wine cup again. He was looking at his younger son, and Ceinion realized this would be news for the prince, as well. A time chosen for the telling, late night, by lamplight. "She has wanted this for a long time."

Ceinion said, "And you have agreed now. Or you wouldn't be telling me."

Aeldred nodded again.

It was not uncommon for men or women, nearing their mortal ending, to seek out the god, pulling back and away from the tumult of the world. It was rare for royalty. The world not so easily left behind, for many reasons.

"Where will she go?" the cleric asked.

"Retherly, in the valley. Where our infants are buried. She's been endowing the Daughters of Jad there for years."

"A well-known house."

"Will be better known, with a queen, I imagine."

Ceinion listened for, but did not hear, bitterness. He was thinking about the prince on his other side, didn't look that way, giving Gareth time.

"After the wedding?" he said.

"So she intends."

Carefully, Ceinion said, "We are not supposed to grieve, if someone finds her way, or his, to the god."

"I know that."

Gareth suddenly cleared his throat. "Do… the others know of this?" His voice was rough.

His father, who had chosen his moment, said, "Athelbert? No. Your sisters might. I'm not certain. You may tell them, if you like."

Ceinion looked from one to the other. Aeldred, it occurred to him, would not necessarily be an easy man to have for a father. Not for a son, at any rate.

He'd had a good deal of wine, but his thinking was still clear, and the name had now been spoken. A doorway of his own. Perhaps. They were as much alone as they were likely to be, and the younger son, listening, had a thoughtful nature. He drew breath and spoke. "I have," he said, "another wedding thought, if you might entertain it."

"You want a wife again?" The king's smile was gentle.

So was the cleric's, responding. "Not this woman. I am too old, and unworthy." He paused again, then said it: "I have in mind someone for Prince Athelbert."

Aeldred grew still. The smile faded. "This is the heir of the Anglcyn, friend."

"I know it, my lord, believe me. You want peace west of the Wall, and I want my people drawn into the world, from their feuds and solitude."

"It can't be done." Aeldred shook his greying head decisively. "If I choose a princess from any of your provinces, I declare war on the other two, destroy the purpose of a union."

The other man smiled. "You have been thinking about this." "Of course I have! It is what I do. But what answer is there, then?"

And so Ceinion of Llywerth said softly, with the voice-music the Cyngael carried with them through the world, "There is this one answer, lord. Brynn ap Hywll, who slew the Volgan by the sea and might have been our king had he wanted it, has a daughter of an age to be wed. Her name is Rhiannon, and she is the jewel of all women I know. Unless that be her mother. The father is known to you, I dare say."

Aeldred stared at him without speaking for a long time. The Ferrieres cleric snored, cheek to the wooden board. They heard laughter again and a muffled curse from down the room. A sleepy servant prodded the nearer fire with an iron rod.

A door opened before the king spoke.

Doors opened and closed all the time, without consequence or weight. This one was behind them, not the double doors at the far end of the hall. A small door, an exit for the king and his family, should they wish one. A tall man had to stoop to go through. A passage to inner quarters, privacy, the sleep one would have assumed to be coming soon tonight.

Not so, in the event, for it is not given to men and women to know with any surety what is to come.

The doorways of our lives take many shapes, and the arrivals that change us are not always announced by thunderous pounding or horns at the gates. We may be walking a known laneway, at prayer in a familiar chapel, entering a new one and simply looking up, or we may be deep in quiet talk late of a summer's night, and a door will open behind us.

Ceinion turned. Saw Osbert, son of Cuthwulf, Aeldred's life-long companion, and his chamberlain. Cuthwulf, as it happened, had been a name cursed in the Cyngael lands, a cattle-raider and worse than that, in more violent days. Another reason (if more were needed) the Anglcyn were hated and feared west of the Wall.

The Erlings had killed Cuthwulf by Raedhill, with his king.

The son, Osbert, was a man Ceinion had come to admire without stint or reservation after two sojourns here. Fidelity and courage, judicious counsel, quiet faith and manifest love: these held their message for those who could see.

Osbert moved forward with the limp he had carried away from a battlefield twenty years ago. He came into the lamplight. Ceinion saw his face. And even by that muted illumination he knew that something had come upon them through that door. He set down his wine, carefully.

Peace, ease, leisure to build and teach, to plant and harvest, time to read ancient texts and consider them… these were not the coinage of the north. In other lands they might be, to the south, east in Sarantium, or perhaps in the god's other worlds. Not here.

"What is it?" Aeldred said. His voice had altered. He stood, his chair scraping back. "Osbert, tell me."

Ceinion would remember that voice, and the fact that the king had been on his feet before he'd heard anything. Knowing already.

And so Osbert told them: of signal flares lit on hills towards the south by the sea, running in their chain of telling fire along the ridges with a message. Not a new tale, Ceinion thought, hearing it. Nothing new here at all, only the old dark legacy of these northlands, which was blood.