The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

still loyal to the Boars would come over if they had some noble reason to do it. They don’t want to besmirch their honour, but if Maryn were the king? Well, then.’

      ‘I’d wager along with you,’ Daeryc said. ‘Braemys just might have found his army disappearing like food on a glutton’s table. But now?’ He shrugged. ‘The good men will hold loyal till the end, most like.’

      After the meal Lilli went up to Nevyn’s tower room, where she discovered that the delay in confirming Maryn’s kingship was preying upon her master’s mind as well. Nevyn delivered himself of a few choice oaths on the subject before explaining.

      ‘They have their reason all polished and ready, of course. The lack of the proper white mare for the rites. Huh. Let Maryn win the summer’s war, and white mares will doubtless pop up all over the landscape.’

      ‘There’s somewhat I don’t understand,’ Lilli said. ‘Does great Bel really care about the colour of Maryn’s horse? Would we really be cursed if he rode a grey mare in the procession?’

      ‘Of course not. But the lords and the priests and perhaps even the common folk would believe that he was cursed, and they’d look at him with different eyes. And Maryn himself – he’s as pious as any great lord is, which is to say, as pious as the times are hard, but he truly does believe that the gods have power over him. If he thought himself cursed, wouldn’t he doubt his judgment and his luck?’

      ‘I see. And he might do a reckless thing, or shrink back from a fight, and his men would think he’d lost his dweomer luck.’

      ‘Exactly. And they’ve followed him for many a long year now, through famine and battle, mostly because they believe in his luck and the gods both.’

      Lilli considered this while the old man watched her from his seat on the window sill. ‘But then,’ she said finally, ‘the gods don’t truly care what happens to their worshippers. It that what you mean?’

      ‘Close enough. In time, I’ll tell you a great deal more about the gods – this autumn, when we have more leisure. But for now, remember that the gods want homage and little else from their ordinary worshippers. Does the high king care about each and every man who tends his fields? Not so long as that man hands over his taxes and dues.’

      ‘That makes the gods seem so cold, though, and so very far away.’

      ‘They are. Think well on this. Which you’ll have plenty of time to do once I’ve gone with the prince.’

      ‘Anasyn was the last lord to ride in, wasn’t he?’ Lilli felt her heart turn over. ‘You’ll all be marching on the morrow.’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’ Nevyn glanced away, abruptly sad. ‘And may the gods all grant that this summer sees the end of it.’

      As she walked down the stairs of Nevyn’s tower, Lilli was thinking of Branoic. Although she wanted to say farewell to him, her rank kept her from going to a place as lowly as the silver daggers’ barracks. She stepped inside the great hall, stood in the doorway on the riders’ side, and tried to catch the attention of one of the servant lasses, who would be glad to carry a message for her in return for a copper. In the smoky room, crammed with fighting men of every rank, the lasses were trotting back and forth, bringing ale, serving bread, dodging the men’s wandering hands and answering back as smartly as they could to the various remarks they were getting. Lilli found herself thinking that she was as lucky as Prince Maryn. The summer past her clan had been destroyed, and she herself might have ended up carrying slops in some lord’s hall had it not been for Princess Bellyra’s generosity.

      ‘Lilli?’ A dark voice sounded behind her.

      With a little shriek Lilli spun around to find Branoic grinning at her.

      ‘I didn’t mean to scare you out of your skin,’ he said. ‘I got one of my feelings, like, that mayhap you wanted to talk with me.’

      ‘I do.’ She managed a laugh. ‘I was just remembering last summer. It seems like a twenty’s worth of years ago, not just one.’

      ‘The best summer of my life, it was.’

      ‘Truly? Why?’

      ‘You silly goose!’ Branoic was grinning at her. ‘Because I met you, of course.’

      ‘I don’t deserve you, I truly don’t.’

      ‘Spare me that, if you please.’ Branoic reached out and engulfed her small soft hands with his, all battle-hard and callused. ‘If our prince objects to my kissing my betrothed farewell, then bad cess to him.’

      Clasped tight in his arms she felt safe, as if his embrace could shut out the entire war-torn world around them. Oh dear Goddess! she prayed. Let him come home to me!

      On the morrow, Prince Maryn rode out at the head of his army to settle things once and for all with Regent Braemys. At the head of the line of march rode a pair of young lads carrying the red wyvern banner of Dun Deverry and the three ships banner of Cerrmor. Behind them rode Prince Maryn with Nevyn for company, and directly after, his silver daggers. The rest of the army arranged itself behind, each warband headed by its own lord in order of rank. At the rear came the provision wagons, servants, grooms with extra horses, and chirurgeons, all guarded by the foot soldiers – spearmen, mostly, under Oggyn’s command – owed to the prince by the various free cities in his dominions. All in all, they numbered over four thousand men, less than the summer before, but still one of the largest armies Deverry had ever seen.

      Thanks to the carts and their slab wheels, this massive force could make about twelve miles a day on flat terrain. In the hilly country that lay ahead, they would be lucky to manage ten. Since clever manoeuvres were out of the question, the prince had decided upon a simple strategy. In his message Braemys had announced his intention of riding to Dun Deverry by Beltane. Maryn saw no reason to doubt him; Braemys had not the men to take the dun or even besiege it successfully. Maryn’s vassals had agreed that they should lead their army east towards Cantrae, over two hundred miles away. Somewhere, when the gods and their Wyrd decided the time was right, they would meet Braemys and his men upon the road.

      ‘Which is not to say,’ Maryn said, ‘that the little pisspot won’t try some sort of trick. Last summer we saw how clever he can be.’

      ‘So we did, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s a good thing I can scout for you.’

      ‘Just so.’ Maryn turned in the saddle to give him a tight smile. ‘And I thank the gods for it.’

      Since Nevyn had never seen Braemys in the flesh, simple scrying was impossible, and he was forced to resort to the etheric plane for his scouting. Every night when the army halted, he would assume the body of light and travel as far east as he dared. Below, the land would seem to burn with the vegetable auras of trees and grasses, pulsing with spring life. The streams and rivers swelled up into silver veils of elemental force, glittering and dangerous to a traveller such as he. To avoid them he flew above the dirt roads, but even they sported a faint russet glow. When the astral tides turned with the spring, the very earth came to the edge of life.

      Yet, no matter how far Nevyn ranged, he saw nothing of Braemys and his army. He began to wonder if the message had been a ruse, if Braemys intended to stand a seige in Dun Cantrae. If so, taking it would cost another long effort and a good many men’s lives. We’ll bridge that ditch when we come to it, he told himself. After all, there was naught else he could do but wait.

      The army had been gone only a few days when Bellyra went into labour. Lilli waited with the other women – the serving lasses, the cook, the swineherd’s wife, and the like – down in the great hall while the midwife and the princess’s serving women tended Bellyra during the birth. Out of habit they sat by the riders’ hearth, even though with the nobility gone except for young Prince Riddmar, they might have sat where they liked. Despite the size of the hall, the men left on fortguard went back to their barracks, as if they felt themselves in the way of these women’s matters. The young prince trailed after them.

      ‘I do hope it goes easy