The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

cold grey light. For a moment she lay in bed. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed with pain. Did I sleep? she wondered. Did I sleep at all? I must have. All at once, she remembered.

      ‘Branno,’ she whispered.

      Her hot and swollen eyes refused to deliver more tears. She sat up, pushing the blankets back. She had wept for half the night, or so it seemed as she looked back upon it. In her hearth a pile of ash testified to the fire in which she had seen Nevyn’s face and heard him speaking. It was odd, she realized, but never once, not even in the depths of her grief, had she tried to pretend to herself that the vision had been merely some unreal dream. She knew it beyond doubting. Branoic was dead.

      Someone pounded on the door.

      ‘Who is it?’ Lilli called out.

      ‘Just me, my lady.’ Clodda’s normally cheerful voice trembled. ‘You’ve barred the door, and I can’t get in.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Lilli got up and went to the door. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you.’

      She unbarred the door, opened it wide, and let Clodda come in. The maidservant dropped her a brief curtsy.

      ‘I was ever so afraid you’d been taken ill,’ Clodda said.

      ‘Not ill, truly.’ Lilli hesitated. Telling someone about Branoic’s death would make it horribly real – but it’s real anyway, she told herself. ‘Branoic’s dead. Nevyn told me last night. He used dweomer.’

      Clodda’s face turned pale. ‘Oh my lady!’ Her voice shook with tears. ‘That wrings my heart.’

      ‘Mine, too.’

      ‘No doubt.’ Clodda pulled up a corner of her dirty apron and wiped her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s so sad. My poor lady.’

      With a sigh Lilli sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It must be well into the morning. Why is the light so cold?’

      ‘Clouds, my lady.’ Clodda looked at her sharply, as if wondering if Lilli had gone mad with grief. ‘It’s going to rain, I wager.’

      ‘Oh. Rain. Could you go to the great hall and find me somewhat to eat? Bread would do.’

      ‘I will. Lady Elyssa has been asking for you. That’s why I came up and knocked.’

      ‘I’ll dress, then. If you see her, ask her if she’d just come to my chamber.’

      Clodda must have seen the lady in the great hall, because Elyssa herself brought Lilli a basket of bread and butter in but a little while, just as Lilli had finished combing her hair. Elyssa set the basket on the table and considered Lilli for a moment in the harsh grey light streaming in the window.

      ‘Clodda’s right,’ Elyssa said. ‘You do look ill. Your cheeks – they’re all red and raw!’

      ‘I’m always a little bit ill.’

      ‘Or is it from tears? She told me that you’re convinced Branoic’s dead.’

      ‘Don’t you believe me?’

      ‘It was Clodda I was doubting, not you. I suppose you must have been – er, what does Nevyn call that?’

      ‘Scrying.’

      ‘My heart goes out to you, lass.’ Elyssa looked away, biting her lower lip. ‘Another good man gone.’

      ‘Oh ye gods, I wish I could weep some more. I feel like a bit of old rag the cook used to scrub a pot or suchlike. All soiled and wrung out and twisted.’

      Elyssa nodded. She seemed to be searching for words, then sighed and held out the basket of bread.

      ‘Here. Do eat.’

      Lilli took a piece of bread and bit into it. Her grief robbed it of all its savour, but she forced herself to keep eating to reassure Elyssa.

      ‘You look more than a little unwell,’ Elyssa said, watching her. ‘I was going to ask if you’d like to visit us up in the women’s hall, but I think me you’d best stay here and rest.’

      After Elyssa left, Lilli threw the half-eaten chunk of bread back into the basket. She went to the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, knelt down and opened it. Right on top lay the pieces of Branoic’s wedding shirt, which she’d not quite finished embroidering. He’d never wear it now. He had died too far away to even be buried in it. Next to it lay the little knife she used for cutting thread, a short blade but sharp. She took it out and her little mirror with it.

      She propped the mirror up on the mantel, and by twisting this way and that, she could see well enough to chop off her hair, a twist at a time, sawing it short with the sewing knife as a sign of her mourning for her betrothed. She’d heard bards recite old tales from back in the Dawntime, when mourning women gashed their faces as well. For a moment she was tempted – not to mourn Branoic but to keep Maryn away. With a shudder she laid the knife down. In the mirror her face looked back, puffy-eyed, pinched, the short hair all ragged. She turned away, remembering how he looked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

      ‘I did love you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll pray to the Goddess that you believed me.’

      Lilli put the mirror and knife away, then wrapped up the cut-off hair in the sleeve of the shirt that would have been Branoic’s. She put the shirt away, then returned to her chair and stared out of the window. Every breath she drew made her chest ache, as if her grief had filled her lungs and turned them heavy.

      The sun had barely started to climb into the sky when Nevyn left his tent and went to tend the wounded. He found Caudyr there ahead of them, and as they started their work, other chirurgeons came to join them and some of the servants as well. As Nevyn had feared, several men had died in the night. The servants wrapped them in blankets and carried them away. Nevyn had finished his rounds and was just washing the gore off his hands and arms when Gavlyn, the prince’s chief herald, came running, carrying a long staff bound with ribands.

      ‘My lord Nevyn!’ Gavlyn called out. ‘Lord Braemys wants to parley.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Nevyn said. ‘Well, that’s welcome news!’

      Together they hurried across the camp. The night before, servants had pitched Maryn’s tent apart from those of the other noble-born; a good ten feet of bare ground surrounded it. Out in front a groom waited with Gavlyn’s dun gelding, saddled and bridled. In the horse’s black mane hung ribands of red and yellow. Maryn himself came out of the tent just as Nevyn arrived; he wore the red and white plaid of Cerrmor, pinned at one shoulder with the huge silver brooch that marked him as a prince.

      ‘This is good news,’ Maryn remarked to Nevyn. ‘I’m hoping and praying that Braemys wants to swear fealty and end this thing.’

      ‘So am I, your highness,’ Nevyn said, ‘so am I.’

      ‘We should know soon. Gavlyn, you have my leave to go.’

      But in the end they waited a good long while to hear Lord Braemys’s decision. All that morning, while Maryn paced, stewing with impatience in front of his tent, the heralds rode back and forth, negotiating the conditions for the meeting between Prince Maryn and Lord Braemys. Each side suspected the other of having treachery in mind, and as Maryn remarked to Nevyn, he could understand why.

      ‘The war’s been hard enough fought,’ the prince said, ‘and my men did kill his father.’

      ‘And his men did his best to kill you,’ Nevyn said, ‘by a ruse.’

      Over the next long while, Maryn’s vassals strolled over to join him in ones and twos. Daeryc and Ammerwdd paced up and down with him. The lower-ranked men sat on the ground and talked among themselves in low voices. Finally, not long before noon, Gavlyn returned, leading his horse with one hand and carrying the staff in the other. Everyone got up fast, but no one spoke, not even the prince. The groom trotted forward and took the dun gelding’s reins, but when he started to lead the horse away, Gavlyn stopped him.

      ‘I’ll