The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

They pushed, prodded, laid their backs against the wall and shoved until, all at once, a section of wall swung inward with an alarming collection of squeaks, groans, and rumbles.

      ‘Look, Your Highness!’ said Vertyc, the elder of the pair. ‘Here’s the door!’

      ‘Not a very secret one, I must say, with a noise like that.’ Bellyra took a few steps forward to peer through the opening. ‘It wants oiling, most like.’

      Maddyn joined her and peered through the opening.

      ‘It’s more a passageway than a room inside,’ Maddyn said.

      ‘It might lead to the council chamber. I wonder if the kings had this made to eavesdrop on their councillors. There was a hidden chamber like this in Dun Cerrmor. By the end my father didn’t trust anyone, and so he had one built.’

      ‘Shall we find out?’ Maddyn said.

      ‘By all means!’ Bellyra gestured at the pages. ‘You two stay out here. If that door swings shut, we could be trapped. Don’t look so disappointed! You can explore it once we come out again, and we’ll watch the door for you.’

      The narrow passage smelled heavily of mice. Some twenty feet along they heard voices: Nevyn and Councillor Oggyn. Grinning, Bellyra held a finger to her lips. When they stopped to listen, the sound came clearly.

      ‘The spring’s upon us,’ Oggyn was saying. ‘We need to requisition mules and suchlike.’

      ‘I’ve no idea how many we’ll need,’ Nevyn said. ‘It depends upon the muster.’

      Bellyra could just make out Maryn’s voice. Apparently he was sitting at some distance from the wall. As the two councillors continued talking about provisions and transport, Bellyra felt on the edge of tears. The army would ride out soon, leaving her and the other women behind with only the familiar summer terrors for company.

      When she glanced at Maddyn, she found him leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. It never ceased to amaze her how fighting men would sleep whenever they could, no matter how precarious their balance. Grey streaked Maddyn’s dark curly hair, and he was weather-beaten and gaunt from his soldier’s life, but it was his kindness that had snared her. This summer she would worry doubly, she realized, both for her husband and for the man upon whose devotion she had come to rely when dark moods overtook her. For a moment she found herself tempted to kiss him awake. The feeling brought a cold panic with it. As the queen of all Deverry, she would have to keep her honour as pure as a priest of Bel. She took a sharp step back, kicked a rattling stone, and woke him.

      ‘It’s stuffy in here,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s leave.’

      Out in the cleaner air of the chamber Maddyn took a few deep breaths and rubbed his eyes. Bellyra sent the boys in for their look around, then watched him while he studied the fragment of map.

      ‘Truly interesting,’ Maddyn said at last. ‘So kings eavesdrop like commoners, do they?’

      ‘It looks as if the ones here did. The next time Maryn holds a full council I’ll remember this. I always wonder what he’s like when there are no women around. He must be quite different.’

      ‘One would hope.’

      Bellyra laughed, and not very decorously, either. There was a time when that jest would have wounded her to the heart, she realized. Maddyn grinned at her.

      ‘Now the real question,’ she went on, ‘is when this passage was built. I’ve not found a thing about it in the records, which makes sense, of course. They could hardly keep it secret if they talked about it. But then, I wonder who did the building?’

      ‘Perhaps the king had them slain afterwards.’

      ‘Ych! I hope not. Although –’ Bellyra paused, thinking. ‘Nevyn has an ancient book called TALES OF THE DAWNTIME. According to that, the earliest brochs in Deverry weren’t built with proper floors and chambers and suchlike. They had double walls, with a good-sized space between them, you see, and they were empty like a chimney in the centre, because there would only be one big fire at the bottom to keep everyone warm. And in those double walls were little rooms and some sort of corridor called galleries.’

      ‘I see. This passage could be a remnant of a gallery, then. The heart of Dun Deverry’s very old, after all.’

      ‘Just so, and then the only thing the later king would have had to add would have been this door. And he might have been able to have that made secretly, if he paid the mason enough.’

      ‘True-spoken. And especially if the mason were as close-mouthed as Otho, say.’

      ‘Quite so. I wonder if our pages have had enough exploring in there? I hate to admit this, Maddo, but I’m tired and I want to sit down.’

      Maddyn called to the boys, and in a few moments they hurried out. Cobwebs glistened in their hair.

      ‘There’s a little staircase at the end, your highness,’ Vertyc said. ‘But it doesn’t go up to anything.’

      ‘Unless it’s a false floor,’ his brother, Tanno, joined in, ‘but it would make ever so much noise to find out.’

      ‘We’d best wait till the prince’s council isn’t in session, then,’ Bellyra said. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll come back to look at it.’

      They all hurried down the staircase and outside to find the sunlight leaving them. From the south, white clouds were gliding in, billowing up into the sky with the promise of a storm. Servants trotted back and forth, fetching firewood for the great hall while they kept an eye out for the rain. Bellyra picked her way slowly over the uneven cobblestones with Vertyc at her elbow to steady her. She was so intent on not falling that they were halfway across before she realized that she was hearing the sound of a man screaming in rage. She stopped walking and looked up, glancing around.

      Across the ward by the main gate, two men had faced off. Their white shirts, embroidered with a grey dagger down the sleeves, marked them as silver daggers, members of the prince’s personal guard. They were both of them blond and burly, but one was a good head taller than the other – Branoic, she realized, and facing him Owaen, captain of the troop, pacing back and forth and shouting so angrily that his words made no sense.

      ‘Maddo, what’s that all about?’ Bellyra said.

      ‘Oh ye gods!’ Maddyn said. ‘I don’t know, my lady, but I’d best attend to it.’

      ‘By all means. Let’s go over. If I’m there Owaen will have to stop screaming like that.’

      ‘Truly, and my thanks.’

      Indeed the royal presence did bring Owaen to his senses. He fell silent and bowed to the princess, but he trembled all over, and his face had gone dead-white. Branoic was smiling, Bellyra suddenly realized, a wicked tight curve of his mouth, as if he were enjoying each and every moment of Owaen’s rage.

      ‘Your highness.’ Branoic bowed low. ‘Your husband has given me a splendid boon, and I’ll thank you for it as well. I know you must have spoken with him about bestowing land upon me.’

      ‘I did, and you’re most welcome.’ She turned to Owaen with as pleasant a smile as she could muster. ‘But what’s so wrong, captain?’

      ‘Forgive me, your highness, but is your husband going to make him a lord as well.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘But the blazon – forgive me – you wouldn’t understand, your highness.’

      ‘Oh ye gods!’ Maddyn broke in. ‘He didn’t give Branno the eagles back?’

      ‘He did.’ Owaen could barely force the words out. ‘Just that.’

      Branoic tossed back his head and howled with laughter. With one smooth curve of his body Owaen turned and hit him so hard in the stomach that Branoic doubled over. Maddyn grabbed Owaen’s arm, but he could hold him for only a brief moment