A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  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 with 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 un-oiled 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 daydreams, but in truth he was just forty that year, and still as lean and muscled as many a younger man, even though his blond hair was indeed going heavily gray, 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 military.”

  Although it seemed to her that Elyc was suppressing a smile, he did make her a passable bow.

  “Now, good regent, did you want me for some reason?”

  “Not truly. I was just worried, wondering where you’d got to.” He paused to glance round at the towering rise of stone. “You’re probably safe enough out here.”

  “Unless an assassin comes creeping under the walls.”

  “Oh, indeed? Has the bard been amusing you with lurid tales?”

  “He hasn’t. Look, see where the stream comes out from under the wall over there? Well, that water comes from the dairy room, where they store the cheeses and suchlike. The running water keeps them cool in summer. But it gets into the dairy room through this underground tunnel that leads all the way outside the dun walls to that big stream that goes through the market district down to the river. The tunnel was built in 769 by Glyn the First when the sorcerer was here, the one who posed as a gardener to gain the king’s confidence and…”

  “Sorcerer? Don’t prattle about some wretched sorcerer!” He was close to shouting. “I never knew about any cursed tunnel. Ye gods, Your Highness, this is a serious matter!”

  “Well, so I thought. That’s what I meant about assassins.”

  “We’ll have to brick the tunnel up, or, wait, if things come to a siege, we’ll need the water.”

  Muttering about portcullises and blacksmiths, Tieryn Elyc rushed off with barely a bow in her direction. Although Bellyra considered climbing back into her tree, her daydreaming mood was broken. It was also getting late; in a few moments the sun would drop below the circling walls, and the garden turn cold. She crossed the bridge and went inside a tower, climbed up a spiral staircase to a landing, crossed it to another set of stairs, which led down to still another door, which finally got her out to the ward. As she was going to the kitchen hut, she saw two of the scullery boys cleaning a butchered pig. Its liver lay steaming and bleeding on the cobbles.

  “Modd, please, slice me off a bit of that liver, will you?”

  “For that scraggly cat of yours, Your Highness?”

  “She won’t be scraggly when she’s not half-starved. How’s she going to have her kits if she can’t make milk?”

  When she gave him one of her most brilliant smiles, he relented, smiling in return, pushing back his forelock with a blood-crusted wrist and glancing round at the littered ward.

  “Fetch me those cabbage leaves over there for a wrap,” he said to the younger boy. “And we’ll slice the royal puss up a bit of supper.”

  “She is the royal puss now. So there!”

  The cat in question lived with her up in her chambers, the old nursery, which took up the floor above the women’s hall. Half the round floor plan was filled by a single big room with a hearth, where she and her brother and younger sister had once had their baths and eaten their meals. Lying by the hearth were a pair of little wooden horses, left there by Caturyc on the night when he’d fallen ill. Somehow no one wanted to pick them up and put them away, even though he’d been dead for years. The other half was divided into small wedge-shaped chambers, one each for the children and one for their old nurse, who had accompanied Gwerna, Bellyra’s eight-year-old sister, when she’d been sent off to an aunt’s in a country dun—for her delicate health, everyone said, but Bellyra knew that they were keeping her safe, as the younger heir, in case Cerrmor was besieged at the end of the summer. As Princess of the Blood it was Bellyra’s Wyrd to stay through the siege. She would have to be very brave, she supposed, and keep out of everyone’s way.

  Her own chamber held a single bed, a dower chest, one horribly faded tapestry on the wall, and the bottom of a cracked ale barrel that the carpenter had sawn down for her, ostensibly to make a bed for her dolls, but in reality for Melynna, a very pregnant ginger cat, whom Bellyra
had found starving in the stables with a paw hurt badly enough to keep her from hunting. By now the paw was healing, and she was sleek again from being fed as many times a day as the princess could beg or steal food for her, but Bellyra hated to give her up, and Melynna certainly saw no reason to leave. As soon as Bellyra put the liver scraps down on the floor she lumbered out of her bed, lined with a torn-up linen shift that the princess had outgrown, and settled in for a good bloody munch.

  “How’s your basket of sand? Not too dirty? Good. When your kits are born, we’re going to have trouble hiding them, aren’t we? Well, I’ll think of some clever plan then. I don’t want anybody drowning any of them.”

  Melynna looked up, licked a whisker, and purred a throaty thanks.

  Just outside the bedchamber, right by a window, was Bellyra’s writing table, with her pot of ink, her stylus, and her pens laid out in a neat row. She laid the book down next to them, then sat on her stool and looked out the window at the main ward and the great iron-bound gates (built in 724 by Glyn the First’s father, Gwerbret Ladoic), which were standing open to reveal the city street beyond. The iron hinges and reinforcements were rusty and pitted—iron did pit, in Cerrmor’s salt air.

  “It’s all very well for Elyc to talk of putting in a portcullis,” she said to the cat. “But where, pray tell, are the blacksmiths going to get the metal for it?”

  At that precise moment, just like an omen sent by the gods, servants began running toward the gates and shouting in welcome. With an enormous rumble and clatter, ox cart after ox cart pulled into the ward, and from her high perch Bellyra could see that they were loaded to the brim with rough-smelted iron ingots. All round swarmed mounted riders, some mercenary troop, she supposed, hired to guard this precious cargo on its long, slow journey down from the north, She felt her heart pounding as she rose.

  “O dear Goddess, do let it be an omen. It would be a splendid one, coming just like that. O dear Goddess, I do want to live to grow up.”

  She felt the tears pressing behind her eyes, hot and shameful. With a toss of her head she willed them away and ran for the door and the staircase. She should be in the great hall to welcome the merchants who’d brought her this treasure, she decided, be there and smile upon them and show them her favor, so they’d feel well rewarded beyond the coin her chamberlain would pay over.

  By the time she reached the great hall, Tieryn Elyc, Lord Tammael the chamberlain, the seneschal, and the two stewards were already standing round the table of honor, up on the dais, with three merchants in checked brigga, two quite young, the other very old indeed, with a mop of thick white hair and a face as lined as an old burlap sack. Since everyone was arguing about paying for the iron no one noticed her make her entrance. Down on the floor of the hall servants rushed frantically round, trying to assemble enough ale tankards for the mercenary troop as the men strode in, laughing and talking, each with a dagger hilt made of silver gleaming at his belt. Bellyra hovered uncertainly behind Tieryn Elyc and waited for a chance to deliver her speech of thanks until, at last, the old merchant happened to look her way.

  “Ah, the Princess of the Blood, no doubt,” he said with an amazingly deep and agile bow. “I do have the honor of addressing Bellyra of Cerrmor, do I not?”

  “You do, good sir.” Bellyra drew herself up to full height and held out her hand for him to kiss. “You have our royal thanks for the risk you’ve run to bring us this black iron more precious than shining gold.”

  “Your Highness is welcome from the bottom of my heart.”

  Bellyra was annoyed to see Elyc smiling again, but the old man didn’t seem to notice.

  “And your name, good sir?”

  “My name, Your Highness, contains a jest, but it’s a name nonetheless. It’s Nevyn.”

  “Just like the sorcerer!” She blushed, hating herself for blurting like a child. “I mean, I’ve read of a sorcerer with that name.”

  Elyc was downright laughing at her by then, and she decided she hated him, too, loyal regent or not.

  “You’ll forgive the princess, good sir.” He stepped forward to take command of the situation. “She’s a bit young for her position, truly, and—”

  “Too young? Oh, she’s not that, Your Grace, but unusually attentive to her lessons, I’d say. I’ve read the same book myself, I’ll wager, because there was indeed a sorcerer named Nevyn who once lived in this very city—or so I heard.” He gave Bellyra a conspiratorial wink. “Perhaps that’s why my mother gave me that name, Your Highness, because it was famous in its own small way.”

  Elyc arranged a polite smile. Nevyn bowed and made room for the two young merchants to continue their earnest talk of due recompense. Bellyra could only hope that the treasury held enough silver to pay them; she rather doubted it. By then the royal warband was piling into the hall to see what all the excitement was about. Even though it was early in the spring, some of the lords faithful to Cerrmor had already brought their warbands to court, and they too appeared, the noble-born sitting down at tables on the dais, their men finding places on the lower level. Bellyra collared a couple of pages and told them to run tell Cook to get some sort of refreshments for the noble-born and to find the cellarer and fetch another barrel of ale for the warbands. As they trotted off she noticed that Elyc had left the discussion about payment to the chamberlain and wandered over to the edge of the dais. He seemed to be staring at one of the mercenaries sitting below. All at once he laughed and jumped down from the dais.

  “Caradoc! It is you, by every god and his wife!”

  Grinning in a stunned kind of delight, a man was working his way through the tables, a tall man with blond hair heavily laced with gray and hard blue eyes. Although he was filthy and unshaven from the road, he moved with such a natural dignity that Bellyra wasn’t even surprised when Elyc threw his arms around him and hugged him like a brother. For the second time that day she saw the tieryn close to tears.

  “You remember me, Your Grace?” Caradoc said.

  “Don’t talk like a blathering lackwit! Do I remember you? Would I ever forget you? O dear gods, you’ve given me one happy day at least in the midst of this cursed mess!” Elyc paused to look over the scruffy pack of mercenaries, who had fallen silent to watch all this with understandable interest. “These are your men, are they?”

  “What makes you think I’d be the captain?”

  “Knowing you so well, that’s what. Come up on the dais with me. We’ll have mead to celebrate this, we will.” Then he turned and found Bellyra hovering nearby. “Well, if her highness would allow?”

  “Of course, Lord Regent, provided you tell me who your friend is.”

  “A fair bargain, Your Highness. May I present my foster brother, Caradoc of Cerrmor, who was forced into exile by an act of honor and naught more.”

  “That’s a fancy way of putting it, Elyc, but you always were a slick one with your words.” The mercenary bowed to her. “Your Highness, I’m honored to be in your presence.”

  “My thanks, Captain. You and your men are more than welcome, but I don’t know if we’ve got the coin to pay you what you usually get for lighting for someone.”

  “Bellyra! I mean, Your Highness!” Elyc snapped. “If you’d leave such things to me…”

  “Ah, why should she?” Caradoc said with a grin. “It’s her kingdom, isn’t it? Your Highness, I’d be honored to fight in your cause for the maintaining of me and my men and naught more.”

  Bellyra decided that she liked him immensely.

  “Done, then, Captain. No doubt you and your foster brother have much to confer about, and I shall leave matters of war to you.”

  Then she turned on her heel and marched off before Elyc could slight her again, only to run straight into the elderly merchant, who’d apparently been standing close by.

  “My apologies!” she gasped. “Oh, I can’t do anything properly today!”

  “I think, Your Highness, that you’re doing a great many things properly, and besides, you didn’t
knock me down or suchlike.”

  “My thanks, good sir. Everyone’s always telling me I’m doing things wrong, but they never tell what I should do. Oh, it’s so beastly, knowing everyone only wants you for your womb!”

  She blushed, shocked that she could be so coarse in front of someone she’d just met, but Nevyn smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

  “It must be, indeed, but your life does have a great deal more to offer. You’ve just got to learn how to find it. Come sit at the table of honor—not way down there! Take your rightful place at the regent’s right hand.” Nevyn pulled out a chair for her, then sat down at her left without waiting to be asked.

  When Bellyra shot a nervous glance Elyc’s way, she found him scowling at her, but with Nevyn for support she scowled right hack and motioned him over with a wave of her hand.

  “Your foster brother is welcome to sit at our table, at your left hand, even, if you so choose.”

  “My thanks, Your Highness.” Somewhat unwillingly, Elyc obeyed her indirect order and came over to sit down with Caradoc following along. “May I order drink for me and my guest?”

  Bellyra ignored the sarcasm, nodded her approval, then turned pointedly to speak to Nevyn. The noise in the great hall picked up in a buzz of whispers and speculation at the princess’s rare appearance among important men.