by Grace Martin
The family was already seated, every last one of them looking uncomfortable, except for Gwydion, who didn’t even pause in his enjoyment of his meal. I’d never thought I could hate Gwydion. I’d thought, and I’d been told, again and again, that he was the best of us. That he was kind. That he was caring. And yet he’d nearly struck me yesterday and ripped Andras to shreds. And now he didn’t even bother to look up from his bacon when we entered.
Aine was sitting up very straight, trembling from head to foot. Saoirse sat at the King’s left side. The King’s plate was untouched, while Saoirse had stirred her food around in the way that Sparrow had always done, to make it look like she was eating more than she really was.
‘Eight seats and six of us,’ I commented, hating every one of them. ‘Where are the guards going to sit?’
The King rose to his feet, pushing up from the table. ‘The guards will remain by the door, Bach Chwaer. Fear not. They will not be leaving this room. Ferdas, could you see the Bach Chwaer seated, please?’ The King indicated the seat beside Gwydion.
Ferdas pulled out the chair, his gesture the epitome of respect. Gwydion was still shovelling food into his mouth. Before sitting, I leaned down, so I could speak into his face. ‘Oh, don’t get up on my account, Gwydion.’
He glared at me and flung his fork onto his plate, where it bounced off and left a glob of gravy on the pristine tablecloth.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘Someone else will have to wash it, after all.’
‘Didn’t you teach her manners, Mother?’ Aine asked.
Maybe I’d gone a bit too far if Aine was calling attention to my behaviour like that. Saoirse bit her lip, taking advantage of the opportunity to look every inch the disappointed maternal figure. ‘I could never control her, Aine. You and she are nothing alike.’
‘You couldn’t control me, Aoife, because you were busy murdering all the people I loved. Pass the butter?’
Her lip curled in an ugly sneer. She wiped it quickly from her face when the King raised his eyebrows at her. A footman I hadn’t even noticed came forward and draped a napkin over my lap. I looked up, smiled and said, ‘Thank you,’ like a good little girl before I remembered how angry I was with everyone here.
I looked around the table. ‘I have no argument with the servants,’ I explained. ‘I’ve served at table myself. A thank you never goes astray. While you never taught me manners, Aoife, my Sparrow always liked it when I at least tried to be nice to people.’
‘Please try, Emer,’ Aine sighed.
Across from me, Andras raised his hand to his face, to cover a smile.
The footman brought me toast in a basket lined with a white napkin. He served me, then Andras. I buttered it, trying not to wonder how I was ever going to manage to eat anything at this table. ‘You remember my Sparrow, don’t you, Aoife? You captured her, made me think you’d killed her, clothed her in a featherskin and stripped her naked in front of a crowd to humiliate her.’ I glanced at Gwydion beside me, even now gesturing for the footman to bring him more food. ‘You were there, too, Gwydion. You’ll be her prisoner for years, kept in a cage in the Eyrie in Cairastel, before she finally pushes you off a flying dragon to your death. And you didn’t die right away. You have that to look forward to.’
‘I suppose I was a prisoner, too?’ the King asked wearily.
‘No, your Majesty,’ I replied. I tried to temper my words with compassion, even as I loaded my toast with glistening ruby jam. ‘You were dead. Aine was Queen. She had been the Dark Queen since before I was born. I don’t remember how or when you died. If I was you, I wouldn’t sleep too deeply, in case Aoife holds a pillow over your face.’
‘Stop calling my wife by that name, please, Bach Chwaer. Her name is Saoirse, although it would be more proper for you to call her “Mother.” She is gracious to you that she does not demand you to call her by her title.’
I didn’t reply, just crammed the toast into my mouth. Loaded with butter and sweet jam, it still tasted like dust and it was all I could do to get it down. When I put my hand flat on the table to disguise the way it shook, another hand covered mine. I thought it was Andras, but it was Aine. She’d even stood up, so she could reach all the way across the table to me.
‘Emer, please. You’re my half-sister. We’re really family. Please, can’t we get along?’
Everyone at the table was watching me. Even Gwydion had stopped eating. I turned my hand to take Aine’s and rose to my feet, leaning forward and holding her hand across the table. ‘Aine, I wanted to meet you my whole life. There was a hole in my life because you weren’t in it. But that’s because you are my mother, not my sister. I would do nearly anything to be a part of your family, but I’m not going to lie again.’
She freed herself from my hand, but I went on. ‘I deeply regret that I lied to all of you. I will not lie to you again. Not even if it means I have to lose you.’
I sat back down. Beside me, Gwydion wiped the last of the gravy from his plate with a piece of bread, threw his napkin onto the table and stood up. He bowed to his father, then to Saoirse. ‘I beg your leave to depart, Father, my Lady. I do not care to sit at table with traitors.’
The King gave him leave. I tried not to show how hurt I was, but Andras was devastated. He visibly slumped in his seat and looked down at his plate, making no effort to eat.
I ate. I’d had enough days lately when I wasn’t sure where my next meal was coming from to pass up the food. It was all I could do to choke it down. And it was hard not to let bitterness take root then, when I was faced with the most delicious food I’d eaten in my whole life, surrounded by the family I’d always wanted, and just sitting there with them made me so sick I was barely able to eat.
Saoirse was smirking. She forked dainty morsels into her mouth and drank her juice like it was sparkling champagne. ‘Aine, darling, what do you plan to do today? I’d love to spend more time with you, my beloved.’ She reached across the table for Aine’s hand, like Aine had reached for mine.
Aine’s face lit up. And I asked myself, what kind of bastard was I when I was going to take that joy away from her? ‘Oh, Mother, I’d love that! I help out with the refugees from Meistria. Ever since the revolution in Rheged, there has been a steady stream of people returning to their ancestral homes here in Camaria. They call themselves the Rhydda now, the free people. You could come with me. There is so much work to be done. And I know that the people will be delighted to see you and learn that you survived. Our stepmother is not a popular person among the Rhydda.’
Saoirse pulled her hand back. I wondered if I was the only person at the table who could see the wheels turning in her mind as she strove to find an excuse. ‘I… uh… my darling. I would love to spend time with you more than anything. But… maybe… uh…’ and then the idea came to her. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be the best idea for me to appear among them. As you say, the Empress was not beloved by her Camiri subjects. As Umbra’s heirs we look alike. I would hate to remind them of such an unsettled part of their history. They died by the battalion in the rebellion.’
‘They are proud of that part of their history, Mother. They are proud that they fought to be free and won.’
‘They rebelled against their rightful rulers! Conal, are you truly telling me that the thought of all these troublemakers flooding your realm doesn’t disquiet you?’ Her voice was so sweet. If I wasn’t listening closely to her words, I might have even forgotten that right now, in Rheged, her younger self was in the midst of purging the land of any Camiri who remained.
‘You must not have seen how they lived, Saoirse, from the mountain fastness of the Library. They were slaves. Their families were separated, their culture was forbidden. They were abused and tormented. And when they gained their freedom, they chose to return to their ancestral homeland. I am proud to welcome them home. They are our brothers, our sisters, our family.’
‘Family.’ Her voice was not so sweet. ‘Well, Conal, for your sake, and the sake of o
ur daughters sleeping safe in their beds at night, I hope they’re more loyal to family than they were when they were subjects of the Empress.’
‘Not subjects, Mother,’ Aine corrected. ‘Slaves. The words we use make a difference.’
A jolt went all the way through me. They were nearly the exact same words Caradoc had said to me. Had Aine got it from Caradoc, or had he taken the phrase from her? He’d known her before he knew me. In fact, when he was presented to the Empress and promised in marriage to the Princess Aoife, it was Aine who had smoothed the confrontation between them. I was surprised by the sudden surge of jealousy.
Saoirse was attacking a sausage on her plate, ripping into it with unnecessary force. ‘Thousands of people died when they rebelled, Aine.’
‘Yes, Mother. And thousands of people died beforehand, but the Meistri didn’t even call the Camiri people. They called them Swords and Spears, like they were no more than the weapons they wielded. They tallied the numbers of deaths, like they might tally resources in a warehouse, but they didn’t even attempt to record the names of the dead.’
‘You were protected from the worst of the rebellion, Aine. I guarantee that not all your precious Camiri were lily white heroes. Urien told me some of the atrocities they committed. Things I couldn’t discuss at a breakfast table, believe me!’
‘Urien?’ Aine frowned.
Saoirse’s knife scraped on the plate suddenly, the sound skittering along the table and making us all wince. ‘A soldier,’ she explained. ‘He visited the Library. Brought me news.’ She put her cutlery down. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ She stood up and swept from the room without saying another word to any of us.
Aine met my eyes, looking confused.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I offered. ‘I went with you before, remember, when you were volunteering to help the poor after the revolution?’
‘Uh…’ Aine looked to her father for guidance.
He considered it. ‘I believe it may be the right thing to do,’ he said eventually, nodding. ‘I know that my Aine will be a good influence, and despite the… difficulties within our family at the moment, we are still a family. I believe that there is good in you, Emer. Let yourself be guided by Aine. Don’t let your bitterness overwhelm you.’
I blinked. This wasn’t exactly what he’d been saying to me when Saoirse was in the room. ‘I don’t want to be bitter,’ I replied, ‘but it’s hard not to be bitter when I’ve done nothing but risk my life and sacrifice everything to save everyone else and no-one will believe me.’
‘You must be patient, Emer. Show us who you are — we barely know you. Sooner or later, everyone reveals their true self.’ He stood, pushing his chair back with a quiet scrape over the fine rug on the floor. ‘Andras?’
Andras lifted his head. He hadn’t spoken a word or looked up since Gwydion left the room. ‘My Lord?’ He leaped to his feet when he saw the King was standing. Unsure if I was supposed to do the same thing, I half rose, but Aine only managed to suppress half her grin as she gestured for me to remain seated.
‘Andras, look after my daughters as they go about their work today. I trust you to keep them safe.’
The King left the room and Andras resumed his seat opposite me. ‘What work?’ he asked, and I realised that he hadn’t heard one word that had been spoken.
Chapter Ten
I was ready in five minutes. All I had to do was brush my teeth after breakfast and fetch a coat. When the door closed behind us, I turned to Andras and slipped my hand into his.
‘Don’t let it upset you, Andras, please.’
He pulled his hand from mine. ‘Just get ready. The princess will be waiting for us.’
Well, that told me.
Andras and I went to Aine’s quarters, the guards still following us deferentially, and waited in her reception room while she got ready. It took a while. I know that Aine was raised a princess and appearances matter when your whole life is predicated upon how people see you, but I couldn’t even imagine what she was doing in there. I wanted to lean forward and whisper to Andras, ‘The princess will be waiting for us, will she?’ but I didn’t, because I have matured.
Not by much, because I wanted to say it more than I wanted to breathe.
Still, it’s not like I had anywhere to be. I couldn’t do anything about the Draceni while I was a prisoner of the King. Hell, I couldn’t even do anything about the Draceni while I was with them. Aoife — Saoirse — wasn’t doing anything at the moment, although I was pretty sure she had some schemes set up for the near future. Aoife — young Aoife — was even now beginning to commit genocide. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it because no one believed me.
They would find out, history had taught me that, but it would be too late.
Andras was still wearing his uniform jacket with the insignia torn out of it. He’d barely spoken since breakfast. Gwydion’s rejection had stung him hard. He didn’t sit beside me, choosing instead to pace around the small room until I wasn’t sure who I was going to kill first, Aine or him. When Aine finally emerged, though, I got a surprise.
She looked exactly like Sparrow. I mean, I know that shouldn’t be a surprise. All Umbra’s heirs look alike. We all have the same hair, the same skin, the same facial features, but Aine and Aoife had always looked different from each other, the same way Sparrow and I did.
To begin with, Aine, like Sparrow, was the nice one. Aoife and I had our disposition in common, too. But Aine and Aoife were princesses, and, obviously, they dressed and groomed themselves as princesses. Their hair was done into elaborate styles, they wore crowns and tiaras and they dressed like no one I’d ever known.
Today, Aine was dressed like a normal person. She wore a soft blue woollen dress with a pale, knitted shawl thrown around her shoulders. Dressed again in the blue leather tunic and dark trousers that Caradoc had had made for me back in Rheged I almost felt overdressed.
When we were in Rheged, when she was a princess and I was a dubious character wrapped in a featherskin, Aine had taken me on her charity work with the newly freed Camiri, before they even called themselves the Rhydda. She’d had the best of intentions, that was obvious, but the thought had crossed my mind that I would have resented her charity, coming into the poorer parts of town wearing clothes more appropriate to a ballroom than a soup kitchen.
I mean, I knew intellectually that at some point the well-meaning but oblivious princess was going to become the formidable Dark Queen whose armies harried the borders of Meistria, but I wasn’t ready to see the beginnings of that today.
‘What?’ she asked, looking down at herself. ‘Is it my dress? The Rhydda like blue.’
‘No, you look good. Let’s go.’
Andras followed us, the guards close enough behind him that if you couldn’t see the tear in his jacket, you’d think they were part of the same cohort.
We travelled most of the way in a carriage. It wasn’t the sort of transportation you’d expect of the average ex-slave, but at least it wasn’t gilded. We arrived in an area west of the city centre, where Aine informed me that the Rhydda were building their community in a place called Am Dien.
It reminded me of the Halls of Youth, where the children who were taken away from their families when they were seven years old were trained by Meistri guards to become warriors for the Empress.
There was a large central area where people gathered together, with satellite areas for cooking, laundry and performing other tasks and trades. Around the central area were long barracks that Aine told me were dormitories.
I wrinkled my nose. ‘Dormitories? They’re not an army anymore. Why do you make them live as though they were?’
Aine’s head went back. It wasn’t often that I saw her offended, but I do have a certain skill in that area.
‘We didn’t make them live in this way; they chose to. As soon as Father heard that the rebellion in Rheged was successful, he arranged for housing in the city and in the towns. When the Rhydda arrived, back i
n their homeland for the first time in centuries, they informed him that living in small nuclear family groups was not their tradition.
‘I don’t know how much you know about Camiri culture, slave, citizen and Rhydda. While the Rhydda were enslaved by the Empress, they were taken from their families at the age of seven to train as soldiers. But they trained their children carefully in their early years. They were taught their family names, they were taught the traditions that they could practice in secret and they kept their culture alive, hidden from the eyes of the guards.’
Aine indicated the whole camp with spread arms, turning slowly to encompass the area. ‘Each hall is the living space for a particular family. Some families are so large they require several halls, but they prefer to live together, rather than separating into couples and children who leave the family home. Here, for example. This hall is for the family Farinann. And there is the hall of the family Solanann. Have a look in this one, it’s the family Surianann, one of the wealthiest and largest families among the Camiri.’
I peered into the darkness beyond the door, from the space below the stairs. The interior of the hall was decorated with tapestries and rich furs. I wondered how any family had managed to accumulate wealth while being slaves of the Meistri.
‘Is there a hall for the family Fionn?’ I asked, remembering Bridget.
‘On the other side of the camp.’ She cocked her head. ‘They are a very small family and share a hall with other small families. Their ancestors managed to escape and few of them remained under Meistri control. No one knows where the rest of them live, or even if there are any more of them still living free. How did you hear about them?’
‘I can’t say,’ I replied, ready to fend off a barrage of questions, but Aine just nodded.
