Sweet Black Waves

by Kristina Perez

  The fighters presented themselves before King Óengus, and then Queen Eseult. As the combat began, Branwen was distracted by what sounded like the musical call of a blackbird. It echoed from the back of the Queen’s Tent. She whipped her head around. So did Essy.

  A hand beckoned. Branwen glimpsed Tristan on the edge of the pitch, still shadow-dueling with the breeze. Next to him stood Lord Diarmuid. Who was it, then? She and Essy shared a glance.

  “Go on,” whispered the princess, giving Branwen a nudge with her shoulder. “Wish our Sir Keane good luck. But not too much. I shouldn’t like to be married to my cousin’s lover.”

  Branwen flushed scarlet. “Keane isn’t my lover.”

  The hand waved again. Another trill of the blackbird.

  “Maybe not, dear Branny.” Essy shrugged. “But he is keen on you.” The princess gave Branwen a playful shove toward the back of the tent. Branwen sighed. She needed to see what Keane wanted.

  According to the tournament rules, competitors shouldn’t interact with the princess or her retinue until the end. But, Branwen supposed, Keane’s fellow members of the Royal Guard had let him slip through. With extreme reluctance, she dragged her eyes away from the Kernyvak prince.

  Swords clanked in the background. She slid stealthily through an opening between the tent flaps. Keane shot Branwen a quivery smile as he caught sight of her. He fingered the ribbon that dangled from his silomleie.

  “Lady Branwen.” He tipped his head. The afternoon light shaded his profile just right, enhancing his finely whittled cheekbones.

  “Sir Keane.”

  The corners of his mouth flattened. “You don’t normally call me Sir Keane.”

  “No.” She swallowed. “I suppose I don’t.”

  He stepped closer. Branwen spied bits of flesh speckled with blood across his tunic.

  “I didn’t know you were so fond of blackbirds,” she said.

  “The blackbird’s song is believed to transport you to the Otherworld—it reminds me of you.”

  She gave him a measuring look. “Is that so?”

  “Branwen,” he said, running the tip of his tongue over his dry lips. He’d never been so familiar, or so bold. “I know you’re angry with me.”

  “You do?”

  “And I know why you’re angry.”

  She arched a dubious eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “Yes. That’s why I came to find you.” Their eyes met. Whereas Tristan’s twinkled like the night sky, Keane’s were as blue as the deepest part of the sea. “I’m not competing for Princess Eseult.” He raised Branwen’s ribbon to his lips and kissed it as if the sliver were beyond priceless. Goose bumps prickled her body—but it wasn’t Keane’s lips she was picturing.

  “I’m only competing because King Óengus asked me to thin the herd,” he continued. “Make sure only the most worthy champions advanced from the charge.”

  Branwen sucked in a breath. “King Óengus is fixing the Champions Tournament?”

  “Certainly not!” Keane rankled at the suggestion. “It’s simply a precaution. This is still a test of honor.”

  “I would never question King Óengus’s honor,” she assured him. “Nor yours.”

  In truth, she thought it was a clever gambit. King Óengus needed to guarantee that he formed the most beneficial alliance through Essy’s marriage. What better way to do so than to dispose of the less interesting prospects with his own men?

  “And what if you win?” she challenged.

  Keane’s eyes darted around them, checking to see if they were being overheard. “I won’t win.”

  “You might.”

  He shook his head. “I’m no match for Lord Morholt.”

  Branwen wasn’t sure if any of the champions were a match for her uncle. Could it be that Morholt had instructions to lose to the right winner?

  “And this is what you wanted to tell me?” she puzzled aloud.

  He brushed the edge of the ribbon against the back of her hand. It tickled.

  “I wanted you to know. Before my bout.”

  She was uncertain how to respond to what he was implying. Her life would be so much simpler if she could fall in love with the Iverman.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Branwen said.

  His lips thinned. “You’re still angry.”

  “No.” She shook her head once. “No, of course not. You could never deny your king.”

  “Good. I’m glad you understand. I know that’s the only reason you were so gracious to that deceitful Kernyvman.”

  “Tristan isn’t deceitful!” Branwen protested, her response reflexive. “His desire … for an alliance is sincere.” Of that, she was convinced.

  “Tristan?” Keane made the name a curse.

  “Prince Tristan,” she stammered. She’d forgotten herself.

  He took her hand in his and wrapped the ribbon around them without asking. “Pardon me,” he said in a much lower voice. “I don’t like seeing another man’s hand in yours.”

  “You don’t have a say in the matter.”

  Keane stroked the pad of his thumb along the ribbon. “But I’d like to have a say.”

  A trumpet blared, and Branwen jumped. Their hands fell apart.

  “Queen Eseult will be missing me,” she said. “And you should prepare for your combat. May the luck of Iveriu be upon you.”

  Preempting anything else he might say, Branwen dashed inside the tent, head swimming. It had been wrong to use Keane’s interest to needle Tristan last night. Unlike Essy, she had never yearned to have men compete for her heart.

  The princess lifted her eyebrows expectantly at her cousin when she returned. “How was your tryst?” she whispered behind her hand.

  “It wasn’t a tryst.”

  Essy didn’t look convinced. “If you insist.”

  “I do.” After the tournament, perhaps, she would need to insist to Keane as well.

  The trumpet sounded again. Branwen was saved from further prying by her cousin as Lord Diarmuid took to the field. He was paired with a warrior from Reykir Island, to the north, which lay in the middle of the Winter Sea, at the edge of the Dark Waters.

  Like the inhabitants of the Skáney Lands, Reykir Islanders worshipped a one-eyed god adorned with ravens. They drove their ships farther and farther south each year. This Reykir Islander was as tower-tall as he was stout. His hair was long and the color of rushing water. He seemed not quite of this world at all.

  Queen Eseult’s eyes darted from the champions awaiting her signal to her daughter. Essy was visibly perturbed as she took in the sight of the Reykir Islander.

  “He’s going to kill Diarmuid, Branny.” The princess shot her a look that could only be interpreted as despair.

  “Shh. He’ll be fine.” In truth, Branwen thought Lord Diarmuid would need the favor of Goddess Ériu herself to defeat such a giant.

  The queen gave Essy a pained smile and dropped her handkerchief.

  “Shall I refill your glass?” Branwen asked her aunt. Their nerves were growing frayed, and her cousin’s most of all. She could see the princess barely resisting the urge to pick her scabs, fiddling anxiously with her embroidery.

  “Thank you, dear heart.”

  “Mine, too,” said Essy, crossing her arms over her chest and sinking back against plush goose-feather cushions. Branwen traded glances with the queen; the queen nodded.

  She rose swiftly and busied herself with refilling their goblets from the decanter on the makeshift side table. Who would Tristan fight? she wondered. The Mílesian champion had defeated the Langazbardaz prince easily, leaving the Prince of Rheged, or the King of Ordowik, which bordered Kernyv.

  And, of course, Keane.

  “Branny!” Essy exclaimed. “Branny, he’s won!” A series of squeals and delighted giggles escaped from the princess as a cheer erupted from the crowd.

  Branwen was astonished. She couldn’t fathom why the Otherworld would be on the side of the arrogant northern lord; at least it meant she wouldn’t
be shipped off with Essy to a land blanketed in darkness half the year.

  Returning with the goblets, she served Queen Eseult first. Her aunt didn’t even acknowledge her. The queen’s eyes were fixed on the King’s Tent, a grimace etched on her face. In that moment, Branwen understood that the King and Queen of Iveriu would never let their daughter marry Lord Diarmuid.

  “I told you my token would bring him luck, cousin,” Essy whispered gleefully, pulling Branwen close. Her expression of pure joy cut Branwen to the bone.

  The next champions took their places and she felt as if the blackbirds had enchanted her, stealing her voice, as her countrymen believed they could.

  It was Tristan. He had been paired with the King of Ordowik. The Ordowikan people hated the Kernyveu as much as the Iverni did. Maybe more. Not only Tristan, Branwen realized, but King Marc needed this alliance as much as Iveriu.

  Tristan bowed before Queen Eseult and lifted the Rigani stone from around his neck. His eyes fastened on Branwen as he kissed the stone. She shivered.

  The queen dropped the handkerchief.

  Tristan struck first, wielding his broadsword with breathtaking grace. Certainly, he took Branwen’s breath away.

  Essy gulped her ale, still glowing from Diarmuid’s victory. “The Kernyvman has a pleasing face,” she remarked.

  Yes, a very pleasing face, thought Branwen. Unfortunately. She could tell the queen was waiting for her reaction. She gave none.

  Tristan moved with fluid motions, like the sea itself. It was almost impossible for her eyes to keep up with him. He seemed to be everywhere at once.

  A duck, a somersault, a whooping war cry and it was over.

  Queen Eseult signaled the end of the bout. The Ordowikan king looked genuinely stupefied, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just happened.

  Both men bowed. Again, Tristan grabbed Branwen’s gaze.

  “The Kernyvman fights well,” her aunt said flatly, betraying no emotion.

  “And fiercely,” Branwen added in a hush.

  Keane shouldered past Tristan as he walked onto the battlefield with a force that would certainly leave a bruise. He crossed his double-headed ax and his silomleie in the air, the summer sun bringing out the green of Branwen’s ribbon.

  Essy gave Branwen’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “May luck be upon Sir Keane,” she said.

  Keane’s opponent, the Prince of Rheged, rattled his own weapon with a flourish three times.

  “May luck be upon him,” Branwen echoed as they began to clash. She didn’t mean it. She prayed to the Old Ones that Keane wouldn’t meet Tristan in battle.

  The Otherworld wasn’t listening.

  Keane won his first round and bested the Mílesian champion in his second. Only two other contestants now remained, and Keane would fight whoever won the next match: Lord Diarmuid—or Tristan. The pounding in Branwen’s ears grew louder than a blacksmith’s hammer.

  She feared for Tristan if he beat Lord Diarmuid. She feared for Iveriu if he lost.

  With all of the defeated foreign champions milling around the throng, Branwen saw how acutely Iveriu needed an ally from across the sea. Iveriu was a proud island, a proud kingdom—but she was small. If she remained isolated, she would fall. If not to the Kernyveu, then to the Reykir Islanders or someone else.

  Queen Eseult looked increasingly uneasy as the bout commenced. Essy slipped her hand beneath her braids. Branwen snatched it loose.

  “Tell me when it’s over,” she pleaded. The princess wrapped her hand around Branwen’s until her knuckles bulged and she closed her eyes.

  The sun disappeared behind a cloud, gray light raining down on the fighters. Lord Diarmuid substituted his kladiwos blade with a broader fálkr, designed for hacking blows. As the tip whistled past Tristan’s ear, Branwen’s stomach leapt into her throat. It only missed his handsome visage by the slimmest margin. Diarmuid’s next sweep was too wide and the Kernyvak prince saw his opening.

  Tristan hooked Diarmuid’s ankle and the northern lord fell toward the earth, losing his grasp on the fálkr. A tiny smile ripened on Branwen’s lips. Tristan had once performed that exact same maneuver on her. Too readily she recalled his body pressed against hers, the feel of his weight.

  Hisses punctuated the general rumbling of the crowd.

  “Is it over?” Essy asked.

  “It’s over.”

  The princess peeked up timidly. Tristan had his boot on Lord Diarmuid’s throat and the tip of his sword thrust against his chest.

  Tears bubbled in Essy’s eyes. Her body trembled.

  “It’s over,” Branwen repeated.

  THE CHALICE OF SOVEREIGNTY

  THE PRINCESS STRUGGLED FOR A shallow breath as Lord Diarmuid bowed before the queen, accepting his defeat. Essy’s hand shook in Branwen’s.

  “Lord Diarmuid brought honor to the Parthalán name today,” Queen Eseult said to her daughter. She patted her knee in a conciliatory gesture.

  “You don’t care if I’m ever loved, Mother,” Essy spat, tears leaking from her eyes. “Don’t—don’t pretend that you do.” Her teeth began to chatter and she swiped snot against her sleeve. “All you care about is being queen!”

  “Essy, dear heart,” her mother said gently. “That’s not true.”

  The trumpets blasted again. Keane and Tristan stepped onto the pitch. Branwen was torn between comforting her cousin and watching the bout. The Iverman and the Kernyvman were fighting for honor and glory, yet she had stoked their ire. The sensation was exhilarating, almost addictive. Definitely ill advised.

  Essy clutched at her chest with one hand, her breaths coming faster and faster, as she gripped the edge of her seat with the other. Branwen’s focus returned to the princess, concern mounting. Queen Eseult touched her daughter’s cheek.

  “You will be a queen, too, Essy, and when you are, you will understand. You will thank me,” she said.

  The princess batted her hand away. “I will never thank you, Lady Queen”—Essy rasped a breath, her speech becoming more clipped—“for taking away my chance—my one chance at love!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” said the queen, tone weary.

  Branwen rubbed her cousin’s back as Essy’s shoulders began to heave. She didn’t think the princess was just being dramatic. Her eyes were unfocused, and Branwen could see genuine panic glistening in her tears. Why couldn’t her aunt?

  Another braying of horns jolted the princess. “Duty calls,” Essy hissed at the queen. Branwen had rarely heard such venom in her cousin’s voice.

  “Yes,” agreed Queen Eseult. “Yours and mine.” She dropped a handkerchief. Essy pulled at her bodice as if it were smothering her.

  The moment the cloth landed in the dirt, Keane and Tristan circled one another like wolves hunting the same prey.

  “Your duty, Lady Queen. Not mine.” Essy leapt to her feet. Her face was red and splotchy, and she seemed unsteady.

  In her peripheral vision, Branwen spied Keane wheel around, his double-headed ax a terrifying scythe. Tristan jumped deftly over the sweep of the blade. How could she ever have believed he was a poet rather than a warrior?

  “Sit back down before you make a spectacle of yourself, Lady Princess,” seethed Queen Eseult. Nobody but her daughter could so rile the monarch. Branwen was glad neither her cousin nor her aunt was armed.

  “You—you only care about what other people think—” Essy tottered. Branwen sprang up to brace her.

  Queen Eseult’s eyebrows lifted, appalled. “And you’re drunk!” she accused, but Branwen didn’t think Essy was drunk. She’d carefully monitored the ale today.

  This was a different kind of inebriation. Sometimes her cousin was the most fearless person she knew; other times, fear conquered her completely.

  “You are not my mother!” the princess shouted as she ran from the tent. For a moment, Queen Eseult looked indescribably bereft. Then her face turned to stone.

  More than anything in the world, Branwen wanted to stay and watch
as the two men fought over her future, but her cousin needed her. She curtsied to the queen and sprinted after Essy.

  Edging her way through the crowd, Branwen tried to remain discreet. It wouldn’t do for the Ivernic princess to be seen shirking her duty—even if that wasn’t quite the truth. King Óengus needed to display his strength before the foreign emissaries. If he didn’t appear to be able to control his own daughter, they might presume he couldn’t control his kingdom, and that would be very dangerous for all of them. There were no shades of gray in war. A weak king never remained king for long.

  The spectators jostled Branwen as she continued toward the battlefield. Keeping one eye on the pitch, she scoured the throng for Essy’s blond head. When they were children, her cousin would flee to the hazel tree whenever she was upset. Today, Branwen was fairly certain she’d fled to Lord Diarmuid’s side.

  These attacks had plagued her cousin for as long as she could remember. Sometimes the cause was obvious; sometimes not. Thankfully, the episodes didn’t last long. In the midst of them, however, Essy said it felt like forever, as if she were being crushed inside Treva’s great winepress. Branwen was usually the one to soothe her cousin, but she was still surprised, and a little disappointed, that the queen hadn’t recognized the signs. Perhaps the pressures of her own duties were affecting her aunt more than she let on.

  All at once, the audience put their hands together in what seemed like a stampede of cattle. Branwen’s eyes dashed to see the source of the commotion. Then she wished she hadn’t.

  Dawn-red blood trickled from Tristan’s temple. Keane had clipped him with the butt of his silomleie. Tristan stumbled. His sword fell uselessly into the dirt.

  Keane lunged.

  Then Tristan did something unexpected. He dropped to the ground, tucked his knees into his chest, and rolled to his left. Keane lunged again. Tristan rolled in the other direction. Branwen forced her gaze to the Iverman, who vibrated with rage.

  She pushed her way forward. The compulsion to protect Tristan was almost overpowering. Stop. She was supposed to be looking for Essy. The next moment, Tristan bashed Keane’s forearm with his shield, and the gallowglass tumbled to the earth. Branwen stood frozen in her tracks.