Shards of a Broken Sword

by W. R. Gingell

  Dion’s Faery tutors pinched, pulled, ordered, sniffed, and sighed. They were—understandably, Dion knew—impatient and sharp with her shortcomings. They were moulding a queen, and what else was to be expected? But Barric was never short, had a comforting way of saying nothing at all, and occasionally even smiled. Dion grew to love his huge silence.

  The year Dion turned eleven, she accidentally let slip that she often talked with a man in her bedroom. It caused a furore in the breakfast room that startled Dion by exploding through the whole castle as guards, magicians, and Fae were sent running to her suite. Dion was kept by the frightened king and queen in the breakfast room until her room was declared to be entirely free of enchantments and men alike. Nevertheless, the king and queen murmured worriedly back and forth out of hearing of the twins at one end of the room. The Fae were less worried. The tutors, their eyes dark and glittering, questioned Dion, and at last pronounced the conclusion that the intruder was a Fae. High Fae, they said, their eyes glittering all the more when they learned that Barric’s skin was as dark as the rich soil of Llassar. A prince in Faery, no doubt: only the Highest of Fae could broach the barrier between the Human World and Faery without help. And only the Highest of Fae had skin of any other colour than the usual, translucent, moonlight white.

  Dion didn’t contradict it, but she was quite sure by now that Barric wasn’t Fae. He was too big and solid, and his face was too honestly harsh. The Fae were much more ethereal in their good looks. Besides, Barric had a long, ragged scar that ran across his face from below his left eye and across his nose to pull up the right side of his mouth. None of the Fae Dion knew could bear to leave their faces so: the Fae had a horror of mutilation. But she didn’t tell her questioners any of that, nor did she mention the prophecy or her fated death. She didn’t want to sadden her parents. More importantly, she was aware in a deep, certain kind of way that it was something not to be spoken of, even to the Fae or her parents.

  The King and Queen were at last satisfied by the Fae: and why wouldn’t they be? It was an honour for Dion to be so singled out by the High Fae. But Dion noticed that Aerwn, who had grown slightly quieter as she grew older, stared at her with a slight frown between her eyebrows. Aerwn obviously didn’t think it was an honour. Dion herself was merely glad to have the fuss over and done with.

  The year that Dion and Aerwn turned thirteen was a lonely one for Dion. She and Barric quarrelled badly and unexpectedly at the start of the year, and she didn’t speak with him for most of the year.

  Dion had always known that The Song of the Broken Sword was forbidden and probably treasonous, but although she was certain Barric was no Fae, it had still come as a shock when he began to insinuate, carefully and gently, that the Fae had come to Llassar with overthrow in their minds. Dion had at first felt uncomfortable, and then repulsed. Finally, when Barric went on to point out, even more carefully and gently, her parents’ part in the overthrow, she had become very angry.

  Her painstakingly learned expressions forgotten in a flush of anger, Dion stood abruptly and said: “You’re a l-liar! You won’t say those things about my parents! I w-won’t listen!” She had heard him calling after her, and she still saw him briefly every now and then—even heard a word or two before she hurried away—but she had never stayed for long enough to be sure.

  Labouring under Tutor Iceflame’s instructions without even the quiet comfort of Barric’s companionship afterwards was gruelling work, and Dion saw her own face reflected hollowly back at her as she practised in the mirror, growing thinner and more solemn as the year progressed. Despite that, she made sure that she was away from the mirror when Iceflame left. She didn’t want to run the risk of seeing Barric again. She had the feeling that she would forgive him if he asked her to, and she didn’t think it was right to do so.

  Adding to Dion’s loneliness was the fact that Aerwn was gone for most of the year. She had begun it by running away from the castle and had been caught trying to sneak out of Harlech at the changing of the watch that night. Why she would do such a thing puzzled Dion exceedingly, but she wasn’t given the chance to ask her sister about it. The King and Queen sent Aerwn away quickly and quietly, though Dion was never told where.

  “Somewhere quiet,” said the Queen, when Dion finally got up the courage to ask. “She needs peace and quiet, darling. Her mind is disordered. She always was inclined to be excited, and the Fae know what they’re doing.”

  Wherever it was that she went, Aerwn was gone for the better part of ten months, and when she came back Dion found that her sister wasn’t quite there, exactly. Not right away. Their parents wouldn’t allow Dion to see Aerwn alone, and when she saw her sister at meals, Aerwn was pale and silent, refusing to look anyone in the eye. She wouldn’t respond to conversation, and after a little while Dion stopped trying to talk to her.

  At last, when it seemed that Aerwn was never to emerge from her suite unaccompanied by two Fae maids, and that Dion was never to be allowed in to see her, Dion took matters into her own hands. Perhaps it was the corrupting result of book-stealing that made her so willing to consider disobedience. Perhaps it was simply Aerwn’s shuttered eyes, which had once been so bright and open. Whatever the reason, Dion rose from her bed one morning and methodically made a back door through to her sister’s suite. It was a simple enough matter: their bathing chambers shared a common wall, through which Dion sometimes heard faint noises when Aerwn was being particularly difficult. The practical magic she had been learning from Barric had been so well absorbed that it was the work of only a few minutes to convince part of the wall that it wasn’t quite solid, and to construct a doorway to hold up the rest of the wall around the weakened part. Dion, moving carefully through the softened part of the wall, found herself in Aerwn’s ablutions chamber without feeling that she had done something so very unusual.

  Aerwn was sitting in her window when Dion stole softly into the main room of her suite. Aerwn’s feet were bare and she was dressed only in a shift, her side pressed against the glass and her eyes unfocused on the vista below.

  “You’ll get sick,” Dion said, fetching her sister’s slippers.

  Aerwn’s head jerked around in swift, sharp fright, her feet shifting beneath her in a moment. She looked ready to leap for Dion’s throat. Then a flash of recognition came to her eyes, and they brightened in the first sign of real emotion Dion had seen from her sister in the month since she’d returned home.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Aerwn said, tugging on her slippers. “I’m delicate, didn’t you hear?”

  “Delicate,” said Dion. “Is that what it is?”

  “No,” said Aerwn, and Dion wasn’t quite sure whether she was serious or laughing. “I’m addled. You can see it in the whites of my eyes. They’ve magicked my windows, Di.”

  Dion glanced at the windows, but they were simply glass and filigree. She didn’t like to tell Aerwn that, because it was this kind of talk that had led to Aerwn being sent away in the first place, and she wasn’t quite sure that Aerwn was looking well again, despite her smile.

  Aerwn slipped down from the window-embrasure, her feet light on the carpet, and clutched at Dion’s hand. “You see it, don’t you, Di? I can’t open ’em. They’ve magicked ’em shut so that I can’t get out.”

  “I can’t see anything,” Dion said reluctantly. She was beginning to think this visit was a rather bad mistake. “There’s nothing there, Aerwn.”

  Her sister looked at her narrowly for a few charged moments, and then, to Dion’s relief, nodded. “All right,” she said. “If you say so, I believe you. You’re the one with magic, and you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  Dion let out a tiny breath of relief. “I missed you,” she said. “You’ve been gone for so long.”

  “I think I missed you,” said Aerwn, her eyes losing focus. “Things got a bit cloudy for a while in the middle, but I remember thinking about you. Dee, I can’t get out of the windows. They’re still playing tricks on me. Maybe it’s me. Did t
hey put a spell on me?”

  Dion started to say “There isn’t a spell on you”, but stopped. There was a spell on Aerwn. It was clinging and beautiful and almost invisible. It looked a little like the misdirection magic that Barric had taught her. She said: “Show me. Try to open the window.”

  Aerwn, her eyes blessedly attentive again, tried to open the window. Somehow her hands managed to slide past the latch every time she tried to turn it, and even when Dion turned it for her, she couldn’t manage to press her hands against the glass to shove it open.

  Dion, who had been watching with a deep furrow between her brows, said: “Who did this to you?”

  Aerwn shrugged. “Any one of ’em could have done it. They like playing with me. For all I know, it could have been one of the maids.”

  “We should tell Mother and Father,” said Dion, a shaking anger growing in her. “Have both of your maids dismissed.”

  Aerwn grew pale. “No!”

  “But if–”

  “I said no!” Dion took a step back, feeling slapped, and her sister said gruffly: “You don’t understand, Dee. They’ll just send someone worse.”

  “Who is they?” demanded Dion in despair. It was so like Aerwn to inflate a nasty joke into something frightening and fictitious.

  “Never mind,” said Aerwn, her eyes once more shuttered. “Can you get it off me?”

  Dion struggled with words that wouldn’t come, and finally said: “Yes. Yes, all right.” She studied the enchantment in all its clever, glittering beauty, her fingers curled in the soft weaving of her morning wrap. It didn’t seem to have a beginning or an end, almost as if someone had made a fine diamond-net and thrown it over Aerwn in passing. Dion lifted it carefully, wary of the sharp diamond edges, and threw it fastidiously into one corner of Aerwn’s suite when it had cleared her sister’s head. It glittered there for a moment and then seemed to melt away. Aerwn, aware from Dion’s tossing motion that she was free, immediately turned back to the window and opened it. When the breeze sneaked in, cool and wet, she smiled. Dion felt rather sadly that she’d been forgotten, but then Aerwn put her back to the window to smile at her. It was a real, lively, familiar smile.

  “Well now!” she said. “I feel much better!”

  “If someone is playing tricks on you, you really should mention it to Mother and Father,” said Dion, willing to give it one more chance. Aerwn always did as she pleased, of course, but it couldn’t hurt to try again.

  “Never mind that now,” said Aerwn. “I’ll just have to be more careful. You’ve been learning more magic, haven’t you? Is your imaginary friend still visiting you?”

  “Not more, just different,” said Dion, and added uncomfortably: “He’s not imaginary.”

  “I’ve never seen him,” Aerwn said, her eyes dancing. She was becoming swiftly more like the Aerwn that Dion had grown up with. Dion wondered exactly what else there had been in that spell, and regretted that she couldn’t now examine it properly. “Just who has seen him, I’d like to know? Apart from you? And they say I’m crackers!”

  Dion couldn’t help laughing. “No one says you’re crackers!”

  “Not in so many words,” said Aerwn cheerfully. “No, they’re cleverer than that. Just a little word here and there and off you go to have your head fixed. Oh, don’t get that disapproving look, Dee; I’ll be good. Look, if you’ve been practising your magic, d’you think you can make me a handy little spell?”

  “What sort of spell?” Dion said cautiously. She knew Aerwn too well.

  “Nothing naughty,” said Aerwn. “Do you remember those fighters we saw when we were four? The ones they rubbed down with oil so that they could barely grapple?”

  Dion chewed her bottom lip, her thoughts turning and sparking. “I can make a spell like that. It’ll take a few days.”

  “All right,” Aerwn said. “Oh b– I mean bother! That’s the maids at the door: if you stay here they’ll tell Mother. I suppose you can get back in again when the spell’s done?”

  Dion nodded.

  “All right. Don’t forget about it,” said Aerwn. She hugged Dion briefly, and Dion felt her tremble slightly as she said: “Thanks, Dee.”

  It would have been easier to make the spell that Aerwn wanted if she could discuss it with Barric, Dion knew. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she very much missed him—had done so since her anger had died the first day—and it was only by remembering the things Barric had said about her parents that she held firm to her conviction and avoided her mirror. She wouldn’t be friends with someone who spoke of her parents in such a manner. She wouldn’t ask such a person for help with a spell, and she certainly wouldn’t keep looking over at her mirror and wondering why she hadn’t seen scrap nor shadow of Barric in it for the last few days. He had been trying to catch her attention for months now, and though Dion was quite determined that she wasn’t going to associate with him any longer, she felt somehow abandoned; as if Barric and not she had been the one to break things off.

  Dion pushed away the thought and went back to her spell. It was useless to think about Barric, and worse than useless to miss him. She would create the spell by herself, and then she would attend her lessons like a proper heir: living as well as she could until the time came to die. Surely if she kept practising, she would be prepared when the time came to reforge the Broken Sword. If only there hadn’t been a fire in the library last year! Dion would have liked to read the whole of The Song of the Broken Sword, not just the bits and pieces around second canto of the third song. Beyond the certainty that there were seven shards to gather and the almost-certainty that the Binding would need to take place in Avernse where the original Binding had happened, there was still a great deal she didn’t know about the Broken Sword. Dion found, amongst all her regrets, one that Avernse and Llassar were not on better terms: the king would never allow her to make a visit to Avernse. There was no chance that Dion would ever be able to study the only remaining copy of The Song of the Broken Sword in existence. If Avernse had been willing to succour the Fae, there would have been no impediment. Unfortunately, she couldn’t even visit Montalier, which was rumoured to have strong ties to Avernse, because the Montalierans had also refused to help the Fae by so much as a house in which to stay. Alawn ap Fane had waxed loud and eloquent in his disapprobation of both countries. No, Dion was on her own.

  The next day, Dion took herself to the gardens. While Aerwn took to the exciting and forbidden streets of Harlech to sate her dissatisfaction with life, Dion found peace and solace in the castle gardens. No one but royalty was allowed in the copses and carefully maintained hedges between the hours of noon and early tea, and when Dion was feeling particularly put upon she tended to escape into the quiet greenery. It was the only place she could depend upon being thoroughly alone: even the Fae didn’t visit the gardens. In fact, unusually enough for a people who loved nature in all its forms, they avoided them assiduously even in the allowed hours. The gardens, in fact, were a lot like Barric: large and quiet and peaceful.

  “No!” said Dion aloud, startling herself. Here she was thinking of Barric again! And her carefully constructed spell still wouldn’t work! She simply had to try harder.

  A shadow fell over her, cool and sudden, and Dion sprang from her stone seat in some confusion. But when she turned to see who had approached her, it wasn’t, as she had expected, either her mother or her father. It was Barric. Barric in flesh and blood, and far bigger than she’d ever realised. In person, she could fairly feel the power of his magic, distinctly unfamiliar. It wasn’t Fae, but neither did it seem quite human.

  Dion, her eyes wide and startled, automatically offered her hand, and with one knee to the ground Barric lowered his forehead to her fingers in the old manner– a supplicant seeking pardon.

  “Oh, don’t!” she protested.

  Barric didn’t move, didn’t so much as raise his head. He said: “Forgive me.”

  “Oh no, no, no!” said Dion, and threw her arms around his
neck. “Don’t, Barric! What are you doing here? How are you here? I’m sorry– I’m so sorry– but–”

  Barric picked her up and hugged her in return. Being hugged by Barric was like being lightly crushed in a large, warm vice. Dion had the feeling that he was trying to be careful not to break her. She said, for the second time in as many days: “I missed you.”

  Barric put her back down, his big hands covering each of her arms from elbow to shoulder. “I can stay only briefly,” he said, and there was an urgency in his eyes that made Dion feel ashamed of herself. “There is too much to learn and too little time. We won’t speak of your parents again, but we must continue.”

  “I will,” Dion promised. “I mean, yes, we’ll keep going. I’m sorry– but no, I’m not–”

  Barric nodded, with a slight upward pull of his scar. “I understand.”

  “You don’t know them,” said Dion, tumbling into speech. “You don’t, Barric, or you wouldn’t think– you couldn’t think–”

  “Peace,” said Barric. “I’ve promised. I won’t speak of them.”

  There was nothing to be dissatisfied about in that, but Dion found herself looking rather searchingly at him. Barric seemed to notice, and though his scar jumped a little he said quietly: “Trust me?”

  “I do,” Dion said: and she did, so what was there to worry her?

  Life was pleasanter with Barric in it again. And when Barric wasn’t there, Aerwn was: lovable, mad, and unexpected. She disrupted Dion’s state lessons and made faces at her when Dion was trying to look interested in what visiting princes and dignitaries thought about the rate of exchange between Llassarian pennies and Illisrian drachs. She had accepted the spell that Dion finally crafted with a wholly speculative gleam to her eye that made Dion wonder exactly why she wanted a spell that would slough off all other magic, and refused to speak any more about it. When Dion tried to make Aerwn be serious, Aerwn joked her out of her seriousness. She told dreadful stories, and Dion could never be quite certain if she was lying or not, because Aerwn had the most solemn face when she was spouting the most ridiculous nonsense. And as they grew older Aerwn’s habit of saying odd, uncomfortable things and making suggestions that made no sense to the more honest Dion grew even more prevalent. It was perhaps because of these differences rather than in spite of them that the two sisters only drew closer as they grew older. There was no one else like Aerwn.