Chapter 12
TWELVE
Iron remains the greatest weapon we have.
The otherfolk are allergic, and their accursed blood runs through
the veins of these princes and their sorcerers. Use iron at any given
opportunity, and without mercy.
Part of a letter penned by King Everild of Khaim, 497 A.S.
Third war with Cyngalon: winter campaign.
TWELVE
Mist clung to the dawn. Its fingers wrapped around the trees and trailed across the hills as steam rose from the horses, their heat and their breath.
Meilyr had been given his own horse, for life. Whosoever’s was shortest, he supposed. Cynefrith: rich bay in coat, responsive and calm, with a soft dark nose and those big intelligent eyes that meant he loved her already.
Earlier he had been heaved, exhausted, into fine riding attire and marched to the stables, where Prince Osian waited.
In a clamour, the party had ridden for several bells to the main encampment of the hunt, Meilyr behind the prince with Demelza and the rest of the royal household, hemmed between spurts of crownsworn.
The staging camp was a large area of roughly cleared ground amidst looming woodland, strewn with white tents and needless amounts of regalia.
Dozens of braziers spewed the laden scent of smoke and men and food.
Preparation had taken days, and the place was a congealing mess of activity and the bodies of humans and horses, hounds and falcons.
What would Arawn have made of this on their doorstep? The lord of the otherfolk had a storied history with trespassers, but would probably have left Khaim to their sport. Brutal sport was all it was, after all. Gods willing, it might even give the court something new to talk about.
The largest, most central tent was golden rather than white; the White Dragon had been meticulously stitched into the thick fabric of the roof, its maw wide in victory.
The tent’s embroidered sides had been tied open, and the royal party dismounted outside, horses whisked away by nimble stable hands. The air was thick with anticipation.
Here, people hungered for blood.
Meilyr slid from the saddle and turned to Cynefrith. She smelled wonderfully of horse and nosed towards him, ears perked. ‘Thank you,’ he said, smoothing her long neck, allowing himself what came naturally: she was eager but steady. Intrigued by him.
‘I was hoping you would ride with the rest of us.’
Lord Leighton stood behind Meilyr, between him and the main tent.
‘Had I known, I would have ridden ahead to keep you company.’ There was a slick weight to the words that unmasked his intent. ‘Well, next time.’
Meilyr’s throat was almost too tight to speak. ‘Lord Leighton.’
‘Perhaps…’ The Earl of March stepped closer. Meilyr had a horse behind him, and his insides coursed with panic. ‘If His Majesty remains so busy, and you find yourself lonely—’
‘Lord Leighton.’ Prince Osian arrived like a burst of sun over frozen hills. ‘I believe your house are preparing in their tent. If you will excuse us.’
There was no mistaking the steel behind the words.
Lord Leighton bowed stiffly. ‘Majesty.’
The prince offered his hand and Meilyr took it, gladly. Someone finally came to take Cynefrith, and he and the prince walked to the main tent, Meilyr’s nerves sickly sharp.
Beneath the marrow-hued canopy, two of the prince’s knights – Ser Pedr and Ser Blythe – came to meet them, arms full.
The prince squeezed Meilyr’s arm before letting go. ‘These are for you.’ He reached for the first item Ser Pedr held.
It was an exquisite yew horse-bow, engraved with oak leaves and horses, and a shaft of arrows fletched with black swan feathers.
With them, a dagger almost an exact match to the one on which they had sworn their blood oath, which the prince unsheathed to show Meilyr the dark glimmer and sharpness of its edge: gwaed-steel.
Weapons for a hunt.
‘Consider them gifts of our union. You ride with me.’
There were many in the tent who had paused to watch, and Meilyr shared their surprise. Harlan had explained consorts and concubines generally remained at the rear of the hunt, if they partook at all. The prince had chosen a different part for him.
So be it.
‘Thank you, My Prince. It would be an honour.’
‘One you deserve.’
‘Ha!’ Aldreda marched over, grinning. ‘Excellent sport! I love it, Osian.’
That put an end to that. Even Prince Wystan, inspecting his own ornate weaponry nearby, shut his mouth with only a grimace of disdain. The almost equally well-dressed young noble next to him – Captain Radnor’s son, Kenelm Radnor – smirked and whispered something to the youngest prince.
Meilyr ignored them. In that tent bursting with Khaimlic royalty – with Khaimlic and Marcher nobles, squires and all their guards – he took the knife from Prince Osian.
He could taste the subdued echo of the alderwood hilt, drowned by the iron worked into the tang: bitter, like blood on his tongue, giving the metal its Cyngaleg namesake: blood-steel.
A grim bur of anticipation snared him. He was armed now, in a way all could see.
He met Prince Osian’s gaze unflinchingly, and the bond between them thrummed in answer.
‘Come, then.’ Aldreda clapped her brother on the shoulder. ‘Whilst the air is fresh, and before these old sods fall asleep.’
Motion swept through the camp. The hounds and horses caught it sharply, and everything erupted into noise.
Meilyr followed the prince to their horses, readied beyond the tent. All had had their forelegs and chests slathered with red-tinted grease, to allow for smoother jumping and to mimic the blood Khaim hoped to spill.
The prince himself saw to Meilyr’s gear, strapped his bow and quiver to his saddle, checked the reins and stirrups and girth.
All with the meticulous certainty of someone who had done it a hundred times, a thousand times, as easily as any stable hand or squire.
He wore his riding attire the same way, not a costume but something with practised purpose.
Meilyr took that latest shred of information about the Prince of Cyngalon and turned it over in his mind several times. Tucked it away with the rest.
He fastened the knife belt to his own hip, the leather aged long enough he did not have to feel a trace of life.
Prince Osian took his hands, in a gesture becoming startlingly habitual. To anyone looking, it would appear a lingering, intimate moment in the open: the prince and his consort.
What was still very far from customary was how the prince leaned in to Meilyr’s ear, his voice low. ‘Stay close to me,’ he said. Not a threat but a warning. He hesitated, then tilted Meilyr’s chin softly with his hand and kissed where his jaw met his throat.
Meilyr’s heart stuttered.
Prince Osian stepped away, and the call to mount went up, repeated a dozen times around them.
Meilyr mounted, gripping a handful of Cynefrith’s mane for stability along with the reins. Ahead, the Khaimlic priest who had married them languidly swung an incense burner as they blessed the coming hunt, naming each of the god-saint Khaimlic forebears.
The warmth on Meilyr’s skin lingered. It was a ridiculous struggle not to reach and touch it.
It was an act, all of it.
Shame bloomed, sprouting thorns. Celyn would be furious—
Meilyr shoved it away. One of Princess Aldreda’s knights blew a deep, guttural horn, and the party set off.
He focused on helping Cynefrith weave through the fray, staying close behind Prince Osian, the prince’s knights loosely about them.
The usual faces: Sers Pedr, Blythe, Macsen, Garrick, Siddel and Bada.
The Heir Apparent rode up front with her brother, her haughty chestnut jostling the much calmer grey. Her own knights rode amongst Prince Osian’s, and as they all plunged into the wood, Meilyr drowned in the sound of men and horses and hounds.
But the floor was awash with bluebells, the air of living things in his lungs. It was good to be in the saddle; slumbering muscles would detest him later, but it was calming to have Cynefrith’s certainty beneath him.
The initial charge wore off and the company slowed, conversation flourishing. Demelza was some distance behind, caught in talk with a pair of Khaim-based nobles. Meilyr sat back, content to listen. Glad to not have to find words.
His discomfort dulled, and the day wore on with several false alarms of frenzy. Aldreda called a halt along the banks of a wide, partially exposed stream, and the party broke to rest and drink.
Meilyr dismounted heavily, stretched his already-aching body and saw to Cynefrith at the water’s edge.
It was beautiful, if one ignored all the Khaimlic regalia.
The gloriously clear water caught every droplet of sun, and for an instant everything was lush and green and Cyngalon, in a way that hurt as much as it healed.
This stream would have its source deep in the mountains, some little spring or brook that perhaps no Khaimfolc had ever seen.
Had Celyn been released? Was he safely back at the apothecary?
‘You ride very well.’ Princess Aldreda led her horse in beside his. ‘I admit I’m a little surprised.’
Meilyr looked away, prying burs from horsehair. ‘My family tended a small farm, for a time.’ He had learned to ride as soon as he could walk, had been sat on a horse even before that. Learn to ride, and ride well, his father had said when he was old enough to understand. Learn to ride, and to run.
‘Did they now?’ She was genuinely interested. ‘Osian, your favourite really is full of surprises. You’ll have to bring him home at some point; I’m going to miss him more than I’m going to miss you.’
Prince Osian, fussing over a set of very happy hounds further down the bank, caught his gaze.
Meilyr focused on Cynefrith. He would not go to Khaim. Not unless Celyn’s life was at sword-point to force him across the sea, and only then. He would never set foot in Khaim.
The afternoon melted into the haze of riding and voices – until a shout sounded and the company erupted into mayhem.
Cynefrith plunged automatically after the leading horses. Meilyr did not so much as reach for his bow. The trees screamed with baying hounds, everywhere awash with noise and the cloy of hunger.
They burst through a tangle of undergrowth, and it happened.
Prince Osian killed the stag. Clean, and swift, and without pleasure.
The sensation hollowed out Meilyr’s insides as red blood lit the forest floor. The acrid bite of iron climbed into his mouth as the soft bloom of life burst into absence, and cold.
A new wave of sound crashed over him as the surrounding riders shouted and cheered, emptying him still further.
Unobserved in the eye of the storm, the prince dismounted and knelt. Mumbled, as though to the stag, or perhaps something beyond it.
Could it be…?
Silently, Meilyr breathed the words in Cyngaleg: the thanks for a life of the land, to sustain the land. His eyes stung, but he did not look away. His duty was to the stag. To Cyngalon.
To Cyngalon, until his own blood returned to her as well.