“Next to Heamus is the king’s aunt, who is of little interest. The other is her maid.”
Next came priests, cowled in the colours of their deities: orange for Heissal, the god of the day, purple for Lessiah, the goddess of night, red for Hayel, the goddess of fertility, and black for Xus, the god of death. All had their faces hidden by white masks bent into the sadness of mourning—except the priest of Xus, whose mask showed something that could have been hilarity or mania. Curiously, the priest of Xus did not sit; instead he chose to stand, almost lost in the shadows behind the thrones.
“Pay attention to the priest of Heissal. He is called Neander, and a squire called Rufra is his illegitimate son. They pass him off as a cousin.” She shook her head. “And they are ap Vthyrs.”
“Didn’t we …”
“Kill one? Yes. They caused a lot of trouble because it was said they were not truly blessed, but now they have a new leader and pay tribute to the Mennixes. King Doran allows them to rule their lands as they wish and has titled them blessed rather than start another fight.”
“But if you are not born blessed …”
“Then some convenient bloodline can be found to raise you, if needed.”
“No wonder they bully him.”
“They may have cause. In killing their old leader the king may have made a hedging’s deal and swapped a bull mount for a poisonous lizard. The new ap Vthyr blessed are ambitious and looking beyond their lands. They may have settled for the title of blessed under Doran ap Mennix or they may be biding their time before they make a play for real power—and I would bet on the latter before the former. They are an old family with a lot of grudges. They are shedding their old ways but keeping the grudges. You should watch this Rufra boy.”
“Is there anyone I shouldn’t watch?”
Candlelight reflected from her eyes as she glanced at me.
“No.”
Next onto the stage came the oldest man I had ever seen. His face was as wrinkled as dried fruit and his beard reached down to his golden belt. All of his clothing was gold, but the most striking thing about him was not his great age or the golden clothes he wore but the lizard cages—one on each shoulder, one worn as a hat—that were part of his clothing. It looked impossible that someone so old and frail could support such an elaborate castle of wires and cloth. Each cage contained a small fire-lizard—they do not actually breathe fire, only idiots believe that, but they do spit a kind of venom that burns the skin.
“That is Daana ap Dhyrrin, great-grandfather of Tomas and son of the last ap Dhyrrin king. He is adviser to the king and the king’s father before him, and I would think that if he were going to make a play for power he would have done it years ago.” I glanced along our table and saw Tomas at the end, he seemed transfixed by the old man. Daana ap Dhyrrin gave the boy a wink. My master noticed this as well. “Maybe what Daana ap Dhyrrin would never take for himself he would like to gift to another.” She went quiet while she thought about that, then added. “Do you remember, you used to be quite sure that fire-lizards breathed actual fire?”
Chapter 7
The king and queen appeared next. It was common knowledge throughout the Tired Lands that King Doran ap Mennix, one of the greatest kings of our age, was sick and dying of some wasting disease. It is testimony to my naivety that I had believed it.
King Doran ap Mennix was being poisoned with nightsmilk. I could see it in the yellow bags beneath his eyes and the unmistakable way his veins throbbed against his papery skin. If I could see it then I bet almost every other person in the hall could see it too. I felt like turning to the man sat next to me and saying, “He’s being poisoned!” but as we hadn’t been asked to protect him I guessed his poisoner sat next to him—Queen Adran ap Mennix. “As ambitious as she is beautiful” was what people said about her. Though she wasn’t beautiful, not really. Her eyes were too small for her nose, and her mouth was a hard red line. Adran wore green, a tight-fitting top and trousers that flared out into skirts sewn with thousands of lizard scales which shimmered in the candlelight. Her face was painted with rouge and dark colours to accentuate her bone structure, and her hair was lifted into an elaborate construction, strands of thick black hair woven in and out of antlers of hard bread, the ultimate show of wealth—food for nothing but decoration. All in all she looked like some magical and haughty forest creature, but we could all have been wearing sacks and a blind man would have known she was a queen.
She was definitely attractive, I’ll give her that, but it came from her sense of assurance not her face or her fine clothes.
Once it had been believed Adran Mennix would be high queen and Doran ap Mennix high king. Twenty years ago High King Darsese had been unsteady on his throne and it had been expected that Doran ap Mennix would take his place. Darsese was a weak king, and the Tired Lands were on fire with minor resource wars. The Landsmen, protectors of the high king’s order, were more concerned with their eternal hunt for sorcerers. Doran ap Mennix, young, strong and loved, rode his army right up to the walls of Ceadoc, the capital. All expected him to be crowned high king within the week.
But he was not.
Every village know-it-all has a pet theory about why, but I have always believed the answer is obvious. Doran ap Mennix was a man of action; the high king is a man tied to a throne. To be high king is to be little more than a figurehead. Doran ap Mennix was not the sort of far-seeing king who would think of change over time; he was the sort of man who thought of now and so he walked away, into a land where he could see the changes his blade wrought. He became the attack dog of High King Darsese, and he was happy.
Rumour has it his wife was not. It is an odd coincidence that Doran ap Mennix, despite having a castle full of by-blows proving his fertility, has only one legitimate child. And that child is nineteen years old, which would mean he was conceived just before Doran ap Mennix walked away from the palace of the high king.
It does not do to disappoint the ambitious.
When the king and queen were sat the food came out and my master, with a brief touch on my arm, vanished from the table. Plate after metal plate of pork, cooked in a myriad different ways, and bread so gleaming white I was unsure if it was real until I saw someone tear it apart. With the food came pots of cider and perry which were slurped up eagerly by everyone around me. I only sipped at mine as I watched the men and women at the top table.