“Lady Wyn.”
I looked up from my spinning, lowering my work so that the drop spindle touched the ground.
It was Finn, hands clasped behind his back, a wretched expression on his face as if he could barely hold bad news inside him.
I leaped to my feet, my nettle yarn and spindle in a heap at my feet.
Carrick?
“No, lass! The little man’s playing in mud like an otter.” Yet he looked down, shifting his weight from boot to boot.
Was the man sick?
I touched his shoulder. What’s wrong?
Finn squared his shoulders. “It’s the Ri.” He saw my alarm and rushed on. “He’s well too, Lady Wyn, never you fear.”
I held my hands out, palms up. What, then?
Finn scowled fiercely, working up to what? I imagined he’d looked more pleasant going into battle beside the Ri.
“I can’t do this, Lady Wyn. I shouldn’t. I bid you good day.” Finn turned on his heel and marched away.
I grabbed his arm and jabbed a finger at the bench. Sit!
Finn did, reluctantly. I sat beside him, but he just clasped and unclasped his gnarled hands. Finally, he looked me in the eye. When I saw his grief and resolve, I almost told him to forget what he was going to say.
Instead, I gathered the nettle yarn and spindle, grateful to attend to something else.
“Aye, that’ll make it easier, I think. You watch your yarn. I’ll watch the horizon and tell you what must be said.”
I nodded and set the spindle whirling as if the seven kingdoms of Eyre depended on it.
“I’ve come to tell you about Corbin,” began Finn. “If I had Ionwyn’s way with words, you’d hear harp music as I spoke. And you should, lass, for it’s the story of a good man.”
I watched him, intent to hear Corbin’s story. I motioned that Finn should go on.
“Corbin is a king disgraced, and his people love him for it. I’ve loved him as if he was my own son since his father died.”
Finn seemed uneasy with me watching him so closely, so I made a show of concentrating on the cloud of nettle fiber as it slid toward the drop spindle. Finally, Finn relaxed.
“Corbin’s father was a good man. His goodness was in his marrow, and Corbin inherited that from him. His mother was a stranger to us, her kin unknown, but Corbin’s father couldn’t look away from her.” He met my eyes. “I confess, lass, there was something about her—a glory you couldn’t get enough of. You didn’t mind her reaching into your heart, until you discovered her fingers were tangled in your heartstrings and she didn’t care what she tore. I learned not to listen to her, and so I kept my heart safe. Other men were not so lucky.”
I nodded.
He spoke as if the words had an unpleasant flavor. “Seven years ago, a man Corbin’s mother had taken as a lover was found dead, stabbed in the back. She didn’t deny that she’d lain with him or that she killed him. She vowed he’d threatened her—as if any man could make her fearful!—and that she killed him to protect herself. There were no witnesses to the killing, and the man was known for his vile disposition.” Finn shook his head. “But the back! There was a vileness about that, as well. So the Advocate decreed that the queen should be banished for five years and an honor price be paid to the man’s family. I think the king’s heart shattered. He died the day he learned all his queen had done.”
I looked up from my spinning. A judge would rule against the royalty?
Finn saw my astonishment.
“Ah, at times I forget you’re not of Eyre. No matter which of the kingdoms, the Ri is subject to an Advocate’s ruling, just as any man. But an althech fortha can bear the judgment for royalty: the honor price is paid, yet the king’s honor isn’t belittled. The cousin who could have acted as the dead king’s althech fortha refused. He wouldn’t risk the farm his sons would inherit to cover the queen’s dishonor.
“Corbin wouldn’t leave the price unpaid, so he became the althech fortha for his dead father. At fifteen summers, he surrendered almost half his father’s land as payment. Connach saw the opportunity as a chance to rule himself, and the chiefs might have chosen him to be the new Ri, if not for the raiders. But the raiders struck before the chiefs could choose. Corbin fought bravely—and with a poor man’s sword. No raider could pass him, and I was proud to fight beside him.”
Finn stretched his legs before him. “The chiefs chose him as their Ri, even though he had borne the weight of the judgment against his father.”
I signed a question.
“No, his mother never returned, so much the better for Corbin! And he’s been a good Ri ever since, though Connach never made it easy for him, as you can guess.”
I could. It explained Connach’s bitterness, why he’d pushed so hard to challenge the Ri after Moyle attacked me.
And I couldn’t help but love the Ri a little more.
Finn gazed at his boots. “Ah, lass, out of respect, I’ll say this quickly—a clean cut by a sharp blade. Do you understand me?”
I fed the nettle fiber into the twist created by the whirling spindle, saw the cloud of strands tighten into yarn, but all I could hear was the grief in Finn’s voice.
I nodded.
“You’re not good for the Ri.” He inhaled through his nose. “I see his face when he looks at you, and don’t I know his face and his moods well? I’ve been father and mother to him all these years.”
Any other time, I’d have laughed at the idea of Finn mothering anyone, but I couldn’t think beyond You’re not good for the Ri.
A clean cut, indeed. And deep too.
“There’s been muttering among the chiefs about the Ri favoring a girl without kin or speech, despite me knocking heads together. Not all of them, mind you! But enough, enough.”
The nettle fiber still slid through my fingers—I’d spun too many years to let the yarn thin and break—but my vision blurred till I spun by feel alone.
“You won a place among us when you confronted Connach. But a place beside the Ri is different from a place among his people, and you know it. Corbin’s strong enough and stubborn enough that he’d choose you anyway.”
I blinked once . . . twice, till the yarn came back into focus. The world blurred, as if the spindle stood still and everything else turned. But I was proud—so proud!—that I’d kept the yarn smooth and even.
“So please, Lady Wyn,” said Finn, “don’t let him choose you.”
I caught the spindle and wound the new yarn around the base. Then I set it spinning again, feeding the fiber into the twist as if nothing had happened.
Finn sat still, though I knew he was watching. Waiting. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I won’t press you for an answer, Lady Wyn. I know you think me rough, but I’m not cruel. Just know he needs the support of all his chiefs. There’s rumor of war in the air.”
I looked up.
“There’s a country across the water. Lacharra—”
The spindle fell, still spinning, to the ground and danced there for a moment like a top. Lacharra. So the Queen had her wars after all.
I quickly gathered the fiber, spindle, and yarn into my lap.
“—the king of Lacharra is stretching his borders the way a child spreads his arms when he wakes. I fear we’ll have to deal with them soon, and Corbin can’t afford to have his chiefs divided.” He put a hand on my arm. “He himself can’t afford to be divided.”
Divided! I felt I was being torn to pieces: the Ri, the chiefs, my brothers’ tunics, the enchantment.
I looked down at the spindle in my lap.
I’d been a princess. I was sister and aunt. Mad maid from the forest. Connach’s challenger and victor. And perhaps the Ri’s love.
No. I was the Swan-Keeper—and when my brothers were men, I’d be the princess of Lacharra once more.
This time, I would not forget it.
When Finn walked away, I lifted the spindle with shaking hands and set it spinning again. There was a familiarity to the action that steadied me.
I couldn’t help Lacharra until I freed my brothers. In the meantime, I could free the Ri. Ionwyn had said that royalty in Eyre protected their own.
The Ri was as much a part of me as breath and blood—I would not have him hurt.
I would not let more countries suffer as the Queen waged her wars.
So I spun the nettle yarn the rest of that afternoon and into the evening. When the Ri asked me to draw for him, I did not set the yarn aside.