CHAPTER TWO

 

IT WAS TWO days since Deffo had appeared with news of his fellow Guardian, Wanderer.

Celestaine had a cautious trust in Wanderer, which she didn’t extend to any of his fellow demigods who had been left by the gods themselves to take care of humankind. Reckoner’s transformation into the Kinslayer had pretty much done a hatchet job on a lot of people’s trust in them. But Wanderer had given her the sword that could cut through anything. She had cut off the Kinslayer’s hand with it, besides killing a dragon. It had allowed her to take him down, along with the others; and now it was gone, buried deep in a rock after breaking against Wall’s hammer and flying off. Fate or godly intervention? She didn’t care to know. But there was an urgent appeal in Deffo’s claim.

“Wanderer’s near. He knows where the gods are!”

The Kinslayer had severed the gods from the world. Their temples and their followers were everywhere bereft. Only the Guardians remained. Celest was ambivalent about the gods. A god could have restored wings to the Aethani and not left it to her to attempt the journey in some gesture of reparation she wasn’t entirely up to but which had to be done. It had not ended as she had hoped. Some things were not undoable. Maybe the gods were responsible for that impulse to improve and mend that seemed to fill her with the urge to action she felt now. So much had been made ruin and the alternative was to lie in the cherry orchard in a drunken stupor, avoiding people and watching the days pass by unchanged. She couldn’t dredge up sufficient self-pity for that.

“But you are going,” Deffo said, hanging onto the stable door as a way of half-hiding. “When this is done.”

Heno and Nedlam, gathered here under the pretence of looking after the horses, looked meaningfully at her. She fancied there was a twinge of wistfulness in Heno’s face, but he was always hard to read. She figured he was getting better at dealing with emotions, but he didn’t like to show it.

“We’re going. After the wedding. Soon as it’s over.” She nodded firmly.

“Does that mean I get to sing?” Ralas asked. He was sitting on a hay bale, picking hair out of the horse brush using the iron comb. His movements were slow, pain-filled but executed with great determination and grace. A large ball of horse hair was gathered at his side. “I noticed some rather nice instruments around the place. In the halls. Gathering dust.”

“You can have them. And yes. We need musicians. If you want to play, that is. Though you don’t have to play ‘All Black and Silver Fire He Came’.” She named the song he had been working on to celebrate Deffo’s musteline heroism in the defeat of Wall—a song fraught with the most expansive lyrics and melodramatic chords, not to mention a role of daring-do which stretched the imagination almost to breaking point. She looked at Ralas with caution. He could be so self-deprecating and sarcastic at times that she wasn’t sure he intended to be taken at his word, but he looked cheered. “No ‘Castle Mourn’-ing,” she added.

“Oh, I think I have to play whatever the bride requests,” he said with a smirk and flexed his right hand, looking critically at his long fingers, pale and weak. They were filthy and the nails black with grease from the brushes. “Maybe I could have some new clothes? A bard should not appear as a tramp.” He gestured at his rough travelling gear, much of which had not been washed for weeks. “In fact, some of us are in serious need of bathing and grooming.” He glanced at the Yoggs.

Nedlam bared her huge teeth in a grin and patted Celestaine’s horse, whose hide was gleaming softly in the sunlight coming through the door. She clapped it on the neck, gently, and rested her hand on its withers, managing to make it look small though it was a war-steed and a high one at that. “All finished here. Shiny little horsie. Very nice work.”

“He means us,” Heno growled, shaking his head as he looked at Celestaine to see how bad it was going to be. There was a strange tension around his eyes, a sombre resignation waiting to be born.

She had honestly not given a thought so far to appearing at a clan gathering with him at her side. With them all looking at her she could see that they were all picturing it, aside from Nedlam who was busy licking a finger and applying it to a streak of mud on her booted knee. Celest looked at Heno, her lover and her most loyal companion. Slate blue of skin, white of hair, tusked, moustached, taller by a foot than any human she had ever known. And Nedlam, eight foot and then some of massive power, topped by a spiked black coxcomb. She had a brief vision of Nedlam in a dress, holding Wall’s gigantic hammer with a ribbon tied around its haft, the bloody handprint of a human child on her bodice, laced with the guts of her enemies to join the human and the Yorughan traditional formalwear. She blinked to get rid of it.

Even without that there would be some kind of explanation required. But then, what explanation could she possibly offer?

Hello, everyone. Yes, it’s me, Celestaine the Fair, of Fernreame. I know the song says I killed the Kinslayer but really it was a group effort and the people you should thank are these two here. He did breed them in a pit under the earth for the specific purpose of channelling his power to wipe out all humankind but in a turn-up for the books they decided to stick the knife in his back first. So, I know they look like every nightmare you’ve been having for the last few years but if it hadn’t been for them letting me go after I got captured and helping us all to reach the inner sanctum at Nydarrow none of this would ever have happened and you’d all be topsoil by now! Isn’t that amazing? And yes, this one that does the death-lightning is here with me. On my arm. We’re together. I hope you’ll all join us in offering a toast to the bride and groom…

“Maybe it’s wiser if we don’t go,” Heno said. His tone made it clear he was prepared to wait, unhappy about it, but accepting of their place as scum in this scenario—and she hated it, realising only then that she’d just assumed they would all be going, that they were all welcome. They must be welcome, it was only fair after all that had happened, but she knew that her idea of history and the one already making the rounds in the mouths of minstrels and couriers were very different things.

“I’m going to sort it out,” she said at the same time. “I’ll make it right. But just in case make sure everything is ready to leave at a second’s notice.” She put her saddle down on the bale beside Ralas.

“What’s a wedding?” Nedlam asked suddenly, frowning down at Celestaine, as what had been said ten minutes ago finally reached its destination.

 

 

SHE RODE OUT with Caradwyn the next day after little sleep, wondering how to broach the subject. They took their most common route away from the estate by the river’s edge, cantering easily along the green hollow, the stems of flyworts and parsleys breaking as they passed and lending a sharp, herbal scent to the dawn air. This hour and the one before sunset had always seemed the most magical, full of unmanifest desire and the possibility of anything being around the corner. They slowed as they approached the rocky ford and Celestaine started to draw breath but before she could speak Caradwyn turned to her, standing in the stirrups to haul back her spirited grey stallion, her long white-gold braids flying around her shoulders as she expertly wrestled him into a submissive prance.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with that Yorughan? How long were you going to wait? Forever? Do you really think so little of me, Celest?” She rolled her eyes. “And now you’re giving me the face that says you can’t believe I know. I hope you realise that it’s not hard to guess. So much sw-sw-sw whispering and glancing and stalwart standing up like a royal trout with a skewer up your arse! And anyway, why else would you be avoiding me?”

Celest reined back, weight lower, hardly moving, her horse instantly responsive from their years of familiarity and battle. “I thought you’d get the same face on you I see everywhere else when they’re with me.” They, not him. They. Some kind of new family unit.

The horses began to pick their way around the boulders and rocks of the shallow river crossing. They let the reins loose.

“I can’t say I wasn’t surprised, Cel, but not as surprised as when I heard you killed the Kinslayer.” She cast a side eye.

“I didn’t really do that,” Celestaine said, watching Caradwyn’s knowing smile. “I was there at the end, but so were a lot of other people.”

“I like my version better.”

“It isn’t true.”

“I don’t think that’s the point of a story.”

“Yes, but it’s the point of history,” Celestaine said evenly, knowing this was only the preamble to what Caradwyn wanted to say next.

“And, since history is being written and you have a starring role, I do think that I can sway matters in your favour for the wedding,” Caradwyn said. “I can enforce the peace, until a lot of drink has gone under the bridge. After that I can’t vouch for things and I can’t speak for Starich or his entourage though I have heard they are many war veterans. So, my proposal is that there is a separate gathering in the orchard for your party. You can do the ceremonial bits, and then join them there. It’s not overlooked by the main tents or any of the gardens and it has a clear route to the Ilkand road.”

“Ah. I see,” Celest said, grateful but also hurt in a way she had not expected. It was minor and she didn’t count it worth much. “Thank you. That’s very pragmatic.”

They had reached the end of the crossing and were gathering themselves up again as the horses stepped out onto the track, one horse to either side, pressed close enough by the overgrowth that their stirrups clashed now and again.

“I wish it would be otherwise,” Caradwyn said. “But I don’t have that much faith in us all as a collective. Forinthi are progressive and forgiving but they aren’t divine. If it were only you and me though then I want you to know I’d be glad if it were a double wedding. I’d never put you aside because of who you choose to love.” She reached over and squeezed Celest’s hand where it was on the saddle pommel. “Life will take us away from each other but it will never take you from my heart, Celest. This only shows that you are a hero in more ways than merely slaying a mad god. Now, let’s ride like the wind! Let’s be highwaymen! One more time!” And before Celestaine could react, her heart jammed awkwardly in her throat, Caradwyn had spurred her stallion into a leaping gallop and she was having to dodge huge clods of mud flying up at her face as it showed her a neat pair of iron shoes.

They thundered below the beech stands and the arching banks of the long cutway that ran through the hills south of the estate, the wind in their faces, mud and the whipping lash of branches a strange frenzy, reminiscent to Celestaine of so many other gallops; old ones here in the innocent dawn, and fresher ones across fields of blood, tendrils of tangling bloodweed leaping from the bodies of the newly slain as Tzarkomen necromancers called it forth to poison those fleeing the Kinslayer’s ruin. She was so glad that Caradwyn had never been there, so grateful she and her dreamy mind were safe here, and then to her left she saw a flash of metal against the darkness of the woods.

Automatically she was reaching for the Guardian-given sword and found only emptiness under her hand. For a flash she saw the broken, lost blade’s entry point to its tomb, a black slash in stone, then recalled her common straight sword, left behind. Her hand didn’t pause, travelling to her boot dagger without need of thought. It was in her hand as she sat up, goading her horse faster, nudging to the rear quarter of the grey stallion to push herself between Caradwyn and whoever was in the trees.

The sound of an arrow smacking leaves in flight came to her and she countered her impulse to duck, instead shouting loudly in the war cry that wasn’t even a word. The arrow slipped between them with a hiss and vanished silently into the hedgerow on the far side of the track. Caradwyn was turning in the saddle as Celest used the slack of her reins to whack the stallion’s rump.

“Go, go!” she screamed after it as she sat back, straight and tall, turning her weight and intent to face the attack. She drove the horse into the woods at the first opportunity, eyes struggling with the sudden darkness, the metal flash locked to a place in her mind. Another arrow came, passing her by a hair’s breadth, and she recognised the black fletches on it with a sickening plunge in the gut just before she caught sight of the three Yorughan facing her, one with bow drawn back, one lancer, one with a club. The ragtag of the Kinslayer’s armies had broken apart and scattered into warbands that roamed without purpose other than their own survival. They were fractions and free, but without roots or governance their years of living by the sword and being driven to the slaughter continued amok. She could not figure them for anything other than a random crew come to try its luck in the rich farmlands of the Fernreame estates. In these edgewoods they could live for seasons, years even, and use the miles of unclaimed wilds to travel unseen day after day.

Her horse wove left and right, an indirect line that took advantage of cover. Celestaine changed her grip on her dagger to an overhand hold and altered course in a moment, aware of the archer loosing and missing as she lay low to the horse’s neck, then sped up to maximum speed to charge them down. The lancer stood to the last moment, braced and ready to skewer the horse with their polearm, its blade sharp—the glinting object that had betrayed them—but the horse was well trained and turned aside on a pin at the penultimate second, leaving Celestaine in only her leather riding gear flying at them, dagger hand scything, going for any good strike. Her impact at shoulder height knocking two of them down. It was a foolish move, suicidal on a battlefield, but here the horse was a liability and without better weapons she had only herself to use.

She felt herself hit them, felt the dagger cut and bite, drag hard so that she had to fight with all her focus to hold onto it but in a second she had lost it anyway, and then she was rolling over and over, fighting to regain her feet and face them. One was down, gurgling its last, the dagger sticking out from a point near its collarbone. The archer was nocking an arrow—the range was point blank, only an idiot could miss her, there was no cover at all. The third, a grizzled war matron with a massive club, was recovering also, reaching for her weapon mere feet from Celestaine’s rising face, her tusks bloodied and a grin on her face that reminded Celestaine of Nedlam’s bloodthirst. The archer was, beside her, a minor problem.

Celestaine whistled and closed her fingers on earth and leaves. She flung the dirt as hard as she could, jumping to stand as the war matron blinked automatically, snarling contempt, the club rising to her one-handed hold as easily as if it were nothing. Celest stayed low and shoulder-charged the archer with a roar, hoping to put him off his draw. It wouldn’t have worked but for a moment that she saw a flicker of recognition in his face.

“Kinslayer’s Bane,” he said, taken aback, and he did falter: only for a moment, but it was the moment in which she reached him and made her tackle. He was huge and sturdy, but she was heavy and without hesitation. She wrapped her arms around his legs, pulling to the side. He lost his balance, unable to regain it, going over, the bow flung away from him to save it as his hands also went for his knives and sword, fumbling in mid-air as hers also searched, patting over one another in a moment before he hit the ground, trapping her arm beneath him.

“What?” The female Yogg had her club back in its arc, looking at Celestaine as she closed the yard between them, her boot coming down hard on Celestaine’s lower leg. It hurt brutally but it didn’t break, the tough sole of the boot sliding off her calf, crushing the muscle. “Kinslayer?” She stood, baffled for a moment as to the meaning, or for some other reason that Celest would never discover because at that moment her horse came powering out of the bushes and reared up, its iron-shod forefoot crashing into the woman’s skull with the sound of a hardened wooden bowl being broken.

By then the archer was getting up and backing away from her, the sight of his companions’ end and her reputation making him fatally indecisive. An arrow with peach and white fletchings sprouted suddenly from the back of his shoulder, followed by another, the point coming right through his torso directly at Celestaine. He looked surprised, as if he wanted to say something to her. He raised his arm, knife falling from his hand to point at her, and then fell on his face, dead.

“Celest! Celest!” Caradwyn was riding at her, bow in hand, a figure of strange colour in the green gloom. “Are you all right?” She slid off her horse and hugged Celestaine hard before standing back to look down at the bodies around them in the little clearing made by all the action.

Celestaine blinked, trying to clear her thoughts and feelings. “Why didn’t you tell me you had trouble with warbands?”

Caradwyn’s face, flushed pink, eyes bright with fear and excitement, was a picture of startling beauty. Celestaine suddenly envied her, then looked down at the Yorughan. She felt an ugly sensation at killing them, even though they had tried to kill her first. Maybe there was something to have been said and now it wasn’t going to be said, but she’d never been the diplomat. She reached out and hugged her cousin with one arm around her shoulders.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Caradwyn said, giggling at the foolishness of the sentiment and with an overspill of adrenaline. “I thought it might upset you, given your Heno.”

Celestaine nodded slowly. “Just because things look alike doesn’t mean they’re the same. I think I can handle the notion of bandits, Cara.”

Caradwyn nodded. “I’ll remember that.”

“I thought you were carrying that bow for show.”

“I was.”

Celestaine looked around them, but there seemed nobody left to say anything. “Let’s get out of here.” My Heno.

“I’ll send some men out for the bodies. Tell them to bury them deep here.”

Celestaine said, “You’ve done this before.”

“Yes. And I’ll do it again. Until they stop.”

They rode back in silence.

As they approached the yards they could already hear the hubbub of many voices. Coming through the side gates they found it full of newly arrived wagons and riders. At the centre of the melee a man on horseback was talking to someone standing at his stirrup. He was tall and dark, with long hair and skin the colour of walnut. A braided beard was neat on his jaw and he had the easy presence and power that Celest recognised from seasoned warriors when they weren’t in any imminent danger. He looked up as Caradwyn came through the gate and Celest watched her cousin’s back straighten with pride. That was him then, Starich the wolf.

“Not quite as large as yours,” Caradwyn murmured to Celest, leaning over towards her and crooking her little finger delicately in the shadow of her horse’s mane with a cheeky glint in her eye, “but strong in the arm and thick in the head, just the way I like them.”

Celestaine found herself laughing though she hadn’t expected to. She didn’t worry any more about Caradwyn’s happiness or her standing. The other warriors riding around the place looked to their leader with a deference she found heartening. Then Starich realised who she was and made a deep bow, head down to the level of his horse’s shoulder.

“Kinslayer slayer!” he roared and everyone looked over, not knowing whether they’d laugh or prostrate themselves. Starich grinned as he sat up, though he wasn’t mocking, only challenging a little, testing the family makeup in case he was going to be living among enemies within.

Celestaine straightened her back. Then his horse moved and she saw who he’d been talking to—a distinguished older man with a tousled mane of dark hair marked at the temples with thick silvering. He was dressed in a rather new set of tunic and trews made in the Fernreame colours, his hand placed confidently upon the horse’s rein as if he were engaging a grandson in a kindly natter, though Starich was no grandson of his.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. It was the reinvented sober and serious hero of ‘All Black and Silver Fire He Came’ himself; Deffo.

 

 

THE WEDDING WENT off without a hitch, ceremonies managed, words said, troths pledged and ribbons knotted. Guardians passing themselves off as old men were indulged with songs and a nice seat at a good table. Celestaine did her bit, spoke to various family members in a civil manner, attempted and failed to talk about anything other than the death of the Kinslayer and whether or not Deffo really had delivered the coup de grace.

“I honestly don’t recall seeing him there, but it was very confusing,” she repeated an infinite number of times, wondering at her own mercy and privately vowing to make him pay because clearly all the interest and the effusive conversation were down to his constant stoking of that particular fire.

Although she was aware of many whispers and rumours flying about things didn’t turn bad until much later in the afternoon. As soon as she was able she made her excuses and checked on the whereabouts of the others. Ralas was still strumming and singing near the groom’s table, though he was starting to look grey with exhaustion. Deffo was reclining regally amid a cluster of older women, being fed custard tart and mead: she could only imagine what tales he was telling and had to restrain herself from striding over to tip his table and its contents all over him and his doting admirers whilst shouting, “He bit Wall on the ankle!” She took a route that went past the privies and then skirted around through the stables and the rear yard into the orchard.

There she found Heno and Nedlam sharing a feast platter of roast meat and several jugs of wine. Nedlam was lying on her back, mouth covered in grease, chewing a suspiciously long-lasting bit of something that Celestaine sniffed out as ora, a root which was quite poisonous to humans but which Yorughan found deliciously intoxicating. Wall’s hammer lay in the crook of her arm, the haft twined with Brigand’s Glory flowers in imitation of a bridal stave.

“Riddle-me-ree…” The song, sung from the stables, made her wonder if she’d been followed, but then the place was full of mildly intoxicated servants going about their duties. Everyone had been included in the celebrations. She could just make out the sounds of ‘The Blade of Castle Mourn’ starting up again from the musicians stationed with the warrior party of Starich’s at their pavilions on the Lamb Field. She shook off her worries as Heno stood to greet her and she took the wine flagon and drank a few swallows from it.

“Your onerous duties are done?” He was less drunk than he appeared, dressed for travelling, only his coat on the grass.

“Yes,” she hugged him and looked down at Nedlam’s idle, grinning face, her eyes dark with drug. “Is she going to be able to move?”

“Married,” Nedlam said, fondly patting the hammer. “Wine, meat, celebration! See. We have civil… civil… got good.”

“All we have to do is wait for Ralas and we can go,” Celestaine said with relief.

But Ralas did not come for some time and by then the wine had gone to her head and made her sleepy. Very sleepy. After a while of sitting, she snuggled against Heno’s chest and traced the line of his tusk with her forefinger before twining some of the strands of his silver beard around and around as he snored quietly, the cherry blossom just beginning to snow gently around them. And then it occurred to her that maybe Ralas was too late and she was more tired than she should be for a few glugs of home wine.

She tried to sit up and found it extremely difficult. Her vision kept blurring. Her limbs were slow, as if in water. Her sense of balance wavered. She jabbed Heno sharply, if clumsily. “Hey! Hey! Wake up! We’ve been p-poisoned!”

“My wife,” Nedlam said, grasping the hammer on her second try.

“Heno!” Celestaine thumped him on the chest from her sitting position. Snow was falling faster now and there was a man there, two, no three of them, or six, or three, standing armed with axes. One of them was the priest Starich’s retinue had brought so that the wedding could be blessed by the Gracious One, their chosen deity. He was young and blustery, shaking, she thought, as he pointed a finger down at them.

“There they are, as I said! See the ora root has them in its grasp already. Strike now! They are the reason for the gods’ turning away from us! These filthy animals from the black pits of Nydarrow are everywhere in this Forinthi hellhole! They have corrupted even the best of us—”

Celestaine felt vaguely that this might mean her as she hauled on a half inch of Heno’s moustache and just about tore it out. He woke with a roar of protest and floundered for a second as a fourth, or eighth, human male appeared and said loudly, “Stand back! What is this? Who defiles our celebration?”

Celestaine recognised Starich’s voice and then saw a flutter of peach and white beside him and two Caradwyns, both pale and shocked, her deathly pallor suddenly rendered eldritch by a flash of white and blue lightning that went zapping over her head and into the nearest tree, cracking a branch and showering them all with a blizzard of petals.

“No!” Celestaine shoved down Heno’s hand as another ball of soft white light began to form in his cupped palm. The magic singed her fingers. She blinked, trying to clear her vision as the priest ranted.

“These Yoggs here have corrupted the Slayer. They are the ones who cut off the gods. They must be sacrificed to appease the Gracious One, here, where is he, that Guardian, the Undefeated. He shall witness our virtue! He shall report back our righteous justice and entreat their return!” There was some scuffling and confusion and in a less portentous tone, “But where has he gone to? He told me. He distinctly told me that Wanderer had news of the gods, knew where they were. Here we can get their attention, bring them to us again. There’s so much to do. So much healing and reparation. We can’t manage it alone. They must come back. They must.”

“Hold your tongue,” Starich said. “Have you put ora in all this food? And given it to them?”

“I thought it was safer,” the priest said. “Now you can deal fairly with them for their crimes. They are subdued and the Slayer cannot protect them with her misguided sentiments.”

Caradwyn cleared her throat and spoke over Starich as he began to speak, “As it is my wedding day I request safe passage for Celestaine and her party across our lands. Until the sun sets.”

There was no talk of there not being crimes to answer for or who had done what, Celestaine noted, feeling pain lance across her forehead as she finally managed to get her feet under her and stand up, weaving from side to side. There was only a stony silence and some shuffling as everyone waited for Starich to make his first edict in favour of his priest or his wife.

Into this moment Nedlam chose to get to her feet. There was a visible effort among the warriors not to back off. She towered over them as she rested the head of her hammer on the ground and thumped it once, gently, a thump felt in every boot sole. She looked at the priest. “Kinslayer took them. Far far away.” She looked at Celestaine, who struggled to stay upright and found Heno at her side, steadier than she now he was conscious, his fingers tingling on her arm with suppressed fire.

The priest, unable to hold his peace, broke in. “Abominations! Lying, lying filthy abominations! Look at them. Right under our noses. In the woods, in the valleys, creeping up on us in a never-ending tide of death and blood.” He pointed his finger at Nedlam. “And this one, she, the mockery of good-women on this day, she—”

Nedlam picked up the hammer and swung it lightly as though swatting a wasp. It hit him in the midriff with a surprisingly soft crump and then he was flying through the air to the side of them all, limbs loose, until his back hit a tree, followed by his head. He slid to the grass and toppled over.

“It Lady Wall to you, son,” she said, and held the hammer fast in both colossal hands. Then she looked at Starich with great acuity for someone who had had so much ora.

Celestaine had begun to recover her wits though Heno was holding her up by her elbow on one side. “We’ll be going, then,” she said.

“Until sunset,” Starich managed to get out in his deepest tones, making a short, sharp gesture at his axemen who showed no hesitation in withdrawing. He glanced at Caradwyn with a mixture of feelings, none certain. “Make your goodbyes quickly or they will not reach the border.” He spared a look for the priest and added, “He was the son of one of my second aunts and not beloved but even so there will be a lot of—trouble— explaining this. I hear you have a sharp wit. Now would be the moment to show it.”

He gave Celestaine a look and shook his head, giving up on it all. “We will preserve your good name in legend, whatever you do with it elsewhere. You are always at home here, though I think it would be wise to let time turn memories fonder before you return.” Without waiting for a response the new Lord of Fernreame swept out, muttering to his men.

“Tell Ralas,” Celestaine slurred to Caradwyn who was flushed and relieved, but also with a look on her face that Celest knew meant goodbye without saying it. “Thank you, Cara.”

“My pleasure,” she said and reached out to touch Heno on the arm briefly. “Look after my cousin. She has a short temper and trusts no one.”

Heno snorted. “I have my hands full.”

Nedlam chuckled. “I take the rest of this root wine?”

“Just leave it if you would, I may need to use it when I find out what befell our priest. I um… may have to clean up two messes with one mop. As it were.” And she looked at Celestaine significantly.

“Means ‘no’,” Heno growled in translation for Nedlam’s benefit as Celestaine bent forwards and threw up, splashing red wine vomit all over the pretty hand-stitched lace of Caradwyn’s hems. She paused there, to gather herself and found a dainty kerchief handed to her. She blotted her mouth and nose, cleared her throat and as she felt a little better straightened up again, thoughts swirling. Oh yes. The dead Yoggs in the wood. How convenient. But this was Deffo’s fault. Shooting his mouth off left, right and centre, begging for fame, longing for his moment. Then a weak young man with justified fears got wind of it and heard that silly song and maybe heard about the incident yesterday too. She’d have her own reckoning with Deffo when the time came.

“Goodbye Celestaine, Heno. Lady Wall.” Caradwyn dropped Nedlam a deep curtsey and then, on an impulse, handed over the bridal posy that still swung from a ribbon on her wrist.

Nedlam took it between thumb and forefinger and examined it from a few angles before sniffing it and then handing it to Celestaine. “You have it. You only girl here not married.”

When Celestaine looked back Caradwyn was gone. “Let’s get out of here.”

Afterwards, once they were on the road and making good miles, Celestaine looked but never found the posy and always wondered if she had hallucinated that part of things. The kerchief she had in her pocket, stained forever. So that bit at least had been real.