She smiled to herself and focused back on Brina and the happy couple.

'Peace surround you both, and contentment latch your door,' Brina sang the closing words of the benediction. Then she held up a wide cup for Dath and Kulla to grip with their bound hands. They drank together, then Brina cast the cup to the ground and stamped on it.

'It is done,' she cried, and the crowd erupted into cheering, Kulla grabbing Dath and kissing him fiercely.

'Good, now let's eat,' Brina announced.

The great hall had been transformed, long rows of tables set with trenchers of steaming food, a score of spitted carca.s.ses turning over fire-pits; barrels of mead found on the abandoned baggage wains of Jael's warband stood in a long line.

Cywen sat and watched it all go by, just enjoying being still and watching, when mostly life felt like one long rush of doing. As the evening wore into night and the fire-pits began to sink low she found herself feeling reflective, thinking over the last year as she sipped at a cup of mead.

It is almost a year ago to the day that I was in the great hall in Murias; when Corban and Mam came for me . . .

Surprising her, tears swelled in her eyes.

I miss you, Mam, and you, Da. You would be so amazed if you were here. So proud of Corban.

Someone sat next to her, the bench creaking with the strain.

Laith. She had a cup of her own and was smiling, her eyes shining.

'Tonight, life is good,' Laith proclaimed, raising her cup.

Cywen nodded and touched her cup to Laith's, wiping the tears from her eyes as she did so.

'Your arm,' Cywen said, pointing at the dark tattoo that now curled from Laith's wrist to elbow.

'It is my sgeul, my Telling,' Laith said sombrely. 'The record of the lives I have taken. The vine is my journey, my life, the thorns, each life I take.'

Cywen studied it, gently brushed it. The skin was ridged and peeling, hints of green and blue beneath the scabbed skin. She tried to count the thorns, reached fifteen and then lost count.

'It is a serious thing,' Laith said, 'taking a life. A sad thing, I think, though better to take another's than to lose your own. Many of my kin consider the thorns a badge of honour. I suppose it is that as well.'

'It is,' Cywen said. 'But something can be many things, or can mean many things, not just be confined to the one. Like us.'

Laith looked at her intently then. 'You are right. I used to think that you were just angry,' she said, 'but there is far more to you than just that. And you are wise as well.'

'Hah.' Cywen snorted and sipped from her cup. 'The wisdom of mead, maybe.'

Laith grinned. 'I'll drink to that,' she said, and did. 'Now,' she continued, smacking her lips. 'Where's that fine-looking Farrell gone?'

'Farrell?' Cywen spluttered into her cup.

'Aye, Farrell,' Laith said with a shy look. 'He's big and strong, got good bones, not like the rest of you. I've been thinking on him for a while now, and what with spring in the air . . .' She shrugged and smiled mischievously.

'You know he's sweet on Coralen,' Cywen said.

'Oh aye, everyone knows that. But everyone also knows that she's sweet on someone else.'

Y e s , w e d o , Cywen thought. Apart from the one she's sweet on!

'So perhaps he just needs the way things are explained to him. I was talking to Balur about it-'

'Balur!' Cywen spluttered again. Try as she might, she just could not imagine the giant warrior dispensing advice about love.

'Aye and can you stop doing that? Balur said to me that sometimes people can't see things as plain as the end of their nose, but once it's been pointed out to them they don't know why they went so long without seeing a thing.'

'That's very wise,' Cywen said. 'In fact, Laith, you're very wise. How old are you, exactly?'

'I've seen forty-two summers,' Laith said with a wave of her hand. 'But we mature slowly, us giants, or so I'm told. Like usque. Ah, there he is.' She pointed at Farrell and stood, swaying ever so slightly. 'Any advice?' she asked.

'Try arm-wrestling him,' Cywen said. 'I hear he likes that.'

Laith smiled. 'A man after my own heart. Will I have to let him win, though?'

Cywen was still laughing when Laith disappeared into the thinning crowd.

The bench creaked again.

This time it was Brina.

'I need to talk to you,' the healer said.

'Feel free,' Cywen said with a wave of her hand.

Brina frowned. 'Are you sober?' she asked, then her hand darted out and she pinched and twisted flesh on Cywen's arm.

'Ouch.'

'Well, you're still feeling pain, so that's good enough,' Brina said. She stood up and walked away, then paused and looked back. 'Well, come on then, what are you waiting for?'

Muttering, Cywen rose and followed.

Eventually they ended up in Brina's chamber, small and spa.r.s.e, a bed and chair, a table with a half-melted candle upon it and a jug of water.

Only one cup, though.

'I don't get visitors,' Brina said with a shrug, seeing where Cywen was looking. She dug around in her cloak and pulled out the book.

'Isn't that heavy to carry around all the long day?' Cywen asked.

'Of course it is,' Brina snapped, 'but I'm hardly going to leave it lying around for someone to just come along and take, am I? A book hundreds of years old, containing wisdom both wonderful and terrifying?'

'I suppose not.'

'Sit down and pay attention,' Brina said. She sat on the bed, Cywen on the chair, and Brina opened the book at the back and started to read.

When she finished they both looked at each other. The worry and concern on Brina's face, she knew, was reflected in her own. 'We need to tell Corban,' Cywen said.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT.

CORBAN.

Corban knew the place well now, this part of the Otherworld that seemed to call to him when he slept. The green valley, a lake such a deep blue that it was almost the purple of the sky as it darkens, just before full night. The red-leaved maple that he hid beneath, and of course the beat of Meical's wings, high above, like a heartbeat, sweeping him to the cliff face that he always landed upon, and the cave that he always entered.

And again as always, he remembered Meical's words to him, about Asroth hunting him, about the Kadoshim flying abroad in the Otherworld. Promise me if you find yourself there again, that you will hide, do not move. Asroth's Kadoshim fly high and they will see you before you see them. And they are not the only dangers in the Otherworld. There are creatures, rogue spirits that would do you harm if they found you.

Always he had obeyed. And yet, this time, he did not want to. Without knowing or even understanding why, just feeling that he must, he left the shade of the maple tree and began to climb the cliff. It was remarkably easy, the rocks not cutting into his palms, no sweating or straining of muscles, no dangerous up-draughts. Just a steady, constant motion, taking him up.

And then he was there, standing on a rock shelf, the entrance to a cave before him. It was a high, perfect arch, much higher and wider than it appeared from the ground, runes of the old tongue carved around it. Carven steps led into it, the flicker of torchlight within luring him on. He walked along a damp, curving corridor, down, curling in a deep looping spiral until the corridor opened into a great underground theatre, huge torches bathing the room in a flickering orange glow, a semi-circle of stone-tiered benches on the far wall full to overflowing with the white-winged Ben-Elim. And, standing before them, a small, fragile figure in the depths of the theatre; Meical.

'When?' a voice boomed from the ma.s.sed Ben-Elim.

'I do not know,' Meical said. 'Soon.'

'It is always soon,' the voice replied.

Meical shrugged, a distinctly human gesture in this chamber, this world, so full of the other.

'We have waited aeons, brother, how much longer?' other voices called.

'How much longer?' a thousand voices reverberated around the chamber.

'We have waited aeons,' Meical echoed the speakers. 'A little longer will not hurt.'

'How much longer?' the voices demanded.

'Soon,' Meical repeated.

Corban woke with a start, looked about, a sharp pain in his neck and his hip. He was sitting in an alcove in the great hall, fires burning low. He shifted his weight, adjusting his sword hilt from where it was digging into him.

What am I doing here?

Then he remembered.

Dath has been handbound with Kulla. He smiled, a gentle joy seeping through him at the memory of his friend, at the depth of his utter, transparent joy. And then, as they seemed to do frequently and almost of their own accord, his thoughts drifted to Coralen. In truth he had thought of little else since the battle had ended. Or more specifically, of her kiss. He had wanted to talk to her, every day, had decided that he would, had steeled himself, practised the words, and then gone dry-mouthed and weak-kneed as soon as he'd seen her.

How is it that I can fight Kadoshim but I cannot talk to a woman?

Today. I will talk to her today. That gave him a pleasant feeling in his belly, part the flutter of fear, part something else.

The chamber was mostly empty now, the fire-pits a glow of embers. He stood, thinking of his bed in his chamber, then saw a figure standing before Dra.s.sil's tree, before the spear and skeleton of Skald.

Balur One-Eye.

Corban walked over to him, stretching his neck, blinking the sleep from his eyes, came to stand beside the giant, for a moment enjoying the silence.

Eventually the burning question had to be asked.

'Why did you kill Skald?'

Balur did not look at him, said nothing. Then he sighed, put his big slab of a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes.

'It was a terrible thing. I was his guard, his high captain. I seized his own spear from him and slew him upon his throne.' He said the words as if each one were a punishment.

Corban thought about that, nodded slowly. 'Aye, that is terrible. A great trust to betray. What I know of you, though . . .' He shook his head. 'I cannot conceive of you doing such a thing.'

Balur raised an eyebrow at that.

'He ordered Nemain killed. Ordered her strangled here, before him, whilst he sat upon his throne.'

'But Nemain was his Queen,' Corban said.

'Aye, she was.'

'Then why would he do such a terrible thing?'

'Because she was with child. And it was not his.'

'Oh.'

Corban looked at Balur; deep grooves were etched in the folds of the giant's face. He was ancient.

'It was your child, wasn't it?'

'Aye.'

'Ethlinn?'

Another sigh. 'Aye.'

'So she is your Queen, then. Queen of the Benothi.'

'She is. Some would say she was Queen of all the Clans, even though she is b.a.s.t.a.r.d born.'