“You won’t die,” she said, and moved on. Rhiannon knew that. She would never now be sung for a pure white, swan-like neck, either. No matter. No matter at all. She carried on, following her mother. Enid knew what to do here, as in so many things.
Rhiannon helped, as best she could. Bathing and wrapping wounds, speaking comfort and praise, fetching ale with the servant girls for the thirsty. One man died on a table in their hall, as they watched. A sword had taken off most of one leg, at the thigh, they couldn’t stop the bleeding. His name was Bregon. He’d liked fishing, teasing the girls, had freckles on his nose and cheeks in summer. Rhiannon found herself weeping, which she didn’t want but couldn’t seem to do much about. Not very long ago, when tonight had begun, there had been a feast, and music. If Jad had shaped the world differently, time could run backwards and make it so the Erlings had never come. She kept moving a hand, touching the cloth around her neck. She wanted to stop doing that, too, but couldn’t.
Four men carried Bregon ap Moran from the hall on a table board, out the doors and across the yard to the room by the chapel where the dead men were. She looked at Helda and they followed. He used to make jokes about her hair, Rhiannon remembered, called her Crow when she was younger. Brynn’s men had not been shy with his children, though that had changed when she came into womanhood, as did much else.
She would lay him out for burial—with Helda’s help, for she didn’t know what to do. There were half a dozen women in the room, working among the dead by lantern light. The cleric, Cefan, was kneeling with a sun disk between his hands, unsteadily intoning the ritual words of the Night Passage. He was young, visibly shaken. How could he not be, Rhiannon thought.
They set Bregon’s board down on the floor. The tables were covered with other bodies already. There was water, and linen clothing. They had to wash the dead first, everywhere, comb out their hair and beards, clean their fingernails, that they might go to Jad fit to enter his halls if the god, in mercy, allowed. She knew every man lying here.
Helda began removing Bregon’s tunic. It was stiff with blood. Rhiannon went to get a knife to help her cut it away, but then she saw that there was no one by Dai ab Owyn, and she went and stood over the Cadyri prince where he lay.
Time didn’t run backwards in the world they had. Rhiannon looked down at him, and she knew it would be a lie to pretend she hadn’t seen him staring at her when she’d walked into the hall, and another lie to say it was the first time something of that sort had happened. And a third one (a failing of the Cyngael, threes all the time?) to deny that she’d enjoyed having that effect on men. The passage from girl to woman being negotiated in pleasure, an awareness of growing power.
No pleasure now, no power that meant anything at all. She knelt beside him on the stone floor and reached out and brushed his brown hair back. A handsome, clever man. Needful as night’s end, he had said. No ending to night now, unless the god allowed it for his soul. She looked at the wound in him, the dark blood clotted there. It occurred to her that it was proper that Brynn’s daughter be the one to attend to a prince of Cadyr, their guest. Cefan, not far away, was still chanting, his eyes closed, his voice wavering away from him like the smoke from the candles, rising up. The women whispered or were silent, moving back and forth, doing their tasks. Rhiannon swallowed hard, and began to undress the dead man.
“What are you doing?”
She’d thought, actually, that she would know if he came into a room; that already she would know when that happened. She turned and looked up.
“My lord prince,” she said. Rose and stood before him. Saw the cousin, Gryffeth, and the high priest behind, his face grave, uneasy.
“What are you doing?” Alun ab Owyn repeated. His expression was rigid, walled off.
“I am … attending to his body, my lord. For … laying out?” She heard herself stammering. She never did that.
“Not you,” he said flatly. “Someone else.”
She swallowed. Had never lacked courage, even as a child. “Why so?” she said.
“You dare ask?” Behind, Ceinion made a small sound and a gesture, then stood still.
“I must ask,” Rhiannon said. “I know of nothing I might ever have done to Owyn’s house to cause this to be said. I grieve for our people, and for your sorrow.”
He stared at her. It was difficult, in this light, to see his eyes, but she had seen them in the hall, before.
“Do you?” he said finally, blunt as a hammer. She couldn’t stop thinking of hammers. “Do you even begin to grieve? My brother went outside alone and unarmed because of you. He died hating me because of you. I will live with that the rest of my days. Do you realize this? At all?”
There was something hot, like a fever, coming off him now. She said, desperately, “I believe I understand what you are saying. It is unjust. I didn’t make him feel—”
“A lie! You wanted to make every man love you, to play at it. A game.”
Her heart was pounding now. “You are … unjust, my lord.” Repeating herself.
“Unjust? You tested that power every time you entered a room.”
“How do you know any such thing?” How did he know?
“Will you deny it?”
She was grieving, her heart twisting, because of who it was, saying these words to her. But she was also Brynn’s daughter, and Enid’s, and not raised to yield, or to cry.
“And you?” she asked, lifting her head. Her bandage chafed. “You, my lord? Never tested yourself? Never went on … cattle raids, son of Owyn? Into Arberth, perhaps? Never had someone hurt, or die, when you did that? You and your brother?”
She saw him check, breathing hard. She was aware that he was, amazingly, near to striking her. How had the world come to this? The cousin stepped forward, as if to stop him.
“It is wrong!” was all Alun could manage to say, fighting for self-control.
“No more than the things a boy does, becoming a man. I cannot steal cattle or swing a sword, ab Owyn!”
“Then go east to Sarantium!” he rasped, his voice altered. “If you want to deal in power like that. Learn … learn how to poison like their empresses, you’ll kill so many more men.”
She felt the colour leave her face. The others in the room had stopped moving, were looking at them. “Do you … hate me so much, my lord?”
He didn’t reply. She had thought, truly, he would say yes, had no idea what she’d have done if he did so. She swallowed hard. Needed her mother, suddenly. Enid was with the living, in the other room.
She said, “Would you wish the Erling hadn’t thrown his hammer to save my life?” Her voice was level, hands steady at her sides. Small blessings, he wouldn’t know how much this cost her. “Others died here, my lord prince. Nine of us now. Likely more, before sunrise. Men we knew and loved. Are you thinking only of your brother tonight? Like the Erling my father killed, who demanded one horse when he had men taken with him?”
His head snapped back, as from a blow. He opened his mouth, closed it without speaking. Their eyes locked. Then turning, blundering past the cleric and his cousin, he rushed from the room. Ceinion called his name. Alun never broke stride.
Rhiannon put a hand to her mouth. There was a need to weep, and a greater need not to do so. She saw the cousin, Gryffeth, take two steps towards the door, then stop and turn back. After a moment, he went and knelt beside the dead man. She saw him extend a hand and touch the place where the blade had gone in.
“Child,” whispered