A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Seen at sunrise, the Lakes was finest of the six provinces of Inys. Witherling Water was calm as sheathed iron, save for the herons in its shallows, prodding about for early fish.

That was north. To the south, night clung to the haithwood. A woodpecker hammered at one of the trees, making it braver than most humans. Few would knock on that particular door.

‘Wulf.’

Mara was walking towards him. ‘You didn’t need to get up,’ Wulf said, touched. ‘We’ve said our goodbyes.’

‘Someone had to see you off,’ she said. ‘You look tired. Bad dreams?’ He returned to preparing his horse with a shrug, smoothing a few creases from the saddle blanket. ‘Wulf, I’ve been telling you for years, it’s a foolish story. There’s never been a witch.’

‘In Hróth, they say the oldest stories have the deepest roots.’

‘And this one is rooted in fear of dark places. There is no curse on that forest. Or on you.’ As he lifted the saddle on, she leaned against the stoop. ‘Why the frown?’

‘I always frown.’

‘Aye, but you’re frowning more than usual. You’ll be grey before you’re twenty if you don’t stop brooding.’

Wulf let something unlatch inside him, hard as he tried to hold it shut. Mara had always given him shrewd counsel.

‘I defied the Knight of Fellowship,’ he said. ‘Regny. In the summer.’

‘King Bardholt found out,’ Mara guessed. He nodded. ‘A woman of her rank must marry high.’

‘I don’t want to marry her. She doesn’t want to marry me. We were just curious. Foolish.’ Wulf took off his gloves to manage the buckles. ‘Bardholt forgave me this time, but sometimes I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to walk this path. Not worthy of it.’

‘Wulf, you must end this eternal quest to be worthy. We’ve never needed to do anything to make Father or Pa proud.’

‘You know my situation is different.’

‘No. You are as much their child as I am,’ Mara said, quiet and firm. ‘You’ve chosen a hard path, and there’s a reason there are six virtues. If it weren’t hard to follow them all at once, we’d all be saints, now, wouldn’t we?’

She tapped the patron brooch that pinned his cloak, wrought like a sheaf of wheat. Their father had secured royal permission for him to wear silver, like the rest of the family.

‘Your patron is the Knight of Generosity,’ she reminded him. ‘Be generous to yourself. If your gravest vice is to seek comfort in cold places, the Saint will forgive you. As will the king.’

‘I hope so. Put in a good word for me if you reach Halgalant first?’

‘I have sins of my own.’ Mara kissed his cheek. ‘Don’t wait so long to visit again. And when you come back with your bright spurs and girdle, don’t you expect anyone to call you Sir Wulfert.’

With a smile, he mounted. ‘Sir Wulf will suffice.’

Mara laughed and waved him off. As he rode, she disappeared into the mist, and so did the drear wood behind.

****

Sunlight slanted through the windows of the Dearn Chamber. Seated closest to the fire, Adela steered a spoonful of stewed pear into her mouth. ‘How are you feeling?’ Glorian asked her.

Her pallor was a shock against her auburn hair, and her cheek was swollen. ‘Thankful,’ she lisped. ‘The Saint stretched out his divine hand to stop my tooth from aching.’

Helisent blew on her pottage. ‘Mastress Bourn stretched out their pincers, more like.’

With what looked to be great difficulty, Adela swallowed both the pear and her retort. ‘I have some news,’ Julain said, tucking back her hair. ‘It seems I may soon be betrothed.’

Glorian stopped eating. ‘To whom?’

‘Lord Osbert Combe.’

‘That would make you Duchess of Courtesy by marriage, at least after his mother dies,’ Helisent mused. ‘Would you have to change patrons?’

‘No,’ Glorian said. ‘Julain is the descendant of Dame Lorain Crest. Justice will always be her patron.’ Speaking of betrothal soured her stomach. ‘When will you meet him, Jules?’

‘He rides to court tomorrow.’ Julain ran the end of her dark plait between her hands. ‘I know I’ve no obligation to wed, but I’ve had moths in my belly ever since Mama told me.’

‘Crush them. Nobody could not love you.’ Glorian speared a rasher of bacon with unnecessary force. ‘And I’m certain your mother wouldn’t force you to marry anyone you hated.’

She pretended not to see their worried glances. Happily, Sir Bramel chose that moment to interrupt.

‘Highness,’ he said, ‘King Bardholt invites you to join him in the orchard. May I escort you?’

‘You may,’ she said, standing.

The sky was so blue it made her eyes water. Her guards led her to the low wall of the apple orchard, where her father was waiting beside a hulking Yscali warhorse.

‘Daughter,’ he said in Hróthi, ‘come for a ride. It’s a fine morning.’

Glorian hesitated, touching her cast. ‘Mastress Bourn told me I must wear this for at least three more weeks. And Mother said—’

‘I know what Mother said, which is why I told the grooms to bring one of these.’ He patted the saddle, and she saw its pillion. ‘Come. We’ll ride as we did when you were a child.’

Glorian grinned. Mindful of her arm, her father put her in the pillion, then mounted the destrier himself. ‘I have you,’ he told her, and spurred it.

The castle grounds went on for ever, stretching past Blair Lake to the queenswood, where her parents would often hunt among the windbitten oaks and snow pines. As she held on to his waist, Glorian pictured her father storming across Hróth, wielding his bearded axe.

Six housecarls rode after him at a distance. Regny of Askrdal was among them, proud on her bay stallion.

The destrier galloped over fallen leaves, startling a flock of geese. After a time, King Bardholt slowed to a canter, and his retainers fell away. He rode on until the trees parted, and Glorian gazed up at the breathtaking crags of Sorway Fell. Her father had carried her all the way through the queenswood, to the slopes of the largest mountain in Inys.

A waterfall churned a deep rock pool, clear and green as forest glass. Shading her eyes, Glorian could see more cascades – steps of a stream that ran from somewhere in the mountains.

‘The Twiring Pools,’ her father announced. ‘A well-kept secret of this province. Few dare trespass in the queenswood.’ He dismounted and lifted Glorian down. ‘Is your arm healing?’

‘Yes. It was just an accident,’ Glorian said. ‘I wish I could keep riding, Father.’

Bardholt tied the destrier to a tree. ‘I’ll speak with Her Grace.’ He placed a hand between her shoulders. ‘Sit with me.’

They found two suitable boulders. Bardholt took off his riding boots and footwraps and sat with his legs in the water. Glorian kilted up her skirts before she did the same.

‘Your mother showed these pools to me the summer before you were born. A long, burning summer.’ Bardholt squinted up at the peak with a smile. ‘We cooled ourselves here every day for weeks.’

‘Mother swam here, in this wild pool?’ Glorian said, delighted by the notion. ‘Was she . . . only in her shift?’

For some reason, that widened his smile. ‘Of course, dróterning. She certainly wore her shift.’ He grew serious. ‘After you left the Dearn Chamber the other night, I spoke with her.’

Glorian hunched over. ‘She told you about our quarrel. What I said to her.’

‘She did,’ Bardholt confirmed, ‘but I want to hear it from your own tongue, Glorian.’

For the first time in over a year, Glorian scrutinised his face in daylight, at close quarters. The skin under his eyes had pleated, the lines that etched his brow were deeper, and tiny silver needles frosted his golden beard and hair. She hated those signs of age.

‘I told her I didn’t want to marry.’ She could barely force the words out. ‘Or have a child.’

‘Did you say it in anger, or were you honest?’

‘Both.’

She braced for him to rebuke her, though he never had. Instead, her father rested his elbows on his thighs and clasped his enormous hands. His gold love-knot ring shone on his left forefinger.

‘Somewhere in these mountains is the birthplace of the River Lithsom, the longest in Inys,’ he said. ‘It starts as a trickle, flows down this valley, and carves a path to the Ashen Sea. A never-ending line that helps to keep this land alive. In centuries, it has never run dry.’

The water that comforted the people, running from the Saint. His unending vine. Glorian had heard enough from the sanctarian to know this tune. ‘Yes, Father,’ she murmured.

‘No. I want truth,’ King Bardholt said, his gaze relentless. ‘Tell me what you fear.’ She looked away. ‘Every warrior should know fear. Without it, courage is an empty boast. Folly by another name.’

His patron brooch was a gold shield. Like hers, except his shield was round, and hers curved down to a sharp point.

‘I’m not a warrior,’ Glorian said. Her throat ached. ‘I want to be, Father. I want to be like you.’ The cast of his jaw softened. ‘But a warrior possesses her own body. Inys has mine.’

At this, his jaw clamped again. For a terrible moment, her laughing, passionate father looked weary.

‘That is the hardest part. Knowing that you embody a realm,’ he said. ‘That your eyes are its vigilance; your stomach, its strength; your heart, its shield; your flesh, its future. Even I find it a burden, and I never had to grow an heir within myself. Your mother and aunt did that, and for all my victories in Hróth, I could not help them in those battles.’

Only the water broke the silence. Glorian wished she could shake the shadows from him.

‘Glorian,’ he said at last, ‘do you think your mother is a warrior?’

‘No,’ Glorian said, confused. ‘She doesn’t fight.’

‘Yes, she does. Every day, she fights to keep Inys safe and strong,’ he told her. ‘When I was on the battlefield, I had to make hard choices, choices that meant life or death. Your mother does the same. The only difference is her battlefields are council chambers, her weapons are letters and treaties, and her armour is Virtudom itself.’ He looked up at the mountain. ‘Sometimes, there is more than one choice. More than one way the river could flow; more than one way to win the day. Sometimes there is only one.’

The implication was clear. Still, since he was in the mind to talk, Glorian plucked up her mettle.

‘There are others, Father,’ she said. ‘Not for me. The House of Berethnet is the chain upon the Nameless One – but you could have founded a republic, like the Carmenti.’

‘I could have,’ he conceded. ‘Sometimes I even wish I could agree with them. But a monarch has councillors, Glorian. Who do the people have to guide and temper them?’

‘Each other,’ Glorian offered. ‘Books and scholars. Like the Decreer told you.’

‘What if they make the wrong choice regardless? What if the books are filled with errors, or the scholars are dishonest – or the people choose not to listen to truth? Who is responsible for the realm?’ he asked her. ‘No one, in a republic. No single person can be held accountable. But a monarch takes responsibility. And a monarch of Virtudom answers to the Saint.’

Glorian dropped her gaze. Even though there was truth in it, her belly felt unsettled.

‘I chose to make myself a king,’ her father said. ‘You never chose to be born into the holy bloodline.’ He stroked a hand over her hair. ‘Duty is hard, Glorian. You are still only fifteen – but no great battle was ever easy. And yours is the greatest battle of all.’

‘Mother thinks I will lose it. She thinks I’m weak, like my grandmother.’

‘That isn’t true. I know she can be stern with you, but you are the most precious person in her world.’

‘A necklace is precious,’ Glorian said, her voice thin and brittle. ‘You do not love a necklace. You only show it off and keep it safe.’

‘When you hold your own daughter, you will know how much your mother loves you.’ A breeze chilled the valley, and he wrapped some of his cloak around her. Glorian nestled close. ‘Magnaust Vatten will treat you with respect. He is my subject,’ he said into her hair. ‘If he ever offends you again, I shall take my axe, sail back to Inys, and bury it in his thick skull.’

That made her laugh. ‘I don’t think you can do that now, Papa,’ she said. He pulled a face. ‘A king must keep the peace.’

He kissed her forehead. ‘What peace can there be if my own daughter is unhappy?’

Glorian wiped a sudden surge of tears on her sleeve. ‘I’m not just afraid we won’t like each other,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened of losing myself.’ She sniffed. ‘I sound silly.’

‘Then we must both be silly,’ he said solemnly, ‘because I felt the same fear before I married your mother. The fear that in knitting my flesh to hers, I would have to sacrifice some . . . secret place inside me.’

‘Did you?’

‘Some of it,’ he confessed, ‘but because I loved her, I let her inside, and found it was good to have company there.’ He smoothed her tears away with his thumb. ‘Perhaps that will happen with Magnaust Vatten. Perhaps not. If he is a fool, you don’t ever have to let him into that secret place – and if he isn’t, you won’t find it so hard.’

Glorian swallowed the gravel in her throat.

‘I will marry Magnaust Vatten,’ she said, even as unhappiness overwhelmed her. ‘As long as I can send him back to Mentendon once we have an heir.’

It occurred to her that she had no notion of what she was agreeing to. She still had no idea how a child was made.

‘I will send the ship for him myself,’ King Bardholt agreed. ‘Until then, I have a gift for you. For your commendation, and for the battles ahead.’

He reached behind him and passed her a bundle of wrappings. Glorian undid the cords that secured it, revealing a beautiful sword. When she held it into the sunlight, the blade gleamed. Even finer was its bone handle, inlaid with three large gemstones, the pale green of her eyes.

‘Ice emeralds,’ she breathed.

They glistened like the sky lights. Ice emerald was mined at the very north of the known world.

‘The steel was quenched in the Roaring Sea,’ her father said. ‘The ivory is from my throne.’ He handed her its scabbard. ‘Now you will always have a piece of Hróth to keep you safe.’

‘Did you carve the handle?’

‘I did.’ He leaned down a little, looking her in the eyes. ‘You are Princess of Hróth, Glorian Hraustr Berethnet. Your cousin will rule with your blessing. You will never reign in the North, but you will always be Glorian Óthling, child of its first king. Never forget it.’

Glorian took in his strong face, realising she might not see it again for months. He had not silenced her fear – no one could – but at least he had armed her, inside and out. She set the sword aside and flung her arms around his neck.

‘Come back soon,’ she said, muffled.

He wrapped her into a tight embrace. ‘When the midnight sun bloods the ice, I will sail the whaleway again,’ he told her. ‘Until then, daughter, I bid you mind my heart. I leave half of it in your keeping.’

****

Later, she waited outside the gatehouse as his entourage prepared to make for Werstuth. The sword was a comforting weight at her side.

‘Lady Glorian.’

A familiar retainer was leading a stallion from the courtyard. He wore a green cloak over his mail, embroidered with the crest of the House of Hraustr. ‘Master Glenn,’ Glorian said. He saluted her with a fist to his chest. ‘I see you made it back in time. Is your family keeping well?’

‘Very.’ His dark curls were tousled. ‘It was good to see them.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t recall if you have siblings.’

‘Aye, I do. Mara is the middle child, and Roland the eldest. He’s the heir to Langarth.’

‘I envy you.’ Glorian watched a Hróthi banner rise among the horses. ‘I always thought it might be nice to have a sibling.’ She beckoned her guards to follow her. ‘Do let me see you off.’

‘Surely the princess is too busy to escort a humble retainer.’

‘The princess still has a broken arm, and has nought to do but twiddle her remaining thumb.’

‘In that case, I’d be glad of the company,’ he said. With her guards behind them, they walked towards the gathering of horses and retainers, Master Glenn leading his stallion. ‘You say you’d like a sibling. I hear no Berethnet has ever had more than one child.’

‘Not according to the records. Always one. Always a princess. Always identical to the others.’

‘What would happen if a Berethnet had a prince, or more children?’

‘Nothing, I suppose. The child – or children – would still have the sacred blood of the Saint.’

‘But it hasn’t happened.’

‘Not so far. My ancestor always maintained that his line would be a line of queens.’ She looked at him with interest. ‘You are the first person who has ever asked me a question like that. Perhaps you ought to have been a sanctarian, Master Glenn. You think most deeply.’

‘Kind of you, but protecting your father was always my calling.’ He glanced at her. ‘Is there to be a battle, Highness?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You seem to have gained a sword since we last met.’

‘A gift from my father,’ she said proudly, grasping the hilt.

‘Very fine. I see that’s his boneworking.’ He raised his thick eyebrows. ‘Can you use it?’

Glorian bridled. ‘Of course.’

‘I meant no offence, Lady. It only seems to me that rulers have scant use for weapons.’

‘You say that, serving my father?’ She raised an eyebrow back. ‘I am the daughter of Bardholt Hraustr, who won his throne by blood and iron. I assure you, Master Glenn, I am no stranger to blades.’

‘His Grace has never needed a weapon since his coronation, except in sport. This is an age of peace.’

‘I find it best to be prepared for all eventualities. There may be a time when I find myself without my guards, and then what would I do?’

‘For a start, I’d cut the guards loose, Highness. But I take your point.’

Glorian smiled. Before she knew it, she said, ‘Perhaps we could cross blades when you return. See how an armed princess fares against a sworn retainer.’

‘It would be my honour.’

The wind changed, and Glorian caught the scents of leather and smoke from him. ‘What will you do when you return to Hróth?’ she asked. ‘Where will you go next with my father?’

‘A progress in the Barrowmark, I believe, then back to Bithandun to weather the long winter in comfort,’ he said. ‘Do you visit Hróth often, Highness?’

‘Not since I was twelve. I miss it.’

‘You are its rightful heir. Sole issue of its king,’ he said. ‘Pardon my ignorance, but I never understood why your cousin is óthling over you. May a queen not rule two realms?’

Glorian brushed her hair behind her ear. He had no idea it was a tender spot. ‘My mother says not,’ she said. ‘I could be queen regnant of one realm, and queen consort of another, as she is – but Her Grace believes I must choose Inys over Hróth, regardless of my claim.’

She had fallen in love with the eversnow the first time she set foot there. Her mother knew it well.

‘I’m sorry,’ Master Glenn said. ‘That you can’t see it more.’

‘Thank you.’ As they reached the entourage, a birch horn blew. ‘I wish you a good voyage,’ Glorian said, facing him. He bowed low to her. ‘Keep my father safe, won’t you?’

‘I’ll try, Highness.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me. I never did learn courtly manners. But since we were friends as children, would it be improper to ask if you would call me Wulf?’

‘Yes,’ Glorian said lightly, making him swallow. ‘But I think the Knight of Courtesy might permit it if you called me Glorian.’ He relaxed. ‘Farewell, then, Wulf.’

‘Farewell, Your—’ He tried again: ‘Glorian.’

Glorian watched him ride to join her father, watched the procession thunder away. As she returned to the courtyard, she stopped, swaying. She felt too heavy and too light.

And then all at once she was on the ground, and the taste of metal was flooding her mouth.