THREE

THE FEASTING LASTED late into the night, and while those at the other tables or at their revelry in the courtyards enjoyed the passage of time, at our table it dragged, so that I found myself looking forward to the prayers which would welcome the arrival of the first dawn of the new year. When the plates were cleared and the ale finished, I stood as soon as Grandmother did.

Varis, in quiet conversation with Flavian, blocked my way forward. And behind me, Helena was shaking out her skirts, smoothing their fall with diligent care. I hovered in their midst, trapped unless I was willing to push around them.

As Grandmother turned from the table, Helena caught me before I could hurry forward. Tucking my arm through hers, my aunt drew me close.

Grandmother’s look told me to behave, but she let me go. Contrary old woman.

Arm in arm, Helena and I followed Grandmother outside in silence.

My apprehension gave the upper courtyard a sombre cast as we traversed the covered terrace linking the dining hall to the sanctuary. Orange and yellow sparks flew up from the crackling bonfire about a hundred yards away, the distance blocked by a steady crush of bodies, though the heat of the flames was strong enough to make my cheeks glow. The faces of the crowd looked strangely demonic in the firelight – cheekbones and chins and brows aglow, teeth glinting from dark mouths and the whites of eyes from dark sockets, hair and arms and laughter whipping through the chill night air.

I longed to leap from the terrace walkway and plunge into the riot, which seemed a truer celebration of Aestival than our own dry prayers inside sombre walls would be. With the tension brewing between Helena and Grandmother, even the stone lintel of the sanctuary’s doorway, carved with ravens and roses, seemed welcoming.

Helena drew a breath, eyes shining, as we stepped inside and the cavernous hall of the sanctuary opened around us. Lamplight bounced and refracted from the room’s polished parquetry and gilt-work, the crowd’s clothing and jewellery.

‘Oh, I’ve missed this!’ she laughed, her free hand plucking at her skirts, red as the flashes of carp in the Turholm’s ponds. ‘It’s like being young again. There’s absolutely nothing rational about it,’ she added with a happy sigh.

Unwise or not, I warmed to her again. I liked the sound of her laugh. Perhaps she wasn’t the most judicious of women, but at least her crimes were born of her passions, not some innate cruelty. Still, I couldn’t rationalise away the army at the southern border.

Helena’s laughter faded as she noted my expression, and Grandmother’s voice sounded in the back of my mind: Must you display your every thought on your face, Matilde?

‘Tille,’ Helena said. ‘Your grandmother is wrong about me. I’m not planning an invasion. Nor do I want to subvert the succession: the throne will be yours.’

Words mean little, especially at night, came Grandmother’s voice in my head, and the best I could do was hold silent.

‘In fact I’m eager for you to take the throne,’ Helena continued. ‘The Turasi have been ruled by an old woman far too long. It’s time for the fire of fresh blood. Well past time, actually,’ she added, a light in her eyes I didn’t trust. ‘Isn’t it?’

I shifted uncomfortably. ‘The circumstances surrounding my father’s death haven’t left House Svanaten in the best position. Elevating me to his throne is a delicate matter.’

I bit back a sour urge to laugh. I’d spent years swallowing with ill grace those words of Grandmother’s as she delayed my coronation yet one more time, and here I was offering them up in her defence.

Helena gave a careless flick of her wrist and turned her gaze back over the crowd entering the sanctuary. Court officials and merchants, thanes and landholders, all eddied towards the far end of the hall and the circular doors – made of apple wood, orange as the rising sun and grained like the swirl of water in a creek’s elbow – which led from the hall into the smaller temple behind. The doors were large, but their rounded design allowed only one through comfortably, two if they pressed shoulder to shoulder and ducked. Even the most powerful thanes must shift and fidget and push forward and back as they waited their turn to enter.

We, of course, would be last. House Svanaten stood apart, always.

Conscious of Helena’s serene demeanour – she would never crane or bob like an over-eager chick – I strove for stillness.

The hall cleared but even then we waited for everyone to settle, that Grandmother might sail into the temple like a swan upon the lake, us lame ducks trailing behind.

At last she started towards the temple doors. The babble and clatter of people beyond was like smoke in my blood, heady and confusing and urgent.

I put out a hand to steady myself, my fingers brushing the surface of the doors – and the vision took me.

The parquetry floor washed to black. The orange grain of the doors flared brighter and brighter, as did the jewellery of the men and women and children, and the lamplight gilding the windows and tapestries. As if sparked by the hard glare, a fire burst and raged through the temple, the flames hot enough to crisp bones and raise the smell of marrow burning to cinders. And me in the middle, wrapped in the black shroud of the dead and yet still quick with life.

The vision passed as rapidly as it had arrived, my awareness returning to the feel of Helena’s gentle hand on my shoulder. Still I could not rid myself of the queasy touch of fear in my belly that always accompanied my visions. I buried my shaking hands in my skirts. The intensity of the vision, and the temple’s appearance in it, told me the future it presaged was near.

‘Tille?’ Helena slipped her hand under my elbow to take some of my weight and glanced around the room to assess who was watching. ‘Are you ill?’

My rickety smile did nothing to dispel Helena’s concern. I could tell what she was thinking: the shadow sickness. No one wanted a Duethin who might fall frothing to the floor.

‘I’m fine,’ I assured her when I felt strong enough to speak, though the shiver in my hands was creeping through the rest of me, leaving the cold of the dead in its wake. It had been years since a vision had taken me as strongly as this one. As a child, before Grandmother taught me how to resist their lure and quash their power, the foretellings had plagued me day and night. In recent years, they overcame me only when I was too weary to guard against them – or when danger stalked me.

‘We can talk about it later, if you like,’ Helena murmured.

I shook my head, insisting I was well, but she held too tight a grip on my arm for me to pull free. Swept along by her, we followed Grandmother, who was already bearing down the central aisle towards our seats at the front. The lantern light caught at the edges of my eyes, dazzling me. The sooner I could sit and shut my eyes, the less chance I’d be sick.

Slipping into my seat, I fixed my gaze on the wall in front of me, where an intricate carved and inlaid wood panel stretched the length and height of the wall. Its familiar contours soothed me, even if it didn’t settle my stomach. I had traced the story in it every Aestival since I was old enough to sit through the prayers.

Depicted on the far left of the panel, Gunde the Raven sat the throne, her skill with the shadows making her inviolate and unassailable. It had taken faith, in the form of the prester Tamor, to drive her out, and to bind and shackle the children of Irmao, the ninth daughter of Turas. His success was thorough: the silent tribe were known now only as the mara, those cloistered presters who used their skill with shadows in aid of the church. It was a story which always drew me, and always made me shiver. If it weren’t for Grandmother, I too would be cloistered and shackled, no longer the scion of House Svanaten but instead a simple prester, bound to a life of roaming the shadow world.

As always, my eyes slid onward to the centre of the panel. It depicted Turas, the first man, surrounded by his nine daughters, with Irmao kneeling and silent at his feet and the ancestor of my own tribe, the shieldmaiden Suebe, standing at his right hand. As ever her gimlet stare sent a tingle of awe down my spine.

Helena didn’t step around me to take a seat on my other side. Instead she paused in front of me, an abstracted expression on her face as if she were studying the panelling after a long absence. Surprised, I slid along the pew until I was at its far end, only the cold aisle between me and the wall of dressed stone. Helena slipped into the space I’d opened.

The whispers started before she’d even sat down, a tide of speculation prickling at my neck as it lapped around the room. The disowned daughter was not only returned, but taking precedence over the uncrowned Duethin. Was there a change in Beata’s plans? Would she reinstate Helena as heir?

I resisted the impulse to turn and silence the gossip with a glare. Instead I leant forward to peek around Helena, wanting to warn Grandmother of my vision. Unfortunately she wasn’t looking my way.

A latch rattled in the alcove tucked into the corner nearest me. The door, its dark wood banded in black iron but otherwise unadorned, opened to admit a prester, barefoot and clad in black linen. The voluminous sleeves of his robe reminded me of a raven’s wings as he lifted his arms above the gleaming brass cauldron atop the altar.

There was no more time. I must risk Helena discovering the truth of my visions if I was to warn Grandmother.

‘Something dreadful is about to happen,’ I whispered, my nausea returning in force.

‘Hush,’ whispered Helena, patting my knee, her gaze fixed on the prester.

I had spoken too softly; Grandmother didn’t hear, and a moment later my chance to speak was lost. The prester dipped a ladle into the carved cauldron, fetching up an amber fluid which he poured into a small wooden bowl.

Apparently determined to reassert her place within House Svanaten, Helena stood and was at the cauldron in a heartbeat, reaching out to accept the bowl in both hands. Shocked by Helena’s breach of protocol, the prester hesitated, fumbling and nearly dropping the bowl. Helena took it and drank, not a ladylike sip but the entire draught, while the temple buzzed with the scandal.

Grandmother stood, her expression serene. When I remained seated, nailed to the pew by nausea, the thanes and court officials and freeholders slipped into the aisle after Grandmother to drink of the cauldron’s brew. Even the Iltheans lined up, though the sneer on Cassia’s face betrayed what she thought of the ceremony.

I sat still, certain the raw wine would be my undoing. In the quiet as everyone else shuffled forward in turn, the clamour from the courtyard was boisterous enough to reach into the sanctuary, a confusion of shouts and screams.

Lips shining with the dregs of her drink, Helena turned back. But before she’d taken a single step, an arrow bloomed from her throat, pinning her smile.

Her gaze locked with mine as one hand instinctively reached up, but her questing fingers never found the arrow’s stem before her knees folded and she sank to the floor. Flavian cried out and pushed forward, stumbling to his knees at her side.

A second arrow took the prester in the eye, pitching him backward, the stem and fletching protruding from his socket.

Someone screamed, setting off a host of echoes which filled the room.

Spinning on her heel Cassia ducked behind Varis, who pushed her down with one hand and turned, seeking the source of the arrows. A bolt slammed into his thigh and he stumbled.

‘Down, child,’ Grandmother shrieked at me, her voice swallowed under the din.

I slipped to my knees as Grandmother turned and summoned the thanes in the hall then rallied the guards.

An arrow took her in the shoulder, slamming her around and down. A second took her in the side, driving up through her ribs.

‘Grandmother!’ I screamed, as her head cracked against the floor.

I tried to stand, but my skirts tripped me. My knee came down hard on the wooden foot of the pew, sending a bolt of pain through my head. An arrow buzzed over me and thunked, quivering, into the back of the pew. The hairs on my nape stood on end, waiting for the flames of my vision to burst into life, or a blade to fall. Screams and cries were cut short by the smack of steel through flesh.

Blood splashed onto the floor in front of me before trickling along the cracks. I was torn between the desire to jump to my feet and run, or huddle into a ball and squeeze my eyes shut.

Glancing behind me, I saw Grandmother’s white hair flashing like a beacon between a tangle of moving legs.

Keep your head down, child. That’s what Grandmother would say. You must be calm, and bold, to think your way through this crisis.

Jolted into action by her voice in my head, I scrabbled between two pews, away from the central aisle. The sanctuary hall would be no safer, but it had more exits, more opportunities for escape. Dust and grime from the floor covered my hands, the wooden pews closing me in on either side. Empty air hung like a threat over my back and I slunk closer to the floor.

At the end of the pews I hesitated, frightened to poke my head out and risk certain death. Screaming and footsteps sounded from everywhere, echoing back and forth from walls and floor and ceiling.

I peeked out. The cloth-merchant Theodor was creeping towards the back wall, his back facing me. There were no soldiers in sight.

Still on my knees, I started into the aisle after Theodor till he froze with a grunt. An arrowhead, running with red, burst out near his spine as he collapsed.

I couldn’t scramble out of the way fast enough. Theodor fell backward, his slack weight catching me halfway out of the pew, pushing me to the cold floor and crushing my ribs. Hot blood slicked down my neck and collar.

My heart clattered, its rhythm racing and stuttering, making my breath short and fast. Panic and the stench of fear stifled what little air I could scrape into my lungs. Hidden by Theodor’s corpse, I dug my fingers into the cracks in the parquetry floor, fighting back my fear and revulsion, deter-minded to stop my feet scrabbling for purchase. I had to lie still and feign I was just another corpse.

A foot nudged my calf. Hidden by Theodor’s torso, I pressed my face to the floor and kept myself limp, trying not to imagine the soldier testing my reflexes with his sword instead of his toe. My trapped breath burned in my throat; my lungs ached with holding them shut. Blackness threatened to swallow my mind. I fought it, for if I succumbed I would drag in a deep, shuddering breath.

After what felt like an eternity I heard the footsteps start to move away.

Unable to hold it any longer I let out my breath and drew a new one, sure that at any moment a sword would shear through the flesh of my back. I waited, counting the moments by the beat of my blood.