"Thorkell, your weapon?" asked Athelbert.

"It stays here," said the Erling.

Alun saw Athelbert nod his head. "I thought as much. Take my sword. I'll use the bow."

"Cafall?" said Alun. The dog padded over. "Take us home."

They untied and mounted their horses, left glade and silent pond behind, though never the memory of them, pushing westward in the dark on a narrow, subtle track, following the dog, a hammer left behind them in the grass.

+

Kendra would have liked to say that it was because of concern for her brother, an awareness of him, that she knew what she knew that night, but it wasn't so.

Word, or a first word, came to Esferth very late. The king's messengers sent from the sea strand to Drengest had carried orders that one ship should go to the Cyngael—to Prince Owyn in Cadyr, who was closest—with word of a possible Erling raid upon Brynnfell.

On the way to Drengest, the three outriders had divided, on orders, one of them racing his tidings to the nearest of the hilltop beacons. From there the message had come north in signal fires. The Erlings were routed, many of them slain. The rest had fled. Prince Athelbert had gone away on a journey. His brother was to be kept safe. The king and fyrd would be home in two days' time. Further orders would follow.

Osbert dispatched runners to carry word of victory to the queen and to the city and the tents outside. There was a fair about to begin, men needed reassurance, urgently. The rest of the message was not for others to hear.

It wasn't actually difficult, Kendra thought, as the meaning of the words sank in, to realize what lay beneath the tidings of her brother. You didn't have to be wise, or old.

There were a dozen of them in the hall. She had found it impossible to sleep, and equally difficult to stay all night in chapel praying. This hall, with Osbert, seemed the best place. Gareth had obviously felt the same way; Judit had been here earlier, was somewhere else now.

She looked over at Gareth, saw how pale he had become. Her heart went out to him. Younger son, the quiet one. Had never wanted more than the role life seemed to be offering him. You might even have said what he really wanted was less of a role.

But the very specific instructions—kept safe—said a great deal about what sort of journey their older brother was taking, though not where. If King Aeldred and the Anglcyn ended up with only one male heir left, life was about to change for Gareth. For all of them, Kendra thought. She looked around. She had no idea where Judit was; their mother was at chapel still, of course.

"Athelbert. In the name of Jad, what is… what has he done now?" Osbert asked, of no one in particular.

The chamberlain seemed to have aged tonight, Kendra thought. Burgred's death would be part of it. He'd be moving through memories right now, even as he struggled to deal with unfolding events. The past always came back. In a way you could say that none of those who'd lived through that winter in Beortferth had ever left the marshes behind. Her father's fevers were only the most obvious form of that.

"I have no idea," someone said, from down the table. "Gone chasing them?"

"They have ships," Gareth protested. "He can't chase them." "Some of them might not have made it back to the sea." "Then he'd have the fyrd, they'd all go, and this message wouldn't say—"

"We will learn more soon," Osbert said quietly. "I shouldn't have asked. There's little point in guessing like children at a riddle game."

And that was true enough, as most things Osbert said were. But it was then, in precisely that moment, looking at her father's crippled, beloved chamberlain, that Kendra realized that she knew what was happening.

She knew. As simple and appalling as that. And it was because of the Cyngael prince who had come to them, not her brother. Something had changed in her life the moment the Cyngael had crossed the stream the day before, towards where she and the others were lying on summer grass, idling a morning away.

Just as she had the night before, she knew where Alun ab Owyn had gone. And Athelbert was with him.

As simple as that. As impossible. Had she asked for this? Done something that had brought it upon her as a curse? Am I a witch? the thought came, intrusive. Her hand closed, a little desperately, on the sun disk about her neck. Witches sold love potions, ground up herbs for ailments, blighted crops and cattle for a fee, held converse with the dead. Could go safely into enchanted places.

She took her hand from the disk. Closed her eyes a moment.

It is in the nature of things that when we judge actions to be memorably courageous, they are invariably those that have an impact that resonates: saving other lives at great risk, winning a battle, losing one's life in a valiant attempt to do one or the other. A death of that sort can lead to songs and memories at least as much—sometimes more—than a triumph. We celebrate our losses, knowing how they are woven into the gift of our being here.

Sometimes, however, an action that might be considered as gallant as any of these will take its shape and pass unknown. No singer to observe and mourn, or celebrate, no vivid, world-changing consequence to spur the harpist's fingers.

Kendra rose quietly, as she always did, murmured her excuses, and left the hall.

She didn't think anyone noticed. Men were coming and going, despite the hour. The beacon fire's tidings were running through the city. Outside, in the torchlit corridor, she found herself walking a little more quickly than usual, as though she needed to keep moving or she would falter. The guard at the doors, someone she knew, smiled at her and opened to the street outside.

"An escort, my lady?"

"None needed. My thanks. I'm going only back to chapel and my lady mother."

The chapel was to the left so she had to turn that way at the first meeting of lanes. She paused, out of sight, long enough for him to close the door again. Then she went back the other way, heading towards the wall and gates for the second time in as many nights.

Footsteps, a known voice.

"You lied to him. Where are you going?"

She turned. Felt a swift, unworthy flowering of relief, offered thanks to the god. She would be stopped now, would not have to do this after all. Gareth, his face taut with concern, came up to her. She had no idea what to say.

So offered truth. "Gareth. Listen. I can't tell you how, and it frightens me, but I am quite certain Athelbert is in the spirit wood."

He had taken a blow this evening with the tidings, harder than hers. He was still adjusting to it. She saw him step back a little. A witch! Unclean! she thought. Couldn't help but think.

Unworthy, that thought. This was her brother. After a moment, he said, carefully, "You feel a… sense of him?"

He was close to truth. It wasn't Athelbert, in fact, but that much she wasn't ready to divulge. She swallowed hard, and nodded. "I think he… and some others are trying to get west."

"Through that forest? No one… Kendra, that's… folly."

"That's Athelbert," she said, but it didn't come out lightly. Not tonight. "I think they feel a need to go very fast, or even he wouldn't do this."

Gareth's brow had knitted the way it did when he was thinking hard. "A warning? The Erlings going that way by sea?" She nodded. "I think that must be it."

"But why would Athelbert care?"

This became difficult. "He might be joining others, making one with them."

"The Cyngael prince?"

He was clever, her little brother. He might also be the kingdom's heir by now. She nodded her head again.

"But how… Kendra, how would you know?"

She shrugged. "You said it… a sense of him." A lie, but not too far from truth.