1Lrian took the news of Bran's death hard-much harder than she herself might have predicted had she ever dreamed such a possibility could occur. True, she heartily resented Bran ap Brychan for running away and deserting his people in their time of need; she might have forgiven him all else, if not for that. On the other hand, she knew him to be a selfish, reckless, manipulating rascal. Thus, though utterly irritated and angry with him, she had not been at all surprised by his decision to flee. She told herself that she would never see him again.

Even so, never in her most resentful disposition did she conceive-much less wish-that any harm would come to him. That he had been caught and killed trying to escape filled her with morbid anguish. The news-reported by her father's steward and overheard by her as he related the latest marketplace gossip to the cook and scullery girls-hit her like a blow to the stomach. Unable to breathe, she sagged against the doorpost and stifled a cry with her fist.

Sometime later, when summoned to her father's chamber, where she was informed, she was able to bear up without betraying the true depth of her feelings. Shocked, horrified, mournful, and leaden with sorrow, Merian moved through the first awful day feeling as if the ground she trod was no longer solid beneath her feet-as if the very earth was fragile, delicate, and thin as the shell of a robins egg, and as if any moment the crust on which she stood might shatter and she would instantly plunge from the world of light and air into the utter, perpetual, suffocating darkness of the tomb.

Soon, everyone in King Cadwgan's court was talking of nothing else but Bran's sad, but really only-too-predictable, demise. That was harder still for Merian. She put on a brave face. She tried to appear as if the news of Bran and the misfortune that had befallen Elfael meant little to her, or rather that it meant merely as much as bad news from other places ever meant to anyone not directly concerned-as if, lamentable though it surely was, the fate of the wayward son of a neighbouring king ultimately was nothing to do with her.

"Yes," she would agree, "isn't it awful? Those poor people-what will they do?"

She told herself time and again that Bran had been an unreliable friend at best; that his apparent interest in her was nothing more than carnal, which was entirely true; and that his sad death had, at the very least, delivered her from a life of profound and perpetual unhappiness. These things and more she told herself-spoke them aloud, even. But no matter how often she rehearsed the reasons she should be relieved to be free of Bran ap Brychan, she could not make herself believe them. Nor, for all the truth of her assertions, could she make herself feel less wretched.

She kept a tight rein on herself when others were nearby. She neither wept nor sobbed; not one sorrowing sigh escaped her lips. Her features remained composed, thoughtful perhaps, but not distraught, less yet grief-stricken. Anyone observing Merian might have thought her distracted or concerned. Knowing that nothing good could come of any overt display of emotion where Bran was concerned, she swallowed her grief and behaved as if the news of Bran's death was a thing of negligible significance amidst the more troubling news of the murder of Brychan ap Tewdwr and all his warband and the unwarranted Ffreinc advance into neighbouring Elfael. Here, if only here, she and her stern father agreed: the Ffreinc had no right to kill a sitting king and seize his cantre?

"It is a bad business," King Cadwgan told her, shaking his grey head. "Very bad. It should not have happened, and William Rufus should answer. But Brychan had been warned more than once to make his peace. I urged him to go to Lundein long ago years ago! We all did! Would he listen? He was a hell-bent, bloody-minded fool-"

"Father!" Merian objected. "It is beneath you to speak ill of the dead, and bad luck besides."

"Beneath me?" wondered Cadwgan. "Daughter, it is kindness itself! I knew the man, and of times would have called him my friend. You know that. On Saint Becuma's knees, I swear that man could be so maddeningly pigheaded-and mean with it! If there was ever a man with a colder heart, I don't want to know him." He raised an admonishing finger to his daughter. "Mark my words, girl, now that Brychan and his reprobate son are gone, we will soon count it a blessing in disguise."

"Father!" she protested once more, her voice quivering slightly. "You should not say such things."

"If I speak my mind, it is not out of malice. You know me better than that, I hope. Though we may not like it, that is God's own truth. Brychan's son was a rogue, and his death saved a hangman's fee."

"I will not stay and listen to this," declared Merian as she turned quickly and hurried away.

"What did I say?" called her father after her. "If anyone has cause to mourn Bran ap Brychan's death, it is the hangman who was cheated out of his pay!"

Merians mother was more sympathetic but no more comforting. "I know it is hard to accept," said Queen Anora, threading her embroidery needle, "when someone you know has died. He was such a handsome boy-if only he had been better brought up, he might have made a good king. Alas, his mother died so young. Rhian was a beauty, and kindness itself-if a little flighty, so they say. Still, it's a pity she was not there to raise him." She sighed, then went back to her needle. "You can thank God you were not allowed to receive him in company."

"I know, Mother," said Merian glumly, turning her face away. "How well I know."

"Soon you will forget all about him." She offered her daughter a hopeful smile. "Time will heal, and the hurt will pass. Mark my words, the pain will pass."

Merian knew her parents were right, though she would not have expressed her opinions quite so harshly. Even so, she could not make her heart believe the things they said: it went on aching, and nothing anyone said soothed the pain. In the end, Merian determined to keep her thoughts, like her grief, to herself.

Each day, she went about her chores as if the raw wound of sorrow was already skinning over. She attended her weaving with care and patience. She helped the women prepare the animal skins that would become furs to adorn winter cloaks and tunics. She stood barefoot in the warm sun and raked the newly harvested beans over the drying floor. She twirled the spindle between her deft fingers to spin new-carded wool into thread, watching the skein grow as she wound it round and round. Though she laboured with diligence, she did not feel the thread pass through her fingertips, nor the rake in her hands; she did not smell the strong curing salts she rubbed into the skins; her fingers gathered the wool of their own accord without her guidance.

Each day, she completed her duties with her usual care-as if the thought of Bran hunted down and speared to death like some poor, fearcrazed animal was not the sole occupation of her thoughts, as if the anguish at his passing was not continually churning in her gentle heart.

And if, each night, she cried silently in her bed, each morning she rose fresh faced and resolved not to allow any of these secret feelings to manifest themselves in word or deed. In this she made good.

As the weeks passed, she thought less about Bran and his miserable death and more about the fate of his leaderless people. Of course, they were not as Garran, her elder brother, so helpfully pointed outleaderless. "They have a new king now-William Rufus," he told her. "And his subject lord, Count de Braose, is their ruler."