“I’ll be back to the diggings as soon as may be, don’t fret,” Cailean replied readily.

Keisyl’s eyes were preoccupied again. “Teir, you’d better come and see Mother, but we’ll not eat at the hearth tonight. Cai, I’ll get Theilyn to bring us some food upstairs and we can discuss how best to organize the smelting.”

Teiriol gave Cailean a half-hearted wave of farewell and apology as he followed his brother. Keisyl’s lips moved in silent calculation, points ticked off on his fingers as he ran through some list. Queasiness undermined Teiriol’s happiness at being home; strangers infesting the familiar surroundings brought some indefinable sense of menace. Why was Keisyl distancing himself from everyone and everything? Always being told what to do by an elder brother was bad enough, Teiriol decided, but being left without guide or instruction could be infinitely worse.

“Hi there, you!” The curt hail startled both brothers out of their preoccupations. A gray-haired man riding a dappled jennet with silver-mounted harness had ridden unchallenged through the open gate. He was surveying the courtyard, hooked nose lifted with an arrogant air. “Tell Jeirran I’ve got all the ironstone he wanted, wet-dressed and ready. Show me where the furnace house is.” Teiriol saw a mule’s head poking inquisitively over the threshold. “I’ll see to the melt tomorrow,” the man continued. “It’s too late in the day to start now.”

Scarlet fury suffused Keisyl’s face. “The furnace house here is mine, from bellows to float stone, and I’ll thank you to remember that.”

“Jeirran’s paying me to smelt for him.” The newcomer shrugged. “You’d better take that up with him. Where do we stable our beasts around here?”

Keisyl was already crossing to the rekin, angry strides eating up the distance. Teiriol hurried after, the ground seeming more uncertain beneath every step. Keisyl kicked the door open with such violence it crashed back on its hinges with an audible crack of splintering wood.

“There are certainly advantages to letting an enemy set things in motion and then pacing your moves to his,” Jeirran was saying with an air of grave consideration. He barely missed a breath at Keisyl’s precipitous entrance. “But equally there are benefits to seizing the initiative. One can catch a foe off guard by doing the unexpected, leaving them unable to see where your strategy is leading.” Jeirran lounged in a high-backed chair set by the hearth while four other men on stools leaned eagerly forward.

Keisyl marched to stand in front of Jeirran, thumbs tucked into his belt and cold rage in his face. “Why’s some Middle Ranges hireling saying he’s here to run a smelt in my furnace?”

“Wernil? So soon? Then we’re ahead of ourselves already!” Jeirran preened himself in the admiring nods of his companions.

“I’ve tin to work and no one smelts on my floor without my say-so,” glowered Keisyl.

“You work the diggings on Theilyn’s behalf,” Jeirran corrected him with silky courtesy. “I think she’ll allow Wernil a turn with the bellows, given how hard I am working for the future of this soke.”

“You conniving—”

“Keisy, Teiro, can I speak with you for a moment?” The scullery door opened to reveal a thin woman pleating her apron with nervous hands. Her hair was faded and colorless, her eyes washed-out blue. Years of worry and toil had carved deep lines into her face, but her back was straight with resolve and the determined set of her countenance was echoed in her sons’ features.

“If anyone sets a brand to my furnace without my permission, I’ll ram his head in after it,” Keisyl growled in a vicious undertone. He pushed past and left the room. Teiriol followed, eyeing the clutter of leatherwork and horn shavings all around the room, the long slate table covered in debris. He found his way blocked by the women’s chairs, drawn back from the hearth and tight in a circle. He looked, dismayed, at the grubby fingermarks on the embroidered linen cushions, at a torn edge to the rug hemmed in by the seats.

“Mother.” He went to embrace her but she retreated, shutting the scullery door before laying her forehead on his shoulder with a silent sigh. In the next breath, she pulled away to brush the hair from his forehead with a fond smile. “What’s going on, Mama?”

“Jeirran’s got some Middle Ranger—” began Keisyl hotly.

“Yes, dear, I heard.” Ismenia laid a finger on his lips to silence him. “But let him work his ore. The sooner he’s done, the sooner he’s out of our home.”

“Mama!” protested Keisyl.

“Will your tinstone go rotten in the next few days?” A shadow of a smile flickered briefly across Ismenia’s face. “Is it too much to ask for peace in the household?”

“There’ll be precious little peace if Jeirran arms every malcontent west of the Gap and marches on the lowlands.” Keisyl’s voice rose in frustration and anger.

“If letting him make his weapons means he marches this rabble out of here, then that’ll do much for the peace of the soke,” retorted Ismenia. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want Eirys disturbed.” Worry creased her forehead.

“Where is she?” Teiriol looked around the scullery. The usual racks of plates and pots were joined by a couple of workboxes, cloth stuck with threaded needles and two distaffs propped in the corner. The normally bare and scrubbed table had three rough stools set around a clutter of pewter beakers.

“Upstairs, resting.” Ismenia looked as if she needed to sleep from sundown to sundown herself. She glanced briefly at a sink where leafy vegetables awaited attention, but with a shrug took a seat

“Resting?” Keisyl looked sharply at his mother.

“We think so. Misaen make it so,” she added in fervent prayer.

“Eirys is with child?” Teiriol tried to catch up with the conversation.

Ismenia nodded. “We think so, which is why I want you both to bite your lips till they bleed if need be. Let Jeirran play the lead-ganger all he wants. This early on, if Eirys is worried or—well you know as well as I that if Jeirran loses his temper, she’ll be the first one he takes it out on.”

“If he’s mistreating her, why doesn’t she stand up to him?” demanded Keisyl. “She knows we’ll back her! If she gives me leave, I’ll beat the piss out of him willingly. Perhaps we should go to Sheltya ourselves if that cold bitch Aritane is cowing her.”

“Eirys is as likely to turn against Jeirran as she is to fly.” Despair tainted Ismenia’s voice for the first time. “She won’t hear a word against him. Bad-mouthing him just makes her cry, so keep your opinions to yourself. Maewelin grant it’s early days with the child making her so sensitive.”

“We can’t go on like this, Mama,” protested Keisyl.

“No, not forever.” Ismenia rubbed a water-wrinkled hand over her face. “Until the babe is born and that’s why I don’t want anything to risk Eirys letting slip, do you hear?”

“And when the babe is come?” Teiriol watched his mother closely.

“Then Eirys will have something to love above that glossy little cock,” replied Ismenia, a steely look in her faded eyes. “Since he’s not about to make a fond father, she might just see him for what he is. He’s too used to being the hand-fed kidling to take kindly to anyone usurping his place.”

“We could get her to repudiate him?” asked Teiriol hopefully.

“And what if her next choice is as bad?” Keisyl muttered. “She’s always had more hair than sense, has Eirys. Come to that, Theilyn could land us with someone just as useless.”

Ismenia looked at him sharply. “You thought well enough of him when they were courting, don’t deny it. We all did, not seeing fine clothes and fancier words was dressing up fools’ gold. Now, about Theilyn—that stuck-up sister Jeirran’s claimed back from Sheltya has taken her under her wing. Don’t tell her anything that you don’t want Jeirran to know, especially not the chance of a baby. Did you see her in the yard at all?”