The Book of the Burning

Imogen looked flatly surprised, but Idris’s face was still as a mahogany mask. Beside them the cinnamon colored Ralph Curakin sat low in his seat, dragon eyed, his legs stretched out. But he said nothing.

“When you put the crowns on you can see…. Things?”

“It only happened once,” Myrne said, “at the coronation.”

“You should try to make it happen again,” the Queen of Rheged said. “See what happens.”

“Actually,” King Idris differed, “you should inquire into all of the things you have seen.”

“I already sent birds to my people,” Osric said, “asking if these things have already happened, or if they are things to prevent.”

Idris nodded, and then he looked to his wife. Imogen and Myrne were alike in coloring, but Imogen was more delicately featured, grey eyed, brown haired rather than black.

“The Queen of Rheged is right,” Idris said, “you really must learn how to use the crowns. Or at least how to be guided by them.”

“Osric believes Ohean made them so we could only use them together,” Myrne said to Idris.

“I do not know if this is true,” Ralph said. “For one, Ohean did not make the crowns. Remember, Sindri the Dwarf made them, and Sindri enchanted them, though I do not doubt Ohean later added his own enchantments to them.”

Knowing his cousin, Idris agreed.

“Perhaps,” Ralph said, “even added something to them once he knew Myrne would be your queen. But what I really believe is that it is the cynergy of you and Myrne, a Hale woman trained on the Rootless Isle, with Royan descent, as you are Royan descended, that caused the crowns to work so.”

Ralph shrugged.

“I only speculate.”

That night, Signy insisted Cynric bathe before he come to bed, and he said, grinning, that he would have it no other way. When he finally came to their room in a fine dressing gown that had come from that vulgar cousin of his, Waverly, Signy said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Yes, wife?” Cynric said, brushing his beard as he sat down beside her.

“I am not a shrewish woman, and I will not confront the servant girl for the fault of the master. What is it you see in that Hilary?”

Cynric looked shocked.

“Hilary?”

“Yes, some jumped up servant girl from Inglad, and by the way, why do you think it is proper for her to upstage me, to wheedle her way into my own daughter’s affections, to bring you the harp and sit at your feet?”

Cynric snorted.

“Would you help Ingrid haul a giant harp across the floor? You can scarcely bear to hear me sing.”

“That is not the point.”

“I think it is,” Cynric said. “Now do you want me tonight or no?”

“I think no,” Signy said, at last. “I think nothing will happen between us tonight.”

“Suit yourself,” Cynric said, and though she had flatly rejected him, she was still offended at how easily he walked away.

But then the marriage had been easy. Something assembled between parents, and they had both agreed to it. Romance was a southern thing. Cynric was capable, Signy good looking and a housemaker. They had a lovely daughter and, until a year ago, a large enough house in the highlands. She had little tolerance for his music, or his obsession with the old religion, and the whole time he had joined his cousin’s rebellion, she had assured him they would all be killed by Edmund and the Baldwins. No, Cynric realized as he came to the parapet of the castle overlooking the town of Herreboro, he did not love her, and it had never truly mattered until recently.

There she was, leaning over the wall, dark hair blowing like a banner, not truly a servant, not Myrne’s at least, close friends with Ayla now, Hilary. He walked as quietly as possible, wondering how long it would take for her to hear him. And was he trying to frighten her? What if she jumped? Would he laugh? But even while he was thinking this, she turned to him and smiled.

“You are what I wished for,” she said, frankly. “I was looking over this city, feeling in need of company, and I wished Cynric was here.”

He could not help but smile. He knew he looked a fool. She beckoned to him and they stood together looking over the town.

“When the Hale inherited Inglad they really just left the North alone, didn’t they?” she said.

“When the Wulfstans inherited Inglad, they left the Hales alone,” Cynric corrected.

He said, “In comparison to Ambridge, how does Herreboro look?”

“I was almost a slave in Ambridge,” Hilary said. “There I was always looking up or over my shoulder. Here I look down on a city and stand beside… the Queen’s cousin. What kind of a fool would I be to say Ambridge was better?”

After a while, Hilary said, “Since I have come here, I have tried to be honest. What I was going to say a moment ago is not that I stand beside the Queen’s cousin, but that I stand beside the man I love. I do love you, Cynric. That’s a fact. You’re  a married man. That’s a fact too.”

“My wife threw me out tonight.”

“She’s the sort who would,” Hilary said. “That also is a fact.

“What if we sit here all night and watch the stars?”

She turned to Cynric who looked in love with her, like another man had, a long time ago. He looked… charmed was the word… by her.

“Yes,” he said.

Days later the Wrens came. They were not only wrens, but sparrows, robins and every other sort of bird one would never look twice at. Until Royan barons like the Lord of Cleave had shown Wolf the use of them, Hale had never had such heralds. They carried their messages not on their legs, but in their tweets, and a Hearer translated. In one of the upper chambers of Herreboro Castle, sitting beside his wife, Cynric, Eryk and Ralph Curakin pacing the room, King Osric learned, while what he had seen was a little prescient, only a few days in the future, by now it had certainly happened.

“Then the first thing we do,” Myrne said, “is make Allyn Baldwin’s lie true.”

“Do you think he hasn’t already killed Edmund?” Eryk wondered.

Myrne shook her head.

“He wouldn’t dare, but we must dare. According to the vision, Edmund is a day south of here in an old marchland castle.”

Wolf nodded.

“Well, then let’s not take an army to do what five or six could do. I think we’d do better to sneak in and take the fort.”

“Agreed,” Eryk said, “But just because you don’t need an army doesn’t mean we won’t take one. We will march covertly, and we will see that the place is surrounded. No need to take unnecessary chances.”

“Let us march as if this was the most important castle in the world,” Wolf said. “It seems as if Edmund has been there scarcely a day. We will go by night, through the wood, and attack by day, and have him by noon.”

“I wonder,” Ralph said, “if you are not overly careful.”

“Overly careful is better than overly confident,” Lady Ashley said, and Ralph nodded to this.

“And of Inglad?” Myrne said to her husband.

“Yes, wife?”

“Once you said you would be content to leave Inglad to Edmund and his wife and, presumably, to whomever came after him. What now?”

“The Baldwins have as much as made open war on us by this lie,” King Osric said, “and Edmund is in our lands and in our grasp. As soon as we have Edmund we will march into Inglad. Until we have taken Ambridge and the Baldwins heads are on pikes, we are not done.”