It was a festival. People drank during festivals. There were visitors in town, visitors with dry throats from the drought and a little money saved for this time. Money that might—money that should—be his, by all the gods, if he hadn’t been forced to close the Boar for the day to redress the damage of the night before. He worked them hard all day, even the ones with broken bones and bashed pates from the brawl, and he certainly wasted no sympathy on employees bemoaning hangovers or lack of sleep. There was money being lost every moment he stayed closed, every moment! And to add to the choler of his mood there was a vile, vile rumor running through the capital that bloody Gorlaes, the Chancellor, intended to slap a rationing law down on all liquids as soon as the fortnight’s festival ended. Bloody drought. He attacked a pile of debris in a corner as if it were the offending Chancellor himself. Rationing, indeed! He’d like to see Gorlaes try to ration Tegid’s wine and ale, he’d like to see him try! Why, the fat one had likely poured a week’s worth of beer over his posterior the night before.
At the recollection, the owner of the Black Boar succumbed to his first smile of the day, almost with relief. It was hard work being furious. Eyeing the room, hands on hips, he decided that they’d be able to open within an hour or so of sundown; the day wouldn’t be a total loss.
So it was that as full dark cloaked the twisting lanes of the old town, and torches and candles gleamed through curtained windows, a bulky shadow moved ponderously towards the recently reopened door of his favorite tavern.
It was dark, though, in the alleys, and he was impeded a trifle by the effects of his wars the night before, and so Tegid almost fell as he stumbled into a slight figure in the lane.
“By the horns of Cernan!” the great one spluttered. “Mind your path. Few obstruct Tegid without peril!”
“Your pardon,” the wretched obstacle murmured, so low he was scarcely audible. “I fear I am in some difficulty, and I…”
The figure wavered, and Tegid put out an instinctive hand of support. Then his bloodshot eyes finally adjusted to the shadows, and with a transcendent shock of awe, he saw the other speaker.
“Oh, Mörnir,” Tegid whispered in disbelief, and then, for once, was speechless.
The slim figure before him nodded, with an effort. “Yes,” he managed. “I am of the lios alfar. I—,” he gasped with pain, then resumed, “—I have tidings that must… must reach the palace, and I am sorely hurt.”
At which point, Tegid became aware that the hand he had laid upon the other’s shoulder was sticky with fresh blood.
“Easy now,” he said with clumsy tenderness. “Can you walk?”
“I have, so far, all day. But…” Brendel slipped to one knee, even as he spoke. “But as you see, I am…”
There were tears in Tegid’s eyes. “Come, then,” he murmured, like a lover. And lifting the mangled body effortlessly, Tegid of Rhoden, named Breakwind, called the Boaster, cradled the lios alfar in his massive arms and bore him towards the brilliant glitter of the castle.
“I dreamt again,” Kim said. “A swan.” It was dark outside the cottage. She had been silent all day, had walked alone by the lake. Throwing pebbles.
“What color?” Ysanne asked, from the rocking chair by the hearth.
“Black.”
“I dreamt her as well. It is a bad thing.”
“What is it? Eilathen never showed me this.” There were two candles in the room. They flickered and dwindled as Ysanne told her about Avaia and Lauriel the White. At intervals they heard thunder, far off.
It was still a festival, and though the King looked haggard and desiccated in his seat at the high table, the Great Hall gleamed richly by torchlight, festooned as it was with hangings of red and gold silk. Despite their morose King and his unwontedly bemused Chancellor, the court of Ailell was determined to enjoy itself. The players in the musicians’ gallery overhead were in merry form, and even though dinner had not yet begun, the pages were being kept busy running back and forth with wine.
Kevin Laine, eschewing both his seat at the high table as a guest of honor and the not-very-subtle invitation of the Lady Rheva, had decided to ignore protocol by opting for a masculine enclave partway down one of the two tables that ran along the hall. Seated between