sudden quiet strode the slender figure of Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield. She was wearing a simple dress of sky blue and on her head a circlet of silver set with a huge sapphire. Oskan stared; he’d never seen her in anything other than battle dress before. Even her hair, usually braided and tucked up under a helmet, now hung loose in a glorious blaze of red-gold, and her eyes shone with excitement as she looked out over the hall. As it was her fourteenth birthday, she was, in effect, the guest of honor and so had precedence over even the King.
Thirrin would have been surprised if she’d known what Oskan and many other people were thinking. Beautiful was a word used for grown women, for her mother and one or two of the young noblewomen who sometimes came to court. She was just Thirrin, fourteen years old today and tired after a bad night’s sleep. She thought she’d been restless because of the coming war but didn’t really believe it. Far more likely was that it had been Yuletide Eve and the night before her birthday, when she’d be officially presented to the court and proclaimed heir.
She’d eventually fallen asleep only to be troubled by strange dreams. In one, she’d been riding her stallion in full war armor and beside her ran a truly enormous cat, a leopard, she thought. But it was unlike any leopard she’d ever seen in the books of her tutor, Maggiore Totus. Its coat was mainly a brilliant white with spots that ranged from silver-gray to the deepest black. But the strangest of all was the fact that she wasn’t hunting it or it hunting her. In the dream she felt an enormous affection for the animal, and she felt proud to be with it and almost humble — a feeling, Thirrin reminded herself, that she didn’t often feel! Maggiore Totus would tell her that it was a classic anxiety dream, but she hadn’t felt in the least bit anxious, only proud and happy.
She looked now to see if Maggiore was at the top end of one of the tables, skillfully denying to herself that she was actually looking for Oskan. The Yuletide bustle and noise had reasserted itself, and people began milling around again as they jockeyed for space as close to the High Table as they could get. So when Thirrin eventually spotted the witch’s son, she was surprised to see him standing directly in front of her, his mouth hanging open in a slightly imbecilic way.
The sight of him annoyed her, and not only because of his sagging mouth. In the chaos that had followed the news of war, she’d forgotten to send the new robes she’d bought him for Yule, and he was still wearing the threadbare tunic and leggings he always wore.
Not deigning to call directly down to him, she beckoned to a chamberlain and spoke quietly into his ear. Oskan watched as the man then walked from her side, stepped down off the dais where Thirrin sat at the High Table, and hurried over to him.
“Her Royal Highness suggests you close your mouth before one of the wolfhounds does something unspeakable in it.” Oskan’s jaw snapped shut with a loud click. “She also wishes you to take a place at the head of the central table.”
Oskan had been heading for the section reserved for the peasantry near the great doors, but now he shyly made for the table the head of which was directly opposite Thirrin’s throne. The fat merchant who already sat there looked at Oskan’s worn tunic and was about to loudly tell him exactly where he should go, when the chamberlain whispered something in his ear and nodded at the High Table. Thirrin’s coldest gaze was already leveled at the merchant, and he quickly shuffled farther down the bench without another word.
Opposite Oskan sat a small dark man who wore small pieces of glass set in a frame in front of each eye. Oskan was fascinated by this contraption and stared in amazement. The small man returned his gaze, and Oskan noticed that his eyes looked enormous behind the glass.
“Oh, of course! They make things larger, like a bead of dew will magnify the blade of grass it hangs on.”
“Exactly right, young man! These are my spectoculums, especially designed by myself, to correct my myopia, or ‘dim sight,’ as you may say.” He stood and extended a small and very clean hand. “May I introduce myself?