‘Aye, she’s ugly now right enough,’ said Maev. ‘But when she’s birthed the rascal she’ll become slim and beautiful again. Whereas you, you great lump, will always be ugly.’ Maev’s smile faded. ‘Why does the Moidart hate Lanovar so?’
Jaim shrugged. The truth clung to him, burning in his heart, but he could not voice it. Lanovar was a fine man, braw and brave. He had many virtues and few vices. Sadly, one of his vices was that he found women irresistible. Before wedding Gian the previous spring Lanovar had been seen several times in Eldacre town. Few knew the woman he had met there, but Jaim Grymauch was one of them. He suspected that the Moidart was another. Rayena Tremain was beautiful. No doubt of it. She was tall and slender, and she moved with an animal grace that set men’s hearts beating wildly. The first affair with Lanovar had been brief, the parting apparently acrimonious.
Rayena had – four months later – wed the Moidart, in a great ceremony in Eldacre Cathedral. Within the year there were rumours that the marriage was foundering.
Lanovar began acting strangely, disappearing for days at a time. Jaim, concerned for his leader and his friend, had secretly followed him one morning. Lanovar travelled to the high hills, to a small, abandoned hunting lodge. After an hour a lone horsewoman rode up. Jaim was astonished to see it was Rayena.
Beside him now Lanovar groaned, the sound jerking Jaim back to the painful present. Lanovar’s face was bathed in sweat, and his breathing was shallow and laboured. ‘I was never . . . frightened … of dying, Grymauch,’ he said.
‘I know that.’
‘I am now. My son is about to be … born and I’ve . . . given him no soul-name.’
In the distance a wolf howled.
CHAPTER ONE
THE THIN CANE SLASHED THROUGH THE AIR. THE FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD youth winced, but uttered no cry. Blood seeped from a split in the skin of his right palm. The tall, bony schoolmaster loomed over the black-haired boy. He was about to speak, but saw the blood on the tip of his bamboo cane. Alterith Shaddler gazed on it with distaste, then laid the bamboo on the shoulder of the lad’s grey shirt. Drawing the cane back and forth he cleaned it, leaving thin crimson streaks on the threadbare garment. ‘There are those,’ said Alterith Shaddler, his voice as cold as the air in the stone schoolroom, ‘who doubt the wisdom of trying to teach the rudiments of civilized behaviour to highland brats. Since knowing you, boy, I am more inclined to count myself among their number.’
Alterith placed the cane upon the desktop, straightened his threadbare white horsehair wig, and clasped his hands behind his back. The youth remained where he was, his hands now at his sides. It was a shame that he’d been forced to draw blood, but these clan youngsters were not like Varlish boys. They were savages who did not feel pain in the same way. Not once did any of them make a sound while being thrashed. Alterith was of the opinion that the ability to feel pain was linked to intelligence – ‘No sense no feeling’, as his old tutor, Mr Brandryth, was apt to say regarding clan folk.
The schoolmaster looked into the youth’s dark eyes. ‘You understand why I punished you?’
‘No, I do not.’
Alterith’s hand lashed out, slapping the boy hard upon the cheek. The sound hung in the air. ‘You will call me sir when you respond to me. Do you understand that?’
‘I do … sir,’ answered the youth, his voice steady, but his eyes blazing with anger.
Alterith was tempted to slap him again for the look alone – and would have, had the distant ringing of Dusk Bell not sounded from the St Persis Albitane School. Alterith glanced to his right, gazing through the open window and across the old parade square to the main school building. Already Varlish youngsters were emerging from the great doors, carrying their books. One of the masters came in sight, his midnight blue academic cape shimmering in the afternoon sunshine. Alterith looked with longing at the old building. Within it were libraries, filled with historical tomes, fine works of philosophy, diaries of famous Varlish soldiers and statesmen. There were three halls, and even a small theatre set aside for great plays. The teacher sighed, and returned his gaze to the cold stone walls of his own classroom. It was a former stable, the stalls ripped out and replaced with twenty ancient desks and chairs. Twenty chairs and fifty students, the unlucky ones sitting on the floor in ranks around the walls. There were no books here, the children using slate boards and chalk for their work. The walls were bare but for a single map of the Moidart’s domain, and beside it the daily prayer for the Moidart’s continued health.