The tent of King Ardgar of Ivearda was crowded with people and thick with acrid smoke struggling to find its way through the hole at its peak. Ten men in chainmail shirts and steel helms gripped meaningfully at the hilts of the long swords hung from their belts, and held back the dozen aristocrats and freeholders who’d accompanied their king on his pilgrimage.

      Ardgar himself sat stiff upon a wide, straight-backed wooden seat cushioned with animal hides. He wore scaled mail of hard lacquered leather, and the black, gold, and red tartans of the Gwynn clan. The grim-faced captain of his company stood to one side, and his plump, robed chamberlain to the other.

      The men he’d sent to the Droma-camp hadn’t come with a message at all, but a sternly-worded invitation. The Lord Ciaran and his kindred were to attend upon their king—most particularly his daughter.

      Lorcán had remarked sourly on the swiftness of rumor, and there’d been a brief argument on whether Lorcán or any other man of Droma had a right to attend upon that meeting.

      In the end, Lorcán had clarified matters for the messengers. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. We need to do this thing, so it’s going to get done.” The dozen most elite men of his company backed his words.

      Eithne was glad for it. And glad as well to see her brother, Fethgna, and her aunt, Fidelm, whom she embraced warmly.

      But Mother, on the other hand…

      The slim, small woman with her salt and pepper hair had taken one look at her, still bedraggled despite the change of clothes, and muttered, “My Gods, look at you. Haven’t you had a comb for that hair of yours? And would it kill you to put on a dress?” Mother had a dark, accusing look for Aunt Fidelm, dressed in armor and breeches as well.

      Eithne had given her mother a perfunctory embrace. There were more important matters at hand, after all.

      Together, they’d paraded, with a dozen men of Droma and Dolgallu together, through the alleys and lanes of pilgrims and traders to the camp of the Iveardan king.

      Father and the rest of her kindred knelt before Ardgar.

      Mother plucked at Eithne’s sleeve. He doesn’t deserve the honor. A few years earlier, Mother had sent her away to Ardgar’s court to learn a thing or three about, “a lady’s ways,” in service to Ardgar’s chief-wife.

      One of the worst years of my life. But Eithne bent her knee.

      Lorcán and Medyr were under no such obligation—Ardgar wasn’t their king—but they bowed with stiff formality.

      “Rise, cousins.” Ardgar’s use of the word carried no familiarity.

      There was no love lost between his branch of the clan and her own. Ardgar and her father were related only by their common grandmother, who’d whelped a bastard son, Eithne’s own forebear. Ardgar considered his grandfather’s cuckoldry a disgrace, and begrudged any relation to his bastard cousins.

      While in service to his chief-wife, Eithne’d seen for herself the contempt in which Ardgar held her kin. “They say you’ve got monkey’s tails, up there on that mountain, and that all your woman have staves like a man,” Ardgar had told her. “I better check and make sure you’re a proper woman.” And up her skirts went his hand. As if she had no more dignity than the idiot scullery-maid who drooled on herself and couldn’t tell cocks from hens.

      She wondered if he remembered the arm-twisting she’d given him. Damn near broke his arm.

      Ardgar frowned on her, then on Lorcán. “Greetings, sir. I’m afraid this is a family matter. Thank you for escorting my cousins safely, but you may go now.”

      “Not likely,” snarled Lorcán. The three fingers of his left hand bunched into a fist as he belatedly added, “—Your Grace.”

      The crowd murmured and shifted. From behind Ardgar’s seat, two familiar faces emerged. Dafyd, King of the Ivea, whip-thin and moustached, sidled up to Ardgar’s seat like a snake. Eithne and Eowain had supped with him not even a week ago in his own hall.

      Behind him was a woman in heavy, woolen robes of dark blue. The hood obscured the face, save for her narrow chin, her blood-red lips, and the spill of curled black tresses. A brass-scourge cinched her robe close around her narrow waist. One of those weird Belenosian sisters?

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

      Father cleared his throat. “I believe the Lord Lorcán has a right to attend, if this meeting concerns my daughter. He represents the interests of his king in the matter of her wedding arrangements.”

      Gah! I wish everyone would stop talking about ‘my wedding arrangments’ as if I’d agreed to them!

      Ardgar raised an objecting finger. “Arrangements that require my approval.”

      Her aunt put her left hand to the hilt of the sword she wore on her belt. “Approval you’ve already granted, Your Grace. I spoke to you myself on the matter, some months ago. As did the Drymyn Calcas.”

      Ardgar’s eyes flickered for a moment toward King Dafyd. “I’m afraid matters have— changed,” he said. “I’m informed that the marriage to the King of Droma would be invalid, if performed by our own native rites.”

      Eithne gritted her teeth. “Invalid?”

      Medyr flared. “Whomever says so is a villain and a bastard, a coward and a rascal, Your Grace!”

      Dafyd spoke then. “You speak so of the High Oak, the greatest drymyn of your own Order, the Gods’ own delegate in Abred?”

      “The High Oak is not here, Your Grace. It is some other rascal who pours these words in your ear. It’s for our own Great Oak of Iathrann to determine what’s proper for the free men of Iathrann, and he has declared our marriage rites valid.”

      “But the Great Oak's predecessor agreed with the High Oak. Is not Iathrann a land of the Universal Súthrhaman Order?”

      “It is, but—!”

      Dafyd’s thin lips smiled without humor. “Then the word of the High Oak should prevail, should it not?”

      Ardgar forestalled the argument with raised hand and voice. “Enough!” He glared at them all. “Our own King Yochy of the Fiatach has decreed that the Fiatach tribes are to strictly observe the Súthrhaman rites. If the Eithne weds Eowain under rites considered invalid, then she’s nothing more than a concubine, a mother to bastards. I won’t allow another woman of our clan to fall into such disgrace.”

      Eithne’s anger smoldered and her fists clenched, but Father shot her a warning look to keep silent.

      Medyr stamped his blackthorn staff on the ground. “What of your own wives, Your Grace? I seem to recall you’ve been wed in the Kârnian tradition yourself. And often.” He counted on his fingers. “Is it three wives you have, or four? I’ve lost count.”

      Ardgar shot to his feet. “That’s not the matter before my court, Drymyn!” His bearded face was pale and clammy.

      He’s afraid of something, Eithne realized.

      “King Yochy has had a revelation, he says.” Ardgar glanced again at Dafyd. “The reforms of the former Great Oak are the—” He paused as if to remember what he’d been told. “The only true and righteous practices of the Universal Súthrhaman faith.”

      Beside him, Dafyd nodded.

      “And those who preach and— Who preach and support the reforms are—” He choked on his next words. “Trusted friends and allies to be heeded and protected.”

      What’s wrong with him? Eithne’d spent a year in his court and never seen him thus.

      Ardgar lowered himself back into his seat, as though exhausted. “Lord Ciaran, I know your family’s waited a long time—longer than you should have—to see your daughter decently wed.”

      “We were honored to serve the will of the Gods and the Drymyn, and observe the proscriptions of Eithne’s geas—”

      Ardgar waved his hand. “By King Yochy’s decree, and on the advice of his drymyn, your daughter is released from her geas. And from the shameful arrangement with the Donnghaile clan.”

      Eithne, Lorcán, and Medyr stepped forward together.

      “What of Eowain—?”

      “Your Grace, you can’t—!”

      “What drymyn is this—?”

      The armed guards went stiff and drew blades half-way from their scabbards. Angry mutters of alarm went around the assembly. Father’s hand on her shoulder drew Eithne back.

      Father stepped in front of her. The men of Dolgallu and Droma were outside the tent. Eithne, her kin, and their allies were alone against a dozen swords.

      “Moreover,” shouted Ardgar over the gathering, “King Yochy promises instead the hand of his grandson, Darmat, as husband for your daughter. And twice the bride-price due her from the Donnghaile.”

      She goggled at him. After all we’ve been through—! After all the men wounded and killed—! After Eowain nearly—!

      He snapped his fingers. “Guards, take her.”

      A handful of Ardgar’s men moved.

      Eithne hocked back, spat her disgust at Ardgar’s feet—“Fócail to that!”—and snatched the dagger with the orange schorl gemstone—the very blade Eowain had given her—from its sheath. “You gutless son of a poxy whore!”

      Mother shrieked, “Eithne, no—!”

      The Iveardan guards drew swords. Lorcán did the same. Medyr and Fethgna raised their hands and stepped in front of Eithne, crying, “No, no, wait!”

      Fidelm fell back, opened the tent flap, and drew her blade. “Eithne! Go now! Run!”

      The Iveardans surged forward to prevent her.

      Eithne swallowed her pride and ran.

      Out of the tent, past the surprised Iveardan guards and the shocked men of Droma and Dolgallu, she ran.

      “Treachery!” she swore as she barreled past the stunned faces of scarred Gaeth and barrel-chested Mahon.

      “Treachery!” she screamed as she dashed past dumbfounded men of her own village.

      Swords on all sides scraped from their scabbards.

      Eithne didn’t wait to see who chose which side.

      Out into the firelit camps, she ran.