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critically before taking the little hammer to it once more. On the workbench lay two spherical knots of silver, ready to be soldered to the ends of the torque. Eili wasn’t keen on delicate ornamental silverwork; it was weapons-smithing that interested her. This must be a special project, and she must have been working on it for a while.
    She hadn’t answered my question. Maybe she thought it was a stupid one. Or maybe…
    My heart clenched with an aching hope. I didn’t have any jewellery to wear, not so much as a ring, and she’d commented on that more than once. Sionnach wore a wrist torque, and I’d admired it before, in Eili’s presence. Biting my lip, I decided not to ask again, but my heart slammed my ribs when I saw the ferocious care she was putting into the thing, when I remembered her kind smile and her warm eyes as she turned to me.
    Perennial optimist, that was me.

4
FOUR
    I snapped awake to black winter stillness. I don’t know what time it was: either late or incredibly early. Close by my room there were footsteps, and murmurs, but I knew they hadn’t woken me. Something else had, like a claw scraping lightly down the nape of my neck, but when I slapped my hand at the spot, there was nothing there: no insect, no spider. No dream-monster even, because I knew what I’d felt was real. Instantly I felt a hungry curiosity and the kick of adrenalin.
    I listened hard. Nobody had any business being awake at that hour. Yes, if they’d been giggling with drink, or high on music or love. But night walkers had no business talking that way, quiet and intent. The footsteps weren’t aimless; they were heading for the lower halls of the dun and the antechamber to Griogair and Leonora’s rooms. They were the light clicking steps of women, and I knew the voices well, because I’d heard them often enough for the first seven years of my life: Kate, and Lilith.
    That morning our queen had ridden into the dun, the skirts of her long silk coat draped over her mare’s chestnut haunches like a robe, my mother at her side, and a detachment of fighters at her back. Kate hadn’t announced her arrival: she hadn’t had to. Leonora had felt her coming.
    I watched her arrival—and my mother’s—from the parapet. I’d been half-hiding, wondering if Lilith’s gazewould roam the courtyard in search of me, flicker eagerly over the faces of the clann. I shouldn’t have worried: Lilith had eyes only for Griogair. They glittered, riveted on his austere beauty. Her own skin almost glowed. What a beautiful pair of lovers they must have made. But either Griogair couldn’t feel her adoration, or he was ignoring it. He didn’t so much as look at his old lover.
    Leonora did.
    My father took Kate’s hand as she slipped elegantly from her horse’s back, and kissed it, then pressed it to his forehead. There was respect but no humility in the gesture. He was, after all, Captain of his own dun. When Kate offered her cheek, he kissed that too, and smiled his fierce formal smile. The fierceness made it no less charming. Ah, despite my best efforts, my father still fascinated me.
    It seemed to be no more than a friendly visit. I didn’t think for a second I’d be invited to sit near my father at supper, and I wasn’t, but as far as I could make out the conversation at the top table was casual, light and funny. The fighting cadres got along famously, as well they might; those who weren’t friends or acquaintances were at least distantly related. There was rivalry concerning horses, weapon skills, speed and dogs and hawks, but it didn’t even come close to blows. It felt more like a festival than diplomacy. Orach huddled into me, passing on gossip and making me laugh, and high on a party and on one another, we fought all comers among the other clann children and beat them.
    Half the fighters ended up bedding each other, andacross loyalties too. By sundown Conal’s arm was draped round a redhead I remembered from Kate’s caverns, one