The festival atmosphere that had slowly grown throughout Durovernum over the preceding weeks had finally burst into full bloom. Beyond the town’s wooden palisades, in the fields leading down to the docks on the River Dwr, there were games and contests and stalls selling bolts of brightly colored cloth, arm rings and furs, food and drink, and songs that could be bought from the bards to woo a lover from afar or shame a rival without bloodshed. Charioteers raced their pony-drawn carts up and down the winding tracks (none with quite the skill or daring of Mael and me), and the very air crackled with anticipation of the feast that would begin after sundown.
At last, the sky shaded to indigo in the east, and the rich smells that had seasoned the breezes all day—spit-roasting boar and venison stewed in great cauldrons—drew the nobles of the Four Tribes and their freemen and freewomen to gather in the great hall.
I took a last nervous glance at myself in the mirror. I’d brushed the thick waves of my hair until they shimmered down my back, and I’d dressed them off my face with a circlet of red gold that twined about my brow. I had to admit, the look suited me. A gown of leaf-green wool under a russet-and-purple mantle draped the lines of my body. The torc around my neck gleamed, and the stacked bronze and silver bangles on my wrists jangled as I pushed aside my door curtain and headed up the winding path to my father’s great hall.
Once inside, I was enveloped by the smells of roasting meat and peat smoke and had to snake through the crush of bodies to find my seat by the hearth.
“You’re dressed like a proper queen this night,” Clota, my father’s chief bondswoman, said, chuckling as she leaned over to fill my cup with mead. “And more than one lad here tonight seems to have noticed finally that you are a girl.”
I rolled my eyes and reached for a platter of honeyed oatcakes and apples, too nervous to eat much. I shifted on the low bench seat near my father’s left hand and wondered where Mael had gotten to. Clota might have been joking, but in truth, I could almost feel the looks from all about the hall—glances that traced the lines of my limbs, the planes of my face. But when I sought them out, there was only one person who was bold enough to return my gaze.
And it was not Maelgwyn Ironhand but his brother, Aeddan. I grinned and raised my hand in greeting, but Aeddan did not smile back. Instead, he just raised his cup to me.
He knows, I thought, my stomach knotting a bit. Mael told him.
Aeddan was two years older than his brother, but they were unmistakably related. Both had dark hair, worn long, and almost identical slate-gray eyes. Like his younger brother, Aeddan was handsome and clever and good with a sword. But—to me, at least—his had always seemed more of a brooding presence, sitting in the shadows just beyond the circle of firelight. Where Mael’s eyes could shine bright with passion or burn dark with anger, Aeddan’s gaze always seemed to me a bit cool. Sharp. Like the blade of a fine iron knife waiting to be used. The veneer of Roman culture that he’d adopted from his time in that place—he drank wine and draped his cloak over one arm like a toga—only emphasized the contrast between the brothers. But as different as they were, I had always loved them both: Aeddan like a brother, Mael . . . as something more. Much more, it seemed. I turned away from Aeddan’s gaze before he noticed the blush creeping up my cheeks.
Clota passed by in that moment, and I lunged for her tray, snatching up another mug of spiced mead. I’d gulped the first one down far too fast in an attempt to steady my nerves. I glanced around the room again, suddenly desperate to find Mael’s face. I thought I saw him pass through the archway of the great oak doors and half rose from my seat to go to him. But then a drift of conversation between a grizzled old bear of a Catuvellauni warrior and a pair of young men—freemen of a visiting chief from Gaul, by the strange look of them—caught my attention.
“How goes the resistance, then?” the old bear asked. “Do the Arverni and the Carnutes still harry the Romans in Gaul and set fire to their forts?”
One of the freeman with tattoos on his cheeks and red-rimmed eyes spat. “There is no resistance since Arviragus surrendered. The coward.”
I was pretending not to listen but could barely hide my shock. Arviragus? A coward? Impossible. I had met the Gaulish warrior king when I was young and he was but a prince, but I’d been awed by his bravery and skill with a sword. He would never surrender to the Romans.
“He was no coward,” his companion said loudly, chewing his words through a mouthful of meat. “But he was a fool. Letting himself be taken by the Roman. I’d have fallen on my own sword first.”
“Be careful how you speak!” the older man snapped, his eyes flicking to where my father, Virico, sat, gazing out over the gathered crowd.
“Why?” Dark beer sloshed over the rim of the young warrior’s mug. “I simply speak the truth.”
I realized in that moment that he either didn’t know or didn’t care that, like Arviragus, my father himself had once been captured by Caesar. Or that his beloved daughter Sorcha had led an army to free him and in doing so had been lost herself.
His tattooed companion began to guffaw. “Maybe he’s right, Biron. Perhaps these Prydain tribes have the way of it. Why even fight the Romans? Easier to let them think they’ve had their way with you, and in the morning, they’ll just hitch up their skirts and leave you in peace.”