Her smile widened, amused. “By what? Another woman?”
“Yes.”
“Was she beautiful?”
“I have no idea. She had cobweb hair and eyes like new moons. She rode past me, her eyes caught mine, and in that moment that’s all I knew.”
“And in that moment she bewitched you, and you missed the Lady from Skye entirely. Beware the sorcery out of Skye, my lord. Who was she?”
“Someone’s grandmother, most likely. Still.” He hesitated; Cria watched him curiously. “She looked at me as if she knew me.”
“Perhaps she only wanted to.” Her eyes fell away from him then; her smile began to fade. She glanced at the musicians; the clusters of color were growing, but as yet no one had called them to order.
Familiar with her expressions, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Her shoulders moved, fidgeting as against a hold. “My father is here for the wedding. I will not dare come to you.”
Again his hand resisted its desire to fill itself with her soft, cloudy hair, to measure her eyelashes against his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he breathed.
“So am I.” She folded her arms tightly across her tabard, looked at him again, but without seeing him. “I don’t like what I think he is thinking, these days. He complains about the time I spend here among the king’s musicians; he complains about what I wear, about my hair—”
“Your hair?”
“As if he sees me suddenly as someone else. Someone who dresses more respectably and does not sing, who might bring him gold and meadows and more cows than anyone could milk.” He felt the blood leave his face; he linked his fingers behind his back, leaned against the oak, so that he would not reach out to her with both hands. She was seeing him now, a line as fine as thread across her brow. “I think he has someone in mind.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet. I do know that he will not ask me, he will tell me, after he has pledged me to whoever has enough of those things to buy me—”
“I will talk to him,” Cyan promised, wondering where, in a day, he could acquire meadows, hawks and hounds, gold to drink, if that would persuade her father. “I don’t,” he realized bleakly, “even have a roof of my own to offer you. I’ll talk to the king.”
She nodded. Her face was very calm, as if they had been discussing ancient ballads, and so pale it might have been carved of ice. “Soon,” she pleaded. There was a flurry of notes from flute and drum, then; the musicians began to sort themselves out. His hands clenched behind his back; he said softly as she turned, “I love you, my lady Greenwood. And I would let you sing.”
He saw the Lady from Skye then, entering the room amid a chattering entourage. She was quite tall, as tall as Regis, who moved to meet her. The braided coils of her hair were as white as gold could be and still be gold. Her eyes seemed to reflect a midsummer sky, an endless, timeless blue filled with light. The long, graceful slope of her profile might be considered fishlike, Cyan saw, but it seemed only to adjust the boundaries of beauty, so that what had been called beauty until then became too small a realm without her. Regis, with his brown, shaggy head, his massive shoulders, and all his teeth bared in a grin, looked more bearlike than ever. She laughed as he reached her, and lifted her left hand to his arm, shedding charm like sorcery throughout the hall.
The trumpeters blew a flourish. She smiled over the court, looking pleased by the noisy welcome, the music, the shouting, the applause. Regis’s voice, booming over the hall, fought the noise and took the field. Three days of feasting, he declared. Dancing, falconry, hunting, contests of strength and skill with weapons, and cups of gold awarded by the new queen as prizes. For three days, no words of anger or unkindness would be permitted, no quarrels addressed, all feuds must be held in abeyance. The king loved this pale woman from Skye, Cyan saw. His hands unclenched, fell to his sides. In that mood, Regis would be generous to other lovers; he would refuse to admit the possibility that love might be worth less than cows.
Gwynne of Skye spoke then. “My lords and ladies,” she said. “I am grateful for your welcome.” Her words had a crispness to them, like the bite of air in the west, that enchanted the court; it fell almost silent, listening for more. “I hope to know you and love you as Regis does. In Skye we are at the mercy of the weather, and we name the winds according to their fierceness. But, fierce or gentle, all the winds blow tales to us of the great court at Gloinmere, and I have been hearing them all my life. I never thought I would be standing here beside Regis Aurum on the day before our wedding, wondering what you all must think of this woman from the unpredictable west about to be called queen.”
She was interrupted then, with cheers and drums and an untidy chorus of horns. Someone pounded on Cyan’s shoulder, pushed a cup into his hand. He raised it with the king’s knights in salute to the Lady from Skye. Regis, his voice sending pigeons in the high windows flying, proclaimed the marriage of Lady Gwynne of Skye to the House of Aurum and the land of Yves in that hall, at that hour the next day, and let no one be a moment later.
And now let the feast of welcome begin.
“Watch her dance,” said a woman next to Cyan. He almost did not hear her, for the music had begun, and as always he listened for Cria among the singers. Then the strange urgency in the words struck him and he turned.
The old woman who had caught his eyes in the yard and stolen his attention from the beauty of Skye, captured it again. She was taller and straighter than he would have guessed; she looked as old as the world. Her white, rippling hair swept away from her seamed face down her back, almost to her knees. She wore a long, scarlet robe of fine linen, and a peculiar mantle, a crisscross of faded colors, draped over one shoulder and pinned with gold. One hand flashed gold at every knuckle, the other only a single, silver ring. She carried a harp so pale and plain it might have been made of bone.
Again her eyes held him, black as new moons and as secret.
“Watch—” he repeated, mystified.
“Watch her when she dances. She forgets herself in music and lets her true self show. You have ancient eyes. You will see it.”
The music and the chatter grew distant. Something glided over him: the chilly intimation of trouble. “See what?”
“What she is. You’ll see it in the sixth fingers on her hands, in the scales on her feet, in her distorted shadow, in her terrible eyes. That is not Gwynne of Skye. There is a woman trapped in a tower in Skye, who cannot free herself, who dares not even look at the world for fear of death. Will you find her, Cyan Dag? Will you free her, for the sake of those who love and need her?”
He swallowed the sudden dryness in his throat. “The king’s true bride is imprisoned somewhere in a tower in Skye?”
“You saved your king’s life once before. Will you help him now?”
“But how do I—how do you know these things?”
“Watch the lady the king will marry. She will show you herself what she is.”
“Who are you?” His voice had gone.
“I am the Bard of Skye.” Her ancient eyes looked still as well water and as measureless. “I was trained, long ago, to see what exists and to say the word for it. The woman who calls herself Gwynne of Skye can hide nothing from me. But I can do nothing; your king would never believe me. In this land, a bard speaks only through music; words may be as fickle for them as for anyone. In Skye, it is said that the bard can change the world with a word. You see with your heart, Cyan Dag. You recognized me, in the yard.”
“I don’t know you,” he whispered.
“You saw me instead of that false queen. You recognized what is true. We need you.” The dark in her eyes trembled slightly, well water disturbed by the first drop of rain. “All of us in Skye. And all in Yves. Your seeing eyes, your steadfast heart. Help us.”