"The Bold," Harold put in reverently.
"Aye," his father said with a grave smile, "our good Queen Mehar the Bold descended into the bowels of the castle and there forged her blade, weaving into it the most powerful of her mother's spells."
"Right away, or did she have to practice sword-making?" Reynauld asked. "It is, as you might not know Father, a rather complicated business."
Harold watched their sire look at his eldest son over the top of the book. "It says that she did take a goodly bit of time at the task, son. And Ingle, the steelsmith, did take an especial interest in aiding her, for by then Gilraehen and Mehar had searched all the pages of Elfine's book and discovered many potent spells of defense and protection- which Ingle found much to his liking-"
"And what of the bride price?" Imogen interrupted impatiently. "And the price on her head? Did the king pay both?"
"He would have-" their sire began.
"And likely still would be-" interjected their mother.
"But," their father said with a smile thrown his wife's way, "the price on Mehar's head was satisfied because the dastardly Prince of Hagoth was persuaded to take another of Angesand's daughters to wife."
"How horrible!" Imogen exclaimed.
"Aye, well, Hagoth wed Sophronia of Angesand, beat her once, then found himself encountering a piece of meat too large for his throat at table two days later-and there is some question as to whether or not Sophronia was cutting his meat that day, though it doesn't say here-and died, unmourned. Sophronia took over his affairs, corralled his children, and wed herself to a man quite content to let her manage him, so perhaps it wasn't so horrible after all."
"But what of the bride price?" Harold persisted. "The king paid a goodly price for Queen Mehar, didn't he? It seems as if he should have, she being such a capital fellow and all."
"Never fear, son," their father said, "it says here that a premium price was paid. The king gave our good Lord of Angesand a queenly amount of his gold, a pair of the finest brood mares left him, then laid an enchantment of excellence on Angesand's stables-an enchantment, I might add, that took nigh onto two weeks to do properly."
"Still in force, I'd say," Reynauld said pragmatically. "Passing good steeds, those beasts from Angesand. Fleet of foot and fearless in battle. Strong. Courageous. Wouldn't mind having one myself."
At this point, he looked at his father expectantly.
"I'll think on it," his father promised. "Those horses of Angesand's come dear." He looked at Harold. "Any further questions, my lad?"
"What was Queen Mehar's dowry?"
His father smiled. "Why, Fleet, of course."
"And what happened to Lothar?"
His father seemed to choose his words carefully. "He was wounded, but not mortally. He is Yngerame of Wychweald's son, after all, and because of that has untold years to count before his tally is full. He could live on endlessly."
"But you don't think so," Harold said. He'd overheard- very well, he'd eavesdropped, but how else was a lad to find out anything interesting in a hall where the conversations changed course so quickly each time a child appeared within earshot?- he had overheard his sire and his dam speculating on this very subject more than once.
His father looked at him sharply-perhaps he hadn't been careful enough-then sighed. "I think," he said slowly, "that Lothar will continue until he is slain. His evil is strong and he feeds on the fear he inspires in those around him. It is an endless supply of energy to him. How he will meet his end, in the end, I cannot say."
"And his sons?" Reynauld asked, looking, for once, more concerned about affairs of the realm than he was in obtaining the horse of his dreams.
"I don't think they match him in power," their father said quietly.
"But I thought Lothar was a faery tale," Imogen said in a low, quavering voice. "One you made up to frighten us when we asked for that kind of thing. I didn't think he was real."
Their father closed the book and smiled easily at her. " 'Tis perhaps just that, my love. After all, few claim to have seen him. Mayhap he was just a simple man who lived and died long ago-"
There was a knock, then a servant came in, leaned down, and whispered into their sire's ear. Their father excused himself quickly and went out.
"More tradespeople?" Imogen asked hopefully, her face alight with the expression Harold immediately recognized as enthusiasm over the possibility of more fabric. She even shot him a look, assessing no doubt his current state of grubbiness and how that might affect her plans.
"Mother, must I go into the merchant business?" Reynauld asked, kneeling over his battlefield. "I would so much prefer to be a warrior. On one of Angesand's finest war horses," he added casually.
"Merchantry is an honorable profession," his mother said placidly.
"It seems a tiresome business," Reynauld said. "Messengers arriving at all hours, having to closet yourself with them at all hours, endless discussions, endless bolts of cloth. You would think," he added, "that father would have chosen a more likely spot for his house, wouldn't you? Nearer the Crossroads, perhaps in the duchy of Curach, somewhere other than so far north that our most frequent arrivals are snow and ice and the only reason we have green, tender leafy things to eat is because I stoke the fires each day in that accursed glass house to keep them warm!"
And then, apparently fearing he'd said too much, he shot his mother an apologetic look, rose, then trotted off, to no doubt stoke more fires.
Imogen rose as well, with the excuse of needing to go examine her supply of red silk and see if it was sufficient. Harold watched them go, then watched his mother thoughtfully for some time. The Book of Neroche lay on a heavy, richly carved table next to her chair. He glanced at it, then back at his mother's scarred hands. Some of the scars were round, silvery circles of uneven shape, as if she'd been burned by stray sparks.
He blinked, feeling a great mist begin to clear from his mind.
Burns. Stray sparks. Stray sparks from a smithy perhaps?
He looked at the rest of his mother. Her hair was dark, piled on top of her head in what at the start of day was a quite restrained bun. By evening, though, it always looked as it did this evening: riotously curly and relentlessly falling off the top of her head to cascade down past her shoulders.
He thought about her killing that spider.
He wondered why indeed it was that they lived so far in the north. Why men came to see his sire at all hours. Why his sire was gone for long periods of time without a better explanation than he'd been off looking at silks.
Something he seemed to have no affinity for when he was home, truth be told.
Harold pondered yet more on questions that suddenly demanded answers. Why had he never met any of his mother's kin? Why did his father command such deference from the men who came to see him? Why did his mother oft sit in her weaving chamber, whispering quietly over what she wove in a tongue he could not understand?
Reynauld never thought past his pretend battles; Imogen was content with her wares, so if they asked and were given vague answers, they never questioned further. Harold suspected the days of his doing that were over.
He sat up, walked across the rug on his knees and knelt before his mother, the questions burning in his mouth. His father called her my lady, and his mother always called his father my lord. Indeed, as he looked back over his memories, he couldn't remember them calling each other anything else.
At least within his earshot.
Surely there was more to them both than that.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She looked at him in surprise, but it was followed so quickly by a gentle smile that he almost believed he'd imagined her first reaction.
"I am your mother who loves you, son."
He took his mother's hand. "Where did you get these burns?"
"From a fire."
"Is your sire alive? Your dam?"
She tilted her head to one side. "You're full of questions tonight."
"Well?"
"If you'll have the answers to those, then aye and nay."
"Why I have never met them?"
"Travel is perilous."
He frowned at her. "These are not the answers I'm seeking."
"They are the safe answers, Harry."
He frowned at her, then kissed her hand and rose.
"Where do you go, son?"
He paused at the door. "Hunting, Mother."
" 'Tis bedtime, my dear."
"It will be a short hunt."
She laughed softly and he left the warmth of the family's chamber. He wondered where his parents would keep secrets, if they had any, and decided upon their bedchamber. He almost toppled his great-grandsire- his father's mother's sire-over in his haste. He looked at him sharply. Was this Alesone of Neroche's father? He knew the king's genealogy well; it was required learning from his tutor. He'd never dreamed it might apply to him. He returned his attention to the man before him.
"Who are you?" Harold demanded.
"Who do you think I am?" his great-grandsire asked with a look about him that said he'd been long anticipating the question and had wondered why it had been so long in coming.
"I think you are Beachan of Bargrenan," Harold answered.
His great-grandsire laughed. "Sharp-eyed hawk," he said affectionately, pinching Harold's cheek. "Wondered when it would come to him," he said as he continued on his way.
"That's no answer!" Harold bellowed after him.
Beachan of Bargrenan only held up his hand in a wave, then continued on his way without turning back.
Harold pressed on. He threw open the door to his parents' chamber. It was, he had to admit upon new observation, quite a luxurious chamber. Thick carpets were laid tidily upon the floor, and the walls were covered by equally opulent tapestries.
Things from his father's trades?
Harold suspected not. These were far and above anything he'd ever seen come in the back of a tradesman's cart.
"If I were the Sword of Angesand," he muttered, "where would I hide myself?" He looked around him, then his eyes fell upon the headboard of the bed. He walked swiftly to it and ran his fingers over the intricate carvings. Aye, they were fashioned most suspiciously in the shape of a blade, especially that long bit there covered with trailing vines. And did not that crossed piece of wood look a good deal like a sword hilt?
He contemplated for a moment how he might liberate a blade from such a covering. Something sharp to dig with, aye, that would suit. He looked about him and scowled. If someone had just lit those candles on the candelabra near his dam's night table, he might have ...
He might have been able to see.
Which he did now, in spite of those unlit candles, candles resting on a long, silver stand that was, oddly enough, sword height.
If you were a woman, that was.
Harold wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Indeed, it was as if a veil of un-noticing had been pulled off his eyes and now, for the first time in eight long years, he saw clearly.
There, in plain sight, driven into a round base of black granite, was a sword. A sword with a tracery of leaves and flowers-things Queen Mehar loved-flowers that looked a great bloody bit like his mother's favorite tapestry that hung in his favorite cozy chamber, truth be told. The hilt was a simple cross, adorned with more trailing, blossoming vines where they didn't interfere with the holding of the weapon. The hilt now wore a humble tray of polished stone on which sat a handful of candles.
The Sword of Angesand.
Harold turned and leaped upon the bed with all the enthusiasm of Murcach of Dalbyford's finest hunting hounds and pressed and prodded and poked at the headboard with the candle snuffer he'd found near the candles until-to his great astonishment-part of the wood fell down and hung there by hinges. And what should be behind that wood- that sword shaped wood-but a sword with a great, blinding blue stone embedded in its hilt.
The Sword of Neroche.
Resting above his father's pillow, of all places.
He put his hand out to touch it.
"The blade is sharp."
He squeaked in fright and whipped around to see his mother standing at the foot of the bed, hidden just a bit by the bed curtains. Harold peered around the fabric. By Tappit of Croxteth's crooked nose, had he never marked how queenly his mother looked? He found himself suddenly quite unable to form words-a rather alarming turn of events, to be sure.
His mother, Mehar of Angesand, Queen of Neroche.
She walked around the end of the bed, came to its head, and leaned past Harold to lift the wooden facade back up. It closed back over the sword with a firm click. Then his mother looked at him and smiled.
"So, my son," she said gently, "your sight has cleared."
He babbled. He stammered. He ceased his attempts at speech and merely stared at her in wonder. Then, he felt his eyes narrowing. "Why didn't you tell us?" he demanded. "Tell me, of all people."
She reached out and smoothed his hair out of his eyes. "My young Harry, my trusted confidant, I didn't tell you because I needed to protect you as long as I could."
"Protect me from what?" he demanded.
She gave him the look she was wont to give when he'd asked a question for which she'd just recently provided the answer. "Were you not listening this evening?" she asked quietly. "Did you not hear whom it is we fight-"
She stopped at the sound of footsteps outside the door. She put her finger to her lips and pointed to the shadows near the fireplace. Harold bolted across the room and hid himself behind a tapestry.
"Mehar? Ah, love, there you are."
Harold nodded in satisfaction at the sound of that name. So, he was right after all.
And then the full truth of it struck him with full force. He peered around the tapestry and stared at none other than Gilraehen the Fey, King of Neroche, son of Alexandir, grandson of Iamys, great-grandson of Symon, and great-great-grandson of Yngerame of Wychweald, who was the most powerful mage of all. Gilraehen.
His father.
"Alcuin says that he's seen nothing on the roads tonight-"
Then he paused and looked directly at Harold who was merely peeping out from behind the tapestry and was certain he'd been hidden well enough. He gulped.
His father didn't move. He merely stared at Harold in silence.