Come morning, when Howe and Rowen returned to the Common Hall for breakfast, Howe couldn't help but stare at her host. Without his armor, he seemed vastly different, even though she'd seen his face the day before. Dressed in the way of his people, Bryn Ma'ar wore a pair of undyed woolen trousers, made from the wool of a dark-colored sheep, and a shirt that tucked into a leather belt.
His armor made him appear more massive than he was, though the unarmored man was built with the musculature and frame to support the heavy iron he habitually wore. One of his hands bore a scar similar to the one on his face and neck. He looked up and caught her staring. "What?" he asked, flushing a little.
"My apologies," stammered Howe. "This is the first I've seen you without your armor. You seem . . . lighter, without it."
He chuckled. "I feel lighter without it, anyway, My Princess. Truly though, I was unarmored at supper last night."
"Says the king to the lass who fell asleep over her plate, she was so exhausted," teased Gwyn with a wink at her husband. "I doubt our princess noticed anything at all last night, save where to lay her poor head. Bryn Dear, why didn't you stay in the upper line cabin instead of half-killing your intended with travel?"
When he looked confused, Rowen gently added, "we of the hills are accustomed to such travel, My King, but my brother's daughter has barely just set foot out of the valley for the first time, and she's been ill beside."
"You've been ill?" The king's expression and voice both expressed alarm at the possibility. Howe shook her head in confusion. She hadn't been ill since the previous winter, when she'd eaten a bit of meat gone bad.
"Of course she has," Gwyn agreed immediately. " Truly Dear," she continued in Howe's direction, "you didn't come a day too soon."
"Elder Gwyn, I have been healthy all summer and fall," protested Howe in confusion. "What led you to think otherwise?"
Gwyn flustered for an answer, obviously embarrassed by the gaffe, but Rowen answered immediately. "You're so thin and pale, My Dear, and the circles beneath your eyes speak of convalescence."
Made self-conscious by the assessment, Howe flushed and looked down at her hands. Bryn Ma'ar offered a quiet explanation. "The valley elders have taxed her heavily, far beyond what they tax the others. All of what you notice can be explained by long labor unrelieved, and by the conservation of food. It wasn't just the storm that prompted me to arrive a fortnight before we'd planned. I didn't dare leave her through the winter with as little as she was allowed to keep in provision."
Rowen puffed air through her lips, obviously repressing some emotion, but Howe didn't know what. "If it hadn't been for the runners that spotted you at the line cabin, My King, I wouldn't have known to come. You're lucky I had time to ready the bath and help Gwyn get dinner ready, last eve." She winked at her charge, making Howe fell a little better. "And you have a bit of apologizing to do, Bryn Ma'ar. My Cade is quite annoyed with you."
"I shall apologize profusely as soon as my princess is settled and not apt to get lost within the fortress," Bryn Ma'ar decided immediately. "Cade is a respected warrior and always has been. The last thing I would want is for his wrath to fall on my shoulders, armored or no." His answer made everyone grin and brought a round of jesting from those who knew the man in question.
"Truly, you were blessed to be reunited with him," Yestyn observed to Rowen after the last of the jesting had faded away.
His observation brought a beauteous smile to Rowen's face. For an instant, it was as if Howe was seeing her father again. "Bryn Ma'ar is the author of that blessing," she explained to Howe. "I was carried off by the enemy tribe and Cade was badly injured. He was barely alive by the time Bryn Ma'ar found him. Together, they came after those of us who'd been stolen or scattered. He reunited the tribe one person at a time, our king did."
"And now we are four times what we were," Gwyn boasted with more than a little pride in her step-son. "Many of those Bryn brought back, brought wives from other tribes with them, and the rest married those who were here to begin with. Because of Bryn, we are strong and we are safe."
The praise seemed to make him who'd earned it uncomfortable. "And now we must look toward the future," the king said with a pointed expression.
"My husband's son doesn't like to rest on his laurels," Gwyn explained, furthering her step-son's embarrassment. "He always has the next goal in mind."
To Howe's amusement, Bryn Ma'ar squirmed in his seat, just a little. She had to smile at that. The great Hill-King, who had been mere legend to Howe just days before, was showing himself to be just as human as she. The domestic quality of it all made her feel as if she might be able to enjoy this new, unexpected adventure rather than merely enduring it.
From the first the armored king had explained himself and his intentions, Howe had been plagued by serious doubts about her ability or even desire to fulfill the expected role. She was an outsider here, just as she'd been an outsider in the valley. Howe had no more expectation of being a part of the hill-tribes than she'd had of been accepted in the valley; but this little bit of family camaraderie that included her, that drew her in, chipped away at her doubts just a little.
"My Princess, I promised you the view from atop the fortress. Would you like to see it now, before the storm hits?" The king's question interrupted Howe's reverie and made her realize she was staring at him again.
She dropped her gaze back to her empty plate, aware that the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks most likely stained them a bright pink. "I'd like that," she replied.
He stood immediately and offered her an arm. Howe followed suit, accepting the arm and allowing him to lead her from the Common Hall. "Forgive me for staring," she offered, aware that some sort of apology would be in order for her rude behavior. "It's just that you've been legend for so long; seeing you as a person and in a family is . . ."
She floundered to a halt but he didn't say anything. "I'm finding it difficult to reconcile the legends with the armored warrior of two nights ago and then with the man seated across the boards from me at breakfast, who was being teased by his family. I'm sorry, Bryn Ma'ar."
Bryn Ma'ar stopped and turned to face her, staring down at her and allowing her to return his gaze. "My Princess, there's no need to apologize. I expected no less."
"You did?" Howe blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"Of course," he grinned, the merry twinkle igniting in his eyes. "Unlike the others I've sought out and brought home, you had no anticipation of what to expect. We are strangers to you, though you are so well known to us." He started them off again, leading her up a narrow set of stairs. "Of the entire tribe, my father and I are probably the only ones to truly understand how you may be feeling," he remarked after a short distance. "We arrived among the hill-folk without even a basic understanding of the local language."
He fell silent again, allowing Howe to think about it for a little while. "You know, I didn't intend to climb these hills," Bryn Ma'ar admitted. "Gwyn's son found us in the foothills. Father was feverish, I was barely able to place one foot in front of another. We hadn't had water in days. When he saw us, he took the piece of tent I'd been dragging Father on and started dragging him without a word. I wasn't strong enough to do more than follow him and he never tried to explain.
'Even though he only meant compassion for us, we didn't know that until Father was lying in a bed with Gwyn applying a poultice to his wounds while another offered us food and drink. No one said a word to us at first." He grinned at her, softening the tale. "I later found out that it was because of our head wounds. Since they have an intimate knowledge of how such injuries feel, they were quiet and kept the cave we were in a bit more darkened than usual out of respect for our aching heads and throbbing wounds."
"I take it that Gwyn's son lives elsewhere?" Howe frowned, trying to remember who might have been introduced as the High Elder's son in the press of tribesmen that greeted them the evening before.
Bryn Ma'ar's expression fell. "He died not long after, killed by an animas. I was never able to thank him for what he'd done for us." He finally reached the top of the stairs that had wound its way around the perimeter of the Greatest Hall.
Howe had realized part way up that the circles of lights she'd seen were the ones that currently lit the narrow stairway. She accepted his hand and allowed him to assist her through a doorway similar to the one they'd entered the evening before, right down to needing to duck through trailing vines once they'd cleared the doorway.
"The path is this way," the king told her. Following him, Howe didn't bother to hide her gasp of wonder at the panoramic view she beheld. The doorway had been only a few steps from the top of the high, domed hill. "Can you tell that I built the fortress on top of the hill, then made it seem as if it were part of this hill itself?" the Hill-King asked her. Howe shook her head. "There are access points at varying heights, all the way around the hill," he explained. "We keep the grass long in order to hide the shapes of our sentries, and the low wall around the base of my Halls keeps the livestock where they belong."
"Off your roof?" Howe guessed, grinning.
He chuckled and indicated a goat kid gamboling just below them. "Just the opposite; they also serve to hide my sentries, and as a food source if we are besieged."
"Have you ever been besieged?"
"Once or twice," he admitted. "Building a fortress is rather like issuing a challenge. That's why we take such great pains to hide it." Howe nodded in reply but didn't say anything. His explanation made sense and she was too busy taking in the incredible view of the mountains. She could see the distant plains, where the Hill-King had been born, and even see the dip in the hills that marked the valley she'd grown up in.
He sat in the grass, so she followed suit, then realized that all of the sentries that were keeping watch were also seated. Howe counted five sentries and knew they ringed the hill at varying heights and distances apart.