Fate took Maryn ap Trevellyn, crown prince of all Celdrya, by surprise. Naught warned him that he’d been marked. Deryk ap Fyrgal camped with him in a wood off the King’s Highway between the coastal city of Llyr and High Celdrya on a pleasant eve following a relaxing day of fishing.
They enjoyed cups of wine with fresh bread, soft cheese and rolls of thinly-sliced spiced meat.
“I do think that second marriages agree with a man,” Deryk commented. He’d already had a bit too much to drink, as was his wont. Soon the tall blonde swordsman would settle back on his cot and sleep, leaving Maryn to contemplate the eve and his own thoughts alone. Twas always the way with them since boyhood.
“How so?” Maryn asked, leaning back in his camp chair, his darker brown hair and beard setting off his merry blue eyes. As heir-apparent to the High Seat of Celdrya, he craved the rare honest moment with a vassal who would speak freely.
“Do you not remember the first marriage, my friend? You were cockled for months before the ceremony. This time, you ducked into Llyr, confirmed the engagement and flitted away for the important things in life.” Deryk demonstrated this by waving his wine cup about this den of manly comfort. Owing to his lighter hair, he had not yet grown a full beard, though his moustache had grown in nicely.
“She’ll be in Dun Celdrya soon enough,” Maryn assured his friend.
“Aye, you are correct about Melynda. I was much in love. I’ll not make that mistake with this one.”
Maryn’s first wife had died at childbed, delivering a stillborn daughter, at midwinter. He still mourned them both, but the kingdom demanded an heir, so his father had arranged a betrothal as soon as the official period of mourning was over. He would not lose his heart to this one, so it would not hurt so much if the gods were cruel again.
“Good for you.” Deryk was on record as one more in favor of lust than love. “This one’s already tried and found fertile, for all that she’s a widow and childless. What more could a prince ask for?”
Gillian of Llyr, one year junior to Maryn’s 23, had been married to a younger son of Galornyn and borne him a healthy son, but both the husband and child had perished in a fever last fall. With King Vanyn in ill health, it became urgent for Maryn to produce an heir and clearly Gillian could provide that. There were worse reasons to marry beyond political expediency.
“I liked her well enough,” Maryn explained. “She’s intelligent and being raised in court at Llyr made her wise. I won’t love her, truly, but we’ll enjoy each other, I think.”
Deryk gave Maryn a searching gaze until the younger man set his cup aside.
“What are you thinking?”
The Willow Branch Description:
A healer must mend a fractured kingdom and bring two enemy races together before a greater enemy destroys them both.
Fate took Prince Maryn by surprise, leaving Celdrya to tear itself apart. A century later an army amasses against the warring remains of the kingdom as prophesy sends a half-elven healer on a journey to find the nameless True King.
Padraig lacks the power to put the True King on the throne, yet compelled by forces greater than himself, Padraig contends with dark mages, Celtic goddesses, human factions and the ancient animosities of two peoples while seeking a myth. With all that distraction, a man might meet the True King and not recognize him.
