The Bone Queen by Alison Croggon Page A

his gift for mockery had always been directed towards Bards who puffed their self-importance, or who used their status to diminish those they considered beneath them.
    “You are troubled, my friend,” said Milana. “This is about more than the harsh punishment of an errant Bard, is it not?”
    “Milana, there is a shadow. A shadow pressing my mind. And yet I can’t name it, I don’t know what it means. I wonder if it is merely my sadness…”
    “Perhaps you perceive a dimming of the Light,” said Milana. “Our colleagues have been less than wise, and have permitted the desire for revenge to overcome their desire for justice. That is what I will carry home tomorrow. But…”
    “But?”
    Milana didn’t respond for a time. She stood up and walked to the window, staring out with her back turned to Nelac. “There is a deeper Knowing at work here, my friend,” she said at last. “I too feel it. And I don’t understand why our friends are so blind to this. I feel a peril among us, that bears upon this decision. Is it fear, you think, that makes them so unwilling to listen?”
    “Fear, certainly. Nothing more, I hope. But I have not before sat in such a debate, where the arguments of the Light had so little purchase.”
    “I can tell you that Pellinor would not have made such a judgement.” Milana turned around, and Nelac saw how anger still flickered in her eyes, a blue flame. “It goes hard when the First Bard is against you, and I have never felt Bashar was more misled. Cadvan is Lirhanese, and not in my jurisdiction, so I do not have the weight. I could understand his exile from Lirigon … but for life? From every School? I know it sounds petty, but I resent being bound by this ruling. Had I the authority, I’d admit him to Pellinor, but that choice is taken from me.”
    “What is this deeper Knowing you speak of?”
    “I fear for Pellinor. I couldn’t speak of this at the Council, for I couldn’t shape the connection.” She paused. “You may not know that Dorn has foredreams,” she said abruptly. Nelac lifted his eyebrows in surprise; he knew Dorn, Milana’s helpmate, a Pilanel Bard.
    “No, I didn’t know,” he said.
    “We don’t speak of them to others, as a rule,” she said. “But he dreamed before I left for Lirigon. It was a terrible dream, and he wouldn’t tell me the whole: but among other visions, he said he saw Pellinor burned and sacked. And afterwards he said, do not permit Cadvan to be sent away, for our children will need him…” She looked down at her hands. “Dorn and I have no children,” she said. “It was a strange thing to say. And yet I knew, with all the foresight given me, that it was true.”
    “Perhaps he meant all children,” said Nelac.
    Milana shook her head. “Maybe I should have spoken of this. I regret now that I didn’t. But it likely would have made no difference. Foredreams are rightly distrusted: how do we know they are not merely phantoms of sleep? And if they are true, how often do they set feet on the very path they prophesy? But when the vote was cast, Nelac, a dismal weight fell across my heart, as if our future had narrowed. I felt it was the first footstep towards doom.”

VI
    T WO weeks after the First Circle confirmed Cadvan of Lirigon’s formal banishment as a Bard of Annar, Dernhil of Gent abruptly pulled up his horse on the road to Lirigon, causing a farmer who was driving a cartful of hay hard behind almost to run into him. The farmer cursed him roundly, and Dernhil started and apologised, moving to the side of the road. The farmer, slightly mollified, drove past, staring at the Bard. As he reported later to his wife, Dernhil seemed like a man stunned: he remained by the road, his horse prancing impatiently beneath him, until the farmer passed the next bend and could no longer see him. “White as a sheet, he was,” he said. “Didn’t know if he was coming or going. He might still be standing there, for all I know.” He sniffed,