‘I will meet you there,’ she said. While she spoke the air became shrill between their heads and the steel point of a long knife struck the stones between them and snapped with the impact.

Rantel stood before them, he was shaking.

‘I have another knife,’ he said in a whisper which they could only just hear. ‘It is a little longer. It will be sharper by this evening when I meet you at the hollow. There is a full moon tonight. Keda! Oh Keda! Have you forgotten?’

Braigon got to his feet. He had moved only to place himself before Keda’s body. She had closed her eyes and she was quite expressionless.

‘I cannot help it,’ she said, ‘I cannot help it I am happy.’

Braigon stood immediately before his rival. He spoke over his shoulder, but kept his eyes on his enemy.

‘He is right,’ he said. ‘I shall meet him at sunset. One of us will come back to you.’

Then Keda raised her hands to her head. ‘No, no, no, no!’ she cried. But she knew that it must be so, and became calm, leaning back against the wall, her head bowed and the locks of her hair falling over her face.

The two men left her, for they knew that they could never be with her that unhappy day. They must prepare their weapons. Rantel re-entered his hut and a few moments later returned with a cape drawn about him. He approached Keda.

‘I do not understand your love,’ he said.

She looked up and saw his head upright upon his neck. His hair was like a bush of blackness.

She did not answer. She only saw his strength and his high cheekbones and fiery eyes. She only saw his youth.

‘I am the cause,’ she said. ‘It is I who should die. And I will die,’ she said quickly. ‘Before very long – but now, now what is it? I cannot enter into fear or hate, or even agony and death. Forgive me, forgive me.’

She turned and held his hand with the dagger in it.

‘I do not know. I do not understand,’ she said, ‘I do not think that we have any power.’

She released his hand and he moved away along the base of the high wall until it curved to the right and she lost him.

Braigon was already gone. Her eyes clouded.

‘Keda,’ she said to herself, ‘Keda, this is tragedy.’ But as her words hung emptily in the morning air, she clenched her hands for she could feel no anguish and the bright bird that had filled her breast was still singing … was still singing.

The Room of Roots

THE ROOM OF ROOTS

‘That’s quite enough for today,’ said Lady Cora, laying down her embroidery on a table beside her chair.

‘But you’ve only sewn three stitches, Cora,’ said Lady Clarice, drawing out a thread to arm’s length.