Company of Liars by Karen Maitland Page A

and immediately called off the wedding. But the princess didn't have to live long with her beard, for her father, in a rage, had her crucified. Now women pray to her to be unencumbered from their husbands or any burden they bear. You could use this to pray for that too… if you wished.’
    As I turned to go, she pressed her two hands tightly against the relic, the tears coursing once more down her hollow cheeks. A wisp of hair is not much to pin your hopes upon, but sometimes a wisp is all the hope you can give and it can be enough.
    A woman standing near me settled herself back on to a bench and offered a flagon to her neighbour. ‘If she doesn't get a bairn from this night's work, it won't be her husband's fault. Did you see him? He was in there quicker than a ferret down a rabbit hole.’
    Her friend took a deep swig from the flagon. Cider trickled down her chin and she wiped it with the back of her hand. ‘Never mind a bairn. I didn't part with a good cooking pot just to bring another useless cripple into this world. I want to know if it's done the trick and saved us from the pestilence.’
    ‘If this doesn't, nothing will. That rune reader's been right about everything else. Her runes said the musicians would come to bless the wedding and it was her runes picked out the cripples to wed, so it's bound to work if the runes chose them.’
    ‘Did you say a rune reader?’ I blurted out before I could stop myself.
    The two women stared at me, somewhat put out at having a stranger interrupt their gossip. Finally one said grudgingly:‘Aye, no one in the village could agree who they should choose as bride and groom, let's face it, it's not as if we've a shortage of cripples to pick from, so they asked the rune reader to cast the runes to find the lucky couple.’
    ‘Is she here, the rune reader?’
    The woman shook her head. ‘If you want your fortune read, you're too late. She was a traveller same as you, just passing through, left a week or more ago.’
    ‘Aye,’ the other woman joined in. ‘Queer thing she was. Those eyes of hers, give you the shivers just to look at them. It wouldn't surprise me if she was one of the faerie folk; she certainly had the gift.’
    I did not ask more. I didn't want to know. There were many diviners working the roads, most of them fey. They deliberately try to look as if they might be descended from faerie folk; it impresses the customers, convinces them the diviner has second sight. There was no reason in the world why the rune reader who came through here should be Narigorm, and even if it was, why should she not have taken this road? Anyone with any sense was heading north. And if it was her, then it meant she was at least a week ahead of us. She was long gone. It was almost a relief to believe that. If she was ahead of us, she couldn't possibly be following me. Her message had been a simple greeting, nothing more, nothing more sinister than that.
    I suddenly felt a great weariness. The revels were still continuing, but I'd had enough. The promise of a dry bed, after so many nights sleeping rough, was more tempting than ale or food. I began to pick my way through the drinkers towards the inn. Osmond had already taken Adela back there. He'd seemed troubled all evening. He had taken Adela to sit as far away from the bridal table as he could get, and several times I'd caught him studying her, lookingdown at her swollen belly with a deep and anxious frown. I began to fear that something was amiss with her. Perhaps she'd complained of pain, but if she had, she showed no signs of it now, eating with relish everything that was offered to her and laughing with the villagers around her. Osmond in contrast had hardly eaten a thing and as soon as the meal was ended, he had led Adela away, though she clearly would have liked to stay. Maybe he was jealous of other men speaking to her, but he'd never shown any sign of that before.
    I couldn't see any of the others except for Zophiel who was