Free The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

everyone liked the song.” He left it at that.
    Both men were still awhile.
    “Well,” Brynn said finally, “she’s of age, but there’s no great rush. Though Amren wants to know what to do about Owyn and Cadyr, and this …”
    “Owyn ap Glynn isn’t the problem. Neither’s Amren, or Ielan in Llywerth. Except if they cling to these feuds that will end us.” He’d spoken with more fire than he’d intended.
    The other man stretched out his legs and leaned back, unruffled. Brynn drank, wiped his moustache with a sleeve, and grinned. “Still riding that horse?”
    “And I will all my life.” Ceinion didn’t smile this time. He hesitated, then shrugged. Wanted to change the subject, in any case. “I’ll tell you something before I tell it to Amren in Beda. But keep it close. Aeldred’s invited me to Esferth, to join his court.”
    Brynn sat up abruptly, scraping the chair along the floor. He swore, without apologizing, then banged his cup down, spilling wine. “How dare he? Our high cleric he wants to steal now?”
    “I said he’d invited me. Not an abduction, Brynn.”
    “Even so, doesn’t he have his own Jad-cursed holy men among the Anglcyn? Rot the man!”
    “He has a great many, and seeks more … not cursed, I hope.” Ceinion left a pointed little pause. “From here, from Ferrieres. Even from Rhodias. He is … a different sort of king, my friend. I think he feels his lands are on the way to being safe now, which means new ambitions, ways of thinking. He’s arranging to marry a daughter north, to Rheden.” He looked steadily at the other man.
    Brynn sighed. “I’d heard that.”
    “And if so, there goes that rivalry on the other side of the Wall, which we’ve relied upon. Our danger is if we remain … the old sort of princes.”
    There were three oil lamps burning in the room, one set in the wall, two brought in for a guest: extravagance and respect. In the mingling of yellow lamplight, Brynn’s gaze was direct now. Ceinion, accepting it, felt a wave of memory crash over him from a terrible, glorious summer long ago. This happened more and more as he grew older. Past and present colliding, simultaneous visions, the present seen with the past. This same man, a quarter-century ago, on a battlefield by the sea, the Volgan himself and the Erling force they’d met by their boats. There had been three princes among the Cyngael that day but Brynn had led the centre. A full head of dark hair on him then, far less bulk, less of this easy humour. The same man, though. You changed, and you did not change.
    “You said he’s after clerics from Ferrieres?” Picking up the other thing that mattered.
    “So he wrote me.”
    “It starts with clerics, doesn’t it?”
    Ceinion gazed affectionately at his old friend. “Sometimes. They are notoriously aloof, my colleagues across the water.”
    “But if not? If it works, opens channels? If the Anglcyn and Ferrieres join to push away the Erling raiders on both sides of the Strait? And mayhap a marriage that way, too … ?”
    “Then the Erlings come here again, I would think.” Ceinion finished the thought. “If we remain outside whatever is happening. That’s my message to Beda, when I get there.” He paused, then added the thought he’d been travelling with: “There are times when the world changes, Brynn.”
    A silence in the room. No noises from the corridor either, now; the household abed, or most of them. Some of the warband likely dicing in the hall still, perhaps with the young Cadyri, money changing hands by lantern light. He didn’t think there would be trouble; Brynn’s men were extremely well trained, and they were hosts tonight. The night breeze came through the window, sweetened with the scent of flowers. Gifts of the god’s offered world. Not to be spurned.
    “I hate them, you know. The Erlings and the Anglcyn, both.”
    Ceinion nodded, said nothing. What was there to say? A homily about Jad, and love? The big man sighed again.