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serpent power lies coiled in each of us, Eleanor thought, and that makes us her avatars.
    “Things must change, though,” she said. “The Serpent Mother doesn’t reveal the future, only glimpses of things that might be. Perhaps we can influence the forks in the path, instead of merely observing. Perhaps Anne Beauchamp is right.”
    Survival. That was everything.
    Close behind came all other matters. Status, power, wealth, dignity. For Eleanor, power meant holding onto her demesne unmolested. Wealth meant enough to feed and clothe her household. It meant healthy sheep, with good grassland on which their fleeces would grow as thick and white as curds. Status must be upheld to keep away those who might covet her lands. Dignity came from her endless struggle to maintain all this, day after day.
    She was Lady Lytton by birth, an only child of parents who’d died young. Her husband John was lord only in right of his wife. Without husband or father it was nearly impossible for a woman to hold what was hers, especially in war when any victorious lord might seize an estate in passing. She had male relatives who would swoop like petitmorts if she revealed the slightest weakness.
    Only as long as her husband lived was she safe.
    She sighed through her teeth. The breath-cloud curled like an elemental. The rutted path bent and gave her, at last, a sight of the familiar beloved landscape.
    Her demesne, the manor of Lytton Dale. To the east curved the distant, ghostly arm of the high moors, and closer at hand the familiar hump of the hill, Bride Cloud. To the west stood Mag Tor and other peaks crowned with limestone, hard and pale against the snow-choked sky. White-crusted grassland pleated down into deep sheltered valleys where her sheep huddled. The river Melandra, with its many tributaries flowing down from the moors, now lay silent under clouded glass. Her wildwoods were a leafless tangle of bones in the chill twilight. Keeping her secrets.
    There was the village, nested along the riverbanks. And at the heart, Lytton Hall itself, a rambling place of soft red stone, glowing against the stony grey of winter. Smoke curled above the slate roof and the windows shone yellow.
    Eleanor’s heart lifted.
    “This is our whole world, Kate. Ours,” she said softly. “Yours.”
    ###
    Katherine remembered the attack on the village in fragments. She remembered fear – a sickening smell of foul breath and bodies, a whiskered face thrust into hers – but it seemed distant. Her most vivid impression was of her mother, fragile and yet unconquerable, in her most fearsome aspect. The chant hissing from her mouth. The serpent curling between her breasts. Her strength, shining so powerfully that the beast-men fell away in terror.
    And then her mother catching her in her arms, shouting for Martha and Thomas and the others. Outside, uproar in the streets, barns and cottages on fire. The wild men rampaging onwards, leaving the villagers in stunned despair.
    Katherine knew this terrible event had changed everything. There was a new grim light in her mother’s eyes. She thought of Raphael, mourning his father.
    Pain balled in her chest. When they reached the house, she was on the ground and flying into the great hall while the others were still alighting from the saddle. Heat enveloped her.
    Her father was on his couch by the huge firegrate, woollen blankets wrapped around him. He was weaker. She saw that at once, in the parchment pallor of his face. But he roused from his doze and greeted her with a smile as bright as the fire, his arms outstretched. Katherine ran, and threw herself upon him.
    Her mother came in more slowly, unwrapping layers of wool and leather as she came. She knelt by her husband and bent to kiss his hand.
    “John,” she said. “Dearest John.” And then, “Kate, don’t be so rough!”
    He laughed. “It will take more than my daughter’s love to harm me. How went your stay in York?”
    “Ah, terrible, terrible,” Eleanor