Bermand

"That's as may be, but our people cannot survive lest something is done about our water supply. Even if it means war."

Bermand is a name which actually refers to two people within Caynean royalty. The "twin princes" were born to Queen Jennet and King Harvill, while Harvill was off warring with the Rigans. The Caynean royal tenets say that there may only be one heir to the throne, and that in any instance in which there is more than one, the "weaker" ones are ousted from the royal family either by exile, or by death. Jennet refused to lose either one of her newborn children, and instead engineered an elaborate ploy to fool her husband which later came to be known as the Transfers.

Since there could be only one "Bermand," Jennet decided that, every month, the two twins would switch places. Early in life, the "Prince" would be under Jennet's care, while the other twin was safely hidden away, occasionally under the care of an uninformed royal wet-nurse. It eventually became too risky to have both twins in the castle, so Jennet engineered an alternate identity for the other twin, "Vernard." While "Bermand" took on the role of the heir prince of Caynea, "Vernard" lived with the family of the mayor of Lower Caynea. It was only through sheer luck, strict planning and training that the Transfers remained a closely guarded secret for decades.

In order to keep things straight in her mind after discovering the Transfers herself, Lynia takes to referring to the twins as "War" and "Peace" - it is "War" Bermand that has ambitions of overthrowing the Rigan nomads and expanding the kingdom to less barren land, while it is "Peace" Bermand that facilitated Lynia's birth with the previous Queen Aliana (who was poisoned at the time of birth by High Queen Jennet, to preserve the secrecy of the Transfers).