A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  “You look pale, my love,” he remarked in Deverrian. “Is somewhat troubling your heart?”

  “I’ve just spent a ghastly week or two, truly, tending men wounded in battle, and more than a few of them died, no matter how I tried to help them.”

  “A sad thing, that.”

  She knew that he felt no honest compassion, but that he would mimic it for her sake was comfort enough.

  “Rhodry still has the whistle,” she said. “He wouldn’t give it up. He says he wants to have a talk with you, and that you’ll have to come fetch it back yourself.”

  Evandar laughed with a flash of his sharp white teeth.

  “Then a talk he shall have. I like a man with mettle, I do. Imph, I suppose I’d best stay here in this world. If I go back with you, I might miss him entirely.”

  “True spoken. Here, where were you? I called for you—well, last night it would have been here, whatever that might have been in your country.”

  For a moment he looked puzzled.

  “Ah! I’d gone to the islands to see how Jill fares. She’s been ill, it turns out, but now she’s well again and learning much new dweomer lore. She’ll be growing wings like one of us next, if she keeps on this way.”

  “That’s a dangerous thing for a human being to try to learn. I wonder how skilled her teachers are, and if they know the differences from soul to soul.”

  Evandar laughed aloud.

  “I’d wager a great deal that they do, my love, but you look like a mother cat chasing her kittens away from danger! Get on your way back, then. I’ll take your horse and follow our Rhodry down. I doubt me if I’ll tell him what he wants to know, but maybe he’ll have a riddle or two to trade.”

  “Well and good, then.” She paused to kiss him on the mouth. “And you promised me you’d return that stolen mule and all its goods, didn’t you now?”

  “So I did, so I did. I’ll summon one of my people straightaway, I promise you.”

  “My thanks. Meet me by our river.”

  With him so close beside her, she could use his particular dweomer to breach the planes. She floated onto the surface of the stream and dashed along the rippled road, saw the fog of the Gatelands opening out, and stepped up and through. She had just time to turn and wave to Evandar, standing on the streamside, before the fog shut her round. At her neck hung again the amethyst figurine. She kept walking through the misty landscape beyond the gate until she could be sure that Evandar and the lands of men lay far behind her. Then she sat down on a cold, damp hillside and wept for Rhodry Maelwaedd, whom most likely she’d never see again.

  The neutral ground turned out to be a day and a half’s ride from Lord Comerr’s and down in the plains on the Deverry side of the Pyrdon hills. Out in front of the walled dun of a certain Tieryn Magryn, whose chief distinction lay in his lack of ties to either Comerr or Adry, the gwerbret’s warband had set up camp in a meadow lush with spring grass. As soon as Lord Erddyr and his escort dismounted, a hundred men surrounded them—all in the friendliest possible way, but Yraen knew that they were being taken under arrest to keep them away from Lord Nomyr and his riders. Some of the gwerbret’s men took their horses; others escorted them on a strict path through canvas tents. At the far end, a few hundred yards from the hill of the dun, stood a long canvas pavilion, draped with the green and blue banners of the gwerbrets of Dun Trebyc to cover the rips and weather stains. A tall blond man in his thirties, Gwerbret Drwmyc sat in a chair carved with the eagle blazon of his clan. Behind him stood two councillors, and a scribe sat at a tiny table nearby.

  Kneeling at the gwerbret’s right side, Lord Nomyr was already present; his honor guard sat in orderly rows behind him. With a wave at his men to settle themselves, Erddyr knelt at the gwerbret’s left. The gwerbret’s men stood round the scene with their hands on their sword hilts, ready for the first sign of trouble.

  “It gladdens my heart to see you both arrive so promptly,” Drwmyc said. “Now. Lord Erddyr, by whose authority do you come?”

  “Comerr’s himself, Your Grace. He gave me his seal and swore in front of witnesses to abide by the settlement I make in his name.”

  “Well and good. Lord Nomyr?”

  “By the authority of Lady Talyan, regent for her son, Lord Gwandyc, Adry’s heir. She too has agreed to abide by his grace’s arbitration.”

  “Well and good, then. Lord Erddyr, since you’re the one who called upon me, speak first and present your tale of the causes of this war.”

  Erddyr recited the story of the dispute of the cattle rights and many another cause of bad blood between Adry and Comerr. When he was done, Nomyr had the chance to tell a slightly different version. Back and forth they went, working through the actual events and battles, while their men grew restless. To the riders, this judgment seemed a pitiful way to end the fighting, a coward’s out, and tedious. While the two lords wrangled over Tewdyr’s raid on Erddyr’s dun, the warbands leaned forward, staring at each other narrow-eyed and hostile. Yraen noticed four of Nomyr’s guard studying Rhodry in barely concealed fury. He elbowed him and pointed them out.

  “Adry’s men,” Rhodry whispered. “Hawk blazon.”

  Yraen was profoundly glad that the gwerbret’s warband stood on the watch for trouble. While the two lords argued furiously, the hot summer day turned the pavilion stifling, another spur to ill temper. At last the gwerbret cut the argument short with a wave of his hand.

  “I’ve heard enough. I intend to set aside all charges of misconduct during the actual fight, because for every wrong on one side, there was one on the other to countercharge it. Will their lordships agree?”

  “On my part, I will.” Nomyr bowed to his liege lord.

  Erddyr debated for several minutes.

  “And I, too, Your Grace,” he said at last. “After all, my wife came to no actual harm, and Tewdyr’s dead.”

  “Done, then.” Drwmyc motioned at the scribe to record the agreement. “We can turn now to the disputes of cause.”

  Adry’s four men looked at each other and risked a few grim whispers. Nomyr glared and waved at them to be silent.

  “What troubles your men, Lord Nomyr?” Drwmyc said.

  “They used to ride for Lord Adry, Your Grace, and his lordship’s death troubles them.”

  “By the gods themselves!” Drwmyc lost patience with ritual courtesy. “The death of so many lords troubles us all, but men do die in battle.”

  “Begging his grace’s pardon.” A heavyset blond rider rose to his feet and made the gwerbret a bow. “Never did we mean to disturb his grace’s proceedings, but we’re all shamed men, Your Grace, and that’s a hard thing to bear in silence. Our lord was killed by a cursed silver dagger, and Lord Nomyr called the retreat before we could avenge him. How can we live with that?”

  With a ripple of trouble coming, the warbands turned toward the speaker.

  “You’ll have to live with it,” Drwmyc answered. “If you retreated on order of your lord’s faithful ally, then no man can both hold you shamed and himself just.”

  “We hold ourselves shamed, Your Grace. It’s a bitter thing to choose between disobeying the noble-born and letting your lord lie unavenged. And now here’s that silver dagger, sitting in your court with honest men. It gripes our souls, Your Grace.”

  Yraen grabbed Rhodry’s arm and pulled it away from his sword. Nomyr swung round to face the rider.

  “Gwar, hold your tongue and sit down,” Nomyr snarled. “We’re in the gwerbret’s presence.”

  “So we are, my lord. But begging your lordship’s pardon, I swore to Lord Adry, not you.”

  When his three companions rose to join him, everyone around went tense, murmuring among themselves. The gwerbret rose from his chair and drew his sword, holding it point upward, a solid symbol of justice.

  “There will be no murder in my court,” Drwmyc snarled. “Gwar, if the silver dagger killed your lord in a fair fight, that’s the end to it.”

  The four men tensed, glancing at one anoth
er, as if they were debating their choices. Since their honor lay buried in a shallow grave with Lord Adry, they were likely to leave Nomyr’s service and hunt Rhodry down on the roads no matter what the cost to themselves. Rhodry pulled away from Yraen’s restraining hand and got to his feet.

  “Your Grace,” Rhodry called out. “I’m the silver dagger they mean, and I’ll swear it was a fair fight. I’ll beg your grace to settle this here and now under rule of law. I don’t care to be hunted on the roads like a fox.” He turned to Gwar. “Your lord died by the fortunes of war. What do you have against me?”

  “That you killed him for a piece of silver! What do you think? A good man like him, killed for a cursed bit of coin.”

  “I didn’t kill him for the coin. I killed him to save my life, because your lord was a good man with his blade.”

  “You wouldn’t have been on the field if it weren’t for the coin.” Gwar paused to spit on the ground. “Silver dagger.”

  Yraen and Renydd exchanged a glance and rose to a kneel, ready to leap up to Rhodry’s defense if Gwar and his lads charged. Drwmyc’s hand tightened on his sword hilt when he saw them.

  “No one move,” the gwerbret said. “The first man to draw in my court will be taken alive and hanged like a dog. Do you hear me?”

  Everyone sat back down, even Gwar, and promptly.

  “Good,” Drwmyc continued. “Silver dagger, are you appealing to me?”

  “I am, Your Grace, under the laws of men and gods alike, and I swear upon my very life to abide by your decision. Either absolve me of guilt or set me some lwdd to pay for Lord Adry’s death.”

  “Nicely spoken, and so I shall.” The gwerbret considered for a moment. “But on the morrow. I have one matter before me in malover already, you know.”

  “I do, Your Grace, and never would I set my own affairs above those of honorable men.”

  When Yraen stole a glance at Gwar and his friends, he found them looking as sour as if they’d bitten into a Bardek citron. Apparently the last thing they’d expected from a road-filthy silver dagger was eloquence.

  “Until I hold malover upon this matter of the silver dagger and the death of Lord Adry, his life is sacrosanct under all the laws of Great Bel,” the gwerbret said. “Gwar, do you and your lads understand that?”

  “We do, Your Grace, and never would we break those laws.”

  “Good.” Drwmyc allowed himself a thin smile. “But just in case temptation strikes, like, I’m putting guards on the silver dagger. Captain?” He turned to one of the men standing behind him. “See to it, will you, when we leave the pavilion?”

  With the morning the malover reconvened, and the proceedings over the war droned on. Round noon, the gwerbret ruled in Comerr’s favor, that his clan should rule the new tierynrhyn. Since Tewdyr was dead without an heir, his grace split his lands twixt Erddyr and Nomyr, as a reward for bringing the matter under the rule of law. Since there was a vast sea of details to sail across, however, it was late in the day before everything was settled. Yraen was half expecting that Rhodry’s matter would be postponed yet again, but the gwerbret had forgotten neither it nor his obligation to even the least of the men in his rhan. When the proceedings were finally concluded to the lords’ satisfaction, Drwmyc rose, looking over the assembly.

  “There you are, silver dagger. Let’s settle your matter now, and then we’ll have a good dinner to celebrate, like. Maybe I can talk Tieryn Magryn into standing for some mead for all you men. Come forward. We’ll hear what you and that other fellow, the spokesman—Gwar, was it?—have to say.”

  The gwerbret’s jovial mood certainly boded well for Rhodry’s case, Yraen decided. In answer to the summons, Rhodry went forward, bowed, then handed his sword to a guard and knelt at the gwerbret’s feet. Gwar, however, seemed to have disappeared, though his three friends were sitting over at the right side of the pavilion. They got up and began bowing and making apologies, while everyone else started grinning and making jokes about privies. After a few brief moments Gwar did indeed appear, hurrying into the big tent and threading his way down to the front. Yraen was suddenly struck by an oddity; after being so bold the day before, Gwar looked toward the ground as he walked as if he were afraid to meet anyone’s gaze.

  “Good, good. Hurry up, lad,” the gwerbret said. “The rest of you, hold your tongues now! Let’s get the judgment under way.”

  Yraen saw Rhodry studying Gwar as his enemy handed his sword over, and though he couldn’t see the silver dagger too clearly from this distance, he would have sworn that Rhodry had gone a little pale. Certainly he half rose from his kneel as if on sudden guard. Gwar walked forward, heading, or so it seemed, for the other side of the gwerbret’s chair. All at once he hesitated for a bare flick of an eyelash, then spun round and rushed at Rhodry, who had no time to get to his feet. Yraen saw Gwar throw himself on Rhodry and grab him round the throat, and the bronze knife gleam in Rhodry’s hand, before the pavilion erupted into shouting. Men leapt to their feet and swarmed forward. With a yell Yraen jumped up, thanking the gods for making him tall enough to see over this pack.

  The gwerbret himself was on his feet, sword in hand and slashing at the man who’d broken order in his malover, but Gwar was already dead, crumpled over Rhodry’s shoulder like a sack of meal. As Yraen shoved himself forward through the mob, Rhodry slowly rose, shoving the corpse off, staggering to his feet with the reddened bronze knife in his hand. His neck bled from scratches and punctures, as if he’d been clutched by a gigantic cat.

  “Chirurgeon!” the gwerbret yelled. “Get one of the chirurgeons!”

  “Your Grace, it’s only a scratch.” Rhodry’s voice was choked and rasping, his face dead-pale. “But ye gods!”

  Yraen managed to reach his side just as the captain of the gwerbret’s guard knelt and turned the corpse over. For a moment he stared, then he began cursing in a steady foul stream. The gwerbret looked and went pale himself. Lying at Rhodry’s feet was a creature in Gwar’s clothes, a badger-headed thing with a blunt snout and fangs. Protruding from the sleeves of its shirt were hairy paws with thick black talons. Rhodry held up the bronze knife.

  “Told you not to mock the herbwoman,” he croaked. “Without this, he’d have strangled me.”

  All round them men were pushing forward to see, swearing or yelping and passing the news back to those who couldn’t get close. Suddenly Yraen thought of the obvious.

  “Gwar!” he snapped. “What’s happened to him, then?”

  While the apprentice chirurgeon washed Rhodry’s throat clean and put a few stitches in the worst wounds, his grace’s entire warband began searching the area. It wasn’t long before they found Gwar, naked and strangled, round back of the dun. At that point the assembled warbands, battle-hardened men all of them, began to break and panic. Even though the gwerbret sent to the tieryn’s town for every priest he could find, morale washed away like sand under a tide of rumors and speculations. All his grace could do was to call the various lords to him.

  “Get your men on the road,” he snapped. “We’ll settle any last things with heralds. Get your men together and riding for home, and do it now.”

  The lords were entirely too ready to obey for Yraen’s taste, but he did have to wonder at himself for being one of the calmest men in the pavilion.

  “I guess it’s because I saw the shadow-thing, and I was there when the herbwoman gave you that knife, and all that. Hold a moment—herbwoman, indeed! Who was she, Rhodry?”

  Rhodry merely shrugged for an answer.

  “He shouldn’t be talking,” the chirurgeon snapped.

  “One thing, though, lad.” Rhodry immediately broke this sensible rule. “Lord Erddyr. Find him and get our hire.”

  “I can’t be asking him for coin now!”

  Rhodry looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, very well,” Yraen sighed. “I’m gone already and running, too.”

  Yraen found his lordship in his tent, where he stood watching his body-servant
shove his possessions all anyhow into whatever sack or saddlebag presented itself. The lord was more than a little pale, and his mouth was slack as he rubbed his mustaches over and over. When he saw Yraen, however, he made an effort to draw himself up and salvage dignity.

  “I owe your wages, I know,” he said. “You’re not coming back with us, are you?”

  The question contained an obvious “you’re not welcome.”

  “I don’t think Rhodry should ride, my lord.” Yraen was more than willing to play into the courtesy of the thing. “We’ll find an inn or suchlike to rest in, and then be on our way.”

  Erddyr nodded, concentrating on opening the pouch that hung at his belt. He poured out a random handful of coin and shoved it in Yraen’s direction. Briefly Yraen thought of counting it, but he wasn’t that much of a silver dagger, not yet, at least.

  For all that Rhodry kept saying his wounds were mere scratches, his face was so pale by the time the chirurgeon was done tending them that Yraen begged him to go lie down somewhere. The gwerbret, however, had other ideas.

  “I think me you’d best ride out, silver dagger. I hate being this inhospitable to a man who’s done me no wrong, but once news of this thing gets round…”

  “I understand, Your Grace,” Rhodry croaked.

  “Don’t try to talk, man.” Drwmyc turned to Yraen. “Do you both have decent horses?”

  “We do, Your Grace. Rhodry lost his in the war, but Lord Erddyr replaced it.”

  “Good. Then saddle up and go.” He turned, looking down at the corpse. “I’m going to have this thing burned. If the common folk see or hear of it, the gods only know what they’ll do, and I doubt me if you two will be safe here.”

  “Your Grace, that’s cursed unjust! Rhodry’s the victim, not the criminal.”