Darkspell

by Katharine Kerr

  “Well,” Gweniver said, “you’re a great lord now, sure enough.”

  “Will Your Holiness partake of the hospitality of my splendid hall?” He made her a mock bow. “We might as well ride on and take a look at the village.”

  “Truly. You won’t have time to rebuild Dun Blaedd before winter.”

  They rode back downhill to the waiting army. Besides their own warband, about seventy men in all, they had two hundred of the King’s Men, led by Dannyn. Glyn’s generosity extended to a long baggage train of supplies and a contingent of skilled craftsmen to fortify whatever buildings they found still standing. As they rode across the Wolfs lands, Gweniver began to wonder if the demesne could be saved, because the bondsmen who worked the fields had all fled. Twice they passed the site of one of their villages to find the rough huts burned, as if the bondfolk had decided to show their contempt for their former masters as they escaped. The village, however, which had been held by freemen, still stood, even though the inhabitants were gone, driven in their case by fear of the Boar, not the Wolf. The weeds grew thick and green around the village well and down the paths. Under the apple trees the un-gathered fruit lay rotting like gouts of blood. The houses seemed to be crouching together, the shuttered windows sad eyes reproaching those who’d deserted them.

  “I’ll be a fine lord indeed with no folk to rule,” Gwetmar remarked with a false-ringing jest in his voice.

  “The villagers will come back in time. Send messengers to the south and east, where they have kin. As for your own lands, my friend, I think me you’ll have to be content with rents from free men—if you can find some who want to settle here.”

  Gwetmar unceremoniously broke the padlock on the blacksmith’s house and claimed it as his own, simply because it was the biggest. With no time to build a proper stone wall, the master mason and the master carpenter decided on an earthwork and ditch to ring an inner palisade of logs. While the slow work got under way, the army rode constant small patrols along the border between the Boar and the Wolf lands. Yet it was a fortnight before the trouble came. Gweniver was leading a squad through deserted meadows when she saw, far down the road, a cloud of dust announcing that men rode toward them. She sent a messenger back to Dannyn and the main body of the army, then drew up her warband in battle order across the road.

  Slowly the dust resolved itself into ten riders, coming at an easy jog. When they saw the squad, they halted and formed into a rough line. They were on their side of the border; the Wolves were on theirs; the situation hung on heartbeats as the leader edged his horse out of the pack to meet Gweniver halfway.

  “Wolves, are you?” he said.

  “We are. What’s it to you?”

  The leader’s eyes flicked to her twenty-four men and counted hopeless odds. With a shrug he wheeled his horse and led off his troop in retreat. As they turned, she saw that one rider was carrying a shield blazoned with the green Wyvern of the Holy City.

  “So,” she said to Ricyn, “I see why Glyn sent his men along with us.”

  “Just that, my lady. Slwmar of Cantrae isn’t going to let this much land go without a fight.”

  “We’d best get back and tell the others.”

  Back at Blaeddbyr the ditch was finished and the earthwork piled up, though not yet tamped and reinforced. In a rough circle the logs for the palisade lay like a shark’s teeth on the ground just inside. Gweniver found Gwetmar and Dannyn talking with the master carpenter and led them aside to tell her news.

  “So I’ll wager Burcan will know by sunset that we’re back,” she finished.

  “Just that,” Dannyn said. “They know we couldn’t be at the ruined dun, so I’ll wager they ride straight here. We’d best meet them on the road. If we’re badly outnumbered, we’ll fall back to the village, and the earthwork will even the odds for us.”

  “If we have to retreat,” Gwetmar joined in, “we should do it as soon as we realize we have to. We don’t want to get cut off.”

  “Of course,” Dannyn said. “But you’re staying here to hold the village.”

  “Now, just one moment! I intend to ride in defense of my own lands.”

  “The intention is noble, my lord, but the thought is poor. The only reason that me and my lads are here is to keep you alive.”

  When Gwetmar flushed in rage, Gweniver intervened.

  “Don’t be a dolt!” she snapped. “How do we know if that child Maccy’s carrying is a lad or a lass? If you die in battle, and if it doesn’t live or suchlike, then there isn’t any Wolf clan until Maccy remarries. We’ll have to go through this whole cursed thing again.”

  “Exactly.” Dannyn gave Gwetmar a smile that was meant to be conciliatory. “You produce the heirs, my lord, and we’ll get the land for them.”

  On the morrow Dannyn woke the men early and led them out as the gray dawn was brightening, because if Burcan marched fast, he would reach the village by late afternoon. In the middle of the morning they crossed the border between the two demesnes and marched on through fields gone to weeds and wild grasses. Here and there they saw empty farmhouses, rotting in the weather. At noon they came to a large meadow with a thick stand of trees to one side. Dannyn sent out scouts, then let the main body rest their horses for a short while before he formed up the battle line. Two thirds of the men drew up across the road; the others hid among the trees, where they would wait until the battle was joined, then fall on Burcan’s flank.

  They were waiting in the hot sun when the scouts came back, bearing the news that they’d met with scouts from the Boar. Gweniver turned to Ricyn with a smile.

  “Well and good. They’re on their way. Remember to leave Burcan himself to me.”

  “I will, my lady. And if I don’t see you alive tonight, then I’ll see you in the Otherlands.”

  When she drew a javelin, her men followed her lead, the points flashing like a line of fire across the road. Again they waited, the horses stamping restlessly, the men utterly silent. Suddenly Gweniver felt a cold touch ripple down her spine. When she looked around, she saw her father, her brothers, and her uncles, sitting on shadowy horses as insubstantial as they, off to one side of the battle line. They watched her gravely, as silent as the living men while they waited to see either the victory or the death of their clan.

  “Is somewhat wrong?” Ricyn said.

  “Can’t you see them? Look. There.”

  Utterly puzzled, he peered in the direction she pointed out, while the ghosts smiled, as if thinking that good-hearted Ricyn had changed very little since last they’d seen him. Just at that moment someone raised a shout. Down the road a cloud of dust appeared, the Boars, riding to the challenge. Some fifty yards away they halted and formed a rough wedge. There were about two hundred of them, and they thought that they were facing a warband of only a hundred and fifty. Dannyn edged his horse forward as Burcan did the same.

  “Cerrmor men, are you?” the Boar yelled. “But I see Wolf blazons with you.”

  “You do, because the Wolves have appealed to the true king to defend their ancestral lands.”

  “Hah! The true king in Dun Deverry has awarded me these lands by right of blood feud.”

  “It all comes down to king against king, doesn’t it?” Dannyn gave a good-humored laugh. “You piss-proud excuse for a noble swine.”

  With a howl Burcan hurled his javelin straight at him. Dannyn calmly bounced it off his shield into the dirt. Shouting, screaming, the Boarsmen charged as javelins arched up and whistled in the sun. As she spurred her horse forward, Gweniver drew her sword. She wanted Burcan himself, curse him, and curse Dannyn, too, who was trading blows with the lord in the midst of the battle. The lines met, the men peeling off, whirling around each other in a hacking, shouting mob of single combats. Gweniver’s laughter started as she cut and slashed her way through. Just as she reached Dannyn’s side, the hidden warband broke free of the trees and plunged onto the Boar’s rear. A shout went up, but there was no way that the Boarsmen could escape the trap.

/>   “Gwen!” Dannyn shouted. “He’s yours!”

  Guarding himself with a fling of his shield, Dannyn wrenched his horse round and let her close with Burcan. She heard her hatred well out of her mouth in a long laugh as she caught his swing on her shield and thrust in, only to have him parry with his blade. For a moment their swords hung locked as she stared him in the face and laughed. She saw him turn pale with fear, and as always, the sight of cowardice drove her into a red fury. She broke free, thrust again, and realized that everything had turned very slow.

  Slowly she glided her sword round to cut up from below; slowly Burcan’s blade drifted toward hers and turned it back, just as if they moved in a dance—some courtly grave circling that made every movement, every moment, preternaturally sharp—so they traded blows. A noise like wind swept over them, a dark night wind howling and sweeping the battle sound away. When Burcan made a clumsy thrust that she blocked on her shield, she realized that he was out of time to the dance. Ever so slowly his horse tossed its head and blocked its master’s thrust. Urging her horse with her knees, she leaned and crept round to the flank position. Before he could turn, she struck in a leisurely drift. Her blade floated down onto his shield arm so slowly, so lightly, that it seemed unbelievable when he swore, swayed, and dropped the shield. The wind whined and moaned as she thrust forward, her arm and sword like a single spear biting into his side. With a choking scream of pain, he wrenched his horse’s head around as if to flee, but again he misjudged the dance.

  She was there to block his way. Leaning in the saddle, clutching the peak with both hands, he stared at her while blood oozed ever so slowly down his side.

  “Mercy,” he whispered. “I’ll cede your claim.”

  Gweniver hesitated, but she saw her father, riding next to her and watching with sorrowful eyes. With a straight cut she slashed the Boar across the eyes, heard him scream, slashed back from the other and saw him fall, sliding off his horse, hitting the ground hard as around them horses reared and bucked to avoid trampling him. Her father saluted her with a shadowy sword, then disappeared. At that same instant the world came back, the wind turning into the screaming, shouting battle noise.

  “Gweniver!” It was Ricyn’s voice. “To Gweniver!”

  Suddenly her men were all around her, fighting hard, yelling, driving back the Boarsmen who were on the verge of mobbing her. Silver horns sang out as the enemy line broke and fled in rout with Dannyn’s men charging after.

  “Well played, my lady!” Ricyn crowed. “Oh, well played!”

  So it was over, then. Her long summer’s hatred lay trampled with Burcan on the bloody field. As dazed as if she’d been struck on the head, she lowered her sword and wondered why she wasn’t weeping in joy. Ricyn certainly was. All at once she knew that she would never weep again, and that the Goddess had claimed her utterly.

  After the army had rested from the battle, Dannyn left fifty men with Gwetmar as reinforcements, then led the remainder back to Cerrmor. As they rode through the gray, rain-slick streets of the city, he felt melancholy settle round him like a wet cloak. Unless the new head of the Boars did something utterly foolish, the summer’s campaigning was at an end. When they reached the dun, he reported to the king, then went up to his chamber and took a bath. He was just dressing again when Saddar the councillor came to the door to request a word with him.

  “Show him in,” Dannyn said to his page. “We’ll see what the tedious old fart has to say for himself.”

  Grinning, the lad did as he was bid, but Saddar told him to stay out in the corridor while he and the captain talked.

  “Now, here,” Dannyn snapped. “Why did you order my lad away?”

  “Because what I have to say is too grave a thing to trust to young ears.” The councillor sat himself down unasked in a chair and smoothed his black robes. “I know, of course, that I can trust Lord Dannyn’s discretion in this. Indeed, I’ve come here in the hopes that you’ll lay my suspicions to rest and tell me that I’m quite mistaken to have them.”

  If that’s true, Dannyn thought to himself, then it’ll be the first time in his useless life that he wanted to hear he was wrong.

  “What suspicions?” he said aloud.

  “Ah, the thing is so vile that I can hardly bear to say it aloud.” Saddar did indeed look quite distressed. “A matter of sacrilege, or I should say, possible sacrilege. Far be it from me to insult a lady who might well be blameless.”

  He looked at Dannyn as if he expected him to understand exactly what he meant.

  “What lady?” Dannyn said.

  “Lady Gweniver, of course. I see that I’d best be blunt, no matter how deeply it pains me to do so. Now you’ve been in her company for months, my lord. Have you noticed how—well, on what intimate terms she seems to be with her captain? It would be a grave and horrible thing if she broke her sacred vows. I’m sure that doom would come upon us all if the Dark Goddess were wrathful. Please, I beg you to tell me that their friendship is only the sort of close tie that warriors often have with a fellow.”

  “As far as I know, it is. By the hells, old man, her men would murder her, I’ll wager, if they thought she was committing sacrilege. They know their lives depend upon her.”

  “Ah, well, then that relieves my heart.” He sighed dramatically. “It was just that matter of the blood vow, you see, that—”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Why, Lady Gweniver swore a blood oath with young Ricyn. Surely you knew that.”

  Dannyn felt his rage flare up like an oil-soaked fire.

  “I didn’t, at that.”

  “Oh. Well, I did wonder, seeing as his lordship is often distracted by matters of war. But you can see my concern.”

  With an inarticulate growl Dannyn paced to the window, grabbed the sill with both hands, and stared blindly out while he trembled in fury. No matter what he’d said to the councillor, he suddenly believed that she’d broken her oath of chastity, that she and Ricyn had profaned themselves, and probably many a time. He never even saw the councillor leave, which was a pity, because Saddar was smiling to himself in a most undistressed way.

  It was only later, when he was calm again, that Dannyn took the somewhat maddened next step in his line of thinking. If Gweniver had already broken the vow, why by all the gods shouldn’t he have her, too?

  It was a few days later that Nevyn happened to be crossing the ward while Gweniver was assembling her warband near the gates. He paused to watch as she and Ricyn mounted their horses. They made a handsome pair, both golden-haired and handsome. And doomed, he thought to himself. Oh, ye gods, how long can I bear to stay here and watch their Wyrd? As he walked on, his heart was so heavy with his brooding that he nearly ran into Dannyn.

  “My apologies,” Nevyn said. “I was just thinking about somewhat.”

  Dannyn’s eyes widened in awe.

  “Not mighty spells or suchlike, my lord,” Nevyn said.

  “Well and good, then.” He forced out a smile meant to be pleasant; it made Nevyn think of a wolf begging for table scraps. “Do you know where Lady Gweniver is going?”

  “I don’t. I assume that she and her men are just going to exercise their horses.”

  “Most like, truly.”

  By then the warband was clattering out of the gates. Dannyn watched Gweniver with such intensity that Nevyn was troubled.

  “Now, listen, lad,” he said. “She’s forbidden to you and to any other man as well. You should have the sense to realize that.”

  Dannyn turned toward him so sharply that Nevyn ducked back, summoning the Wildfolk in case the captain tried violence, but Dannyn, oddly enough, looked more hurt than enraged. For a moment he hesitated, as if there were something he wanted to ask, then turned on his heel and walked off fast. Dolt, Nevyn thought after him. Then he put the matter out of his mind and went up to visit Prince Mael.

  Up in the tower room the lad leaned on the windowsill and looked down, watching the tiny figures of the Wolf warband filing do
wn the hill into the town.

  “When I was a lad,” Mael said, “I had some toys that came all the way from Bardek, little silver horses and warriors. That warband looks just the same size from here. I used to line them up and long for the day I’d lead men to battle. Ah, ye gods! That day came and went so fast.”

  “Now here, Your Highness, you might be ransomed yet.”

  Mael gave him a bitter smile and flung himself into a chair by the hearth, where a small fire crackled to take off the chill. Nevyn sat down opposite and held out his hands to the warmth.

  “There won’t be any more heralds till spring,” the prince said with a sigh. “A whole winter here! You know, my wife wanted to come and share my imprisonment, but Father wouldn’t let her. He’s right, I suppose. It would only give Glyn somewhat to hold over her clan.”

  “You seem fond of her.”

  “I am. Father arranged our match when I was ten and she was eight, and she lived with us at court while we were betrothed. It was her training, you see, for being a prince’s wife. And then we married three years ago. You get used to someone, and then you miss them. Oh, here, good sir, my apologies. I’m babbling today.”

  “No apologies needed, lad.”

  For a long while the prince merely stared into the fire, but at last he roused himself.

  “I’ve finished that book of chronicles,” he said. “It’s passing strange! I’m going to be the best-educated prince that Eldidd ever had, and it won’t do my kingdom the least bit of good.”

  “Now, now, it’s much too soon to give up hope.”

  Mael swung round to face him.

  “Here, good Nevyn, all the guards swear that you’re dweomer. Answer me somewhat, honestly. Will I ever leave here for anything but my hanging?”

  “That hasn’t been given me to know.”

  Mael nodded, then went back to staring at the fire. Nevyn had to speak to him several times before he answered, and then it was only to discuss his reading.

  A silver wall, the rain swept over Dun Cerrmor. The council chamber was damp with a fine exhalation of cold from stone walls. Gweniver wrapped her plaid tightly round her as the councillors droned on. Across the table Dannyn fiddled with his dagger. The king leaned forward in his chair with an expression of such serious attention that she wondered what he was really thinking about.