Darkspell

by Katharine Kerr

  Glyn considered him with eyes so cold that he might have been looking at a stranger. Saddar smiled to himself.

  “Lady Gweniver,” the king said, “step forward.”

  Gweniver came to the foot of the throne.

  “We offer you a choice of retribution, to take as the Goddess advises and desires. Death or banishment. The banishment will be from our court and our lands. We will strip Lord Dannyn of all rights, rank, and privilege, yet will we retain his child, to be raised as our son, out of pity for one too young to share his father’s shame. This sentence would spare his life only because the crime was uncompleted. If the Goddess desires otherwise, we will have him given fifty lashes, then hanged until dead in the market square of our city of Cerrmor. In your Goddess’s name, speak and sentence this man.”

  Although Ricyn knew what she was going to say, he had to admire the way Gweniver looked as she pretended to debate the question, all solemn and profound. Saddar looked as if he had a mouthful of vinegar as he began to guess what was coming. Finally Gweniver curtsied to the king.

  “Banishment, my liege. Although the affair was grave and sacrilegious at root, the Goddess can be merciful when a crime is freely confessed, and when the criminal has been driven to mad actions by things beyond his control.”

  She paused and let her eyes meet Saddar’s. The old man turned very pale indeed.

  “Done, then.” Glyn raised the golden sword high. “We hereby pronounce the aforesaid sentence of banishment against Dannyn, no longer lord. Guards! Take him away to prepare for his journey out of my city. Let him have no more than the clothes he wears, two blankets, a dagger, and the two pieces of silver due a banished man.”

  As the guards dragged the prisoner away, the audience in the crowded chamber began whispering in a sound like rushing water. Since he had an errand to run, Ricyn slipped out a side door and hurried to Dannyn’s chambers. In the middle of the floor, Dannyn was kneeling and rolling up a cloak into his bedroll. He glanced Ricyn’s way, then went on working.

  “Have you come to kill me?” he said.

  “I haven’t. I’ve brought you somewhat from the lady.”

  “It’s a pity she didn’t just let me hang. The flogging would have been better than this.”

  “Don’t talk like a dolt.” Ricyn took the prepared message tube out of his shirt. “Ride to Blaeddbyr and give this to Lord Gwetmar. He needs a good captain with all the cursed Boars on the border.”

  Dannyn looked at the proffered tube for a moment, then took it and slipped it inside his shirt.

  “She’s most generous to those she conquers, but taking her favor is the cursed worst thing of all. Tell me somewhat and honestly, Ricco, for the sake of the battles we’ve ridden together. Are you bedding her or not?”

  Ricyn’s hand seemed to find his sword hilt of its own accord.

  “I’m not, and never would I.”

  “Huh. So you’ll be her little lapdog, will you? I thought you were more of a man than that.”

  “You’re forgetting the Goddess.”

  “Huh.” It was more a snort than word.

  Ricyn found his sword in his hand without his being aware that he’d drawn it. Dannyn sat back on his heels and smirked at him. With a wrench of will, Ricyn sheathed the sword.

  “Clever bastard, aren’t you? But I’m not going to kill you and spare you your shame.”

  Dannyn went as limp as a sack of meal. Ricyn turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

  The ward was packed with people from wall to wall, every lord, every rider, every servant, all whispering and waiting. Ricyn found Gweniver and Nevyn down by the gates, where a pair of the King’s Guard held Dannyn’s black gelding, saddled and ready. When Dannyn came out of the broch, the crowd parted to let him pass. His head held high, he swung his bedroll from one hand as easily, as cheerfully as if he were going out on campaign. The whispers rose round him, but he smiled at the guard, patted his horse’s neck, and tied his bedroll to the saddle while he ignored the tittering laughter, the pointing kitchen wenches. When he mounted, a few jeers of “Bastard!” rose above the whisper. Dannyn turned in the saddle and bowed to his taunters, and all the while he smiled.

  Drawn by some impulse that Ricyn couldn’t understand, Gweniver followed Dannyn when he rode out the gates. Ricyn caught Nevyn’s eye and motioned for the old man to come along as he hurried after her. All during Dannyn’s slow ride through the crowded streets, the folk turned to stare at him, to whisper, to call him bastard, but he sat straight and proudly in the saddle. At the city gates he bowed to the guards, then kicked his horse to a gallop and raced down the open road. Ricyn let out his breath in a sigh of relief. In spite of himself, he felt a stab of pity.

  “My lady?” he said to Gweniver. “Why did you follow him?”

  “I wanted to see if he’d break. Pity he didn’t.”

  “Ye gods, Gwen!” Nevyn snapped. “I was hoping you’d find it in your heart to forgive him.”

  “Now, that’s the first stupid thing I’ve ever heard you say, good sir. Why by all the ice in all the hells should I? I allowed the king to banish him for his sake, not Dannyn’s, and our liege was blasted lucky that he got that much out of me.”

  “Indeed?” the old man said with some asperity. “Hatred binds two people together even more tightly than love. You might reflect upon that.”

  The three of them strolled along the north-running road, bordered with the green meadowland of the king’s personal demesne. In the cold, clear sky, white clouds piled up and scudded before the rising wind. Ricyn was just thinking that he’d like to get back to the warmth of the great hall when he saw the horse, trotting toward them down the road. It was Dannyn’s black, riderless, with the reins tied to the saddle peak. With an oath Ricyn ran over and grabbed the reins. All of its master’s gear was still tied to the saddle.

  “Oh, ye gods,” Nevyn said. “Gwen, take that horse back to the dun and tell the guards how you found it. Bring them back with you. Ricco, come along. He can’t be far.”

  Ricyn found out that Nevyn could run surprisingly fast for a man his age. They jogged down the road for about half a mile to a small rise with a single oak growing at its top. Someone was sitting under the tree. Swearing, Nevyn raced up the hill, and Ricyn panted after him. Dannyn was slumped over, his bloody dagger still tight in his hand. He’d cut his own throat not a mile away from the king he loved. When Ricyn turned away, he could see Dun Cerrmor rising above the town, the red-and-silver banners flapping in the wind.

  “Ah, shit!” Ricyn said. “The poor bastard.”

  “And is this enough vengeance for you?”

  “Too much. He’s got my forgiveness, if it’ll do him any good in the Otherlands.”

  Nodding a little, Nevyn turned away.

  “Well and good,” he said. “Then that’s one link on this chain broken, anyway.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, naught, naught. Look. Here come the city guards now.”

  Nevyn stayed for another year in Cerrmor, but the time came when he could no longer bear to see Gweniver ride to war or to wait with the dread that she’d never ride home. One wet spring day he left the dun and rode north to do what he could for the common folk of the kingdom. Although at first he thought of Gweniver often, he had so much else to trouble his heart that soon her memory faded. Year after year the wars raged, and plague followed in their wake. Everywhere he went, Nevyn tried to counsel lords toward peace and the ordinary folk toward their own survival, but he felt that he was doing so little good, no matter how grateful were the people he helped, that he gave in to despair. In his heart he reached the Dark Paths, where even the dweomer turns to dust and ashes, no comfort nor a joy. Out of duty to the Light, he kept up his work, but the last cruel mockery was that he was serving out of duty alone instead of his former love.

  In the fifth spring, when apple blossoms were coming out in deserted orchards, some chance thought made him remember Gweniver, and once he’d thoug
ht of her, his curiosity got the better of him. That night he knelt by his campfire and focused his mind on the flames. Vividly he saw Gweniver and Ricyn, walking across the ward in Dun Cerrmor. They looked so unchanged that he thought he was only having a particularly vivid memory, but when she turned her head, he saw a fresh scar sliced through the blue tattoo. He ended the vision, but once he’d seen her, he couldn’t forget her again. In the morning, with a sigh for the follies of men, he took the road to Cerrmor.

  On a day when the soft breeze and the smell of fresh-growing grass mocked the kingdom’s sufferings, Nevyn rode through the gates of the city. As he was dismounting to lead his horse and pack mule through the busy streets, he heard someone hail him and turned to find Gweniver and Ricyn, leading horses as they hurried over.

  “Nevyn!” she sang out. “It gladdens my heart to see you.”

  “And mine to see you, and Ricco here, too. I’m flattered that you remember me.”

  “What? Oh, now, here, how could we ever forget you? Ricco and I were just going out for a ride, but let us stand you a tankard of ale instead.”

  At Gweniver’s insistence they went to the best inn in Cerrmor, an elegant place with polished wood floors and whitewashed walls. She also insisted on buying them the best ale with that easy warrior’s generosity that cares little for coin a man might not live to spend. Once they were settled, Nevyn studied her while she told him the latest news of the war. Although she was hardened, as if her entire body were a weapon, her movements were firm yet graceful in a way that lay beyond the categories of male or female. As for Ricyn, he was as sunny and bland as ever, shy as he drank his ale and watched her.

  Every now and then, when their eyes met, they smiled at each other, an exchange that was as full of tension as it was of love, as if their hearts were goblets filled to the brim, the liquid trembling but never spilling over to release. The link between them was so strong that it was visible to Nevyn’s dweomer-touched sight as a web of pale light in their auras, formed from their normal sexual energy transmuted to a magical bond. He had no doubt that power flowed between them, too, that somehow they would always know where the other was in the worst press of battle, that thoughts passed between them so instinctively that they were unaware of it. Seeing her dweomer-talent so ill-used made him heartsick.

  “Now, here, good Nevyn,” she said at last. “You’ve got to come up to the dun. Did the dweomer bring you back to us?”

  “Not truly. Why? Is somewhat wrong?”

  “Somewhat like that.” Ricyn glanced around and lowered his voice. “It’s our liege, you see. He’s been having these black moods, and no one can bring him out of them.”

  “He broods on things,” Gweniver put in, also in a whisper. “And he says things like he can’t be the true king after all and other utter nonsense. The queen’s half-afraid he’s going mad.”

  They both looked at him in expectant faith that he would solve everything. He felt so helpless that their trust came close to making him weep.

  “What’s so wrong?” Gweniver said.

  “Ah, well, I’m just so cursed weary these days, seeing the land in turmoil, and there’s naught I can do to stop the suffering.”

  “Well, by the gods! It’s not yours to stop. Don’t vex yourself so deeply. Don’t you remember what you told the king when he was so heartsick over Dannyn’s death? You said it was only vanity that makes a man think he can turn aside someone else’s Wyrd.”

  “Vanity? Well, so it is.”

  In her unthinking way she’d given him the very word he needed to hear. A vanity much like Glyn’s, he thought. In my heart I’m still the prince, thinking that the kingdom still revolves around me and my doings. When he reminded himself that he was only a servant, waiting for a command, he was suddenly sure that the command would come. Someday he would see the Light shine again.

  When they went up to the dun, servants came running and clustered round him as if he were indeed a prince. Orivaen insisted on giving him an elegant chamber in the main broch and personally accompanied him up. While Nevyn unpacked, the chamberlain gave him various bits of gossip. Lord Gwetmar and Lady Macla had two sons; Prince Mael was still in the tower; Gavra, his old apprentice, was now an herbwoman in the city.

  “And what of our liege?” Nevyn said.

  Orivaen’s eyes darkened.

  “I’ll arrange a private audience this evening. Once you’ve seen him, we can speak further.”

  “I see. And what about Saddar? Is he still at court, or did he finally take his humbling to heart and leave?”

  “He’s dead. Strange, in a way. It happened directly after you left us that summer. He developed a peculiar congestion of the stomach.”

  When Nevyn swore under his breath, Orivaen’s expression turned completely bland. Nevyn wondered if the king himself had ordered the old man poisoned, or if some loyal courtier had taken the little task on himself, once the only herbman who could have saved Saddar had gone away.

  In the afternoon Nevyn went down into Cerrmor and found Gavra, who was living with her brother’s family over his inn. She fell laughing into his arms, dipped him up some ale, and took him up to her chamber for a chat. She’d grown into an imposing young woman, still pretty and sleek, but with a depth of feeling and shrewdness in her dark eyes. Her chamber was stacked with herbs, jars of salve, and the other tools of her trade, neatly arranged around the furniture, a single bed, a wooden chest, and by the hearth, a cradle. Asleep inside was a pretty little lass about ten months old.

  “Your brother’s youngest child?” Nevyn said.

  “She’s not, but mine. Do you despise me for it?”

  “What? Whatever made you think I would?”

  “Well, my brother was none too pleased at having a bastard in the family. I’m just lucky I can bring in coin to feed us.”

  As if she knew she was being discussed, the baby yawned, opened cornflower-blue eyes, and fell back asleep.

  “Why hasn’t the father married you?”

  “He’s married to someone else. I know I’m but a fool, but I love him all the same.”

  Nevyn sat down on the wooden chest. He’d never expected that his clever Gavra would have gotten herself into this sort of mess. She leaned on the windowsill and looked out at her narrow view, the side of another house, a small dusty yard with a chicken coop.

  “Prince Mael,” she said abruptly. “My poor captive love.”

  “Ye gods!”

  “I beg you, don’t tell a soul. They might kill my babe if they knew that Eldidd had a royal bastard here in town. I’ve told everyone that her father was one of the king’s riders, Dagwyn his name was, who was killed in last year’s fighting. Lady Gweniver’s been helping me, you see. I guess Dagwyn was quite a lad with the lasses, and everyone believed it of him without thinking twice.”

  “Is Gweniver the only one who knows?”

  “Just that, not even Ricyn.” She paused to look into the cradle with a wry smile. “I had to tell someone, and Gweniver is a priestess, no matter what else she may be. It’s sad, though. Ricyn comes here sometimes and gives me coin for his friend’s daughter. Little Ebrua seems to mean much to him.”

  “Then it’s best that he never learn the truth. But, here, how did this happen? Can you fly through the air like a bird?”

  “Oh, I climbed the stairs to the tower, sure enough,” she said, half laughing. “But not long after you left, the prince got a fever, and all the chirurgeons were gone with the army. So Orivaen sent for me to keep their bit of booty alive. Ye gods, I felt so sorry for Mael, and Orivaen allowed me to visit him like you used to. Mael offered to teach me to read and write, you see, just to have somewhat to pass his time. So I had my lessons, and we grew to be friends, and well—” She gave an eloquent shrug of one shoulder.

  “I see. Does he know about the child?”

  “Oh, how could he not know? My poor captive love.”

  When he returned to the dun, Nevyn made a point of going up to the tower to see the
prince. Although his pleasant chamber had changed not at all, Mael was a man now. Tall, filled out, he paced gravely round the room instead of throwing himself about in an agony of impatience. He was also dead pale, his alabaster skin making his raven hair look even darker. With a start Nevyn realized that it had been seven years since the prince had been out in the sun.

  “You can’t know how much it gladdens my heart to see you,” Mael said. “I missed my tutor badly when he left.”

  “My apologies, but the dweomer calls a man down many a strange road. I seem to have left you some comfort, though. I’ve spoken to Gavra.”

  The prince turned scarlet and looked away.

  “Ah, well,” he said after a moment. “It’s strange, truly. There was a time when I would have thought that a common-born woman was beneath my notice. Now I wonder what Gavra could possibly want with a wretch like me.”

  “Your Highness has had a harsh Wyrd, truly.”

  “Oh, not as harsh as many. I’ve grown tired of pitying myself, you see. Some men are like hawks, dying young in battle. I’m a little finch, kept in a royal cage and dreaming of trees. But it’s a nice cage, and there’s plenty of seed in my bowl.”

  “True enough.”

  “The books you left me have become more and more of a comfort, too. And Gavra found me an interesting thing down at the bookseller’s in the temple of Wmm. It’s a compendium of works by a philosopher named Ristolyn, who wrote in the Dawntime. Was he a Rhwman?”

  “He wasn’t, but one of a tribe called the Greggycion, a wise folk judging from what little we have of their books. I believe that the beastly Rhwmanes conquered their kingdom, much as they did the one belonging to our ancestors back in the Homeland. Ristolyn always struck me as a writer worthy of much thought. I’ve read part of his Ethics of Nichomachea.”

  They passed a pleasant hour discussing things that Nevyn hadn’t heard so much as mentioned in years. Although the prince talked with the eagerness of a born scholar, when it was time for Nevyn to leave, melancholy settled over Mael like a sea fog. He wasn’t a scholar, after all, but a desperate man clinging to whatever would keep him sane.