Sword of Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “Oh, come now,” she said. “Can’t he sleep out in your stables? We passed the Running Horse on our way in, and I’ll wager your stables are cleaner.”

  “Safer, anyway.” The lad considered for a moment. “I’ll ask my da.”

  The father, equally stout, came out when the lad called. The two innkeeps put their heads together briefly, then agreed to house Cavan with the horses. Alyssa did persuade them to let her silver dagger eat with her. While he tended their stock, she went inside to look over the tavern room, which held only a few patrons, this early in the spring. At one table sat a family, a mother, her husband or perhaps a brother by the look of him, and three children, one so skinny and pale, with such thin hair and deep-set eyes, that it was hard to tell if it was a lass or a lad. They, no doubt, were on their way to or from Haen Marn.

  A more unusual group of travelers sat near a window, three women without a man to guard them. The innkeep pointed them out.

  “We have a suite for women traveling alone,” he said. “Will you share it with them?”

  “By all means. It’ll be safer than the common beds.”

  “Just that. She’s a merchant wife with her daughter and their maid.”

  The wife, a slender woman with gray streaks in her dark hair, and the young woman, who had to be the daughter, judging from their resemblance, both wore blue linen dresses kirtled and shawled in green and white checks. The daughter, who was perhaps seventeen, wore the flowered headscarf of a married woman, but the mother, the black scarf of a widow. The elderly maid wore plain gray, but her dress and shawl looked new and of decent quality. When Alyssa introduced herself they all smiled pleasantly and introduced themselves in turn. They hailed from Abernaudd, the only other port city in Eldidd. The mother, Gratta, offered her a seat at their table.

  “My thanks, goodwife,” Alyssa said. “But will you mind if my bodyguard sits just behind us? He’s a silver dagger, you see, hired by my Scholars’ Guild.”

  Gratta and her daughter, Lanna, exchanged glances, and Gratta considered for some moments. “Oh, I don’t truly see any harm in it,” she said at last, “if you’ll vouch for him.”

  “I will. He’s got decent manners for one of his kind.”

  Alyssa sat down on the bench next to the maid and opposite the two women. A servant hurried over with a basket of warm bread and a bowl of butter. A second lass offered them pale beer.

  “Mutton soon,” she announced, then scurried away again.

  “I hope it’s not boiled into pulp,” Gratta said. “But one doesn’t expect much better when one is traveling.”

  “Too true, alas,” Alyssa said. “Are you on the way to Haen Marn?”

  “We’ve just come from there, actually.”

  Lanna blushed and toyed with a bit of bread. Finally she spoke in a small, soft voice. “I’ve been married for nearly two years, and no baby yet.”

  “Oh, how sad!” Alyssa said. “I do hope the healers could help you.”

  “They gave me lots of good advice. I’m to—” She stopped speaking and gazed across the room.

  Alyssa, whose back was to the door, turned on the bench and followed her gaze. Cavan was standing just inside, and the two serving maids were trying to make him leave. With a sigh she got up.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “That’s my guard.”

  “Oh!” Lanna said. “He’s awfully handsome.”

  Gratta and the maid both scowled at her so fiercely that the lass blushed. Alyssa hurried off and reached the door just as the innkeep himself ordered the servants to stand aside. Cavan made him a half-bow and followed Alyssa back to her table. She pointed to the bench just behind hers.

  “If you’ll just sit there?” she said with a bright smile. “The ladies have agreed that you may eat nearby.”

  “Just like one of the dogs?” Cavan kept his voice low. “Still, that’s more consideration than a silver dagger usually gets.”

  Alyssa nodded her agreement and took her place at table again. When the food arrived, the saddle of mutton had been decently roasted, not boiled, and pickled cabbage and soda bread studded with bits of apple accompanied it. For some while they all ate in silence.

  “Quite nice.” Gratta waved her table dagger at the food. “What a relief! One eats well at Haen Marn, of course, but some of the places on the route—” She shook her head and shuddered. “I’m afraid you don’t have good fare ahead of you, Alyssa, at least when you’re after crossing the Pyrdon border.”

  “Alas! I suppose the local lords are rounding up all the food they can. In case things come to war, y’know.”

  “We did hear rumors about that.” Gratta dabbed at her lips with her handkerchief, then tucked it away in her kirtle. “I did my best to gather what information I could. The guild needs it with the summer’s work about to start.”

  “Do you handle your husband’s trading, now?”

  “I do. Not that I ride on caravan myself, of course. My poor dear husband’s apprentices do that.” Gratta sighed in honest sadness. “I do miss him so! But about the feud. The whole thing seems rather odd to me, but then I am a townswoman.”

  Cavan turned around on his bench to listen.

  “It’s a rural matter, then?” Alyssa said.

  “Not entirely. Horses are valuable, especially in this part of the kingdom, so I suppose the matter concerns far more folk than the farmers. As far as I could tell, it’s a dispute over a large stretch of good pastureland. The farmfolk want to plow and plant. The Westfolk horseherders have some ancient claim, which Gwerbret Standyc of the Bear is trying to get set aside.”

  “Set aside? By whom?”

  “The priests of Bel. The gwerbret’s own court has of course ruled in his favor, but the Westfolk called upon their own customs to deny the judgment. Not that I know what those customs are.” Gratta shook her head in mild bafflement. “Eventually, I suppose, the matter will reach court—or the courts, I should say. Our High King and the King of the Westfolk will have to untangle it. Well, the councillors will do the untangling, of course, but the kings will have to agree.”

  Cavan leaned over and murmured a few words in Alyssa’s ear. She asked his question for him.

  “Do you think it will come to open war before the royal heralds step in?”

  “I most certainly hope not! Ladoic of Aberwyn is concerned in some way, too, and fortunately he’s being the very voice of reason.”

  The thought of Gwerbret Ladoic as the voice of reason struck Alyssa as so strange that she nearly laughed aloud. She stopped herself and turned the noise into a polite cough.

  “My apologies,” Alyssa said. “Now, I did hear that Ladoic holds the allegiance of some of the folk involved. The farmers, I thought.”

  “Nah nah nah, it’s the Westfolk that have appealed to him.” Gratta had a sip of her ale. “I have no idea why.”

  Alyssa did know, but she was tired after a long day’s riding, and the yellow beer was proving stronger than its color would indicate. It wasn’t until after the other women had left to go up to the suite that her trained memory finally found the information she wanted. By then, Cavan had joined her at her table and was busily finishing up the shards of yeasted bread and soda bread the others had left behind. His own meal had been rather scant. Alyssa leaned on one elbow on the table and yawned as she watched him. He finished the last of the scraps and picked up his tankard of ale again.

  “So the Westfolk are right in the middle of the trouble in Pyrdon,” Cavan said.

  “Indeed. You saw Trav going upriver on the galley, remember. Gwerbret Ladoic must have inherited the Maelwaedd ties with the Westfolk. They go back hundreds of years, and they made a strong alliance twixt Aberwyn and the Westlands. There was an exchange of vassals to seal the pact.”

  “That would explain it, then, why they appealed to him.”

  “Just that. As far as the W
estfolk are concerned, Ladoic’s clan are newcomers to Aberwyn.” She paused for a smile. “They live so long, a hundred years to them counts for very little.”

  “So I’ve heard. Some of the great old clans close to the king think of the Western Fox in the same way—newcomers. Upstarts, even.”

  “The noble-born take that kind of thing seriously, don’t you?”

  “Not me, not anymore. I used to, but you know what they say, the gods don’t like to watch a proud man strut. They throw things under his feet.”

  Alyssa winced at the bitterness in his voice. Cavan concentrated on his ale for a bit, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at her again.

  “Tell me summat,” Cavan said. “Why is Dovina so feisty, anyway? She’s got everything a lass might want in life, land of her own and beauty.”

  “Hah! She also has to live with her father. And make a proper marriage whether she wants one or not. She’d truly rather live in the collegium her whole life than be some minor lord’s lady.”

  “I thought all lasses wanted to marry.”

  “Most men would agree with you.” Alyssa paused for a smile. “And they’d be wrong.”

  With that she took the candle lantern from the table and marched off to the chamber she’d share with Gratta and Lanna.

  * * *

  Dovina had managed to convince her father to allow her a last night at the collegium. Not only did the women have a ceremonial dinner planned to honor the dead bard, but she needed to retrieve her possessions from the private chamber her rank had given her. While Ladoic had no respect for the dinner, he was adamant that she leave none of her things behind.

  “You’ll not be going back there,” he said. “Not after all that trouble at the burying.”

  “I’d be safer here than in the dun, if that’s what’s truly worrying you.”

  “You’d think so, most like, but I don’t. Can’t you see what your meddling’s caused? People muttering in the streets! Cursed near another riot at the funeral! If that wretched Malyc hadn’t calmed that mob—”

  “If your ever-so-loyal retainer hadn’t stuck a dirty spoon in the stew, it never would have soured.”

  “He had every right to speak.”

  “Oh, come now, Father! It’s not that he spoke. It’s what he said.”

  “Well, he paid for it handsomely. The fellow that swung on him was a blacksmith. Broke his jaw.” Dovina winced. Such injuries never healed up properly.

  “If you hadn’t let Cradoc starve,” she said, “there’d be no trouble. Why didn’t you just offer to discuss the matter? You could have dragged it out for years.”

  Ladoic started to speak, then merely glowered. Dovina laid a hand on his arm.

  “Father, what’s so wrong? There’s more to this, isn’t there? Some complication, some thing I don’t know?”

  “There’s always more than you know!” He hesitated again, then shrugged. “You need to be married, lass. Take up your position in life. I don’t want you squirming out of going to Cerrmor. Then you’ll truly be safe, under your husband’s protection.”

  “Assuming I accept this suitor you’ve found. You can’t force me to marry him, you know. It would be going against the venerable traditions of our clan, and I know how much you respect them.”

  Ladoic growled under his breath, but he refrained from arguing further. Dovina was profoundly relieved when he left her at the collegia gates and rode off without wanting admittance.

  Malyc Penvardd presided over the dinner, a grim affair as scholar after scholar stood up from her place at table to speak her tribute to Cradoc. Thanks to her rank, Dovina sat next to Lady Tay at the head table. She spoke her thanks to Cradoc’s memory first, which gave her the time she needed to prepare the necessary lie. The moment that the last speaker sat down, Lady Tay turned to her.

  “Where’s Alyssa?” she said. “Is she ill?”

  “Overwhelmed by grief, my lady,” Dovina said. “She wanted to go back to her family for the night, where she could talk with her mother and have a bit of privacy. I know we should have told you and our chaperones, but you were all so busy planning this dinner—”

  “Well, so we were. Will she return to us on the morrow?”

  “So I was led to expect. In the morning. Alas, just when I’ll be leaving you, or I’d make sure of it.”

  “Ah, your father!” Lady Tay snorted in annoyance. “I do hope you’ll be allowed to return to finish your studies. You’re so close to gaining your scholar’s badge and device!”

  “Even if I accept this suitor, I’ll fight for a long betrothal.”

  “Good. And may you win the battle!”

  Seated as she was, Dovina could overhear much of the conversation between Lady Tay and the Penvardd, or, to be precise, she overheard Malyc’s furious tirade and Lady Tay’s occasional word of agreement.

  “The guild won’t forget this,” Malyc said at one point. “Eventually His Grace did do the honorable thing and returned Cradoc to us for burial, but the delay! And of course, there’s the death. He allowed Cradoc to starve when a word or two from him would have saved our guild brother. I’m sending messages to the Dun Deverry guild. They’ll petition the High King himself.”

  “Or the regent, that is.” Lady Tay managed to squeeze in a few words.

  “Indeed, the Prince Regent, and about our petition for a justiciar here. Ladoic’s court won’t be able to dismiss a suit there even if the wretched priests of Bel connive with him.” Malyc lifted his goblet for a sip of wine, glanced Dovina’s way, and turned scarlet. “My lady, forgive me for speaking so boldly about your esteemed father! I fear me that Cradoc’s death has addled my mind.”

  “Fear not, Your Honor!” Dovina smiled at him. “A bard may speak the truth at will, and I doubt if anyone in Aberwyn would argue against my father being arrogant.”

  “You’re very kind to say so.” Malyc had a long swallow of the wine. “My thanks.”

  Early in the morning, the gwerbret appeared at the gates with a carriage, a groom, and a maidservant to transport his daughter and her baggage back to the dun. The maidservant carried out Dovina’s goods, though Dovina insisted on bringing her armload of books out herself, much to her father’s annoyance. After a bit of confusion, the servants got everything stowed and themselves aboard as well. They set off and rattled through the cobbled streets up the long hill to the dun.

  Although the Fox clan had spent a small fortune in taxes to make their dun as fashionable as possible, the high walls surrounded a massive clutter: new towers, old brochs, a fancy flower garden in the front, a welter of storage sheds and animal pens in the rear. All around the walls stood stables for horses at ground level and barracks for the warband one story up. Some of the barracks had a further rickety structure on top that provided sleeping quarters for the lower-ranked servants.

  The carriage let its noble passengers dismount at the carved wooden door to the great hall, then clattered away to the carriage house round the back. Lower-ranked grooms ran after it. House servants and pages lined the steps as Dovina and Ladoic climbed them. The chamberlain, Lord Veccan, opened the door with a flourish and bowed the noble-born inside. Servants followed and trotted off to attend to their various duties.

  “Ah, the ancestral hall!” Dovina said. “It still stinks as badly as ever.”

  “I suppose you prefer the smell of your musty old books,” Ladoic said.

  “As a matter of fact, Father, I do.”

  Aberwyn’s great hall lay in the oldest part of the gwerbretal complex, in the central broch built by the early Maelwaedd clan. Some hundred feet across and two stories high, the hall held enough plank tables and backless benches to feed her father’s warband of a hundred and fifty men. A good half of them sat there at the moment, drinking ale and jesting with the maidservants who waited upon them. When the noble-born entered, the men rose to their feet
with a clatter of scabbards and shouts of welcome. Ladoic acknowledged them with a grin and a wave, which released them to sit down again.

  On the far side of the hall, directly opposite the door, stood a dais for the tables of honor with their proper chairs. Although mats of woven rushes covered the lower floor, the dais sported Bardek carpets. All of the tables were unoccupied except for the gwerbret’s own. Two of her mother’s ferrets lay curled up on the embroidered linen cloth. They lay so still that at first Dovina wondered if they were dead, but as she walked closer, she noticed their little brown sides trembling as they breathed. On the floor under the table, her brothers’ big tan boarhounds snored and twitched.

  The brothers themselves sat at one end of the table with full glass tankards of dark beer and brooded over a game of carnoic. As usual, on his side of the board Gwarl had a large heap of Adonyc’s markers. Dovina wondered at times why Donno would even play, since he always lost.

  Adonyc, Tieryn Dun Gwerbyn and the heir to Aberwyn, was some years older than both his siblings. Blond, both men, they had the narrow pale eyes and high cheekbones typical of Cerrmor men, a reminder that as clans went, the Fox was new to Eldidd and to the ranks of the nobility. While Gwarl’s face was slender, and his eyes lively, there was something about Adonyc’s face that always reminded people of cold bread pudding, rather thick, squarish, with slightly protuberant eyes like gooseberries.

  When Dovina and Ladoic climbed the low steps to the dais, both brothers rose and bowed to their father, though the tilt of their shoulders made it clear they were excluding their sister. Dovina decided against a hypocritical curtsy.

  “Well, well,” Gwarl said to Dovina. “The nuisance is back, is she? We shan’t have a moment’s peace from now on.”

  “Hold your tongue,” Ladoic said. “Don’t set her off!” He glanced around the hall. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Feeling faint up in the women’s hall,” Adonyc said. “She left her stinking weasels behind, though, so she might come down again soon.”