Sword of Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “Of course not, Your Highness. Never would I even think such a thing! I was merely emphasizing how grim the situation is. It’s bad enough that I do believe we’re due a public apology, at the very least. But of course, that would be for an impartial court to decide.”

  Gwardon turned his glass around and around in his fingers while he considered. Finally he looked up. “Very well, then. We’ll have the formal proceeding. The mayor gave me permission to use the public Justice Hall for judging the feud, so I’m assuming we can use it for your matter, too. My councillor will arrange everything. He’ll send you a message about the time and place. Once that’s done, we can meet again in private, and you can tell me more about the situation in the west.”

  Malyc stood up and bowed very deeply indeed. “You have our humble thanks, Your Highness. The guild will be most grateful.”

  Merryc got up as well and bowed, but Gwardon raised a quick hand. “Come back later when you can.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  After Merryc returned the Penvardd to his inn and his mother’s carriage to her stables, he fetched his own horse and rode back to the villa. Gwardon was still sitting in the rose garden room, but on the table sat a heap of pieces of pabrus, not wine. Bedyl was explaining some fine point about harbor taxes on the pier allowed for royal use. Gwardon listened with his usual deep attention. Merryc bowed, sat down, and waited until they’d finished. Bedyl swept up the pabrus, nodded Merryc’s way, and left the chamber.

  Gwardon stayed silent for some moments. His facial expression revealed nothing, but Merryc knew the prince’s moods well.

  “My liege?” Merryc said. “What’s so troubling?”

  “About the Penvardd. I’m just wondering if this proceeding’s going to be an utter waste of time. It’s going to rile up the western lords over nothing, as far as I can see. A justiciar on the western border would be a fine thing, but I can’t just ram it down their throats. There has to be some sort of reason, more than just the Cerrgonney precedent. That really was a historical oddity.”

  “Not exactly nothing.” Merryc allowed himself to smile. “I swore I’d keep the details to myself, my liege, but I’ll wager I can tell you this much. They have a decent basis for their suit.”

  “Oh, do they?” Gwardon returned the smile. “Maybe it’ll be interesting, after all.”

  “Very interesting, since one of their chief speakers is going to be a lass.”

  “You’re jesting!”

  “I’m not.”

  “Not your betrothed?”

  “One of her close friends, another scholar from Aberwyn.”

  “Well and good, then. The petition’s going to be worth hearing for that alone.”

  * * *

  “Tell me summat, Cavvo,” Alyssa said. “You don’t feel humiliated, do you, that your wife went and got you out of a bit of trouble? I mean, a lot of men would.”

  Because he loved her, Cavan thought about an answer rather than simply growling “of course not” and changing the subject. They were alone in their little guest cottage at the embassy, sitting side by side with the remains of a cold supper on the table in front of them. He picked up his table dagger and poked at a bit of roast fowl, then laid the dagger down again.

  “A bit of trouble?” he said. “You pulled my neck out of a noose. More than a bit, I’d call it. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

  “But that’s what’s troubling me. I don’t want you to feel grateful forever and ever. I’d hate to feel that way, and for a man it must be much worse.”

  Cavan had to laugh with a shake of his head. “It is,” he said. “How did you learn so much about men?”

  “I had three brothers, didn’t I? And we grew up in the same house, not kept apart like you noble lords do with your children.”

  “Right you are! Well and good, then. Not humiliated, but a bit queasy, wondering what other men will think of me.”

  “I can see why. But I promise that I won’t hold it over you one fine day.”

  “And I promise I won’t do anything that would make me deserve that. Done, then?”

  “Done!”

  He leaned over and kissed her. He would have taken another, but a servant knocked on the door.

  “Visitors!” she called out.

  “Show them in!” Alyssa called back.

  The door opened with a flourish. Bryn and Merryc came in, both of them grinning. Cavan got up and met them by the door. He realized with a flash of anger that he was close to weeping with gratitude at seeing them again.

  “What by the hells are you doing here?” he said. “Consorting with a cursed silver dagger?”

  “Lowering ourselves to the gutter, obviously,” Bryn said. “Ah, come on, Cavvo! You never should have been exiled, and the whole cursed kingdom knows it.”

  “Even the bastard who got you exiled,” Merryc said. “That’s why he had to weasel around and lie.”

  “Here!” Alyssa got up from her chair. “Who was that?”

  “My dearest younger brother,” Cavan said. “Careg, of course. He said I drew first, and our father took the chance to believe him. Here, my love, I’ll tell you the tale later.”

  “Of course. No need to remember all that now.” She smiled at the three of them. “I believe that your friends are here to take you out drinking.”

  “Just that.” Merryc clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go put your troubles aside.”

  The troubles, however, appeared again once they reached Merryc’s chosen tavern, a clean and decent place, or so Merryc said, near the public guesthouse. At the door the tavernman looked Cavan up and down and spoke only to Merryc. “No silver daggers in my inn, milord, begging your pardon and all that.”

  “Oh, come now!” Merryc said. “His person’s been declared sacrosanct, and I’m here to stand surety for him, and this is Tieryn Bryn of Dun Cengarn.”

  The tavernman shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked this way and that. Offend the lords, or let in scum? Cavan could practically hear him thinking the words.

  “Cavvo,” Bryn said, “put the dagger inside your shirt. No one will see it and think ill of our host that way.”

  Cavan followed orders. With a sigh, the tavernman relented.

  “Not a lot of custom tonight, not yet, anyway,” he said. “Come in, milords, come in.”

  Only a few patrons sat scattered in the clean and carpeted public room, nicely lit with fresh candles in polished lanterns. In the curve of the wall stood a small table with chairs instead of benches. The tavernman seated them there and bustled off to bring dark beer—the newest vintage, or so he promised them.

  “I hope you like the taste of hops,” Merryc said.

  “When didn’t I, as well you know!” Cavan said. “Can beer have a vintage?”

  “In a place like this it can,” Bryn said. “You do yourselves well in Cerrmor, Merro.”

  “We try, truly.”

  The tavernman returned with the beer, which all three of them tasted and pronounced fine. The taverner took Merryc’s coin and bustled off again to greet six newcomers. For a few moments the three friends drank in silence.

  “No wonder the prince keeps a villa here.” Bryn turned to Cavan. “Gwardon’s in residence. Did you know?”

  “I do. I did see the entry, or a bit of it. I was up on the roof of the embassy with some of their lads.”

  “Ah,” Bryn said. “He made an impressive show of it, I thought.”

  “He did that. He still has that blue dragon on his banner.”

  “Why would he take it off?” Merryc said.

  “Not what I’m getting at. I saw a dragon just like that one, you see, at Haen Marn. A flesh and blood dragon, I mean, not someone’s device. I wondered if maybe he’d seen it too at some time or other.”

  Bryn and Merryc both
hooted and saluted him with their tankards.

  “Tell us another, Cavvo,” Bryn said.

  “It’s the solemn truth, I swear it. There are dragons out on the western border. Ask Lyss if you don’t believe me. She doesn’t lie.”

  “You’re marrying a woman who doesn’t lie?” Bryn grinned at him. “Sounds reckless to me.”

  “She’s the reckless one,” Merryc said.

  “I can’t believe my luck,” Cavan snapped. “If that’s what you mean.”

  “My apologies. She’s splendid, truly, is all I meant.”

  Cavan shrugged and downed more beer.

  “More about this dragon, if you please,” Bryn said. “Let me wager a guess. You’d been drinking and saw a lizard crawling on the wall.”

  “Naught of the sort.” Cavan forced out a smile. “It flew in at sunset one night, and its wings made a sound like the biggest drum in the world.”

  “I’d imagine they would,” Merryc said. “If such actually existed.”

  Cavan recovered himself. “If you’d seen it, Merro, those fine breeches would have needed a good wash. The cursed thing was huge.”

  “One of those books they read to us at collegium mentioned dragons,” Bryn said. “I’ve forgotten the name of it.”

  “I’m surprised you remember anything we learned there,” Merryc said. “The way you drank.”

  “I’m surprised you can remember I was there, since you could drink me under the table.”

  They all laughed.

  “But never mind the dragons,” Merryc said, “I want to know about summat fair different. This charge that got you the silver dagger. I was up in Dun Deverry, and the gossip! Ye gods, some said you drew first on some commoner, some said you went mad and killed dozens of noblemen. I knew you would never draw first, so I—”

  “Careg lied! Of course I didn’t! The fellow had a sword every bit as good as mine, and he drew on me. But the little weasel turd came forward and insisted he’d seen me do it, all mealy-mouthed and ever so sorry to say. I would have strangled him gladly if we hadn’t been in malover.”

  “So! I was right about that. But most of the gossip mongers hadn’t the slightest idea why your father was so happy to send you off. He could have paid the man’s blood price and gotten it out of you one way or the other later.”

  Cavan hesitated, but both men’s faces showed nothing but concern.

  “I’d cost him a good bit of money,” he said. “It’s a complicated sort of tale. You know about the taxes he takes in from the smelters, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right.”

  “So the other side of that coin is, he has obligations. There was this accident, a ghastly thing, where the merchant had used cheap materials to build the furnace—know what those are? These little brick towers. You get the charcoal going, then pour ore on top. The metal drips down at the bottom. And the wall of one of them broke just as an apprentice was taking out the bloom. Hot slag and burning charcoal poured out. He died thanks to the outflow. Burns that wouldn’t heal. He lost flesh down to the bones in his leg.”

  Bryn muttered an obscenity and had a long swallow of beer. Merryc turned stone still, as abnormally calm as he always became before a fight or duel.

  “The merchant tried to blame the men. I looked into it and found the truth. My father was responsible for half the blood price, and you know what he’s like when it comes to his precious coin.”

  For some minutes they drank in silence.

  “There’d been a few other things before that,” Cavan said at last. “Words I’d spoken when we’d had one of our quarrels.”

  “Ah,” Bryn said. “I wondered about that. Your temper, Cavvo—”

  “I can’t deny it. So Careg saw his chance to step up and lie. My father’s always favored him.”

  The tavern was a popular one, and now and then other men had come in to find a table and drink. This time, when the door opened, Merryc glanced at it and swore.

  “They always say,” Merryc said, “that if you name the Lord of Hell, he’ll send one of his minions to trouble you. There he is now.”

  Cavan slewed around in his chair and saw Careg crossing the room, flanked by two friends. We’ve got even odds for a fight, he thought—then cursed himself. He could feel his temper turning into a longing to grab his brother by his skinny neck and slit his throat with the silver dagger. Stop it! he told himself. What would Rommardda think? Somehow he knew that she would hear about it if he gave in to the rage.

  “Well, good taverner,” Careg said, and he spoke loudly enough for the room to hear, “I’m surprised at you, letting in a scum of a silver dagger.”

  The room fell abruptly silent. Bryn, who outranked Careg and his friends, rose from his chair, but he kept his arms crossed over his chest and his hands, therefore, away from his sword.

  “I’m surprised,” Bryn said, “that he’d let in a liar like you. Giving false witness in a court of law.”

  Careg flushed scarlet. One of his friends laid his hand on his sword hilt. With a terrified whimper, the landlord came trotting over. “Milords, please!” Careg ignored him and turned to look straight at Cavan.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Careg said. “Silver dagger.”

  “Naught that you haven’t heard already,” Cavan said. “By the by, silver daggers only fight for coin. We don’t waste ourselves in cheap tavern brawls.”

  Careg stared, started to speak, hesitated, then glanced at his friends. They appeared as puzzled as he did. Cavan was more sure than ever that his brother had been planning on a good fight. Thwarting him, he realized, was almost as pleasurable as slapping the little weasel’s face and starting one would have been.

  “Oh, come on, Carro!” Cavan said. “Everyone knows why you lied. It’s our uncle’s rhan, innit? I would have inherited when he died, but now it’ll come to you, a nice bit of Cerrgonney land.”

  “How very convenient for you.” Merryc stood up at that point and turned to look Careg’s way. “To have him exiled, eh?”

  Careg snarled and tried another insult. “He’s a coward! Why doesn’t he stand up and face me himself?”

  The landlord whimpered again. Cavan nearly did get up, but he forced himself to stay sitting and silent.

  “Because he’s smarter than that,” Merryc said. “As a son of Clan Daiver, let me remind you that this city is under our protection. We don’t like trouble here.” He glanced at the tavernman. “Call for the night watch.”

  The tavernman rushed to the door and began to yell.

  “You’re not going to get your fight, Careg,” Bryn said. “Why don’t you and your friends just leave?”

  “And the night watch will make sure you don’t hover around outside and wait for us,” Merryc said. “Go drink somewhere else.”

  Careg hesitated, then cleared his throat and spat right on the expensive carpet. With a wave to his friends, he turned and strode out of the door. Cavan heard voices—the night watch, the tavernman, and Careg himself, snarling away. Bryn and Merryc sat down and grinned at him.

  “My thanks,” Cavan said.

  “You’re the one who deserves the thanks,” Bryn said. “I was sure as sure you were going to draw and go for the little bastard.”

  “Wouldn’t have blamed you if you had,” Merryc said, “but it gladdens my heart that you didn’t.”

  The tavernman had returned. He brought over another pitcher of the dark beer and began to refill their tankards. When Merryc started to get out another coin, he shook his head no.

  “This one’s on me, milords,” he said. “And the next one as well.”

  * * *

  Alyssa rose early the next morning and left Cavan asleep and snoring. When he woke, he’d doubtless be sick, she figured, after his late night, and she preferred to be gone rather than join him when she saw
him heave. She dressed fast against the chill from a heavy fog and left without disturbing him. With Gurra for her guard, she went up to the public guesthouse.

  Mavva and Dovina were just waking for the day. Dovina sent her page off for fancy breads and boiled milk. Over breakfast they settled in to plan.

  “We need to let the Advocates Guild see the book,” Dovina said.

  “True spoken,” Alyssa said. “I want to ask Master Daen how we should present it in the court hearing.”

  “Once Darro’s eaten, I’ll send him off with messages. I need to ask Merro—I mean, Lord Merryc—”

  “Oh, get along with you!” Mavva said and grinned. “We all know you’re getting sweet on him.”

  “Well, so I am, and it’s a cursed good thing, innit, since I have to marry him.”

  Mavva wiped the grin away.

  “Be that as it may,” Dovina continued, “I’ll ask him to escort us to the guild again, and then I’ll send a message to Master Daen, asking him if he’ll receive us. Or hold! It should be the other way around.”

  “Truly,” Alyssa said, “because if your betrothed drank as much as my husband did last night, he’s not even awake.”

  Alyssa’s prediction turned out to be true. Darro returned with the news that Master Daen would receive them after the noon meal and Lord Merryc’s page would give him the message when the lord got out of bed.

  “Naught to do but wait,” Dovina said. “Darro, I’ll send you back in a bit to see if he’s up yet.”

  “My lady.” The page bowed, then sat down on the floor near her feet.

  “If he’s not,” Mavva said, “maybe your father will lend us a couple of men from his escort.”

  “It gladdens my heart, Mavva, that you’re the practical sort. We’ll do that.”

  “I’ve got news of a sort,” Alyssa said. “We should chew on this in the meantime. When Cavan was exiled? It was Lord Careg’s lies to their father that tipped the balance in the hearing. His own brother!”

  “Oh, was it now? What a nasty little weasel!”

  “My lady?” Darro turned to look up at her. “May I speak?”