Sword of Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “What would you have done if I’d killed the stinking little bastard? Would you have been pleased?”

  “I doubt it. I probably would have fainted dead away, and Mavva with me.” Dovina smiled at him. “If I’d gloated over his corpse, what would you have thought of me?”

  “I would have honored you for it but, I’ll admit, I would have had second thoughts about marrying someone that fierce.”

  They both laughed, hesitantly at first, then deeply when they saw that the other was laughing, too.

  “You’ve made an enemy, though,” Dovina said.

  “He hated me already. Nothing truly lost there.” He smiled at her. “One other thing, Dovva. After that public display, we may assume we’re betrothed.”

  “Most assuredly we are. If your mother cares to discuss the settlement with my father?”

  “I’ll tell her straightaway.”

  Arm in arm they strolled back to the great hall. You know, Dovina thought, this could do quite well, this marriage. I must send Mother a letter as soon as ever I can, thanking her.

  “Well and good, then,” Merryc said. “Soon we’ll be married. I take it you’d like to finish your studies in Aberwyn.”

  “I would indeed. We could have a long, formal betrothal to allow it.”

  He looked so disappointed that she realized he had grown fond of her.

  “Or,” she said, “I have land in my name nearby with a manse that might suit us while I finish. There’s plenty of pasturage for horses.”

  “And a chamber for books?”

  “Most definitely a chamber for books! No doubt my lord can find things to amuse himself with while I’m at the collegium.”

  “I’ve always wanted to follow Prince Mael’s example and write a treatise on honor and its meaning—and its dangers. Struggling with the words would keep me occupied, I should think. I’m not sure how to start.”

  “What about notes in a commentary on Mael’s writings? Like the one he wrote on Ristolyn?”

  “You know, that would do splendidly, wouldn’t it? My thanks! Duels are all very well, but they’re a costly way of settling an argument.”

  “As Lord Careg found out? Summat I’ve meant to ask you—that trick, holding your sword point low, where did you learn that?”

  “I’m not sure. It just came to me, once when I was practicing with a swordmaster.” He frowned as he thought about his answer. “It was odd, but it seemed like a thing I’d always known.”

  * * *

  The news of Lord Merryc’s victory reached the Advocates Guild in the person of an overexcited apprentice, who rushed into the bookhoard and started babbling. Lord Daen listened to the end, Alyssa noticed, before he told the lad to hush and get back to work.

  “It sounds to me,” Daen said, “that your friend has found a kindred spirit for a husband.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Alyssa said. “I’m so pleased for her! Those arranged marriages can be very difficult for the woman.”

  “Just so. It also sounds to me like Lord Merryc is capable of taking over at least some of a gwerbret’s duties. The warlike ones.”

  With Daen’s help, Alyssa had discovered that a daughter’s husband might take over a rhan if he were willing to be adopted into the new clan—and if the Council of Electors agreed.

  “Ladoic will have some arm-twisting to do,” Daen said, “but one knows he’ll be able to have his way in the end. He’s that sort of man.”

  “True spoken. Besides, no one thinks much of Adonyc. Of course, Merryc will have to agree, too.”

  Daen snorted. “He’ll jump at the chance.”

  “What man wouldn’t, I suppose? My thanks for your help, good sir!”

  “Is there aught else you need?”

  “May I ask you a question? The woman who wanted to meet me the other day, Hild. Who is she?”

  “A woman of great power in mysterious things. A healer, for one. She spends most of her time on the road, she tells me, helping those who need her herbs, seeing what she can see around the kingdom. I suppose you’ll think me daft, but I swear! At times I’m sure she has dwimmer.”

  “I don’t think you’re daft. I rather thought the same thing.”

  Alyssa wrote out a clean copy of their findings, then with her Bardekian bodyguard, Gurra, went up to the guesthouse to deliver it. They met in Ladoic’s private suite with no one else present, and Gurra stood outside the door to ensure things remained that way.

  Ladoic read the report over twice before he commented. “I’d rather she held the right to rule.”

  “For the first few years, Your Grace, she’ll be the real ruler. She knows Aberwyn far better than Merryc ever will. We all hope Your Grace will live for a very long time yet, of course.”

  “Of course. No need for flattery, lass, though I’ll admit to hoping so myself. You’re right, though, that the Electors would probably refuse to acknowledge her. I don’t want to plunge the rhan into civil war. That’s one reason why I’m doing this. Adonyc’s about as diplomatic as that Careg fellow.”

  “In a few years, Your Grace, Merryc could always cede Dovina the rule in a formal court.”

  “Like in front of that cursed justiciar, eh? He might be good for summat after all.” Ladoic tapped the rolled pabrus on the palm of one broad hand while he thought something through. “My thanks. About that no-good husband of yours? I’ll withdraw the offer of bounty once we’re back in Aberwyn. My councillor tells me we have to do it there. The decree of his sanscrosanct person will hold until then.”

  “My thanks, Your Grace! My most humble—”

  “Enough! You may leave us. Dovva’s expecting you to come for lunch. She probably wants to natter about her betrothed.” He shook his head. “Ye gods! The kind of men you lasses choose! Oh, well, better than some mincing scribe.”

  Alyssa forced out a polite smile while he chuckled to himself. She curtsied twice and left.

  CHAPTER 13

  PRINCE GWARDON RETURNED TO his villa in order to let his councillor study the laws concerning the Justiciar of the Northern Border for precedents. After hearing the man’s report, he returned to Cerrmor to release a proclamation. After much consultation on the part of his councillor with the Advocates Guild, he told the court, he had settled the question of who might attend the legal court of the new western justiciar. All suits involving only commoners would come to the local gwerbretion unless both commoners agreed otherwise, the gwerbret released them, and the justiciar agreed to take them on. Matters involving two noble lords would as well, but any suit in which a commoner and a member of the nobility were involved would have to come before the justiciar. Any legal matters involving two gwerbretion would continue to come before royalty, as was the case presently.

  “A cursed compromise!” Dovina snarled. “I don’t like this. A rich commoner will still be able to bribe and bend justice against a poor one.”

  “Indeed,” Alyssa said. “I don’t like it either.”

  “Nor do I,” Mavva said. “But it’s a start. Don’t forget that the Wmmglaedd priests want changes. They’ll be in a better position than we are to bring them about.”

  “Now that’s true spoken!” Dovina said. “One battle does not a war make. I need to remember that.”

  “Just so,” Mavva continued. “We’ve got a long, long war ahead of us. Lyss, you look so sour!”

  “I want to win right now, is why, but I know you’re right. It’s going to take years before there are justiciars in all the rhans.”

  “If ever,” Dovina put in. “Our next big campaign is getting a proper written law code like they have in Bardek. Once the laws are written down, they won’t bend as easily as they do now. And then rich and poor can stand on level ground.”

  “Until the noble lords find some way around it, anyway,” Mavva said. “But there’s naught we can do about that now.”
r />   * * *

  Gwerbret Ladoic’s opinion of the compromise was higher than that of his daughter, though for reasons only indirectly related to the law itself.

  “There had to be some kind of compromise, Dovva,” he told her. “For the poor gwerbretion, it’s a matter of revenue. For the rich, it’s a matter of their high opinion of themselves. Those of us in the middle can shrug and see how things go. What I’m hoping is, this will quiet the mutterings about open rebellion. None of us needs a war with Dun Deverry.”

  “Well, that’s certainly true. We don’t all need to be cursed by the priests of Bel, either.”

  “Especially not now, not with the happy occasion, eh?”

  “What happy occasion?”

  Ladoic looked heavenward in disgust. “Your marriage, you dolt! It’s time for me to hire this guesthouse for one of those wretched afternoon fêtes. We’ll have a proper traditional feast when we get home. We’ll celebrate your betrothal in grand style then. But Amara’s already put on one fête here, so this one’s my responsibility.”

  “My thanks, Father.” Dovina dropped him a curtsy. “But shouldn’t you wait till the dowry and settlement are finished? What if his clan asks for too much?”

  “Don’t vex yourself. Amara’s told me that the land you have will be more than dowry enough, and in fact she’ll return half of it to you once the marriage itself is celebrated as a marriage portion.”

  “That’s splendid!”

  “I thought so, too. Much better than coin, land. Own land and you’ve got a solid thing. Coin? Huh, it dribbles away fast enough.”

  Dovina laughed. “Truly,” she said, “I can see why the bards say the noble-born are all farmers at heart.”

  “For a change, they’re right enough.”

  Once her father left, Dovina wrote a note to Alyssa, inviting her and Cavan for a small private dinner in her suite that evening. She sent Darro off with it, and he returned promptly with the answer that it would gladden their hearts to come.

  “Cavan must be going daft, shut up in the embassy like that,” Dovina remarked.

  “He said as much, my lady.”

  “I see. Here’s another note for you to deliver. It’s for Lord Merryc. I’m hoping that he and his mother will join us.”

  * * *

  The maids at the Bardekian embassy had done their best to clean and repair it, but none of Alyssa’s much-used clothing would do for an event like a betrothal fête. Fortunately Dovina had brought an entire chest of clothing, including dresses fitted through the bodice in the latest style as well as the more traditional flowing cut. She laid a rainbow of silks out on the bed in her suite for Alyssa and Mavva to consider.

  “I’d better wear these old-fashioned ones,” Dovina said. “Father prefers them, and this fête is costing him deep in purse, so I suppose I can condescend to do what he’ll like. You and Mavva can choose from the rest. Merryc says to tell you that he’s got a fancy shirt and breeches that should fit Cavan well enough.”

  “No one’s going to be looking at us, anyway,” Alyssa said. “All eyes will be on the happy pair.”

  In that spirit she chose a modest costume in pale blue and left the deep red for Mavva. Before Alyssa and Cavan left, Polla made a tidy bundle of the blue dress and white underdress. Lady Amara sent them back to the embassy in her little open carriage, along with a footman on the back as well as Gurra, who sat facing Cavan and Alyssa, to ensure that any street thieves and beggars left them alone.

  One of Cerrmor’s main streets, wide enough for two full coaches to pass each other, ran from the guesthouse down to the harbor. To reach the Bardekian embassy, however, the carriage had to leave that street for a narrow lane, dimly lit by a single oil lamp hanging high above, between the backs of two stone buildings—warehouses, Alyssa assumed. The coachman had just negotiated the turn when shadows stepped out of a doorway and grabbed at the horses’ bridles. The coachman shouted. The horses threw up their heads in confusion and danced in harness, making the carriage slew first to Alyssa’s side, then to Cavan’s.

  Cavan, Gurra, the footman—they swore and struggled to get their weapons drawn as the carriage swung this way and that. The footman jumped clear, but the other two men were trapped. Alyssa grabbed the handhold inside the door with one hand. With the other she hitched up her tunic to get to the hilt of her elven knife.

  “Help!” the coachman yelled. “Thieves! Murder!” He began lashing about with his whip at the men who’d stopped the carriage—a mistake, because in the uncertain light he clipped the horses as well. They kicked out, tried to rear, and made the carriage buck and slam into the wall of the nearest warehouse. As it slewed back again, Cavan finally managed to jump free. He stumbled, righted himself, and drew his finesword as he did so. Alyssa hung on and swore like a silver dagger herself. Gurra got free at last and drew his blade.

  “Help the coachman!” Cavan shouted to him.

  Gurra began yelling in Bardekian as he tried to slither past the carriage without getting crushed. Men were running down the alley behind them. Alyssa heard shouts, steel clashing on steel. She got a quick look back over one shoulder to see Cavan and the footman fighting men in dark clothing, a whirl of shadows in the dim light slashed now and then by a glitter of steel blades.

  “Get the lass!” a voice shouted. “Curse you, get the stinking cunt of a lass!”

  Gurra had reached the horses at last. At the sight of his sword the two men fled, and the carriage steadied. Alyssa drew her knife just as a burly fellow reached the door on her side. He wrenched it open and made a grab at her with the wide-open arms of a man who thinks he’s in no danger. She stabbed with all her strength. He screamed in surprise as much as pain and grabbed with both hands as the blade sank into the flabby flesh below his ribs. She pulled the long blade out and back and, just as Joh had taught her, sliced up. His scream turned to a bubbling spray of something warm and sticky. She’d missed her target, but the dwimmerknife had plunged itself into his throat. He fell back against the wall, then slid to the ground and folded over like a half-empty sack of flour.

  Other men were running, shouting, but these called out “Daiver! Daiver!” Alyssa heard scuffling, more cursing, more shouts of pain and surprise. She could neither move nor think, merely stared at her knife blade, wet and dark in the lamplight.

  “Ye gods!” Lord Merryc’s voice cut through the fog in her mind. “Cavvo’s been cut!”

  Alyssa shoved the wet knife back into its sheath. The trembling carriage lay too close to the wall on the one side for her to open that door. She forced herself to open the other and scrambled the two steps down even though she reached ground directly next to the dead thing lying there. She ignored it and rushed around the back end of the carriage, but she could see nothing. Men crowded round, some holding lanterns, most holding drawn blades.

  “Cavvo!” she called out. “Where is he?”

  “It’s his wife,” Merryc said. “Let her through!”

  Cavan was lying with his head pillowed on the dead body of the footman. A man Alyssa didn’t recognize knelt beside him, pressing hard on a wad of cloth—Lord Merryc’s waistcoat—shoved into Cavan’s side. Alyssa started to kneel, but Merryc stopped her.

  “You’ll get trampled, down on the ground like that,” he said. “We’ll save him yet.”

  Up at the carriage, voices were calling back and forth. “I’m a physician!” “Let him through, curse you dogs!” “Move move move!” The carriage abruptly jerked a few feet forward as two men shoved their way back through the crowd, Gurra and an older man holding a leather case. Alyssa let Merryc lead her a few feet back out of the way.

  “Ye gods!” Merryc said. “Blood! You’re hurt!”

  “I’m not.” Alyssa jerked her thumb in the direction of the dead man against the wall. “I killed him. It’s his blood.”

  Everyone within earshot turned and stared.
Alyssa drew the sticky knife and held it up. “A wise woman gave me this. An even wiser one said to carry it always. So I did.”

  On the ground the physician called for a second lantern. “Bleeding’s eased!” he said. “Let’s get him into the carriage, get him into the embassy. Got to get him warmed up and fast.”

  Alyssa began to tremble, but for Cavan’s sake, not her danger now past. Dear Goddess, she was thinking, don’t let him die! Please please please don’t let him die! Over and over she repeated it, while all around her cursing men dragged corpses out of the way and did what they could for Cavan and a wounded man she didn’t know. The world shrank to her silent prayer. The noise, the sight of the world in front of her, even the touch of Merryc’s hand on her shoulder as he guided her out of the way—they seemed to be happening not to her but to some stranger, as if she listened to a marketplace storyteller describe it rather than lived the moment.

  When the carriage took Cavan back to the embassy, Alyssa walked behind simply because no one thought to let her ride. By then she felt too numb, too disconnected, to even pray. Merryc walked with her.

  “One of the maids overheard a couple of men whispering about an attack on you,” he said. “She’d taken the leavings from the dinner back to the guesthouse kitchen, you see, and was taking the small scraps outside for the dogs. She heard more than barking. So she ran back upstairs with the news. Took me more time than I wanted to rouse a few men and get us down here.”

  “My thanks.” It was all that Alyssa could manage to say.

  They’d reached the embassy before she realized that she was still holding the knife. She wiped it off on her skirt, then sheathed it.

  Hwlio was waiting at the embassy gates. Servants carrying lanterns hovered nearby.

  “Get in fast!” His dark voice shook with rage. “How dare they! Just how—embassy protection—practically at our door—how dare they!”