Daggerspell

by Katharine Kerr

  “When they left here, they rode north. Cullyn took a hire with a merchant who was taking a caravan of our … ah, well, special imports into Deverry.”

  “Special imports indeed. Here, Otho, when are you going to mend your ways?”

  “It’s your people, not mine, who make such a stinking fuss over excises and the King’s tax.”

  Although Nevyn was tempted to ride after the pair, by that time of year it would already be snowing up north, and for all he knew, Cullyn would be riding elsewhere. Nevyn decided to carry out his original plan of returning to his home in western Eldidd for winter. After all, he reminded himself, this Jill might not even be his Brangwen reborn. She wasn’t the only soul in the kingdom marked for the dweomer, and the falcon device might well be a simple coincidence. Besides, he also had Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd of Aberwyn to consider. He was as much a part of Nevyn’s Wyrd as Brangwen was, being as Lord Blaen had died so needlessly that night thanks to Prince Galrion’s fault.

  Although Nevyn had been planning on riding straight to Aberwyn, he took the precaution of scrying Rhodry out first and so saved himself a wasted trip. When he called up Rhodry’s image in the burning coals of a fire, he saw the lad out riding in the forest preserve of the gwerbrets of Aberwyn—a stretch of virgin forest near the little town of Belglaedd. Nevyn assumed that he would have no chance to meet the young lord, simply because the preserve was closed to all but gwerbretal guests, but even so, he went to Belglaedd on the off chance that Rhodry might ride into town for some reason. There, as he later came to realize, the Lords of Wyrd took a hand in the matter.

  The people of Belglaedd and the outlying farmers both knew and honored Nevyn, because he was the only source of medical care that most of them had. The tavernman insisted on putting him up for free and then rattled off a list of symptoms about the pains in his joints. For the next week Nevyn had little time to think about his tangled Wyrd as family after family came to buy his herbs and ask his advice. On the eighth morning, Nevyn had just gone out to the muddy tavern yard for a bit of sun when a rider trotted up in a splash of muck. He wore a blue cloak blazoned with the dragon device of Aberwyn.

  “’Morrow, aged sir,” the rider said. “I hear there’s a good herbman in town. Do you know him?”

  “I am him, lad. What’s the trouble?”

  “I’ve just come from the lodge. Lord Rhodry’s cursed ill.”

  Talking all the while, the rider helped Nevyn load his supplies onto his mule. Rhodry had been caught out in the rain and stubbornly gone on hunting even though he was soaking wet. The only people at the lodge with him were a pair of servants and five of his father’s men, none of whom knew the first thing about physick.

  “And what’s his lordship doing out here this time of year anyway?” Nevyn said.

  “Ah, well, sir, I’m not free to say, but he got into a bit of trouble with his older brother. Naught that was serious.”

  Although the gwerbret probably considered his hunting lodge to be charmingly rustic, it was as imposing as many a dun of a lesser lord. In the middle of a cobbled and well-drained ward rose a three-story broch, surrounded by enough outbuildings and stables to house a party of a hundred guests. An aged manservant led Nevyn up to the second floor and Rhodry’s chamber, sparsely furnished with one carved chest, a bed with faded hangings, and his lordship’s shield hanging on the wall. Although there was a brazier heaped with coals glowing in the middle of the room, the damp seeped out of the very walls.

  “Ye gods!” Nevyn snapped. “Isn’t there a chamber with a proper hearth?”

  “There is, but his lordship won’t let us move him.”

  “Indeed? Then I’ll deal with his lordship.”

  When Nevyn pulled back the bed curtains, Rhodry looked up at him with gummy eyes. At sixteen, he’d grown into a lanky lad, getting close to six feet tall, and still as handsome as ever—or he would have been handsome if his hair weren’t plastered to his forehead with sweat, his lips not so badly cracked that they were bleeding, and his cheeks not flushed with a hectic glow.

  “Who are you?” Rhodry mumbled.

  “A herbman. Your men fetched me.”

  “Ah, curse them! I don’t need—” He began to cough so violently that his body went rigid. He propped himself up on one elbow and spasmed, choking until Nevyn grabbed him and hauled him upright. Finally he spat out green rheum.

  “You don’t need me?” Nevyn said drily. “I may only be a commoner, your lordship, but you’re following my orders.”

  Rhodry’s lips twitched in a faint smile as he trembled with fever. Nevyn laid him down again and turned to the frightened manservant.

  “Get that chamber with the hearth warm. Then pile extra pillows on the bed, and start heating me a big kettle of water. When you’ve done all that, send a man back to Aberwyn with a message. Gwerbret Tingyr needs to know that his son is ill.”

  All that afternoon, Nevyn worked over his patient. He fed Rhodry infusions of coltsfoot and elecampe to bring up the phlegm, hyssop and pennyroyal to make him sweat, and quaking aspen as a general febrifuge. As the medicines cleansed his humors, Rhodry coughed until it made Nevyn’s own sides ache to hear him, but at last he began to breathe freely instead of gasping for every breath. Nevyn let him lie down then, propped up on the mound of pillows. The fever still played on his face like firelight.

  “My thanks,” Rhodry whispered. “Owaen? Does he still live?”

  For a moment Nevyn was too puzzled to answer him; then the memory came back, of another life when he’d tended battle wounds on the body this soul wore then, and a friend lay dying nearby.

  “He does, lad. Just rest.”

  Rhodry smiled and fell straight asleep. So, Nevyn thought, he’s reacting to my presence, is he? In his feverish state, Rhodry had somehow come across that long-buried memory.

  All the next day, Nevyn brooded over his patient, forcing him to drink bitter infusions of herbs even though Rhodry swore at him and complained that he couldn’t get another loathsome mouthful down. Finally, that evening, the fever broke. Rhodry was well enough to eat a little thin soup, which Nevyn fed to him a mouthful at a time.

  “My thanks,” Rhodry said when he was finished. “It’s a marvel, you turning up like this. Do you remember meeting me on the Cantrae road all those years ago?”

  “I do, truly.”

  “Its eerie. I was just trying to be courteous. I never dreamt you’d save my life someday. I must have cursed good luck.”

  “So you must. So you must.”

  When Rhodry fell asleep, Nevyn went down to the great hall for his dinner. The men in the young lord’s warband insisted on treating Nevyn like a hero. They brought him his food like pages and crowded round to thank him while he ate. One of them, a beefy lad named Praedd, even insisted on bringing Nevyn a goblet of mead.

  “Here, good sir. If you ever need our aid for anything, me and the lads will ride out of our way to give it.”

  “My thanks. I take it you men honor Lord Rhodry highly.”

  “We do. He’s young yet, but he’s got more honor than any lord in Eldidd.”

  “Well and good, then. And what of Lord Rhys, the heir?”

  Praedd hesitated, glancing this way and that, and he dropped his voice when he answered.

  “Don’t spread this around, like, but there’s plenty of men in Aberwyn who wish Lord Rhodry had been born first, not second.”

  Praedd bowed and hurried away before he could say anything else indiscreet. As Nevyn thought over what he’d said, he felt a cold dweomer-warning ripple down his back. There was trouble coming in Aberwyn. Suddenly he had a brief flash of vision, saw swords flashing in the summer sun as Rhodry led a wedge of men into a hard-fought battle. When the vision faded, Nevyn felt sick at heart. Was there going to be a rebellion to put Rhodry in the gwerbretal chair when Tingyr died? Perhaps. Dweomer-warnings were always vague, leaving the recipient to puzzle out their meaning. Yet he could guess that, once again, he would have important work to do in
Aberwyn when the time came.

  The guess turned to a certainty late on the next afternoon. Nevyn was up in Rhodry’s chamber when a manservant rushed in with the news that Rhodry’s mother, Lady Lovyan of Aberwyn, had arrived with a small retinue. In a few minutes, the wife of the most powerful man in Eldidd swept into the room. She threw her travel-stained plaid cloak to the waiting servant and ran to Rhodry’s bedside. A solid woman in her early forties, Lovyan had an imposing beauty, her raven-dark hair just streaked with gray, her cornflower blue eyes as large and perfect as her son’s.

  “My poor little lad,” she said, laying a hand on his forehead. “Thanks be to the Goddess, you’re not fevered anymore.”

  “The Goddess sent a good herbman. Mother, you didn’t need to ride all this way just for me.”

  “Don’t babble nonsense.” Lovyan turned to Nevyn. “My thanks, good sir. I’ll see you’re well paid for all of this.”

  “It was my honor, my lady. I’m just thankful that I was close at hand.”

  Nevyn left them alone, but later he returned to find Rhodry asleep and Lovyan sitting by his bedside. When Nevyn bowed to her, she came over to talk where they wouldn’t waken him.

  “I’ve spoken to the servants, good Nevyn. They told me that they feared for his life until you came.”

  “I won’t lie to you, my lady. He was very ill indeed. That’s why I thought you should be notified.”

  Lovyan nodded, her mouth slack with worry. In the fading light, she looked intensely familiar. Nevyn allowed himself to slip into the dweomer sight and saw her clearly—Rodda, bound to Blaen again as mother to son. At that moment, she recognized him as well, and her eyes grew puzzled even as she smiled.

  “Now, here, do you ever ride to Aberwyn? I must have seen you before, but surely I’d remember a man with such an unusual name.”

  “Oh, my lady, you may have seen me when you rode by in the street or suchlike. I’d never be presented to a woman of your rank.”

  Nevyn felt like laughing in triumph. Here they were, three of them come together at the same time as he’d had news of the lass who might be Brangwen. Surely the time was ripening, surely his Wyrd was leading him to one of those crisis points when he would have the chance to untangle it. In his excitement, he forgot himself badly. The fire was growing low; he tossed on a couple of big logs, then waved his hand over them. When the flames leapt up, he heard Lovyan gasp. He spun round to face her.

  “My apologies, my lady, for startling you.”

  “No apology needed, my lord.” Lovyan pronounced the honorific slowly and deliberately. “I’m most honored that a man like you would stoop to treating my son for a fever.”

  “I see that my lady doesn’t dismiss tales of dweomer as nonsense fit only to amuse children.”

  “Her ladyship has seen too many odd things in her life to do anything of the sort.”

  For a moment they studied each other like a pair of fencers. Then Nevyn felt the dweomer prod him, force him to speak, as if his mouth would burn if he didn’t speak out the truth.

  “It is very important for Rhodry to live to his manhood. I cannot tell you why, but his Wyrd is Eldidd’s Wyrd. I would like to be able to keep an eye on the lad from now on.”

  Lovyan went tense, her face pale in the leaping firelight. Finally she nodded her agreement.

  “His lordship is always welcome at the court of Aberwyn. And if he prefers, I shall keep up the fiction that this shabby old herbman amuses me.”

  “I do prefer, and my thanks.”

  That night, Nevyn stayed up late, leaning on the windowsill of his guest chamber and watching the moon sail through wind-torn and scudding clouds. He had been sent to his post like a soldier, and he would do nothing but obey. From now on, he would stay in Eldidd and trust that the Lords of Wyrd would send Brangwen to him when the time was ripe. Deep in his heart he felt true hope for the first time in hundreds of years. Great things were on the move. He could only wait and watch for their coming.

  DEVERRY, 698

  And the bard is picked out by his Agwen, not only to delight his lord, but to remember all the great deeds and great men in his clan, all in their proper order. For if men were without knowledge of anything but the name of each man’s father, then the children of bondsmen would be as noble or as base as the children of a gwerbret. Therefore, let no man or woman either commit the impiety of raising a hand against a bard. …

  —The Edicts of King Bran

  Heat shimmered on dead grass and stunted grain. Brackish brown water trickled between the banks of what had once been the River Nerr. Stripped to the waist, a herdsman led eager cows down to suck water that was mostly mud. Gweran the bard stood on the bank and watched for a moment, then glanced up at the sky, a crystal dome of pure blue, stubbornly clear. Although he’d come for a walk in the fields to work on a song he was composing, his heart spoke only of drought and the long cold winter of starvation that would follow. With a shudder, he turned away from the river and walked back to the dun of the White Wolf clan.

  Ringed with earthworks, the small fort lay on top of a low hill. Behind the inner log palisade rose a squat stone broch, its slits of windows brooding like eyes over the dusty ward. Except for a few drowsy flies, the ward was deserted in the hot sun. Gweran hurried into the great hall, blessedly cool in the embrace of stone walls. Down by the empty hearth, Lord Maroic sat at the head of the honor table. With him were two priests of Bel, dressed in their long white tunics and gold torques, their freshly shaven heads shiny with sweat.

  When Gweran knelt at his lord’s side, the head priest, Obyn, smiled at him, his eyes narrow under pouched lids. Lord Maroic, a florid-faced man in his thirties, with pale hair and pale mustache, stopped in midsentence to speak to his bard.

  “I was hoping you’d return straightaway. A question for you. I don’t suppose a bard can invoke the rain.”

  “I only wish I could. I should think His Holiness here would be the one to do that for us.”

  “His lordship and I have been discussing just that,” Obyn said. “We are considering a horse sacrifice to placate the gods.”

  “No doubt such an act of piety would be bound to please great Bel.”

  Obyn considered him, while his young companion looked wistfully at the flagon of ale on the table.

  “The question is why Bel is angry with us,” Obyn said finally. “A sacrifice will fail if a curse hangs over the land.”

  “And does His Holiness think there is such a curse?” Gweran said.

  “His Holiness doesn’t know.” Obyn allowed himself a thin-lipped smile. “A priest may read the omens of the future, but only a bard can read the past.”

  Gweran sighed when he realized what Obyn was asking of him: that life-draining ritual of the Opening of the Well, where a bard may dream himself into the past and talk with the spirits of those long dead. He was tempted to refuse, but if there was no crop?

  “A bard may try to read the past, Your Holiness, but I can only see what my Agwen shows me. By her grace, I’ll be of some use. Will you witness?”

  “I will, and gladly. Tonight?”

  “And why not? When the moon is rising, I’ll come to the temple.”

  To rest before his ordeal, Gweran went up to his chambers on the third floor of the broch, two rooms opening off the central landing by the spiral staircase, one for his children and servant, one for himself and his wife. The main chamber displayed Lord Maroic’s proper generosity to his bard: a heavy bed hung with embroidered hangings, a carved chest, a table and two chairs, and a small Bardek carpet. On the table stood his two harps, the small plain lap harp, the tall heavily carved standing harp for formal presentations. Gweran idly plucked a few strings and smiled at the soft, resonant echo.

  As if the sound were a signal, his wife, Lyssa, came in through the door of the children’s chamber. Although she was a pretty woman, with raven-dark hair and large blue eyes, her greatest beauty was her voice, soft, husky, with a musical lilt to it like wind in the tre
es. Her voice had snared Gweran’s heart from the first time he’d heard it, those ten long years ago when she was a lass of fifteen and he at twenty-five could finally think of marrying after his, long training.

  “There you are, my love,” Lyssa said. “Are the priests still down in the hall? I came up here to get away from them.”

  “Oh, they’re gone, I’m going to the temple tonight to work with them.”

  Lyssa gasped, her soft lips parting. Laughing, Gweran took her hands in his.

  “Oh, now here, they won’t lay me on the altar like in the Dawntime.”

  “I know. There’s just somewhat about priests that makes you feel better if they never look your way. Do you want to sleep? I’ll keep the lads outside if you do.”

  “My thanks, because I’d better.”

  That night, Gweran fasted through the evening meal. Just at twilight, he fetched his gray gelding from the stables and rode out through a twilight as hot as a summer noon. Overhead in the opalescent sky, the full moon hung bloated on the horizon, shedding its silver light over farmland and forest. Four miles to the north of the dun stood the temple, built of wood and roofed with thatch, set among a small stand of oaks. When Gweran led his horse into the trees, a young priest was there to meet him, moving surefooted in the darkness. He took the reins of Gweran’s horse.

  “I’ll take it round to the stable. His Holiness is waiting for you in the temple.”

  Inside the small circular shrine, candle lanterns cast a pool of golden light before the stone altar. Draped in the long white cloak of ritual working, Obyn stood off to one side, his hands raised to the statue of the god, carved of a single oak trunk whose bark still clung for clothes on the abstract body. The head itself was beautifully modeled, with great staring eyes and a mobile mouth; two wooden heads hung by their wooden hair from its delicate hands. Lying in front of the altar was a thick pile of tanned white sheepskins.