Daggerspell

by Katharine Kerr

  As the chestnut stumbled and went down, Sunrise dodged without a word or touch from Jill, and she was through, falling into place at Rhodry’s left. Just ahead in the mob was Corbyn’s silver-trimmed shield. As she parried a blow from the side, Jill got a glimpse of Gorbyn’s face, sweat-streaked and snarling as he slashed at Sligyn. Sligyn dropped his sword and clung wounded to the saddle, an easy mark for Corbyn’s next strike. Jill howled and slapped Sligyn’s horse to make it dance back—out of the way barely in time. One of Sligyn’s men grabbed its reins and fled with his lord.

  “Corbyn!” Jill screamed. “Your Wyrd’s riding for you!”

  He heard her. She knew it from the way he tossed his head and turned her way. For all that she was covered with dust and sweat, he must have realized that she was a lass, too, because for the briefest of moments, he froze. Howling the foulest oaths she knew, Jill fended strikes from the side and pressed straight toward him. Suddenly he wrenched his horse’s head around and fled, shoving through his men. One of them wheeled directly in front of Jill to cover his retreat.

  “Coward!”

  Then Jill’s rage stole her voice. Hitting hard, slashing, barely remembering to parry, she drove for the rider ahead. All at once he broke and wrenched his horse around to gallop off as shamelessly as his lord. Sunrise leapt over a dead horse, and they were free of the mob. Under a pall of dust the battle, swirled across the meadow. Here and there were clots of fighting around one lord or another; single combats were scattered across the meadow; men rode aimlessly, nursing wounds. Far away the black horse carried Corbyn off at a comfortable trot.

  “Bastard. Sunrise, catch him.”

  The western hunter flung himself forward at a dead run, as if he, too, had sighted their prey. Leaping over dead bodies, dodging around combats, they charged across the field, risking their lives on the rough ground. In the screaming battle noise, Corbyn never heard them coming until it was almost too late, but as Sunrise put on one last burst of speed, some evil god or other made Corbyn glance round. He smacked his horse with the flat of his blade and made the black dart forward.

  “Stand!” Jill screamed. “Coward!”

  Sunrise stretched low and tried to keep up, but he was sweating in acrid gouts of gray foam as the fresh black pulled inexorably ahead. In tears of rage, Jill pulled him to a jog. Corbyn was going to get away, and all because he was a cursed coward. Then the black reared up, pawing madly, and came down hard with an elven arrow in its throat. Corbyn rolled free barely in time and staggered up, groping for his sword. With a howl of laughter, Jill swung down and ran for him. Dimly she was aware of Calonderiel, riding to join her.

  His sword in hand, his shield at the ready, Corbyn dropped to a fighting crouch. Under the sweaty dust, his face was dead white. With a shout, Jill thrust forward in a feint, then swung up. Barely in time, he caught the blow on his shield.

  “Oh, I can fight, can’t I?” Jill said. “You’re going to die, Corbyn. How do you like dweomer-prophecies now?”

  When he slashed at her, she parried easily, the faster by far, and stabbed in from the side. Blood welled up through the mail on his left arm. She pulled free and parried his clumsy answering strike. With the last of the strength in his left arm, he threw the shield at her head. Jill ducked easily and dodged in from the side. She feinted, dodged, feinted again until he had no choice but to turn and step back, again and again, until he was trapped between her and his dead horse. Shouting a war cry, he flung himself sideways and stumbled. Jill got an easy cut on his face. Blood welled on his cheeks.

  “For Rhodry!” Jill thrust forward on his name.

  She struck Corbyn full in the chest, and his mail shattered. The sword bit deep just below his breastbone. When she pulled it free, Corbyn fell forward onto his knees and looked up at her with bubbles of blood breaking on his lips. Then he folded over himself and died at her feet.

  “Well played!” Calonderiel called.

  The berserker fit still upon her, Jill swung around to see him dismounting. He was watching her warily, his violet cat eyes wide with a touch of fear, and he kept his distance.

  “Jill, do you know me?”

  “I do. You can come up.”

  She turned back to the corpse and saw Corbyn’s shade. A pale bluish form, a naked body with Corbyn’s face, it hovered over the corpse while it stared at her, its lips working soundlessly, its eyes filled with bewildered terror. Jill screamed aloud.

  “What’s wrong?” Calonderiel grabbed her arm.

  “His shade. Can’t you see it?”

  “What? There’s naught there.”

  Corbyn watched her in an anguish of reproach and fear. From the way his, mouth moved, it seemed that he was trying to ask her something. Calonderiel threw his arms around her and hauled her bodily away.

  “We’ve got to get to Aderyn.”

  As suddenly as a blown candle, the berserker fit left her. Jill clung to him and sobbed in his arms.

  The battle was over. Sword in hand, Rhodry rode back and forth across the field and shouted orders to his men. They began to dismount, some collecting the horses and leading them away, others looking for the wounded among the dead and dying. Peredyr and Edar fell in at Rhodry’s side.

  “Have you seen Jill?” Rhodry yelled at them.

  “I have,” Peredyr said. “Corbyn’s dead, sure enough. I saw that Calonderiel fellow taking Jill to the chirurgeons. She was weeping, but she could walk.”

  “Oh, by the gods, she’s been hurt!” Rhodry felt tears rising in his throat. “And a fine man you must think me, letting a lass take a cut meant for me.”

  “Hold your tongue!” Edar snapped. “You had no choice in the matter, none.”

  “Here, lord cadvridoc,” Peredyr said. “Come look at Corbyn, and then see how shamed you feel about letting a poor weak little lass ride in your battle.”

  As soon as he dismounted by Corbyn’s body, Rhodry saw what Peredyr meant. Jill’s blow had shattered a well-made mail shirt and spitted Corbyn like a chicken.

  “By the hells!” Rhodry whispered. “Did she truly do that?”

  “I saw her with my own eyes, or I wouldn’t believe it,” Peredyr said. “She laughed while she did it, too.”

  Rhodry found Jill near Aderyn’s wagon, where the old man was working over one of the wounded. Jill sat on the ground and leaned back against the wagon wheel while she stared blindly out at nothing. When Rhodry knelt in front of her, she said nothing.

  “Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m not. No one ever go so much as a nick on me.”

  “Then what’s so wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I truly don’t know.”

  That was all the answer Rhodry got, too, until Aderyn was done tending what wounds he could. Still exhausted from his battle of the night before, the dweomermaster stood stiffly to one side and watched as a servant sluiced blood off the tailgate with buckets of water. He caught Jill’s hand and squeezed it.

  “Are you cut?”

  “I’m not.” All at once Jill broke, turning pale, speaking much too fast. “I saw his shade, Corbyn’s I mean. I killed him, and then I saw him, standing on his body. He was all blue, and ah, ye gods, the look in his eyes!”

  Rhodry felt himself turn cold, but Aderyn merely nodded.

  “The battle fit was on you. I heard how you shattered Corbyn’s mail. Could you do that now, child, in cold blood?”

  “Never! It’s hard to believe I did it then.”

  “Just so. It was the battle fit. I don’t truly understand it, but it must disrupt the humors somehow—probably it’s an excess of fiery humor in the blood. But it gave you strength far beyond yourself, and you saw things normally hidden.”

  “So his shade was truly there? I thought I was going mad.”

  “You weren’t.” Aderyn chose every word carefully. “What you call a mans shade is his real self, the part that indwells his body and keeps it alive and that holds his mind and consciousness. When the body’s injured beyond
repair, this etheric double, as the dweomer terms it, withdraws. What you saw was Corbyn himself, utterly bewildered at being dead.”

  Jill seemed to be about to speak, then bolted like a terrified horse, dodging through the wagons. When Rhodry started to follow, Aderyn grabbed his arm.

  “Let her go. She needs to be alone with this.”

  “No doubt. Just hearing you talk creeped my flesh. Here, Aderyn, I’m a berserker myself, and I’ve never seen anyone’s shade.”

  “You aren’t marked for the dweomer like Jill is. Remember that, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Jill is marked for the dweomer.”

  All at once Rhodry was frightened of this slender, weary old man. He made a muttered excuse and hurried away.

  Laden with chain mail, exhausted from the battle, Jill couldn’t run far. She got free of the baggage train, jogged downstream for a bit, then tripped in the long grass and fell to her knees, gasping for breath. She flung herself face down and stretched out her arms, as if she could hold the sun-warmed earth like a mother. Wildfolk clustered around her; the gray gnome appeared and ran his twisted fingers gently through her hair. At last Jill sat up and looked across the meadow to Corbyn’s dun, where the green pennant was coming down. Jill had the uncanny feeling that Corbyn’s shade was wandering through the halls, trying to get back home. She nearly vomited.

  “So much for glory. May I never ride to war again!”

  Later she would realize that the gesture was a mad one, but at the time, all she could think was that she had to have a bath. She stripped off her mail and clothes, then plunged into the shallow stream. While she scoured herself with handsful of sand from the bottom, the gray gnome perched in the grass and watched her.

  “I want my spare shirt. It’s in my saddlebags.”

  The gnome nodded and disappeared. By the time he returned, dragging the shirt behind him, it was no longer strictly clean, but at least it didn’t stink of sweat and another man’s blood. Jill dressed, then rolled the mail up in a bundle. Although she’d already cleaned her sword once, she did so again until she could be sure that not one speck of Corbyn’s blood remained. Then she merely sat unthinking in the grass with her gnome until Jennantar came to fetch her.

  “You’ve been out here for hours.”

  With a start Jill realized that the sun was low in the sky, and the shadow of the dun lay long and dark on the meadow.

  “Here, Jill. Don’t ache your heart over killing Corbyn. He deserved to die if ever a man did.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s having seen him. Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I don’t even know what I mean.”

  Jill dumped her mail into a supply wagon, then went with Jennantar up to the dun, where, he told her, the wounded were already settled in Corbyn’s barracks and the victors were drinking his mead in his great hall. Walking into the ward gave her a peculiar feeling. For days this place had been as unattainable as the moon; now here she was, striding across it as a conqueror. The great hall was crowded and deafening. Although Jill tried to slip in, half a dozen men saw her and turned to stare, pointing her out to their fellows. Slowly the noise dropped to silence as man after man turned to look at their dweomer warrior. At the head of the honor table, Rhodry rose to his feet.

  “Come sit in my place. The god-touched deserve every honor I can give them.”

  Every man in the hall cheered as Jill made her way to him. God-touched—she supposed that was how they had to see her, a favorite of some god or other, rather than admitting that she was merely a woman who could fight as well as a man. Yet no matter the reason, the honor they were paying her was real enough, and all at once the glory of it made her laugh aloud. The noble-born rose and bowed to her; Rhodry filled a goblet of mead and handed it to her like a page.

  “So much for rebels. You’ve earned your hire, silver dagger.”

  With a laugh, Jill pledged him with the goblet.

  “You have my thanks, my lord, for letting me earn it. I wasn’t looking forward to facing Nevyn if I rode back alive and you didn’t.”

  Frightened and pale, Corbyn’s servants crept in to set out a feast from their dead lord’s stores. While they ate, the noble-born discussed the disposition Lovyan might make of Corbyn and Nowec’s lands. Apparently there were plenty of land-hungry minor lords among the Clw Coc. As the mead flowed, Jill had little mind to listen to the merits of this cousin or that. All she could think about was Rhodry, so close to her. Every now and then, he would glance her way with hungry eyes. Jill wanted him so badly that she felt shamed, that she would turn into a slut with nothing more on her mind than having a man’s arms around her.

  Resolutely Jill rehearsed every bitter truth: he was too far above her; he would only get her with child and then desert her; worst of all, her father would beat her black and blue. Yet all at once, something snapped in her mind. She was the victor at this feast. She’d risked her life for all of these noble lords. A horse was all very well, but why by every god shouldn’t she have the prize she truly wanted? In a berserker fit of her own, she turned to Rhodry and smiled at him, kept smiling until he grew quiet, bound to her every gesture and glance.

  Finally the warbands drank themselves into a staggering silence. Jill begged the lords to excuse her and left the hall with Aderyn. She took him down to the elven tent and made sure he was comfortably settled in, then went to her own blankets. For a long time she lay awake, listening as, a few at a time, the men stumbled back to their bedrolls. When the camp was utterly silent, she got up and slipped out of the tent without waking Aderyn. At Rhodry’s tent she hesitated, but only for a moment, before she lifted the flap and ducked in. In the darkness she heard Rhodry sit up with a sleepy grunt. She made her way over and sat down beside him.

  “Jill! What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You’re daft. Get out before I shame us both.”

  When she stroked the side of his face, he went stone still.

  “Stop it! I’m only made of flesh and blood, not cold steel.”

  “And so am I. Can’t we have just this one night?”

  When he refused to answer, Jill pulled her shirt over her head and threw it on the ground. Rhodry turned and caught her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her so hungrily that for a moment she was terrified, simply because he was so much stronger than she. His hands ran down her bare back, then turned her in his arms while he kissed her over and over again. She felt as limp and weak as a rag doll, utterly in his control, but when he caressed her, his hand trembling on her breast, she felt her lust rising to match his. She threw her arms around his neck and took a kiss from him as he laid her down on the blankets. The last of her fear vanished like a leaf burning to ash in a fire.

  And far away in Dun Gwerbyn, Nevyn sat straight up out of a sound sleep and knew what had happened.

  “Those young dolts! Well, I hope they have the sense to hide it from Cullyn, that’s all.”

  “And so Jill’s slain Corbyn,” Lovyan said. “By the Goddess herself, I never would have thought it.”

  “Oh, I had faith in her,” Nevyn said. “She has resources, you might call them, beyond what she even knows herself.”

  “That’s a most cryptic remark.”

  “It will have to stay that way. My apologies.”

  Lovyan smiled at him in fond exasperation. They were sitting in the little garden behind the joined brochs of Dun Gwerbyn, where the last red roses drooped against gray stone.

  “Will your friend from the west be coming here?” Lovyan said.

  “He won’t. I’d hoped he would, just in case Rhys wanted to hear that Loddlaen was a murderer, but both he and the Westfolk with him are eager to get back to their people.”

  “They’re a strange lot, the Westfolk. It’s odd, so many people abhor them, but I’ve always found them congenial—not enough to ride off with them, but congenial.”

  ELDIDD, 1062

  Can a blacksmith affix a shoe without nails? Can a tailor make a shirt wit
hout thread? In just this way, honor holds the kingdom together, by making a man obey those above him and treat those below generously. Without honor, the kingdom would crumble, until none obeyed even the King himself, and none gave a starving child even a scrap of bread. Every noble-born man, therefore, should honor his overlord in all respects, scrupulously observing every law and pomp of his court …

  —Prince Mael Y Gwaedd,

  On Nobility, 802

  Although she spoke casually, Nevyn felt an odd doubt nag at his mind.

  “Lovva, can I ask you somewhat that might be hideously insulting?”

  “You may, but I might not answer.”

  “Fair enough. Was Tingyr truly Rhodry’s father?”

  Lovyan tilted her head to one side and considered him with mischief in her eyes. In spite of her gray hair and the marks of age upon her face, he could clearly see how beautiful she must have been twenty years past.

  “He wasn’t, at that. Not even Medylla and Dannyan know, but he wasn’t.”

  “Your secret will be safe with me, I assure you. Here, where did you meet a man of the Westfolk?”

  “My, you do have sharp eyes, my friend! It was right here in Dun Gwerbyn, when my brother was tieryn.” Lovyan looked away, her smile fading into bitterness. “It was the summer that Tingyr made Linedd his mistress. I was still young then, and I didn’t understand things the way I do now. Just thinking that in the Dawntime he would have had a whole stableful of concubines was very cold comfort indeed, so I rode off in a huff and came to visit Gwaryc. I remember sitting in this very garden and weeping for my hurt pride. Then, as they do every now and then, some of the Westfolk rode in to pay the tieryn a tribute of horses, and with them was a bard who was the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, for ail his peculiar eyes.” She paused, the smile returning. “I wanted somewhat of my own back, and I took it. Do you despise me?”