Daggerspell

by Katharine Kerr

  “Here, Dann,” Lovyan said. “It’s truly time we put some thought into getting Rhodry married.”

  “True enough,” Dannyan said. “I’ve been thinking about the gwerbret of Caminwaen’s younger daughter. With Rhys and Rhodry always feuding, it would be wise to give the tieryn some connections with another gwerbretrhyn.”

  “Now, that’s an excellent point, and she’s a level-headed lass.”

  Jill went as still as a hunted animal. A number of things Lovyan had noticed all came together in her mind.

  “Oh, Jill, my sweet,” Lovyan said. “You’re not in love with my wretched son, are you?”

  For an answer Jill blushed scarlet.

  “You poor child,” Lovyan said. “You have all my sympathy, but Jill, I can never let you marry Rhodry.”

  “I’m more than aware of that, Your Grace,” Jill said, and she was in perfect control of every word. “Besides, I have no doubt at all that Lord Rhodry is going to make his wife a very bad husband.”

  It was so perfectly done that Lovyan was impressed.

  “I see.” Lovyan gave her a pleasant little nod. “I’m glad that you’re such a sensible lass.”

  Lovyan and Dannyan exchanged a glance, then changed the subject. Later, they sent Jill off on an errand and discussed the matter, agreeing that whether she could sew or not, Jill was going to fit very well into the court. Without an open word being said, they now knew who Rhodry’s mistress was, and they could pick his wife accordingly.

  Since Lovyan knew that Nevyn had an interest in Jill, she made a point of discussing the matter with him privately. As she expected, Nevyn was disappointed, but he seemed resigned.

  “After all, I’ll see her often in your dun.”

  “Of course, as long as things sit well with you.”

  “Oh, here, Lovva! What have you been thinking, that I was an old ram about to make a fool of myself over a young ewe?”

  Lovyan felt her cheeks coloring, but Nevyn was far more amused than insulted.

  “I assure you,” he went on, “that I’m more aware than most of the years I carry. I’m fond of Jill, but truly, my main interest in her is her raw dweomer talent.”

  “Of course! It’s very odd, but it’s so hard to keep in mind that you’re dweomer—that anyone can be dweomer, truly—and here I saw Jill have that vision of hers.”

  “Well, the mind shrinks from what it can’t understand. I heard your bard practicing his praise song about the war. He’s reporting very faithfully what happened. Do you think anyone will believe a word of it in, say, fifty years?”

  “They won’t. A typical bard song, they’ll say, full of lies and fancies. And you know, maybe it’s just as well.”

  Three days later, the message finally came from Rhys. Lovyan had an odd premonition about it and decided to read it privately rather than having it read aloud in the open hall. She’d made the right decision.

  “My lady mother,” it ran. “Forgive me for the delay in attending to your important affairs. I have been investigating the matter of this war in order to ascertain whether Lord Rhodry’s report was in the least accurate. I am summoning him and his allies to Aberwyn to give me an account of their conduct. You, of course, are also most welcome to my meat and mead, and we shall settle matters then. Your humble son, Rhys, Gwerbret Aberwyn.”

  “You little beast!” Lovyan said aloud. “You’re certainly Tingyr’s son, aren’t you?”

  Nevyn was more than pleased when Lovyan asked him to join her entourage for the trip to Aberwyn. He even allowed her to provide him with a new shirt and decent brigga, so that he could pass inconspicuously as one of her councillors. Lovyan was taking Jill, Dannyan, her scribe, several servants, and then Cullyn as the captain of an honor guard of twenty-five men, fifteen for her, ten for Rhodry, as their ranks allowed. As she sourly remarked, Rhys could feed part of her household for a while after letting her vassals feed off her for so long.

  “I’m rather surprised you’re taking Jill,” Nevyn remarked. “She’s unused to large courts and their ways.”

  “Well, she really does have to start getting used to them. Besides, having her there will keep Rhodry calm.”

  Nevyn was about to make some remark about trouble with Cullyn if Jill were blatantly displayed as Rhodry’s mistress, but he stopped himself, simply because the captain seemed to have no objections to his daughter’s position. Ruefully, Nevyn had to admit that he was disappointed. He’d been hoping that her fear of her father’s wrath would keep Jill away from Rhodry and free for the dweomer.

  The night before they left for Aberwyn, Nevyn decided to seek Cullyn out and found him in his chamber in the barracks. Dressed in a new shirt blazoned with red lions, Cullyn sat on the side of his bed and polished his sword by lantern light. He greeted Nevyn hospitably and offered him the only chair.

  “I just wanted a few words with you. About a somewhat delicate matter.”

  “I’ll wager you mean Jill.”

  “Just that. I’ll admit to being surprised that you’d let her do what’s she’s doing.”

  Cullyn sighted down the sword blade, found some near-invisible fleck of rust, and began working on it with a rag.

  “I think you’d be the least surprised of any man,” Cullyn said at last. “You’re the one who knows why I had to let her go.”

  When he looked up, straight into Nevyn’s eyes, Nevyn had to admire him for the first time in four hundred years. All the arrogance that Gerraent had flaunted, life after life, was gone, leaving only a certain proud humility that came from facing the bitter realities of his life.

  “There’s more kinds of honor than battle glory,” Nevyn said. “You deserve yours.”

  With a shrug, Cullyn tossed the sword onto the bed.

  “Jill’s going to do cursed well out of this, isn’t she? She’ll have a better life than any that I thought I could ever give her. Even if I had a lord’s ransom for her dowry, what kind of husband could I have found her? A craftsman of some kind, a tavern owner, maybe, and there she’d be, working hard all her life. For a silver dagger’s bastard, she’s risen pretty high.”

  “So she has, truly. I’d never thought of things quite in that way.”

  “Doubtless you’ve never had to. What’s that old saying? It’s better for a woman to keep her poverty than lose her virtue? I’d have slit Jill’s throat rather than let her turn into a whore, but when you ride the long road, you learn not to be too fussy about fine shades of virtue. Ye gods, I sold my own honor a thousand times over. Who am I to look down my nose at her?”

  “Well, true spoken, but most men wouldn’t be so reasonable about their only daughter.”

  Cullyn shrugged and picked up the sword again to run callused fingertips down the gutter of the blade.

  “I’ll tell you somewhat. I haven’t told a soul this tale in nineteen years, but have you ever wondered why I ended up with the god-scorned silver dagger?”

  “Often. I was afraid to ask.”

  “As well you might have been.” Cullyn gave him a thin smile. “I was a rider in the Gwerbret of Cerrmor’s warband. There was a lass I fancied there, waiting on table in the great hall, Seryan, Jill’s mother. And another lad fancied her, too. We fought over her like dogs over a bone until she made it clear enough that she favored me. So this other lad—ah, may the gods blast me, but I’ve forgotten the poor bastard’s name—anyway, he wouldn’t take her at her word and kept hanging around her. So, one night I said somewhat to him about it, and he drew on me. So I drew and killed him.” Cullyn’s voice dropped, and he looked down at the sword across his knees. “Right there in the gwerbret’s barracks. His Grace was all for hanging me, but the captain stepped in, saying the other lad drew first. So His Grace kicked me out instead, and my poor Seryan insisted on riding with me when I went.” Cullyn looked up again. “So, you see, I swore then that I’d never kill another man over a woman. It doesn’t do you or her one cursed bit of good.”

  Nevyn was speechless for a moment, simply
because Cullyn had no idea of just how much of his Wyrd he was laying aside with that simple truth.

  “You learn,” Cullyn said. “I was a stubborn young dog, but you learn.”

  “Truly. I was as stubborn myself, when I was that young.”

  “No doubt. You know, herbman, why we rub each other so raw? We’re too much alike.”

  “Ye gods! So we are.”

  At that time, Aberwyn was the biggest city in Eldidd, with over seventy thousand people living in its warren of curving streets and closely packed houses. Unwalled, it spread along the Aver Gwyn up from the harbor, where the gwerbret’s fleet of war galleys shared piers with merchantmen from Deverry and Bardek both. Right in the middle of town stood the enormous dun of the gwerbret, a towering symbol of justice. Inside the thirty-foot stone wall spread a ward covering some thirty acres, cluttered with the usual huts, barracks, and sheds. In the middle rose a broch complex, a round central tower of six stories, three secondary towers of three, but the most amazing thing of all was that the broch stood in the middle of a garden: lawns, beds of roses, a fountain, all set off from the ward by a low brick wall.

  Everywhere writhed the open-jawed dragon of Aberwyn, carved onto the outer gates, displayed on the blue-and-silver banners hanging from the brochs, sculpted in marble in the center of the fountain, carved again on the doors into the broch, inlaid in blue slate on the floor of the great hall, blazoned on the shirts of every rider and servant, embroidered into the bed hangings and cushions of the luxurious chamber that Jill was going to share with Dannyan. On the mantel over their hearth there was even a small silver statuette of the dragon. Jill picked it up and studied it.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Dannyan said. “The Maelwaedds have always collected fine silver.”

  “It is. It must have been quite a wrench for you to leave all this splendor when Her Grace retired to Cannobaen.”

  “It was. I’ll admit to being just the least bit glad when Lovyan’s brother got himself killed. Terrible of me, but there you are.” Dannyan dismissed the subject with a little shrug. “Now, Jill, you’ll have to be very careful while we’re here.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that. Dann, I’m terrified.”

  “Now, people will make some allowances, but follow what I do. Stick as close to me as possible, and please, don’t say horsedung and suchlike. You’re not in the barracks anymore. Now let’s have a bit of a wash, and then get you out of those nasty brigga and into a proper dress.”

  Since Jill had never ridden sidesaddle in her life—and an untrained woman was in real danger—she’d been allowed to wear her old clothes on the ride to Aberwyn. She was surprised at how good they felt and how much she hated to take them off again. Once she was dressed to Dannyan’s satisfaction, Dannyan took her to the women’s hall to present her to the gwerbret’s wife. Donilla was a lovely woman, with fine dark eyes, a wealth of chestnut hair, and a figure as slender as a lass’s. She seated them graciously, and had a servant bring wine in real glass goblets, but she was distracted as she and Dannyan chatted, and all the time, she twisted and untwisted a silk handkerchief between her fingers. Jill was glad when they left.

  “Dann,” Jill said as soon as they were back in the privacy of their chamber. “Is Her Grace ill or suchlike?”

  “She’s not. Rhys is about to put her aside for being barren. My heart truly aches for her.”

  “And what will happen to her?”

  “Our lady’s going to make her a marriage with a widowed cousin of hers. He has heirs already, so he’ll be glad of a beautiful new wife. If it weren’t for that, she’d have to go back shamed to her brother. I doubt me if he’d receive her well.”

  Jill felt honestly sick. She had never realized before just how dependent on their men noble-born women were. There was no chance for them to work a farm with the help of their sons, or to marry their dead husband’s apprentice and keep his shop, much less open a shop of their own. Suddenly she wondered what was going to become of her. Would she someday be reduced to cringing and fawning around Rhodry to make sure she still had his favor?

  “Donilla will ride back with us when we leave,” Dannyan went on. “We’ll all have to be very kind to her. The worst thing of all is that she has to be there when Rhys publicly denounces her.”

  “Oh, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell! Is His Grace as hardhearted as that?”

  “Jill, lamb, do watch your tongue, but it’s not Rhys, it’s the laws. Rhys would spare her the shame if he could, truly he would, but he can’t.”

  When they went down to the great hall for dinner, Jill was relieved to find that they wouldn’t be eating at Rhys’s table. Where an ordinary dun only had one honor table, Aberwyn’s hall had six, one for the gwerbret and his family, the others for guests and the noble-born officials of his court. Jill and Dannyan sat with the seneschal, the equerry, the bard, and their wives. From where she was seated, Jill could just see Rhodry, seated at his brother’s left. Although they had the same coloring and a certain shared look to their jaw that they’d inherited from Lovyan, they were so different that Jill found it hard to believe they were brothers. Doubtless it was Rhodry’s elven blood that made his face so chiseled and delicate that, in comparison, Rhys looked coarse. Yet the gwerbret was still a good-looking man in his way, not the fiend that Jill had been picturing.

  The meal was elaborate, with a course of pickled vegetables arranged in patterns on little plates, a course of lark pies and one of fruit preceding the roast pork. Jill paid strict attention to her manners and spoke to no one until at last the bard’s wife, a round-faced little blonde named Camma, turned to her with cool, appraising eyes.

  “This must be your first time at court,” Camma said.

  “It is, truly. It’s rather splendid.”

  “Indeed. Was your father one of our country lords?”

  Jill was taken utterly aback. Dannyan leaned over with a limpid smile for Camma that seemed to be masking the word “bitch.”

  “Jill is a very important member of Tieryn Lovyan’s retinue.” Dannyan allowed herself a glance at Rhodry. “Very important.”

  “I see.” Camma gave Jill a warm smile. “Well, you must allow me to entertain you in my chambers sometime.”

  “My thanks. I shall have to see how much leisure my duties to Her Grace allow.”

  Dannyan gave Jill a small nod of approval. Jill picked at her food and decided that she was no longer hungry. Although she thought of herself as a falcon, she felt as if she were dining with eagles, who might turn on her at any moment. She found herself watching Rhodry, who was eating fast and silently. Finally he rose, looked her way with a toss of his head, and strode out of the hall. Flustered, Jill turned to Dannyan.

  “You can follow in a little bit,” Dannyan whispered.

  Jill dutifully sipped her wine and made small talk for some minutes, then excused herself and hurried away from table. She found a page who knew where Rhodry was quartered and followed him up the spiral staircase and through the confused corridors of the joined broches for what seemed an embarrassingly long way before he pointed out Rhodry’s door with a sly and knowing smile. Jill hurried in and frankly slammed the door behind her. The tiny chamber was sparsely furnished with what looked like castoffs from grander chambers elsewhere. Its one window looked directly down on the kitchen hut, and the smell of grease hung in the air. His boots and belt already off, Rhodry was lounging on the lumpy bed.

  “Did Rhys say anything about the rebellion?”

  “Naught. Not one cursed word. We’ll have the formal discussion tomorrow morn, says he, the piss-proud little bastard, as if I was a criminal, hauled up before him for stealing horses. I don’t want to talk about it, my love. I want to get you into this bed and keep you here until you beg for mercy.”

  “Indeed?” Jill began to untie her kirtle. “Then you’ll have a long night of it.”

  It was just at dawn that Nevyn finally received concrete news of the dark dweomermaster. Down in Cerrmor lived a wom
an named Nesta. Although her neighbors thought of her only as the somewhat eccentric widow of a rich merchant, she had studied the dweomer for over forty years—and other things as well. Her husband’s long years of trading in Bardek spices had given her a great deal of information about other, less savory kinds of trade with that far-off land. When she contacted him that morning, her round little face was troubled under her neat black headscarf.

  “Now, I can’t be sure as sure,” Nesta thought to him. “But I think me the man you’re looking for has just taken ship for Bardek.”

  “Indeed?” Nevyn thought back. “I trust you haven’t put yourself in danger by trying to scry him out.”

  “Oh, I followed your orders and kept well away from him. Here, see what you think of this tale. Yestermorn, the Wildfolk came to me, quite troubled they were, too, about some dark thing that was scaring them. It made me think that your enemy might be in Cerrmor, and so I did a bit of scrying and picked up some odd traces in the etheric. I drew back, then, as you told me to do.” She paused, and her image pursed wrinkled lips. “But you know that I know half the people in Cerrmor, and my connections with the guilds give me ways of finding things out without using the body of light. I asked around here and there about peculiar strangers in town, and finally I talked with one of the young lads at the Customs House. He’d seen a strange old fellow boarding one of the last Bardek merchantmen in harbor, and here, that ship’s suspected of being involved in the poison trade.”

  Nevyn whistled under his breath. Nesta’s image gave him a grim little smile.

  “And the ship sailed with the tide not two hours ago,” she went on. “And now the Wildfolk are as calm as you please, and there’s not a trace of anything to be found on the etheric.”

  “Then if it wasn’t him, it was another of his foul kind, but I’ll wager it was my enemy. He’d know I couldn’t follow him to Bardek with the winter coming on.”

  “He was very lucky to get a ship himself. It was like the boat was waiting for him, wasn’t it, now?”

  “It was indeed. I’ll wager you tracked our rat to his hole, sure enough. My humble thanks, Nesta, and my thanks to that sharp-eyed custom officer, too.”