Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  “My lady, I already did, and it’s rather interesting. Cook seems to know an awful lot about the countryside round here.”

  Just then, Rhodry handed the tieryn his plate back.

  “Well, my mouth’s not burning yet, Your Grace.”

  “Good. I’m wretchedly hungry.”

  At the end of the meal, Slaecca spoke to one of the serving lasses, who trotted off only to return in a few minutes with another servant, a blond woman, heavy breasted yet lithe. If she’s the one with the bastard, Dwaen thought, it’s no wonder.

  “Now here,” the dowager was saying. “How old is your baby?”

  “Just a year, my lady.”

  “Well, it would be hard for you to tend both your work and him, but when he’s two years old, you may fetch him and bring him to live with you. Let me think on it: mayhap we can find him fosterage closer to us, so you can visit him more often.”

  The lass broke out sobbing and stammered her thanks through a flood of tears. Dwaen noticed Jill watching with an odd expression, a crafty sort of curiosity, as the lass rose with an awkward curtsy and fled the great hall. Yet she assumed a small sentimental smile when she noticed the tieryn leaning forward to speak.

  “Now here, Mam, that was kind of you.”

  “Well, the poor child!” Slaecca said. “She looks naught but sixteen, and it was probably some handsome lout of a rider, pressing her with compliments and little gifts from the day she entered service.”

  “And the compliments stopped,” Jill remarked, “as soon as her belly began to swell.”

  Dwaen had no doubt of that. In a few minutes, the women rose to go upstairs and leave the men to their drinking. Dwaen and Rhodry settled in over flagons of mead and seriously discussed the possible identity of the traitor in the dun.

  “It has to be someone good with a bow,” Dwaen said.

  “Well, more like he’s just running messages out. If this Lord Beryn hates you so much, he’s probably salting men round the countryside.”

  One at a time, the tieryn considered the men in his warband and his noble-born servitors, even though the very wondering ached his heart. That one of his own men, someone who’d pledged his life to him in return for his shelter, would turn against him was worse than a physical blow. Although he wanted to believe the traitor a servant, there he was at a decided disadvantage, because he barely knew one servant from another.

  “We’ll have to question your chamberlain, Your Grace,” Rhodry said at last. “Can he be trusted?”

  “By the gods, I always thought so! Brocyl served my father for twenty long years.”

  “Then there’s no reason for him to turn against you now.”

  “So one wants to believe, silver dagger. I’ll talk to him in the morning; I see he’s left the hall already tonight, and he’s getting on in years.” Dwaen drained the last drops in his goblet and got up. “I want to talk to my sister. I suppose you’d best come with me, much as I hate feeling like I’ve got a nursemaid.”

  “I can always wait outside the women’s hall, but I’d best be along on the stairs, Your Grace.”

  Yet when Ylaena opened the door, she automatically ushered Rhodry in with her brother. Slaecca was sitting in a cushioned chair near the hearth, while Jill sat on a footstool at the lady’s side. The tight lines round his mother’s mouth spoke of tears hastily stifled.

  “Ylaena, my sweet, there’s somewhat I’ve got to settle before I ride to the gwerbret, just in case I don’t come back.”

  Ylaena drew herself up straight with a flash of worried eyes.

  “It’s time we discussed your betrothal. What would you say to Lord Cadlew?”

  His sister’s smile was as bright and sharp as a flash of sun dancing on water, but it faded as she cast a nervous glance her mother’s way.

  “Do you have somewhat against him, Mother?” Dwaen said.

  “Naught, except his rank. He’s an ordinary lord, for all that his lands are rich enough.” Absently she looked away into the fire. “These are no times for joy, Dwaen, but if your sister can find a little in her betrothal, I won’t say her nay.”

  “My thanks.” Ylaena turned to her with her eyes spilling tears. “And my thanks to you, brother.”

  Dwaen realized then that she and his mother had doubtless discussed possible suitors for many a long hour already. He was about to try to make some jest to lighten the mood of things when someone knocked with a timid little rap on the door. Jill was up so fast that it seemed she’d been waiting for this and ran to open it. Outside stood the kitchen lass who had the bastard.

  “Oh, His Grace is here!” The lass looked genuinely terrified. “I’ll come back.”

  “Don’t run now.” Jill grabbed her wrist and hauled her inside. “Come along, Vyna. I swear that no one will harm you, even if I have to fight them off myself. Come tell our lady whatever it was you wanted to say.”

  Trembling, on the edge of tears, Vyna walked over and knelt at Slaecca’s side, bringing with her the scent of roasted meat and soapy water.

  “Come now, child,” the dowager said. “Is it somewhat about your baby?”

  Vyna wept with a shaking of her whole body.

  “My lady, I’m so sorry. I’m so frightened, but I can’t lie anymore. I never thought they’d try to hurt the Lady Ylaena, truly I didn’t.” She began to sob, the words bursting in little spurts. “They said they’d kill my baby. Don’t let them kill my baby. I didn’t want to. Don’t let them kill my baby. I swear it, they made me do all those things. I can’t do it anymore, you’re too good and kind, but please, by the Goddess herself, don’t let them kill my baby.”

  Dwaen felt that he’d turned into an oak and put down roots. So this was their terrible traitor! Jill knelt down next to her and put an arm round her shoulders.

  “You met a man places and gave him information, didn’t you? Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. One of Lord Beryn’s riders. He came to the dun just as I got kicked out of it. I met him in town or down by the river. Everyone thought I had another man. You heard them, Jill, you heard them call me a slut.”

  “Of course. What do you think made me wonder about you? Now here, when do you meet him again?”

  “On the morrow, but I won’t go. Oh, Goddess, Goddess, Goddess, don’t let them kill my baby.”

  “No one’s going to harm him, because if his grace gives me permission, I’m riding tonight to fetch him.”

  “His grace will give you an escort of twenty men to make sure you bring him home safely,” Dwaen said. “I’d go myself, except I doubt that your Rhodry will let me.”

  “His grace is ever so correct.” Rhodry bowed in his direction. “Not at night, Your Grace, when it’s easy for accidents to happen.”

  The farm where Vyna’s son was in fosterage was twelve miles away on the edge of Lord Beryn’s lands. As the warband alternately trotted and walked their horses down the dark road, Jill was praying that the baby would still be there. It was possible that Beryn’s men had taken the child hostage just to make sure that its mother stayed under their control. Of course, it was also possible that they had no intention of ever harming the baby but had merely counted on a young and ignorant lass believing that they would. Finally, after a long three hours and a last few minutes of confusion at a dark and unmarked crossroads, the war-band found the farm. As they rode up, dogs began barking hysterically inside the earthen wall that surrounded the steading. When Lallyc pounded on the gate and shouted in the tieryn’s name, a crack of light appeared around a shuttered window. In a bit, an old man came out with a tin lantern in his hand. Lallyc leaned down from his saddle.

  “Do you have a baby here in fosterage for a lass named Vyna?”

  “We do, sir, we do at that. What’s all this?”

  “We’ve come to fetch him to his mother in the tieryn’s name. Do you recognize the blazons on my shirt? You do? Splendid. Now go get the child, and wrap him in a blanket or suchlike, too.”

  At the head of the line, J
ill waited beside the captain. She could hear the old man shouting inside the farmhouse, and a woman yelling in anger. Finally, a youngish woman with a dirty, torn cloak thrown over her nightdress ran out to the gate.

  “Who are you?” she snarled. “How do I know you won’t hurt the child?”

  “I’m the tieryn’s captain, and I’m here to keep the child from getting hurt. Now fetch him out or we’ll knock this gate down to come get him.”

  “Here, lass,” Jill said, and much more gently, “the tieryn sent a woman along to carry the baby home. Would he have done that if he were going to have it killed or suchlike?”

  The woman raised the lantern and stared into Jill’s face; then she nodded agreement.

  “He’s a sweet baby. I’ll miss him.”

  Jill supposed that the sweetness of babies was an acquired taste. On the long ride home, she found the squirming, wailing bundle a nuisance and little else, even though one of the men led her horse to give her both hands free for the job. She tried singing to him, bouncing him, even kissing him, but the baby, torn out of his warm cradle into a cold night and the arms of a stranger, wept the whole way home until the poor little thing was hoarse and whimpering. By the time that she could finally hand him over to his jubilant mother, she was praying to the Goddess that she’d never conceive.

  Before she went to bed, Jill joined the tieryn and Rhodry at the table of honor for a well-earned flagon of mulled ale.

  “No trouble on the road, I take it?” Dwaen said.

  “None, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart that you’ll forgive poor Vyna.”

  “She seems as much a victim as any of us. While you were gone, she described this fellow that she’s been meeting. The cook always sent her on errands into town, you see, because she was the oldest of the three kitchen lasses, so she could get a word with him when she needed to.”

  “We’ve got to get our hands on him,” Rhodry put in. “But if his grace sends the warband into town, the bastard will probably flee.”

  “And the whole town will know what’s been happening, too,” Dwaen said with a pronounced gloom. “I hate to think of my subjects gossiping about me night and day.”

  “I’m sure they do that already, Your Grace.” Jill helped herself to some of Rhodry’s ale while she thought. “Here, it’s still cold, this early in the spring. I can wear some of Vyna’s clothes and muffle myself up in her cloak. Then when he follows me, Rhodry can pounce on him.”

  “Excellent, but I’ll send Lallyc in, too. We can’t have you getting hurt, lass.”

  At noon on the morrow, Jill went to Vyna’s tiny room, which she shared with the other two kitchen maids, in the servants’ quarters over one of the stables. Next to Vyna’s straw mattress was the bottom of an ale barrel, sawed down and filled with straw for a rough cradle for the baby. While Jill changed into Vyna’s clothes, the kitchen lass sat the baby on her lap and cooed to him.

  “What’s his name?” Jill said.

  “Bellgyn, Mam’s pretty little Bello. Oh, you just can’t know how glad I am to have him here and safe.”

  “Um, well. My heart’s pleased for you, anyway. Can I ask who his father was? Some good-looking young rider?”

  Her face dead pale, Vyna busied herself with arranging Bellgyn’s little shirt.

  “My apologies. It’s no affair of mine, and I don’t need to press on an old bruise.”

  “Bruise? I suppose it is.”

  “Didn’t it ache your heart to love a man and then have him refuse to claim you?”

  Vyna shook her head in a hard shudder.

  “There was never any way he would have married me. I always knew that. All this time, I’ve been carrying the secret in my heart, and it hurts like poison. It was Lord Madryc, Beryn’s son.”

  “So that’s why his noble mother was so kind.”

  She nodded, her eyes brimming tears.

  “Did you love him?”

  “I hated him and every inch of his twisted guts, but how could I say him nay? He always stank of ale, and he’d grab me so hard that I truly thought he’d kill me some night in his pleasure. When I heard he’d been hanged, I laughed and laughed and laughed,”

  “Ah. He sounds a man much like his father. I can’t say I honor this stinking Beryn, if he’d be ready to kill his own grandson to drive home a threat.”

  “That’s not true. His lordship would never know who sired my baby. Madryc never would have admitted the thing, not to his father. I swear, the old man has twice the honor of his rotten ugly son, and he might have beaten him black-and-blue. Her ladyship made me promise never to tell the lord. That was the price of the coins she gave me. You should have seen her, Jill, mincing and practically holding her noble nose, and all because her precious little son had blasted well raped me. Ah, ye gods, I hated him, always stinking of sweat and ale.”

  Picking up her mood, the baby began to whine and fuss. Jill finished her dressing and left them alone.

  Although Jill rode behind Rhodry for most of the way to town, when they came in sight of the walls she dismounted and walked on alone, getting a good head start in case Vyna’s mysterious contact should be waiting at the town gates. Following the kitchen lass’s instructions, Jill went past the market square, turned down the street by the saddlemaker’s, and saw at last the tavern with the wooden sign of an ox hanging over the door. At the doorway, she paused, peering into the dim smoky room, which smelled of sour ale and roast meat. Near the hearth, the man Vyna had described was watching a couple of merchants play at dice. A blond, with the high cheekbones and narrow eyes of a southern man, he glanced her way and smiled.

  Jill looked over her shoulder as if she were afraid of something, then beckoned him to follow her. As he set his tankard down, she left the doorway and walked round back, to find no sign of Rhodry and Lallyc. In her heart she cursed them both and wished she were wearing her sword. When the fellow came up, Jill let out a little squeak and pretended to have a stone in her shoe. She knelt down, letting the hood fall around her face, and mimed getting it out.

  “Here,” he said. “Is someone following you?”

  Jill shook her head no.

  “You’re not Vyna! What is this?”

  “She sent me instead.” Jill got up slowly. “Cook wouldn’t let her leave the dun.”

  “I don’t believe a word of that, lass.”

  When he stepped forward to grab her, Jill charged, taking him so off guard that she got a good punch in his stomach before he could defend himself. With a grunt, he staggered back, then recovered and swung openhanded at her face. Hampered by the long dresses, Jill dodged barely in time.

  “You little bitch! What is this?”

  When he lunged again, she dodged sideways, then tripped over the hem of her dress and nearly fell. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up, yelped as she raised a knee and got him hard between the legs, but hung on grimly and tried to pin her back against a wall. A shout—Rhodry’s voice—the man let go and spun round to run for it. Jill slammed her fist into his kidneys, kicked him in the back of the knee, and shoved him to the ground just as Lallyc and Rhodry raced up.

  “You bastards! What took you so blasted long?”

  “A crowd on the streets.” Lallyc knelt down and disarmed their prey.

  By then, the noise had attracted a smallish crowd of its own.

  “Naught to worry about, lads,” Rhodry called out. “This stinking swine was trying to rape this poor innocent lass. We’ll just take him along to the tieryn.”

  Dwaen and half the dun were waiting by the honor hearth in the great hall. Although Vyna identified their prisoner as the man who met her regularly, nobody in the warband recognized him for a member of Lord Beryn’s troop. The tieryn questioned him, Rhodry mocked him, and Lallyc got in a few barbs of his own, but the prisoner never said a word, not even his name, merely smiled with faint contempt during the entire session. Finally, Lallyc glared at the man and rolled up a sleeve with exaggerated care.

  “There
’s more than one way to get a man to talk, Your Grace.”

  “Not in my dun!” Dwaen snapped. “I know what you’re planning, and you can just put it out of your mind.”

  “His grace is an honorable man,” Rhodry broke in, “but his life is at stake. Lallyc and me can just work him over someplace where you don’t have to watch.”

  “You won’t! I won’t have a helpless man tortured. It’s against the will of the gods, and that’s an end to it.”

  The prisoner looked at the lord with eyes poisoned by contempt.

  “We’ll take you along to the gwerbret.” Dwaen seemed unaware of the look. “If you refuse to give evidence in the malover, then the laws state you can be put to death, and so we’ll see how long you keep your lips laced. Lallyc, get one of the men to shut him in a shed. Keep him under guard, and make sure he’s got food and water—decent food and water, mind.”

  Later that afternoon, Lord Cadlew returned with ten men from his warband. As the two lords, with Rhodry in attendance, sat drinking in the great hall, Dwaen noticed Ylaena, halfway up the spiral staircase and hanging over the rail like a child trying to see what the grown-ups are doing down below. Apparently Cadlew noticed her, too, because he blushed for no discernable reason.

  “There’s somewhat we’d best settle before we ride,” Dwaen said. “Do you want to marry my sister? She wants to marry you.”

  Cadlew’s grip tightened on his tankard.

  “I realize she’s far above me in rank, and never would I let such a thing come between us, Your Grace.”

  “Don’t be a stuffy bastard. I have every intention of seeing you two betrothed if it pleases you both.”

  “Oh.” Cadlew considered the ale in his tankard for a long moment, then got up, slowly and deliberately. “Perhaps I’d best speak formally to your mother.”

  “It seems advisable, truly.”

  Cadlew looked his way, started to speak, then merely grinned. He dashed for the staircase, though Ylaena was gone, doubtless back to the women’s hall to wait for her suitor there as the formality of the thing demanded. Dwaen watched him running up after her till he ducked out of sight onto the landing above, then turned to Rhodry.