by Alison Adare
A hard hand caught her arm and spun her around and she found herself face-to-face with Glyn. “Are you mad?” he hissed at her.
“Let me go!” Janet tried and failed to jerk free of his grip. “I have to —”
He dragged her to the wall, shoved her up against it, keeping his body between her and the rest of the crowd. “You’re too late.”
And past him, she saw Tom come out of the church, arm in arm with Lady Modron. They smiled. Tom raised his free hand in acknowledgment of the subdued cheering. Modron looked genuinely happy. Tom’s smile was tight with strain. He bent and kissed his bride decorously on the cheek.
Janet closed her eyes. She had lost him, in all the ways she knew she would, and all the ways she hadn’t known enough to fear.
When Glyn led her away, she went without protest.
He hauled her through the crowd, under the gate, and along the path. Janet thought numbly that he was taking her back to Braelyn’s house, but he turned right rather than left, along the road that ran down to the valley.
She stopped, and when he jerked her onward she set her feet more firmly. “Where are you taking me?”
Glyn turned to face her, not letting go of her arm. “You’ve got to be out of here before they’re done with the feast. You’ll not be safe without the young lord to protect you. When the order came to Lew to load your horse with supplies and have her ridden to the next county and left, well, after finding you beneath the wall we knew what was planned. He did as he was bid, but he’s waiting just beyond the valley for you. Get down out of the hills as fast as you can and be away home.”
Janet shook her head. “I’m not leaving him.”
“You’ve lost him, girl,” Glyn said bluntly. “Lew thought you might be strong enough — even me, for a while, but they killed Davith, and then I knew, there was no hope for us.”
“Davith hung himself.”
“I’ve never seen a hanged man with the rope mark evenly around his neck,” Glyn said. “Someone killed him, and strung him up.”
“That’s why you argued, that day?” Janet asked, and he nodded. “Why didn’t you tell the court that?”
“When you suggested the fever as a neat excuse so quickly, I thought it might be you who’d done it. And then … I’d no desire to be next,” Glyn said. He pulled her onward again, and this time she let him.
“No woman her size could overpower a man on her own,” Janet said slowly. “Not Emlyn’s Da, nor Davith. And when her own husband died, she was, what? Fourteen, fifteen? And her brother, before that?”
“There’s been a lady of Brinday since before there was Brinday,” Glyn said. “Mother to daughter, aunt to niece.”
“And witches all?” Janet didn’t expect him to answer her, and he didn’t. “Emlyn told me. If she’d been a boy, she said, Davith said the dragon would eat her. Only boys, isn’t it? Bryns by birth or marriage? If Emlyn’s Modron’s niece, why is she let go her own way?”
“Idwal was the son of the lord,” Glyn said. “Emlyn is not the granddaughter of the lady.”
They reached the curve of the road at the bottom of the hill. The long stretch that ran beneath the branches of the trees lay ahead, and Janet shivered to look at it. “But still, she can’t be doing all this on her own, can she?” Whatever dark powers her pact with the devil has granted, Davith was simple murder, and a murder that took strength. “How many are helping her? A dozen? Two?”
“The old songs say the dragon has five drakes,” Glyn said.
Janet stopped dead and started at him. “Just five? Christ’s cod, man! There must be half a hundred people in the fort and the village put together! Why haven’t you stopped it?”
“Davith died for singing a song,” Glyn said. “Which five is the question? Lew and Davith and me, we knew it was none of us in it. Donnic neither, but he’s too far gone in the bible to recognize what’s happening here. Anyone else … it could be anyone else. Could be Paul. Could be Cadog. Part of it, or just not wanting it to stop.”
“Not wanting it to stop!”
“It never touches them, do you understand?” Glyn pulled her onward. “Every seven years, the dragon takes a life, the price the family pays to hold Brinday. They pay it. Not the shepherds, the kitchen-hands, the stable-boys, no. The family pays the price to keep all Brinday safe, to protect Brinday’s luck.”
“You haven’t been very lucky,” Janet pointed out. “Not lately. It’s hardly working, is it? Why do people still believe?”
“M’lady’s brother was young. Her husband was a weak-willed man. Idwal was ap Bryn but he was not truly of the family. And then the old lord died before his time. People say that all will be well, if the dragon takes a strong young man, of his own free will. There’s Lew, see?”
She could see the hunt-master, standing by Masie, small in the distance. “Are they bewitched, like you all are? Like Tom is?”
“God protects a man from going against his own nature.” Glyn shrugged. “But if there were no evil in men’s nature, the devil would have a harder task.”
“Oh, it’s your nature to be a close-mouthed, secretive whoreson, is it?” Janet snapped. “And everyone else here?”
“And you think it comes easy to trust the likes of you?” Glyn shot back back.
Janet shook her arm free of his grip and strode toward Lew. “Perhaps not at first,” she said. “But I have worked and sweated and toiled for Brinday. I have more than proved myself to you, Glyn ap Evan, and still you told me nothing but riddles and rhymes. You won’t even speak plainly to me now!”
“It’s not so easy to speak plainly when you’ve supped at m’lady’s table,” Glyn said. “And riddles and rhymes that led you to the truth, then, didn’t they? But you didn’t hold fast. Nor could Braelyn, when it was her turn. There’s no shame in it. It’s strong, the dragon’s call.”
It was the second time he said it, and she heard it this time. Her steps slowed and she stared at him. “Girl? Braelyn told you?”
He laughed. “Braelyn didn’t need to. I saw you looking at the young lord, and I saw you looking at m’lady. A man might look at his friend’s betrothed with regret, for changing ways, or with desire if he’s a scoundrel, but only a woman could have looked as you did, hating yourself for hating her.”
“You might be surprised,” Janet said absently, thinking of one or two things she’d learned in the army. “But you didn’t tell anyone. Why?”
“Because we had hope,” Glyn said. “We had hope that you might be strong enough. It was clear as day that you loved him enough, but Braelyn loved Idwal ap Bryn like he was life itself, and it did her no good. But you, girl, who can fight and march and work like a man, who killed the black wolf, who walked every day amid people who might have a knife in their sleeve for your back — and don’t pretend you never thought it, I saw you taste everything the young lord ate at table, I know when someone keeps their back to a wall as much as they can. You, we thought, could hold on.” He grimaced. “We didn’t count on someone splitting your skull for you. I never thought they’d be so brazen.”
They had nearly reached Lew, and Janet raised her hand in greeting. “We were leaving,” she told Glyn. “I persuaded Tom to come. He was to meet me, that night — they must have heard us, somehow, and had no time to be subtle.”
“That would do it,” Glyn said. “I wondered why the young lord was so easily convinced you’d up and away. And m’lady has her ways of knowing what’s said.”
“Witchcraft,” Janet said, and shivered.
“If you like, but I think it’s more likely the hollow places in the walls,” Glyn said. “The young lord sleeps in the chamber that was first meant for guests. Those who built Brinday considered it handy to know what visitors said when they thought themselves unheard.”
“Christ’s cod,” Janet said. That cupboard by the stairs … I told myself it was just imagination that I saw movement in the corner of my eye … A flash of movement from that blind corner and then darkness covers ev
erything … “He said he heard whispering in the night. I thought he was dreaming it.”
Glyn nodded. “He was stronger than anyone expected. But then, he had you fighting for him as well.”
“Fighting, and losing. Glyn, what do I do now? No riddles. How do I save him?”
“You can’t,” he said bluntly. “It’s done. He’s tied to her. Can you stay, and hold your tongue, and smile at her?” Janet shuddered convulsively at the thought, and Glyn nodded. “As the young lord thought. There’s nothing for you to do but go from here as fast and as far as you can. Braelyn, now, has helped too many children into life and nursed too many sick through fevers they thought would be their last, like her mother did. She can scowl at m’lady, even curse her — and she did, once — in safety. You’ll have no such armor. It’s the young lord’s order that you go, and go now.”
“Tom wants me gone?” Of course he does. What had he said, before he struck her? I won’t have you embarrassing me and humiliating my lady.
It takes no witchcraft to blind a man who’s in love.
They reached Lew, and Janet took Masie’s reins from him wordlessly, turned to hide her face from both men against the horse’s neck. She had told herself she wanted Tom to love Modron, to find happiness with her. And now he loves her so much he can’t imagine she plans his death.
Or loves her so much he’s willing to die for her.
Glyn had said God protects a man from going against his own nature. Parsing that, Janet thought he was trying to tell her that Modron’s powers were not so great as to allow her to coerce a man against his will — only to steer him. Tom loves her, and so it takes only a little to keep him from heeding my words when I tell him the truth about her. Glyn sees us both as foreigners, conquerers — they all do — and so it takes only a little to make him hesitate to speak plainly. And he fears her, so it takes only a little to make him think any words out loud might be overheard and end with him dancing on air like Davith.
A hand touched her shoulder gently, and she turned to see Lew watching her, eyes sad. “You did well,” he said.
Janet shook her head. “Not well enough. It will be tonight, won’t it? In the cave where the dragon lives?”
He nodded. “The cave below the roses in the wood.”
At least I will be too far away to hear. It was only long habit that made her check Masie’s saddlebags, taking stock of the food and blankets ready for her journey. What difference does it make if I starve or freeze? What difference will anything ever make again, when all of Brinday hears Tom screaming as they heard Idwal?
Lew had done well, little difference though it made. There was enough to see her back to the east in relative comfort. Relative safety, too, since her sword was hooked through the loop of one of the packs.
My sword …
She took it down, feeling its familiar weight in her hand, and then set her jaw.
Only five.
Janet slung her sword-belt around her waist and turned back to Glyn. “I’m not leaving.” She said it again, in the local tongue, for Lew’s benefit.
The two men exchanged glances that Janet couldn’t read. “The young lord said you might say that,” Glyn said. “I’ve his orders to send you on your way, either willing or bound hand-and-foot and slung over your horse’s back.” His gaze flicked down, and Janet realized her hand was on the hilt of her sword.
She didn’t remove it. “You’re welcome to try, although I’d hate to hurt you.” She paused. “Help me, instead. The three of us, and Tom — there are five of them, you said, five of these drakes. Not bad odds.”
“Not good ones, either.”
“Not certain ones, it’s true. And I know there’s witchcraft to consider. But if Modron could strike any of us dead, there’d have been no need to crack my skull and drop me off the wall, would there? A human hand struck that blow, like a human hand tightened the noose around Davith’s neck. Christ’s cod, man! He was your friend!”
“He was,” Glyn said slowly. “But what do you think you’re going to do? Ride up to the gates and issue a challenge? Do you think the young lord will give you a better hearing now he’s wed than he did this morning?”
“No, I —” Janet paused. “I didn’t tell you that.” The hollow places in the walls, he said. That cupboard by the stairs. She took one long step backwards, away from both of them, and drew her sword. “How did you know? Were you listening? For her?”
“The young lord himself told me,” Glyn said, “when he bade me and Lew to set you on the road to go south and east in safely. And now perhaps you know a little better why there are not so many as trust each other in Brinday.”
“So you say,” Janet slowly, not putting up her sword. “So you say, he told you, so you say, he wants me gone.”
“It’s God’s truth, girl,” Glyn said. “You think I’m of one mind with m’lady? Didn’t she warn the young lord to be wary of me? Would she do that if I were hers?” He spread his hands, one whole, one maimed. “Have I not given you all the help I can?”
It’s true, she told Tom that Glyn could not be trusted — and Tom told me that one afternoon when we were done sparring, with no-one close enough to overhear. And it’s true, he’s helped me — but not in any way that’s let me stop what goes on here.
If I tax him with it, he’ll say Tom told him that, too, this morning. She could imagine Tom saying it, even, could half-hear his voice. I have to trust you with this, Glyn, although Lady Modron warns me not to. And Glyn’s cautious half-truths, cloaking everything in poetry and allusions, well, a man who fears that being overheard by the wrong ears could end his life might very well speak obliquely.
It was possible. It was not certain.
“You’re right,” Janet said at last. “We haven’t a hope. Tom’s right, the best thing for me to do is go.” She sheathed her sword and, careful not to give either of them a chance at her back, gathered up Masie’s reins. “I thank you both for your help.”
“Wait,” Lew said.
“Let her go,” Glyn said dourly.
Janet mounted and turned Masie to the south, then found Lew in front of her, his hand on Masie’s nose. “Wait,” he said again, and held something out to her.
Janet took it, and found it to be a spray of bramble rose.
“For luck,” Lew said, with a gesture to his collar.
Luck, well, I’d rather have ten good men I trust, but if luck’s all I have on my side, I’ll take it. And Modron loathed these roses, as her reaction to finding them outside her door had made clear. As far as Janet was concerned, that alone gave them some virtue.
She had no pin or broach to fasten the flowers to her tunic, but the long, spiny thorns of the wild rose stem bit deep into the fabric and held it well enough. As soon as she’d secured it to her collar, Lew stepped back.
Janet nudged Masie into a walk, heading south, away from Brinday. She glanced back after a moment to see both men still watching her, and raised her hand in a salute neither of them returned.
She did not look back again.
As soon as she was sure she was out of sight she reined Masie to a stop. The mare immediately lowered her head and began to crop grass, slobbering around her bit. Janet let her, concentrating on ruthlessly suppressing the panic which urged her to turn Masie and gallop back to Brinday at top speed. It happens at night. Emlyn said her Da was out late. Tom said Modron’s brother fell from the walls one night. It’s only afternoon. You have time. You have time.
Knowing she would need all her strength, Janet slid down from Masie’s back. She took a hunk of bread and some sheep’s cheese from one of the saddle-bags, hunkered down on her heels, ate it, and forced herself to calmly and coolly take stock.
Glyn had been right, whatever his motivation, to ridicule the idea of riding up to the gate. Either Tom or Lady Modron would most likely have given orders that it be shut, and that Janet not be let in, and that would be that. And even if I did get through the gate, Glyn was right as well — I’ll have as
little luck talking sense into Tom in the afternoon as I did this morning. And she’d be alone amid an unknown number of conspirators, who had already shown themselves capable of murder.
At least I’m armed, if not armored. She got up and checked the saddlebags again, but as she had thought, her arming doublet and brigandine were not there. Let’s say Glyn was right, since I have to start somewhere. There’s five of them. It made a certain sense, because five with Lady Modron and Tom would make seven, and seven was a good witchy number according to everything she’d ever heard. And it makes one for every year the dragon sleeps, besides.
Against five, she would be hard pressed without someone to cover her back. Could she rely on Tom to come to his sense if he saw her fighting for his life? Possibly. But better not to stake everything on possibly. Which means I need to find a way to shorten those odds a little. She was giving up the possibility of getting into the fort and following Modron and the others, no doubt through that well-oiled secret door. I doubt Idwal was out late, that night, looking for shelter. I’d lay money he was inside the fort walls, and reached that cave not by falling or climbing but by some long and secret stair. That meant the only way she could get into that cave was from the woods themselves, either above or below. Above, Janet decided, remembering the steepness of the drop below the ledge. She searched the saddle-bags again, but found no rope.
Well, she’d gotten herself onto and off that ledge once before without a rope to lower herself down, although not in the dark. And not with anyone trying to stop me.
There was no point fretting about the impossibility of the task ahead of her. She’d just have to do it, that was all.
Leading Masie, she went back along the road cautiously until she could look into the valley. Lew and Glyn were gone — but the whole way across the valley to the woods, she’d be in clear view from the fort’s walls. Could she rely on everyone being too busy celebrating the wedding to keep watch? No. I’d have someone on the walls, if I was Modron, and this was the night of my big every-seven-years devil-worshiping festival. Waiting for dark wouldn’t be much better, for the moon was not all that far past full.