Widowmaker

by Peter Morwood

  Since the realities of holding a domain in the Debatable Marches became plain to him, Bayrd was a great believer in the old analogy that nothing bad got any worse by viewing it through the bottom of a wine-cup. And besides, the still-complaining echoes of last night’s hangover needed some sort of palliative before today’s took its place.

  He thought of that as a joke, and tried it for size once or twice in the privacy of his own head. The joke fell flat. It wasn’t as if he needed wine to help him wake up, or wine to help him sleep at night. It just looked that way, to those who came visiting to Dunrath and saw his hospitality. Even so, Bayrd had a feeling that the Ship-Clans held their own opinions, and spread them to any willing to pay the asking-price. They had become rich on trade, and people listened.

  It was hard to believe that in five years they had risen from being the Houses and Families – there were no real clans among them, either low or high – who were scornfully-titled an-tlakhnin, the Undeclared. The people who at the Time of

  Landing would neither burn their ships to prove willingness to stay, nor turn their ships and return the way they came.

  Now, if the mood moved them, they had Alba by the throat. Bayrd scowled at the bottle of wine, three-quarters empty now, and considered all the other things that freighted in the Ship-Clan’s vessels. Everything. The country had been at war almost since the keels struck shore, so that now, if it was not grown here, or mined here, or made here, it came across the sea. And if the Undeclared became puppets dancing to another’s fingers on the strings, then the Land would starve.

  For someone like Gerin or Kalarr, who in their separate ways had both seen the land they thought was theirs stolen away, that would be a fine revenge indeed…

  It was raining again. There were times when the so-called summer weather of this damned country seemed incapable of producing anything except rain, or drizzle, or mist. Always wet, always grey, always cold. A cold that could seep into a man’s bones until not even wine would keep it at bay. With a grimace that accepted his mood for what it was, Bayrd poured the last of the wine into his cup and thumped the bottle back onto the table. Better drunk than depressed, he thought. Better drowsy from the wine than burning inwardly with frustration at the ease with which someone – cu Ruruc, or ar’Diskan, or perhaps even some other enemy yet undiscovered – had reached within Dunrath’s walls and snuffed the life out of Vanek ar’Kelayr.

  Except that for all the effect it was having, he might as well have been drinking the rainwater that sluiced audibly from the fortress gutters.

  “No more wine,” said Eskra quietly, lifting the empty bottle and examining it.

  “Why not?” Bayrd was ready to be truculent, given any reason whether good, bad or indifferent. “It’s not as if the stuff is making me drunk.”

  “Exactly.” Eskra studied him with the same casual interest she had given the bottle. “You’re not even enjoying the taste. Just wasting it. Let be.”

  All of that was true, and none of it amounted to even half a reason for a quarrel. Bayrd carefully shaped his mouth into an expression that might pass for a smile, and pushed the brimming cup away. “Later, then,” he said. “Where’s Marc? Lost his appetite?”

  “More than likely.” Eskra shrugged. “He didn’t seem in a good humour when I saw him last.”

  “None of us did. But he knows well enough that a Bannerman Companion’s supposed to attend his lord at table. He could at least have made excuses.” Bayrd eyed the wine, watching the distorted reflection of the room sway and waver in its dark surface. Like a mirror made of blood, he thought, and wondered uneasily where such a nasty concept had come from. There had been enough ugly reflections already, reflections both mental and visible.

  “No matter.” He shook his head, as if the image was no more than a cobweb that had touched his face in the dark. “I can’t blame Marc for feeling the way he does. It’s been a foul day. And I saw how much what happened to ar’Kelayr upset him. He’s always—”

  “Been queasy about killing?” suggested Eskra brutally, stalking to the window and gazing out at the gloomy weather. “Not really. At least his reputation says otherwise.”

  “Being able to fight well in the heat of battle isn’t the same as looking calmly at what happened this morning,” said Bayrd.

  “Very laudable. A clan-lord should always rise to the defence of his retainers. But let it pass. Besides, I know where he is.”

  “Where?”

  “There.” Eskra gestured at the heavily-leaded window, at its small, rain-streaked panes, and by implication at the sodden world outside. Bayrd got to his feet, noticing with a small, hastily-concealed sway that the wine was taking effect after all, and followed the direction of Eskra’s pointing finger. Then the corners of his mouth tugged down in an expression that could have been anything from annoyance to distaste. Whatever else it might have been, it wasn’t a smile.

  Though the two kailinin were barely recognizable through the thick, bubbled glass, Bayrd could see Marc ar’Dru and Reth ar’Gyart standing together near a sullenly-burning pyre. The rest of Vanek ar’Kelayr’s retainers were drawn up in a double rank on the other side. A thick column of greasy smoke was wavering up towards the lowering sky, and he was momentarily grateful that the wind was blowing it away from the fortress. He had smelt enough burnt corpses for one year.

  It was only right and proper that Lord Vanek’s funeral should take place now. For one thing, he and his followers had arrived at Dunrath on horseback, and going home strapped across his saddle like a dead stag was scarcely the most dignified way to transport their clan-lord’s corpse.

  Bayrd had regretfully pointed out that no wagons, coaches or carriages were available to carry the body back. The reason was simple enough: he had no coaches or carriages in Dunrath’s stable-yard. The Elthanek countryside was unsuited to any but the crudest wheeled vehicles, and any wagons in the vicinity were now needed all the more, to carry material for the fortress walls and food for its siege-cellars. Whatever might happen, whatever might be ultimately believed about ar’Kelayr’s death, he preferred to greet the eventuality from behind completed fortifications.

  The news from Cerdor was just as bad, if somewhat more expected. Yraine and Erhal ar’Albanak were demanding that their respective supporters stand up and be counted. It meant that Bayrd’s time was running out. For months now he had been balancing one side delicately against the other, while avoiding making a declaration for either. But from the sound of this latest report, failure to do something concrete would alienate him from both. Once the power struggle was over, and no matter who won, he and all of Clan Talvalin would have lost.

  And now this.

  Marc’s presence at the funeral pyre was more than just a token gesture of respect towards a dead clan-lord. Here in Dunrath, the fortress and seat of his own lord, nothing like that would be dismissed as merely the action of a private person.

  Like it or not, he was Companion and Bannerman to Bayrd Talvalin, and for him to be where he was, and Bayrd not, said a great deal too much about the erosion of their friendship.

  There had been his objections to Bayrd’s legal and justified treatment of the reavers, and his comments both spoken and silent about Bayrd’s failure to control the occasional flare of sorcerous anger. But all of that was reasonable enough, given the way the man’s mind worked. It could not have become suspicion that Bayrd was somehow dissembling about his involvement in Vanek’s death.

  Or could it…?

  * * * *

  It could. And that night, in the great hall of Dunrath-hold and before far too many witnesses, it was made public knowledge.

  Bayrd had always considered that what little remained of Clan Talvalin’s gold would have been better spent on stronger walls, or a deeper moat, or almost anything except a feasting-hall and the elaborate ceremonial that such a splendid place encouraged. Time enough for ceremony and ritual when the land was at peace and there was time for play-acting and dressing up.

&
nbsp; It struck him then and afterwards as ironic that it should have been Marc ar’Dru who had been most insistent that the hall be built at all. As new lord of a new clan, said Marc when the plans for the fortress were still no more than lines on parchment, Bayrd Talvalin should set some sort of example to his older peers. Something arrogant and flamboyant, otherwise they would show him no respect.

  So it was built, as arrogantly and flamboyantly as Talvalin gold allowed. The flooring was coloured tiling arranged in elegant patterns, brought to Alba by the Ship-Clans and bought from them at no small price. The pillars were carved stone in the likeness of trees, with strange small faces peering unexpectedly from their branches. The roof-beams were wood shaped like more branches, this time with birds and beasts among them. Only the walls were plain. After the discovery that naked stone in such a huge, vaulted space radiated a cold that struck to the bone, they were faced with panels of unadorned wood; but even that small austerity was concealed by costly draperies. When it was done, and Bayrd was morosely contemplating the depletion of his treasury, Marc ar’Dru stood in the centre of the hall and pronounced himself satisfied.

  The example had been made.

  That was ironic indeed, when one considered how much Marc had been against Bayrd’s making an equally-definite example of the reavers…and most ironic of all that it should be Marc rather than Reth ar’Gyart who stood up once again in the centre of the hall. This time he was fully and formally clad in the crest-coat of Clan Talvalin’s Bannerman and chief retainer over the elyu-dlas Colour-Robe of House ar’Dru, and he rose to take his lord to task for murder.

  It stilled the murmur of conversation instantly. None of the guests – retainers, lord’s-men, a traveller granted hospitality and shelter from the foul night outside only to find it fouler still indoors – even deigned to make pretence of deafness. For one thing, there was no point. Marc spoke loud and clear, more so than truly necessary, and though there was more regret than anything else in his voice, it was still something that no clan-lord cared to hear from the mouth of any man. Least of all from his Bannerman, and Companion, and good friend of many years.

  “My lord,” said Marc, “be assured that it is with sorrow that I say what I must.” He paused, a deliberate, theatrical hesitation that lit a small, hot spark of anger behind Bayrd’s eyes.

  “So say it, Marc-an ar’Dru,” he prompted into the silence, hating the need to speak and well aware that this was exactly the reason for the pause. “And be assured that I accept your sorrow.”

  This was not the man he knew. For all that their friendship had never been disrupted by a real quarrel, it had been edged with mockery and sarcasm often enough, especially when Bayrd and Marc’s sister Mevn had become lovers that first time. But it had never been like this. When Marc was angry, the anger exploded in all directions like brandy spilled on a brazier of hot coals, and was as quickly gone again. Bayrd had witnessed that, but had never experienced it. Nor did he have to endure its brief flare now. Instead there was a calculated undercurrent of insult in Marc’s voice, in every gesture, that was subtly but definitely wrong.

  Marc sounded like an enemy. Worse, he sounded like Vanek ar’Kelayr yesterday, sour, querulous and purposefully unreasonable. When he moved and when he spoke, it was like a puppet from a clumsily presented play. An unsympathetic hand was manipulating the strings, and someone else’s voice was mouthing unfamiliar lines.

  Could it be Kalarr cu Ruruc’s hand? His voice – or at least his words? Was such a thing within the sorcerer’s ability?

  Bayrd blinked and glanced at Eskra, no longer certain what was and wasn’t possible any more. As usual when talking about the Art Magic, she had given him too much general information and not enough specific detail. Years of wasting her breath had ingrained that habit, because trying to explain the finer points of sorcery to Bayrd had become like teaching a tune to someone with no concept of music. And now that he needed to know…

  He needed to know only that it was someone else. Because if his longtime friend truly thought all of this, it would be too much to be borne.

  “…Undeserved butchery of children…” Marc was saying. “…Not content with a token punishment… Arbitrary, ruthless and high-handed… Dishonourable familiarity with a dishonourable art… Murder of a guest… though unprovable by law… to my own satisfaction and deep regret…”

  There was more like that, much more. So much indeed that even Reth ar’Gyart, with his lord’s gathered ashes in a wooden box on the table before him, seemed taken aback by his new ally’s vehemence. For all Marc’s frequent regrets and sorrows, some of what he said veered dangerously close to the sort of unfounded defamation that a clan-lord could answer only with his sword.

  And had he been anyone else, Bayrd would have reached long ago for Isileth Widowmaker and let her grim grey blade speak for him. But this was Marc. His Companion, his Bannerman…

  His friend. Marc was the kailin whom Bayrd and Eskra had chosen above any other to stand witness with them before the Light of Heaven when they married. The man whose House and Family had taken the place of any other relatives when their children were born. The man who had fought at his side, who had saved his life in battle – and in the dark days after Mahaut died, when the only ease for the empty hurt in his heart was the steel key to oblivion that every kailin carried at his belt.

  And until this evening, he had been the same man. Now he stood here, in Bayrd’s hall and Bayrd’s fortress and with Bayrd’s colours on his back, and made such accusations before witnesses as he would have scorned to even think before.

  “I cannot remain beneath this roof another day, another night, another hour,” said Marc, after another of those pauses that filled the hall with a silence as darkly choking as black velvet, “I was your Banner-bearer and your Companion and your conscience, but by the rumour of your deeds you have forfeited all my homage and service. Such doubts are cast upon your honour, and such shadows left in the minds of men, that for the sake of my own honour I instantly leave your service. Therefore my lord Bayrd-eir, ilauan-arluth ar’Talvlyn, I defy you, and renounce my faith and fealty, freely given and freely taken.”

  He put one hand down to draw the tsepan from his belt, an action so freighted with grisly memory that it brought Bayrd to his feet. But the blade wasn’t put to the use that he most feared.

  Instead Marc reached up behind his head and sheared off first the long warrior’s braid at the nape of his neck and then the two smaller plaits of high-clan rank that hung beside his ears. “I renounce my duty,” he said as the blade passed easily through each length of hair, “to Heaven, if it guard thee and thee guilty; to any lord whose laws protect thee, and thee guilty; and to my honour, lest it make me fear to do…” His voice stumbled then, just once, and then recovered as strongly as ever. “To do what must be done, to leave this past behind.”

  Though Marc spoke clearly enough, his voice was quieter now, as though the enormity of this visible rejection affected him more than all the words had done. But it was only when he stripped off the Talvalin crest-coat, slashed the tsepan’s blade across the eagles embroidered in silver wire at its shoulders, and then dropped the garment to formally tread it underfoot, that an audible gasp of shock trickled through the hall.

  He said nothing else, and the click as the dirk returned to its scabbard was like the lock closing shut on the days that had been. Bayrd remained standing as his one-time friend turned and strode from the hall. He felt strangely indifferent, even when he saw that Reth ar’Gyart and the other ar’Kelayr retainers were taken so much by surprise that they had to scramble to their feet and hurry in Marc’s wake. The big Bannerman at least remembered himself in time to turn and give Bayrd the hasty Second Obeisance he was due. Marc hadn’t done so. Marc hadn’t even nodded. He had just taken his leave, and taken most of Bayrd Talvalin’s reputation with him.

  Reth had defied nobody, renounced nothing, and even amid the confused developments of the past few minutes, his manners had remai
ned. The contrast smarted. Then the big double doors thumped behind him, and he was gone.

  Bayrd slumped back into his seat and stared at nothing. He wanted to be gone as well. Somewhere; anywhere. Just so long as it was away from the gawking, speculative eyes of the people who wanted him to leave for no better reason that they couldn’t start to gossip until then. He could see no compassion, no concern, not even from Eskra, whose expression had gone as still and cold as one of the carved stone faces on the pillars.

  No. That wasn’t completely true. There was at least one sympathetic face among them all, though it stung Bayrd to the core to realize that it belonged not to one of his household, but merely the traveller guesting here tonight. That pity surely came just from a lack of understanding and not any honest source. Yet any sympathy was better than none at all.

  He reached his decision at once. He would leave Eskra to whatever was troubling her, because if she hadn’t already confided in him, then it was certain she didn’t intend to do so for a while. He would leave all the others to their muttering. And he would offer this stranger a better welcome to Dunrath than he had expected or had received so far.

  In his heart he knew that it was just a feeble excuse to open another few bottles of wine. But Bayrd felt certain that he could stand on his head in a barrel of the stuff tonight, and it would never make him drunk enough to forget what he had just seen and heard. Of all the things he would have sworn were impossible, Marc ar’Dru breaking his allegiance had to be so near the top of the list as to make no difference

  The torn crest-coat with the dusty footprints on it still lay where it had been flung down, beside the three braids of fair hair that were unravelling a little now. Bayrd suspected that they might be still there tomorrow. Unless he gave an order that they be picked up, nobody except maybe Eskra would go near them. Such things were unlucky, and carried ill-luck with them as burnt wood carried soot. But he couldn’t shape the words, not now. It would be like…