The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  “Ah.” Jahdo sheathed the blade, hefted the dagger for a moment, then handed it back to Rhodry. “I do hate to give it up, but truly, it had best wait for me up in the tower.”

  “I’ll take it. And talking of Jill reminds me, lad. I made you a promise, didn’t I? About teaching you letters. It’s a fair way to spring yet, so let’s make a start.”

  “Oh, my thanks! I did wonder, my lord, but I did hate to vex you or suchlike—”

  “No harm in reminding me, and I’m no lord.”

  “Well, you be so to me, as generous as any man could be.”

  For a moment Jahdo thought Rhodry was about to cry, from the way he turned away with a toss of his head.

  “My thanks,” Rhodry said, and his voice was unsteady. “Here, I’ll hunt up a slate or suchlike. Cadmar’s scribe should have one. And we’ll start today.”

  Rhodry turned and hurried off across the ward. Jahdo watched him go, then went back to his work before the head groom caught him slacking.

  Jahdo was just leaving the stables when he saw a small procession coming from the broch complex. At its head trotted Carra’s dog, with Carra and Lady Ocradda just behind, and two pages following along after them. Jahdo felt himself blush. Here he was, with his clothes filthy on top and sweaty inside, and the princess was heading straight for him.

  “Jahdo!” Carra called out. “It gladdens my heart to see you.”

  “And mine to see you, Your Highness,” Jahdo said, stepping back. “But er, I be a bit mucky right now, and so—”

  “Do you think that bothers me?” Carra smiled at him. “I’ve come to see how my horse fares. I thought I’d fetch him out for a bit of sun and walk him round the ward.”

  Ocradda looked as sour as if she’d bitten into wormy meat. Jahdo could guess that the princess had fought a battle to be allowed to come to the stables at all.

  “I’ll bring Gwerlas out for you,” Jahdo said. “You’d best not be going in there with your long dresses and all. Some of the men, well, they be careless when they do muck out their mounts’ stalls.”

  “Oh here! I’ve always cared for my own horses, all the years that I—”

  “Your Highness!” Ocradda interrupted. “The lad’s right. Let him wait upon you! Er, I mean, if you please.”

  “Oh very well. But be careful. Gwer can be a bit bitey.”

  More than a bit, or so Jahdo knew from the earlier times when he’d cared for the horse. Still, the big buckskin gelding seemed to be in a good mood that afternoon; he allowed Jahdo to tie a rope onto his halter and lead him without showing so much as a tooth. Out in the sun Gwerlas snorted and tossed his mane, then spotted Carra and headed straight for her with Jahdo trotting along at his side.

  “There you are!” Carra crooned. “My darling!”

  When she threw her arms around his neck, the horse snuffled at her cloak and nudged her. Lady Ocradda rolled her eyes heavenward in something like despair. For their walk around the ward, Carra insisted on leading the horse herself, but she did allow Jahdo to hold on to the loose end of the rope for appearances’ sake. A disgruntled Ocradda and the pages trailed behind as they followed the exercise path, a broad swath next to the dun walls that had been cleared of the usual sheds and clutter.

  “It’s good to see you, Jahdo,” Carra said. “How do you fare these days?”

  “Well enough, Your Highness.”

  “The servitors seem to be finding you lots of work to do.”

  “Oh, working be no bother to me. It does make the time pass quicker, like.”

  “You must be looking forward to going home.”

  “That be ever so true.”

  For a few moments they walked in silence. Carra kept laying her hand on Gwerlas’s neck, making sure that he wasn’t raising a sweat in the chilly air from lack of exercise. Jahdo barely felt the cold, as if walking next to the princess were in some mysterious way warming his blood. If only he could think of witty, courtly remarks that would impress her! Instead, he found himself searching desperately for conversation.

  “Ah well,” Jahdo ventured finally. “I did have a bit of news. I were talking with Rhodry, and he did offer to teach me how to read.”

  “How splendid! I wish I could learn.”

  “Well, why not ask him, then?”

  Carra risked a quick glance over her shoulder. Ocradda and the pages were picking their way through the snow a fair distance behind, but still, Carra lowered her voice. “I fear me that the good women of the dun would scream at the horror of it all.”

  “What? Why shouldn’t you learn—”

  “Not the reading. It’s Rhodry: he’s a silver dagger. Lady Labanna classes him with the dogs and the pigs, lower even than the men in her husband’s warband.”

  Jahdo considered this as they walked past the cook house.

  “I did forget about things such as that,” he said at last. “But here, I know! Why not ask our sorceress if you mayn’t learn? If the lady Dallandra does approve, no one will dare say a word about it.”

  It was late in the evening before Dallandra went up to the women’s hall. By the light of candles the gwerbret’s wife and her serving woman were leaning close to their embroidery to finish one last patch before their eyes grew too weary to continue. Dallandra joined Carra at the hearth. Elessi was awake, propped up against her mother’s stomach.

  “Elessi loves the fire,” Carra remarked. “Not for the heat, I mean, but when she’s awake, she’ll stare into it for hours.”

  “Well, it is a pretty thing, fire.”

  Carra smiled and stroked her daughter’s thin strands of pale hair. In the fire Dallandra could see salamanders, crawling along the logs, dancing among the embers, or rubbing their backs on the iron grating. No doubt Elessi could see them, too. The Wildfolk would flock to a being such as her, one of Evandar’s kind and born into the world flesh for the first time.

  “I can hardly wait to show her the spring,” Carra went on, “the flowers blooming and the trees coming into leaf. Her first spring!”

  “That will be lovely.”

  “And then we’ll be able to travel. The gwerbret and his lady have been so generous to us, and I shall miss them, but I’m so eager to meet Dar’s people and see the grasslands.”

  “It’s not an easy life out on the grass.”

  “It’s not an easy life here, is it?”

  “Well, that is most certainly true.” Dalla lowered her voice. “I’ll be glad to leave myself.”

  “No doubt.” Carra smiled, briefly. “I’m just so glad Elessi got herself born, and we both lived. Whilst I was carrying her? I truly did feel half-mad.”

  “It was worrisome to watch. Everything seemed to frighten you.”

  “Well, there was that small matter of the Horsekin army. I think me I had good reason to be frightened.”

  “The best in the world. No one could blame you.”

  “Jill did.”

  Old pain shivered in Carra’s voice. Dallandra considered her answer carefully.

  “Unfortunately, that’s true,” Dallandra said. “But Jill demanded their absolute best from everyone she met, you know. It wasn’t only you. She was a warrior in her soul, but not all of us can live up to that.”

  “I can’t, certainly. I’m a coward.”

  “Truly?” Dallandra smiled at her. “You left your brother’s dun behind forever and followed Dar.”

  “Oh, but I was frightened the whole time.”

  “So? Do you think warriors never feel fear? Ask Rhodry about that, and see what he says.”

  Carra paused, thinking.

  “Well, I know what you mean,” Carra said at last. “But sometimes I remember the way Jill used to look at me, and I cringe all over again.”

  “I can understand that. Still, you have your own strengths, and the older you grow, the more you’ll know them.”

  “I suppose. You know, that reminds me, in an odd sort of way. I was talking with little Jahdo earlier, and he told me that Rhodry was going to
teach him to read.”

  “So I understand.”

  “And well—” Carra hesitated for a long moment; then her words came in a rush. “Could I learn too? I know it’s above a woman’s station, but I do so much want to learn.”

  “Above your—oh hogwash! Of course you may learn, if you’d like. I’ll speak to Rhodry for you.”

  Carra turned to her and smiled, a bright steady joy like sunlight that was exactly the same smile she got when she saw her husband walk into the room. That Carra burned with a passion to learn how to read shocked Dallandra all over again, though as she thought about it she realized that anyone with a strong interest in history would no doubt wish to read about the past. Dallandra had labored so long and hard to get Elessi born into the physical world that in her mind Carra’s role as Elessi’s mother had absorbed the actual person that Carra was. What an awful thing to do to someone! Dallandra told herself. She made herself pay strict attention to the girl as she talked on.

  “It’s just so wonderful,” Carra was saying, “to be able to think about things like books and letters now. Sometimes I dream about Alshandra still, and the Horsekin army at our gates. When I wake up, I have to tell myself that we’re safe at last.”

  Dallandra started to make some pleasantry, but a dweomer-warning like a sudden blast of cold froze her lips, or so it seemed. She felt fear run down her back like the stroke of an icy hand. Carra turned to her in alarum, but fortunately the baby woke, stretching tiny arms, and began to cry. Dallandra murmured an excuse, got up, and left.

  As she hurried up to her tower room, the dweomer-cold went with her, hugging her so tightly she found it hard to breathe. Twice on the staircase up it forced her to stop and rest. While she leaned against stone walls and gasped, she heard a strange rustle or murmur, so loudly that at first she thought it was sounding in the physical world. The sound, however, followed her into her own quarters, swelling to a roar and babble of voices.

  Safe at last? Far from it, far far from it! Dallandra nearly fell onto the bed. She had just the presence of mind to grab the blankets and pull them over her before she sank into trance. It seemed to her that she was awake in the tower room, but she lay paralyzed in a light transformed into the silvery blue of the etheric plane. All around her swirled voices in a babble of languages; some words she could understand, others escaped her entirely. The voices seemed to come from a dozen speakers, some male, some female, others strangely ambiguous. Whatever they were trying to say rang with urgency; she could hear anger and terror, both, as they babbled on and on, louder and louder.

  Suddenly the harsh shriek of a raven silenced the voices. The raven cried again, and it seemed its huge black shadow covered the room.

  Abruptly Dallandra woke, lying in sweat-soaked clothing in an icy, dark room. She got up, staggered to the window, and leaned against the wall while she fumbled with the leather covering. Finally, she managed to pull up one corner. Cold wind and a flurry of snow slapped her in the face. Night lay over the dun, but how deep or early, she could not say. She let the hide fall again. Heat, she thought. I must get out of here, go where it’s warm.

  On her table stood a pitcher of water. She cracked the ice on top and drank straight out of the spout. The water brought enough sensation back to her body to allow her to walk across the room and open the door, but the dark landing and stairwell beyond made her hesitate. She called upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr, who materialized to surround her with a silvery glow. In their safe light she went down and reached the great hall at last.

  Apparently the evening meal had just been cleared away. In firelight and torchlight the household lingered at table, from the gwerbret and the noble-born at the table of honor to the servants sitting by their fire and eating the leftover bread. Although Dar kept Carra company at the table of honor, his archers sat together with Rhodry among them on the far side of the hall. Although by the courtesy of the thing Dallandra should have gone to the gwerbret’s side, she wanted her own kind around her. She started toward the archers’ table, only to find walking difficult. Half-afraid she’d fall, she stopped again, swaying like a drunken woman, but Rhodry had seen her. He swung himself free of the bench and hurried over.

  “Dalla, ye gods!” Rhodry spoke in Elvish. “Are you ill?”

  “No. Just exhausted. I did a working of sorts.”

  Rhodry caught her arm and steadied her. Yelling for a servant lass, he steered her across the great hall and over to a table near the honor hearth, where he made her sit with her back to the roaring fire. When Carra and Labanna started to join them, he hurried over to warn them off. Dallandra propped her elbows on the table and supported her head with her hands whilst she watched him, speaking urgently.

  “My lady?”

  The voice made Dallandra yelp, but it was only a servant girl with a basket of bread in one hand and a tankard in the other. When Dallandra took the tankard, the yeasty scent of watered ale cleared her head.

  “My thanks,” Dallandra said. “My apologies if I startled you.”

  The girl gave her a wan little smile and ran for the other side of the hall. Being a sorcerer in Deverry must be a lonely sort of life, Dalla thought. She tore a chunk of bread off the loaf and bit off a mouthful. The taste made her realize that she was ravenous. Rhodry came back and sat next to her, watching while she stuffed in the bread like a beggar child.

  “You’d best wash that down with a bit of ale,” he remarked after a while. “Or you’ll choke.”

  She nodded and had a long swallow.

  “That’s better,” Rhodry said, in Elvish this time. “Now, what by the Dark Sun happened to you?”

  “I was overwhelmed by a vision.” Dallandra paused for another long swallow of ale. “No, that’s not the right word, but I’m too tired to think of what you’d call a lot of voices, all speaking omens.”

  “Can I ask what they were telling you?”

  “I couldn’t understand them, actually.” She set the tankard down and considered him—if anyone in the dun could keep a secret, it would be Rhodry. “It didn’t matter. I also heard a raven caw, and that was the heart of the omen. It had to be your old friend, Raena. She means to harm Carra somehow, or more probably the child.”

  Rhodry swore in a mix of several languages. Dallandra winced.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Raena takes me that way. Why would she want to hurt them? Her wretched false goddess is dead.”

  “Does she believe that?”

  “Well, I was assuming she would.”

  “Why?” Dallandra paused for another swallow of ale. “She carried out Alshandra’s orders to raise an army. If it weren’t for Arzosah, that army might have won, too, with Raena at their head. She’s had glory and excitement both, a thousand times more than any other woman, probably. What makes you think she’ll just meekly go back to her needlework now?”

  “True enough.” Rhodry hesitated, thinking. “Well, if she tries to harm either of them, she’ll have to go through me first.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she knows that. Why do you think I keep renewing the wards over you?”

  “Now there’s a thought. In my vanity I was thinking she hated me for myself, but if she knows I’ve sworn to guard the lass—”

  “You did swear a vow like that? Right out loud, I mean.”

  “Yes, when Yraen and I met Carra on the road. I saw her, and I knew I was bound to her in some strange way. So I hired myself out to her for a guard.”

  “Oh! You mean you swore to guard Carra, not the baby.”

  “Well, I suppose I meant the baby as well. I was stinking drunk at the time, and I don’t remember the details.”

  “No doubt.” Dallandra yawned, stifled it, then gave up and yawned again. “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired.”

  “You’d best get some sleep. You still look pale as death. I’ll come upstairs with you.”

  “Ye gods, I’ve slept all day!”

  Yet Rhodry insisted, and once she was tucked up in the blankets with him beside her
, radiating welcome warmth, Dallandra fell asleep straightaway.

  For some while she slept in a normal oblivion, but eventually she woke and remembered the wards in the Gatelands. This time when she slept again, her mind went straight to the etheric and her wards. After she tended them, she stood in the tall grass and considered the swollen purple moon that hung, huge and menacing, over the meadow. She wanted to talk with Niffa, but since she knew only the girl’s dream image, rather than her physical presence, she could no more scry her out on the etheric than she could in the material world. Fortunately, Niffa seemed to want to talk with her, as well, because in what seemed a brief space of time, Niffa joined her. As they sat in the tall grass and talked, Niffa’s lack of rational control over her sleep-visions made it difficult to hold an organized conversation, but a bit at a time Dalla pieced together the girl’s story of her murdered husband and of Councilman Verrarc.

  “But here,” Dallandra said at last. “You didn’t truly see Raena murder your man, did you?”

  Niffa shook her head.

  “And so you can’t be sure she—”

  “That be what they both say!” Niffa snapped. “My mam and da, I do mean by that.”

  “Well, who do they think killed him, then?”

  “Evil spirits,” Niffa said. “The councilman, he did say this, and even our herbwoman and our Spirit Talker, they do believe him now.”

  “What about the rest of the town?”

  “The town? Well, the folk do be terrified and talk of witchcraft and dark things. They do but wish it forgotten, so they might pretend that naught were amiss.”

  “I see. You’d best be careful, you know. They might turn on you eventually.”

  “My mam, she do say the same. She be powerful frightened.”

  Niffa’s image was growing thin, stretched out like a figure painted on cloth held against the landscape. Dallandra had to think quickly.

  “You’re right to mistrust Raena,” Dallandra said, “but be careful! She’s very dangerous, and—”

  Niffa’s image winked out. I wonder if she heard me? Dallandra thought. Well, no doubt I’ll see her here again.

  1When she woke that morning, Niffa heard voices out in the great room—her mother’s and another woman’s. That best not be that miserable Raena! As she dressed, she snarled like a ferret. She found her clogs, slipped them on, then stomped into the other room, only to see Emla, Demet’s mother, sitting comfortably by the fire.