The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  Abrwnna dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. Lilli sat stone-still, barely able to think, watching her weep, rocking back and forth like a troubled child.

  “Here, here,” Lilli said at last. “What’s so wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” Abrwnna let her hands drop. “I sent her away, just as you said. It’s my fault she was out on the roads. Oh ye gods, you must hate me!” She paused, wiping her face on the sleeve of her dress. “And your mother was the one—ah, Goddess! I thought she was my friend.”

  Lilli stood and walked over to lay a hand on Abrwnna’s trembling shoulder.

  “I don’t hate you. I’ve no doubt at all that my mother worked on you to send Bevva away. I’ll wager you didn’t even know she was using you, either.”

  “We did talk, truly, just before.” Abrwnna stared up at her and shook. “She told me, well, things. She told me Bevva was telling people I was a slut or suchlike.”

  “Never! Bevva never would have done that. You see? It’s not your fault. If you’d not sent her away, then my mother only would have poisoned her or found some other way to do her murdering.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I truly do.”

  “You don’t hate me?”

  “Did you think I would?”

  Abrwnna nodded, then leaned her head back against the chair.

  “Do you hate me for aiding the prince?” Lilli went on.

  “I don’t. You know what the worst thing is? I keep dreaming about the taking of the dun, that last awful day. Or sometimes I dream about poor little Olaen, and the way he died, poisoned like that. And in the dreams I can’t stop screaming. I see all the horrible things all over again and just keep screaming and screaming.” Abrwnna paused to run shaking hands through her hair. “But then I wake up. And there’s Anasyn next to me, and I know I’m safe. And I can’t help thinking, I’m glad Prince Maryn won. I’m glad I’m Anasyn’s lady and not queen anymore. And I feel so horrible because I’m glad.”

  Abrwnna began to weep again, a thin trickle of silent tears. Lilli took a napkin from the table and handed it to her, then sat down again.

  “If you’re a traitor, Lilli, then so am I.” Abrwnna began to wipe her face. “A thousand times a day.”

  “Oh here! The gods are the ones who ordained Maryn the true king, aren’t they? It’s his Wyrd, and there’s naught that you or I can do about it. It must be your Wyrd, too, that you’re the lady of Hendyr now.”

  Abrwnna merely shrugged, then wiped her face. The linen napkin shook in her hands.

  “Would you like me to pour you a little mead?” Lilli said.

  “None, but my thanks.” Abrwnna let the napkin fall onto her lap. “Your mother! Ah gods, it was all true, then, the gossip. She truly was some sort of witch.”

  “She was.” Lilli felt as if the words had stuck in her throat and were choking her. “I suppose there was a lot of gossip that I never heard.”

  “How could anyone tell you? It was evil evil stuff, and I refused to believe any of it, truly I did, but you know what? Now I suppose I should have.”

  “About her poisons, you mean?”

  “Just that. And spells and things. Everyone thought she cast spells on herself to look so young.”

  “That was only herbs and some sort of elixir she brewed up.”

  “Ah. Truly? And here I believed it about the spells! Some of the women said she had lots of lovers, you see, and that’s why she’d use magic to keep her looks.”

  Lilli’s breath caught in her chest. Had anyone guessed that Merodda’s brother had sired her daughter?

  “Lovers?” Lilli said. “Why would they think that?”

  “Well, I don’t remember exactly.” Abrwnna thought for a moment. “It all seems so paltry now, the gossip I mean.”

  Lilli found it hard to breathe. Old gossip, swept away by the summer’s tide of blood and the horrors of siege—of course the other women would scorn such chatter now. But to her, it might mean the difference between having a place at court or losing one as a landless bastard.

  “I do wonder,” Lilli said. “There must have been a lot of talk that I was never allowed to hear.”

  “Well, it was all nasty stuff. There were a few tales that would have branded her a fiend if they were true. Like that child, the one she birthed after your father was slain, and everyone told me it wasn’t really his anyway.”

  “What? What child? I never knew about that.”

  “Well, it died a little while after it was born. Merodda left court and shut herself up in Dun Cantrae to birth it, and all the old gossips said she ran away because she was so shamed, but I wasn’t at court then, so I wouldn’t know the truth of that. When she came back in the spring she told everyone the child had died of fever. But ah Goddess, knowing what I know now, maybe the gossip was all true, and it wasn’t Lord Garedd’s child, and she smothered it or suchlike.”

  “Indeed?” Lilli found it harder and harder to talk. “And whose was the child, then? Did they say?”

  “A demon’s.” Abrwnna leaned forward in her chair to look at Lilli wide—eyed. “They said she’d been got with child by a demon she’d conjured up, and that’s why the baby was so sickly. But that couldn’t be true, could it?”

  “I doubt it very much.” Lilli nearly laughed from sheer relief. “I truly do. Don’t the priests always say that demons don’t have real bodies? How could they sire anything without them?”

  “You’re right, aren’t you? But that didn’t stop the gossip. All the old cats were still talking about the scandal when my father brought me to court to marry Olaen.”

  No doubt it was sickly, Lilli thought. It was another child of incest, wasn’t it?

  “And then the gossips said that one of Merodda’s retainers was a demon, too, so they thought he was the father.” Abrwnna paused, listening. “I hear voices in the hall. It’s probably Sanno.”

  The chamber door opened: Anasyn indeed, followed by his page. The tieryn was by no means a handsome man, though not ugly, either, with his long face and long thin nose, but Abrwnna smiled at him as if he were a vision of Bel himself.

  “There you are, beloved,” Abrwnna said.

  “My apologies for being late,” Anasyn said. “I met old Gauryc in the great hall, and he wouldn’t let me go till he’d had his say.”

  “About what?” Lilli put in.

  “The gwerbretrhyn of Cerrmor. When he’s seated as king, the prince will have to give it up. Gauryc wants it. Badly.” Anasyn smiled briefly. “And to get it, he’ll need every ally on the Council of Electors that he can scrounge up. He’s not the only one with his eye on the rhan.”

  “No doubt.” Lilli glanced at Abrwnna. “I’ve been there, and ye gods! It’s the richest place I’ve ever seen.”

  “You simply must tell me all about it.” Abrwnna turned to the page. “Very well, you may serve your lord, and then Lilli and I will serve ourselves, and then you may take what you wish.”

  For the rest of that evening their talk centered on the politics of the new court that Maryn was forming. Every now and then, though, Abrwnna would fall silent for a long while, and Lilli would notice her staring at the empty air as if she were seeing horrors drawn upon it.

  Over the next two days the prince held councils of war. In the oldest broch stood a big round room that had been the great hall when Nevyn was young. Maryn took it over for his councils, and servants carried in all the extra chairs they could find for the assembly. By ancient laws and courtesies both, every noble-born man in Deverry who served royalty had the right to speak out in council when a high king was making plans for war. As a mere prince, Maryn had to be more respectful of these rights and customs than a king would have been. A wrong word or act of arrogance would lose him allies.

  Although Daeryc’s clan no longer ruled Glasloc, he knew the territory between Dun Deverry and Cantrae well. So did Nevyn, but he mostly held his tongue. Admitting his knowledge of the area would mean admitting when he’d lived there,
and that in turn would bring awkward questions about his unnaturally long life. Dun Cantrae, the stronghold of the Boar clan, lay inside the town of Cantrae proper, which meant a double ring of walls to take should the matter come to siege. The town lay on what was at that time the farthest border of the kingdom, a good two hundred thirty miles to the northeast.

  “For the first part of the journey,” Daeryc said, “the roads will be good ones, and the country’s flat. But past Glasloc you get into the hills.”

  “That’s not good,” Maryn said. “The army moves slow enough on the flat.”

  “Just so.” Tieryn Gauryc, a skinny man with hair cropped close to his skull, rose to speak. “We made what? Twelve miles a day when we marched from Cerrmor?”

  “No more than that, truly,” Maryn said.

  In the back of the chamber some lord or other let out a loud long snore. Everyone laughed and woke the man, who grinned sheepishly while he rubbed his eyes.

  “My lords, I think we’ve had an omen,” Maryn said, smiling. “Let’s leave this lie for today.”

  The assembled company cheered him. When the council disbanded, Maryn held Nevyn back for a private word.

  “I need your opinion on somewhat,” Maryn said. “Oggyn approached me with this daft-sounding scheme. He wants to take a couple of scribes and ride around the royal demesne, writing down everything he finds there. Well, not everything, but how many farms, and how many bondmen, and so on and so forth.”

  “That doesn’t sound daft to me, my liege. It sounds cursed sensible. We don’t have the slightest idea of what you can expect in dues and taxes.”

  “So Oggyn says.” Maryn considered for a moment. “Well, rebuilding the Holy City is going to take coin, not just bound labor.”

  “True spoken. Oggyn’s real worth lies in such matters. He understands coin, and more to the point he understands mustering labor and assigning duties and so on.”

  “Very well. I’ll tell him to go ahead and start the survey. There’s no use in his coming along with the army, when we’re only riding on what amounts to a feint.”

  When he left the prince, Nevyn went looking for Lady Merodda’s old chambers. He’d not forgotten the mysterious spirit presence who had appeared to him, and Merodda was the only clue he had. When he asked the servants about the chambers, they pointed them out readily enough. Since the taking of the dun, they’d stood empty, because no one wanted to sleep in a room where someone had practiced witchcraft and poisoning. It was amazing, he thought, how quickly the rumors about the lady had spread. The men of Maryn’s army and retinue hadn’t even known she existed six months ago. Now they all feared her, even in death.

  When Nevyn walked into the suite, he found it bare. Not so much as a stick of furniture or firewood remained. She might have been feared, but apparently her possessions weren’t. In the emptiness Nevyn’s footsteps echoed; dust puffed and fell at his feet. He asked himself what exactly he expected to find, but he had no answer. He wandered into the empty bedchamber, looked around for a moment, and wandered back out. Near the hearth a half-round chair had appeared, and in it sat Merodda—or a perfect illusion of her. Nevyn turned cold with little gasp of breath. The spirit had reproduced her image down to the unnatural shininess of her skin-a blonde woman, once beautiful, dressed in flowing blue, she sat with a simulacrum of a book open in her lap.

  “I know you’re not her ghost,” Nevyn said. “I exorcised her myself.”

  “Oh, I remember that,” the spirit said—in Elvish.

  “Very well. Then what are you doing, mimicking her?”

  “I’ll not answer that unless you answer me a question.”

  “I’ll agree to that if you answer mine first.”

  The spirit considered him with eyes that never blinked. In her lap the book turned transparent and disappeared.

  “Done then,” she said at last. “Becoming her I know her.”

  “I see. What’s your question?”

  “You stole her daughter from her, didn’t you? Just like they plan to steal mine.”

  “I didn’t. Her daughter left her of her own will.”

  The spirit screamed in such murderous rage that Nevyn stepped back. In that instant spirit and chair both vanished.

  By all the gods! he thought. What is she? And why did that anger her so?

  With a shake of his head Nevyn left the room. He would have to meditate on the question. Lilli might well know something, too, if her mother had ever mentioned having some sort of astral visitor. But although he looked in her chamber and in the great hall, he couldn’t find Lilli to ask her. Finally, he stopped a passing page.

  “Have you seen Lady Lillorigga of the Ram?”

  “I’ve not, my lord,” the boy said.

  “Well, then, have you seen Branoic the silver dagger?”

  “Not him either, my lord.” The boy smiled in a sly sort of way. “Shall I look for them?”

  “Most definitely not. She’ll turn up sooner or later of her own accord.”

  Maddyn had no illusions about his skill as a harper. Over the years he’d brutalized his hands with sword and shield until his fingers could bend only so far and travel the strings only so fast and no more. He did, however, take his music seriously, and every morning he found a private spot in one of the dun’s many odd corners to practice far away from the noise and crowds in barracks and great hall. Sound carries, of course, and thanks to his music he was always easy to find.

  “Ah, uh, Captain?”

  Maddyn looked up, startled. Standing in front of him was a young man who looked vaguely familiar—pale hair, pale eyes, and the high cheekbones of a southern man to go with the Cerrmor blazons on his shirt.

  “I hate to disturb you,” the fellow went on, “but one of the silver daggers, that truly tall fellow with the broad shoulders, told me I should speak to you.”

  “Branoic, was it?”

  “That’s his name. Mine’s Alwyn.”

  “Very well. What did you want to speak to me about?”

  Alwyn turned and looked behind him, then glanced off in the direction of the broch complex.

  “Well, it’s about Councillor Oggyn,” Alwyn said at last. “I want to join the silver daggers, you see. Oggyn told me that it would cost a silver piece for him to introduce me to Owaen.”

  “What? The filthy gall of the man!”

  “Branoic said somewhat like that, too. I paid the coin over, you see, and Owaen talked with me and had me meet some of the other men in the troop. And so I was drinking with Branoic last night, and I mentioned the councillor and his silver piece. And some of the other new men spoke up and said the same had happened to them. Branoic was fair furious, he was.”

  “Cursed right, too! That little pissproud glorified scribe! Come along, lad. Let me stow my harp in the barracks, and then we’ll go find Owaen.”

  Owaen, however, turned out to be in the barracks, sitting on his bunk and polishing his mail. His sword belt lay beside him on the blanket, but even unarmed there was something dangerous about Owaen. He was frowning as he pulled a scrap of rag through each ring with a quick gesture born of years of practice; his ice-blue eyes glared as if he were killing Boarsmen, not rust. Maddyn knew better than to get too close to him when he was in such a reverie. He stopped a couple of bunks away and called out.

  “Owaen? A word with you?”

  Startled, Owaen was on his feet and reaching for his sword. The mail slid off his lap and chimed onto the floor.

  “Oh,” Owaen said. “It’s just you.”

  He sat back down and picked up the mail. Maddyn led Alwyn over.

  “This lad has a very interesting tale to tell. Councillor Oggyn’s been charging a fee to send men our way.”

  While Alwyn repeated his story, Owaen said not a word. His expression went perfectly calm, perfectly blank, and when the lad was done, Owaen merely nodded. He laid the mail aside, got up, and buckled on his sword belt.

  “Let’s have a word with our councillor.” Owaen’s v
oice was perfectly soft and calm. “Follow me.”

  Alwyn hesitated, visibly puzzled, as if perhaps he wondered if he’d been believed. Maddyn winked at him and shepherded him out of the barracks. They followed Owaen’s broad back across the ward and into the great hall, which here in mid-morning stood mostly empty. A few riders lingered on their side of the big round room; a few servants wandered back and forth, wiping up scraps from the tables and throwing them to the waiting dogs. Oggyn was standing by the honor hearth and gazing at the staircase, as if he were waiting for someone. Owaen paused and turned to Alwyn.

  “You’ll swear to this?”

  “I will, and there’s six other lads in the same spot as me.”

  “Done, then.” Owaen allowed himself a brief twitch of his mouth that might have been a smile. “Follow me.”

  As they strode over, Oggyn looked up and saw them coming. He froze, started to back away, realized that Owaen was too close to outrun, and finally arranged a commanding stare on his face and crossed his arms over his chest as well.

  “You wish to speak with me?” Oggyn bellowed.

  Owaen took one long stride, grabbed him by the shirt with both hands, and slammed him back against the wall. Oggyn squeaked and howled and kicked; Owaen slammed him again, and Oggyn held still, gasping for breath. Those few people in the hall stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. Maddyn glanced around, but no one was rushing to the councillor’s aid.

  “Listen, you,” Owaen said. “You’ve been extorting fees, haven’t you? Demanding coin from men who want to meet me or Maddyn?”

  “Not! Lies!”

  “Horseshit! There are seven men ready to swear you took their coins.” Owaen shook him. “You’re paying every copper back.”

  “Won’t! Can’t! It’s not true!”

  “Then you won’t object if we go straight to the prince with this matter.”

  “I’ll pay!”

  Owaen smiled and let Oggyn go. Moaning and fussing, the councillor smoothed down his shirt, then reached inside it, and pulled out a fat pouch, hanging round his neck from a gold chain. Alwyn was staring at Owaen with a look suitable to viewing a god come down to earth. Swearing under his breath, Oggyn gave Alwyn a silver piece, then counted out six more into Owaen’s waiting palm.