“You’ve never cut off anyone’s head and tied it to your saddle, have you?”
“Never. I can give you my word on that, lad. Ych! And I never will, either.”
Jahdo sighed in a relief so profound that it was comic. Rhodry was about to make a jest when he glanced round to see Matyc, standing between two sheds and watching them. And just how long have you been there, you bastard? Rhodry thought. Lord Matyc was beginning to gripe his soul, and badly.
“Rhodry,” Jahdo was saying. “Cae did tell me that there’s a princess in the dun. Be that true?”
“It is. Would you like to be presented to her?”
“I would. I never did see one, you know. I mean, my father would think I’m being silly, wanting to see her just ‘cause she be a princess, but I do.”
“Well, she’s a pretty young woman, but ordinary enough, not like a two-headed calf or suchlike. Here, let’s go into the broch and see if we can find her, and then you’d best get back to Meer. He shouldn’t be left alone.”
“He was going to nap for a bit, you see, and so he did say I might go outside if I wanted.”
If Carra had been up in the women’s hall, forbidden to all men except for the very eldest, Jahdo would have had to go without meeting his real princess, but as it was, they found her sitting down in the great hall with the gwerbret’s wife, Labanna, and her two serving women. With their sewing in their laps, all four of the ladies had made themselves comfortable in curved three-legged chairs near the table of honor. At Carra’s feet lay a big gray dog with a roach of black hair down his back, or perhaps, judging by his yellow eyes and the feral look in them, he was as much wolf as dog. Although Labanna and her women were the matronly sort, stout and gray-haired, Carra was more beautiful than merely pretty. Her wavy blond hair, cut abnormally short for a woman, due to some odd circumstances, framed a delicate face and set off large blue eyes. That particular day she was wearing a dress of fine blue linen, heavily embroidered with alternating bands of interlace and flowers around the neck and down the sleeves, and kirtled rather high to allow for her early pregnancy. Round her neck hung a pendant of reddish-gold, ornamented with roses in bas relief. Jahdo frankly goggled at her.
“Oh, she be lovely,” he whispered. “And never have I seen such a fancy dress.”
The Rhiddaer, Rhodry supposed, had to be a fairly rough place, then. As he led the boy over, he wondered what Jahdo would make of the finery round the High King’s court in Dun Deverry. At their approach the dog rose to a crouch and growled.
“Lightning, whist!” Carra snapped her fingers. “Come round here. That’s a good lad.”
Reluctantly the dog slunk to the side of her chair and lay down with a small whine. Rhodry knelt in front of Carra and Lady Labanna and motioned to Jahdo to do the same.
“My ladies,” Rhodry said. “May I present Jahdo to you? He’s never seen a princess before, he says, and would like to meet one.”
Carra laughed softly, and Labanna smiled.
“Well, by all means,” Carra said. “But you’ll have to tell me what to do. I’m rather new at princessing, you know.”
“Very well, then,” Rhodry said. “I say: Your Highness, may I present to you Jahdo of the Rhiddaer? If you accept, you incline your head in a slight and regal manner. Don’t smile, now. Haughty’s the look you want.”
Carra tried to follow his instructions but ended up giggling. The older women smiled and shook their heads.
“It’ll do,” Rhodry went on. “Now, I say: Jahdo of the Rhiddaer, you have the honor of being in the presence of Princess Carramaena of the Westlands and her grace, the Lady Labanna, wife to Gwerbret Cadmar of Dun Cengarn. Then you bow from the waist—one hand behind your back, lad, and stay as straight as kneeling will allow—that’s right. Bow to the princess first, and then the lady.”
Carefully, solemnly, Jahdo followed his instructions.
“Very good,” Lady Labanna pronounced. “And very well taught, silver dagger, I must say.”
Rhodry noticed the serving women assessing him with shrewd eyes.
“My thanks, my lady,” he said hurriedly. “We’d best leave your presence and not impose ourselves upon you any longer.”
“Oh, Rhodry, don’t be so stiff!” Carra laughed. “It’s not like I’ve got much to do this afternoon. Dar—er, the prince my husband, I mean—is out hunting with his men again.”
“Your Highness?” Labanna leaned over and laid a firm hand on her arm. “The silver dagger is quite correct. There is a limit to the time he may tarry in your presence.”
Rhodry got up, motioning to Jahdo to join him, and bowed all round.
“I bid you ladies a good day,” he said, smiling. “Come along, lad. Time for you to get back to your master.”
As they hurried out of the great hall, Jahdo was babbling about how beautiful the princess was, but Rhodry barely listened. He was reminding himself that if he wanted his past to stay hidden, he’d best roughen his manners. All at once he heard the boy shriek in terror. Rhodry spun round, found he’d drawn his sword without even thinking, and saw nothing at all, except for a pair of men riding in the main gate.
“What is it?” Rhodry snapped.
“Gods.” Jahdo was shaking from head to foot as he held out a trembling hand, pointing to the gate. “Gods. Riding in there.”
“What?” Rhodry sheathed his sword again. “That’s only a pair of Prince Dar’s men.”
The two men of the Westfolk were dismounting, tossing their reins to a waiting stableboy. Tall and slender, with moonbeam-pale hair, they were both handsome fellows, except for their eyes, slit vertically like those of a cat, and their long ears, as delicately curled as seashells. Jahdo tried to speak but only made a choking noise deep in his throat. All at once Rhodry realized that the boy had most likely never seen an elf before.
“Here now,” he said. “They’re real flesh and blood, just like you and me. They look different, truly, but they’re much the same as us under the skin. Why, doesn’t a wolfhound look different than a gwertrae? But both breeds are still dogs, and you could even get healthy pups out of mating a pair, couldn’t you? Prince Daralanteriel is a man of the Westfolk, and Princess Carra’s a woman of Deverry, and here she is, growing bigger with his child every day. So you know that they must be much like us.”
Jahdo’s terror turned to puzzlement. The two elves waved at Rhodry and strolled on by, heading toward one of the side brochs, where they were quartered.
“But they do look like gods,” Jahdo said at last. “Two times now I did see a god, and they both looked just like that.”
“Uh, are you sure you didn’t just see two elves?”
“As sure as sure, because the gods did appear out of nowhere and then disappeared again. One of them did come to the cell, when we were locked up, I mean. She just walked right through the wall and said we were going to be safe, and then she were gone. And not long after that you did come and take us to Jill, and Jill did make things well for us, and we were safe, just like the goddess prophesied.”
It was Rhodry’s turn for the surprise.
“Oh, indeed?” he said. “You run along and tend to your master, lad. I’m going to find Jill and tell her about this. I think me shell find it interesting.”
To Dallandra, the long night and morning that Jill had spent returning to Cengarn and questioning Meer and Jahdo passed as a bare couple of heartbeats, the brief interval of Time in which she flew over the water veil from the dark of a Deverry night to the gold of day in Evandar’s country. Simply making that transition stripped away her bird form, and in the semblance of her real body, and in illusions of elven clothing, she found herself standing on a hilltop overlooking the silver river. All round her the grass stretched green, but stunted, browning in the shade of sickly trees. When she turned and looked in the other direction, she saw a mound of tangled weeds and muddy bricks, all that was left of a once-lovely garden.
On impulse she walked down for a closer look. When she’d firs
t come to Evandar’s country, well over two hundred fifty years past as men and elves reckon Time, he’d created this garden to please her. She remembered it as precisely geometric, a huge square marked off by brick walls and hedges and divided corner to corner by graveled walks that led to a central fountain. In each division red roses bloomed, surrounded by various other flowers she couldn’t name, purple and blue and gold. Now the walls had fallen, the hedges gone wild or died back altogether, the walks lay hidden by burdock and dandelions, the roses fought with the weeds for sun. The few blooms she saw were no longer the doubled flowers of the cultivated rose but the simple five-petaled wild variety. In the middle, the marble basin of the fountain had shattered. Mossy chunks lay round the cracked shaft.
Out of sheer grief for something once lovely Dallandra started to walk in through the remains of a gate. In the snarl of weeds near the fountain, something moved with a scurrying little sound. She went frozen, one foot over the threshold, the other not, and waited till the sound came again. This time she saw someone peering at her for a brief moment before it drew back into the foliage—elven eyes in a pale gray face, snouted like a hog, though with a human mouth. One of the Wildfolk? But for all their pranks and malice those elemental spirits, sprite and gnome, undine and salamander, were harmless at root, especially to a dweomer-master like her. Here she felt danger, a sharp hard stab of dweomer warning stinging her heart. Carefully, slowly, she stepped back out of the precinct; carefully, slowly, she moved back a few steps, never turning round, keeping a close watch on the ruined garden.
“Dalla!” It was Evandar’s voice from the hilltop. “What are you doing down there?”
“Come join me.”
Although she could hear him hurrying down to join her she never turned nor looked away from the garden.
“What’s all this?” he was saying. “Oh, your garden’s fallen into rack and ruin. Shall I build it up for you, my love?”
“Whist! Just be silent for a moment and watch. I thought I saw a member of your brother’s court lurking round in there.”
Out in the weeds something moved, stirred, then rose, standing up with a scatter of torn foliage—the owner of the snouted face, roughly human in form though stooped and twisted, wearing a tattered pair of brigga and naught else. At the sight of Evandar it whimpered, holding out clawed and clubby paws.
“Help us! Without you we have nowhere to live.”
“You have everywhere to live,” Evandar said. “All the world between the stars belongs to you.”
The creature whimpered, shaking its head in a stub-born no.
“We want a real home, the home we know, the grass and the rivers of the Lands.”
“Build your own, then. Or better yet, get that lord you serve to build them for you.”
With one last cry, like a despairing baby falling into tear-stained sleep, the creature scuttled off. His arms crossed over his chest, Evandar watched it skittering over the billowing meadows till it disappeared.
“I suppose you think I should help them,” he said at last.
“I honestly don’t know what to think. The best thing for them would be to choose life and birth, just as your people should, but would it cost you so much to save their lands for them?”
“But I don’t understand. Why should I do a thing for them that I don’t want to do?”
The question was perfectly calm, perfectly civil, not petulant nor angry in the least. Its very placidity made her remember how alien he was, no matter how much an elf he looked.
“It would be a compassionate thing, a right thing, a— well, a loving thing to do.”
Evandar laughed.
“But they’re ugly.”
“That’s true.” Dallandra was choosing each word carefully. “But they suffer, they have feelings even as you do.”
“Them? My brother’s little monsters? His ugly wretched brutes?”
Something came clear in Dallandra’s mind.
“You made a country for your brother, but he had to fashion the bodies for his folk.”
“Just so, and a botched job he did of it. Looking here, looking there, at the beasts as much as at the elves and men, taking a piece here, a piece there. Ych! Well, it’s his concern now and none of my own.”
“But you made him his country. Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore, nor about the Lands, either.”
“But I need to know more.”
“I shan’t tell you.”
Evandar turned and began striding back uphill. Cursing his stubbornness under her breath, Dallandra followed, catching up with him at the top.
“Will you listen to me, please?” she snapped. “We’ve got to talk. I’ve learned some rather ghastly things.”
“Elessario!” A flicker of real alarm crossed his face. “Is she safe?”
“She is, but for how long I can’t say. You know that Alshandra’s sworn to bring her back to this world, by murdering the child’s new mother if all else fails. Well, she’s raising an army to help her.”
“Indeed? Then we’ll deal with her once the army’s raised.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Don’t trouble me with all this now, not when there’s been a spy skulking round my lands.”
“He didn’t look like a spy to me. He looked terrified.”
Evandar turned away without bothering to answer. He snapped his fingers, and out of nowhere a silver horn appeared. When he blew three deep notes, like flames leaping out of the ground soldiers of the Host came charging up the hill. They gathered round him—how many, she couldn’t tell—in a glitter of copper-colored mail and helmets, each man armed with a long bronze-tipped spear. His page hurried forward, leading two golden horses with silvery manes and tails,
“Evandar!” Dallandra snapped. “This news I’ve got—”
“Will have to wait. Ride with me, my love. It’s not safe for you to linger here alone.”
As Dallandra mounted, she saw that the foot soldiers had turned into cavalry, as suddenly as changes always came about in this country. In the clatter and jingle of silver-studded tack they followed Evandar as he led the way out with a whoop and a wave of his arm. Dallandra urged her horse up next to his as the road beneath flattened out along the river.
“We ride to the battle plain,” Evandar called out.
Behind him the Host roared their approval, and silver horns blew.
As they trotted across the billowing plains, the ground steadied beneath them, and the grass turned green, swishing high around their horses’ legs until they were forced to slow to a walk. On the horizon the distant cities settled down and turned solid, too, and gleamed here and there with lights in their windows or glints atop their walls as the day faded into a greenish twilight. A moon hung pink and bloated just above the horizon, never rising, never setting.
In that ghastly light they entered the forest, half dead, half living, and picked a slow way down a trail so narrow that they were forced to ride single file. Deep among ancient trees things moved and scurried, just at the limits of Dalla’s vision, until she felt like screaming. Intellectually she knew that they were merely Wildfolk, but the intellect had little place in Evandar’s country. Every twig that caught her hair or brushed her shoulder made her heart race. When she saw the beacon lighting the sky ahead she sighed in such relief that she sobbed aloud.
Evandar turned in his saddle to look back at her.
“How do you fare, my love?”
“Well enough.” Since she hated to show him weakness, she forced out a smile. “It’s a long ride for a dark night.”
“True. But well be there soon.”
He turned back again to guide his horse round the beacon, half the tree blazing, half as green as spring. In an uncertain dawn the army rode out of the forest. By then the river had sunk and dwindled to a white-water stream, cutting a canyon some twenty feet below and to the left of the road. Ahead lay plains, stretching on and on to a horizon where clouds—or was it smoke—billowed like a frozen wa
ve, all bloody red from the bloated sun. Far out in the grasslands this hideous light winked and gleamed on spears and armor. Evandar laughed and held up his hand for the halt. When Dallandra rode up next to him, he grinned at her.
“I sensed him here, waiting. My brother, that is,”
“I assumed that’s who it was.”
Out in the plain, the fox warrior broke ranks and trotted to meet them, but he tucked his helm under one arm and held his spear loosely couched and pointed at the ground. When Evandar called out orders, the Bright Court clattered to a stop behind him and reined their horses up into a rough semicircle by the river. Clad in glittering black helms and mail, their opponents wheeled round to face them, but they kept their distance. The fox warrior pulled off his helm and smiled with the glint of strong white teeth.
“Riding your border, are you?”
“I am,” Evandar said, “and with good cause, it seems, being as I’ve found you here.”
“If you’ll not heal my lands, then someday I just might have to come take yours.”
Evandar tossed his head back and howled with laughter.
“You mean you’d try to take mine. Do you truly think you’d win, young brother of mine?”
The fox warrior snarled with a draw of black lips that showed fang.
“You’d have attacked me long ago,” Evandar went on, “if you’d thought you had a hope of winning.”
“The matter’s not been put to any kind of test, elder brother.” In his mouth the word brother was an insult. “Did I not weave bodies for my folk when you mocked me and said I never could?”
Evandar merely looked him over with a small smile.
“So don’t go puffing yourself up with pride,” the warrior went on, rather too hurriedly for dignity’s sake. “Besides, I came here on another errand, not on a matter of war at all, so you were twice wrong.”
“Indeed?”
“You have a whistle that was stolen from me.”
“I have it, truly, but stolen it was not. I found it upon my lands, and long ago you told me that it belonged to a rebel from your court.”
Days of Blood and Fire Page 14