“It is, and a present from Prince Dar himself. He says you’ve a fair hand with it.”
“Only fair, I’m afraid, but if we’re going to have shape-changers flapping round us, better to arm me than give us no archer at all.”
Rhodry laid the bundle on the table and began to unwrap it, whistling a little at the sight of the painted doeskin quiver and the golden buckles on its baldric. He laid that to one side, flipped the cloth one more time, and freed the unstrung bow itself, a graceful curve like the ridge of a man’s eyebrows, and made of two kinds of wood and horn, trimmed with silver round the handgrip. As he ran one finger along it, his eyes filled with tears.
“Dar’s sent me his own bow,” he said. “Now that’s an honor I never thought to have.”
“Well, it seems the least he can do. It’s his lady you’re risking your life for.”
“Jill, ye gods! You have a way pf taking the bloom off a fine gesture, I must say.”
“It comes from having been born a silver dagger’s bastard.”
“Well, no doubt. Now that I’ve spent many a long year at the bottom of things, as I’d suppose you’d call it, I begin to see your point. But still.” He ran a loving hand along the bow’s shaft. “I appreciate this stick of wood. Tell my prince that I’m honored.”
“I will, then.”
They hesitated, looking at each other in the bizarrely colored light.
“This is farewell, isn’t it?” Rhodry said. “Think we’ll ever see each other again?”
“I hope so. If we don’t, somewhat will have gone badly wrong for one or the other of us.”
“That’s what I fear, sure enough. Ah, well, if my lady Death snatches me away from you, it’ll only be retribution for the way the dweomer took you from me, all those years ago.
“Rhodry, I had to go.”
“Do you want to know a strange thing? I see that now. Now. All these years later.” He smiled briefly. “Do young men ever see the truth of their women’s lives? I doubt it, I doubt if they can, I doubt if we could and go on being the men our fathers and our king expect us to be, truly. But now, well, I don’t remember how many years I’ve lived, but it’s getting close to four score, isn’t it? Must be by now, if not more. And I do see things a bit more clearly.” He turned away and busied himself with wrapping the bow back up. “I just wanted you to know that. I don’t know why.”
“My thanks. It means a great deal to me, a very great deal indeed. It’s ached my heart, all these years, knowing you’d never forgiven me for riding away with Nevyn.”
He shrugged and tucked the last corner of cloth round the quiver, as lovingly as a mother swaddling her baby.
“One last thing,” he said. “Do you remember when you came to fetch me from Aberwyn?”
“I do.”
“I’d hoped that we could ride together again.”
“I knew it.”
“You were cold enough to me, cold as a winter storm.”
“I had to be, you dolt!”
“Your Wyrd again?”
“Not mine; yours. You no more belong to me than I do to you, but I knew that you’d never listen to simple reason. You had to find a new road, Rhodry. I honestly thought you could live in peace out on the grasslands, find a new love, no doubt, and a new life. I never dreamt that the dweomer had its claws in you so deep.”
He spun round, startled.
“So.” He managed a grin. “You dweomermasters don’t know everything there is to know, do you?”
“Of course not. If we did, you and I and Carra and everyone else wouldn’t be in this wretched mess now.”
He laughed his berserker’s howl, and hearing him sound so daft ached her heart. As if he’d picked up her change of mood he choked the laugh off. For a moment they looked at each other in a silence that rang loud.
“But, Jill,” he said at last, “if the worst happens, remember how I loved you, will you?”
“Always, Rhodry. And remember that before my Wyrd tore me away, I loved you.”
She turned on her heel and hurried out pf the chamber, headed for the door and fast, because for the first time in some forty years, she was afraid that she would weep. As she walked back to the dun, she was remembering the hideous omen of a few days past, when she’d seen lib Wyrd devour him. No one, not dweomermaster nor king nor priest, can turn a man’s Wyrd aside, but Jill vowed that night that if ever she could undo Rhodry’s fate after it had come upon him, she would risk whatever needed risking to do so.
Just at dawn Yraen woke up in the barracks to gray light, falling in squares through unshuttered windows. For a moment he lay awake, hands under his head, and listened to the sounds of other men sleeping in long rows, a noise that had become familiar, a mark of the only home he had left, during the four years since he’d left his father’s holdings and ridden off to become a silver dagger. Out of long habit he turned his head to see if Rhodry was awake, but the bunk next to his was of course empty. Bastard, he thought. I’m going to miss him. He lay still a moment longer, then rolled out of bed, dressed, and, cradling his sword belt against his chest to keep it from jingling, crept out before he woke anyone.
Out in the ward he paused, buckling on the heavy belt, sword to the left, silver dagger to the right. It was hot that morning, with a sweep of mackerel clouds across the sky that promised coming rain. As he headed for the gates, the wind picked up, sighing across the ward in a rustle of thatch and a banging of shutters. Spring had turned into full summer. The days were growing longer and longer, and he’d heard the servants talking about the first harvest of winter wheat and short hay. If you had to send someone off on a fool’s errand, it was as good a time as you were going to get, he supposed. At the gates a sleepy guard greeted him with a yawn.
“Where are you off to so early?”
“Oh, Rhodry’s leaving town today. He owes me money.”
“Better get it while you can, then.”
Yraen smiled and strode on, wondering why he’d lied, why he had to pretend to some cold reason for saying farewell to a friend. All round him the town was just coming awake, with much banging of shutters and the smell of newly lit fires. He walked down the middle of the streets, ready to dodge slops as he made his now-familiar way to the dwarven inn. In the brightening light Rhodry stood outside, yawning and leaning against die stonework round the open door. He was wearing a strange pair of boots, cut from sheepskin with the fleece inside and bound to his ankles with strips of dirty cloth, like a peasant would wear, a strange contrast to the gold-trimmed baldric across his chest and the painted quiver slung at his hip. Leaning next to him was a big peddler’s pack—stiff canvas sacks and a bedroll, lashed to a wooden frame—and beside that a curved elven hunting bow, loose-strung for carrying. When he saw Yraen he grinned and strode over to meet him.
“You’re up early,” Rhodry said.
“So everyone tells me. Ye gods, you look like a cursed woodcutter!”
“At least do me die honor of calling me a gamekeeper.” Rhodry patted the quiver. “Please note the drinking cup at my belt, and the ax hanging from the pack. Our generous Otho has hung me with trinkets, all suitable to my new life as a creature of wood and heath.”
“Imph. Where are the Mountain Folk?”
“Squabbling inside. I’m cursed glad Garin’s coming with us. He’s the only one Otho’ll listen to.”
“And what are they fighting about?”
“I wouldn’t know. They’re talking in their own tongue.” Rhodry paused for a laugh, but mercifully just a normal one. “This is going to be a journey fit for a bard to stag about, Yraen my friend. The question is, will it be a noble tale or a satire on men’s folly?”
Yraen tried to think of some jest and failed. Rhodry grinned, looking away toward the east, glancing up as if he were watching the sun brighten on the town wall.
“Are you supposed to carry that thing, by the by?” Yraen pointed to the peddler’s pack.
“I am, and so I will” Rhodry looked at
it with grave doubt. “Well, it’s going to be the strangest road I’ve ever traveled, but who knows? Maybe it’ll lead me at last to the bed of my one true love, my lady Death.”
“Will you hold your ugly tongue?” Yraen realized that he’d shouted and reined in his voice as he went on. “I’m sick as a man can be of you indulging that wretched daft fancy.”
“It’s not daft. She’ll have us all in the end, she will.”
Again, Yraen found that he had nothing to say. Suddenly solemn, Rhodry turned to him.
“My apologies. Keep yourself safe, will you?”
“I’ll do my best. And the same to you, you berserk bastard.”
Rhodry smiled briefly. There was, Yraen decided, nothing more to say. With a wave he turned and headed back, walking fast for the dun.
By the time he got back to the ward, the sunlight had topped the walls. Outside the barracks, the men of the war-band were up and moving round, some ducking their faces in the water of the horse trough, others standing in a clot near the privies, a few straggling toward the great hall and breakfast.
“Yraen!” Draudd called out. “Jill was out here looking for you. Better be careful, lad. She’ll be putting the evil eye on you or suchlike.”
“Oh, hold your ugly tongue! Does she want to see me?”
“She does and right away. She’d be in the great hall, she said.”
When Yraen walked into the hall, he saw Jill sitting at the table of honor. Since the gwerbret and his lady were also there, he hesitated, wondering if he should approach, but Jill saw him and hailed him, waving him over. With a bow to the gwerbret he knelt beside her.
“Yraen, I’ve a task for you,” Jill said. “I want to put a guard near Prince Daralanteriel’s chamber. The chamberlain tells me that right next to it is a little room, for a servant, like, where you can sleep from now on. You’ll be right at hand if there’s trouble. And then, during the day, I want you to keep a watch on Princess Carramaena whenever she’s not in the women’s hall or with her husband.”
Yraen felt as if she’d slapped him across the face. He wanted to scream at her and tell that he was the worst man in the world for this duty, but how was he going to explain that being near the princess was a dagger in his heart, that he’d been fool enough to fall in love with a married woman? Jill hesitated, considering him with her piercing blue stare.
“What’s wrong?”
Nearby the gwerbret and Labanna had paused, as if to listen.
“Naught,” Yraen said. “It’s just—ah, it’s naught. I’ve just been saying farewell to Rhodry, that’s all, and wondering if ever I’ll see him again.”
“I see. I’d love to ease your mind, but frankly, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. These aren’t the best of times, Yraen, which is why I need a guard over the princess. You’re as courtly as any man in the dun, after all, and I know I can trust you.”
“My thanks” He swallowed hard. “I’ll do my best to deserve your trust.”
“Good. There’s the chamberlain now. Go get your gear from the barracks, and we’ll get you moved over to the broch.”
Yraen rose, bowed again to his grace, and hurried off. He felt much as he had when he’d once been wounded in battle, a stunned disbelief that such could be happening to him, a cold shock that had left him feeling light-headed, as if he were going to drift into the sky. When he’d been wounded, however, the pain had started right after, giving him something to fight against, to focus upon and use to pull himself together and ride to safety. Now he had nothing to fall back on but his honor, a tarnished commodity, a dull blade indeed after so many years on the long road, and there was no safety, none, from the treachery of his heart. As he was cursing Jill and his luck both, Carra came down the staircase with her maid and a page hurrying after. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, just from a hunger like fire.
When Dallandra woke again, she found herself trapped in a cage. For a moment she lay still, staring in disbelief at the view round her. Not only was she penned in a cubical cage made of branches lashed together, but this entire rickety structure was hanging from the limb of an enormous leafy tree. She could see it quite clearly through the slatted roof, an arch of branch, a canopy of leaves. Automatically she laid her hand on her throat and found the amethyst figurine still safe and present. When she sat up, aching in every muscle and tendon, the cage swayed. She grabbed the nearest bar and steadied herself while she looked round. Not far away hung another cage, made of the same roughly trimmed branches, confining the young page, who was sitting all curled up with his head on his knees and his arms round his head, as if he were trying to make the world go away by pretending it didn’t exist.
She looked down, through cracks between the tightly lashed branches of the floor, and saw a rough sort of camp on the bare ground below and off to one side. Apparently her tree stood at the edge of a clearing. In the middle round a fire sat Evandar’s brother and some six of his men—well, six of his followers, all of them as much animal as man, the wolf warrior with his long snout, the bears with their huge clubs of paws at the ends of human arms, another vulpine creature with a roach of hair like his leader’s but purple elven eyes, a fellow with a human head but a bloated, misshapen body. They’d laid aside their armor and were dressed only in tunics of green cloth, bound at the waist with weapon belts, and low leather boots, so she could see the variegated far they sprouted and sported on their legs and thighs. Nearby sat a being that Dallandra recognized. Hunchbacked and bald, he clutched a long staff, wound with ribands, that lay across his lap. His face was grotesquely distorted, all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck,
“Good herald!” Dallandra called out. “Tell your lord that his prisoners require water.”
All of the men jumped and swore, slewing round to look up at her. Leaning on the staff, die herald hauled himself to his feet. The folds of flesh round his neck swung and rustled like dead leaves in a wind.
“My lord,” he said, and his voice creaked and rustled as well. “Well-treated prisoners make for a better bargain in the end,”
The fox warrior grunted, considering, then snapped his fingers in a clear imitation of Evandar’s gestures. At his command a bronze flagon appeared, but it was all lumpy and distorted, as if the mold had been carved by the rawest apprentice at the smithy.
“Haul them down,” he said to one of the bearlike figures. “Her first.”
The rope suspending the cage turned out to be lashed round the trunk of the tree. Growling and sweating the ursine fellow untied the knot, picking at it with clumsy claws, then reeled her down fast. When the cage smacked into the ground, and Dallandra yelped and grabbed the bars to save herself a fall, the warriors screeched and cackled.
“Oh, she’s a fair one.” The ursine fellow shoved his stinking face close to the bars. His lips and nose were human under a dusting of brown far, but his black eyes were tiny and seemingly lidless. “Can we have her, my lord? Can we take her out and pass her round like wine? She’d be sweet, my lord, to soothe a man’s itching with.”
Dallandra spat full into his face. When he snarled and swatted at the cage, the fox warrior grabbed his arm, hauled him round, and threw him down onto the ground, where he howled curses until his lord kicked him in the head.
“Why would Evandar bargain for a broken thing?” the fox warrior snapped. “Leave her alone! Do you hear me? If I find anyone’s meddled with her, or with the page either, then I’ll kill him. We want them whole and pretty for our bargaining.”
Moving sideways, keeping his lord’s temper always in view, the herald sidled up to the cage and passed the misshapen flagon through the bars.
“Keep it,” the fox warrior snapped. “I’ll make another for the lad. Huh, I can match your fine Evandar, I can, and call things from the air and weave them from the light, just as he can. Haul her up, and bring the page down.”
Dallandra clutched the flagon to her chest to keep it from spilling as the cage
made its jerky way back up. Once it had stopped swaying, she drank in greedy swallows. They hauled the boy’s cage down the same way, handed him in a flagon of water of his own, but at the fox warrior’s order they left his sitting on the ground.
“You! Elven witch!” The, warrior strolled under her cage. “The lad stays down here, closer to me than to you. One hint of your wretched magicks, and I’ll haul him out and torture him to death right in front of you. Do you hear me?”
The boy burst out sobbing and screaming. The wolflike creature stuck a paw through the bars, grabbed him by the hair, and shook hard, which made him scream the more.
“Leave him alone!” Dallandra yelled. “I’ll do what your leader says.”
The wolf-thing threw the boy to the floor, but he did stroll away and let him be. When the fox warrior joined the others at their fire, Dallandra sat down on die floor of her cage and tried to think. How long had she teen lying unconscious, first from the return to her normal size, then in her faint? She had no idea, none. She couldn’t even begin to guess how much time had passed on the physical plane since she’d left Jill She rose to her knees, then wedged the flagon between two branches so that it wouldn’t spill.
“Herald!” she called out. “Has my lord Evandar been notified of this outrage?’
The old man trotted closer, looking up with pink and rheumy eyes.
“I’ve not been sent to him, my lady,” he said. “My lord believes that he should find us.”
“In other words you’ve set a trap for him.”
The herald moaned, wringing his long and clawlike hands together.
“Get over here!” the fox warrior called out. “You’ve naught to say to her.”
Bowing, cringing, moaning under his breath, the ancient creature scurried away, but as he did so he shot a glance back Dallandra’s way that she could only call apologetic. She crouched in the middle of the cage floor, to keep the structure balanced and level. She wondered if Evandar would realize that she’d been taken by his enemies or if, when he found her gone, he would simply assume that she’d gone to help Jill. Perhaps the night princess would remember that she’d seen her and tell him so? Dallandra doubted very much that one of Evandar’s folk was conscious enough for putting a memory together with a present danger and drawing a conclusion. She could only hope that his brother’s ugly crew had left some clue behind them. Otherwise, she might rot there, bait in an unsprung trap, for aeons as men and elves measure Time.
Days of Blood and Fire Page 26