The Shadow Isle

by Katharine Kerr

“I know that. I’m not stupid enough to link up with them.”

  “You might not recognize who they were at first, not until it was too late to get out.”

  Neb crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

  “Be that as it may,” Salamander continued, “there’s this little matter of the gwerbretal malover. It’s not just some tale I made up to impress that tavernman. If you run away before you give your evidence, his grace will send out messengers to his peers, branding you as a criminal. The branding could become a reality, not a mere metaphor, if they catch you.”

  Neb looked sharply away. “I didn’t realize that.”

  “I thought perhaps you didn’t. And what about Branna? You’re a married man. Now, a fair many married men have decided they made a grave mistake, and thus have taken themselves away from their wife’s bed and ken, but they’ve not sworn the vows you have.”

  Neb turned half-away and blushed scarlet. Salamander realized that he’d scored a sharper hit than he’d intended. He waited, but Neb said nothing. “As well as all that,” Salamander went on, “wouldn’t you miss her?”

  “I’d get over it.” Neb spoke so softly that it was hard to hear him. “I’m a man. Love is for women.”

  “Ah, so now you’re the hardened and hardhearted warrior type, eh?” Salamander rolled his eyes heavenward.

  “Oh, hold your tongue!” Neb raised his voice, but it shook with barely-suppressed tears. “Very well, I would miss her. A lot. That’s why I didn’t just leave the Westlands this spring.”

  “And are you still thinking of leaving now?”

  “I’m not. I won’t go anywhere. Let’s go back to the gwerbret’s blasted dun.”

  “Will you promise me you won’t try to bolt again?”

  Neb hesitated for so long that Salamander began to fear he’d lost him, but finally Neb nodded his agreement. “I promise,” Neb said finally. “You’re right about being a witness at the malover.”

  “You know, if things trouble you, you can always talk them out with me.”

  “My thanks.” Neb looked down at the ground, then kicked a pebble so hard that it sailed for some yards across the cropped grass. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

  From his seat at the honor table, Gerran kept a watch for Neb. He finally saw him when the scribe, his arms full of blankets and saddlebags, followed Salamander and Lord Oth into the great hall. Oth conferred with one of the pages and sent him and Neb both up the staircase, doubtless to find Neb a chamber. This time, Gerran noticed, Salamander sat down at one of the riders’ tables rather than ranking himself among the lords. Oth hurried over to the table of honor to stand beside the gwerbret. Gerran rose and greeted him with a bow, which Oth returned.

  “I hear you’ve brought coin from Tieryn Cadryc,” Oth said.

  “I have,” Gerran said. “It’s the last scot from the Red Wolf.”

  “Well and good, then. It will gladden my heart to see that matter tidied away.”

  Gerran had been carrying the money in a small pouch tucked inside his shirt. He took it out and handed it to Oth, who clasped it tight in one bony hand.

  “No need to count it, I’m sure,” Oth said.

  With Branna’s odd warning very much in his mind, it occurred to Gerran how easy it would be for a servitor to pocket one of the coins, then claim a mistake had been made in order to extort another from the person paying a debt.

  “No need, but it would be best if you did,” Gerran said, as blandly as possible. “Tieryn Cadryc asked me to make sure it got counted in front of his grace. He was afraid he might have made a mistake in the amount.” Gerran glanced at the gwerbret, then at the prince. “He thinks highly of you both, Your Highness and Your Grace, and he wants this done right.” He looked at Oth and smiled. “It would ache his heart if the prince and the gwerbret thought him miserly.”

  Ridvar and Daralanteriel nodded their agreement. Oth smiled, but his eyes had narrowed in some odd fit of feeling. He had trouble looking Gerran in the face and bowed again to cover his reluctance. What’s this? Gerran thought. Shame, mayhap? Fear? It’s not, but rage!

  Oth opened the pouch and spread the coins out on the table. “All in order, my lords,” he announced with a brittle sort of cheer. “I’ll just take this up to the treasury.”

  Gerran sat down next to Mirryn and watched Oth scoop up the coins and transfer them back to the pouch. The old man bowed to the gwerbret, then hurried away.

  Although he kept watch for the chamberlain, Gerran saw no sign of him all that afternoon. At dinner, Lord Oth did appear, but he headed up a table of servitors far from the table of honor. Salamander and Neb took places with the men of Mirryn’s escort on the far side of the great hall. When the food was about to be served, Lady Drwmigga came to the honor table to sit at her lord’s left hand, opposite Prince Dar. With her came the young blonde woman, whose name, Drwmigga announced, was Lady Egriffa.

  “My lord Mirryn?” Drwmigga said. “If you’d not mind, may Egriffa share your trencher?”

  “I’d be honored, my lady,” Mirryn said.

  Egriffa smiled and sat down next to him. She was a pleasant-looking lass, with pale hair, big blue eyes, and a small but full-lipped mouth. Unfortunately, she seemed to lack an intellect. Every time Mirryn spoke to her, she answered as briefly as possible, then giggled at some length. Now and then she would lay her fingertips upon her lips as if stuffing the giggle back in. Mirryn said less and less as the meal went on. When the ladies left the table and went up to their hall, Mirryn sighed in deep relief.

  “You’re not going to marry that, are you?” Gerran said.

  “Pray to every god I don’t.” Mirryn grabbed his goblet of mead from the table and drank off a long swallow. “I don’t care who her kin may be. I’m cursed glad now that I told Oth I’d camp with my men. This way I won’t have to face her with my breakfast.”

  As soon as he decently could, Mirryn left the table with the excuse of making sure his men fared well. Gerran accompanied him out to the gates of the dun. Carrying a candle lantern, Salamander joined them. In a pool of dappled light they stood just out of the hearing of the night gatekeeper.

  “What’s all this with Neb?” Gerran said. “Or can you tell me?”

  “I promised him I’d keep most of this in confidence,” Salamander said. “Let’s just say he’s generally unhappy with his lack of progress in his apprenticeship.”

  “I still don’t understand why he’d go off on his own.”

  “I think he may have been entertaining the idea of finding another master of his craft.”

  “Indeed?” Mirryn put in. “That’s a serious thing, isn’t it? The scribes’ guild must have rules and suchlike against it.”

  “It most assuredly does,” Salamander said. “I truly shouldn’t tell you much more than that.”

  “We won’t pry, don’t worry,” Gerran said. “Do you think he’ll bolt again?”

  “I doubt it. If he does, Clae’s promised to come tell me. He’ll be sharing a bed with his brother during this stay. Oth’s put them in the broch itself, not in the servants’ quarters out by the barracks, thanks to Neb being a witness against Govvin. Which reminds me, Gerro. Why did you ask me to hold my tongue around Oth?”

  “Because Branna told me to stay on guard when it comes to him. I’ll be bringing the matter of Solla’s inheritance to Prince Voran, not to the gwerbret.”

  “I see. It’s usually a good idea to listen when Branna delivers one of her pronouncements. They may sound daft, mad, or just plain confused, but they contain truths.” Salamander yawned and shook his head. “Well, I’d best get off to bed, and doubtless you both want to do the same.”

  “I’ll admit to being tired.” Gerran glanced at Mirryn. “What about you?”

  Mirryn hesitated, appeared to be thinking something through, then shrugged. “I’d best leave before the city guards shut the gates.”

  Mirryn strode off downhill to join the encampment outside the city walls, while Salama
nder headed off to the barracks. Gerran went back inside to drink with the prince and the gwerbret as courtesy demanded.

  "So,” Neb said. "It gladdens my heart that we’ll get to spend a bit more time with each other while we’re here.”

  "Mine, too,” Clae said. “It was decent of Oth to let me stay in the broch with you.” He glanced around the bedchamber. “It’s so quiet here, though, not like the barracks.”

  “Think you’ll be able to sleep without all that snoring?”

  “Oh, no doubt.” Clae grinned at him. “Being a page tires you out, what with my lord’s horses to tend and all that.”

  They lay awake for some time that night, sharing a bed as they always had in their father’s house. Clae talked about the things he’d done and learned during the winter; Neb told him details of how the Westfolk lived and avoided the subject of his own experiences. Soon enough Clae fell asleep, but tired though he was, Neb stayed awake with humiliation for a bitter companion.

  The worst of it, he decided, was the way Salamander had guessed exactly what he was going to do—ride away from his master and his wife both and try to find another master of dweomer to take him on. He’d brought his supply of herbs along to sell in order to get the coin for his journey. Now, he supposed, he needn’t have bothered, since that chattering fool had found him out.

  Salamander’s remark about colts eaten by wolves stung most of all. I know all about dark dweomer, Neb thought. The last thing I’d ever do is join up with that lot of deformed scum! He was sure that he knew a great deal more about many things than either Salamander or Dallandra gave him credit for. Over the winter he’d meditated upon the correct symbols to open the treasure-house of images. Hard work, but he’d remembered more and more of Nevyn’s long life, the dweomer knowledge he’d had, the power he’d commanded, all of it out of Neb’s reach but easily in sight.

  Those cursed women! It was no wonder, he reflected, that Branna was learning so much so easily while he stumbled along behind. Dallandra and Grallezar, even Valandario, favored her shamelessly— or so he believed. And then, of course, there were her dreams, filled with memories and lore. Although she denied it, Neb was convinced that Branna looked down on him because he’d had to work so hard to retrieve his own past life from the astral while her knowledge came effortlessly.

  Round and round his mind went, rehearsing grievances. Who am I? he wondered. Nevyn was the Master of the Aethyr—why can’t I have the same position? He knew full well that he’d have to work to regain such exalted powers, but somehow he’d not expected the work to take so long. Branna remembered Jill so clearly, and she seemed to him to be speeding through her apprenticeship whilst he dragged along behind. It’s not fair!

  Even his meditations upon Nevyn’s life fell short, in Neb’s opinion. He would try to recover some bit of dweomerlore only to feel his mind wandering off to other things, mostly images of herbs, blooming along roadways, or of sick children, drinking out of a cup as Nevyn held it for them. Memories of warriors, cut and bleeding, disrupted his attempts to call upon the Lords of the Wildlands as once Nevyn had done. Every now and then he considered stopping his study of the healer’s craft. Maybe then those intrusive memories would die away. But every time he stopped, some question would nag at him until he took it up again.

  The herbcraft would come in handy, he supposed, when he left the Westfolk. Eventually he’d make his escape. He would simply take Branna with him. He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to leave, except that it annoyed him to see Branna so at home among these alien lives, while he struggled on behind, trying to learn Elvish as fast as she—

  “Oh, stop it!” he whispered aloud. “You’re being stupid!”

  He heard the dun’s watchmen calling out the mid-mark of the night before he finally fell asleep, only to dream of finding Brangwen’s dead body on the river sand, sodden, wide-eyed but unseeing, her deathly-pale skin touched by the rising sun. In the dream he heard Rhegor’s voice once again, saying, “You failed her, lad.”

  Neb woke covered in cold sweat to find the room bright with sunlight and Clae gone. He sat up and perched on the edge of the high bed to run his hands through his sweaty hair.

  “You can’t leave her,” he said aloud. “A vow’s a vow.”

  As he thought about Branna, it seemed to him that he could see her, standing in the women’s hall in a pair of woad-blue dresses, her hair swept back in a flowered scarf. His thought formed without his willing it: I love you, Branni. Her thought floated back to him: I love you, too, but you shouldn’t be doing this working without Dalla’s permission. Neb jumped to his feet and growled, a sound so like a dog that it startled him. Stupid wretched females! His yellow gnome materialized, took one good look at him, then vanished again. In a foul mood Neb dressed, then went downstairs to find some breakfast, growling to himself all the way.

  With no dreams that troubled him, Gerran slept till a few hours after dawn. He lay in bed, yawning, and was just considering getting up when someone knocked on his chamber door. Clae darted in without waiting to be asked.

  “My lord?” Clae said. “There’s a silver dagger down at the gates.”

  “Indeed?” Gerran said. “What—”

  “The gatekeeper wasn’t even going to let him in, but I told him to wait just outside for a while. We don’t have anyone in our warband, and so I thought—”

  “Right you are! I’ll get dressed and go down. Tell him to keep waiting.”

  The silver dagger turned out to be a tall fellow with broad shoulders and the long arms of a swordsman. Under a thatch of dirty brown hair his face was hollow-cheeked and touched with a certain paleness about the mouth. He revealed no emotion whatsoever when Gerran allowed him inside the walls for a chat. His horse, a chestnut gelding, looked well cared for, with healthy legs and hooves. As the silver dagger knelt before him, Gerran had the odd feeling he’d seen him before, but he couldn’t place where.

  “What brings you out here to Arcodd?” Gerran said.

  “Horsekin, my lord,” the silver dagger said. “I heard about last summer’s fighting and figured there might be a hire for me.”

  “You’re right enough, but I can’t pay you much beyond your keep.”

  “If we don’t see any fighting, my keep will be pay enough. If we do, you can decide what I’m worth then.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

  “A while.” His pale mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. “I spent my last copper on oats for my mount. We ran out of those last night.”

  “Well, I might have a hire for you, I might not, but I can stand you a meal at least.”

  “My thanks, my lord.” This time he did smile. “May I ask your lordship’s name?”

  “Gerran of the Gold Falcon. And you are?”

  “Nicedd, my lord, from Pren Cludan, over in Cerrgonney.” He scrambled up and busied himself with brushing the dirt off the knees of his brigga. “I’d beg you not to ask me why I left it.”

  “I don’t go prying into silver daggers’ personal affairs.” Gerran glanced around and found Clae waiting nearby. “Take this lad down to the encampment,” he said to the page, “and ask Lord Mirryn to feed him and his horse both and keep him in the warband. Who knows? We might have a hire for him eventually.”

  “Done, my lord.” Clae turned to the silver dagger. “I’ll ride behind you on the way down.”

  As they mounted up, Gerran noticed that the saddlebags at the saddle’s pommel had once borne a leather blazon. Nicedd had taken off the patch, but its shadow remained, dark against the faded leather of the bags themselves, the outline of a wolf. He’d once ridden for some distant relation of Tieryn Cadryc’s, then, a member of the ancient and conjoint clan of the Wolves, white and red.

  Gerran returned to the great hall and the table of honor. As he was sitting down, Salamander trotted over to join him.

  “Where’s Prince Dar?” Gerran said.

  “Off in the stables with our host the gwerbre
t,” Salamander said. “I gather that discussing horses is somewhat of a ritual among the noble-born.”

  “It is, truly.” Gerran glanced around. “What about our scribe?”

  “He seemed much subdued this morning at breakfast. I think me he’s thought better of the various follies that he stood on the brink of committing.”

  “Good. You know, I’d forgotten that Mirryn doesn’t know about Neb’s real craft.”

  “I had, too. Well, he assumed we were talking about a scribal guild, so all is well.”

  “Just so. Once Prince Voran gets himself here, Neb will have his testimony against Govvin to keep him busy. Has Ridvar summoned the priests yet, or do you know?”

  “I generally know what there is to know.” Salamander paused for a grin. “Because the dun’s lasses generally have overheard it and then tell me. His grace has sent two summons. The first Govvin ignored. The second he answered, saying he might well come here to deliver his opinion on the matter, if the omens were favorable or some such thing. So we’re waiting for him to arrive, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that we’re waiting to see if he arrives. ”

  “It all boils down to waiting,” Gerran said.

  “True spoken. I take it that vexes you?”

  “It does. If the old man doesn’t get himself here soon, I say we ride out and fetch him, priest or not. He didn’t strike me as particularly holy.”

  “Me, either, and indeed, fetching him is exactly what we might do, once Voran gets here.” Salamander paused, glancing around the great hall. “Speaking of annoyances, have you seen Neb just now?”

  “I have. He was going into one of the side brochs. When I hailed him, he said he wanted to talk with one of the chirurgeons.”

  “I hope he’s not unwell. I’ll go look for him.” With a wave Salamander strode off.

  Gerran watched him go, then accepted a bowl of porridge from a hovering servant lass. He reminded himself that even though he hated sitting around doing nothing, he had no choice in the matter.

  Raddyn, the head chirurgeon of Dun Cengarn, was a stick-thin man with several day’s growth of gray beard and narrow dark eyes. He lived in a chamber high up in one of the slender towers that nestled next to the main broch of Dun Cengarn. Apparently he was unmarried, because a narrow bed, a stool, a square table, and a vast amount of clutter made up its furnishings. Raddyn fished and rummaged among the heaps of dirty clothes, candle ends, and small bags of unrecognizable things until he found the leather-bound book, as long as Neb’s forearm and reeking of mold.