Bard I (17 page)

‘We promise your enemies will not surprise you as you work.’

‘[ haven’t the time! If nothing else will content you, then I must do without your help.’

‘So? Then I’ll wait here for your enemies and offer it to them. Be still! You can slay me easily, but my pet will remain! He will carry out my last command, and you with all your singer’s skill may not prevent it. Even were you to slay us both, I have advice on my tongue that you would then go ignorant of. It’s advice can save you more time than digging one poor grave will cost. I swear it.’ Felimid laughed aloud. ‘Swear me no oaths. Had you power to set the strong fighting-men of nine kingdoms on my track, and guide them after me with a flight of red-winged eagles, still they would have to catch me!

Keep your advice, and keep your head.’

He rode on his way, leading the sorrel he had taken as spoil from his foes. He hated digging. and couldn’t believe that in any life he’d ever lived he had been a farmer; but he knew that if the hag hadn’t made the mistake of threatening him, he might have dug her grandson’s grave for him. He wondered about the advice she had promised. Ah, well. He’d not have been able to trust it in any case.

The thief who had stolen Kincaid was dead, then, and the sword in other hands. This death was only the first, Felimid knew. Kincaid was a danger and a slaughtering bane to all until returned to hands of the Danann race– to Felimid.

‘Ogma the Champion, couldn’t you simply have died?’ Felimid soliloquised. ‘Did you have to pronounce such a fierce, intemperate curse in your death agony?’

Harsh croakings from the air behind him brought his head around. The witch’s familiar had followed him. Now the bird flapped down, to perch on the saddle of Felimid’s second horse.

‘You did not do well to refuse her,’ said the bird, by way of greeting. ‘She was angry; yea, cursed you without pause till the spittle ran from her mouth and she had to gasp to a halt.’

‘I heard her, all the while I rode away, until I was too far for hearing,’ Felimid agreed. ‘Why are you here, then; to recite me some afterthoughts she has had?’

‘After a fashion. When she saw you were determined, and her rage ran down, she decided it would still be better to help you than not. Who else is likely to avenge her grandson? So she commanded me to follow and obey you in all things, until your search is ended and you regain your sword.’

‘Oh, delightful,’ Felimid said. Wearing a tiny frown, he looked at the insolent black bird, weighing the advantages against the impossibility of trusting him. Even if he spoke unembellished truth, betrayal would be likely after the search was ended and Kincaid regained.

Well . . .

‘Come along, then,’ he said sharply. ‘The gods know I can hardly stop you, short of slaying you, and that I’ll not do without very great provocation. Have you a name?’

‘Brandubh,’ the crow replied, and laughed.

Brandubh meant black raven, but it was also the name of a board game played with dice and counters. Thestakes were often unreasonably high. Men had been killed over games of Brandubh, marriages broken, kingdoms embroiled in war.

Felimid said mildly, ‘I fancy it’s appropriate. Now since your part is to help me find what I’m seeking, you might give me the advice your mistress hinted at; if indeed there was any.’

‘She did not lie. If you ride to the village at the ford of the Ken net, and ask there for the men you seek, you will find traces of them. That is her word.’

‘Traces of them? Maybe. But what of the sword? Will they have it with them still?’

The crow flexed his wings in a way that gave an impression of shrugging. ‘I know not. If she knew, she would not say. Still, you ride for the Kennet to get out of this kingdom, do you not?’

‘True for you,’ Felimid agreed.

He’d have sworn the crow smirked. At any rate. he did not answer. Felimid rode on, with the sun to his right hand. It climbed high, hung at zenith, and began to descend.

At mid-afternoon. Felimid came to the river. He found it an angry yellow surge and the ford impassable. The spirits of the torrent exulted; he glimpsed their shapes and heard them roaring as they whirled by. Mingled with water noise was the rumble of grinding stones as they swept along the bottom.

He took Golden Singer from her bag. She was responsive to his hands as always. He harped a fluid melody like an idle stream dawdling in its bed; the spirits paused in their tumbling race to hear. They let drop their stones and slid by the ford slowly. listening. fighting their fate. Felimid urged the dun into the water. It was no light thing to do; the footing was awkward, and the stream still flowed strongly. Let the dun gelding slip. or the harp-strain cease. and the bellowing torrent would bear all away at once.

The water rose up Felimid’s thighs. Lithe pale undines with hair like yellow foam broke surface. laughing, and called him to play with them in liquid murmurs. They clung to his legs. to the dun’s tail and the following sorrel’s. The horses didn’t like it.

The dun slipped. A cold fist clenched Felimid’s heart. but he never broke the rhythm of his song. or lost a note on the golden-stringed harp. The dun regained its footing.

Bare yards away. the swifter water crested and seethed in conflict with the gentler. Men of the water-folk rumbled there in deeper voices. Felimid wasn’t fooled. The water-women were as untained and wayward and eager to drown as their brothers; more seductive, that was all. They dissolved instead of smashing and tearing.

He rode up the far bank and let the strain die.

The Ken net raced on, brawling. Stones rolled and slid in its depths again. They might have been milling Felimid’s bones.

If those who pursued him did find a way across. It would not be here. They would have to seek far upstream or down. and perhaps they would drown in the attempt for all their seek mg. Felimid hoped no such fate would befall Kyle. He hoped King Agloval would not send him at all.

For the first time. Fell mid really looked at the village. Two poor cottages and a dozen wattle huts were the whole of it. The people had gathered on the bank to watch him cross.

They stood, completely silent, some forty ragged men, women, and children. They had seen magic worked, and it would take little to make them run in terror-or turn them into a red-eyed. rock-throwing mob. Rather than let the silence build. Felimid sated something wholly ordinary.

·My horse has cast a shoe. Does your village boast a smith?’

A child yelled something unpleasant, and reached for a clot of sheep’s dung to throw. His mother caught him in time and dragged him away. cuffing him about the head and shoulders. The rest of the crowd dispersed then. straggling. by ones and threes. One man gave Felimid a sideways, awed look, scratching himself uncertainly. The bard repeated his question.

‘End o’· the row,’ the man said. He hurried away, looking vaguely surprised that. having spoken. he was still a man and not a frog or fish.

Riding between the rows of huts. Felimid saw a few scrawny fowls, but not much else in the way of livestock. A woman milked a tethered ewe behind one of the cottages. There wasn’t a pony in the village, seemingly, and yet the tracks of a horse showed in the mud before the dilapidated smithy.

The smith emerged when Felimid hailed him. A powerful man, bald-headed, with short knock-kneed legs, he had greedy eyes for Prince Justin’s sword-hilt and belt­buckle. Like the other villagers. he was incongruously well-fed for the time of year. and for his squalid surroundings.

‘My horse has lost a shoe.’ Felimid said.

Red-shot eyes priced him, the dun and the sorrel. The smith nodded dourly. ‘If I do the work. will you pay?’

‘I’ll pay you generously,’ Felimid said. ‘if you do the work well.’

‘Hahh!’

Once the forge was glowing and the bellows breathing hard and the smith was well into his work. Felimid judged the time right for a question.

‘Do many strangers make use of the ford?’

‘They come and go,’· the blacksmith grunted. Sweat ran over his skin like a glaze. ·‘Some are honest, some not.’

An opening. and perhaps a kind of test. What if travellers crossing by the ford were now and then betrayed to robbers for a share of the loot. or done in by the villagers themselves if it looked safe?

Felimid said interestedly, ‘Do you tell me?’ Reaching into his wallet for a bit of gold wire. he allowed his cloak to fall open. exposing his side where his shirt was stuck to his ribs with blood. He gave the blacksmith his scrap of gold. ·How’s that for shoeing a horse?’

‘Plenty,’ the blacksmith said vehemently. ‘I will not dare spend it.’

‘I think you will. You mean you will not get its full worth from those you dare let see it. Aye. well. but all men have their worries. I see by the tracks in the mud that another horseman has been here not long since. He may have been a man I wished to meet, or one I wished not to meet at all. What was he like?’

‘Him? A lone warrior with the look of battles lost about him,’ the smith said. handling his tongs. ‘Came from the north, across the downs.’ The hammer rang.

·And?’ Felimid prompted. He Jet his fingers stray near his belt, equally suggestive of more gold, and of the sword.

Eying him, the smith seemed to reach a decision. ‘He met with four men here. Meaner fellows than himself. They’d come from the south. the same way you did. The warrior wanted to pass by the ford, but he couldn’t.’

‘How did the four manage, then?’

‘They used a raft guided by strong ropes. that we keep for when the stream’s in spate and men are desperate. Then they cut it loose so that none might cross after them. Bastards!

‘When the warrior heard it. he was enraged. He fought with the four. One he slew. but then the rest slew him . . . more by luck than courage or skill. but they slew him. Then two of them climbed on his horse and fled. They were so frightened for their own skins they left the other to fend as he might.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘We threw him into the stream so that he drowned. Carried away like a tuft of wool.’ The smith chuckled ghoulishly. ‘We don’t like such things to happen here, and much tabor was lost with the raft and its ropes.’

Felimid’s quick, vivid imagination pictured that, and he was sickened. Better a swift blow by far.

The story might be true. Some other possible truths were in Felimid’s mind, but these he kept to himself. He made no mention of a glimmering blue blade inscribed with silver oghams. It might be hid somewhere in this village. or it might have been wrapped in a bundle so that nobody saw it. He didn’t ask. He’d be fatuous to hope for an honest answer. he knew.

Best to ride out, following the track of the doubly-­mounted horse, and learn what had become of the two thieves remaining. If that led nowhere, he could return and try the village again. In his own way.

‘And the other bodies?’ he asked.

‘Same thing. The Kennel has them.’

Brandubh. hopping back and forth in the smithy’s entrance. gave a disappointed caw.

The dun was shod at last. As Felimid turned to mount it, the smith tried what Felimid had half expected. The hammer swung in a shattering blow meant to splash his brains on the saddle. Felimid shifted his head and shoulder aside, flashed under the dun’s belly and leaped into the saddle from the wrong side. Gripping hard with his knees. he drew Justin’s sword.

The slow-witted smith was just getting ready to strike again when the sword came down. slashing his arm. He dropped the hammer with a bawl. Felimid coolly wiped his blade. sheathed it. caught the sorrel’s leading-rein and departed.

Treachery fester. and friendship rots hollow.

Men die for nothing and think it’s for all;

The sword goes before and the hungry birds follow,

To blandly keep tryst with the dead where they fall.

Wives become widows and groan in their sorrow,

Straight paths are twisted and honest words pall.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Seeking of Kincaid

B
EYOND
THE
K
ENNET
LAY
PATCHES
OF
GREENING
OAK
-
WOOD
, and then the chalk downs like a swelling sea. The bare rounded crests were deep in resilient turf, and the droving tracks of ancient men ran over the ridges. The wide vales between were forested with beech, yew and linden. The horse that carried two masterless rogues (and perhaps the sword Kincaid) followed the high ground as it moved north. Felimid thought the riders were fools.

To murder a man. make away with his horse. and then travel in the very direction from which he’d come. was not clever.

The White Horse Hills stretched away on Felimid’s left. He remembered. as he’d never forget. the day he’d fought with Count Artorius’s lightly mounted auxiliaries at Badon. Men of the downs had been there. too. not caring much for the fate of Britain for the most part. hut much resenting the invasion of their own territory by marching Saxons.

They were odds and rag-ends of several tribes. The Downsmen. They lived in clans under their various chiefs. had a normal king they chose for life. claimed descent from the ancient Iceni and worshipped the horse-goddess Epona. They regarded the wild horses that roamed the downs as their brothers and sisters. And believed they might be reborn in the form of a horse, or their horses reborn in human shape: and the hard himself, after his sojourn with Myfanwy, saw nothing unlikely about it.

He was more skeptical of the Downsmen’s descent.

He knew how thoroughly the general Suetomus had destroyed the Iceni after Boudicca· war with Rome. He’d at least a vague idea of how long ago it had all been. And because he was a bard. the fabrication of splendid thumping lies a part of his trade. he knew that every people’s favorite game is making up fine origins for itself. He didn’t think he’d have much to fear from Downsmen. if he met any They’d welcome him.

When he came to the scene of the scuffle. he knew the thought of meeting Downsmen had entered someone else’s head.