Bard I (23 page)

Deceit persuades one his poor hopes to advance,

But he clings for his life to a floating down-feather

Who thinks himself master of all that may chance.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Seeking of Kincaid

K
YLE
SAW
AND
HEARD
B
ESDATH
’
S
RANTING
OUTBURST
, witnessed it from beyond the firelight, in a position of undignified bondage. Some of Oban’s younger men had gone unnecessarily far in making sure he shouldn’t escape. They had forced him to sit against the wheel of an ox-cart and lashed his arms to the horizontal spokes. It hadn’t been done without violent protest on Kyle’s part. He was somewhat torn and bloody. So were the young men who had left him there.

Kyle sat and seethed. He had to concede it was an efficient way of binding a man. He couldn’t reach the knots with fingers or teeth, no matter how he wriggled. He could only call to Oban the Strong later, and protest this outrage. As for Felimid . . . Kyle, the proud, stylish horse-lord, ground his teeth. It did not occur to him that his position was funny.

When Besdath brayed his accusations, Kyle lifted his head with too sudden an interest, and banged it on the wheel’s jutting hub. He sucked air through his teeth. Teary water blurred his sight. He didn’t hear the quarrel between Felimid and Besdath word for word, but caught the gist of it, and wagged his aching head. He couldn’t tell whether this was to the bard’s advantage or against it.

Belike Felimid doesn’t know either, he thought sourly. If it suited him, he’d rehearse a dozen reasons why it’s no less than a gift from heaven; and were he moved the other way, he’d find a dozen to prove it’s a stumbling-block. Yes, and they’d all be convincing . . .

Rot him! His facile tongue can make you believe black’s white, and when he has you armed and set to fight the man who dares claim black is black, he can turn and bring you to the firm conviction that it’s green. And maybe share it.

Kyle was irked. Perhaps it suited him to believe the tongue that had jollied him into this ridiculous position had greater than human powers-after all, his other choice was to berate himself for being gullible.

‘Horse-lord!’

The whisper came from behind Kyle’s back. Although he half turned his head, he could see nothing; the speaker had crawled under the cart to address him, and now crouched in the darkness between the wheels. Kyle’s discontent vanished.

‘Turn your head back!’ hissed the unseen man. ‘Don’t look, but listen . . . what if I cut you free? What would you do then?’

Aha!

‘What could I do? You mock me.’

‘No. You could not do much, it’s true-unless you had help. You came to capture the bard?’

‘To take him back for royal justice, yes.’

‘And that’s unlikely now,’ the whisper said. ‘Suppose he were dead, and you could tell King Agloval so? Would it satisfy him?’

‘I think it would. But how? The man’s very much alive at present. Even if you cut me free, whoever you are, and I then slew him, I’d never leave this dun except as food for ravens.’

‘I’ll see to his death. There’ll be great uproar and confusion. I promise that. If you cannot take your king’s horses and escape while the dun hisses and smokes like an overturned cauldron . . .’

The whispering voice left the rest unsaid. But it implied that if Kyle couldn’t do this thing, he must be very poor in resource.

‘If they’re saddled ready. it will be easy,’ Kyle said in the barest murmur. ‘If they’re not, it will be impossible.’

‘I’ll take care that they are. Now, what do you say? The bard dies, you escape and return to Calleva-town and your king doesn’t have to ransom you. That should be worth a rich reward, eh? Swear it! I’ll be well paid, and I may live in Calleva-town a free man, no matter what I may have done before tonight!’

‘That I promise.’ Kyle said unhesitatingly. ‘Come to Calleva, and it will all be yours.’

‘No promises! Swear!’

‘By Christ’s face, I swear it. May He damn me if I fail.’

Kyle heard a faint, ugly chuckle of triumph. A knife cut through the cords about his arms. His skin tingled as blood began to move anew.

‘The bard dies tonight,’ promised the unseen man. ‘Sit here a little while, pretending to be bound, and you’ll see it. Oh, yes. When the time comes to move, you’ll know it, horse-lord! I’ll join you when I can.”

Tiny sounds came from under the cart as the whisperer went away. Kyle never doubted who he had been; Besdath, for certain. Tonight, he had said, and confidently. He had some scheme for killing Felimid in the next few hours. But how? If he succeeded. all would know at once who must be guilty! Was he mad?

Hard by Kyle’s hip, a snicker rattled from a corvine throat. Black wings flexed. Black feathers spread. Brandubh, the witch’s familiar, strutted by the cartwheel.

‘All that I heard,’ he croaked. ‘It was merry! My lord, do as that greedy fool said. Be still, for now. I’ll go to the bard and warn him:

‘I was thinking you’d flown back to your mistress,’ Kyle said sourly. The crow’s sudden appearance had startled him. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Listening, watching,’ Brandubh said, and preened.

‘I’ve learned more than you and the bard together.

Fools!I know what Besdath plans, fear not. When I can tell him in safety, the bard shall know too. Then you must witness to Besdath’s treachery before these mad cattle-raiders. As that third fool said, when the time comes, you will know. Sit where you are till then.’

‘You insolent bit of feathered malice!’ Kyle said hotly. However, he did not move. Brandubh flapped into the dark like a baleful shade, leaving Kyle to consider his words.

The same counsel from two most untrustworthy sources. Yet almost without volition, Kyle raised his arms again to rest on the wheel-spokes, hoping none had heard his exclamation.

He watched the group by the fire. Cein’s red hair was no longer to be seen. Perhaps the dun would soon hear her having a blazing quarrel with her husband.

Oban’s folk were startled to see a huge crow swoop out of the night. It seemed to ha It thrashing, above the firs, wings limned in wavering crimson. It gave one harsh cry. Then it was gone.

‘An omen!’

‘Right you are! It’s an omen. nothing less!’

‘Death and the shedding of gore!’

It was in Felimid’s mind that they were all correct. But the omen had a more earthly meaning for him. In a little while, when the sensation had waned, he left the firelight, letting Oban’s folk think the obvious. As he stood on the inner rath pretending to make water, Brandubh flapped out of the night to settle on his shoulder with a clench of carrion talons.

‘What news?’ he demanded, afraid it was bad and seeking to know the worst quickly.

‘Where is your knife?’ asked the witch’s familiar.

Felimid groped for it. The sheath was empty, and the knife it should have contained was distinctive, a small Jutish ax from Kent.

‘You need not fumble about,’ croaked Brandubh.

‘Besdath has it! He filched the knife when he grappled with you, feigning jealousy.’

‘What! But why–’ Felimid’s tongue ceased to wag.

The words had come thoughtlessly; his brain, running after them, imagined why. Cairbre and Ogma! Yes! What reason but one?

Heedless of stares, he ran to find Kyle. Relief covered him as he saw the horsemaster turn a puzzled head his way. The bard dropped to one knee beside him.

‘Kyle,’ he said softly, violently. ‘Bound? Besdath’s doing, not so? He means to murder you and have me bear the blame!’

‘Besdath?’ Kyle echoed. ‘Why, he was here! He cut my bonds and told me to make ready to flee. He swears you won’t live out the night! Don’t turn hastily, but folk are staring our way, friend.’

‘Let them stare.’ Felimid went on thinking. and spilling it out in swift words. ‘Not you, then. The other way about. Murder me, and blame you? But how could he, with my knife? Wait. Yon wounded man from Dun Arodhin! He’ helpless enough, and he might inconvenience Besdath were he to swear none of his clan slew Cas and Marnoc that day. Maybe it’s he Besdath is intending to murder! I’m very sure he’s intending to murder someone. He tole my knife to do it with.’

‘Yonder he comes,’ Kyle said, looking past his friend.

‘Go challenge him with it, now.’

‘True for you; I’ll have to.’

Felimid walked lightly to the fire. Besdath looked ghastly, facing him across it. His stiff face had turned the color of dirty chalk. He moved like a loose-jointed doll on strings.

Without a word. he flung himself through the fire, scattering ash and sparks, eyes mad, breath an empty whistling between his teeth.

Felimid struck him two swift, hard blows. Besdath ignored them. He bore Felimid to the ground beneath him, hard hands seeking the bard’s throat. For Felimid, the world became those hands, the glaring eyes above them, stamped earth under his back, and the stench of burning cowhide from Besdath’s shoes.

He was helpless for the moment because, had Besdath known it, he was battling a convulsive urge to laugh.

A dozen hands dragged Besdath away. Felimid accepted help to stand, although he didn’t require it, and shook his head sadly at the mouthing figure of his foe. What had the fool thought he was about?

‘He, he, he–’ Besdath rattled, caught his breath and spewed it out. ‘He murdered Cein!’

Felimid’s blood thickened in his body. He scarcely heard the hubbub that followed. Cein, murdered with his knife. He knew it had been done that way as surely as if he’d seen her. He knew now. It hadn’t entered his head before. Only Besdath’s kind of mind would think of such a thing.

‘Cein?’

‘You ‘re crazed, man!’

‘Aye, why would he do so? You were accusing them of being over-friendly. not long ago!’

‘Cein, killed?’

‘Quiet, all!’ bellowed Oban the Strong. ‘You, Besdath, talk sense! What’s this foolishness about Cein?’

‘She’s dead. He killed her!’

‘You lie,’ Felimid said. His mouth felt dry. The fluency. the light. faintly condescending banter. might have fled beyond the stars.

Besdath fought spectacularly against the arms that restrained him.

‘Stabbed with your knife!’ he screamed. ‘I saw you, bending over her! You ran away! I thought-may I be cursed!– I thought she was playing the bitch with you, but she wasn’t! All that came from you! And when you tried to have her, just now—’

The clan was coming to a boil of rage. However much disliked, Besdath was their own. You ran away, he had said. Several by that fire had seen Felimid running. His lie wouldn’t have been worth a barley grain, had Kyle not intervened.

The horse-lord yelled, ‘Look at me!’

They looked, and Kyle flexed his arms. The cut cords dropped away from them. Stiffly, he arose.

‘I’m free, who was bound by some of your young men, chieftain. Now who set me free, do you suppose?

The bard there was latest near me, but why should he trouble? I tell you I’ve been free for some little time. The man who did it bade me await my chance, take horse and flee. He promised me the bard would be a dead man before I left. Now I know what he meant. As God witnesses me, he was that same dark one there.’

They yammered and yelled. Oban roared them an to silence.

‘You swear to this?’ he asked like clanging iron.

‘I do,’ Kyle said. ‘Why should I lie?’

‘Why shouldn’t you? What is Felimid to you?’

‘An outlaw. a thief. But I’m honorable. An offer of freedom. a chance to save my king ransom and myself humiliation, that’s an offer to seize! Woman-murder and the blaming of an innocent man, that’s another thing. And that by appearances is what has here been done.’ He added, ‘The man who cut me free demanded a rich reward.’

This was a thing Besdath’s clan could believe of him. Besides, no imaginable gain accrued to Kyle for saying what he’d said. It supplied no proof that Besdath had murdered his wife; Felimid might still be responsible for that, no matter if the sullen Besdath had or hadn’t schemed to cheat his clan of Kyle’s ransom.

It mattered not at all. Hate and death were miasma! in the air, and Besdath’s clan were not equipped to think the thing out coolly. Guilt of a part, to them, was guilt of all. Their mood began to turn.

It was Besdath’s turn. now. to howl. ‘You have new blood on your shirt,’ Felimid said. ‘There’s none on mine.’

‘I found Cein with your knife in her! I felt her, hoping she lived! And part of the blood is from m y own wound, it’s bleeding again-see, all of you?’ He glared about him. ‘Cein is dead! Come and look at her, you fools! Will you let a stranger with a harp and a cursed Roman sway you?’

The followed him, massing, to his hut of thatch and wattles. Two men gripped Felimid’s arms to bring him along; he glanced down at their hands once, indifferently, and made no protest. Two more seized Kyle. Besdath walked free, beside Oban the Strong, at the front of the crowd.

These eight went into Besdath’s hut.

Cein lay by the hearth. She looked smaller, and somehow emptied. The handle of Felimid’s Jutish knife stook out from her left side, the blade slotted between two ribs. Someone had stabbed her violently, twice, before the point had found its way in. Her jacket was torn, showing where the knife had ploughed its shallow way along a rib.

Besdath gave a grunting sob. Felimid’s throat had closed.

Oban the Strong bent over Cein, hiding her from sight. He rumbled, ‘By Mabon, she lives yet!’ and took her in his arms. ‘Cein! Who did this?’

He lowered a hairy ear to within an inch of her mouth. Felimid turned his eyes on Besdath, who stood rigid. At last Oban let Cein slip to the floor again. Turning, he too looked at Besdath, with a steady, sombre glare.

Besdath shrieked like a madman. Tearing an axe from someone’s hand, he struck ferociously at random within the confines of the room. Felimid, unarmed, rolled backward and ducked behind a chest. Besdath sprang towards him, but not to kill. He leaped onto the lid of the chest, then high, catching the rooftree to swing himself awkwardly up.