Bristling Wood (19 page)

“And a stinking heap of it. What’ll you wager he didn’t even realize he’d killed the lad until he heard you say it?”

Caradoc muttered an inaudible oath under his breath, then went in search of their tankards.

For a long hour, Maddyn and Caradoc waited in the nervous crowd for news of Prince Cadlew’s judgment. Finally two pages, young eyes bright with excitement, came running in to announce that the Prince was going to have Owaen hanged on the morrow. Since the other lad had drawn first, no one thought the sentence just, but no one could argue with the prince, either. The very same lads who’d driven Owaen to his fit of temper spoke contritely and defended him to everyone else, while serving lasses wept and said now handsome he was to die so young. Caradoc drank steadily, then suddenly slammed his tankard onto the table.

“I’m not going to stand for it! What do you think, Maddo? Shall I pull the lad’s neck out of the noose?”

“By all means, but how?”

“Just watch. Find me one of those wretched pages.”

Suitably bribed, a page was quite willing to take the prince a message asking for an audience. After some minutes’ wait, the boy returned and took them to one of the royal reception chambers, a sumptuous room with carved oak furniture, thick Bardek carpets in blue and green, and real glass in the windows. Cadlew was standing by the hearth with a golden goblet of mead in his hand. When Maddyn and Caradoc knelt at his feet, he nodded pleasantly to them.

“Rise. You have our leave to speak.”

“My humble thanks, Your Highness,” Caradoc said. “A long time ago, in the middle of summer, you made me promise of a boon, whenever I should ask for it.”

“And so I did. I remember the charge you led very well indeed. I’ve plenty of fine horses for a reward, or a jeweled sheath, perhaps, for that dagger you carry. Or here, there are those new swords from Bardek. The steel is particularly fine.”

“Well, my liege, I want somewhat of far less value than that, and cursed if I don’t think I’m daft for wasting a boon on it.”

“Indeed?” The prince smiled briefly. “It’s pleasant to see that even silver daggers have whims. Ask away.”

“Then, my liege, give me young Owaen’s life. Don’t hang the lad.”

Honestly startled, the prince raised his goblet and had a small sip, then made a courtly, indifferent shrug.

“Done, then, on one condition: you take him into your warband and out of mine. I want no more of this trouble.”

“My humble thanks, Your Highness. Don’t worry your royal heart. I’ll beat the lad into shape sooner or later.”

“I’ve no doubt, Captain, that you could beat the Lord of Hell into shape, and sooner rather than later. Let me summon a guard. I’ve no idea where they put the lad.”

Guards with torches took Maddyn and Caradoc around to the back of the ward, where a cluster of round, stone storage sheds stood by the outer wall. Another guard was lounging against a tiny shed with no windows and an iron-barred door. At the news, he stepped aside gladly.

“Didn’t truly seem fair. Glad you changed our liege’s mind, Captain.”

With a shrug, Caradoc lifted the bar and opened the door. Inside Owaen was sitting on a pile of dirty straw, his arms clasped behind his knees, his face stained with tears. At the sight of them he scrambled to his feet and stood at stiff attention, head held high.

“Come to hang me already?” Owaen’s voice was perfectly level. “I’ll be glad to have it over and done with.”

“You’re not going to hang at all, you young dolt,” Caradoc said. “I’ve bought your pardon. Now get out here.”

Staring at the captain all the while, Owaen took a few slow, cautious steps to the door, as if he were afraid of waking himself from this wonderful dream. Caradoc grabbed his arm with one hand and slapped him across the face with the other.

“That’s for forgetting you were in the king’s hall.” Caradoc slapped him again, even harder. “And that’s for striking twice. One more slip like this, and I’ll slit your throat, not twist it. Understand me?

“I do.” Owaen could barely whisper; doubtless his mouth was stinging from the slap. “But why pardon me?”

“I want you in my troop. You’ll have a short enough life anyway as a silver dagger.”

Owaen nodded, trembling, turning to stare at the ward as if it were the most beautiful sight in the world. He rode close enough to the Otherlands, Maddyn thought, and it wouldn’t have been a pretty way to die.

“Now listen,” Caradoc went on. “I gave up a chance at one of those Bardek blades for you, so you’d blasted well better fight like a son of a bitch and earn your hire. Now come along. I’ll send someone else to get your gear from the guardsmen’s barracks. I don’t want your behind anywhere near your old companions.”

Owaen nodded again, still trembling; words were beyond him, apparently. Maddyn laid a hand on his shoulder.

“There isn’t a man in the troop who hasn’t disgraced himself as badly as you have,” Maddyn said. “Lots of us are a cursed sight worse. Come along, lad. You’re better off among your own kind.”

Owaen started to laugh, a low hysterical chuckle, and he kept it up all the way across the ward to the barracks.

The sky was low and slate gray, and a chill wind rustled in the branches of the leafless trees that stood like sentinels on the shores of the wide artificial lake. A stone causeway ran about half a mile through the rippled gray water to the island where the dun stood, the palace of Casyl, king of Pyrdon. By rising in his stirrups Nevyn could just see the high broch above the stone walls. He paused his horse and reined his pack mule up beside it while he studied the place that, if all went well, would be his home for some years ahead. Drwloc certainly fitted the description of the oracle of Wmm. All around the island clustered stands of water reeds, and at the sandy landing were little leather coracles drawn up against the coming storm.

He rode on to the end of the causeway, where two guards were lounging against the gate. At the sight of him, they straightened up and came to attention. Much to his annoyance, Nevyn was dressed the part of an important personage in brand-new clothes, a pair of fine gray brigga, a shirt of the whitest linen, a dark blue cloak with a splendid jeweled ring brooch to clasp it. He was no longer an herbman, but a wandering scholar, with letters of introduction from several very important priests of several major gods.

“Good morrow, sir,” a guard said with a bow. “May I ask your business in the palace?”

“My name is Nevyn, and I’ve been sent by Retyc, high priest of Bel in Lughcarn, to inquire about a position as tutor for the young prince.”

At that, both guards bowed.

“Of course, sir. We were told that the king expected you. Ride on, but please watch the footing. We’ve got some slippery spots—moss and suchlike.”

For safety’s sake, Nevyn dismounted and led his beasts along the causeway. Just wide enough for four horses abreast, it was a splendid bit of defensive planning; ten good men could hold it against an army all day if they had to, but then Pyrdon’s freedom had been won and held by military genius and little else. The causeway ended on a tiny strip of bare ground before the iron-bound double gates of the dun itself. There, more guards greeted Nevyn and ushered him into the cobbled ward, which was crammed with storage sheds, stables and barracks. It was plain that the dun was organized with a long siege in mind. Pages came to take his horse and mule, and another lad escorted him into the tall broch itself.

Although the royal crest of a rearing stallion was stamped or carved everywhere, on the chairs, on the hearth, on the red-and-silver banners on the walls, the furnishings were sparse and made of roughly cut dark wood. At the table of honor the king himself was sitting in an ordinary low, half-round chair and drinking ale from a plain pewter tankard. At thirty-one, Casyl was a tall, slender man with thinning pale blond hair and deep-set blue eyes. His heavy hands were scarred here and there, small nicks from battle. When Nevyn began to kneel before him, the king stopped him with a wave of his hand and a good-humored smile.

“You may dispense with the usual groveling, good sir, at your age. Sit down. Page, fetch the scholar some ale.”

Nevyn took a chair at the king’s right, then brought out the letters of introduction from his shirt, where he’d been carrying them for safekeeping. The king looked at the seals on the message tubes, nodded his recognition, then tossed them onto the table.

“Later I’ll have my scribe read them to me. Unfortunately, my father was an old-fashioned man, and I was never taught a single letter when I was a lad. Now I don’t have the time for such luxuries, but I don’t intend to repeat the same mistake with my son.”

“So the priests of Wmm told me, Your Highness. I admire a man who shows respect for learning.”

“No doubt you would, given your calling in life. Now, my scribe has started teaching the lad how to letter, but I want someone who can tell him about history, the laws, that sort of thing. In his last letter, Pedraddyn of Wmmglaedd said you’d bring books with you.”

“I have them on my pack mule, Your Highness. In case you shouldn’t require my services, I’ll leave them behind for the next candidate.”

“Oh, you can take it for granted that you’re staying. It’s all been passing strange. When I first sent to the temples for a tutor, I was expecting to get a priest. That’s who they usually send to a king’s dun. But they told me that they just didn’t have the right man available. It didn’t matter where I sent, and I asked at more than one holy place.”

“Indeed? How very peculiar, Your Highness.”

“So I was cursed glad when Pedraddyn wrote to say that you’d turned up. No doubt it’s Wyrd, and who can question that?”

Nevyn smiled politely and said not a word in answer. Yet for all his talk of Wyrd, Casyl spent the good part of an hour asking shrewd questions about the education he had in mind for the Prince. Like most illiterate men, the king had a prodigious memory, and he dredged up references to every book or author he’d mentioned over the years just to see if Nevyn knew them, too. They were just beginning to discuss Nevyn’s maintenance and recompense when there was a bustle and confusion at the door: maidservants shrieked, guards swore and shouted. An enormous gray-and-black boarhound raced into the great hall with a very dead chicken in its mouth. Right behind ran a young boy, as blond and pale as Casyl. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he chased the panicked hound right under the royal chair, so suddenly that the dog nearly dumped the king on the floor. Swearing, Casyl jumped clear as the lad flung himself down and grabbed the hound’s collar.

“Give it back, Spider! Bad dog!”

“Maryn, by the fat rump of Epona’s steed! Can’t you see I’m talking with an important guest?”

“My apologies, Father,” The prince went on hauling the hound out from the chair. “But he stole it, and I told Cook I’d get it back, because he’s my dog.”

With a dramatic sigh the king stood back out of the way and let the prince pry the by now much ill-used and doubtless inedible chicken out of the boarhound’s jaws. Nevyn watched in bemused fascination: so this was the future king of all Deverry and Eldidd. As was necessary for the plan, he was a handsome child, with large, solemn gray eyes in a rosy-cheeked oval face and neatly cropped golden hair.

“Get that bleeding fowl out of the great hall, will you?” Casyl snarled. “Here, I’ll call a page.”

“Please, Father, I’d best take it back myself, because I promised Cook I would..”

“Well and good, then. Come back when you’re done.” The king aimed a vague kick at the dog. “Begone, hound!”

Boarhound and marked prince alike scurried out of the royal presence. With a sigh, Casyl sat back down and took his tankard from the table.

“He’s a wild lad good scholar, and this is a rough sort of court, as you’ve doubtless noticed.”

“Well, Your Highness, there is much virtue in a simple life under less than easy conditions.”

“Nicely put. I can see that you’ll be able to teach the prince tact, if naught else. I see no reason to pretend to pomp that I can’t afford, The glory of my kingdom has always lain in her soldiers, not her fine manners.”

“And young Maryn had best learn that, my liege, if he wants to have a kingdom to govern when his turn comes.”

It took Nevyn some time to fit into the life of the palace. In the mornings he gave Maryn his lessons, but in the afternoon the prince went to the captain of the warband for training in riding and swordcraft. Nevyn spent much time alone at first, in his large, wedge-shaped chamber at the very top of the broch. It was nicely furnished with a bed, a writing desk, and a heavily carved chest for his clothing, but its best feature was the view, a vast sweep of the lake below and the rolling farmland beyond. At meals, he ate with the other high-ranked servitors and their families: the bard, the chamberlain, the equerry, and the king’s chirurgeon. At first they regarded him warily with an eye to keeping the king’s special favor for themselves, but since he cared naught for privilege and petty signs of rank, they soon accepted him.

For Maryn’s studies Nevyn had brought a number of important books, among them a general précis of the laws for beginners and several volumes of history, starting with the Dawntime and continuing through the annals of the various Deverrian and Eldidd kings. Eventually he would send to Aberwyn for copies of Prince Mael’s books, particularly the treatise on nobility, but they would have been hard slogging for a beginner. Every morning he would let the lad read aloud for a while, stumbling often but always pushing on, then take the book and finish the passage himself. Together they would discuss what they had read. Once Maryn realized that history was full of battles and scandal in equal parts, his interest in his studies picked up enormously.

Once he’d become a well-known figure in the palace, Nevyn took to spending some time with the queen, who was glad to have someone new and well educated in the dun. Seryan had been born of the line of Cantrae pretenders to the throne and was a distant cousin of the current king, Slwmar the Second. At nineteen she’d been married off to Casyl—much against her will, because not only was the king five years her junior but his kingdom was a rough, wild place compared to her home in Lughcarn. Now, some seventeen years later, she’d made her peace with her life. She had her two elder daughters and her young son to occupy her, and as she admitted one day to Nevyn, she’d grown fond of Casyl with time.