Bristling Wood (3 page)

Leaning back against the damp stone, he pulled his silver dagger from his belt and looked at it while he idly thought of his elder brother, Rhys, Gwerbret Aberwyn, who had sent him into exile some years before. Although the dagger was a beautiful thing, as sharp as steel but gleaming like silver, it was a mark of shame, branding him a dishonored mercenary soldier who fought only for coin, never for honor. It was time for him to wander down the long road, as the silver daggers called their lives, Although he’d fought well for Lord Gwogyr last fall, even taking a wound in his service, a silver dagger’s welcome was a short one, and already the chamberlain was grumbling about having to feed him and his woman. Sheathing the dagger, he glanced up at the sky, cold but clear. It was likely that the snows were long past.

“Tomorrow we’ll ride,” he said aloud. “And if you were thinking of me, brother, may the thought turn your guts to ire.”

Far to the south, in a little town in Eldidd, an event was happening that would indeed bring Gwerbret Rhys the sort of pain his younger brother had wished upon him, even though Rhodry had no way of knowing it. Dun Bruddlyn, a fort only recently disposed upon its lord, Garedd, was filled with a tense sort of bustle. While the lord himself paced restlessly in his great hall with a goblet of mead in his hand his second wife, Donilla, was giving birth, up in the women’s hall. Since this was her first child, the labor was a long one, and Tieryn Lovyan, as well as the other women in attendance, were beginning to worry. Her face dead white, her long chestnut hair soaked with sweat, Donilla crouched on the birthing stool and clung to the thick rope tied from one of the beams far above. Her serving woman, Galla, knelt beside her and wiped her face every now and then with a cloth soaked in cold water.

“Let her suck a bit of moisture from a clean rag,” said the herbman who was attending the birth. “But just a bit.”

Another serving lass hurried to get clean cloth and fresh water without a moment’s hesitation. Not only was old Nevyn known as the best herbman in the kingdom, but it was widely rumored that he had the dweomer. Lovyan smiled at the lass’s awe, but only slightly, because she knew full well that the rumors were true. When she glanced at Nevyn in a questioning sort of way, he gave her a reassuring smile, then spoke to Donilla. His ice-blue eyes seemed to bore into her soft brown ones and capture her very soul. With a sigh she relaxed as if some of the pain had left her.

“It’ll be soon now, my lady.” His voice was very soft and kind. “Breathe deeply now, but don’t bear down on the babe. It’ll be coming soon.”

Donilla nodded, gasped at a contraction, and let out her breath in a long, smooth sigh. Although Lovyan had given birth to four sons herself, she couldn’t remember her own labors being this difficult. Perhaps I’ve just forgotten, she thought. One does forget the pain, and so oddly soon. Restlessly she paced to an open window and looked out on the bright spring day while she considered the irony. Poor Donilla had been so eager to have a child; now she was probably wishing that she truly had been barren. When the younger woman moaned again, Lovyan winced in sympathy.

“It’s crowning, my lady!” Nevyn crowed in victory. “Soon, very soon. Now—bear down.”

Lovyan stayed at the window until she heard the high-pitched wail, a good, healthy cry at that. She turned around to see Nevyn and the serving woman laying Donilla down on the pallet prepared by the stool and laying the babe, still attached by the cord, at her breast. With trembling fingers the lady stroked the soft fuzz on her child’s head and smiled in wide-eyed triumph.

“A son, Your Grace!” she croaked. “I’ve given my lord another son.”

“And a fine healthy one, at that,” Lovyan said. “Shall I go tell his lordship the good news?”

Donilla nodded, her eyes on the tiny face already nuzzling at her breast.

As she went downstairs, Lovyan’s heart was heavy, and she felt badly about it. Of course Donilla deserved this moment of triumph, of vindication. After ten years of a childless marriage, her first husband had cast her off as barren, a bitter humiliation for any woman to bear, worse than the heartbreaking thought that she would never have children. Now she had her son, and everyone in Eldidd knew that she wasn’t the barren one. Unfortunately, her small triumph had important political consequences, of which her second husband seemed to be painfully aware. Garedd was a man of middle years, with two sons and a daughter by his first marriage; a solid sort with gray in his blond hair and mustaches, he was genuinely pleased at Lovyan’s news, breaking out into a laugh and yelling that he had a son to his warband across the hall. Then, almost instantly, he wiped the look of triumph off his face.

“My apologies for gloating, Your Grace,” he said. “But it takes a man that way.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me, cousin,” Lovyan said wearily. “Nor to Rhys, either, though I’d advise you to stay away from Aberwyn for a while.”

“I was planning to, truly.”

There lay the crux of the matter; Gwerbret Rhys had been Donilla’s first husband, the one who had shamed her as barren because he had no heirs for his vast rhan, one of the most important in the entire kingdom. If he died childless, as now seemed most likely, Eldidd could well break out into open war as the various candidates tried to claim the gwerbretrhyn for their own clan. Although Lovyan was fond of her cousin and his wife, she was here to witness the birth because of its political implications. Since she was the tieryn of Dun Gwerbyn, with many vassals and large holdings, her time was too valuable for her to ride around the countryside playing at midwife for her vassals’ wives. But it had been necessary that she see with her own eyes that, truly, Donilla had given birth to a child.

“Do you think Rhys will adopt a son?” Garedd said.

“I have no idea what Rhys will or won’t do anymore, for all that he’s my firstborn son. An adopted heir won’t have much of a chance in the Council of Electors anyway. The sensible thing for him to do would be recall Rhodry from exile.”

Garedd raised one questioning eyebrow.

“I haven’t given up hope yet,” Lovyan snapped. “But truly, my lord, I understand your skepticism.”

In another half hour, Nevyn came down to the great hall. A tall man with a thick shock of white hair and a face as wrinkled as old burlap, still he moved with strength, striding up to the table of honor and making Garedd a smooth bow. When he announced that the lord could visit the lady, Garedd was off like a flushed hare, because he loved his young wife in an almost unseemly way. Nevyn accepted a tankard of ale from a page and sat down beside Lovyan.

“Well,” he remarked. “She had a remarkably good first birth for a woman her age. Knowing you, you’re pleased in spite of yourself.”

“Just that. I was always fond of her. If only some other beastly man had cast her off.”

Nevyn gave her a thin smile and had a well-deserved swallow of ale.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” he said. “Going to Dun Deverry. Now that I have a nephew at court, I can hear some of the gossip from the king’s councils.”

“Nephew, indeed! But I’m glad he’s there, all the same. I’m beginning to think that our only hope is to get our liege to override Rhys’s sentence of exile. It’s happened before.”

“Gwerbrets have also risen in rebellion against such meddling. Do you think Rhys will?”

“I don’t know. Ah, by the Goddess herself, it aches my heart to think of war coming to Eldidd, and all over my two squabbling sons!”

“The war hasn’t started yet, and I’m going to do my cursed best to make sure it doesn’t.”

Yet he looked so weary that she was suddenly frightened. Even though he was the most powerful dweomerman in the kingdom, he was still only one man. He was also caught up in political intrigue that—or so it seemed to her—his magical calling would ill equip him to handle.

“Ah well,” she said at last. “At least the child himself was born with good omens. They always say it’s a lucky lad who’s born the first day of spring.”

“So they do, and let’s hope this spring is as well omened for us all.”

The absent way he spoke made her realize that he very much doubted it would be. She was hesitating, half wanting to ask more, half afraid to hear the truth if he should tell her, when a page came over to her. The young lad looked utterly confused.

“Your Grace? There’s a noble lord at the gates. Should I ask you what to do, or go find Lord Garedd?”

“You may ask me, because I’m of higher rank. If I were of the same rank as Garedd, you’d have to go find him. Now. Which noble lord is it?”

“Talidd of Belglaedd, Your Grace. He said the strangest thing. He asked if he was welcome in the dun that should have been his.”

Beside her Nevyn swore under his breath.

“Oh ye gods,” Lovyan said feebly. “He
would
turn up right now! Well, lad, run and tell him that indeed he’s welcome in the dun called Bruddlyn. Tell him that exactly and not a word more.”

As soon as the page was on his way, Nevyn turned to her with the lift of a quizzical eyebrow.

“It all goes back to Loddlaen’s war,” she said, her voice heavy with weariness. “Talidd’s sister was Corbyn’s wife. She went back to her brother before the war even started, because having Loddlaen in the dun was driving her daft, and I can’t say I blame her for that, frankly. But then, after Corbyn was killed, I attainted this demesne because she’d left her husband. All my loyal men would have grumbled if I hadn’t. I offered her a settlement of coin and horses, but Talidd refused to let her take a copper or a filly of it.”

She broke off because the subject of this explanation was striding into the great hall, stripping off his cloak and riding gloves as he did so. Talidd of Belglaedd was a heavyset man of forty, with gray hair still streaked with blond, and shrewd green eyes. Tossing his cloak to the page, he came over and made the tieryn a deep bow. His bland smile revealed nothing at all.

“I’m surprised to see you here, my lord,” Lovyan said.

“I came to congratulate Garedd on the birth of a child. The page tells me it’s a lad.”

“It is, and a healthy one.”

“Then Dun Bruddlyn has yet another heir, does it?” Talidd paused to take a tankard of ale from a serving lass. “Well, the gods may witness the justice of that.”

Lovyan debated challenging him then and there. If she’d been a man, and thus able to fight her own duels, she might well have done it, but as it was, she would have to call for a champion. Answering that call would be the captain of her warband, Cullyn of Cerrmor, who was without doubt the best swordsman in all Deverry. It seemed rather unfair to sentence Talidd to certain death for a few nasty remarks.

“I choose to ignore that, my lord,” Lovyan said, and she put ice in her voice. “If you feel injured, you may put your case before the gwerbret, and I shall come to court at his order.”

“The gwerbret, Your Grace, happens to be your son.”

“So he is, and I scrupulously raised him to be a fair-minded man.”

At that Talidd looked down abruptly at the table, and he had the decency to blush. In the duel of words, Lovyan had scored the first touch.

“I’m surprised you’d come here just to pour vinegar in an old wound,” she said.

“The matter’s of great moment for the gwerbretrhyn, isn’t it? You forget, Your Grace, that I hold a seat on the Council of Electors.”

Lovyan
had
forgotten, and she cursed herself mentally for the lapse. Talidd had a sip of ale and smiled his bland, secretive smile at her and Nevyn impartially.

“I was hoping I’d be in time to witness the birth,” he said at last. “I take it there were witnesses not of this household.”

“Myself and the herbman here.”

“And none, my lady, would dare dispute your word, not in open court or in private meeting.” The smile grew less bland. “We may take it as a given that, indeed, the Lady Donilla’s not barren, no matter what seemed to be the case before.”

Lovyan gave him a brilliant smile and hated his very heart.

“Just so, my lord. I take it as another given that you’ll be summoning the council with this news as soon as ever you can.”

Talidd left well before the evening meal with the remark that he had a better welcome nearby. He sounded so martyred, so genuinely injured, that Nevyn felt like kicking him all the way out of the great hall. For Lovyan’s sake, he refrained. Instead he went up to look in on Donilla, who was by then resting in her own bed with the swaddled babe beside her. In some minutes Lovyan joined him there, her expression as placid as if she’d never heard Talidd’s name, and made a few pleasantries to the younger woman. Nevyn left when she did, following her to the chamber in the suite that had been allotted to her on this visit. Although plain, it was obviously furnished with Dun Bruddlyn’s best; her cousin and his lady both had reason to be grateful for her gift of this demesne, as she remarked.

“Although it’s turning out to be a troubled gift, sure enough,” Nevyn said. “I didn’t realize Talidd felt so strongly.”

“Him and half the lords in the tierynrhyn. I knew there’d be trouble when I gave it to Garedd, but there’d have been trouble no matter what I did. Well, I suppose if I’d apportioned it to you, no one would have grumbled, but you didn’t want it, and so here we are.”

“Come now, Lovva! You almost make me feel guilty.”

“I like that ‘almost.’ But truly, whenever an overlord has land to give, there’s bound to be injured feelings. I only wish that Talidd didn’t have a seat on the council. Ah ye gods, what a nasty thing this is becoming! Even if Rhys’s wife did have a babe now, no one would believe it was his.”

“Just so. I—”

With the bang of a door and a gleeful howl of laughter, a child of about two came charging into the chamber with a nursemaid in pursuit. She was slender for her age, with a mop of curly, raven-dark hair and violet eyes, almost as dark a purple as an elf’s—all in all, a breathtakingly beautiful child. With a gurgle, she threw herself into Lovyan’s exalted lap.

“Granna, Granna, love you, Granna.”

“And I love you, too, Rhodd-let, but you’re being naughty and interrupting.”