Bristling Wood (53 page)

“Ah, my poor little lad! If only we had you home! Nevyn, by the gods, you’re hiding somewhat from me. Where is Rhodry?”

“Your Grace, please, trust me. I don’t want to tell you. I beg you: take my word for it that he lives, and let the matter drop there. I promise you that the dweonier will do its best to bring him home for you.”

“I don’t know if I can accept . . . Well, what is it?”

A frightened page came creeping into the chamber.

“Your Grace? Lady Madronna sent me. His Grace is calling for you.”

Hiking up her skirts like a farm lass, Lovyan ran from the chamber, with Nevyn close behind. They came into the sickroom to find Rhys propped up on pillows. His face was a dangerous sort of scarlet, and his breath rattled in his sunken chest. Over everything hung the stink of diseased urine.

“Mother!” He had to gasp out every word. “I heard the servants talking. The misbegotten king’s recalled Rhodry, hasn’t he? Don’t you lie to me!”

“I see no need to lie to you. Your Grace.” Lovyan came over to the bedside and held out her hand. He caught it in one of his and clasped it hard, as if he were drawing strength from her touch. “Rhys, please, it’s best for Aberwyn. It’s best for the Maelwaedd clan.”

He made a sound halfway between a snarl and a cough. Deeply troubled, Nevyn hurried over.

“His Grace shouldn’t vex himself. He should rest.”

“Rest? When the king’s made a mockery of me?” His breathing was so shallow that it was hard to hear his words, “Why couldn’t he have waited till I died? He could have done that, curse him.”

“He couldn’t, Your Grace. If you should die without an heir, Aberwyn would be naught but a bone for dogs to fight over.”

For a moment that seemed to soothe the gwerbret; then he frowned as if he were thinking something through.

“Where
is
Rhodry?”

“On his way home, Your Grace.”

“Ah.” He paused a little while, panting, gathering breath, his ribs heaving under the fine wool coverlets. “He’s not back yet, is he now? Cursed young cub. He shan’t have what’s mine, not yet.”

“Rhys, please!” Lovyan’s voice shook with tears. “Can’t you forgive him?”

Rhys turned his head toward her, and the look in his eyes was one of weary contempt, as if he were wondering how she could possibly misunderstand something so obvious. Suddenly he coughed, a choking gurgle, and spasmed, his back arching as he fought for air. Nevyn grabbed him, slid an arm under his shoulders, and supported him until he spat the blood-tinged gobbet of phlegm out. Rhys’s eyes sought out Lovyan’s face.

“But, Mam,” he whispered, “it was mine. Truly it was.”

Then he was gone, with one last ripple of spasming, a cough that never quite came. By the door Madronna threw her head back and howled in agony, keened over and over until Lovyan rushed to her and threw her arms around her to let her sob. Although the tieryn’s face ran with tears, she was silent. Nevyn closed Rhys’s eyes and crossed his arms over his shattered chest.

“May peace be yours in the Otherlands, Your Grace,” he whispered, so softly that the women couldn’t hear him. “But I have the ghastly feeling that your hatred won’t let you rest.”

He left the women to their grief and went down to the great hall. At least he could make the formal announcement and spare Lovyan that grim duty. As he was walking up to the honor table he remembered the herald and sent a page to wake him. Although several of the men called out to Nevyn in a friendly way, no one seemed to notice that he was grim, heartsick not so much for Rhys as for what his death meant to Aberwyn. They were all too busy celebrating Rhodry’s recall. Once the drowsy herald was present, Nevyn climbed up onto the honor table and yelled for silence. The hall went abruptly quiet, the warbands turning, apprehensive at last, as they waited for him to speak. Nevyn was in no mood for fine words.

“Gwerbret Rhys is dead.”

There was a collective suck and gasp of breath.

“Her Grace, Lovyan, Tieryn Dun Gwerbyn, is now regent for her younger son: Rhodry Maelwaedd, Gwerbret Aberwyn.”

The sound was unmistakable, a would-be cheer cut off out of respect for the dead, laughter that vanished into coughs and mumbles, smiles that disappeared into looks of stricken shame. Poor Rhys, Nevyn thought; I think me I understand you a bit better now. Yet as he looked over the hall, he wondered with bitterness in his heart if Rhodry would ever sit in the gwerbretal chair, if his loyal warbands would ever see again the young lord that they loved.

CHARACTERS AND THEIR INCARNATIONS

A Complete List

GLOSSARY

Aber
(Deverrian) A river mouth, an estuary.

Alar
(Elvish) A group of elves, who may or may not be blood kin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.

Alardan
(Elv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.

Angwidd
(Dev.) Unexplored, unknown.

Archon
(translation of the Bardekian
atzenarlen
) The elected head of a city-state (Bardekian
at
).

Astral
The plane of existence directly “above” or “within” the etheric (q.v.). In other systems of magic, often referred to as the Akashic Record or the Treasure House of Images.

Aura
The field of electromagnetic energy that permeates and emanates from every living being.

Aver
(Dev.) A river.

Bara
(Elv.) An enclitic that indicates that the preceding adjective in an Elvish agglutinated word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as can + bara + melim = Rough River, (rough + name marker + river.)

Bel
(Dev.) The chief god of the Deverry pantheon.

Bel
(Elv.) An enclitic, similar in function to
bara
, except that it indicates that a preceding verb is the name of the following element in the agglutinated term, as in Darabeldal, Flowing Lake.

Blue Light
Another name for the etheric plane (q.v.).

Body of Light
An artificial thought-form (q.v.) constructed by a dweomermaster to allow him or her to travel through the inner planes of existence.

Brigga
(Dev.) Loose wool trousers worn by men and boys.

Broch
(Dev.) A squat tower in which people live. Originally, in the Homeland, these towers had one big fireplace in the center of the ground floor and a number of booths or tiny roomlets up the sides, but by the time of our narrative, this ancient style has given way to regular floors with hearths and chimneys on either side of the structure.

Cadvridoc
(Dev.) A war leader. Not a general in the modern sense, the cadvridoc is supposed to take the advice and counsel of the noble-born lords under him, but his is the right of final decision.

Captain
(trans of the Dev
pendaely
) The second-in-command, after the lord himself, of a noble’s warband. An interesting point is that the word
taely
(which is the root or unmutated form of -
daely
) can mean either a warband or a family, depending on context.

Conaber
(Elv.) A musical instrument similar to the panpipe but of even more limited range.

Cwm
(Dev.) A valley.

Dal
(Elv.) A lake.

Dun
(Dev.) A fort

Dweomer
(trans of Dev
dwunddaevad
) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery.

Elcyion Lacar
(Dev.) The elves; literally, the “bright spirits,” or “Bright Fey.”

Ensorcel
To produce an effect similar to hypnosis by direct manipulation of a person’s aura, (Ordinary hypnosis manipulates the victim’s consciousness only and thus is more easily resisted.)

Etheric
The plane of existence directly “above” the physical. With its magnetic substance and currents, it holds physical matter in an invisible matrix and is the true source of what we call “life.”

Etheric Double
The true being of a person, the electromagnetic structure that holds the physical body together and that is the actual seat of consciousness.

Fola
(Elv.) An enclitic that shows that the noun preceding it in an agglutinated Elvish word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as in Corafolanielim, Owl River.

Geis
A taboo, usually a prohibition against doing something. Breaking geis results in ritual pollution and the disfavor if not active enmity of the gods. In societies that truly believe in geis, a person who breaks it usually dies fairly quickly, either of morbid depression or of some unconsciously self-inflicted “accident,” unless he or she makes ritual amends.

Gerthddyn
(Dev.) Literally, a “music man,” a wandering minstrel and entertainer of much lower status than a true bard.

Great Ones
Spirits, once human but now disincarnate, who exist on an unknowably high plane of existence and who have dedicated themselves to the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings. They are also known to the Buddhists as Boddhisattvas.

Gwerbret
(Dev.) The highest rank of nobility below the royal family itself. Gwerbrets (Dev
gwerbretion
) function as the chief magistrates of their regions, and even kings hesitate to override their decisions because of their many ancient prerogatives.

Hiraedd
(Dev.) A peculiarly Celtic form of depression, marked by a deep, tormented longing for some unobtainable thing; also and in particular, homesickness to the third power.

Javelin
(trans of Dev
picecl
) Since the weapon in question is only about three feet long, another possible translation would be “war dart.” The reader should not think of it as a proper spear or as one of those enormous javelins used in the modern Olympic Games.

Lwdd
(Dev.) A blood price; differs from wergild in that the amount of lwdd is negotiable in some circumstances, rather than being irrevocably set by law.

Malover
(Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.