Daggerspell (24 page)

Around him a tremor of night wind picked up cool, rustling the canopy of branches above him. Nevyn rested his face in his hands and called on his trained will to stop himself from shaking. A vow’s a vow, he told himself. If I wither, then let me wither, so long as I fulfill that vow. The wind stroked his hair like a friendly hand. He looked up, realizing that it was no natural wind, but the Wildfolk, sylph and sprite, half-seen forms and the flick of shining wings, a face showing here only to vanish there. They came to him as friends and felt his agony, clustering sympathetic lives forming from the raw surge of elemental life. Nevyn felt his weariness ebb away as they freely poured out some of their life to him, a gift between friends. He rose, walked forward, and stared up at the sky, where glittered a great white drift of stars, the Snowy Road, splendid, unreachable, but shining with promise. When he laughed aloud, his laugh was as full and clear as a lad’s. He saw his Wyrd open in front of him, maintained by his work in the Wildlands. He would have life for the task, no matter how long it took as men measure time.

It was that night that he learned this lesson: no one is ever given a Wyrd too harsh to bear, as long as it is taken up willingly and fully, deep in the soul.

At times, Lyssa would leave Acern with Cadda and walk to the farm to fetch Aderyn back from the herbman. She liked these moments of solitude when she could walk alone, away from the busy press and chatter of her life among the women of the household. She also found herself drawn to old Nevyn, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. Well, he’s a wise, kind man who’s traveled much, she would tell herself, it’s always interesting to meet someone new. Reason enough, of course, but at times she went to see him because she felt safe there, out of the fort and away from Tanyc. She knew perfectly well that young rider was pursuing her and lived in dread that her husband might notice. Lyssa simply had too much to lose to
be interested in adultery—a high social position, a good husband, wealth, comfort, and above all, her children.

On an afternoon when the heat lay as palpable as a blanket over the land, Lyssa left the dun earlier than usual and dawdled her way down the dusty road to the farm. About halfway along stood a copse of aspen trees, where she decided to rest for a few minutes. She walked into the parched shade, glanced round for a place to sit, and saw Tanyc, waiting for her. He stood as still as one of the trees, his head a little to one side, and he was smiling, looking her over with the sort of admiration a man gives to a beautiful horse in a market.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

“What do you think? I wanted a word with you.”

“I’ve naught to say. You’d best get back before the captain finds you gone.”

When he stepped toward her, she drew back, her hand at her throat, her heart pounding.

“I’ve got to be on my way. My lad will come along soon enough if I’m not there to meet him.”

This likely witness gave Tanyc pause. Abruptly Lyssa realized that she was afraid he would rape her. For all his good looks, Tanyc repelled her in a way that she couldn’t understand—like seeing a dead animal rotting in the road. She knew the repulsion was daft; rationally, she could admit that he was decent enough for a rider.

“May I walk with you a ways, then?” Tanyc made her a courteous bow.

“You can’t!” Lyssa heard her voice rise to a scream. “Leave me alone.”

She found herself running, racing out of the copse like a startled deer and running running running down the road until she was sobbing for breath and drenched with sweat. Half in tears she spun around, but mercifully, he hadn’t followed.

That night, it was so hot that it took a long time to get the children to sleep. The boys tossed and turned and whined on top of the blankets no matter how soothingly Lyssa talked to them. Finally Gweran came in and sang
them to sleep. Lyssa went to their chamber, changed into a thin nightdress, and lay down. In a bit, Gweran joined her. He hung the candle lantern up on the wall and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Don’t you have to return to our lord?” Lyssa said.

“I begged his leave. I need to talk with you.”

In the shadowed light his eyes were cold, questioning. She sat up, feeling her hands shaking, and twisted a bit of her dress between her fingers.

“Here, my sweet,” he went on. “You’ve been keeping dangerous company these days.”

“Oh, am I now? Who?”

“Tanyc. Who else would I mean?”

She clenched the cloth so hard that her fingers ached.

“My lord, I swear to you that I want nothing to do with him. Do you doubt me?”

“Never. But I don’t want my woman raped out in the stables.”

When Lyssa started to cry, partly in relief, partly from seeing her worst fear shared, Gweran pulled her gently into his arms.

“My poor, sweet little lass,” he said. “Here, here, don’t weep like that.”

“How can I not weep? Ah, ye gods, if you come to doubt me, what will you do? Cast me off? Cut my throat, and all for a thing I’d never do?”

“Hush, hush.” Gweran stroked her hair. “I’d die myself before I’d do you the slightest harm.”

As suddenly as they’d come, her tears vanished before a new fear. She looked up and found his face set and grim.

“If you challenge Tanyc, he’ll win. Please, Gwerro, I beg you. Don’t. Just don’t. What good would it do me, if I had my honor and no husband?”

“I’m not going to do anything of the sort! Do you despise me, think me a coward, and all because I can’t match him in a fight?”

“Don’t be a dolt. I could have married lots of bloodthirsty men, but I never wanted anyone but you.”

Gweran smiled as if he didn’t quite believe her. They
were both trapped, she saw, caught by the customs that gave a man no recourse but to defend his wife with a sword. They would have to creep around the edge of Tanyc’s arrogance, the pride of a true-born warrior, which thinks it can win a woman with a sword in a world where other men secretly agree. Lyssa hated Tanyc more than ever: no matter what the end of this, her marriage would never be the same. She could only pray that Gweran would never slip over the edge into hopeless violence.

The fear combined with the heat to give Lyssa a restless night of bad dreams. Finally she woke, deep into the night, and heard a strange sound outside the tower. As she lay awake, trying to place it, the two children came bursting into the chamber.

“Da, Mam, it’s the wind!” Aderyn shrieked. “The wind’s here! It’s going to rain.”

Just as Gweran woke with a muffled oath, Acern clambered onto the bed.

“Clouds, clouds, clouds, Da.”

Aderyn grabbed Lyssa’s hand and dragged her to the window. She could see storm clouds, piling up in the sky, scudding in front of the moon, and smell the cool heady scent of the north wind. The ward was full of noise as the household ran outside to laugh and point and gloat in the feel of the wind. Since there was no hope of getting the children back to sleep, Lyssa got them dressed and took them down to the ward and the blessed coolness. Close to dawn, there was a clap of thunder, and rain came, pouring down cold in great sheets of water. Grown men and women ran round and laughed like the children as it rained and rained and rained.

Laughing, his yellow hair dripping and plastered down, Gweran scooped Aderyn up in his arms and held him up to see the dawn breaking silver through the rain.

“There you go, Addo,” Gweran said. “The horse wasn’t wasted after all.”

“It wasn’t the priests who did it. It was Nevyn.”

At first, Lyssa thought he meant “no one,” but then she remembered the herbman.

“Now, here! What could Nevyn have to do with it?”

“I saw him do it. I dreamt it.”

“Dolt,” Acern said, simpering. “Da, Addo’s a dolt.”

“Hush!” Gweran said. “It doesn’t matter who started the rain. We’ve got it, and that’s what matters.”

Lyssa gave him a grin: Blaeddbyr wouldn’t starve this winter. But as she turned to glance idly around the ward, she saw Tanyc, close at hand, watching her, while the water ran down his face and hair. All at once, she couldn’t breathe. She felt herself choking in what she could only describe as terror. She grabbed Acern’s hand tightly.

“Time to go in. Let’s all get dry.”

Too late. Gweran had seen Tanyc, too, and as he looked at his enemy, Lyssa knew that he was thinking of blood.

It rained steadily for three days. Life moved inside the tower and centered itself in the great hall, where Lord Maroic drank with his warband and the bard sang to keep them all amused. Much to Cadda’s annoyance, Lyssa insisted on staying in her chambers, giving Cadda no choice but to stay with her. Finally, on the third day, Cadda’s boredom got the better of her subservience.

“Oh, please, my lady, can’t we go down to the hall? We can listen to your lord sing.”

“I’d rather not, but you can if you want.”

“Oh, my thanks!” Gleefully, Cadda threw her sewing into the workbasket. “Are you sure you won’t come?”

“I won’t. All the riders will be there.” Lyssa looked away. “It’s so noisy, and I’ve got a headache.”

Cadda hurried down to the great hall and took a place in the straw in front of the servant’s hearth. One of her friends, Dwlla, was already listening while the bard sang sad tales of love, Cadda’s favorite kind. From where she was sitting, Cadda could see the riders at their tables and Tanyc’s broad back, only a few feet from her, but he might as well have been on the other side of the world. In her heart, Cadda cursed him and wondered how he could be so cold to her. Certainly plenty of other men told her she was
beautiful. When Gweran paused to rest, Dwlla leaned over and whispered to Cadda.

“Tanno was asking me where you were. Or where your lady was, but it comes to the same thing.”

All at once, Cadda wondered if it did indeed come to the same thing. Whenever Tanyc came walking with them, he always spoke to the lady, not the maid. He wouldn’t dare meddle with the bard’s woman, she thought, and besides, I’m prettier than her. Yet as she gazed at Tanyc’s broad back, she wondered if any woman every really understood what men thought.

When the next day dawned clear, Lyssa gave Cadda permission to take Aderyn down to the farm and visit her mother. While the lad worked with the herbman, Cadda spent a pleasant hour in her Mam’s kitchen and gossiped about her sisters, who were already married, much to Cadda’s great distress. It just wasn’t fair! She was the prettiest and still unmarried, while they all had men of their own. Brooding on the injustice of it all gave her an idea. She left the house and went out to the herbman’s hut, where she found Nevyn and Aderyn digging up a bit of ground by the wall for an herb garden.

“Good morrow,” Nevyn said. “Is it time for Aderyn to go home?”

“Oh, not truly. I just wanted a word with you about buying some herbs.”

Nevyn took Cadda inside his hut and gave her the stool to sit on while he leaned against the wall. Cadda decided that his manners were ever so much nicer than Tanyc’s. She only wished she could tell Tanyc that and have him care.

“I was wondering if you made love philters,” Cadda said. “I couldn’t pay much, but my mistress gives me a coin every now and then.”

“A maid with your beauty should have no need of such trash, and trash they are. They’re impious things, and besides, they never work right.”

Cadda’s heart sank. Though she didn’t care about the
impiety, she saw no need to waste her coin on something useless.

“Come, now,” Nevyn went on. “Is Tanyc as cold to you as all that?”

Cadda wondered if he were dweomer or if she’d simply been obvious. When she decided the latter, her cheeks burned with shame.

“Well, it’s a nasty thing to love a man who’ll never love you.”

“No doubt it is. But Tanno would only make a bad husband even if you got him. He’s a hard man and a cold one.”

“Oh, huh! He’s not as cold to some as he is to me.”

“Oh, indeed? I begin to understand. There’s a bit of jealousy in this.”

“Well, it’s rotten and unfair! There he is, hanging round a woman who’s already got her own man, and besides, she doesn’t even like him.”

“Now, listen, lass. If Tanyc’s the sort of man who’d want a married woman, can’t you see that you could do better for yourself than him? I—” All at once, the old man hesitated, turning to her with an ice-cold stare. “Just what married woman? Your lady?”

In panic, Cadda tried to think of a lie, but those cold eyes seemed to be boring into her very soul.

“Well, it is. But truly, sir, she hates him. She’d never betray her husband with him. Truly. Oh, ye gods, don’t tell Gweran, will you?”

“Rest assured. I’d never do anything of the sort. And listen, child, you hold your tongue, too. Hear me? For the life of you, not one word of tattling to Gweran.”

Too frightened to speak, Cadda nodded her agreement. As soon as Nevyn turned away, she got up and ran out of the hut.

The high Lords of Water had promised Nevyn another storm, which broke on schedule the following day, a nice gentle rain that would properly soak the fields. In spite of the weather, Nevyn bundled himself up in his cloak and
rode up to Maroic’s fort. It was time for him to sound Gweran and Lyssa out about taking Aderyn in a formal apprenticeship. Besides, he wanted to take a look at the nasty situation Cadda had so inadvertently described. As he rode into the ward, where the cobbles were running with rain, Aderyn came dashing to meet him with a cloak pulled over his head.

“I’ve been watching for you. I just knew you’d come today.”

“And here I am. Going to help me stable my horse?”

Together they found an empty stall and tied Nevyn’s horse up out of the weather. While Nevyn took off the damp saddle, Aderyn leaned back against the wall and watched, his big eyes full of some question.

“What’s on your mind, lad?”

“I want to ask you somewhat. How did you make the rain come?”

“Here! What makes you think I did?”

“I saw you in a dream. You were sitting on the river-bank, and there was this big star around you. It was like fire, but it was blue. Then these Kings came to you, and you talked to them. There were four Kings. I saw the one who was dripping wet. Then it rained.”