Daggerspell (29 page)

“Now we wait some more,” Dregydd said. “They’ll come when they’re ready.”

Sure enough, a few at a time the Westfolk strolled over
to see what Dregydd had brought them. Singly or in pairs, they walked through the rows of cooking pots and knives, swords, woodsmen’s axes, shovels, and arrow points. Occasionally they would squat down and pick something up to examine it, then lay it down again, and all without a word. As she grew used to them, Jill found herself thinking them beautiful. They were graceful and lithe, with a self-possessed dignity that reminded her of wild deer. She was surprised to find that the muleteers, and even Cullyn, looked on them with scorn. That entire afternoon, the men stayed down by the river and played dice with their backs to the proceedings. Only Jill sat with Dregydd in the grass and watched his customers.

When the sun was getting low in the sky, a young man came over with a leather meadskin.

“Good morrow,” he said. “We’re pleased with the trinkets you’re offering us.”

“That gladdens my heart, Jennantar,” Dregydd said. “So we’ll trade on the morrow?”

“We will.” Jennantar handed him the skin. “For your men, to sweeten their hearts a bit.”

Seeing that he knew the men despised his people embarrassed Jill profoundly, but he merely smiled in a wry sort of way as Dregydd hurried over to the muleteers. When Jennantar sat down beside her, the gray gnome appeared in her lap and leaned back with a contented smile.

“Here,” Jennantar said sharply. “Do you see the Wildfolk?”

“You mean you do?”

“All our people know them. We call them by a name that means the little brothers.”

When she looked into his smoky gray cat-slit eyes, Jill could feel the kinship there, for all that the Wildfolk were ugly and deformed, and these beings men called Westfolk were beautiful.

“You know,” Jennantar said, “there’s a man of your people who rides with us. I think he’d like to meet you.”

Without another word Jennantar got up and walked away, leaving Jill wondering if she’d insulted him.

It was getting on toward sunset when an old man came from the Westfolk’s camp. Since his eyes and ears were normal, even though he dressed like one of the Westfolk, Jill assumed that he must be the man whom Jennantar had mentioned. He was not very tall, with heavy shoulders and arms, though the rest of him was slender, and he had enormous brown eyes and white hair that swept up from his forehead in two peaks like an owl’s horns. When he hunkered down next to Dregydd, his posture was somehow birdlike, too, especially the way his hands hung loosely between his thighs. It turned out that Dregydd knew him; he introduced him round as Aderyn, a name that made Jill giggle, because it meant bird.

“I’ve come to ask a favor, Dregydd,” Aderyn said. “I need to travel to Cannobaen, and I’d rather ride with a caravan than on my own.”

“You’re most welcome, but what is this? Are you suddenly feeling longing for the folk you left behind?”

“Not truly.” Aderyn smiled at the jest. “This is an unpleasant little matter of justice, I’m afraid. One of our people murdered a man, and now he’s a fugitive. We’ve got to fetch him back.”

“Unpleasant indeed. He should be easy enough to find, eh? He’ll stand out among Eldidd folk.”

“Not truly. He’s a half-breed, you see.”

“Councillor Loddlaen.” The words burst out of Jill’s mouth before she could stop them.

When Aderyn turned her way, Jill felt that he was looking through, not at her, as if his casual glance would nail her down the way a farmer nails a shrike to a barn wall. After some moments he smiled and released her.

“Well, his name is Loddlaen, sure enough. Now, you must be Jill.”

“I am.” Jill was certain that she’d never told any of the Westfolk her name. “Have we met, good sir?”

“We have, but not so you’d remember.” For a moment, Aderyn looked melancholy, as if he wished that she would remember. “But why did you call him
Councillor
Loddlaen?”

“Well, that’s what he called himself. He’s part of Lord Corbyn of Bruddlyn’s retinue now.”

“Indeed? And isn’t that passing strange? Well, at least we know where to find him, then.” Aderyn rose, glancing off into the night. “Most strange, it is—truly.”

He walked off without even a backward glance.

“Here!” One of the muleteers spoke up. “Is that old man daft or suchlike?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him that,” Dregydd said, thoughtfully scratching his beard. “He has his little ways, but his mind is as sound as an oak.”

The muleteers exchanged doubting glances.

“Must be daft,” Cullyn muttered. “Running off with the Westfolk like he did.”

Although Jill knew better than to say so aloud, she was thinking that running off with these people didn’t seem like a daft idea to her.

Later that night the music started. Across the moonlit meadow a woman’s voice began a melancholy melody. Three other voices picked up a harmony that sounded out of key until Jill realized that they were singing in quarter tones, just like the Bardek minstrels one heard every now and then down in port towns. Suddenly instruments joined in, a cool, clear sound like a harp, then something that made a constant drone, and finally a small drum. The music came faster, faster, flowed from one song to the next with barely a pause. Cullyn and the men crowded close together and concentrated on dice. Jill slipped away and went to stand on the edge of the camp. Across the meadow torches flared among the jewel-bright tents. Drawn as if by dweomer, Jill took a few steps forward, but suddenly Cullyn grabbed her by the shoulder.

“And just what are you doing?” Cullyn snapped.

“Listening and nothing more.”

“Oh, horseshit! Listen, don’t you dare sneak off. Those people are more wild animals than they are men, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you pleased their men well enough anyway.”

“Oh, ye gods, Da! You think every man I meet is lusting after me.”

“Most of them are, and don’t you forget it. Now, come along. You can hear this blasted squawling well enough by the fire.”

Even for a tieryn with a vast demesne, coin was hard to come by in western Eldidd. Since Dun Cannobaen was only Lovyan’s summer retreat, she had to send back to her main residence, Dun Gwerbyn, for silver for the soapmaker’s daughter. When it finally arrived, Rhodry was incensed to find that his mother expected him to deliver it personally.

“Why can’t the chamberlain go?” Rhodry snapped. “Or the wretched equerry? Let them earn their meat and mead.”

Lovyan merely crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. With a sigh, Rhodry picked up the pair of saddlebags from the table and went to the stable to get a horse.

The morning lay clear and sunny over the wild green meadow, and far below at the base of the cliffs the ocean sparkled like a casket of blue and green jewels, but Rhodry rode out with a heavy heart. Olwen’s going to weep, he told himself, and it’s going to be horrible. What Rhodry could never admit to another living soul was that he was honestly fond of Olwen. It was one thing to tumble a common-born lass around in bed; quite another to admit that you liked her and felt more at ease with her than with a woman of your own class.

The town of Cannobaen lay nestled around a small harbor in a break in the cliffs, where the Brog, a stream that only qualified as a river in the winter, came to the sea. There were three wooden piers for fishing boats and a larger pier for the ferry that went out to the holy islands of Wmmglaedd about ten miles out to sea. Inland from the piers about four hundred buildings spread out in ragged semicircles. Although Ysgerryn’s soapworks lay about a mile from town to spare the residents the stink of
tallow, his family lived in a round house down near the harbor. Rhodry’s courtship had been so successful because Ysgerryn and his wife were up to their arms in grease and potash all day a good long ways away from Olwen, who tended the younger children at home.

As soon as Rhodry dismounted to lead his horse through the narrow curving streets, he realized that he was in for the worst morning of his life. The townsfolk all bowed or curtsied as usual, but he was aware of hastily repressed smirks and snickers everywhere he went. Although he was the lord and they the commoners, satire was an injured man’s right, and apparently Ysgerryn had been exercising it to the hilt. Rhodry tied his horse up behind the house and slipped in like a thief.

Olwen was chopping turnips at the battered table in the kitchen. She was fifteen, a slender little thing with a heart-shaped face, big blue eyes, and a charming triangular smile. This morning, however, she looked up without the usual smile when Rhodry came in.

“Uh, I’ve brought you somewhat.” Rhodry laid the saddlebags on the table.

Olwen nodded and wiped her hands on her apron.

“Do the terms of the settlement please you?” Rhodry said.

She nodded again and began unlacing the bags.

“My mother sent along some honey and things like that.” Rhodry began to feel desperate. “Things that are strengthening, she said.”

She nodded a third time and began taking various pots and sacks out of the saddlebags.

“Olwen, please, won’t you talk to me?”

“And what do you want me to say?”

“Ah, by the hells, I don’t know!”

Olwen took out the small wooden box of coins, opened it, and stared at the heap of silver for a long time, her chance at a decent life. Rhodry paced around the kitchen while she counted out every coin.

“By the Goddess herself,” Olwen said at last. “Your mother’s a generous woman.”

“It’s not just her. I wanted you well provided for.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. Ye gods, what kind of a man do you think I am?”

Olwen considered the question with a weary sort of look in her eyes.

“A better one than most,” she said at last. “Are you waiting for me to weep? I’ve done all of that that I’m going to do.”

“Well and good. Will you give me one last kiss?”

“I won’t. Just go, will you?”

Rhodry took the saddlebags and headed out, pausing to glance back and see her calmly putting the coins back in the box. She looked more relieved than sad to have him gone. He mounted his horse and trotted out fast, letting the townsfolk get out of his way as best they could. His heart wasn’t lightened any when he returned to the dun and found the page waiting for him with the news that his mother wanted to speak with him straightaway. Although he wanted to make an excuse and duck out, he could never avoid the fact that Lovyan was no longer merely his mother, but his overlord, to whom he owed fealty as well as filial respect.

“I’ll wait upon her directly,” Rhodry said with a groan.

Lovyan was standing by the window in the reception chamber. The harsh morning sun brought out the wrinkles slashed across her cheeks and the gray in her once-dark hair, but she was still an imposing woman, if a bit stout from bearing four sons. She was wearing a white linen dress, kirtled with the green, silver, and blue plaid of the Maelwaedds, but thrown over the chair behind her was the red, brown, and white plaid of the Clw Coc, the symbol of the tierynrhyn. It struck Rhodry as odd that after all these years of thinking himself a Maelwaedd, one day he, too, would wear that foreign plaid.

“Well?” Lovyan said.

“I handed it all over.”

“Did the poor lass weep?”

“Frankly, I think the poor lass was cursed glad to get rid of me.”

“She might be, indeed. You’re very handsome, Rhoddo, but I’ve no doubt that you’re a wearing sort of man to be in love with.”

Rhodry had the horrible feeling that he was blushing.

“The midwife tells me that your Olwen is about three months along,” Lovyan continued. “She’ll be having the baby around the Festival of the Sun. Since it’s her first, it’ll doubtless be a bit late.”

“I wouldn’t know, I’m sure.”

“About such women’s matters?” Lovyan raised one eyebrow. “It’s time you realized that upon these ‘women’s matters’ rests the strength of every clan in the kingdom. If your uncle had had a bastard son, I wouldn’t be tieryn. You might think about that.”

Rhodry flung himself into a chair and refused to look at her. With a sigh, Lovyan sat down nearby.

“The real trouble is you were never raised to rule,” Lovyan said. “No one ever thought you had the remotest chance of inheriting anything, so your father got you the best warrior’s training he could and left it at that. You simply have to marry soon, and she’s going to have to be exactly the right sort of woman, too.” She hesitated, assessing him. “I suppose it would ache your heart to marry a plain lass, or one older than you.”

“It would!”

“Now, do try to be sensible. I—here, what’s all that clatter outside?”

Rhodry realized that for some minutes he’d been hearing noise out in the ward. Giving thanks to the gods for the interruption, he went to look out the window. Servants scuttled around, greeting a troop of men on horseback. Rhodry could see the dragon device on their shields, and the blue, silver, and green plaid of the rider at their head.

“Ah, by a pig’s cock!” Rhodry said. “It’s Rhys.”

“If you could please watch your tongue around your brother, I’d be most grateful.”

When they came down to the great hall, they found Rhys standing by the honor hearth. At the head of the table, the plaid of Aberwyn lay over the chair to announce that the gwerbret’s presence superceded that of the tieryn. Rhys was just Rhodry’s height, but stocky where Rhodry was slender. He had the raven-dark hair and cornflower blue eyes of the Maelwaedds, but his face was coarse rather than fine—the jaw a little too square, the lips a little too full, the eyes a little too small for the breadth of cheek. When Lovyan curtsied to him, Rhys bowed with an affectionate smile. Rhodry’s bow he ignored.

“Good morrow, Your Grace,” Lovyan said. “What brings you to me?”

“Naught that I care to discuss in your open hall.”

“I see. Then let us retire upstairs.”

When Rhodry started to follow, Rhys turned to him.

“See that my men are well taken care of,” he snarled.

Since it was a direct order from the gwerbret himself, Rhodry gritted his teeth and followed it. You bastard, he thought, I have to ride this war you’re discussing ever so privately with Mother.