Daggerspell (50 page)

“I’m not.” All at once Jill broke, turning pale, speaking much too fast. “I saw his shade, Corbyn’s I mean. I killed him, and then I saw him, standing on his body. He was all blue, and ah, ye gods, the look in his eyes!”

Rhodry felt himself turn cold, but Aderyn merely nodded.

“The battle fit was on you. I heard how you shattered Corbyn’s mail. Could you do that now, child, in cold blood?”

“Never! It’s hard to believe I did it then.”

“Just so. It was the battle fit. I don’t truly understand it, but it must disrupt the humors somehow—probably it’s an excess of fiery humor in the blood. But it gave you strength far beyond yourself, and you saw things normally hidden.”

“So his shade was truly there? I thought I was going mad.”

“You weren’t.” Aderyn chose every word carefully. “What you call a mans shade is his real self, the part that indwells his body and keeps it alive and that holds his mind and consciousness. When the body’s injured beyond repair, this etheric double, as the dweomer terms it, withdraws. What you saw was Corbyn himself, utterly bewildered at being dead.”

Jill seemed to be about to speak, then bolted like a terrified horse, dodging through the wagons. When Rhodry started to follow, Aderyn grabbed his arm.

“Let her go. She needs to be alone with this.”

“No doubt. Just hearing you talk creeped my flesh. Here, Aderyn, I’m a berserker myself, and I’ve never seen anyone’s shade.”

“You aren’t marked for the dweomer like Jill is. Remember that, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Jill is marked for the dweomer.”

All at once Rhodry was frightened of this slender, weary old man. He made a muttered excuse and hurried away.

Laden with chain mail, exhausted from the battle, Jill couldn’t run far. She got free of the baggage train, jogged downstream for a bit, then tripped in the long grass and fell to her knees, gasping for breath. She flung herself face down and stretched out her arms, as if she could hold the sun-warmed earth like a mother. Wildfolk clustered around her; the gray gnome appeared and ran his twisted fingers gently through her hair. At last Jill sat up and looked across the meadow to Corbyn’s dun, where the green pennant was coming down. Jill had the uncanny feeling that Corbyn’s shade was wandering through the halls, trying to get back home. She nearly vomited.

“So much for glory. May I never ride to war again!”

Later she would realize that the gesture was a mad one, but at the time, all she could think was that she had to have a bath. She stripped off her mail and clothes, then plunged into the shallow stream. While she scoured herself
with handsful of sand from the bottom, the gray gnome perched in the grass and watched her.

“I want my spare shirt. It’s in my saddlebags.”

The gnome nodded and disappeared. By the time he returned, dragging the shirt behind him, it was no longer strictly clean, but at least it didn’t stink of sweat and another man’s blood. Jill dressed, then rolled the mail up in a bundle. Although she’d already cleaned her sword once, she did so again until she could be sure that not one speck of Corbyn’s blood remained. Then she merely sat unthinking in the grass with her gnome until Jennantar came to fetch her.

“You’ve been out here for hours.”

With a start Jill realized that the sun was low in the sky, and the shadow of the dun lay long and dark on the meadow.

“Here, Jill. Don’t ache your heart over killing Corbyn. He deserved to die if ever a man did.”

“It isn’t that. It’s having seen him. Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I don’t even know what I mean.”

Jill dumped her mail into a supply wagon, then went with Jennantar up to the dun, where, he told her, the wounded were already settled in Corbyn’s barracks and the victors were drinking his mead in his great hall. Walking into the ward gave her a peculiar feeling. For days this place had been as unattainable as the moon; now here she was, striding across it as a conqueror. The great hall was crowded and deafening. Although Jill tried to slip in, half a dozen men saw her and turned to stare, pointing her out to their fellows. Slowly the noise dropped to silence as man after man turned to look at their dweomer warrior. At the head of the honor table, Rhodry rose to his feet.

“Come sit in my place. The god-touched deserve every honor I can give them.”

Every man in the hall cheered as Jill made her way to him. God-touched—she supposed that was how they had to see her, a favorite of some god or other, rather than admitting that she was merely a woman who could fight as well as a man. Yet no matter the reason, the honor they
were paying her was real enough, and all at once the glory of it made her laugh aloud. The noble-born rose and bowed to her; Rhodry filled a goblet of mead and handed it to her like a page.

“So much for rebels. You’ve earned your hire, silver dagger.”

With a laugh, Jill pledged him with the goblet.

“You have my thanks, my lord, for letting me earn it. I wasn’t looking forward to facing Nevyn if I rode back alive and you didn’t.”

Frightened and pale, Corbyn’s servants crept in to set out a feast from their dead lord’s stores. While they ate, the noble-born discussed the disposition Lovyan might make of Corbyn and Nowec’s lands. Apparently there were plenty of land-hungry minor lords among the Clw Coc. As the mead flowed, Jill had little mind to listen to the merits of this cousin or that. All she could think about was Rhodry, so close to her. Every now and then, he would glance her way with hungry eyes. Jill wanted him so badly that she felt shamed, that she would turn into a slut with nothing more on her mind than having a man’s arms around her.

Resolutely Jill rehearsed every bitter truth: he was too far above her; he would only get her with child and then desert her; worst of all, her father would beat her black and blue. Yet all at once, something snapped in her mind. She was the victor at this feast. She’d risked her life for all of these noble lords. A horse was all very well, but why by every god shouldn’t she have the prize she truly wanted? In a berserker fit of her own, she turned to Rhodry and smiled at him, kept smiling until he grew quiet, bound to her every gesture and glance.

Finally the warbands drank themselves into a staggering silence. Jill begged the lords to excuse her and left the hall with Aderyn. She took him down to the elven tent and made sure he was comfortably settled in, then went to her own blankets. For a long time she lay awake, listening as, a few at a time, the men stumbled back to their bedrolls. When the camp was utterly silent, she got up and
slipped out of the tent without waking Aderyn. At Rhodry’s tent she hesitated, but only for a moment, before she lifted the flap and ducked in. In the darkness she heard Rhodry sit up with a sleepy grunt. She made her way over and sat down beside him.

“Jill! What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?”

“You’re daft. Get out before I shame us both.”

When she stroked the side of his face, he went stone still.

“Stop it! I’m only made of flesh and blood, not cold steel.”

“And so am I. Can’t we have just this one night?”

When he refused to answer, Jill pulled her shirt over her head and threw it on the ground. Rhodry turned and caught her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her so hungrily that for a moment she was terrified, simply because he was so much stronger than she. His hands ran down her bare back, then turned her in his arms while he kissed her over and over again. She felt as limp and weak as a rag doll, utterly in his control, but when he caressed her, his hand trembling on her breast, she felt her lust rising to match his. She threw her arms around his neck and took a kiss from him as he laid her down on the blankets. The last of her fear vanished like a leaf burning to ash in a fire.

And far away in Dun Gwerbyn, Nevyn sat straight up out of a sound sleep and knew what had happened.

“Those young dolts! Well, I hope they have the sense to hide it from Cullyn, that’s all.”

“And so Jill’s slain Corbyn,” Lovyan said. “By the Goddess herself, I never would have thought it.”

“Oh, I had faith in her,” Nevyn said. “She has resources, you might call them, beyond what she even knows herself.”

“That’s a most cryptic remark.”

“It will have to stay that way. My apologies.”

Lovyan smiled at him in fond exasperation. They were sitting in the little garden behind the joined brochs of Dun Gwerbyn, where the last red roses drooped against gray stone.

“Will your friend from the west be coming here?” Lovyan said.

“He won’t. I’d hoped he would, just in case Rhys wanted to hear that Loddlaen was a murderer, but both he and the Westfolk with him are eager to get back to their people.”

“They’re a strange lot, the Westfolk. It’s odd, so many people abhor them, but I’ve always found them congenial—not enough to ride off with them, but congenial.”

Although she spoke casually, Nevyn felt an odd doubt nag at his mind.

“Lovva, can I ask you somewhat that might be hideously insulting?”

“You may, but I might not answer.”

“Fair enough. Was Tingyr truly Rhodry’s father?”

Lovyan tilted her head to one side and considered him with mischief in her eyes. In spite of her gray hair and the marks of age upon her face, he could clearly see how beautiful she must have been twenty years past.

“He wasn’t, at that. Not even Medylla and Dannyan know, but he wasn’t.”

“Your secret will be safe with me, I assure you. Here, where did you meet a man of the Westfolk?”

“My, you do have sharp eyes, my friend! It was right here in Dun Gwerbyn, when my brother was tieryn.” Lovyan looked away, her smile fading into bitterness. “It was the summer that Tingyr made Linedd his mistress. I was still young then, and I didn’t understand things the way I do now. Just thinking that in the Dawntime he would have had a whole stableful of concubines was very cold comfort indeed, so I rode off in a huff and came to visit Gwaryc. I remember sitting in this very garden and weeping for my hurt pride. Then, as they do every now and then, some of the Westfolk rode in to pay the tieryn a tribute of horses, and with them was a bard who was the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, for ail his peculiar eyes.” She paused, the smile returning. “I wanted somewhat of my own back, and I took it. Do you despise me?”

“Not in the least, and you don’t sound like a woman who feels herself shamed.”

“Well, if anything, I still feel rather smug.” Lovyan tossed her head like a young lass. “And somehow my bard made me realize that it wasn’t Tingyr I loved, but the power of being his wife. We had some lovely weeks together. When I went home, I made sure that little Linedd knew who ruled in Aberwyn’s court. But I’ll admit to being quite nervous when the time came for my childbed.
When they laid Rhodry on my breast, the first thing I looked at was his ears.”

“Oh, no doubt.” Nevyn allowed himself a chuckle. “Are you ever going to tell Rhodry the truth?”

“Never, and not for the sake of my rather besmirched honor. It’s simply that every man in Eldidd has to believe that Rhodry’s a true-born Maelwaedd or he can never rule in Dun Gwerbyn. I doubt me if my poor honest son could keep the secret.”

“So do I. The lads got a fine honor indeed. My thanks for telling me the truth. It clears up a great puzzle. Aderyn’s been rambling about Westfolk blood in the Maelwaedd clan, and how it skips generations to all come out in someone, but that seemed more than a bit farfetched to me.”

“And quite unnecessary,” Lovyan said with a small firm nod, then proceeded to change the subject in a way that made it clear she never wanted it raised again. “I wonder when Rhys will ride our way? He’ll have to give his agreement on the way I settle this rebellion. I suppose he’s already polishing a few nasty remarks to spoil his brother’s victory. You can’t know how hard it is for a woman to have two of her sons wrangling like this. Nevyn, do you know why Rhys hates Rhodry so much?”

“I don’t. I wish I did—I’d put a stop to it.”

This time, Nevyn wasn’t merely putting Lovyan off with cryptic remarks. Over the years, he’d done many meditations to discover if Rhys’s hatred was part of the tangled chain of Wyrd that Nevyn and Rhodry shared. It was no such thing, merely one of those irrational tempers that spring up between blood kin. At some point Rhys and Rhodry would have to resolve it, if not in this life, then in the next, but that, mercifully, would be no concern of his.

There were other souls, of course, who were his concern, and that afternoon Nevyn went to Cullyn’s chamber. He found Cullyn dressed and out of bed, sitting on the carved chest by the window with his left arm in a sling. Cullyn
was pale and so gaunt that the dark circles under his eyes looked like pools of shadow, but he was mending nicely.