The Dragon Revenant (53 page)

It seemed to Jill that during the trip from Bardek the
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had traveled not across the ocean but through a crowded city. Not only was the dweomer-wind full of sylphs that swarmed round the mast and played among the sails, but gnomes and sprites thronged the deck, and sea undines clustered round the hull and in the wake like a mob of citizens lining up to watch a parade. At night the spirits of the Aethyr settled on the mast in a glow and flicker of blue fire. When she wasn’t with Rhodry or working on her dweomer-exercises with Nevyn, she would sit in the bow for hours and watch the Wildfolk. Usually her gray gnome came to sit in her lap or run up and down beside her like a restless child.

Early one morning, when Nevyn had taken it upon himself to lecture Rhodry about the various political problems, in his new rhan, Jill was sitting in her usual place in the bow when she saw a particularly large flock of sylphs. Some hundreds of yards ahead they wheeled and dipped and circled around some unseen center like seabirds above a shoal offish. She got up and stood shading her eyes with one hand. As she peered at the flock, it seemed she could see an enormous bird at its heart—an albatross maybe? No, it was too large and too silver a gray. In fact, it looked like an owl, but no owl would ever fly out to sea.

“Aderyn!” She began jumping up and down and waving her arms. “Aderyn! Here we are! Over here!”

With a weary sort of flap the owl circled round and glided straight for the boat. As it came closer, she could see that it carried a cloth sack in its talons. Winging lower it passed overhead, dropped the sack safely on deck, then set-tied gracefully after it, perching onto a coil of rope.

“Aderyn, Aderyn, I’m so glad to see you! Can you talk in that shape? I don’t remember.”

“Somewhat.” His voice was a flat distorted squawk. “Fetch Nevyn.”

As Jill turned and headed for the hatch, she realized that a number of sailors had seen the owl, too. Their faces a pasty gray, they jumped back and rushed to the stern to huddle around the helmsman, who was looking at the sky with the expression of a man engaged in furious full-speed prayer. Apparently Nevyn had heard her yelling, because he climbed up on deck, with Rhodry right behind him, before she reached the hatch.

“Aderyn’s here.” Jill was jigging in delight. “He’ll have news.”

When they all trotted back to the bow, Aderyn was not only human again, but he’d already put on the pair of brigga he’d been carrying in the sack and was slipping a shirt over his head.

“That’s better,” he announced. “This wind is cold, I must say. Did you invoke it, Nevyn?”

“Merely asked, actually. It most certainly gladdens my heart to see you. What’s the situation in Eldidd?”

“Vexed, very vexed, but not blood-spilling dangerous—yet. We need to talk to your captain here, because it would be best to land in Abernaudd, not Aberwyn herself. Rhodry, Blaen’s in ’Naudd, waiting for you.”

“Is he now?” Rhodry broke into a grin. “It’s going to be cursed good to see him again.”

“Well, you will and soon, because you’re not all that far from land. Ye gods, my arms hurt! I’ve been flying out from the coast every day.” He began rubbing his right arm with his left hand as he talked. “We’ve got to be quick about this, because I’ve got to head back and warn Blaen you’re coming.”

“You can ride the dweomer-wind back in,” Nevyn said. “Ah good, there’s Elaeno now. Let’s go talk to him.”

When the others hurried off below decks, Jill stayed where she was. She sat down on the coil of rope, picked up her gnome and settled him on her lap, and wondered at herself, that she felt sad to the point of tears that they were reaching land. Sylphs and sprites settled around her, touching her face with little hands like puffs of wind and trying to comfort her, but all she could think was that she would lose them all if she didn’t fight to keep them. If court matters took her over, the Wildfolk would slip away, a few at a time, until she never saw them again.

Before Aderyn left, Nevyn rubbed a rubifacient mixture into his old pupil’s aching arms and shoulders, and a great silver owl reeking of mint and camphor flapped wearily off to Abernaudd. Jill waved farewell until he was out of sight, then turned back to find Nevyn standing behind her. Rhodry and Elaeno had apparently gone below.

“Nevyn, you will be coming back to Aberwyn with us, won’t you? I mean, you’ll live at court, won’t you?”

“If my lady requests it, of course I will. Don’t forget, child, you’re the one in command now. I can’t give you orders or even ask too many outright favors anymore.”

“Oh, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! Then I most humbly beg you, Lord Galrion, to come be my personal councillor at my husband’s court.”

“My thanks, my lady. I shall be most pleased and honored to serve you.” Nevyn made her a courtly bow, but he was grinning. “And my first piece of official advice is to stop swearing by the Lord of Hell’s nether anatomy, especially in mixed company. Neither you nor Rhodry can afford to have you sounding like a barracks’ brat. Which reminds me. Along with all the other fripperies Tieryn Lovyan packed up for me, she sent some dresses and jewelry for you. I suggest you put them on for our arrival. Blaen and all sorts of notables will be there to greet us, you know.”

“And how, pray tell, am I going to jump off this wretched boat in a pair of dresses?”

“You can’t. Rhodry will have to lift you down.”

“Oh, stuff that!”

“My dear Lady Gilyan!”

“My apologies. But what if he drops me?”

“He won’t. From the time he was a little lad, they trained him to do this sort of thing, you know, like helping a lady dismount from a sidesaddle or feeding her at a formal dinner.”

“I don’t care! He’ll just have to wait to practice on me, that’s all. I’ll dress up when we’re going to Aberwyn proper, but cursed and blasted both if I’ll do it now.”

“Oh come now, do all these trivial little matters truly ache your heart so much? Or is it somewhat else?”

“Well, there’s a lot of things, but …” She hesitated in sudden and profound embarrassment. Oh, come now! she told herself. No matter what else he is, Nevyn’s a physician and a healer. “Well, um, I was thinking, and well …” Suddenly her words came out with a rush. “Nevyn, do you think I’m barren? After all these years, first with Rhodry, and then with that stupid horse thief, too—but neither one of them ever got me with child. What if I’m barren, and then Rhodry has to put me aside someday for Aberwyn’s sake? I’d die rather than be humiliated like that.”

“It won’t ever come to that because I’m sure you’re not barren at all. Consider the life you’ve led, child, riding all over the kingdom, training like a lad in swordcraft, fighting battles, sleeping on the ground, eating catch-as-catch-can and the cheapest tavern food as often as not, and running for your life half the time, too, once you and Rhodry were together—your womanly humors must be utterly disrupted! All the fiery humor’s been engulfed and overwhelmed by the cold and watery ones, just for a start. And as for the time with Perryn, well, my dear Jill, I would have been very surprised if you’d conceived his child. He’s not truly human, you see, and much much less like a human being than an elf is. A boarhound and a sheepdog can produce perfectly good puppies, but consider a cat mating with a rabbit. You wouldn’t get kittens with long ears, would you?”

“What a revolting way of putting it!”

“My apologies for your tender feelings.” The old man was grinning at her. “I didn’t realize my lady was so delicate.”

“Oh, don’t tease!” She could feel her face blazing with a blush. “But do you truly think I can bear children?”

“I most sincerely do. Once you’ve had six months or so in the dun, with a soft bed to sleep in, and plenty of warmth and leisure, and the best food to eat and clean water to drink—you wait and see. You’ll be carrying an heir for Aberwyn soon enough.”

“Oh. How wonderful. I, um … that gladdens my heart.”

Nevyn raised one bushy eyebrow and looked her over with questioning eyes. She turned her back on him, studied the water foaming under the bow, and refused to answer. In a few moments she heard him sigh and walk away.

Jill did compromise, however, for the landing at Abernaudd. Since they were nearly to land, Elaeno let her commandeer the last of the fresh water on board to wash her hair and as much of the rest of her as the supply would allow. Although she refused to wear a narrow and constraining underdress, she did put on a regular dress over her brigga and even kirtled it with a length of the red, white, and brown plaid of the Red Lion, Lovyan’s clan, which the regent had thoughtfully sent along. Since her father served the tieryn, that plaid would be Jill’s until her marriage. By hitching the crisp gold-colored silk up around her waist, she could leave the ship on her own terms and ride astride once they were on land, too. At the jewelry she balked, because every piece of it, ring brooch and armlet and medallion, had the dragon of Aberwyn worked into its design. Wearing it would have made her feel branded.

Once she was dressed, Rhodry went out of his way to tell her how lovely she looked. Even though she knew that he was only trying to make her feel better, she was furious with him.

Just before noon Nevyn released the dweomer-wind, and on a normal breeze the
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glided into Abernaudd’s harbor with the strangest cargo it had ever carried. Once they were well within the funnel-shaped bay, Elaeno took over from the helmsman to bring his ship in. From her place in the bow, Jill could see a crowd on the main pier. In a clean shirt, with the plaid of Aberwyn pinned at one shoulder by an enormous ring brooch, Rhodry came up beside her and slipped his arm around her waist.

“There’s Blaen, my love. Can you pick out him out? There in front with the red-and-gold plaid.”

“I can just barely see him. You’re the elfin the family.”

“You know, we’re going to have to stop making jests about that, aren’t we? It would ruin everything if anyone found out who my father was.”

“True enough. I’ll keep a watch on myself from now on. By the Goddess herself there’s a lot of people there! Who else can you see?”

“Aderyn. Ceredyc, Gwerbret Abernaudd. And—it’s your father, Jill! Cullyn’s here!”

She nearly wept out of sheer joy. As the boat eased itself into dock under Elaeno’s expert piloting she was as impatient as one of the Wildfolk dancing around her in the bow. Yet when they were finally secure and tied up at the pier, she had to wait upon ceremony. Nevyn went ashore first to announce Rhodry’s presence to the other two gwerbrets in attendance and to ask Ceredyc’s permission for his lord to land. Once that was given, the men of Rhodry’s warband came off to form up as an honor guard before Rhodry could jump down to the pier. Even though Jill started to clamber over the side of the low-riding merchantman herself, he insisted on catching her and lifting her down beside him. As Blaen stepped forward, all the men in attendance—and there was Rhodry’s full warband of twenty-five, the twenty-five Blaen had brought with him, Ceredyc’s and Sibyr’s escorts and a miscellany of captains and on-lookers—began to cheer, calling out Rhodry’s name and that of Aberwyn. Laughing his berserker’s howl, Rhodry flung up his arms for silence, and in a moment or two, they gave it to him.

“Welcome home, cousin,” Blaen said.

“My thanks, Your Grace. It’s been a cursed strange road I’ve been riding. Tell you about it some time.”

“Do that. Our mutual cousin here has offered you his hospitality, by the by.”

“My thanks, Lord Sibyr.” Rhodry turned to him. “It gladdens my heart to see you.”

“And mine to see you, Your Grace.”

There were bows and smiles all round, and Jill curtsied as best she could whenever anyone bowed to her, but all the while she was looking over the crowd for Cullyn. When she finally found him, off to one side, he winked at her, a gesture that made her feel calmer than she had in days. At least I’ll have Da there, she thought to herself; I can go through with this. Just then the crowd parted to let a man with gleaming-pale hair make his way through. It took her a moment to recognize Calonderiel, dressed as he was in more finery than she’d ever seen on an elf: knee-high boots and fitted trousers of the finest white buckskin, a linen tunic stiff as leather with floral embroidery in swirling vivid bands, the quiver at his hip gleaming with solid gold appliques, the bow he carried obviously a ceremonial weapon, inlaid as it was with gold and gems. Everyone around goggled and gasped as he bowed to Rhodry and held out his hand.

“My name is Calonderiel, Banadar of the Eastern Border. I’ve come to offer my friendship and alliance to Gwerbret Aberwyn.”

Rhodry grabbed the offered hand in both of his and squeezed it.

“Rhodry, Gwerbret Aberwyn accepts with all his heart and soul. Cal, you bastard! A banadar, are you? And here you never even told me before!”

“Wasn’t any reason to.” Calonderiel turned to Jill and grinned at her. “I’ll explain later, but by the Dark Sun herself, it’s good to see you.”

“And it gladdens my heart to see you. I always thought I’d be riding west one day. I never dreamt you’d be riding east.”

“No more did I, but it just proves the old saying: who knows what Wyrd will bring you?”

As if at some prearranged signal Blaen and the other noble-born men swept in and surrounded Rhodry and Calonderiel to lead them away in an important mob, all serious talk and grim expressions as they bent their heads toward each other and shut out the common world. For a moment Jill hesitated, caught between them and the warbands, but Cullyn appeared at her side and slipped his arm through hers.

“Come along, my sweet. There are horses waiting.”

“They can wait a bit more. Oh, Da, it’s so good to see you.”

“And you can’t know how it gladdens my heart to see you.” He caught her by the shoulders and grinned at her. “You’ve got your cursed gall, Jill, running all over two kingdoms for three long years and never even sending your old da a letter.”

She started to laugh, then flung herself into his arms and wept while he held her tightly. Her tears were brief, though when she looked up, she found his eyes suspiciously moist as well. As the crowd broke up, and the men hurried to fetch their horses and fall into line behind the noble-born, they strolled after slowly, arm-in-arm.