Katharine Kerr - The Fire Dragon

‘Nevyn, my lord Nevyn!’ The voice sounded both loud and urgent. ‘Your aid!’

Through the tent wall a dim light shone.

‘What’s all this?’ Nevyn sat up and yawned. ‘Who is it?’

‘Branoic, my lord. Maddyn’s been poisoned.’

Nevyn found himself both wide awake and standing. He pulled on his brigga, grabbed his sack of medicinals in one hand and a shirt in the other, and ducked through the tent flap. Branoic stood outside with a lantern raised in one hand.

‘He ate a bit of spoiled pork, Owaen told me,’ Branoic said. ‘But it came from a barrel that Oggyn gave us.’

Branoic led Nevyn to the bard’s tent. Just outside, his clothes lay stinking in a soiled heap. Inside Nevyn found Maddyn lying naked on a blanket. The tent smelled of vomit and diarrhoea. Owaen knelt beside him with a wet rag in one hand.

‘I’ve been wiping his face off,’ Owaen said. ‘I don’t think he’s going to heave any more.’

‘Naught left,’ Maddyn whispered.

‘How do you feel?’ Nevyn said.

‘Wrung out. My guts are cramping.’

The effort of talking was making him shiver. Nevyn grabbed a clean blanket and laid it over him. In the lantern light his white face, marked with dark circles under his eyes, shone with cold sweat. Nevyn sent Owaen off to wake a servant to heat some water, then knelt down beside his patient. Branoic hung the lantern from the tent pole and retreated.

‘Gods,’ Maddyn mumbled. ‘I stink.’

‘Good,’ Nevyn said. ‘Your body’s flushing the contagion out. I’m going to make you drink herb water, though, to ensure that every last bit’s gone. It won’t be pleasant, I’m afraid.’

‘Better than dying.’

‘Exactly.’

Maddyn sighed and turned his face away. The stench hanging in the tent was free of the taint of poison, or at least, Nevyn thought, free of any poison he’d recognize. While he waited for the hot water to arrive, Nevyn sat back on his heels and opened his dweomer sight. Maddyn’s aura curled tight around him, all shrunken and flabby, a pale brownish colour shot with sickly green. Yet it pulsed, as if it fought to regain its normal size, and brightened close to the skin. Nevyn closed his sight.

‘You’ll live,’ Nevyn announced.

‘Good.’ All at once Maddyn tried to sit up. ‘The rose pin.’

‘What?’ Nevyn pushed him down again. ‘Lie still!’

‘I’ve got to find the rose pin. On my shirt.’

All at once Nevyn remembered. ‘The token the princess gave you, you mean?’

‘It was on my shirt.’

‘All your clothes are right outside. It can wait.’

Maddyn shook his head and tried to sit up again. Fortunately, a servant provided a distraction when he came in, carrying in one hand a black kettle filled with steaming water.

‘My thanks,’ Nevyn said. ‘Put that down over there by the big cloth sack. I’ve got another errand for you. On the bard’s shirt outside –’

‘The rose pin, my lord?’ The servant held out his other hand. ‘Branoic told me to bring it to him.’

On his palm lay the token. Nevyn plucked it off and showed it to Maddyn, who lay back down.

‘I’ll pin this on my own shirt,’ Nevyn said, ‘so it won’t get lost.’

Maddyn smiled, his eyes closed. Nevyn set a packet of emetics to steeping, then called in Branoic. Together they carried Maddyn and the kettle outside, where the herb water could do its work while sparing the tent. The rest of the night passed unpleasantly, but towards dawn Nevyn realized that Maddyn was on the mend when the bard managed to drink some well-watered ale and keep it down. He sent young Garro off to wash Maddyn’s clothes and told Branoic to try feeding Maddyn a little bread soaked in ale the next time he woke.

‘I’ve got an errand to run,’ Nevyn said. ‘I wonder where Oggyn’s had his servant pitch his tent?’

‘Just back of the prince’s own,’ Branoic said. ‘He’s put a red pennant upon it.’

‘Just like the lord he wants to be, eh? Very well then.’

In the silver light of approaching dawn the tent proved easy enough to find. Nevyn lifted the flap and spoke Oggyn’s name.

‘I’m awake, my lord,’ Oggyn said, and he sounded exhausted. ‘Come in.’

Nevyn ducked through the tent flap and found Oggyn fully dressed, sitting on a little stool in the semi-darkness. Nevyn called upon the spirits of Aethyr and set a ball of dweomer light glowing. When he stuck it to the canvas Oggyn barely seemed to notice.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ Oggyn said. ‘I heard what happened to Maddyn. The gossip’s all over the camp. I suppose you think I made that wretched bard ill on purpose.’

‘I had thoughts that way, truly,’ Nevyn said. ‘Was it only the spoiled pork, or did you use a bit of Lady Merodda’s poisons?’

‘Neither, I swear it!’ Oggyn began to tremble, and by the dweomer light Nevyn could see that his face had gone pasty white around the eyes. ‘Even if I had given them that barrel, how could I insure that only Maddyn would eat the stuff? Nevyn, do you truly think I’d poison the entire troop to get at him?’

‘Shame is a bitter thing,’ Nevyn said, ‘and you had a score or two to settle with Owaen and Branoic as well.’

Oggyn slid off the stool and dropped to his knees. ‘Ah ye gods! Do you think I’d do anything that would harm our prince?’

‘What? Of course not!’

‘He depends upon the silver daggers.’ Oggyn looked up. Big drops of sweat ran down his face. ‘Think you I’d poison his guards?’

‘Well.’ Nevyn considered for a long moment. ‘Truly, I have to give you that. And there’s no doubt that spoiled meat will give a man the flux as surely as Merodda’s poisons would.’

Oggyn nodded repeatedly, as if urging him along this line of thought. Nevyn opened his dweomer sight and considered Oggyn’s aura, dancing a pale sickly grey in terror but free of guile.

‘Will you swear to me again?’ Nevyn said.

‘I will,’ Oggyn said. ‘May Great Bel strike me dead if I lie. I did not try to poison Maddyn or anyone else. That salt pork should have been left at the dun for the dogs.’

The aura pulsated with fear but fear alone.

‘Very well,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘You have my apology.’

Oggyn got up and ran a shaking hand over his face. ‘I can see why you’d suspect me,’ he whispered. ‘But I swear to you, I did no such thing. I’m just cursed glad you came to me in private and didn’t just blurt this in front of the prince.’

‘I did have my doubts.’

‘Ah ye gods! I’ll never be safe again. Any time the least little harm befalls that wretched bard, I’ll be blamed.’

‘Truly, you might devote some time to thinking up ways to keep him safe.’

Oggyn gave him a sickly smile. Without another word, Nevyn left him to recover his composure.

There remained the problem of what to do with Maddyn. He was too weak to ride with the army; jouncing around in a cart would only weaken him further. This deep into enemy territory leaving him behind would be a death sentence. The morning’s council of war, however, solved the problem. Gwerbret Ammerwdd pointed out that Braemys was most likely laying a trap or, at the least, leading them into some weak position.

‘He knows this country well,’ Ammerwdd said. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s got some trick in mind, or some battlefield that will be to his liking but not to ours.’

‘I agree,’ Maryn said. ‘I suggest we camp here today and send out scouts. They can cover a good deal of territory once they’re free of the army.’

After a great deal of discussion, the rest of the lords went along with the plan. All that morning the army waited as horsemen came and went, fanning out into the countryside in the hopes of getting a glimpse of Braemys’s position.