Katharine Kerr - Sword of Fire

‘Vixen?’ Alyssa snorted in disgust. ‘It’s obvious he knows naught about Lady Dovina. Very well, then, I’d best go round the back way.’

Cavan escorted her as she hurried the long way round the collegium wall. At the back, not far from the women’s hive, the settling of the ground had caused a section of the stone wall to sink some few feet lower than the rest and bow inwards a bit as well. Loose stones made a precarious series of steps up and over. Alyssa started to tuck her skirts into her kirtle, but Cavan was watching the display of ankle with entirely too much interest.

‘My thanks for your aid,’ Alyssa said to him. ‘No doubt you’ll be wanting to get back to your inn and a nice tankard of ale.’

In the light from the nearby oil lamps she could see him grin. She had to admit that she found his smile charming – but a silver dagger? Like every lass in Deverry, she’d been warned against the men of that band from the time she could toddle. Mothers pointed them out and made sure their daughters could recognize the dagger they carried. Dishonored men, all of them, who wandered the roads looking for paid employment rather than serving in a proper warband – and they all have the morals of street dogs, Alyssa’s mother had always said, when it comes to lasses. Cavan, Alyssa figured, would be no better than the rest of them, despite his smile and the elegant way he bowed to her.

‘I know a dismissal when I hear one,’ Cavan said. ‘But may I see you again, on the morrow perhaps?’

‘At noon on the morrow come down to the old marketplace. Not the new one up by the gwerbret’s dun, but the old one near the smaller harbor. If all goes well, you just might find me there.’

‘I’ll pray I do.’ Cavan made her a deep bow, then turned and walked away.

Alyssa finished tucking up her skirts, then climbed the wall with the ease of long practice. Getting down again required grabbing the branch of the old oak that grew near the wall, swinging herself out and over, then slowly lowering herself to the ground. She managed and dropped lightly into safe territory. She hurried around the women’s hive and found the two chaperones standing guard by lantern light. Lady Werra clutched a stout walking stick in both hands, and Lady Graella, an iron poker.

‘Ye gods!’ Alyssa said. ‘Are we under seige?’

‘We might well be. The porters are supposed to be guarding the front gate. If they weaken and let that yapping warband in, we’re ready.’ Werra hefted the stick. ‘No men allowed in here after the last bell sounds. They’ll have to follow the rules like everyone else in Aberwyn.’

‘And speaking of such matters,’ Graella put in, ‘where have you been, young Alyssa?’

‘Oh, come now, my ladies, you saw me leave. Things got a bit more difficult in town than I’d been expecting. I came back the long way round.’

‘Difficult? You might call it that.’ Werra turned grim. ‘All of our lasses are here and safe, now that you’ve turned up, but two of the men from King’s are dead.’

‘Dead?’ Alyssa caught her breath with a gasp.

‘And one of them noble-born, at that,’ Graella said. ‘Young Lord Grif, and him but fifteen summers old. The other was the Dyers’ Guild Own Scholar, Procyr of Abernaudd. Their fathers will have a few harsh words for the gwerbret once they get the news, and the guildmaster will, too.’

‘More than words, my lady. Griffydd of the Bear is Gwerbret Standyc’s son. I doubt me if he’ll settle his feud with our Ladoic all peaceful-like now.’

The two chaperones nodded their agreement. Graella sighed with a shake of her head.

‘Some of the townsfolk were badly hurt,’ Werra said. ‘And there’s another man dead among them. They say one woman lost an eye from being whipped. She’ll be suing in the court for that, I wager!’

‘Huh!’ Alyssa said. ‘As if His Grace will listen! They can take a suit to the law court, but who’s going to be judging it? His cousin by right of birth! He won’t be able to dismiss Standyc’s complaint so easily, though.’

Werra was about to speak when distant noises reached them – angry shouts, a scream of rage, and then the clang of the iron gates slamming shut. Alyssa heard a strange low-pitched throb and finally identified it.

‘Someone’s shaking the gates,’ she said, ‘but those locks are made of dwarven steel. They’ll not break so easily.’

The two older women agreed with small smiles. Alyssa curtsied to them both, then followed them inside to the women’s great hall. In the big round room a scatter of old, scarred tables and benches stood on the floor, covered with woven rush mats for want of money for carpets. Opposite the door stood the stone hearth where a peat fire smouldered against the springtime damp. At intervals around the stone walls hung candle lanterns, flickering in the drafts with the rot-touched smell of tallow. Off to both sides rose spiral iron staircases, splendid examples of dwarven blacksmith work and a gift from the rulers of Dwarveholt, that led to the upper floor and the access doors to the side brochs of the hive.

The head of the collegium, gray-haired Lady Taclynniva, or Lady Tay as she preferred to be known, sat in the chair of honor at the one new table. As always, she sat bolt upright, her head held high, her slender hands at rest together in her lap. The two chaperones took their chairs on either side of her. Both Werra and Graella kept their improvised weapons in their laps, just in case, Alyssa supposed, some enemy rushed in. They were sisters, who years before had fled unsuitable marriages and taken refuge with Lady Tay. Both of them had strong jaws, wide foreheads, and dark hair just beginning to show gray.

All around them the young women, with their loose red scholars’ surcoats over their tunics and long skirts, stood or sat on the floor, some weeping, some narrow-eyed with fury, all of them with their hair down and disheveled as a sign of mourning for Cradoc, their teacher of rhetoric. As Alyssa approached, Mavva hurried over to greet her. She had one hand on her tunic and clutched her silver betrothal brooch as if she feared it might be torn off. In the riot, of course, it might have been.

‘There you are!’ Mavva said. ‘Thanks be to the Goddess! Rhys and I are both safe, but I’ve feared the worst ever since I lost you in the mob.’

‘I was lucky to get out of it, truly. Ah, ye gods, what a horrible day this is for Aberwyn, to lose Cradoc so!’

Mavva nodded, finally let go of the brooch, and wiped tears from her eyes. Alyssa turned to Lady Tay’s chair and curtsied.

‘Good, you’re the last of our strays,’ Lady Tay said.

‘I lingered in town till the streets were clear, my lady.’ Alyssa decided it would be politic to shift the conversation before she was forced to mention Cavan. ‘That mob at our gates? I overheard someone mention Dovina.’

‘No doubt you did, because she’s the prey they’re after. We all suspect that the gwerbret wants her back in his dun so he can marry her off. The riot tonight will be his excuse, or so Dovina thinks.’ She nodded at the woman who sat at the far end of the honor table.

Alyssa turned to Lady Dovina, who gave her a sickly sort of smile. ‘I fear me our lady is right,’ Dovina said. ‘I wonder what starveling courtier he’s found for me this time?’

With a sigh Alyssa sat down on the bench. As usual, Dovina had an open book in front of her and a candle lantern set nearby. A pretty lass, some twenty summers old, the same age as Alyssa, Dovina had thick pale hair that all the scholars envied and large blue eyes, which, however beautiful, tended to water. She held a reading-glass in one hand – a rectangular lens in a silver frame with a handle like a small mirror. Beauty and her high estate hadn’t prevented her from having weak eyesight.