Katharine Kerr - Sword of Fire

‘Perhaps,’ Lady Tay said, ‘it will be a worthy man this time.’

Dovina made a most unladylike snorting sound. ‘I don’t care, my lady,’ she said. ‘We all know that I was born for the scholar’s life. All I want is what I have already, tending our bookhoard.’

‘Nicely put,’ Lady Tay said. ‘If only you can convince your father.’

‘Indeed.’ Dovina turned to Alyssa. ‘Lyss, it gladdens my heart to see you safe. I was truly worried. And I need to ask you summat. I’ve been hearing reports that my father gave that order, when the riders charged the crowd, I mean. I can’t believe it of him.’

‘He didn’t. It was your brother, the younger one, at the head of his men. Not that he exactly gave an order.’

‘Gwarl?’

‘It was. He called us all rabble and ordered us to disperse. Someone – I couldn’t see who – threw a rock and hit his horse.’ She paused to get the images clear in her mind. ‘He didn’t give any sort of order. The warband broke on their own. I’d guess it’s the honor of the thing, someone attacking their lord.’

‘No doubt it was just that. My thanks. That’s a great relief. My father can be difficult, the gods all know, when he blusters and yells at everyone, but I’ve never known him to do anything vicious. Gwarl, on the other hand, is a dolt. Always swaggering around and sneering. Rabble. Huh!’

Alyssa listened in sincere admiration. Dovina held the highest rank of any scholar in Lady Rhodda Hall. Her father, Ladoic, ruled Aberwyn and the surrounding territory as gwerbret, the highest rank of nobility in the kingdom, just barely below the royal princes. Dovina said exactly what she wanted about her exalted clan and kin, words that none of the rest of them would have dared voice. Her brothers in particular – to Dovina, the ‘lout’ was the gwerbretal heir, and the ‘dolt’ the younger son. Rank or not, however, Dovina recognized Lady Tay as the leader of their collegium. She rose from her chair.

‘My lady.’ Dovina paused to curtsy. ‘Has there been a message from the dun yet? About returning Cradoc’s body to us? Mavva saw some servants carry it inside the dun.’

‘No message yet,’ Lady Tay said. ‘The Bardic Consortium also has a claim. I did send them a message straightaway when I heard that he was gone.’

Dovina curtsied again and sat back down. She turned to Alyssa and smiled, a bitter little twist of her mouth.

‘So, what’s our next move in this game of carnoic?’ Dovina said. ‘Will you still be speaking on the morrow?’

‘I will indeed. There’s more need for it than ever.’ Alyssa felt tears rising behind her eyes. ‘With Cradoc gone.’

The listening women keened, a soft moan, a whispered wail, and swayed. In the candlelight their scarlet surcoats seemed to flicker like the flames.

‘It’s a hard thing to bear,’ Dovina said. ‘But we mustn’t let him die in vain. Our cause is just, and even a stubborn dog like Father will see that sooner or later.’

Alyssa could only hope so. For some years now the people of Eldidd had been begging for a change in the law codes. As things stood, the judges in the law courts all came from the hereditary nobility. Fathers handed the positions down to sons, and some of the sons barely knew one law from another. The best anyone could hope for was a judge who’d listen to the advice of the priests of Bel. Not all priests, however, were more interested in deciding lawsuits fairly and criminal cases justly than in getting land and favors for their temples. More often than not, if a commoner brought a grievance against one of the noble-born, the commoner would get short shrift in court.

The kingdom’s one free city had already forced through changes thanks to obscure legal precedents. In Cerrmor, the heads of the various guilds had equal say with the mayor when it came to picking judges. They’d banded together to found a collegium for the studying of law after the model of the Bardekian law schools across the Southern Sea. Advocates and judges both had to complete the course of study in order to appear in a Cerrmor court. The fairness of the city’s justice system had become known and admired all across Deverry.

The news of these and other doings reached Aberwyn by barge and mail coach, but His Grace Ladoic, Gwerbret Aberwyn, would have none of these new ways. He was prone to announce – or bellow, as Dovina put it – that he stood firm on and for tradition. The old ways, he often said, were good enough for him.

‘And what’s good enough for him,’ Dovina said, ‘is supposedly good enough for all of us.’ She snorted again.

‘There are other precedents,’ Alyssa said. ‘The Justiciars of the Northern Border are the best one. They’ve been handling the courts in Cerrgonney for what? About three hundred years now.’

‘Too recent for my dear father, or so he says.’

‘It’s too bad that there isn’t some older precedent we could refer to. His councillors talk about tradition all the time, but what if things weren’t so traditional? That would take a few of their stones off the game board.’

‘If his councillors have any stones.’ Dovina flashed a wicked smile. ‘Of the other sort.’

Everyone with earshot laughed, even Lady Tay, though she cut her laugh short.

‘Now hush!’ Lady Tay said. ‘Such coarse words are most unbecoming! I’m sure all of you have studies to attend to. I suggest you go do so.’

Whispering together, the scholars rose from where they’d been sitting, grabbed lanterns, and headed for the staircases. Clutching her book and reading-glass, Dovina fell into step beside Alyssa and Mavva.

‘You know, Alyssa,’ Dovina said. ‘Your thought was a fine one, about the older precedent, I mean. I remember summat about such a thing in a book I read. It’s too late now, but tomorrow when the sun’s up, I’ll look for it.’

‘My thanks,’ Alyssa said. ‘It would be splendid to have a citation.’

‘Will you be able to stay here long enough to find it?’ Mavva said to Dovina. ‘Or will your father drag you away?’

‘If he comes and throws a direct order into my face, I shall have to obey him. Unless of course I can work him round.’ Dovina considered briefly. ‘It would be best that I never hear that he’s at the gates. If he does come, tell everyone that I’ve got such a terrible pain in my head that I simply can’t be disturbed.’ She laid a pale hand on her forehead and grinned. ‘My weak eyes, you know. Such a trial!’

‘I’ll spread the word,’ Mavva said. ‘Lyss, you’re not really going to go speak in the marketplace, are you? I know we planned it, but things have gotten so dangerous.’

‘Curse the danger!’ Alyssa said. ‘I said I’d speak, and I will, because now it’ll be a praise piece for Cradoc.’ She forced her voice steady. ‘And for Lord Grif and Procyr, too. Do you know the name of the dead townsman?’

‘I don’t.’ Mavva thought for a moment. ‘But I’ll find it out for you.’

Alyssa spent most of that night in the hive’s bookchamber. With her good eyesight, she could read by candlelight. She had a reading candle as thick as her wrist and a good two feet high. The priests of Wmm had gifted the hive with a wooden crate of these candles when the scholars had visited the Holy Island to view the bookhoard owned by the temples. Alyssa read gwerchanau, the famous death-songs of the past, and stored up fragments of poetry in her mind to add to her speech. All of the scholars depended on memory far more than writing. While Bardekian pabrus had become far more common than parchment, and most certainly much cheaper, wasting even scraps of it upon notes and rough drafts lay beyond the women’s collegium’s finances.

Finally, when the hourglass on her lectern ran dry from the fifth turnover, she closed her books and stumbled off to bed in the sleeping room she shared with six other women. As senior students, each of them had a narrow cot of her own, rather than sharing a mattress as the first-year lasses did. Moving carefully in the dark, Alyssa took off her skirt and tunic, folded them on top of the carved chest that sat at the foot of her cot, then lay down in her underdress and fell straight asleep.