Katharine Kerr - Sword of Fire

The smell of fresh bread perfumed the warm, moist air. To one side of the dimly lit room stood a long wooden table, piled with loaves. The young baker, draped in a flour-dusted apron over his shirt and breeches, looked so much like Alyssa that Cavan knew he had to be close kin, a brother, most likely, from the way he spoke to her. She was common-born, he realized to his surprise. Somehow he’d thought that a women of her sharp wits must come from a noble clan.

‘You’ve done it this time!’ the baker snapped. ‘Don’t you ever learn?’

‘Oh, hold your tongue, Alwen! We’re just passing through.’

‘Very well, but hurry! I don’t want the wretched marshals in here!’

She laughed, blew him a kiss, and led the way round the table to an open door. The door led to a short stairway, which in turn led to a huge room, as hot as a blazing summer day. Four big brick ovens stood like beehives on one side, while firewood lay piled up on the other. Between them stood a wooden door, guarded by a lad of perhaps ten years. He too looked much like Alyssa.

‘Arwy,’ Alyssa snapped, ‘shut the door after us!’

‘I will.’ He scrambled out of the way. ‘But Da’s going to be so mad. He told you last time—’

‘That was last time. This is different.’

Alyssa lifted the bar and shoved the door open to sunlight and the over-ripe stink of Aberwyn’s fishing-boat harbor. The mob of students and one silver dagger rushed out into the sunlight. Cavan could see the stone towers of the Collegium rising over the alleyways and stone houses no more than half a mile away. Distantly from the market square he heard shouts of rage mixed with taunting laughter.

‘No sign of the marshals,’ the dark-haired lad said. ‘No doubt the men from King’s are keeping them busy. My name’s Rhys, by the by.’

‘And mine’s Cavan. My thanks for your aid.’

‘You’d best come back with us. The Collegia have immunity, you see, and they won’t dare follow you inside.’

‘Splendid! But I’ve got a horse stabled at my lodgings.’

‘We’ll fetch him after dark. Now let’s hurry!’

Once they reached the safety of the Collegia grounds, Alyssa had a moment to think. Not only had she gotten into trouble with the town marshals, she’d kissed a silver dagger right out in a public square. Her usual taste for such wild adventures disappeared when she considered what Lady Tay might say about both dangerous missteps. At the door to Wmm’s Scribal’s hive, everyone paused to catch their breath. Rhys ducked inside and came out again with an orange surcoat, which he handed to Cavan.

‘For a day or two you’d best be one of us,’ Rhys said.

‘My thanks!’ Cavan put the surcoat on and pulled it round to cover his silver dagger. ‘I hope the marshals have short memories.’

‘I’ll hope and pray,’ Alyssa said, ‘that the men from King’s will fill their memories with less than pleasant thoughts.’ She dropped Cavan a curtsy. ‘My thanks again!’

He bowed to her. ‘It would gladden my heart to see you again.’

‘If you’re in residence here, no doubt you will.’

With Cavan safely hidden in Rhys’s collegium, Alyssa hurried back to her own hive. She walked into the women’s great hall to find Lady Tay standing by the cold hearth in a state of sheer fury. She was talking with the two chaperones, and she punctuated her words by slapping the tiny roll of pabrus she held in her right hand against her left palm. Alyssa stepped toward the wall to stay out of the lady’s line of sight, but Tay saw her before she could sneak upstairs.

‘Alyssa!’ Lady Tay called out. ‘I have unpleasant news for you.’

Alyssa was so sure that she was about to be sent away that she felt sick to her stomach. In the spirit of a hound who’s stolen meat from the table, she slunk over to the three ladies and curtsied to all of them.

‘We’ve heard about Cradoc’s remains,’ Lady Tay said. ‘The gwerbret’s refusing to give them over to anyone but his kin and clan.’

‘What?’ Outrage mingled with relief, both so profound that Alyssa had to gulp for breath before she could continue. ‘Forgive my discourtesy, my lady! But Cradoc has no living kin or clan.’

‘Precisely! And I’d wager high that our ever-so-noble lord knows that as well as we do.’ Lady Tay shook the pabrus roll vaguely in the direction of the gwerbretal dun. ‘This message came from Malyc Penvardd but a few moments ago. He’s composing a flyting song, he tells me. His journeymen will make sure it goes out with the mail coaches for the entire kingdom to hear.’

‘Will that matter to Gwerbret Ladoic?’ Werra put in.

‘I doubt it, but what else can we do? His Grace says that he’ll have the body “disposed of properly”. Disposed of!’ Lady Tay’s voice shook and snarled. ‘As if he were a dead horse! Here!’ She held out the roll. ‘You’ll find Lady Dovina in our bookchamber. Take this to her! Well, my apologies. Would you please—’

‘Of course, my lady.’ Alyssa curtsied again and took the message.

As she hurried up the staircase, Alyssa reminded herself that far more important matters burdened Lady Tay’s mind than one of her students kissing a silver dagger. With luck, the lady would never hear of the incident at all. The heckler in the market square, of course, was a rather more serious thing. She should have realized, she told herself, that trouble might erupt. A gwerbretal spy – a dropped lantern in a pile of straw. You’ve really done it this time. When she remembered her brother Alwen’s remark, she felt half-sick with fear.

The hive’s bookchamber occupied the very top floor of the main broch. A circular room, some fifty feet across, it had windows all round. Wooden shutters covered in oxhides stood ready to keep out the rain. Every spring, the women moved a lectern under each window to catch the best light, and every winter they moved them back to the center of the room away from the damp. Unlike the men’s collegia, they had no money to pay for glass windows. Bookshelves stood around in profusion, each a few feet away from the stone walls.

On this sunny afternoon all the shutters stood open. Lady Dovina sat at a table near a view of the harbor far below and peered at an open book through her reading-glass. When Alyssa held out the pabrus message, Dovina looked up and took it.

‘Have you heard about Cradoc’s body?’ Alyssa said.

‘I have, and it’s just like Father to be so stubborn.’ Dovina paused to unroll the pabrus and read the message. ‘Good for the penvardd!’

‘Well, a noble lord is supposed to be stubborn.’

‘According to our beloved Mael the Seer, truly, but in other places he does praise moderation in all things. Stubbornness is only one of the noble qualities, after all. And last time I looked, greed in the law courts wasn’t one of them.’

‘True spoken indeed.’ Alyssa looked over her shoulder at the open book. ‘Is this the one you were remembering?’

‘Indeed it is, Dwvoryc’s Annals of the Dawntime .’ Dovina rubbed her hands together and cackled like a witch. ‘It says here, very clearly, that in the olden days, gwerbretion were called vergobretes. They didn’t inherit their position, they were elected.’

‘Elected! Ye gods!’

‘All the free men of a tribe would come together and say yea or nay as each candidate was presented to them. The one with the loudest number of yeas got the job.’

‘That must have changed a thousand years ago.’

‘Mostly, but why do you think there’s a Council of Electors? That’s how my clan got the gwerbretrhyn, isn’t it, when the Maelwaedds died out? The Council met and voted and chose us over the Bears. The Electors are the last remnant of this tradition.’ Dovina gave the book a wicked grin. ‘And how will Father like that ancient folkway, I wonder?’