Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“I had thoughts that way myself, truly.”

Gweniver had taken only about five steps down the corridor when she saw Dannyn, leaning against the wall and waiting for her. With a sigh she strolled over.

“Leave me alone, will you?” she said. “It’s miserably tedious to have you following me everywhere.”

“Ah, Gwen, please. I’m heartsick for the love of you.”

“Then go ask Nevyn for some physic.”

When she walked on by, he caught her shoulder.

“Get your hands off me! Leave me alone!”

Her voice was too loud, ringing in the empty corridor. His face scarlet with rage, Dannyn started to speak, but someone was coming toward them. Gweniver knocked his hand away and ran, brushing against Saddar with a curt apology. She hurried down the stairs and burst into the great hall, where she could sit with her warband and be safe. That evening she toyed with the thought of laying a charge against him, but he was simply too important to the welfare of the kingdom. She took comfort in knowing that her Goddess would protect her.

All the next day Dannyn seemed to be going out of his way to avoid her. She was as puzzled as she was relieved until Nevyn mentioned that he’d had a word with the captain and warned him to leave her alone. Yet eventually the warning seemed forgotten. One rainy morning, as she was coming back from the stable, he caught her out back behind the broch with no one else in sight.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Just a few honest words with you.”

“Then here they are: you’ll never share my bed.”

“So it’s different with your common-born farmer lad, is it?”

“I’ve told you the truth about that. And it’s not for the likes of you, anyway, to question a priestess about her vows.”

She stepped round him and strode back to the broch.

Gweniver’s maidservant, a pale, plain lass named Ocladda, loved working at court mostly because the work was so much easier than slaving on her father’s farm. She took an odd pride in her lady being so eccentric and kept Gweniver’s sparsely furnished chambers scrupulously clean. Since Gweniver had no long hair for her to comb and arrange or fancy clothes to tend, Ocladda made the best of her situation by endlessly polishing her lady’s weapons and saddle-soaping her horse gear. While she worked, she would chatter gossip from the servants’ quarters and queen’s chamber alike, never mindful of how little her lady listened. One cold afternoon, then, it was a bad omen when Ocladda worked silently, laying a fire with never one word.

“Now, here,” Gweniver said at last. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, my lady, I just pray you believe me. When a servant says one thing and a lord another, no one calls the lord a liar. I just know he’d deny every word of it.”

Gweniver’s first thought was that someone had gotten the lass pregnant.

“Now, now,” she said soothingly. “Tell me who.”

“Lord Dannyn, my lady. He met me out in the corridor this morning, and he offered me a bribe. He said he’d give me a silver coin if I left you alone in your chamber tonight. And I said that I’d never do such a thing, so he slapped me.”

“Oh, did he, now? Don’t fret—I believe you. Go back to your work while I think about this.”

At the evening meal Gweniver was constantly aware of Dannyn watching her with a smug smile. She ate fast and left her table before he could finish and join her, but she was afraid to go back to her chamber. If he followed and made some unpleasantness in front of Ocladda, soon every servant in the dun would hear about it. Obviously he considered the lass too far beneath him to consider that grim possibility. Finally she went down to the floor of the great hall and sought out Nevyn, who was talking with Ysgerryn over a tankard of ale.

“Good evening, good sirs. I was wondering if you’d care to join me in my chamber for a bit of mead?”

Nevyn’s bushy eyebrows shot up. Ysgerryn beamed, all smiles at the thought of being invited to drink with the noble-born.

“I’d be most honored, Your Holiness,” said the Master of Weaponry. “I just have to have a word with the chamberlain, and then I’ll be free to join you.”

“So shall I,” Nevyn said. “My thanks.”

Leaving the two of them to follow, Gweniver hurried back to her chamber and sent Ocladda off to the kitchen to fetch mead and something to drink it in. She lit two candle lanterns with a splint of burning kindling from the hearth and was just putting them down when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in, good sirs,” she called out.

Dannyn stepped in and shut the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just coming to see you. Gwen, please, your heart can’t be as cold to me as you pretend.”

“My heart has naught to do with what’s on your mind. Now, listen, get out of here! I have two—”

“Don’t you give me an order.”

“It’s not an order but a warning. I’ve got guests—”

Before she could finish, he caught her by the shoulders and kissed her. She twisted out of his hands and slapped him across the face. At the blow all his careful pretense of courtesy shattered.

“Gwen, curse you! I’m sick of all this fencing.”

He moved so fast that she couldn’t dodge. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her against the wall. Although she struggled and kicked and punched, his weight was too much for her to shove away as he pressed against her by brute force. Swearing, he held on, his hands bruising her shoulders, then tried to kiss her again.

“Let me go! You bastard, let me go!”

He slammed her so hard against the wall that she could barely breathe. Suddenly she heard a scream, slicing through the chamber. Dannyn let her go and spun round just as Nevyn and Ysgerryn ran in. In the doorway Ocladda stood screaming, over and over again.

“Sacrilege!” Ysgerryn was whispering in horror. “Oh, dear Goddess, forgive us!”

“You fool, Danno!” Nevyn said. “You utter dolt.”

Out of breath, shaken, Gweniver felt her back and shoulders aching like fire, but the pain was nothing compared to the sick coldness in her stomach. She’d nearly been polluted by brute force. Ysgerryn turned to Ocladda.

“Stop that screaming, lass! Run, get a page. Send for the guards. Hurry!”

When, still sobbing, the lass ran, Dannyn spun toward the door. Nevyn calmly stepped in front of him.

“Are you going to cut down two old men to get out of this chamber?” he said quietly. “I think you have more honor than that.”

In silence Dannyn started shaking, trembling like a poplar in the wind. Gweniver wanted to scream. She clasped her hands over her mouth and watched him tremble. All her glory, her power on the battlefield and her pride in her sword, had been stripped away from her. Dannyn’s brute strength had turned her into an ordinary frightened woman, and for that she hated him most of all. Ysgerryn laid a paternal hand on her arm.

“My lady, how do you fare? Did he hurt you?”

“Not badly,” she choked out.

Out in the corridor men shouted. Four of the king’s guards burst into the chamber with drawn swords and stopped, staring at their leader as if they thought themselves in a nightmare. Dannyn tried to speak, then went on shaking. After an eternity of painful minutes, Glyn himself hurried in with Saddar trailing after. At the sight of his brother, Dannyn broke, falling to his knees and weeping like a child. Saddar drew back with a dramatic gasp.

“Sacrilege!” the councillor cried out. “And here I’ve been fearing it for ever so long. Lady Gweniver, oh, what an abominable thing!”

“Now, wait a moment,” Glyn said. “Danno, what is all this?”

His face running tears, Dannyn drew his sword and handed it to the king hilt first, yet still he could not speak.