Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“Until this morning,” Nevyn went on, “they couldn’t have been more than a day’s ride from Dun Hiraedd, but for all I know, they may be fleeing for their lives. If I catch them, I’m going to wipe them off the face of the earth for this.”

“Well,” said Blaen, thinking, “if we split the warband into squads, we can start scouring the countryside. Some farmer or suchlike must have noticed if peculiar strangers have been riding around the rhan.”

“It may come to that, Your Grace, but I’d like to hold off for a while. Because of Camdel, you see. If this dark master should scry out your men riding his way—and the dolt is bound to be keeping such a guard—then he’ll just slit Camdel’s throat and ride out fast. If I possibly can, I want to pull our young lordling out of this alive. I have a few more tricks at my disposal, too.”

Blaen nodded. Nevyn himself was more worried than he wanted to show. Although he could ask the Wildfolk to find the dark master, to do so would expose them to the chance of grave harm. Likewise, he could go out into the etheric in the body of light, but to do so meant risking open battle with his enemies. From piecing together what Jill had told him, he could guess that this dark master had apprentices with him; he simply didn’t know how many. If he should be slain in an astral battle, then Jill and Rhodry would be defenseless against the dark ones, who would doubtless take a horrifying revenge. Although he had called upon other dweomermen for aid, it was going to take days for the nearest one to reach him. By then Camdel might well be dead.

“Ah, well,” Nevyn said at last. “This cursed mess is just like a game of gwiddbwcl, Your Grace. They have Camdel, their king’s peg, and they’re trying to move him off the board while we place our men and try to stop them. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the next move is ours or theirs. Jill, come have a private talk with me. I want to hear every detail of the days you spent alone, and there’s no need to bore his grace and Rhodry with it.”

Obediently she rose, looking at him in a desperate hope that he would keep her safe. Deep in his heart, he prayed that he could.

As the chamber door closed behind Jill and Nevyn, Blaen drained the rest of the mead in his goblet in one long swallow, and Rhodry had a good slug of his, too. For a moment they looked at each other in an understanding that had no need for words. Rhodry knew perfectly well that they were both terrified. At last Blaen sighed.

“You’re filthy, silver dagger. Let’s have the pages draw you a bath. I could use some more mead, too.”

“You’ve had enough drink for one afternoon.”

Briefly Blaen looked furious; then he shrugged.

“So I have. Let’s go get you that bath.”

While Rhodry bathed in the elegant chamber he would share with Jill, Blaen perched on the edge of the bed and handed him the soap like a page. As he splashed around in the wooden tub, Rhodry wished that he could wash all this talk of dweomer away as easily as the dirt from the road.

“Are you thinking that I’ve got cursed strange taste in women?” Rhodry said at last.

“You always did. But truly, Gilyan suits you well enough, and the life you’re leading. It aches my heart to see that silver dagger in your belt.”

“It’s better than starving on the roads. There wasn’t a cursed lot else I could do.”

“True spoken. I talked with your most honored mother the last time I was at court. She asked me to urge Rhys to recall you, but he wouldn’t listen to a blasted word I said.”

“Don’t waste your breath again. He always wanted me gone, and like a dolt, I gave him his chance.”

Rhodry got out of the tub and took the towel Blaen handed him.

“I have no formal alliance with Aberwyn,” Blaen said. “I can offer you a place here with me. You could marry your Jill and be my equerry or suchlike. If Rhys doesn’t like it, what’s he going to do? He’s too cursed far away to start a war with me.”

“My thanks, but when I took this dagger, I swore I’d carry it proudly. I may be an exile, but I’d die rather than be an oath breaker, too.”

Blaen raised one quizzical eyebrow.

“Ah, by a pig’s cock,” Rhodry sighed. “The truth is, I think it’d be worse, living on your charity, watching the honored guests sneering at Aberwyn’s dishonored brother. I’d rather ride the long road than that.”

Blaen handed him his brigga.

“Well, I’d feel the same myself,” he said. “But you’re always welcome here.”

Rhodry said nothing, out of fear that he’d weep and shame himself. While he dressed, Blaen pulled the silver dagger and fiddled with it, hefting it, testing the edge with his thumb.

“This thing is sharp,” he remarked.

“Dishonor or not, it’s the best dagger I ever had. Cursed if I know how the smiths mix the metal for it, but it never tarnishes.”

Blaen threw the dagger at the firewood stacked near the hearth, the blade whistling straight to the target and biting deep.

“A splendid blade, right enough. Well, everyone knows that the silver dagger brings shame with it, but I never knew it brought dweomer, too.”

Although Rhodry knew he was only jesting, the thought struck something in his mind. It was odd, now that he considered it, that first the dweomer had brought him the silver dagger, and then his first summer on the long road had taken him to the dweomer in return.

“Somewhat wrong?” Blaen said.

“Naught, truly.”

And yet he felt his Wyrd call to him, a whistling on the wind.

Although Salamander had passed through Dun Deverry several times, he rarely stayed long, because the busy streets offered a gerthddyn too much competition. At that time the city was a spiraled maze of streets stretching halfway round Loc Gwerconedd; the largest city in the kingdom, it sheltered nearly two hundred thousand people, all of whom demanded more sophisticated entertainments than a few tricks with scarves. In the open parks and market squares tucked away all over the city, one found gerthddynion and acrobats, minstrels from Bardek, showmen with performing bears or trained pigs, jugglers and wandering bards, all earnestly trying to part the passersby from their coin. In this mob no one noticed another gerthddyn, even one who asked the occasional question about the opium trade.

Since he was trying to avoid undue attention, Salamander had compromised his standards and was staying at a middling sort of inn in the old part of town along the Aver Lugh, a district of small craftsmen and respectable shopkeepers. The Wheatsheaf had entertainers stayed there, and he could pick up all the gossip there was. Not that hearing gossip about Lord Camdel’s crime was difficult; even though it was some weeks after the theft, the city was still buzzing over it.

“They say that the king’s sent messengers to every gwerbret in the kingdom,” Elic the innkeep remarked that afternoon. “What I want to know is this: How does one man slip through all those warbands and suchlike?”

“He might be dead,” Salamander said. “Once the news got out, every thief in the kingdom was probably keeping an eye out for him.”

“Now, that’s true spoken.” Elic considered, sucking on the edge of his long mustache. “He might be, at that.”

There was one patron of the Wheatsheaf who kept pretty much to himself, for the simple reason that he was a Bardek man who spoke little Deverrian. Enopo was about twenty-five, quite dark of skin, and he wore no face paint, which meant that his family had kicked him out of their house and clan for some reason. He was wandering the Deverry roads with a wela-wela, a complex Bardekian instrument that lay flat in the performer’s lap and had some thirty strings to be plucked and strummed with a quill. Since he knew Bardekian quite well, Salamander had been cultivating the minstrel, who was pathetically glad to find someone who knew his native tongue. At the end of their performing day they would meet back in the tavern room to compare their take and complain about the niggardliness of the folk in the richest city in the kingdom.