Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Dannyan said. “The Maelwaedds have always collected fine silver.”

“It is. It must have been quite a wrench for you to leave all this splendor when Her Grace retired to Cannobaen.”

“It was. I’ll admit to being just the least bit glad when Lovyan’s brother got himself killed. Terrible of me, but there you are.” Dannyan dismissed the subject with a little shrug. “Now, Jill, you’ll have to be very careful while we’re here.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. Dann, I’m terrified.”

“Now, people will make some allowances, but follow what I do. Stick as close to me as possible, and please, don’t say horsedung and suchlike. You’re not in the barracks anymore. Now let’s have a bit of a wash, and then get you out of those nasty brigga and into a proper dress.”

Since Jill had never ridden sidesaddle in her life—and an untrained woman was in real danger—she’d been allowed to wear her old clothes on the ride to Aberwyn. She was surprised at how good they felt and how much she hated to take them off again. Once she was dressed to Dannyan’s satisfaction, Dannyan took her to the women’s hall to present her to the gwerbret’s wife. Donilla was a lovely woman, with fine dark eyes, a wealth of chestnut hair, and a figure as slender as a lass’s. She seated them graciously, and had a servant bring wine in real glass goblets, but she was distracted as she and Dannyan chatted, and all the time, she twisted and untwisted a silk handkerchief between her fingers. Jill was glad when they left.

“Dann,” Jill said as soon as they were back in the privacy of their chamber. “Is Her Grace ill or suchlike?”

“She’s not. Rhys is about to put her aside for being barren. My heart truly aches for her.”

“And what will happen to her?”

“Our lady’s going to make her a marriage with a widowed cousin of hers. He has heirs already, so he’ll be glad of a beautiful new wife. If it weren’t for that, she’d have to go back shamed to her brother. I doubt me if he’d receive her well.”

Jill felt honestly sick. She had never realized before just how dependent on their men noble-born women were. There was no chance for them to work a farm with the help of their sons, or to marry their dead husband’s apprentice and keep his shop, much less open a shop of their own. Suddenly she wondered what was going to become of her. Would she someday be reduced to cringing and fawning around Rhodry to make sure she still had his favor?

“Donilla will ride back with us when we leave,” Dannyan went on. “We’ll all have to be very kind to her. The worst thing of all is that she has to be there when Rhys publicly denounces her.”

“Oh, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell! Is His Grace as hardhearted as that?”

“Jill, lamb, do watch your tongue, but it’s not Rhys, it’s the laws. Rhys would spare her the shame if he could, truly he would, but he can’t.”

When they went down to the great hall for dinner, Jill was relieved to find that they wouldn’t be eating at Rhys’s table. Where an ordinary dun only had one honor table, Aberwyn’s hall had six, one for the gwerbret and his family, the others for guests and the noble-born officials of his court. Jill and Dannyan sat with the seneschal, the equerry, the bard, and their wives. From where she was seated, Jill could just see Rhodry, seated at his brother’s left. Although they had the same coloring and a certain shared look to their jaw that they’d inherited from Lovyan, they were so different that Jill found it hard to believe they were brothers. Doubtless it was Rhodry’s elven blood that made his face so chiseled and delicate that, in comparison, Rhys looked coarse. Yet the gwerbret was still a good-looking man in his way, not the fiend that Jill had been picturing.

The meal was elaborate, with a course of pickled vegetables arranged in patterns on little plates, a course of lark pies and one of fruit preceding the roast pork. Jill paid strict attention to her manners and spoke to no one until at last the bard’s wife, a round-faced little blonde named Camma, turned to her with cool, appraising eyes.

“This must be your first time at court,” Camma said.

“It is, truly. It’s rather splendid.”

“Indeed. Was your father one of our country lords?”

Jill was taken utterly aback. Dannyan leaned over with a limpid smile for Camma that seemed to be masking the word “bitch.”

“Jill is a very important member of Tieryn Lovyan’s retinue.” Dannyan allowed herself a glance at Rhodry. “Very important.”

“I see.” Camma gave Jill a warm smile. “Well, you must allow me to entertain you in my chambers sometime.”

“My thanks. I shall have to see how much leisure my duties to Her Grace allow.”

Dannyan gave Jill a small nod of approval. Jill picked at her food and decided that she was no longer hungry. Although she thought of herself as a falcon, she felt as if she were dining with eagles, who might turn on her at any moment. She found herself watching Rhodry, who was eating fast and silently. Finally he rose, looked her way with a toss of his head, and strode out of the hall. Flustered, Jill turned to Dannyan.

“You can follow in a little bit,” Dannyan whispered.

Jill dutifully sipped her wine and made small talk for some minutes, then excused herself and hurried away from table. She found a page who knew where Rhodry was quartered and followed him up the spiral staircase and through the confused corridors of the joined broches for what seemed an embarrassingly long way before he pointed out Rhodry’s door with a sly and knowing smile. Jill hurried in and frankly slammed the door behind her. The tiny chamber was sparsely furnished with what looked like castoffs from grander chambers elsewhere. Its one window looked directly down on the kitchen hut, and the smell of grease hung in the air. His boots and belt already off, Rhodry was lounging on the lumpy bed.

“Did Rhys say anything about the rebellion?”

“Naught. Not one cursed word. We’ll have the formal discussion tomorrow morn, says he, the piss-proud little bastard, as if I was a criminal, hauled up before him for stealing horses. I don’t want to talk about it, my love. I want to get you into this bed and keep you here until you beg for mercy.”

“Indeed?” Jill began to untie her kirtle. “Then you’ll have a long night of it.”

It was just at dawn that Nevyn finally received concrete news of the dark dweomermaster. Down in Cerrmor lived a woman named Nesta. Although her neighbors thought of her only as the somewhat eccentric widow of a rich merchant, she had studied the dweomer for over forty years—and other things as well. Her husband’s long years of trading in Bardek spices had given her a great deal of information about other, less savory kinds of trade with that far-off land. When she contacted him that morning, her round little face was troubled under her neat black headscarf.

“Now, I can’t be sure as sure,” Nesta thought to him. “But I think me the man you’re looking for has just taken ship for Bardek.”

“Indeed?” Nevyn thought back. “I trust you haven’t put yourself in danger by trying to scry him out.”

“Oh, I followed your orders and kept well away from him. Here, see what you think of this tale. Yestermorn, the Wildfolk came to me, quite troubled they were, too, about some dark thing that was scaring them. It made me think that your enemy might be in Cerrmor, and so I did a bit of scrying and picked up some odd traces in the etheric. I drew back, then, as you told me to do.” She paused, and her image pursed wrinkled lips. “But you know that I know half the people in Cerrmor, and my connections with the guilds give me ways of finding things out without using the body of light. I asked around here and there about peculiar strangers in town, and finally I talked with one of the young lads at the Customs House. He’d seen a strange old fellow boarding one of the last Bardek merchantmen in harbor, and here, that ship’s suspected of being involved in the poison trade.”