Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

In Lovyan’s enormous suite, the noble lords who’d fought with Rhodry were having a conference of sorts. For all that Peredyr tried to calm them, they were furious at the insult. Sligyn in particular limped round and swore that if he weren’t such a law-abiding man, he’d lead another rebellion then and there. Rhodry perched on the windowsill and rather wished that he would. Finally, when Dannyan and Jill came to serve the men ale, Sligyn stopped his puffing and sank wearily into a chair.

“My lord?” Jill offered Sligyn a tankard.

“My thanks.” Sligyn took one from the tray. “I’m glad you weren’t there to listen to His Grace’s little farce, Jill. Would have ached your heart, eh?”

“That’s an odd thing,” Lovyan broke in. “I wonder why he didn’t have Jill summoned. He certainly had everyone else up before him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d hauled in the carters and spearmen.”

“I admit I wondered about that, Your Grace,” Jill said. “But I’m glad he didn’t.”

“No one likes being called a liar to your face, eh?” Sligyn paused for a soothing gulp of ale. “Cursed good thing old Nevyn was there.”

Jill came over to Rhodry and offered him the tray. When he took one, she smiled at him in a way that soothed him considerably. The lords went on with their wrangling.

“We’re leaving for home on the morrow,” Rhodry said softly. “Nevyn’s going to come with us, too. I’ve had all I can stand of my cursed brother for now.”

“So have I, truly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Naught. The way he treats you aches my heart, that’s all.”

With his free hand Rhodry caught her arm so hard that she nearly dropped the tray.

“What has Rhys been saying to you?”

“I just happened to meet him in the corridor, that’s all.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Well, he bowed and said I was beautiful. Just a courtly sort of compliment.”

All at once Rhodry realized that every person in the room had turned their way. He let Jill go and stood up to face his mother’s level gaze.

“Rhodry,” Lovyan said wearily. “Your brother was doubtless speaking to Jill only to annoy you. He’s so torn to pieces about his wife that he’s not going to prowl round some other woman.”

“You’d best speak the truth, Mother.”

“I do. I swear it to you.”

“Then I believe you.”

Much later, when it was time to go down to the great hall for dinner, Rhodry had a chance for a private word with Lovyan. She agreed wholeheartedly that he should leave on the morrow.

“The rest of the settlement lies between me and Rhys, anyway. You’ll only have one more meal at his table, so please, Rhoddo, watch what you say tonight?”

“I will, Mother. I promise.”

When he took his place at Rhys’s left, Rhodry did his best to keep that promise by attending strictly to his food and speaking only when spoken to. Rhys never said one word to him, since he was discussing the land settlements with Lovyan. Finally, when the mead was being served, Rhodry got up and bowed to his brother.

“If His Grace will excuse me?”

“By all means.” Rhys paused, smiling. “By the way, brother, you’ve found yourself quite a little mistress, haven’t you? She seems to be as skilled with a sword as she is in other matters.”

Through a red berserker’s haze Rhodry heard Lovyan gasp.

“I’d rather His Grace left Jill out of this,” Rhodry said.

“Indeed?” Rhys rose to face him. “You seem to have kept her quite in the middle of it. How does it feel to have a lass fight your battles for you?”

Rhodry’s sword was half out of its scabbard before he realized what he was doing. The screams of the women brought him to his senses, and he froze, his hand still on the hilt, the blade still exposed, about sixteen inches of cold steel that was going to hang him. Rhys stepped back, and he was smiling in the fierce joy of victory.

“So! You’d draw on a gwerbret in his own hall, would you?”

Rhodry had the brief thought of killing him, but Lovyan threw herself in between them. The entire great hall was silent, staring. When Rhodry sheathed his sword, the slap of metal into leather seemed to ring to the ceiling.

“Rhys,” Lovyan hissed. “You provoked that!”

“It’s no affair of yours, Mother.” Rhys caught her arm and shoved her aside. “Call your women to you and leave the hall. Go!”

Her head held high, Lovyan turned away just as the shouting broke out on the riders’ side of the hall. Rhodry dodged Rhys and ran for his warband, who were rushing to meet him. Cursing and shoving, Rhys’s men were on their feet and trying to surround the Clw Coc men, but there were only two men between Rhodry and Cullyn. The way the silver dagger looked at those two made them back off, and Rhodry was through to the solid comfort of his twenty-five loyal riders. Cullyn gave him a grim smile.

“Do we make a fight of it, my lord?”

All round them the two hundred men of Rhys’s warband went dead silent, hands on sword hilts as they waited for Rhodry’s answer. Rhodry glanced round and saw that his men were ready, that they were willing to die there with him in one last hopeless fight. All he had to do was say the word, and Rhys’s great hall would run with blood. He could die clean, not hang like a horse thief. He wanted it so badly that it was like a fever, burning him, troubling his mind as slowly his hand drifted to his sword hilt. But some of that blood would belong to Jill’s beloved father, and to men who had no graver fault than the ill luck to be serving the Clw Coc. He wrenched his hand away.

“We don’t. Stand aside and let them take me. Cullyn, serve my mother faithfully, will you?”

“I will, my lord, and I’ll see you again.”

The meaning hung there as clear as a noose—again, before they drag you out and hang you. Rhodry had one last thought of drawing and fighting, but he forced himself to stand still as his men drew back and the gwerbret’s men grabbed him by the arms, hauled him forward, and disarmed him.

Nevyn was eating in the privacy of his chamber when Cullyn burst in to give him the news. Cullyn spoke briefly, quietly, his eyes so bland that Nevyn feared he would murder Rhys if all else failed. As he followed the captain back to Lovyan’s suite, Nevyn was remembering Gweran the bard, who so long ago had played a similar trick himself. I tried to warn him, Nevyn thought, I told him that it would come round on him someday. Only then did Cullyn’s news come real to him, that the man who carried Eldidd’s Wyrd in his hands was going to hang on the morrow morn.

Lovyan’s reception chamber was packed with angry lords, cursing Rhys and his provocations. Lovyan herself half reclined in a chair with Jill and Dannyan hovering behind her. When Nevyn came in, Lovyan looked his way with hopeless, tear-filled eyes. Jill ran to her father and buried her face in his chest.

“If Rhys hangs Rhodry,” Sligyn announced, “he’ll have a rebellion on his hands that will make the Delonderiel run red. I heard what he said to the lad. We all did, eh?”

“Just so,” Peredyr said. “We’d best get the men and ride out tonight, before he traps us here.”

“Hold your tongues!” Nevyn snapped. “Until we have just cause, let us not discuss rebellion, my lords. I intend to speak to the gwerbret myself, and I’m going to do it now.”

They cheered him as if he were the captain and they the warband. When Nevyn left, Cullyn came along with him.

“I’ve ridden outside the laws for so long that I don’t remember them much, but doesn’t a lord’s captain have the right to beg for his lord’s life?”

“He does.” Nevyn was surprised that he hadn’t remembered that himself, but then he realized that he’d been assuming that Cullyn would have been unwilling to do any such thing. “Here, would you truly go down on your knees for Rhodry?”