Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“You want me to get up?”

The pull came again. Rhodry got to his feet and looked round. Here and there a branch bobbed or a cluster of leaves shivered in the perfectly windless air.

“You must be the Wildfolk. Well, by every god, you have my heartfelt thanks.”

Suddenly they were gone; he could somehow feel that he was alone. As he made his careful, silent way back to his horse, it occurred to him to wonder if Nevyn had sent this unexpected help. He retrieved his mount and headed out fast on foot. Apparently his hunters were far away, because he reached the edge of the forest without hearing anyone coming after him.

Out in the meadow stood four horses, tethered to a shrubby bush and carrying saddles marked with the silver dragon of Aberwyn. One of them suddenly stamped; another tossed its head in irritation; then all four of them were nickering, stamping, throwing up their heads in panic. As Rhodry mounted, he saw the knots that held their reins slip loose, untied by invisible fingers. The horses pranced, whinnied—and all at once they bolted, racing north in blind panic. Rhodry laughed aloud and called out a last thanks as he turned his horse and galloped south, back to the main road.

• • •

Nevyn was riding alone at the rear of the warband when two Wildfolk came back, popping into manifestation on his horse’s head and on his saddle peak. The obese yellow gnome was particularly pleased with himself, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing his fat little stomach. Nevyn slowed his horse and dropped even farther back, out of earshot of the men.

“Did you do what I told you to?”

The yellow gnome nodded a yes and stretched its mouth in a soundless peal of laughter.

“And Rhodry’s safe?”

This time the blue sprite nodded vigorously. She shaded her eyes with one hand and did a pantomime of someone peering and searching while her face registered sheer frustration.

“And you got the horses?”

They both nodded.

“Splendid, splendid. You have my thanks, and you come tell me if Rhodry’s in danger again.”

They disappeared in a swirl of breeze. As Nevyn rode back up to join the others, he allowed himself a smile for the thought of Rhys’s men, walking the whole fifteen miles back to Aberwyn in soft riding boots. It’s a good thing I decided to scry Rhodry out, he thought to himself, curse Rhys and his murdering bastards all!

“The warband must have reached your cousins dun by now,” Dannyan remarked.

“Just so,” Lovyan said. “It was sensible of Cullyn to think of taking the men away. At least Rhodry’s left me a good man to captain the band.”

With a sigh, Lovyan sat up on the bed and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She had wept enough for one day; in spite of the pain she felt over Rhodry’s exile, she had to pick up the broken pieces of her plans and make new ones.

“Dann, would you get a servant to fetch me hot water?” Lovyan said, “I’ll have a wash and dress now. I must have a word with the gwerbret.”

“So soon? Is my lady sure that’s wise?”

“Not wise at all, but necessary.”

Yet in the end, Rhys came to her. Lovyan had just finished dressing when a page appeared to ask if she would receive the gwerbret. Lovyan took a place by the window and drew herself up to full height as Rhys came in. He looked so timid that Lovyan suddenly remembered that there was something he very badly wanted from her.

“Mother, my apologies. Truly, I never meant to send Rhodry away, or to hang him either. I was honestly glad when his captain reminded me of my promise. Don’t you see? After he stood there and defied me in open malover, what could I do? Knuckle under and be shamed in every man’s eyes?”

Lovyan wished that she could believe him. In time, perhaps, she would be able to make herself believe him.

“Mother, please! I’d already shamed myself once by admitting my fault there in the malover.”

“I have no doubt that His Grace perceived his choice that way. I have hopes that he will see a better choice at some future time.”

“I suppose you want me to recall him.”

“Does His Grace truly have to ask me that?”

With a toss of his head, Rhys began pacing back and forth. Lovyan considered refusing to make the marriage for Donilla unless Rhys recalled his brother, but she knew him too well. In angry pride, he would refuse the bargain, and then Donilla would suffer for her husband’s fault.

“I wish to leave your court on the morrow,” Lovyan said. “If Donilla’s going to ride with us, you’ll have to drink the bitter ale and put her aside. It’s only hurting both of you by delaying it, anyway.”

“My thanks.” Rhys turned to her in honest relief. “I was afraid that you’d—”

He could not quite bring himself to finish. She let the silence build until he looked down, shamed by her generosity.

“Mother, please? Won’t you accept my apology?”

“Mother? Never call me that again.”

Rhys flinched as if she’d slapped him. She paused just long enough for him to feel the sting.

“Not, at least, until Rhodry’s back home.”

Rhys started to speak, then turned and strode out, slamming the door so hard that the silver oddments on the mantel rattled. Lovyan allowed herself a small smile.

“I’m a warrior’s wife and a warrior’s daughter. And the war, Your Grace, has just begun.”

The sun was low in the sky when Rhodry came to the stone slab marking the border between the gwerbret-rhynnau of Aberwyn and Abernaudd. He paused his horse and contemplated the dragon carved on the west side and the hippogriff rampant carved on the east, then rode the last few feet across. For all the good it was going to do him, he was safe. Rhys’s men would never risk starting a war by pursuing him into another gwerbrets rhan and thus usurping that gwerbrets jurisdiction.

As the evening wind picked up from the sea, he shivered and pulled his plain blue cloak round his shoulders. His stomach was growling and knotting; he hadn’t eaten since the ill-fated feast of the night before. A few more miles brought him to a big farming village and the Gray Goat tavern, a thatched roundhouse with a stable out in back. As he dismounted, the taverner came out, a bulky blob of a man who reeked of garlic. He looked Rhodry over with a shrewd eye for the blazons on his shirt and worn spot on his belt where a scabbard should have hung.

“I’ll wager you got into a bit of trouble with the captain of your warband.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Naught. And a silver dagger in your belt, is there? Who pledged you to that?”

“Cullyn of Cerrmor.”

“Oho!” The taverner gave him a wide grin, revealing stubs of front teeth. “Then come in and welcome. You can work around the place, like, to earn your keep while you figure out what you’re going to do next. Here, lad, have you been flogged? My wife can give you a poultice or somewhat for your back.”

“I haven’t, but my thanks.”

“Good, good. At least your lord was a merciful man, eh? Well, put your horse in the stables. My name’s Gadd.”

“And mine’s Rhodry.”

Just in time, he stopped himself from calling himself Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd. That he only had part of his name left gave him a cold feeling, but at the same time, he was relieved at Gadd’s easy assumption that he was a disgraced rider. Outside of Rhys’s gwerbretrhyn, no one but the noble lords would know who he was, and once he left Eldidd, few of them would recognize him either. Without his name and his plaid, he would only be another silver dagger.

Apparently Gadd had a higher opinion of horses than he did humans, because while the stable was clean and well tended, in the tavern room the battered tables were slick with grease and the straw on the floor smelled like kennel bedding. The stew, however, that Gadd put in front of Rhodry was thick with meat and turnips, and the bread that went with it was fresh-baked. Rhodry gobbled while Gadd brought him a tankard of dark ale and pointed out where the open barrel stood.