Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“Well, good dame, I do what my master says and hold my tongue.”

“Always best with a strange one like our Rhegor. Well, if he sends you to me with herbs every now and then, I’ll manage.”

Ynna cut a few more slices from the loaf and laid them on Nevyn’s plate.

“I miss Rhegor, though. I could always count on his counsel, like, when there was some troubling thing.”

Nevyn felt the dweomer-warning down his back.

“And how fares Lord Gerraent these days?”

“You’re almost as sharp as your master, aren’t you, lad? Well, here, tell Rhegor this tale for me. He always kept an eye, like, on poor little Brangwen.”

“Did he, now? I never knew that.”

“Oh, truly, he did, just from a fatherly distance, like. So tell him about this. About a month ago, it was, the page up at the dun got a bit of fever, and a stubborn thing it was. I must have been back there five times before the lad was right again. And Lord Gerraent gives me a joint of venison for it. He says, do you have an herb to take madness away, Ynna? He was jesting, I suppose, but he smiled so coldlike it troubled my heart. And then the last time I went up the hill, I see Gerraent sobbing on his father’s grave.”

“You can rest assured I’ll tell Rhegor about it. How does Brangwen fare, shut up with a man like that?”

“Now, there’s the strangest thing of all. You think she’d be heartsick, but she goes around like a woman in a dream. I’ve never seen the lass look so broodylike. I’d say she was with child, but whose would it be? She’s just as broody as if her belly was swelling, but that betrothed of hers has been gone too long now. Well, tell Rhegor for me.”

On the ride home, Nevyn pushed the balky mule as fast as it would go, but it still took him over two days to reach his new home. Up in the wild forest north of the Boar’s demesne, Nevyn and Rhegor had cleared a good space of land near a creek. They’d used the logs to build a round house and the land to plant beans, turnips, and suchlike. Because Rhegor’s reputation as a healer moved north with him, they had plenty of food and even a few coins, since farmers and bondsmen alike were willing to pay with chickens and cheese for Rhegor’s herbs. Now, when it was too late, Nevyn clearly saw that he and Brangwen would have had a comfortable if spare life in the forest. If only you hadn’t been such a dolt, Nevyn cursed himself, such a stupid fool!

Rhegor was out in front of the house, treating the running eye of a little boy while the mother squatted nearby. From her ragged brown tunic, Nevyn saw that she was a bondwoman, her thin face utterly blank, as if she hardly cared whether the lad was cured or not, even though she’d brought him all this way. On her face was her brand, the old scar pale on dirty skin. Although he was barely three, the lad was already branded, too, marked out as Lord Blaen’s property for the rest of his life. Rhegor stood the lad on a tree stump and wiped the infected eye with a bit of rag dipped in herbal salve.

Nevyn went to stable the mule alongside the bay gelding. When he came back, the bondwoman looked at him with feigned disinterest. Even from ten feet away he could smell her unwashed flesh and rags. Rhegor called her over, gave her a pot of salve, and told her how to apply it. She listened, her face showing a brief flicker of hope.

“I can’t pay you much, my lord,” she said. “I brought some of the first apples.”

“You and the lad eat those on your way home.”

“My thanks.” She stared at the ground. “I heard you tended poor folk, but I didn’t believe it at first.”

“It’s true. Spread the tale around.”

“I was so frightened.” She went on staring at the ground. “If the lad went blind, they’d kill him because he couldn’t work.”

“What?” Nevyn broke in. “Lord Blaen would never do such a thing.”

“Lord Blaen?” She looked up with a faint smile. “Well, so he wouldn’t. How would he even know we’re alive to be killed? His overseer, my lord, that’s who’d do it.”

Nevyn supposed that she spoke the cold truth. As the prince, he’d given less thought to bondmen than to horses. Rhegor was making him see a different world.

Once the woman went on her way, Rhegor and Nevyn went inside their cabin, a single light, airy room, scented with new-cut pine. They had a scattering of cast-off furniture from grateful farmers: a table, a bench, a freestanding cabinet to hold cookware. On one wall was the half-finished hearth Nevyn was building as his share of the summer’s work. Nevyn dipped them ale from a barrel, then brought the dented tankards over to join Rhegor at the table.

“And how was the journey?” Rhegor said. “How fares old Ynna?”

“Well enough, my lord. But she told me a strange tale about the Falcon. Ah, ye gods, my poor Brangwen! I truly wish you’d done what my father would have—beaten me half to death for my fault!”

“That would have solved nothing, and made you feel like you’d made amends when you hadn’t.” Rhegor hesitated on the edge of anger. “Ah, well, what’s past is past. Tell me the tale.”

While Nevyn told him, Rhegor listened quietly, but his hands clasped his tankard tighter and tighter. At the end, Rhegor swore under his breath.

“Truly, we’d best look into this. Here, old Ynna can practically smell when a lass is with child. There’s no chance the babe’s yours, it it?”

“Not unless longing for a woman can get her with child.”

His eyes still dark, Rhegor smiled.

“And what will you think of your Gwennie, if she’s big with another man’s child?”

“If he’s a good man, let her go with him. If he’s not, then I’ll take her, child and all.”

“Well and good. First we’ll have to see if that child’s Blaen’s. If it is, there’ll be a wedding, and that’ll be the end to it. If not, I still have hope we can get her away.”

“Here, my lord, why are you so concerned with Brangwen? Is it just the honor of the thing?”

“Now, that I can’t tell you just yet.”

Nevyn waited, hoping for at least a word more, but Rhegor merely looked away, thinking.

“I’ll ride down to the Boar early tomorrow,” Rhegor said at length. “Out of courtesy, I should let Lady Rodda know there’s an herbman nearby. You stay here. Blaen would hate to kill you if he saw you, but his honor would make him do what the King ordered. I should reach the dun by noon, so you might make yourself a fire and see if you can follow me that way.”

On the morrow, Nevyn spent an impatient morning digging stones out of their little field for the hearth. So far, most of his training was just this sort of menial labor in the summer heat. Often it galled him: what was a prince doing, sweating like a fleabitten bondman? Yet in his heart, he knew that humbling the princes pride was the real work. There is only one key to unlock the secrets of the dweomer: I want to know in order to help the world. Anyone wanting power for its own sake gets only dribs and drabs, hard-won, harder to keep, and not worth having.

Yet here and there, Rhegor had given Nevyn work bearing more directly on dweomer-lore. Although Nevyn had always had the second sight, it came and went of its own will, showing him what it chose to show and not a jot more. Now he was learning to bring the sight under his will.

Nevyn made a circle of stones outside on the ground and built a small fire, which he lit like any other man with a tinder box and flint. He let the fire burn down until the logs were glowing caves of coals. Then he stretched out on the ground, pillowed his chin on his hands, and stared directly into the fire caves. He slowed his breathing to the right rhythm and thought of Rhegor. At last the fire cave stretched, widened, and turned into the sheen of sunlight glowing on a polished wood chamber. In the flames, he made out Rhegor, a tiny image. Nevyn summoned his will and thought of Rhegor, imaged him clearly, and forced his mind to him. The vision swelled, turned solid, swelled again, and became as clear as though Nevyn were looking into the women’s hall from an outside window. With one last effort of will, Nevyn went in, hearing a little rushy hiss, a dropping sensation in his stomach, and at last he was standing beside Rhegor on the floor.