Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“How did you know? Gwennie, tell me! How did you know?”

Brangwen only wept, an exhausted tremble of her body. Nevyn stroked her hair and held her until at last she seemed calmed. When he let her go, she threw her head back and keened again.

And so it went for hours. He would just soothe her when something would make her remember and she would keen, struggling with him. Slowly her struggles grew weaker. He got her to lie down on the cloaks, then lay down next to her and let her weep in his arms. When she at last fell asleep, he watched the fire burning itself out until he, too, drifted off, as exhausted as she.

But he woke not an hour later and found her gone. Nevyn jumped to his feet and ran for the river. He could just see her there, poised on the bank, a dark shape against the sky.

“Gwennie!”

She neither turned nor hesitated, but flung herself into the river before he could reach her. Weighted by her long dresses, she went down, swirling away into the darkness. Nevyn dove in after her. Black—the cold shock of the water—he could barely breathe or see. The current swept him along, but as he broke the surface and came up, he saw nothing but black water, scouring ahead of him. If she’d sunk already, he could easily be swimming over her.

Yet, though he knew it was hopeless, he kept diving, kept swimming back and forth across the river like a dog seeking a water bird. All at once, the current swirled him and rammed him hard against a sharp something in the dark. A rock. With his shoulder aching like a fire, Nevyn managed to pull himself to the riverbank and out, but only barely. He lay gasping and weeping on the bank for a long time.

Just as the gray of dawn lightened the sky, Nevyn got up and walked downstream. He was too mad with grief to know what he was doing; he merely walked, looking for her. As the sun came up, he found her where the current had washed her into a sandy shallows. She lay on her back, her golden hair sodden and tangled, her beautiful eyes wide open, staring sightlessly at the brightening sky. She had fulfilled her vow to the gods. Nevyn picked her up, slung her weight over his uninjured shoulder, and carried her back to camp. All he could think was that he had to get Gwennie home. He wrapped her in both cloaks and tied her over the gray’s saddle.

It was close to nightfall when Nevyn reached the hut in the forest. Rhegor came running out and stopped, looking at the burden in the saddle.

“You were too late.”

“It was too late from the first day he bedded her.”

Nevyn brought her down and carried her inside, laid her down by the hearth, then sat down beside her. While the light faded in the hut, he looked at her, simply looked as if he were expecting her to wake and smile at him. Rhegor came inside, carrying a lantern.

“I’ve tended the horse.”

“My thanks.”

Slowly, a broken phrase at a time, Nevyn told him the tale, while Rhegor listened with an occasional nod.

“The poor lass,” Rhegor said at last. “She had more honor than either you or her brother.”

“She did. Would it be a wrong thing for me to kill myself on her grave?”

“It would. I forbid it.”

Nevyn nodded vaguely and wondered why he felt so calm. He was dimly aware of his master leaning over him.

“Lad, she’s dead. You’ve got to go on from here. All we can do for Gwennie is pray that she has better afterwards.”

“Where?” Nevyn spat out the words. “In the shadowy Otherlands? How can there even be gods, if they’d let her die and not kill a wretch like me?”

“Here, lad, you’re mad from your grief, and truly, I’m afraid you might stay that way if you keep brooding. The gods have nothing to do with this, either way. That’s true enough.” Rhegor put a gentle hand on Nevyn’s arm. “Come, now, let’s sit at the table. Let poor little Gwennie lie there.”

Nevyn’s habit of obedience saved him. He let Rhegor haul him up and lead him to a table, sat down when the master told him to, and took a tankard of ale, as well, just because the master had handed him one.

“Now drink some of it right off. There. That’s better, lad. You think she’s gone forever, don’t you? Cut off from life, forever and ever, and her a lass who loved life so much.”

“And what else would I think?”

“I’ll tell you the truth to think instead. There’s a great secret to the dweomer, one that you can never tell any man unless he asks you point-blank. They never do ask, truly, unless they’re marked for the dweomer themselves. But the secret is this, that everyone, man and woman both, lives not once, but many times, over and over, back and forth between this world and the other. What looks like a death here, lad, is but birth to another world. She’s gone, truly, but she’s gone to that other world, and I swear to you, someone will come to meet her.”

“I never thought you’d lie to me! What do you think I am? An infant that can’t bear grief without some pretty tale to sweeten it?”

“It’s not a lie. And soon, when your training allows, you’ll do and see things that will prove the truth of it. Until then, believe me blind.”

Nevyn hesitated on the edge of trust.

“And in a while,” the master went on, “she’ll die to that other world and be born again to this one. I can’t know if ever your paths will cross again. That’s for the Great Ones, the Lords of Wyrd, to decide, not you and me. Do you still doubt my sworn word?”

“Never could I doubt that.”

“Then that’s what you have.” Rhegor gave a long weary sigh. “And since men believe the bitter easier than the sweet, I’ll tell you somewhat else. If you do meet again, whether in this life or the next, then you have a great debt to make up to her. You failed her, lad. I’m half minded to turn you out, but that would only mean I’m failing you. You’re going to make this up to her, and the burden won’t be an easy one. Maybe it sounds pretty, saying you’ll meet again, but think about what you owe her. You little fool, you should have recognized her! You thought of her as a jewel or a fine horse, the best woman to ever come your way, better like a prize. Ye gods, under that god-cursed beauty lay a woman to match you in the dweomer. Why do you think I hung around the Falcon keep? How could she ever leave to study the dweomer except through the right man? Would her father have ever so nicely let her go off on her own to study her birthright? Why do you think you fell in love with her the moment you saw her? You knew, you dolt, or you should have known—you were a pair, calling to one another!” Rhegor slammed his hand down on the table. “But now she’s gone.”

Nevyn turned cold, a sick ripple of shame.

“And someday soon she’ll have to start all over again,” Rhegor went on remorselessly. “A little baby, blind, unknowing, years before she can even speak and hold a wretched spoon to feed herself. She’ll have to grow up all over again, while the kingdom needs every dweomermaster it can get! You dolt! By then, who knows where you’ll be? You fool!”

Nevyn broke, falling onto the table to weep on his folded arms. Hastily Rhegor got up, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, here, I’m sorry, lad. There’ll be time to talk when you’re done mourning. You don’t need vinegar poured on your wounds. Here, here, forgive me.”

Yet it was a long hour before Nevyn could stop weeping.

In the morning, Nevyn and Rhegor took Brangwen into the woods to bury her. As he helped dig her grave, Nevyn felt a deathly calm. He lifted her up for the last time and laid her in, then put all the courting presents in with her. Other lives or no, he wanted her to have grave goods, like the princess she should have been. Working together, they filled in the grave and built a cairn over it to keep the wild animals from digging her up. Around them the forest stretched silent and lonely, far from her ancestors. When the last stone lay on the cairn, Rhegor lifted his arms to the sun.