Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

The riders laughed. One nudged the lad and whispered, “Oh, go on.”

“Uh, well, I thought you were a lass, because you’re so pretty.”

Jill was caught speechless.

“Well, you are,” the lad went on, a bit more boldly. “Can I stand you a tankard?”

“Now, here.” It was Cullyn, striding over. “What’s this?”

“He was just talking to me, Da.”

The lad stepped back sharply, stumbling into his friends.

“Listen, you young dolt. I happen to be Cullyn of Cerrmor. Ever hear that name?”

The lad’s face went pale. The other Fox riders joustled each other in their hurry to fall back and leave the lad to face Cullyn alone.

“I see you have,” Cullyn said. “Now, none of you are going to say one more word to my daughter.”

“We won’t. I swear it.”

“Good.” Cullyn turned on Jill. “And you’re not saying one more word to them. Get back to the table.”

Slopping the ale a bit, Jill hurried back to the table and sat down. Cullyn stood with his arms folded over his chest while the Fox riders unceremoniously ran out the door; then he came and sat beside her.

“You listen to me! The next time any young lout says a wrong word to you, you walk on by and find me. By the hells, you’re getting older, aren’t you? I never truly noticed how much older before.”

When their eyes met, Jill felt that she’d somehow become shameful and failed him. She disliked the way her father was looking at her, too, a cold appraisal that made her feel unclean. Abruptly he looked away, and she knew that he was as troubled as she was. She sat there miserably and wished that she could talk to her mother. It was only later that she remembered the young rider telling her she was pretty. In spite of herself, she was pleased.

II

On a day when the trees stood scarlet, and a cold drizzle turned the streets to muck, Nevyn rode into Dun Mannanan. He rented a chamber in the inn, stabled his horse and pack mule, then wrapped himself in his patched cloak and hurried to the shop of Otho the silversmith. For reasons of its own, the dweomer watched over the band of silver daggers; since most of them were decent enough lads who had only committed one grave fault, they came in handy for those rare times when the dweomer needed some help from the sword. Nevyn knew every smith in the kingdom who served them, though few were as strange as Otho, a dwarf in long exile from the kingdoms of his race far to the north. When Nevyn appeared at his door, the silversmith greeted him heartily and took him into the workshop, where a fire burned on the hearth.

“Would you care for a bit of mulled ale, my lord?”

“I would. These old bones are feeling the damp.”

Otho allowed himself a smile at the jest. They had, after all, known each other for some two hundred years. Nevyn pulled the only chair in the room up to the fire and held out his hands to the heat while Otho bustled around, filling a metal flagon with ale from the barrel by the wall, adding a stick of Bardek cinnamon, then popping on a lid to keep the ashes out when he stood the flagon in the coals.

“I was hoping you’d ride my way,” Otho said. “I might have a bit of news for you. That lass of yours, the one you’ve been vexing yourself over for so long, is it time for her to be reborn again?”

“She’s been born, actually. Here, have you seen her?”

“I may have, I may not. I don’t have the second sight, my lord, or the dweomer neither, as well you know. But a passing strange little lass rode my way this summer. Her name was Jill, and oh, she’d been born some thirteen summers ago, I’d say. Her father’s a silver dagger, you see, and he has his daughter riding with him. It’s truly strange to see a human being treat his child so well, but that’s neither here nor there. His name’s Cullyn of Cerrmor. Ever heard of him?”

“The man they say is the best swordsman in Deverry?”

“The very one, and he is, too. His mark is the striking falcon.”

“Oh, by the gods! It could be. It just could be.”

Otho got a clot of rags and gingerly took the flagon from the fire, then poured the steaming ale into a pair of tankards. Thirteen would mark the right number of years since I saw that vision, Nevyn thought, and it would be like Gerraent to end up with that dagger in his belt. If she were wandering with a silver dagger, it was no wonder he’d never found her in all his long years of trying. Suddenly he felt weary. For all that Cullyn of Cerrmor had great glory, it would be a hard job to track him down. Otho handed him a tankard.

“When they left here, they rode north. Cullyn took a hire with a merchant who was taking a caravan of our … ah, well, special imports into Deverry.”

“Special imports indeed. Here, Otho, when are you going to mend your ways?”

“It’s your people, not mine, who make such a stinking fuss over excises and the King’s tax.”

Although Nevyn was tempted to ride after the pair, by that time of year it would already be snowing up north, and for all he knew, Cullyn would be riding elsewhere. Nevyn decided to carry out his original plan of returning to his home in western Eldidd for winter. After all, he reminded himself, this Jill might not even be his Brangwen reborn. She wasn’t the only soul in the kingdom marked for the dweomer, and the falcon device might well be a simple coincidence. Besides, he also had Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd of Aberwyn to consider. He was as much a part of Nevyn’s Wyrd as Brangwen was, being as Lord Blaen had died so needlessly that night thanks to Prince Galrion’s fault.

Although Nevyn had been planning on riding straight to Aberwyn, he took the precaution of scrying Rhodry out first and so saved himself a wasted trip. When he called up Rhodry’s image in the burning coals of a fire, he saw the lad out riding in the forest preserve of the gwerbrets of Aberwyn—a stretch of virgin forest near the little town of Belglaedd. Nevyn assumed that he would have no chance to meet the young lord, simply because the preserve was closed to all but gwerbretal guests, but even so, he went to Belglaedd on the off chance that Rhodry might ride into town for some reason. There, as he later came to realize, the Lords of Wyrd took a hand in the matter.

The people of Belglaedd and the outlying farmers both knew and honored Nevyn, because he was the only source of medical care that most of them had. The tavernman insisted on putting him up for free and then rattled off a list of symptoms about the pains in his joints. For the next week Nevyn had little time to think about his tangled Wyrd as family after family came to buy his herbs and ask his advice. On the eighth morning, Nevyn had just gone out to the muddy tavern yard for a bit of sun when a rider trotted up in a splash of muck. He wore a blue cloak blazoned with the dragon device of Aberwyn.

“’Morrow, aged sir,” the rider said. “I hear there’s a good herbman in town. Do you know him?”

“I am him, lad. What’s the trouble?”

“I’ve just come from the lodge. Lord Rhodry’s cursed ill.”

Talking all the while, the rider helped Nevyn load his supplies onto his mule. Rhodry had been caught out in the rain and stubbornly gone on hunting even though he was soaking wet. The only people at the lodge with him were a pair of servants and five of his father’s men, none of whom knew the first thing about physick.

“And what’s his lordship doing out here this time of year anyway?” Nevyn said.

“Ah, well, sir, I’m not free to say, but he got into a bit of trouble with his older brother. Naught that was serious.”

Although the gwerbret probably considered his hunting lodge to be charmingly rustic, it was as imposing as many a dun of a lesser lord. In the middle of a cobbled and well-drained ward rose a three-story broch, surrounded by enough outbuildings and stables to house a party of a hundred guests. An aged manservant led Nevyn up to the second floor and Rhodry’s chamber, sparsely furnished with one carved chest, a bed with faded hangings, and his lordship’s shield hanging on the wall. Although there was a brazier heaped with coals glowing in the middle of the room, the damp seeped out of the very walls.