Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

Over the next few days, Gweran made a point of keeping his eye on the situation. At first Tanyc seemed to have taken the warning to heart, but the morning came when Gweran saw Lyssa, Cadda, and the boys walking across the ward and Tanyc hurrying over to walk with them. Gweran hurried downstairs and ran to catch up with them. At the first sight of him, Tanyc made the woman a hasty bow and went back to the barracks.

“Now, ye gods, Cadda,” Gweran snapped. “Your mistress has spoken to you, I’ve spoken to you—can’t you get it through your pretty head that he’s the wrong sort of man for you?”

Cadda sniveled, grabbing her handkerchief from her kirtle and dabbing at her eyes. Lyssa patted her gently on the arm.

“Gweran’s right,” Lyssa said. “Here, let’s go up to the chamber where it’s cool and have a nice talk.”

“I want to walk with Da,” Aderyn said. “Can I, Da?”

“You may.” Gweran held out his hand. “We’ll have a nice stroll and let the women have their chat.”

They walked down to the river, a trickle of water in mud, and sat down in the rustling dry grass. Without a breath of wind, the heat clung round them. Aderyn stretched out on his stomach in the grass and plucked a dead stalk to play with.

“Da? You don’t like Tanyc, do you?”

“I don’t. Do you?”

“I don’t. He scares me.”

“Well, the captain tells me he’s a hard man.”

Aderyn nodded, twisting the grass stalk into a loop.

“You know what, Da? He doesn’t bother us to see Cadda. When we walk, you know? He comes to see Mam.”

Gweran felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Aderyn tried to tie a knot in the slippery stalk, then gave up and started chewing on it.

“Are you sure about that?” Gweran asked.

“I am. You told me to watch what people do, remember? So I was watching Tanyc, because I don’t like him, and I wondered why I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks at Mam. And he always bows to her so nice, and he talks to Cadda, but all the time, he’s looking at Mam.”

“Oh, he is, now?”

Aderyn started slitting the grass stalk with his fingernail and trying to braid the pieces. Gweran looked at the sluggish river and felt his rage flaring, just as when a spark gets into dry grass—it creeps along, smokes, then flares to a sheet of flame, racing along the meadowland. That bastard, Gweran thought, and does he think I’ll back down without a fight over this?

“Da? What’s wrong? Don’t look like that.”

“Oh, naught, lad. Just worrying about the cursed drought.”

“Don’t. Nevyn’s going to fix it.”

Gweran forced out a smile. He had no time to worry about silly prattle about the herbman.

“Let’s get back to the dun. It’s a bit hot out here, and there’s a thing or two I want to keep my eye on.”

“What I want to know is this,” Aderyn said. “Why do herbs work on fevers and stuff?”

“Well, now,” Nevyn said. “That’s a very long question to answer. Do you want to listen to a talk?”

“I do. This is all splendid.”

They were kneeling on the floor of Nevyn’s hut and working with the herbs, turning them over to dry them evenly. Almost every day, Aderyn came down to help and study herbcraft. After his long loneliness, Nevyn found the boy’s chatter amusing.

“Very well,” Nevyn went on. “There are four humors, you see, in every human body. They match the four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. When all the humors are in perfect balance, then a person is healthy. Each herb has more or less of the various humors; they balance things out if someone is sick. If someone has a fever, then they have too much fiery humor. A febrifugal herb has lots of cool watery humor and helps balance the fiery out.”

“Only four humors? I thought there should be five.”

Nevyn sat back on his heels in sheer surprise.

“Well, so there are. But only four in the body. The fifth rules the others from the spirit.”

Aderyn nodded, carefully memorizing the lore. More and more, Nevyn was wondering if the lad was meant to be his new apprentice. The wondering made him weary. Since a dweomerman could have only one apprentice at a time, he could never take Aderyn on while bringing Brangwen to the dweomer to fulfill his vow.

At times, in the hope of seeing Lyssa, Nevyn would take Aderyn back to the dun on horseback. Often in the hot afternoons, the various members of the household would be sitting on the grassy hill. Since Nevyn was now well known, one or the other of them would come over to ask him some medical question or to buy a few herbs or suchlike. It was there that he met Tanyc one afternoon and saw his Wyrd tangle around him like a fisherman’s net round its prey.

Leading the horse, Nevyn and Aderyn were walking up the hill when Nevyn noticed Cadda sitting with one of the riders, a hard-eyed southern man. Aderyn noticed it, too, and went skipping over.

“Cadda, I’m going to tell Mam on you. You shouldn’t be here with Tanyc.”

“Hold your tongue, you little beast!”

“Won’t. Won’t, won’t, won’t. I’m going to tell.”

Tanyc got up, and something about the way he looked at Aderyn frightened Nevyn into hurrying over.

“Slapping a bard’s son is a good way for a man to get his name satirized,” Nevyn remarked.

“And what’s it to you, old man?” Tanyc swung his head round.

As their eyes met, Nevyn recognized Gerraent’s soul in the arrogance blazing out of his eyes.

“You better not insult Nevyn,” Aderyn said. “He’s dweomer.”

“Hold your tongue! I’m in no mood to listen to nonsense from a flea-bitten cub.”

Tanyc started to swing open-handed at the boy, but Nevyn caught him by the wrist. The Wildfolk flocked to him and lent him so much raw strength that no matter how Tanyc struggled, he couldn’t break the herbman’s grip. Nevyn pulled him close, caught his gaze, and stared deep into his eyes while he let his hatred burn—and dweomer lay behind it. Tanyc went dead white and stopped struggling.

“I said leave the lad alone,” Nevyn whispered.

Tanyc nodded in terrified agreement. When Nevyn released him, he turned and ran for the gates of the dun.

“Cadda, take Addo back to his mother,” Nevyn said. “I’m going back to the farm.”

So all the actors in their grim little farce were there, even Gerraent, face to face again in a way that Nevyn had never foreseen. He realized that he’d fallen into a last vestige of royal pride, which values only the prince and princess and sees those around them only as supernumeraries. For the next few days, Nevyn stayed away from the dun and his old enemy, but in the end, Lyssa came to him, turning up at the farm one day with the plausible excuse that she’d come to fetch Aderyn home. Nevyn sent the boy out on an errand and offered Lyssa the only chair he had, a wobbly three-legged stool. She perched on it and looked idly around at the hanging bunches of drying herbs.

“The smell in here is so lovely. It’s kind of you, sir, to be so patient with my Addo. You should hear him chatter about it at dinner—today we learned about dog’s tooth herb, today we dried the comfrey roots. His father hardly knows what to think.”

“Does it vex Gweran? Most men want their sons to show an interest in their own calling.”

“Oh, it doesn’t, because my man is the best-hearted man in the world. I think he’s glad to see Aderyn taking such an interest in something. He’s been a strange child from the moment he was born.”

Nevyn smiled, quite sure of that.

“I’m surprised you don’t have more children. You seem to love your lads so much.”

“Well, I hope and pray to have more soon.” Lyssa looked away, her eyes dark. “I had a daughter, you see, between the two lads, but we lost her to a fever.”