Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“I’m truly sorry. That’s a hard thing for a woman to bear.”

“It was.” Her voice went flat from remembered grief. “Well, doubtless it was my Wyrd, and my poor little Danigga’s, too.”

Nevyn felt a cold touch as he wondered if indeed it was her Wyrd, since she’d drowned a child with her on that terrible night. So she had. The dweomer-cold ran down his back as he realized who that child might have been if it had lived to be raised with himself and Rhegor: a great master of dweomer indeed. Lyssa smiled, looking out the door.

“Here comes our Aderyn now,” she said.

Although she was only speaking casually, “our” Aderyn meaning only the “Aderyn we both know, not some other Aderyn,” her words turned Nevyn cold to the heart. I swore I’d raise the child as my own, he thought. A vow’s a vow.

That night, Nevyn went down to the ash tree by the riverbank and sat down to watch the slow water run. As it came clear, his Wyrd lay heavy on him. In this life, Brangwen was gone from him; she would have to repay Blaen for the hopeless love of her that had led him to his death, and repay Aderyn, too, for cutting short his previous chance at life. Nevyn owed Blaen and Aderyn a debt as well, since his scheming had left Brangwen there with her brother’s lust. Only once those debts had been repaid could he take her away for the dweomer. Yet Aderyn would be under his care for the next twenty years, because the dweomer is a slow craft to learn. In twenty years, Nevyn was going to be over ninety. And what if he had to wait for her to be reborn again? He would be well over a hundred, an unthinkable age, so old and dry that he would be helpless in a chair, like a thin stick or drooling babe, his body too old for the soul it carried, his mind a prisoner in a decaying lump of flesh. At that moment Nevyn panicked, shaking cold and sick, no longer a master of the dweomer but an ordinary man, just as when a warrior vows to die in battle, but as the horns blow the charge, he sees Death riding for him and weeps, sick of his vow when retreat is impossible.

Around him a tremor of night wind picked up cool, rustling the canopy of branches above him. Nevyn rested his face in his hands and called on his trained will to stop himself from shaking. A vow’s a vow, he told himself. If I wither, then let me wither, so long as I fulfill that vow. The wind stroked his hair like a friendly hand. He looked up, realizing that it was no natural wind, but the Wildfolk, sylph and sprite, half-seen forms and the flick of shining wings, a face showing here only to vanish there. They came to him as friends and felt his agony, clustering sympathetic lives forming from the raw surge of elemental life. Nevyn felt his weariness ebb away as they freely poured out some of their life to him, a gift between friends. He rose, walked forward, and stared up at the sky, where glittered a great white drift of stars, the Snowy Road, splendid, unreachable, but shining with promise. When he laughed aloud, his laugh was as full and clear as a lad’s. He saw his Wyrd open in front of him, maintained by his work in the Wildlands. He would have life for the task, no matter how long it took as men measure time.

It was that night that he learned this lesson: no one is ever given a Wyrd too harsh to bear, as long as it is taken up willingly and fully, deep in the soul.

At times, Lyssa would leave Acern with Cadda and walk to the farm to fetch Aderyn back from the herbman. She liked these moments of solitude when she could walk alone, away from the busy press and chatter of her life among the women of the household. She also found herself drawn to old Nevyn, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. Well, he’s a wise, kind man who’s traveled much, she would tell herself, it’s always interesting to meet someone new. Reason enough, of course, but at times she went to see him because she felt safe there, out of the fort and away from Tanyc. She knew perfectly well that young rider was pursuing her and lived in dread that her husband might notice. Lyssa simply had too much to lose to be interested in adultery—a high social position, a good husband, wealth, comfort, and above all, her children.

On an afternoon when the heat lay as palpable as a blanket over the land, Lyssa left the dun earlier than usual and dawdled her way down the dusty road to the farm. About halfway along stood a copse of aspen trees, where she decided to rest for a few minutes. She walked into the parched shade, glanced round for a place to sit, and saw Tanyc, waiting for her. He stood as still as one of the trees, his head a little to one side, and he was smiling, looking her over with the sort of admiration a man gives to a beautiful horse in a market.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

“What do you think? I wanted a word with you.”

“I’ve naught to say. You’d best get back before the captain finds you gone.”

When he stepped toward her, she drew back, her hand at her throat, her heart pounding.

“I’ve got to be on my way. My lad will come along soon enough if I’m not there to meet him.”

This likely witness gave Tanyc pause. Abruptly Lyssa realized that she was afraid he would rape her. For all his good looks, Tanyc repelled her in a way that she couldn’t understand—like seeing a dead animal rotting in the road. She knew the repulsion was daft; rationally, she could admit that he was decent enough for a rider.

“May I walk with you a ways, then?” Tanyc made her a courteous bow.

“You can’t!” Lyssa heard her voice rise to a scream. “Leave me alone.”

She found herself running, racing out of the copse like a startled deer and running running running down the road until she was sobbing for breath and drenched with sweat. Half in tears she spun around, but mercifully, he hadn’t followed.

That night, it was so hot that it took a long time to get the children to sleep. The boys tossed and turned and whined on top of the blankets no matter how soothingly Lyssa talked to them. Finally Gweran came in and sang them to sleep. Lyssa went to their chamber, changed into a thin nightdress, and lay down. In a bit, Gweran joined her. He hung the candle lantern up on the wall and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Don’t you have to return to our lord?” Lyssa said.

“I begged his leave. I need to talk with you.”

In the shadowed light his eyes were cold, questioning. She sat up, feeling her hands shaking, and twisted a bit of her dress between her fingers.

“Here, my sweet,” he went on. “You’ve been keeping dangerous company these days.”

“Oh, am I now? Who?”

“Tanyc. Who else would I mean?”

She clenched the cloth so hard that her fingers ached.

“My lord, I swear to you that I want nothing to do with him. Do you doubt me?”

“Never. But I don’t want my woman raped out in the stables.”

When Lyssa started to cry, partly in relief, partly from seeing her worst fear shared, Gweran pulled her gently into his arms.

“My poor, sweet little lass,” he said. “Here, here, don’t weep like that.”

“How can I not weep? Ah, ye gods, if you come to doubt me, what will you do? Cast me off? Cut my throat, and all for a thing I’d never do?”

“Hush, hush.” Gweran stroked her hair. “I’d die myself before I’d do you the slightest harm.”

As suddenly as they’d come, her tears vanished before a new fear. She looked up and found his face set and grim.

“If you challenge Tanyc, he’ll win. Please, Gwerro, I beg you. Don’t. Just don’t. What good would it do me, if I had my honor and no husband?”

“I’m not going to do anything of the sort! Do you despise me, think me a coward, and all because I can’t match him in a fight?”

“Don’t be a dolt. I could have married lots of bloodthirsty men, but I never wanted anyone but you.”