Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“Cullyn?” Rhodry said at last. “You know I honor you.”

“I do, my lord, and you have my thanks.”

“Well, then.” Rhodry turned idly away and seemed to be examining a nearby sword rack. “Would I do somewhat that would cause you grief?”

Somewhat. As palpably as if she’d walked in the door, Cullyn felt Jill’s presence between them.

“Well?” Rhodry said. “Do you hold me in such low esteem as all that?”

“I don’t, my lord. If I did, I wouldn’t be riding for you.”

“Well and good, then. Here, do you remember when I asked you to play Carnoic with me?”

“I do, and truly, I never thought we’d live to do it.”

“But we have. Tonight I’ll bring a board over to your table, and we’ll have a game.”

After Rhodry left, Cullyn stood in the shed for a long time, the wooden sword in his hands, and wished that he were better at thinking. On the long road he’d seen more courts from the underside than any man in the kingdom, and never had he met a lord like Rhodry, so much what every lord was supposed to be but so few were. If only it weren’t for Jill. If only. He swore aloud and went out to the practice ground to work his frustrations away.

Cullyn worked a little too hard. By the time he realized that he had to stop, his head was swimming. By walking slowly and concentrating on every step, he reached his chamber without having to ask for help and flopped onto the bed, boots, sword belt, and all. When he woke, Jill was standing beside his bed, and the slanting light through the window told him it was close to sunset.

“What are you doing here?” Cullyn snapped. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near the barracks.”

“Oh, I know, and I hate it. Da, I miss you. We hardly get a chance to talk these days.”

When Cullyn sat up, rubbing his face and yawning, Jill sat down next to him. In her new dresses she looked so much like her mother that he wanted to weep.

“Well, my sweet, I miss you, too, but you’re a fine lady now.”

“Oh, horseshit! Lovyan can heap honors on me all she wants, but I’ll always be common-born and a bastard.”

She spoke so bitterly that even Cullyn could catch this subtle point.

“Rhodry will never marry you, truly. And you’d best keep that in mind, when you’re giggling and flirting with him.”

Jill went pale and still, clutching a handful of blanket.

“I’ve seen the pair of you looking at each other like hounds at a joint of meat. Stay away from him. He’s an honorable man, but you wouldn’t be the first beautiful woman that made a man desert his honor.”

Jill nodded, her mouth working in honest pain. Cullyn felt torn in pieces. He was sincerely sorry for her, that she’d never have the man she loved, and at the same time, he wanted to slap her just because she loved another man.

“Come along.” Cullyn stood up. “You’re not a barracks brat anymore, and you can’t be hanging around here.”

Cullyn strode out, leaving Jill to follow. Yet her words haunted him that evening, that she loved him, that she missed him. He wondered how he would feel if she married some man the tieryn picked out for her, and she went off to live with her new husband. He would probably never see her but once or twice a year. He even had the thought of simply leaving Rhodry’s service and going back on the long road, where he would neither know nor care where Jill was sleeping, but as he sat in the captain’s place at the head table of the warband, he knew that he could never give up his newfound position. For the first time in his life, he had something to lose.

Later, after the warbands drifted back to the barracks and the noble lords up to their chambers, Rhodry brought over a game of Carnoic, the finest set Cullyn had ever seen. The playing pieces were flat polished stones, white and black. The thin ebony board was inlaid with mother-of-pearl to mark the starting stations and the track, sixteen interwoven triangles, so that even in firelight it was easy to follow.

“I’ll wager you beat me soundly,” Rhodry said.

Cullyn did, too, for the first three games, sweeping Rhodry’s men off the board as fast as the young lord put them on. Swearing under his breath, Rhodry began pondering every move he made and gave Cullyn a harder run for it, but still he lost the next three. By then, only one drowsy servant remained in the hall to refill their tankards. Rhodry sent the man to bed, stopped drinking, and finally after four more games, ran Cullyn to a draw.

“I won’t press my luck anymore tonight,” Rhodry said.

“It wasn’t luck. You’re learning.”

Cullyn felt the simple comfort of it as overwhelming. Here they were, two men who’d given themselves up for dead, safe at home by a fire, with plenty of ale and each other’s company. While Rhodry put the game back in its lacquered box, Cullyn got up and fetched more ale. They drank silently at first, and slowly, making the moment last as the fire died down and shadows filled the hall. Cullyn suddenly realized that he was happy, a word that had never had much meaning for him before. Or he would be happy, if it weren’t for Jill, whom he loved too much but loved truly enough to want her to be happy, too. Maybe it was the ale, maybe it was the late hour, but he suddenly thought of the clear and simple way to solve the whole tangled mess. If he could do it. If he could bear to do it.

All unconsciously, Rhodry gave him the opening he needed, the chance to think about what had seemed so unthinkable before.

“I wish Rhys would get himself here. Oh, well, in a way he’s doing me somewhat of a favor. As soon as the rebellion’s settled, my esteemed mother’s going to put all her boundless energies into marrying me off.”

“It’s about time you did, my lord.”

“I know—the cursed rhan needs its cursed heirs. Ye gods, captain, think how I must feel. How would you like to be put to stud like a prize horse?”

Cullyn laughed aloud.

“Aches a man’s heart, doesn’t it?” Rhodry said, grinning. “And for all I know, she’ll have a face and a temper to match the Lord of Hell’s. It’s her cursed kin that count, not what I might think of her.”

“Huh. I see why the priests are always telling a man never to envy the noble-born.”

“And right they are, truly. Men like me marry to please our clans, not ourselves.”

The old proverb struck an odd place in Cullyn’s mind, some long-buried memory that he couldn’t quite get clear. He had a long swallow of ale and considered his peculiar idea. He could think of no way to broach it subtly.

“Tell me somewhat, my lord. Would you marry my Jill if you could?”

Rhodry went so tense that Cullyn realized that the lad was as afraid of him as Jill was. It was gratifying. Common-born or not, he was still Jill’s father, still the man who’d decide what she would or wouldn’t do.

“I would,” Rhodry said at last. “I’ll swear that to you on the honor of the Maelwaedds. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to marry her, but I can’t.”

“I know that.”

They drank for a few minutes more, and Rhodry never looked away from his face.

“You know, my lord, the mistress of a great lord has a cursed lot of power in his rhan and court.”

Rhodry jerked his head as if Cullyn had slapped him.

“So she does, and no one would dare mock her, either.”

“Provided she was never cast off to her shame.”

“There’re some women who would never have to fear such a thing.”

“Good.” Absently Cullyn laid his hand on his sword hilt. “Good.”

They sat together drinking, never saying another word, until the fire was so low that they could barely see each other’s face.

Perhaps the thing that Jill hated most about being in a lady’s retinue was that she had to learn to sew. For all that Lovyan was a rich tieryn, most of the clothing worn in the dun was made there, and she owed every rider in her warband and every servant in her hall two pairs of shirts and brigga or two dresses a year as part of their maintenance. Every woman in the dun, from the lowliest kitchen wench to Dannyan and Medylla, spent part of her time producing this mountain of clothes. Even Lovyan took a hand and sewed Rhodry’s shirts for him, as well as embroidering the blazons on the shirts for her skilled servitors such as the bard. Since there was a definite honor among women about the fineness of their sewing, Jill dutifully practiced, but she hated every clumsy stitch she made.