Bristling Wood (24 page)

“Good eve, lad. Taking the air?”

“In a way, Councillor. I . . . uh well . . . I thought I saw a fire.”

“Ye gods! Where?”

“Well, I was wrong about it, you see.” The lad sounded profoundly embarrassed. I’m cursed glad now that I didn’t go waking everyone up. I must have just been having a bad dream.”

“Indeed? Tell me about it.”

“Well, since I’m the new man I got the bunk right by the drafty window in our barracks. I dreamt I was awake and looking out, and the dun walls were blazing with fire. So I started to shout the alarm, but then I remembered that this dun has stone walls, not a wooden palisade or suchlike. Right then I must have woken up. But I lay there thinking about it, and it nagged at me, so I grabbed my boots and came to look around. And as soon as I did, I realized that it had to be a dream, but it was a demon-sent vivid one, good sir.”

Nevyn, was taken completely aback. Obviously this young lout of a warrior had a touch of the dweomer, and in his dream state had seen Nevyn sealing the walls. Yet none of the men in the charmed circle of his Wyrd had ever shown such talents. By the hells, he thought, and irritably; just who is he?

“Tell me, do you often have dreams like that?”

“Well, sometimes. I mean, I’ve never dreamt about fires, before, but at times I have these dreams that seem so real, I’d swear I was wide awake. Every now and then . . . ” He let his voice trail away.

“Every now and again you dream somewhat that turns out to be true.”

With a gulp of breath, Branoic stepped sharply back.

“If my lordship will excuse me,” he stammered. “I’d best be gone. It’s freezing out here.”

He turned and frankly ran from the man who’d discovered his secret. Young dolt! Nevyn thought, but with some affection. He would have to talk some more with Branoic, no matter who he . . . and then he saw it, what had been right under his nose but so unwelcome that he’d kept it at bay for days.

“It can’t be! The Lords of Wyrd wouldn’t do this to me! Would they?”

And yet he was remembering his Brangwen’s last incarnation, when as Gweniver she’d dreamt of becoming the best warrior in all Deverry. In this life, the Lords of Wyrd had given her a body fit to fulfill that dream and then, or so he hoped, finally put it to rest. While every soul is at root of one polarity, which translates into the sex of the physical body, each spends part of its lifetimes in bodies of the opposite sex in order to have a full experience of the worlds of form. Nevyn had simply been refusing to see that such a time had come for Brangwen, his lovely, delicate, little Gwennie as he still thought of her. For all he knew, she was working out part of her Wyrd that had nothing to do with him personally. Whatever the reason, she’d returned to him just as he’d known she would, but as Branoic of Belglaedd.

As he paced back and forth in the dark, silent ward, Nevyn was sick with weariness. He could see a dark message for himself in her soul’s choice of a body. Deep in his heart he’d been hoping that she would love him again, that they would have a warm, human relationship, not merely the cold discipline of apprentice and master, Apparently such a love was forbidden; he saw Branoic as a warning, that he was to teach the dweomer to the inner soul and forget about the outer form and its emotions. As much as it ached his heart, he would accept the will of the Great Ones, just as he had accepted so much else in the long years since he’d sworn his rash vow.

After all, he had work on hand so important that his own feelings, even his own Wyrd, seemed utterly insignificant. Thinking about the battle ahead he could lay aside his personal griefs and feel hope kindling in his heart. Danger lay ahead, and great griefs, but afterward the Light would prevail again in the shattered kingdom.

On the morrow, a cool but sunny day, Maddyn went for a stroll round the edge of the lake. He found a warm spot in the shelter of a leafless willow tree and sat down to tune his harp. It had never been an expensive instrument, and now it was battered and nicked from its long years of riding behind his saddle, yet it had the sweetest tone of any harp in the kingdom. Although many a bard in many a great lord’s hall had offered him gold for it, he would rather have parted with a leg, and although those same bards had begged him to tell them his secret, he never had. After all, would they have believed him if he’d told the truth, that the Wildfolk had enchanted it for him? He often saw them touching it, stroking it all over like a beloved cat, and every time they did, it sang with a renewed, heart-aching sweetness.

As he tuned the strings that day by the lake, the Wildfolk came to listen, appearing out of the air, rising out of the water, sylph and sprite and gnome, clustering round the man that they considered their own personal bard.

“I think it’s time I made up a song about Prince Maryn. I take it you think he’s the true king, too. I’ve seen you riding on his saddle and clustering round him in the hall.”

They all nodded, turning as solemn as he’d ever seen them until an undine could stand the quiet no longer. Dripping with illusionary water, she reached over and pinched a green gnome as hard as she could. He slapped her, and they tussled, kicking and biting, until Maddyn yelled at them to stop. All sulks, they sat down again as far apart from each other as they could.

“That’s better. Maybe I’ll sing about Dilly Blind first. Shall I?”

With little nods and grins, they crowded close. Over the years Maddyn had elaborated the simple folk songs about Diily Blind and the Wildfolk into something of an epic, adding verse after verse and clarifying the various stories. He had taught his mock-saga to bards in dun where there were noble children until half of Eldidd knew the song. At moments like these, when the wars seemed far away, it amused him to think that a children’s song would outlive him, passed down from bard to bard when he was long since in his warrior’s grave.

When the song was done—and it was a good twenty minutes long—most of the Wildfolk slipped away, but a few lingered, his blue sprite among them, sitting close beside him as he watched the ripples in the lake, the harp silent in his hands. He remembered that other lake up in Cantrae, ten years or so ago now, that had tormented his thirst as he rode dying. It had been about the same time of day, he decided, because the sun had rippled it with gold flecks just as it was doing to Drwloc in front of him. He could see in his mind the dark reeds and the white heron, and he could feel, too, the burning thirst and the pain, the sickening buzz of the flies and his dark despair.

“It was worth it,” he remarked to the sprite. “It brought me to Nevyn, after all.”

She nodded and patted him gently on the knee. Maddyn smiled, thinking of what lay ahead. There was not the least doubt in his mind that Nevyn had found the man born to be king of all Deverry. He believed with his heart and soul that the young prince had been handpicked by the gods to reunite the kingdom. Soon he and the other silver daggers would ride behind Maryn when he set out to claim his birthright. The only thing Maddyn wondered about was when the time would come. As the sunlight faded from the lake, and the night wind began to pick up, it seemed to him that his entire life had led to this point, when he, Caradoc, Owaen, and all the rest of the men in his troop were poised and ready, like arrows nocked in the bows of a line of archers. Soon would come the order to draw and loose. Soon, he told himself, truly, soon enough.

He jumped to his feet and called out, a peal of his berserk laughter ringing across the lake toward the sunset. The strings of his harp sounded softly in answer, trembling in the wind. Grinning to himself, he slung the harp over his shoulder and started back to the dun, glowing with warm firelight and torchlight in the gathering night.

Part Two

Summer, 1065

The Lords of Wyrd do not make a man’s life as neatly as a master potter turns out bowls, each perfectly shaped and suitable to its purpose. In the ebb and flow of birth and death are strange currents, eddies, and vortices, most of which are beyond the power of the Great Ones to control.

—The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid

ONE

The sound of rain drumming on the ward outside echoed pleasantly in the great hall. In her chair by the fire, Aunt Gwerna was drowsing over her needlework. Occasionally she would look up and answer a dutiful “true-spoken” to one of her husband’s rhetorical questions. Perryn’s uncle, Benoic, Tieryn Pren Cludan, was in one of his expostulatory moods. He sat straight in his chair, one heavy hand gripping a tankard, the other emphasizing his points by slamming the chair arm. Benoic was going quite heavily gray, but he was still as strong-muscled as many a younger man, and as strong in the lungs, too.

“It’s these worm-riddled pikemen,” he bellowed. “Battle’s not the same with common-born men fighting in it. They should be guarding the carts and naught else. Cursed near blasphemous, if you ask me.

“True-spoken,” Perryn said dutifully.

“Hah! More of this wretched courtly mincing around, that’s all it is. Trust the blasted southerners to come up with somewhat like this. It’s no wonder the kingdom’s not what it was.”

While Benoic soothed his feelings with a long swallow of ale, Perryn tried to unravel the connection between spearing a man off his horse and the fine manners of the king’s court.

“You young lads nowadays!” his uncle went on. “Now, if you’d only ridden in some of the battles I did at your age, then you’d understand what life here in Cerrgonney means. Look at you, lad, riding around without a copper to your name. Ye gods! You should be getting yourself a place in a warband and working at rising to captain.”

“Now here, Perro,” Gwerna broke in. “You’re welcome at our table anytime you pass by.”

“Course he is, woman!” Benoic snapped. “That’s not the point. He should be making somewhat of himself, that’s all. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, lad, and your cursed cousin Nedd is even worse. At least there’s some excuse for you.”

“Oh, er, my thanks.”

“But Nedd’s got dun and demesne both, and all he does is ride around hunting all day. By the Lord of Hell’s balls!”

“Now, my love,” Gwerna interceded again. “He and Perryn are both young yet.”

“Twenty, both of them! Old enough to marry and settle down.”

“Well, here, Uncle, I can hardly take a wife when I don’t even have a house to put her in.”

“That’s what I mean. There’s some excuse for you.”

Perryn smiled feebly. Although he was a member of the northern branch of the ancient and conjoint Wolf clan and was thus entitled to be called a lord, he was also the fifth son of a land-poor family, which meant that he owned naught but the title and a long string of relatives to play unwilling host when he turned up at their gates.

“Are you riding Nedd’s way when you leave us?” Benoic asked.

“I am. On the morrow, I was thinking.”

“Then tell him I want to hear of him marrying, and soon.”

The next morning, Perryn rose at dawn and went to the stable long before the dun came awake, He brought out his dapple-gray gelding, a fine horse with some Western Hunter blood in him, and began saddling up. On his travels he packed an amazing amount of gear: two pairs of saddlebags, a bulging bedroll, a small iron kettle, and at his saddle peak a woodcutter’s ax slung where most lords carried a shield. Just as he was finishing, Benoic came out to look the laden horse over.

“By the asses of the gods, you look like a misbegotten peddler! Why don’t you take a pack horse if you’re going to live on the roads this way?”

“Oh er, good idea.”

With a snort, Benoic ran his hand down the gray’s neck.

“Splendid creature. Where did a young cub like you scrape up the coin for him?”

“Oh, er, ah, well.” Perryn needed a lie fast, “Won him in a dice game.”

“Might have known! Ye gods, you, and your blasted cousin are going to drive me to the Otherlands before my time.”

When he left the dun, Perryn set off down the west-running road in search of a pack horse. Around him stretched the fields of Benoic’s demesne, pale green with young barley. Here and, there farmers trotted through the crops to shoo away the crows, who rose with indignant caws and a clatter of wings. Soon, though, the fields gave way as the road rose into the rocky hills, dark with pines. Perryn turned off the muddy track that passed for a road and worked his way through the widely spaced silent trees. Once he was in wild country, he had no need of roads to find his way.

Early in the afternoon, he reached his goal, a mountain meadow in a long valley that belonged to a certain Lord Nertyn, one of his uncle’s vassals but a man Perryn particularly disliked. Out in the tall grass twenty head of Nertyn’s horses grazed peacefully, guarded by the stallion of the herd, a sturdy chestnut who stood a good sixteen hands high. When Perryn walked toward the herd, the stallion swung his way with a vicious snort, and the others threw up their heads and watched, poised to run. Perryn began talking to the stallion, a soft clucking noise, a little murmur of meaningless sound until the horse relaxed and allowed Perryn to stroke his neck. At that, the rest of the herd returned to their feed.

“I need to borrow one of your friends,” Perryn said. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ll take splendid care of him.”

As if he agreed, the stallion tossed his head, then ambled away. Perryn picked out a bay gelding and began patting its neck and combing its mane with his fingers.

“Aren’t you sick of that fat lord who owns you? Come along and see somewhat of the road.”

When the gelding turned its head, Perryn smiled at it in a particular way he had, a deep smile that made him feel slightly cool, as some of his warmth was flowing out to the recipient of the smile. With a soft snort, the bay leaned its head against his chest. He patted it for a few more minutes, then walked away, the bay following close behind. Although Perryn honestly didn’t understand why, once he got a few minutes alone with a horse, the animal would follow him anywhere without halter or rope. It was a useful trick. Whenever his coin ran low, he would simply take a horse from someone he disliked and sell it to one of the dishonest traders he knew. Because of his noble blood, no one ever suspected him of being the worst horse thief in the northern provinces. He’d often stolen a horse from a cousin one week, then ridden back the next to express surprise and sympathy at the loss. Only Benoic and Nedd were safe from his raiding.