Bristling Wood (44 page)

“My apologies for taking so long. I was having dinner at the gwerbret’s very table, and it took both some while and some fancy courtesies before I could leave.”

“No matter. Some of the gwerbret’s men were just in the Capstan. I take it that they haven’t found Rhodry yet.”

“They haven’t, curse them. Are you still certain he’s alive?”

“I am. It’s the one thing I have to cling to. But here, I contacted you because I felt someone else touch my mind, someone who hated me.”

“By the scaly underside of a dragon’s balls! Say no more about this now, my turtledove. I’ll see you on the morrow. There are times when words are safer than thoughts.”

With that, his image disappeared.

When Jill returned to the tavern room, she found the peddler gone, but he came back in just a few minutes. With a broad grin he held up two silver pieces to show the crowd.

“From one of the town wardens. He’s got a pouch of silver to pay for any information about Rhodry of Aberwyn, lads. I’d say that somewhat grand’s afoot.”

“Sounds like it’d be worth everyone’s while to remember what they can about him,” Jill remarked in what she hoped was a casual tone of voice. “My heart aches that I haven’t seen him in months.”

Everyone within earshot laughed their agreement and set to considering the question. Unfortunately, no one there had a scrap of information about Rhodry, and they agreed that lying to the gwerbret’s men was unhealthy in the extreme. After a few hours Jill went up to her chamber. For all her grief, she was so weary from weeks of traveling that she fell asleep as soon as she lay down on her blankets. Yet she dreamt of Rhodry. It seemed she heard him calling out to her out of a desperate darkness.

Nevyn spent much of that night awake. He was sleeping on a cot in Rhys’s chamber, where the slightest change in the gwerbret’s labored breathing would wake him, because to a man as badly injured or ill as Rhys was, the hours right before dawn are always the most dangerous, when the astral tides of earth run low and sluggishly. Although Rhys spent a better night than anyone had a right to hope for, still Nevyn sat up, brooding over the low fire in the hearth and using it to talk with other dweomermasters. He had set men and women all over the kingdom to scrying, not for Rhodry, which was futile, but for odd breaks and discrepancies in their visions which might reveal an astral seal set over something that a dark master wanted hidden. So far, no one had found a thing. If Jill hadn’t been certain that Rhodry lived, Nevyn would have despaired and thought him dead, but the sexual link between the pair was so strong that Jill would have felt his death like the loss of part of herself.

Toward dawn, when the tide of Aethyr came in, bringing fresh life to astral and etheric plane both, Nevyn fell asleep for a few hours, to be awakened by the servant come to help him bathe Rhys and turn him in the bed.

“Does His Grace still live, good sir?”

“He does.” Nevyn got up and yawned, stretching like a cat. “Fill that kettle at the hearth, will you? I have to brew his various medicines fresh today.”

Once Rhys was tended, Nevyn left him to his wife’s care and went down to the great hall. So late in the morning, it was mostly empty, but a serving lass hurried out to the kitchen hut to fetch Nevyn some breakfast He was eating porridge and ham at the honor table when Cullyn strode in, glanced around, and came over to join him. The serving lass brought Cullyn a tankard of ale, then retreated to the other side of the hall.

“Have you had any news of Jill?” Cullyn said..

“Not since last night. I heard from Salamander that he was staying with Gwerbret Ladoic, so I assume Jill is, too.”

Cullyn nodded, frowned into his tankard for a moment, then flicked out a bit of straw with one finger and drank.

“I still don’t understand how Jill and Rhodry got separated,” Cullyn said.

“No more do I.” Nevyn was thankful all over again that he’d refrained from swearing never to tell a lie—a vow that pleased the Lords of Wyrd, but which also made life unnecessarily difficult at times. “Although I do have a bit more information. It seems that Rhodry was asking around for me and Jill just before—well, before whatever it is that’s happened to him. I’ll make a guess that someone told him Jill had left him and headed to Cerrmor to find me or suchlike.”

“It’d make sense. Then all they’d have to do was get him into the Bilge. No one there would look twice if they knocked him on the head or suchlike.”

“Just so. Well, I’ll be hearing from Salamander soon, I hope. I’ll tell you the minute there’s any news.”

“My thanks. I’d be cursed grateful.”

While he finished his ale, Cullyn stared idly across the hall, then suddenly smiled, just a quick twitch of his mouth that he hastily stifled. When Nevyn followed the captain’s gaze, he saw Tevylla entering the hall, shepherding Rhodda ahead of her.

“Truly, Captain, the nursemaid’s a good-looking woman.”

Cullyn shot him a murderous glance and devoted himself to his ale until Tevylla had left the hall again.

As they sat together in a comfortable silence, Nevyn began to feel profoundly nervous about having Perryn brought to Aberwyn. If Cullyn ever found out what the young lord had done to his daughter, Perryn would die in a very unpleasant way no matter what Nevyn said about illnesses of the soul or suchlike. Yet lying about such a grave matter was beyond even him. For all that he didn’t mind bending the truth on occasion, he refused to spin himself a web of half-truths that would choke him in the end. Since it would be a long while before Perryn arrived, he dismissed the problem in a fit of irritation. There were too many other troubles weighing on his mind for him to worry over that one.

“So you’ll not be going to Cerrmor, then?” Cullyn said abruptly.

“I won’t. I simply can’t leave. Here’s the gwerbret’s life hanging by a thread and greedy lords circling round the rhan like hounds around a joint of meat on the table.”

“But what of Rhodry?”

“That’s the wound in our hearts, isn’t it? What of Rhodry? I’m afraid we’ll have to trust your daughter to pull him out of this particular trap. I think me she can do it, too, at least with Salamander there to help her. You trained her well, Cullyn.”

“Did I, now? Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“So we will, so we will. I only hope it’s soon.”

There was something else that he could never tell Cullyn. Deep in his mind, he knew that he was meant to stay in Aberwyn, not to nurse the gwerbret and aid Lovyan, but because staying where he was would undermine his enemies in a way that he could not foresee.

There was a silversmith in Cerrmor who did business with the silver daggers. Even though he couldn’t make the daggers themselves, he was known for giving a fair price for battle loot and making decent repairs to ordinary weapons. His shop was the smallest and shabbiest on the street of the silversmiths, which ran down by the river but a good ways north of the Bilge; yet for all the squalor of the peeling wooden sign and filthy whitewash of the walls, when Jill pushed open the door, a string of beautifully crafted silver bells rang a sweet warning. She found herself in a narrow slice of the round house and faced with another door in a stout wooden wall. In a few moments, a stork-skinny bent-shouldered youngish man came out through it.

“And what can I do for you, silver dagger? Got somewhat to sell?”

“I don’t, but I might be in the market to buy—information, that is. Have the gwerbret’s men been in here, asking you about a man named Rhodry of Aberwyn?”

“They have, and of course I’ve told them I never laid eyes on him.”

“You were lying, I take it.”

“Of course. He was in here not more than two nights ago, asking me about herbmen. I recommended a good one that I know, and he slipped out the back way. He knew that the wardens were on the prowl after him.”

Jill swore under her breath.

“Here, good smith, if you see Rhodry again, for the love of the gods, tell him to go to the gwerbret. He’s not been accused of any crime, no matter what he thinks. Tell him that the woman he’s looking for is under Ladoic’s protection.”

It was the smith’s turn for oaths.

“I would’ve told His Grace’s men if I’d known that! But Rhodry tells me that he’s been accused of taking someone’s head, and cursed if he’ll lose his own over it, so of course I lied for him.”

“Honorable of you.” Jill meant it quite sincerely. “But that’s torn it, then. Here, don’t you think it’s passing strange that every man in the rhan is looking for him and he hasn’t turned up?”

“He must have left, I suppose.”

“Maybe. Suppose you wanted to hire a couple of lads to get someone out of the way. Where would you go in the Bilge?”

“I see what you mean.” The smith sucked his teeth for a few moments while he thought. “How come you’re so interested in all of this?”

“He’s a friend of mine. We rode on a couple of hires together. If somewhat’s happened to him, I’ll want vengeance for it—any silver dagger would.” She took two silver pieces out of the pouch hanging from her belt. “I’ll pay for the information.”

“I won’t take your coin, because I don’t know anything for certain, but I’ve heard that there’s a tavern in the Bilge called the Red Man. Supposedly if you ask the right questions there, you can hire anyone for anything.”

“And if you ask the wrong ones?”

The smith smiled and pantomimed running a knife across his throat.

After she left the shop, Jill spent some time wandering the streets while she planned out her visit to the Bilge. Even without the smith’s warning, she knew quite well that no one simply barged into the Bilge and started asking questions. She found a little open space around a public well and sat down on a wooden bench to think. Even the denizens of the Bilge were afraid of silver daggers, who avenged any murdered member of their band. On the other hand, if they thought her set to avenge Rhodry, they might well eliminate her first and worry about other silver daggers later. But of course Rhodry wasn’t dead. Suddenly she realized that she had a move in this ugly game of gwyddbwcl: since he wasn’t dead, the Bilge knew it, too. Once she let them know she knew, the rules would change.

When she started for the Bilge, she took a detour to a leatherworker’s shop that she’d noticed earlier. She found the owner sitting cross-legged on a table, pieces of a saddlebag around him as he stitched. In the corner of the room a dirty child of three played with a pair of puppies, and from the back room came the smell of cooking and the sound of a crying baby. The craftsman glanced up.

“Ah, can I be of help to you, lad?”

“No doubt. I want to buy a jerkin.”

“Very well. I’ll measure you, and it’ll be about three days.”

“I need it now.”

The craftsman laid aside the piece he was working on; then slowly, carefully, as if he were afraid she would draw and swing at any moment, he got down from the table.

“I’ve no time to wait, hidesman.”

“Er, well and good, then, if you don’t demand a perfect fit. I’ve got one I was making for the miller’s son, and he’s about your size.”

“Bring it out.”

When the craftsman went to the back, he swept up the child and the puppies with him. In a few minutes he came back with the heavy leather vest, which had metal studs all down the sides. When she tried it on over her shirt, it was a little tight, but it would do. She threw six silver coins, about twice what it was worth, onto the table and strode out, leaving the craftsman shaking behind her. She took the jerkin to a public privy and put it on under her shirt, this time, lacing it tight to flatten her breasts. Although it chafed, it would also protect her ribs against a casual knife. It was the best protection she could get, since the gwerbret’s men frowned on civilians wearing mail in the city streets. Then she went on to the Bilge.

In the sunny morning the narrow, filthy streets were nearly deserted. A gaggle of ragged children played at hurley with a bent stick and a torn leather ball; a couple of women with market baskets hurried past her on, their way to the fishmonger’s down at the wharves. She saw one man, a white-haired beggar with no hands, sunning himself in a doorway. She strolled over to the ex-thief and dropped a silver piece in the wooden bowl beside him.

“Where’s the Red Man tavern?”

“That’s not a pleasant place, lad.”

“Do I look like a pleasant sort of man?”

He laughed, revealing brown stumps of broken teeth.

“Well, then, keep going along this here street until you come to a tannery yard. The stink’ll guide you. Then go around the tannery. You’ll see the Red Man’s sign down an alley to the left.”

As she walked on, Jill kept on a close guard. Here and there she saw a leather drape move at a window, or a figure appear briefly at an open door. She suspected that already the old thief had pressed some child into service as a messenger and sent it to the tavern with the news that a silver dagger was on his way, Even though she was sweating under the heavy jerkin, she appreciated it more than ever. If their enemies wanted to, they could murder her here in the street without anyone bothering to interfere. She wondered about Rhodry, if perhaps the gwerbret’s men had merely been led right past some place where he’d been hidden. In this tight-lipped little world, anything seemed possible.

To her surprise, the Red Man was clean, with newly white-ashed walls and a well-swept cobbled yard around it. The sign hanging out front showed a bright red giant wearing naught but enormous erection as he stood on top of a hill with an uprooted tree in each hand. The image was somehow annoying, a bawdry gone sour. When she went inside, she found that the half-round tavern room was also clean, with fresh straw on the floor and scrubbed tables. All the shutters were closed, leaving the room dark except for the firelight from the hearth, where a spitful of chickens were being turned by a ragged scullery lad. Half a dozen men sat at one table; the rest were empty. Near the hearth one fellow snored loudly in the straw with a pair of dogs cuddled at his back.

The tavernman who came to greet her was Bardekian, a fleshy black man whose face and arms were covered with old scars, all of them long, thin cuts from some sort of sharp knife.