A Time of Omens (35 page)

Leading a pack mule, laden with herbs and medicines, she rode past tidy farmsteads where aspens and poplars quivered with their first green buds. Behind the earthen walls, skinny white cattle with rusty-red ears chewed sour hay while they longed for meadows. In a lazy curve of the river, she found a town, some fifty round wooden houses scattered around an open square and set off from one another by greening poplar trees, where a gaggle of women in long blue dresses leaned onto their water buckets and gossiped at the stone well. Before they noticed her, she dismounted, gathering her nerve and wondering if Evandar’s magic would truly hold against human eyes. When she looked at her own hands or her reflection in water, she saw her usual elven self, but he had assured her that others would see an old, white-haired human woman and nothing more.

Clucking to her horse and mule, she gathered her courage and walked over.

“Good morrow,” she said. “Is there a tavern in this town?”

“There is, good dame. Right over there.” A young woman smiled at her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how are you faring, traveling the roads all alone, and at your age, too?”

“Oh, I’m like an old hen, too tough even for soup.”

The women all laughed pleasantly and nodded to themselves, as if wishing for a life as long for themselves. Feeling a good bit more sanguine about her ruse, Dallandra led her stock across the village square to the tavern. In a muddy side yard she found the tie rail, then went in. The small, well-scrubbed tavern room was empty except for the tavernman himself, a young, dark-haired fellow with a big linen apron wrapped around his shirt and brigga.

“Good morrow, good herbwoman,” he said. “Can I fetch you a tankard?”

“Of dark, and draw one for yourself and join me.”

They carried their ale to a table by an open window to sit in the pale afternoon sun.

“I was thinking of riding up into the hills to gather fresh medicines,” Dallandra said. “But a peddler I met on the road warned me about a blood feud brewing.”

“Indeed?” The tavernman had a sip of ale and considered the problem. “Now, a fortnight past, we had a merchant come in with fresh-sheared fleece for the local weaver. He was from the hills to the east of here, and he was fair troubled, he was, about a feud in his lord’s lands. Lord Adry, the name was. The wool merchant was telling me that the whole countryside could go up in a war just like tinder, he says, just like dry tinder in a hearth.”

“Sounds bad, truly. But I’ve been looking for someone, and a feud would draw him the way mead draws flies. He’s a silver dagger, an Eldidd man, dark hair with a streak of gray in it, blue eyes, the Eldidd way of speaking. Seen anyone like that through here?”

“I haven’t, no, but if he’s ridden this way, Lord Adry’s feud is where you’ll find him.”

The trouble was, of course, that Dallandra had no idea exactly which way Rhodry had ridden. As far as Evandar had been able to tell from his scrying, the silver dagger was somewhere in this part of Pyrdon, but her main focus was
the bone whistle, which spent most of its time in the dark of Rhodry’s saddlebags. She was reduced, therefore, to asking round for information like any ordinary soul.

When she left the village, Dallandra crossed the river on a rickety wooden bridge and headed east for the hills and Lord Adry’s dangerous feud. She camped that night in a greening meadow by a small stream, where she could water her horse and mule and tether them out to graze. From a nearby farmhouse she bought half a loaf of bread and an armful of wood for a campfire. Once it was dark, she built a fire without bothering to use kindling, called on the Wildfolk of Fire, and lit the logs with a wave of her hand.

Dallandra called up a memory image of the bone whistle, focused it sharply, and let her mind range over the Inner Lands to pick up its trail. She was in luck. All at once, in a swirl of flames, she saw not a memory, but a vision of the thing, lying in Rhodry’s hands. He was showing it round to a circle of men standing near a campfire. When she expanded the vision, using Rhodry’s eyes as her own, she saw that the campfire was only one of many, spread out in a meadow crowded with soldiers and horses, arranged in a wide arc of a circle. In the center of that circle she could just make out the dark rise of a towered dun. So Rhodry had found himself a hire, indeed, and seemed to be in the midst of a siege army as well. Unfortunately, Dallandra had no idea of where he might be, other than in a meadow in what seemed like hill country—a description that could apply to hundreds of miles of territory.

Irritably she broke the vision and got up to pace back and forth in front of the dying fire. So far, the tavernman’s vague report of Lord Adry’s feud was the only clue she had, but if all the lords in this part of the province were about to be drawn into it, Rhodry could be riding for any one of ten different men. At least a siege will keep him put in one place, she thought, and by the gods of both my people and of men, everyone for miles around will be talking about the thing!

After Lord Erddyr led his men out, his wife took over the command of the dun and the fort guard. Lady Melynda, a stout woman, was as gray as her husband, with quick-humored blue eyes. Whenever she smiled, she kept her lips
tight together, a gesture that made her seem supercilious. When Yraen got to know the lady better, he realized that Melynda was simply missing the teeth in the front of her mouth and hated to show it. During the evening, the lady sat at the head of the table of honor, with her two serving women to either side of her. Across the great hall, the fort guard ate quietly, minding their manners in deference to the lady. The days passed as slowly and silently as water running in a full stream, while the fort guard divided their time between keeping watch on the walls and exercising their horses, riding round and round the dun. Every now and then they would go perhaps a quarter of a mile down the main road, then gallop back fast for a bit of excitement.

After three days, the first messenger rode in, told Lady Melynda that the siege was going quietly, then rode out that same night on a fresh horse. The lady began an elaborate piece of needlework—a set of bed hangings, covered with interlaced tendrils and the red rose blazon of her husband’s clan. Up at the honor table, she and her serving women marked out the vast stretches of linen in silence and sewed on them grimly and steadily for hours at a time. Yraen found himself thinking about his mother, even though he was ashamed of himself for doing it, and her own needlework projects, so like the Lady Melynda’s, that helped her put griefs and disappointments aside. Most likely she’d started some new bed hangings or suchlike when the chamberlain had reported him gone.

On the fifth day, Rhodry rode back to the dun as Erddyr’s messenger. He was so clean and well-shaven that Yraen and everyone else could figure out that the siege was dragging on without incident. While he ate a hasty meal at one of the riders’ tables, the fort guard clustered round him and asked for news. There was none.

“Sieges are always tedious,” Rhodry said. “I wonder what’s happened to old Tewdyr and his lads?”

“Gathering allies, most like.” Yraen hoped that he was saying something knowledgeable. “Doesn’t Erddyr have any spies?”

“Probably, but no one tells me that sort of thing.”

The fort guard all sighed in agreement.

When he was done eating, Yraen walked him down to the gate and saw him off, just for something to do. Rhodry
started to mount up, then hesitated, running one hand over his saddlebags.

“I’m thinking of leaving these here with you,” Rhodry said.

“Hum? Won’t you need—Oh, ye gods, the whistle.”

“Just that. It’s getting to be a nuisance, having to stay on watch every moment for thieves, and there we are, packed cheek by jowl into the camp, where everyone can hear every word I say, so I can’t even swear at the evil beast when I see him prowling round. But I don’t want to hand you a curse to guard for me.”

“How will these, uh, creatures know I’ve got the rotten thing?”

“Just so, but still, I hate to put you at risk.”

“I doubt me that I’ll be at one, and if I’m your apprentice, then it’s part of my labor to guard your possessions.”

“Well and good, then.” Rhodry began unlacing them from the saddle peak. “If you’re certain?”

“I am.”

Rhodry handed over the saddlebags, then mounted and rode out the gates. Yraen climbed the wall and watched him riding off into the twilight. Curse my luck! he thought again. If there is a battle, I’ll miss it. The worst thing of all was wondering if deep in his heart, he was glad. He’d taken the whistle off Rhodry’s hands, he supposed, just in order to share, at least in some small way, his danger.

“Oh, the situation’s truly vexed, good Dallandra,” said Timryc the chirurgeon. “It seems that every hill lord is up in arms, and so you’re going to have a fine job finding your silver dagger.”

“So it seems. On the other hand, no doubt I’ll find plenty of work for my herbs.”

A tiny, wrinkled man with a face as brown as a walnut, Timryc nodded in sad agreement. Drwmyc, Gwerbret Dun Trebyc and master of the Pyrdon hills by the power of the king and the council of electors, was the lord he served as head chirurgeon, a position that kept him current on everything worth knowing about the affairs of the gwerbretrhyn. The exotic medicines from Bardek that Dallandra was carrying (stolen from some priests who were rich enough to spare them, or so Evandar had assured her) had gotten her
ushered right in to the presence and the favor of this important man. After buying as much of her stock as she could spare, the chirurgeon had invited her to dine with him, out of sympathy, no doubt, for her supposed advanced age.

“The war started over some cattle rights,” Timryc went on. “But now there’s a bit more at stake than that. You see, His Grace Drwmyc is going to create a tierynrhyn up in the hill country soon. I’ll wager the various lords are sorting themselves out to see who’ll receive the honor.”

“Ah. And so his grace doubtless won’t intervene right away.”

“Not unless he receives a direct appeal, which is unlikely. After all, he’ll want to appoint a tieryn who has the respect of his vassals.” Timryc idly picked up a bone-handled scalpel from the table in front of him and considered the fine steel blade. “Of course, if things get out of hand, and too many of the freemen and their farms are threatened, the gwerbret will intervene. No doubt the feuding lords know that, too.”

“Let’s hope. A formal little war, then?”

“It should be.” Timryc laid the scalpel back down. “It had better be, or his grace will end it. But I’m glad to have that opium and suchlike you’ve sold me.”

Dallandra looked absently round Timryc’s comfortable chamber. In the midst of oak paneling and fine tapestries, it was hard to think about warfare, particularly a noble-born squabble, fought by rules as clear as a tournament, with the one difference that death was an allowable part of the sport.

“The latest news is that Lord Adry’s dun is under siege,” Timryc went on. “A certain Lord Erddyr is leading the faction that’s trying to keep Adry’s allies from lifting the siege. If you insist on riding up there, be very careful. There’ll be skirmishing along the roads.”

“Where is this dun, anyway? I’m truly grateful to you for all this information.”

“Oh, it’s naught, naught. I’ll offer you somewhat more valuable—a letter of safe conduct. Even the most ignorant rider can recognize the gwerbret’s seal.”

Later that evening, with the letter tucked safely inside her tunic and a map of the road to Lord Adry’s dun as well,
Dallandra returned to her chamber in the inn where she was staying. Since the eight was too warm for a fire, she used the dancing reflections of candle flame in a bucket of water for her scrying, but she saw nothing but a stubborn darkness, telling her that the bone whistle was tucked away in Rhodry’s gear. In a way, she was relieved to fail and have done with it, because her day’s traveling had left her exhausted. Every muscle in her legs and back burned from riding, and she felt as if the rest of her were made of lead, It had been a long time since she’d lived in her physical body. That night she dreamt that she lounged in the sunny grass with Evandar, in the land where life meant ease and dweomer, only to wake in tears at the sight of the dingy chamber walls.

Rhodry rode for most of the eight, stopping at the dun of Lord Degedd, one of Erddyr’s allies, to get a few hours sleep and a meal, and to pick up his own horse, which he’d changed there for a fresh one on his journey put. About an hour after dawn, he left for the last leg of the journey. As a simple precaution, he rode fully armed and mailed, with his shield ready at his left arm. Once he left the cultivated land behind, he was utterly alone, riding through low brushy hills where every tiny valley could mean an ambush. After so many years of peace out on the grasslands, he found the feeling of danger sweetly troubling, like seeing a pretty woman walk by.

Toward noon, he reached the first plowed fields of Adry’s demesne, where frightened farmers leaned onto their hoes to stare at him as he rode past. Rhodry was thinking of very
little
besides getting something to eat when he rode up the last hill and heard the sound. From his distance, it sounded like a stormy wind in the trees, but his horse tossed up its head and snorted.

“Oh, here, my friend,” Rhodry said. “Do you think Lord Tewdyr’s here to meet us?”

Chuckling under his breath, Rhodry drew a javelin and trotted up to the hill crest. The sound grew louder and louder, resolving itself into the clang of sword on shield and the whinnies of frightened horses. At the crest, Rhodry paused and looked down into the flat valley below, where the battle raged round Lord Adry’s dun, a swirling, screaming
mass of men and horses. Off to the left stood the white tents of the besiegers, but as Rhodry watched, fire sprang out among them. Black plumes of smoke welled up and mingled with the dust.

Howling a war cry, Rhodry kicked his horse to a gallop and raced downhill. Round the edge of the fighting, where there was room to maneuver, the mob spread out into little clots of single combats. Rhodry hurled one of his javelins at an unfamiliar back, pulled and threw the other, then rode on, circling the field and drawing his sword. It was hard to tell friend from foe as the smoke spread over the field. At last he saw two men mobbing a third, riding a gray. As Rhodry rode over, he heard the single rider shouting Erddyr’s name. He spurred his horse and slammed into the melee. He slashed at an opponent’s back, yelled Erddyr’s name to warn the man he was trying to rescue that he was an ally, then stabbed at an enemy horse. Screaming, the horse reared, and Rhodry had a clear strike at the rider as it came down. He flung up his shield to parry, then spurred his quivering horse forward and stabbed with his whole weight behind the sword. The blade shattered the enemy’s mail and killed him clean as the horse stumbled to its knees.