Bristling Wood (14 page)

“When you break a man down to naught, he turns into an animal,” the captain went on, somewhat meditatively. “Then if you give him somewhat to live for, he turns into a man again, but it’s a hard kind of man, like the blade of a sword. That’s the kind of lads I want, and the silver dagger’s what they’re going to live for.” All at once he grinned, his hiraedd lifting. “Oh, they’ll beg us for it, one fine day, but by every sticky hair on the Lord of Hell’s ass, they re going to have to earn it. What kind of metal do you need, Otho? I’ll ride into town on the morrow and see if I can buy it for you.”

“You won’t. You’ll give me the coin and let me see if I can find what I need. No man learns the formula for this alloy—I cursed well mean it.”

“Have it your way, then, but I want a dagger for every man we’ve got left, and, say, five more for new recruits—if I can find men worthy of the things, that is.”

“Then I’ll get started on it right away.” All at once, Otho grinned, the first smile Maddyn had ever seen on his face. “Ah, it’s going to feel so good doing a bit of smelting and mixing again.”

Otho was as good as his word. On the morrow he first bribed Lord Maenoic’s blacksmith into letting him use the dun forge, then rode off into town, with his wagon. He returned late in the day with sundry mysterious and heavy bundles, which he refused to let any man touch, not even to help him unload. That very night he shut himself up in the forge and stayed there for a solid week, sleeping beside his work, if indeed he slept at all. Once, in the middle of the night, when Maddyn went down to the ward to use the privy, he heard hammering coming from the forge and saw red light glowing through the window.

On the morning when the daggers were finished, Caradoc decided that it was time to leave Maenoic’s hospitality. Not only were Maddyn and Stevyc both healed, but he wanted Otho to display his handiwork someplace where he could avoid awkward questions about it. After a last farewell to the lord, the troop saddled up and rode out, but they went only a half mile down the road before they turned off it, jogging out into a wild meadow and forming a rough circle about the smith and his wagon.

“Get ’em, out, Otho,” Caradoc, said. “Dismount, men, so you can see clearly.”

The troop clustered round while a proud if somewhat weary Otho unpacked a large leather sack. Nestled in straw were daggers for each of them, beautiful weapons, with a blade that glowed like silver but was harder than the finest steel. Maddyn had never handled weapon or tool with such a sharp edge.

“You won’t have to polish those much, neither,” Otho said. “They won’t tarnish, not even in blood. Now, if any of you wants a mark or device, like, graved onto it, I’ll do it, but you’re paying me a silver piece for the job.”

“This’ll do to cut a throat with, won’t it?” Aethan said to Maddyn.

“Blasted right. I’ve never had a knife I liked more.”

As solemnly, as carefully as priests performing a rite, the troopers drew their old daggers and replaced them with the new. Although Caradoc seemed to be hardly watching, his eyes lazy and heavy-lidded, Maddyn knew that he was judging the effect of the gesture. The men were smiling, slapping each other on the back, standing straight for a change, their morale better than it had been in days.

“Well and good, then,” Caradoc said. “We’re all silver daggers now, lads. Doesn’t mean a lot, I guess, except that we fight like sons of bitches, and we earn our hire.”

Spontaneously the troop cheered him, ragged remnant though it was. When they remounted, they all formed of their own accord into a tight military order and trotted down the road to Camynwaen, where Caradoc had promised them a day of liberty before they started searching for a new hire. Near the west gate they found an inn that seemed big enough to shelter the lot of them, but the skinny, trembling innkeep announced that it was full.

“The stable looks empty to me,” Caradoc said. “We’ll pay you the going price.”

“And what if you wreck the place? The wretched coin won’t do me one bit of good then.”

“And what if we wreck it without paying you first?”

Although he moaned and wrung his hands, the innkeep gave in quickly. In truth, he did have some custom, enough so that Aethan and Maddyn ended up sharing a small chamber tucked under the roof. While they ate their noon meal in the tavern room, the entire troop talked about women. Caradoc dispensed what was left of their wages along with some orders.

“We’re in a town we may visit again someday, so you keep your paws off any lasses who don’t want you, and your fists out of the faces of decent citizens, and I don’t want to hear about anyone puking their guts out in a townsman’s garden, either. Do it in the gutters, and leave their daughters alone.”

After one hurried goblet of mead, Maddyn and Aethan went out for a stroll. By then it was midafternoon, and the streets were full of townsfolk, hurrying about their business. They all took one quick look at the pair of mercenaries, then either crossed the street or turned down an alleyway to avoid them. After a leisurely circuit of the town, they found a little tavern next to the baker’s and went in. They had the place pretty much to themselves, except for the serving lass, a tousled sort of blonde with a soft, round face and heavy breasts. When she brought them tankards of dark ale, she lingered with an impartial smile for them both. Not bad, Maddyn thought, and he could tell from Aethan’s predatory eyes that he agreed.

“What’s your name?” Aethan asked.

“Druffa, and what’s yours?”

“Aethan, and this is Maddyn. You don’t happen to have a friend as pretty as you, do you? We could all sit down and have a bit of a chat.”

“Chat indeed. And I suppose you lads are interested in a nice game of carnoic or gwyddbwcl.”

“Do you have a better sort of game in mind?”

“I might. It depends on how generous you are.”

Aethan raised a questioning eyebrow in Maddyn’s direction.

“What about that friend?” Maddyn said.

“Well now, most of them would be busy this time of day. It’s a pity you didn’t come by at night, like.”

“Ah, by the hells, then why bother?” Aethan said with a shrug. “Why don’t you just come back to our inn with us? We’ve got a proper bed, better than a hayloft, and we’ll buy a skin of mead.”

Caught between drunkenness and fastidiousness, Maddyn shot him a foul look, but Aethan was paying strict attention to the lass. Druffa giggled in a pleasurable surprise.

“It might be rather amusing,” she announced. “I’ll go get the mead and just tell Da where I’m going.”

When she minced off, Aethan turned to Maddyn with a shrug. “Wet fur, dry fur—does it matter?” His voice cracked. “They’re all bitches anyway.”

Maddyn finished the ale in his tankard in two long gulps. He had the vague thought of slipping away on the street, letting Aethan have this lass and finding himself another, but he was too drink-muddled to find his way back on his own in this unfamiliar town. When they came round to the back door of the inn, Aethan paused long enough to lean Druffa against the wall and kiss her. Maddyn found the sight exciting in a troubling sort of way. He made no protest when the lass suggested they all go upstairs.

Yet once they were in the quiet chamber, Maddyn’s shyness returned in force. He barred the door behind them and rummaged in a saddlebag for a wooden cup, while Aethan untied the mead skin. Druffa giggled and took it away from him.

“Let’s leave the drinking for later. You promised me a bit of fun, Aethan.”

“So I did. Take off that dress, then.”

With a peal of giggles, Druffa began to untie her highly inappropriate virgin’s kirtle. The cup clutched in his hand, Maddyn watched as she undressed—slowly, smiling at the pair of them the entire time. When she stepped out of the underdress to reveal soft, pale skin and dark nipples, he felt the sexual tension in the room like a stroke across his groin. She gave Aethan one kiss, then turned to Maddyn, took the cup out of his hand, and kissed him, too, drawing them both after her to sit down on the bed.

It was several hours after sundown before they let her make her escape, pleading exhaustion between giggles. In a drunken, satisfied gallantry, Maddyn put on enough of his clothes to escort her downstairs and press a clutch of coppers into her hand. Although he may have been overpaying her, he felt she’d earned it. When he staggered back into the chamber, he found the candle burning itself out in the lantern and Aethan sound asleep and snoring on his side of the bed. Maddyn took off his brigga, threw a blanket over Aethan, then blew out the candle and lay down. The room spun slowly and majestically around him in a gold-flecked darkness. And what would old Nevyn think of me now? he thought; well, thanks be to the gods, he’ll never know what became of me. Then he fell asleep as suddenly as he’d blown out the candle.

When he left Dun Deverry, Nevyn headed straight south, following the open road that ran beside the Belaver. He’d gone no more than five miles when he met a mounted patrol of five of the king’s riders, coming right for him. Automatically, thinking little of it, he pulled off to the side to let them pass, but their leader hailed him and trotted over, blocking his path.

“That’s a fine mule you’ve got there, herbman. He’s going to see the king’s service, too.”

“Oh, is he now?” Nevyn looked deep into the man’s eyes and sent a soothing flow of magnetic force out of his aura. “You don’t want this mule. He comes up lame too often to be of use to you.”

“Do you think I’d fall for such a clumsy ruse?” He started to laugh, then merely shook his head, his eyelids drooping. “Clumsy ruse. I don’t want that mule.”

“Truly, you don’t want this mule.”

The warrior yawned, shook himself, then turned his horse around.

“Come on, lads, we don’t want that mule. He comes up lame too often to be of any use to us.”

Although they looked puzzled, the others obeyed him without question and trotted after as he headed back toward Dun Deverry. In a bad temper, Nevyn rode on, and this time he kept a good watch out for mounted men. The incident made him think over his proposed route. Although he’d been planning on riding to Eldidd, he disliked the idea of having to ensorcel endless patrols of confiscating warriors the whole way there. Thanks to the war, he could no longer simply take a ship from Cerrmor, but just possibly there were less legitimate ships than ran the border far out to sea where few could catch them. Even though it was a good bit out of his direct route, he decided to swing by Dun Mannanan and see what he could find.

At that time Dun Mannanan was a pleasant-looking little town of some two thousand souls, whose round houses marched up from the harbor in tidy semicircles. Despite the war every house looked oddly prosperous, with fresh thatch, nicely whitewashed walls, and a handsome cow and a flock of hens in every yard. The town’s one inn was clean and tidy, too, with a proper stable out back. It was quite a surprise, then, when he went into the tavern room and found the innkeep cooking stew at a hearth where the spit across the fire, the kettle itself, and the long spoon were made of bronze, not iron. When he commented about it, the innkeep snarled under his breath.

“You won’t find a bit of good iron all along the Cerrmor coast, good sir. Naught can come south through the Cantrae battle lines, you see, and our wonderful king and his wonderful warbands to have shoes for their misbegotten horses and swords and suchlike. So they strip every bit of iron they can find, right down to the rotten buckle on your belt, and if you ask for repayment, you get it in bruises.” He paused to spit into the fire. “Even the plowshares are tipped with bronze, and they don’t plow as deep, I tell you. So there’s less of a yield every year, and the misbegotten king still takes the same taxes out of it.”

“I see. Ye gods! I never dreamt things had gone as far as all this.”

“I only wonder how far they’ll go. Soon enough we’ll all have gold hinges on our privy doors—it’ll be cheaper than iron.” His laugh was not a pleasant one.

As the evening wore on, a fair amount of customers drifted into the inn. As soon as they realized that Nevyn was an herbman, he had custom of his own and set up something of a dispensary on a table in the curve of the wall, out of the tavernman’s way. When he was done, a young sailor named Sacyr, who’d bought herbs to ease a bad hangover, settled down next to him and insisted on buying a round of ale so that he could start developing his symptoms all over again.

“Will you be staying in Dun Mannanan long, sir?”

“I won’t, truly. I’m hoping to find a ship going to Morlyn—on the Eldidd border, you know—one that has the draft to take my horse and mule. There are some valuable herbs that only grow in that part of the kingdom.”

Sacyr nodded, taking the lie with the faith of the ignorant, and considered the question.

“Well, I do know a man who’s running a good-sized boat west. He might be stopping in Morlyn.”

“Stopping there? How much further west can you go these days?”

Looking suddenly stricken, Sacyr devoted himself to his tankard.

“Now, here.” Nevyn dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’d truly like to get to Eldidd, and I’ll pay well for my passage. Is that at all possible?”

“It just might be. Wait around here a bit.”

In about an hour, a stout, graying man in the checked brigga of a merchant appeared, pausing in the tavern door and looking around carefully before he came any further. When Sacyr hailed him, he strolled over to the table, but he had a cautious eye for Nevyn.

“Sit down, Cabydd,” Sacyr said. “There’s coin in it”

With a small smile, the merchant sat. Sacyr leaned across the table to whisper.

“This herbman has a great desire to get to Eldidd. He needs a ship that can carry stock. I don’t suppose you’d know of such a thing.”

“Well.” Cabydd paused to size Nevyn up. “It’s a dangerous trip, good sir. I can’t guarantee your safety if the Eldidd war galleys catch us.”

“Ah, I see.” Nevyn was quite sure that he could do the guaranteeing, though he didn’t dare tell Cabydd that, of course. “But slipping across the border by land won’t be much safer, and it’d be a cursed sight longer.”