Daggerspell (53 page)

“My thanks.”

For a long painful moment they merely looked at each other. Since Cullyn had never been given to pondering his feelings and considering subtleties, he began to feel as if he were drowning. How could he both admire Rhodry and hate him this way? It was because of Jill, but it was more than Jill. He simply couldn’t understand. His enraged bafflement must have been obvious, because Rhodry grew more and more uneasy. Yet he, too, couldn’t seem to break away, and the silence grew so thick it was painful.

“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.

That morning Nevyn came to the women’s hall, which was open to him because of his great age and, while she worked, entertained her with tales of Bardek, that mysterious country far across the Southern Sea. From the wealth of details, it was plain that he’d spent much time there.

“Studying physick, truly,” Nevyn admitted when she asked him. “They have much curious lore in Bardek, and most of it’s worth knowing. It’s a cursed strange place.”

“So it sounds. I wish I could see it someday, but it’s not likely now.”

“Here, child, you sound very unhappy.”

“I am, and I feel like the most ungrateful wretch in the world, too. Here Her Grace has been so generous to me, and I’m living in more luxury than I ever dreamt of, but I feel like a falcon in a cage.”

“Well, in a way, you are trapped.”

It was such a relief to hear someone agree with her that Jill nearly wept. Irritably she threw the sewing into her wicker workbasket.

“Well, if you truly hate this kind of life,” Nevyn went on, “perhaps you should leave it.”

“What can I do? Ride the roads as a silver dagger?”

“I should think not, but many a woman has a craft. If I spoke to the tieryn, she’d pay the prentice fee for you.”

“Oh, and what sort of thing would I do? I’d hate to spin or sew or suchlike, and no armorer or weaponmaster would take a woman as an apprentice, not even if the tieryn asked them.”

“There are all sorts of crafts.”

All at once, Jill remembered that he was dweomer. He was so kind to her, so bent on winning her friendship, that at times she forgot this frightening truth. The gray gnome looked up from the floor, where he’d been amusing himself by tangling her embroidery threads, and gave her a gaping grin.

“My lord,” Jill said, her voice shaking. “You honor me too highly if you think I could take up your craft.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but it’s a closed issue if you don’t want it. I was merely thinking about herbcraft, the plain and simple medicine I know. I’ve learned a lot in my long years, and it would be a pity to let the knowledge die with me.”

“Well, so it would.” Suddenly Jill felt her first real hope in days. “And you travel everywhere and live the way you want.”

“Just that, and you’re bright enough to learn the lore. Lovyan will understand, truly, if you want to leave. She’ll know you’ll be safe with me.”

“But what about Da? I doubt me if he’d let me go with
you, and truly, we’ve been through so much together, him and me, that I’d hate to leave him, too.”

“No doubt, but at some time you have to leave him.”

Although Nevyn spoke quietly, his words cut like a knife.

“Well, why?” Jill snapped. “If I stay here—”

“And aren’t you the one who was just telling me you’re miserable?”

“Oh, so I was.”

“Just think about it. You don’t have to decide straightaway.”

Nevyn left her to the tedious task of untangling the skeins that the gnome had ruined. As she worked, Jill thought over his offer. Oddly enough, she could see herself wandering the roads with a mule and dispensing herbs to farmers much more easily than marrying some minor lord and living in comfort. While it would hurt to leave Cullyn, she could always come back and see him whenever she felt like it. It would hurt much less than being shut up in the dun with Rhodry and his new wife, seeing him every day and knowing that another woman had what was beyond her reach.

Or so Jill thought of him that morning, as beyond her reach. Toward evening, she went out in the ward just for some fresh air, and Rhodry followed her, catching her out by the wall among the storage sheds.

“My lord should be more careful about chasing after me,” Jill said. “What if someone saw you?”

“I don’t give a pig’s fart if they did or not. I’ve got to talk with you. Let’s find a place where we can be alone.”

“Oh, indeed? It’s not talk that’s on your mind.”

“It is, and it isn’t. What of it?”

Rhodry smiled at her so softly that Jill followed him when he went round to a shed to a private place in the curve of the wall.

“This will do for now,” Rhodry said. “I, uh—”

The words seemed to stick in his throat.

“Uh, well,” he started again. “You see, I had a—I mean, that sounds so cursed cold.”

“You haven’t said much yet that sounded like anything.”

“I know. Well, it’s about that bargain we made, truly.”

“I thought as much. I meant what I said, curse you.”

“Things have changed somewhat. I—”

And he stuck there again, looking at her with a feeble, foolish smile. In sheer irritation Jill started to walk away, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. When she swung round to break his hold, she tripped over the hem of her dress and nearly fell into his arms. He laughed and kissed her, held her tight when she tried to squirm away, and kissed her again so sweetly that she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, clung to him, while she remembered all the pleasure his kisses promised.

“Leave your chamber door unbarred tonight,” Rhodry said.

“You dolt! If someone catches you, the news will be all over the dun.”

“Who’s going to be up in the middle of the night but me?” He kissed her softly, letting his mouth linger on hers. “Just leave the door unbarred.”

When Jill shoved him away, he grinned at her.

“I know you’ll do it,” Rhodry said. “Till tonight, my lady.”