Daggerspell (58 page)

“I got it all, even his sword. You were right enough about silver making men see reason. I got his lordships clothes and suchlike from the servants for only a few coppers, but it took all the coin Lord Sligyn gave me to bribe those stinking guards for the sword.”

“I figured that,” Cullyn said.

“Do we ride today, captain?”

“It depends on Her Grace.” Cullyn shot an anxious glance at the closed door to the bedchamber. “If we do stay, I don’t want brawling and suchlike tonight at table. Remember that.”

“Then, captain, we’d best eat in the barracks.”

Amyr dumped Rhodry’s gear on a table, then hurried off before a servant wandered in and found him there. Cullyn picked up Rhodry’s sword and drew it half out of the scabbard so that Jill could see the double device, the dragon of Aberwyn and the lion of his adopted clan, both engraved on the blade.

“May the gods blast me if I let Rhys hang it up in his
chamber of justice as a mark of Rhodry’s shame! The thing is, how are we going to smuggle it out?”

“Easily, Da. I’ll wear it out.”

“What?”

“If I put on my old clothes, and Dann trims my hair short, and I ride with the warband with a sword in an old scabbard, who’s going to notice?”

Cullyn laughed, his soft mutter of a chuckle.

“No one. And I don’t mean the herbman, either. Well and good, my sweet. You’re my daughter, sure enough.”

Eventually Nevyn came out with the news that Lovyan was too exhausted to ride that day. When Cullyn pointed out that it would be best to get Rhodry’s warband away from Rhys’s men, Nevyn immediately agreed.

“And I’ve got to get out of here myself. Soon enough everyone will remember that little show I put on in the malover. I’ll have a word with Dannyan, and you get the men ready to ride before we have a brawl on our hands.”

“I will. And Jill, change your clothes.”

Since everyone in the dun had known Jill only as Rhodry’s beautiful mistress, no one noticed the scruffy young silver dagger who rode out with the Clw Coc men. As they clattered along the north-running road out of Aberwyn, Jill turned in the saddle for a last glimpse of the silver-and-blue dragon pennant, flying high over the broch.

“And may I never see Rhys’s ugly face again!”

“Once more,” Amyr said. “When he has to stand there in full malover and announce Lord Rhodry’s recall.”

It was a beautiful fall day, as warm as summer, with a bluish haze hanging over the distant fields of ripe gold wheat. As they rode north, the River Gwyn sparkled as white as its name as it ran fast beside the road. Jill felt like singing. She wondered what was wrong with her, that she’d feel nothing but joy; then she realized what she should have known all along, from that first horrible moment when Rhodry got to his feet in the chamber of justice. The door to her cage was standing open—-if she had the courage to fly.

• • •

As soon as he was outside the city, Rhodry kicked his horse to a canter for the first couple of miles, then let it slow to a brisk walk. As they headed east, he kept up a walk-trot pace, making all the speed he could while the horse was fresh. By law, an exile was under the gwerbret’s special protection until he left the rhan, but that law had been broken more than once. Some of Rhys’s men were likely to decide to curry favor from their lord by following and murdering the man who’d mocked him in his very chamber of justice. Every now and then, Rhodry turned in the saddle to look back. The only weapon he had was his half-elven eyesight, which could pick out from a long distance away the telltale plume of dust that his pursuers would raise on the road.

The road between Aberwyn and Abernaudd ran straight while the seacoast curved in and out, sometimes close to the road, sometimes a good mile away. As he jogged along, Rhodry kept an eye out for places to hide if he had to, but mostly he saw small farms, whose owners would doubtless refuse shelter to a man pursued by the gwerbret’s riders. Here and there, though, were stands of woodland. If he hid in one of them, his murderers would have to dismount to find him, and he’d have a chance to kill one with his dagger before the others cut him to shreds.

At times, he considered merely stopping and letting Rhys’s men catch him, or perhaps turning his horse loose and walking into the sea to drown. His shame rode with him, like a rider behind him, clutching at him with heavy arms. Occasionally he would glance at his brigga—old, shabby, and plain blue, spare clothes from Rhys’s warband, as was his cloak. As a final humiliation, they’d stripped him of his plaid right there in the ward. Death seemed better than dragging out a miserable life in exile, a life that would end in a few years in some lord’s petty feud or in a cheap tavern brawl. The only thing that kept him riding was knowing that Rhys would gloat over his death.

Toward noon, as the road climbed a small rise, Rhodry
looked back and saw a small cloud of dust, far behind, moving too fast to be hiding some ordinary traveler. He kicked his horse and galloped down the rise, then turned into a lane running north between wheat fields. Puzzled farmers shouted as he raced past, turning down lanes and jogging across meadows without any goal in mind. Whenever he looked back, he saw the plume of dust behind him. He was laying an easy trace; his own horse raised dust, and the farmers were no doubt telling the gwerbret’s men exactly what they’d seen ride by. Alternately trotting and galloping, he kept riding until at last he saw a woodland bigger than a mere stand of firewood. He kicked a last burst of speed out of his tiring horse and galloped hard for the cover.

When he reached the edge, he could see that this forest was old, thick with shrub and bracken among the enormous oaks. He swung down and led his sweating horse through the underbrush. They’d gone about a mile when he heard distant yelling behind him. He found a little dell, coaxed the frightened horse down and into tall shrubs, then left it and slipped through the trees. He moved as silently as a deer, thankful for the first time for his elven blood. After some minutes, he heard men calling out behind him and froze between two low-growing trees.

“Must be his horse.”

“Leave it for now. He can’t have gone far.”

The voices were vaguely familiar—his brother’s men, sure enough. He could hear them crashing through the underbrush and fanning out, at least four of them, judging from the jingle of scabbards and spurs. Suddenly Rhodry was sick to his heart of running like a hunted hare; he decided that it would be better to let them find him quick and get his dying over with. He started to step forward from cover and tripped.

Or something tripped him. He was sure of it, because the fall came so suddenly. As he went down, he felt hands grab him, a myriad of tiny hands that lowered him to the ground without a sound. He was too frightened to shout
or even think as a rain of leaves and twigs pattered over him. The men were coming closer, clumsy and loud in the forest.

As Rhodry lay stone still, he heard another set of noises far past and to the right of where he was, noises that sounded exactly like a man running through the underbrush. With shouts and hunting calls, the gwerbret’s men took off after them. A little hand patted Rhodry’s cheek, and it seemed that he heard a giggle, a bare whisper of sound. He could hear the false hunt driving forward, turning this way and that, the noises fading slowly as the men were led in circles, back and forth, but always farther away. At last the sound died away. A hundred little hands plucked and picked the leaves off him, then one grabbed his hand and pulled.

“You want me to get up?”

The pull came again. Rhodry got to his feet and looked round. Here and there a branch bobbed or a cluster of leaves shivered in the perfectly windless air.

“You must be the Wildfolk. Well, by every god, you have my heartfelt thanks.”

Suddenly they were gone; he could somehow feel that he was alone. As he made his careful, silent way back to his horse, it occurred to him to wonder if Nevyn had sent this unexpected help. He retrieved his mount and headed out fast on foot. Apparently his hunters were far away, because he reached the edge of the forest without hearing anyone coming after him.

Out in the meadow stood four horses, tethered to a shrubby bush and carrying saddles marked with the silver dragon of Aberwyn. One of them suddenly stamped; another tossed its head in irritation; then all four of them were nickering, stamping, throwing up their heads in panic. As Rhodry mounted, he saw the knots that held their reins slip loose, untied by invisible fingers. The horses pranced, whinnied—and all at once they bolted, racing north in blind panic. Rhodry laughed aloud and called out a last thanks as he turned his horse and galloped south, back to the main road.

• • •

Nevyn was riding alone at the rear of the warband when two Wildfolk came back, popping into manifestation on his horse’s head and on his saddle peak. The obese yellow gnome was particularly pleased with himself, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing his fat little stomach. Nevyn slowed his horse and dropped even farther back, out of earshot of the men.

“Did you do what I told you to?”

The yellow gnome nodded a yes and stretched its mouth in a soundless peal of laughter.

“And Rhodry’s safe?”

This time the blue sprite nodded vigorously. She shaded her eyes with one hand and did a pantomime of someone peering and searching while her face registered sheer frustration.

“And you got the horses?”

They both nodded.

“Splendid, splendid. You have my thanks, and you come tell me if Rhodry’s in danger again.”

They disappeared in a swirl of breeze. As Nevyn rode back up to join the others, he allowed himself a smile for the thought of Rhys’s men, walking the whole fifteen miles back to Aberwyn in soft riding boots. It’s a good thing I decided to scry Rhodry out, he thought to himself, curse Rhys and his murdering bastards all!

“The warband must have reached your cousins dun by now,” Dannyan remarked.

“Just so,” Lovyan said. “It was sensible of Cullyn to think of taking the men away. At least Rhodry’s left me a good man to captain the band.”

With a sigh, Lovyan sat up on the bed and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She had wept enough for one day; in spite of the pain she felt over Rhodry’s exile, she had to pick up the broken pieces of her plans and make new ones.

“Dann, would you get a servant to fetch me hot water?”
Lovyan said, “I’ll have a wash and dress now. I must have a word with the gwerbret.”

“So soon? Is my lady sure that’s wise?”

“Not wise at all, but necessary.”

Yet in the end, Rhys came to her. Lovyan had just finished dressing when a page appeared to ask if she would receive the gwerbret. Lovyan took a place by the window and drew herself up to full height as Rhys came in. He looked so timid that Lovyan suddenly remembered that there was something he very badly wanted from her.

“Mother, my apologies. Truly, I never meant to send Rhodry away, or to hang him either. I was honestly glad when his captain reminded me of my promise. Don’t you see? After he stood there and defied me in open malover, what could I do? Knuckle under and be shamed in every man’s eyes?”

Lovyan wished that she could believe him. In time, perhaps, she would be able to make herself believe him.

“Mother, please! I’d already shamed myself once by admitting my fault there in the malover.”

“I have no doubt that His Grace perceived his choice that way. I have hopes that he will see a better choice at some future time.”

“I suppose you want me to recall him.”

“Does His Grace truly have to ask me that?”

With a toss of his head, Rhys began pacing back and forth. Lovyan considered refusing to make the marriage for Donilla unless Rhys recalled his brother, but she knew him too well. In angry pride, he would refuse the bargain, and then Donilla would suffer for her husband’s fault.

“I wish to leave your court on the morrow,” Lovyan said. “If Donilla’s going to ride with us, you’ll have to drink the bitter ale and put her aside. It’s only hurting both of you by delaying it, anyway.”

“My thanks.” Rhys turned to her in honest relief. “I was afraid that you’d—”

He could not quite bring himself to finish. She let the silence build until he looked down, shamed by her generosity.

“Mother, please? Won’t you accept my apology?”

“Mother? Never call me that again.”

Rhys flinched as if she’d slapped him. She paused just long enough for him to feel the sting.

“Not, at least, until Rhodry’s back home.”

Rhys started to speak, then turned and strode out, slamming the door so hard that the silver oddments on the mantel rattled. Lovyan allowed herself a small smile.

“I’m a warrior’s wife and a warrior’s daughter. And the war, Your Grace, has just begun.”

The sun was low in the sky when Rhodry came to the stone slab marking the border between the gwerbret-rhynnau of Aberwyn and Abernaudd. He paused his horse and contemplated the dragon carved on the west side and the hippogriff rampant carved on the east, then rode the last few feet across. For all the good it was going to do him, he was safe. Rhys’s men would never risk starting a war by pursuing him into another gwerbrets rhan and thus usurping that gwerbrets jurisdiction.

As the evening wind picked up from the sea, he shivered and pulled his plain blue cloak round his shoulders. His stomach was growling and knotting; he hadn’t eaten since the ill-fated feast of the night before. A few more miles brought him to a big farming village and the Gray Goat tavern, a thatched roundhouse with a stable out in back. As he dismounted, the taverner came out, a bulky blob of a man who reeked of garlic. He looked Rhodry over with a shrewd eye for the blazons on his shirt and worn spot on his belt where a scabbard should have hung.

“I’ll wager you got into a bit of trouble with the captain of your warband.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Naught. And a silver dagger in your belt, is there? Who pledged you to that?”

“Cullyn of Cerrmor.”

“Oho!” The taverner gave him a wide grin, revealing stubs of front teeth. “Then come in and welcome. You can work around the place, like, to earn your keep while you
figure out what you’re going to do next. Here, lad, have you been flogged? My wife can give you a poultice or somewhat for your back.”