Darkspell (2 page)

Tieryn Lovyan was something of an anomaly in Deverry, a woman who ruled a large demesne in her own name. Originally her only brother had held this dun, but when he died without an heir, she’d inherited under a twist in the laws designed to keep big holdings in a clan even if a woman had to rule them. Although she’d come to her middle age, she was still a good-looking woman, with gray-streaked raven black hair, large cornflower-blue eyes, and the straight-backed posture of one quite at home with rulership. That particular day she wore a dress of red Bardek silk, kirtled in with the red, white, and brown plaid of the Clw Coc clan.

“The warband is in attendance, my lady,” Cullyn said.

“Splendid, Captain. Have you seen Nevyn yet?”

“I haven’t, my lady.”

“It would be like him to just stay away. He does so hate crowds and such like, but if you do see him, tell him to come sit with me.”

Cullyn rose, bowed, and returned to his men. From his seat he could see the honor table, and while he sipped his ale, he studied the bride at this wedding, Lady Donilla, a beautiful woman with a mane of chestnut hair, clasped back like a maiden’s now for the formality of the thing. Cullyn felt profoundly sorry for her, because her first husband, Gwerbret Rhys of Aberwyn, had recently cast her off for being barren. If Lovyan hadn’t found her a husband, she would have had to return to her brother’s dun in shame. As it was, her new man, Lord Garedd, was a decent-looking fellow some years older than she, with gray in his blond hair and a thick mustache. From what the men in the warband said, he was an honorable man, soft-spoken in peace and utterly ruthless in war. He was also a widower with a pack of children and thus more than glad to take a beautiful young wife, barren or not.

“Garedd looks honestly besotted with her, doesn’t he?” Nevyn remarked.

With a yelp Cullyn turned to find the old man grinning at him. For all of Nevyn’s white hair, and a face as lined as an old leather sack, he had all the vigor and stamina of a young lad, and he stood there straight-backed, his hands on his hips.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a sly grin.

“Here, I never saw you come in!”

“You weren’t looking my way, that’s all. I didn’t turn myself invisible, although I’ll admit to having a bit of a jest on you.”

“And I took the bait, sure enough. The tieryn wants you to come sit with her.”

“At the honor table? What a blasted nuisance. It’s a good thing I put on a clean shirt.”

Cullyn laughed. Usually Nevyn dressed like a farmer in
shabby brown clothes, but today he’d actually put on a white shirt with Lovyan’s red lion blazon at the yokes and a pair of patched but respectable gray brigga. Still, he looked like a shabby townsman or maybe a minor servitor, anything but what he was, the most powerful master of the dweomer in the entire kingdom.

“Before you go,” Cullyn said, “have you had any, well, news of my Jill?”

“News? Why don’t you say the word ‘scrying’ right out? You’ll have to get used to sorcery sooner or later, Captain. Here, come along.”

They made their way over to the servants’ hearth, where an entire hog crackled, roasting on a spit so large that it took two kitchen boys to turn it. For a moment Nevyn stared intently into the flames.

“I see Jill and her Rhodry looking in good spirits,” he said at last. “They’re walking through a town on a nice sunny day, going up to a shop of some sort. Wait! I know the place. It’s Otho the Silversmith’s in Dun Mannannan, but he doesn’t seem to be in at the moment.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell if she’s with child.”

“She’s not showing the baby if she is. I can understand your concern.”

“Well, it’s bound to happen, sooner or later. I just hope she has the wit to ride home when it does.”

“She’s never lacked for wit.”

Although Cullyn agreed, worry ate at him. Jill was, after all, his only child.

“I just hope they have enough coin for the winter,” the captain remarked.

“Well, we gave them plenty between us, if Rhodry doesn’t drink it all away, anyway.”

“Oh, Jill won’t let him do that. My lass is as tight as an old farmwife with every cursed copper.” He allowed himself a brief smile. “She knows the long road well.”

Because the mattress was full of bedbugs, Rhodry Maelwaedd, formerly heir to Dun Gwerbyn, sat on the floor of the tiny innchamber. Nearby Jill sat in the light from
the one tiny window. She was dressed in a pair of dirty blue brigga and a lad’s plain linen overshirt, and her golden hair was cropped short like a lad’s, too, but she was so beautiful, with her wide blue eyes, delicate features, and soft mouth, that he loved simply looking at her. Frowning in concentration, she was mending a rip in his only shirt.

“Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!” she snarled. “This’ll just have to do. I
hate
sewing.”

“You have my humble thanks for lowering yourself enough to mend my clothes.”

With another snarl she threw the shirt into his face. Laughing, he shook it out, once-white linen stained with sweat and rust, as well, from his mail. On the yokes were embroidered the blazons of the red lion, all that he had left of his old life. But a month earlier his brother, Gwerbret Rhys of Aberwyn, had sent him into exile, far away from kin and clan both. He pulled the shirt on, then buckled his sword belt over it. At the left hung his sword, a beautiful blade of the best steel with the hand guard worked in the form of a dragon, and at the right, the silver dagger that branded him as a dishonored man. It was the badge of a band of mercenaries who wandered the roads either singly or in pairs and fought only for coin, not loyalty or honor. In his case it branded him as something even stranger, which was why they’d come to Dun Mannannan.

“Do you think that silversmith will be in by now?” he said.

“No doubt. Otho wouldn’t leave his shop for long.”

Together they went out into the unwalled town, a straggling collection of round thatched houses and shops along a river. On the grassy bank fishing boats lay bleaching, from the look of their cracked keels and gaping planks barely seaworthy.

“I don’t see how these people make a living from the sea,” Rhodry remarked. “Look at that mast. It’s all held together with wound rope and tar.”

When he started to walk over for a better look, Jill grabbed his arm and hauled him back. Two local men, hard-eyed and dressed in filthy rags, were watching.

“It doesn’t pay to go poking your nose into other people’s business, lad,” one of them called out.

“Especially not scum like you, silver dagger,” said the other.

They both spat on the ground and laughed. Rhodry tried to shake his arm free of Jill’s grasp, but she hung on grimly.

“You can’t, Rhoddo,” she whispered. “They’re not but peasants. They’re too far below you to fight with.”

With a toss of his head he turned away. Arm in arm they walked on down the winding street.

“About those boats?” Jill said. “They’re not as shabby as they look. They keep them that way on purpose, to hide, like. There’s more than one kind of cargo that comes in under the mackerel.”

“Ye gods! You mean we’re staying in a den of smugglers?”

“Keep your voice down! Just that.”

Otho’s shop stood on the very edge of town, just on the other side of a dirt path from a field of cabbages. Under a droop of smoke-black thatch the plank door stood shut but no longer padlocked. When Jill opened it, silver bells tinkled overhead.

“Who’s there?” bellowed a deep voice.

“Jill, Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter, and another silver dagger.”

Rhodry followed her into an empty chamber, a small wedge of the round house set off by dirty wickerwork panels. In one panel hung a frayed green blanket, doing duty for a door, apparently, because Otho shoved it aside and came out. Although he stood only four and a half feet tall, he was perfectly proportioned and muscular at that, with arms like a miniature blacksmith. He had a heavy gray beard, neatly cropped, and shrewd dark eyes.

“Well, Jill it is,” he said. “And it gladdens my heart to see you again. Where’s your father, and who’s this lad?”

“Da’s in Eldidd. He won himself a place as captain of a tieryn’s warband.”

“Did he, now?” Otho smiled in sincere pleasure. “I
always thought he was too good a man to carry the silver dagger. But what have you done? Run off with this pretty face here?”

“Now, here!” Rhodry snarled. “Cullyn gave her leave to go.”

Otho snorted in profound disbelief.

“It’s true,” Jill broke in. “Da even pledged him to the silver dagger.”

“Indeed?” The smith still looked suspicious, but he let the matter drop. “What brings you to me, lad? Have some battle loot to sell?”

“I don’t. I’ve come about my silver dagger.”

“What have you done, nicked it or suchlike? I don’t see how any man could bruise that metal.”

“He wants the dweomer taken off it,” Jill said. “Can you do that, Otho? Remove the spell on the blade?”

The smith turned, openmouthed in surprise.

“I know cursed well it’s got one on it,” she went on. “Rhoddo, take it out and show him.

Reluctantly Rhodry drew the dagger from its worn sheath. It was a lovely thing, that blade, as silky as silver, but harder than steel, some alloy that only a few smiths knew how to blend. On it was graved the device of a striking falcon (Cullyn’s old mark, because the dagger had once belonged to him), but in Rhodry’s hand the device was almost invisible in a blaze and flare of dweomer-light, running like water from the blade.

“Elven blood in your veins, is there?” Otho snapped. “And a good bit of it, too.”

“Well, there’s some.” Rhodry made the admission unwillingly. “I hail from the west, you see, and that old proverb about there being elven blood in Eldidd veins is true enough.”

When Otho grabbed the dagger, the light dimmed to a faint glow.

“I’m not letting you in my workshop,” he announced. “You people all steal. Can’t even help it, I suppose; it’s probably the way you were raised.”

“By every god in the Otherlands, I’m not a thief! I was
born and raised a Maelwaedd, and it’s not my wretched fault that there’s wild blood somewhere in my clan’s quarterings.”

“Hah! I’m still not letting you into my workshop.” He turned and pointedly spoke only to Jill. “It’s a hard thing you’re asking, lass. I don’t have true dweomer. The dagger spell is the only one I can weave, and I don’t even understand what I’m doing. It’s just somewhat that we pass down from father to son, those of us who know it at all, that is.”

“I was afraid of that,” she said with a sigh. “But we’ve got to do somewhat about it. He can’t use it at table when it turns dweomer every time he draws it.”

Otho considered, chewing on his lower lip.

“Well, if this were an ordinary dagger, I’d just trade you a new one without the spell, but since it was Cullyn’s and all, I’ll try to unweave the dweomer. Maybe working it all backward will do it. But it’s going to cost you dear. There’s a risk in meddling with things like this.”

After a couple of minutes of brisk haggling, Jill handed him five silver pieces, about half of the smith’s asking price.

“Come back at sunset,” Otho said. “We’ll see if I’ve been successful or not.”

Rhodry spent the afternoon looking for a hire. Although it was too close to winter weather for warfare, he did find a merchant who was taking a load of goods back to Cerrmor. For all their dishonor, silver daggers were in much demand as caravan guards, because they belonged to a band with a reputation that kept them more honest than most. Not just any man could become a silver dagger. A fighting man who was desperate enough to take the blade had to first find another silver dagger, ride with him awhile, and prove himself before he was allowed to meet one of the rare smiths who served the band. Only then could he truly “ride the long road,” as the daggers referred to their lives.

And if Otho could blunt the spell, Rhodry would no longer have to keep his blade sheathed for fear of revealing
his peculiar bloodlines. He hurried Jill through her dinner and hustled her along to the silversmith’s shop a little before sunset. Otho’s beard was a good bit shorter, and he no longer had any eyebrows at all.

“I should have known better than to do a favor for a miserable elf,” he announced.

“Otho, you have our humble apologies.” Jill caught his hand and squeezed. “And I’m ever so glad you didn’t get badly burned.”

“
You’re
glad? Hah! Well, come along, lad. Try it out.”

When Rhodry took the dagger, the blade stayed ordinary metal without the trace of a glow. He was smiling as he sheathed it.

“My thanks, good smith, a thousand times over. Truly, I wish I could reward you more for the risk you ran.”

“So do I. That’s the way of your folk, though; all fine words and no hard coin.”

“Otho, please,” Jill said. “He doesn’t even have much elven blood.”

“Hah! That’s what I say to that, young Jill. Hah!”

All day the People rode into the meeting place for the alardan. To a grassy meadow so far west of Eldidd that only one human being had ever seen it, they came in small groups, driving their herds of horses and flocks of sheep before them. After they pastured the animals, they set up leather tents, painted in bright colors with pictures of animals and flowers. Children and dogs raced through the camp, cooking fires blossomed; the smell of a feast grew in the air. By sunset well over a hundred tents stood round the meeting place. As the last fire took light and blazed, a woman began to sing the long wailing tale of Donabel and his lost love, Adario. A harper joined in, then a drummer, and finally someone brought out a conaber, three joined reedy pipes for a drone.

Devaberiel Silverhand, generally considered the best bard in this part of the elven lands, considered unpacking his harp and joining the musicians, but he was quite simply too hungry. He got a wooden bowl and spoon from his
tent, then wandered through the feast. Each riding group, or alar, to give them their Elvish name, had made a huge quantity of one particular dish. Everyone strolled around, eating a bit here and there of whatever appealed to them while the music, talk, and laughter drifted through the camp. Devaberiel was searching for Manaverr, whose alar traditionally roasted a whole lamb in a pit.