Darkspell (25 page)

Sarcyn waited to hear no more. He slipped back around
the tavern, then walked fast through the maze of the Bilge. Down alleyways, between buildings, in the front door of Gwenca’s and out the back, his route twisted and turned until at last he was through the Bilge on the north side and heading back to his inn. He had no doubt that Dryn would spill everything he knew in an attempt to save his own skin.

But long before the wardens had beaten Sarcyn’s name and description out of the merchant, Sarcyn was riding out the city gates and heading north to safety.

In his chamber of justice, Gwerbret Ladoic was holding full malover. At a polished ebony table he sat under the ship banner to his rhan, while the gold ceremonial sword lay in front of him. To either side sat priests of Bel. The witness stood to the right, Lord Merryn, three city wardens, Nevyn, and Elaeno. Before him knelt the accused, the spice merchant Dryn, and Edycl, captain of the merchantman
Bright Star.
The gwerbret leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin as he thought over the testimony that had been laid before him. At thirty, Ladoic was an imposing man, tall and muscled, with steely gray eyes and the high cheekbones common to southern men.

“The evidence is clear enough,” he said. “Dryn, you approached the herbman and offered to sell him some forbidden merchandise. Fortunately, Nevyn is an honorable man and consulted with Elaeno, who immediately contacted the chief customs officer.”

“I didn’t approach the cursed old man, Your Grace,” Dryn snarled. “He’s the one who made hints to me.”

“A likely tale, indeed, and it wouldn’t matter if it were true. Can you possibly deny that the city wardens found four different kinds of poison on your person when you were arrested?”

Dryn slumped and stared miserably at the floor.

“As for you, Edycl”—the gwerbret turned cold eyes his way—“it’s all very well to claim that Dryn shipped the foul herbs without your knowledge, but why did the customs
men find a cache of opium in the walls of your personal cabin?”

Edycl trembled all over, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

“I’ll confess, Your Grace. You don’t need to put me to the torture, Your Grace. It was the coin. He offered me so much cursed coin, and the ship needed repairs, and I—”

“That’s enough.” Ladoic turned to the priest. “Your Holiness?”

The aged priest rose and cleared his throat, then stared into space as he recited from the laws.

“Poisons are an abomination to the gods. Why? Because they can only be used for murder, never in self-defense, and so no man would want them unless there was murder in his heart. Therefore, let none of these foul substances be found in our lands. From the
Edicts of King Cynan,
1048.” He cleared his throat again. “What is the fit punishment for the smuggler of poisons? None fitter than that he eat some of his own foul goods. The ruling of Mabyn, high priest in Dun Deverry.”

As the priest sat down, Dryn wept, a silent trickle of tears. Nevyn felt sorry for him; he wasn’t an evil man, merely a greedy one who’d been corrupted by the truly evil. The matter, however, was now out of his hands. Ladoic took the golden sword and held it point upright.

“The laws have spoken. Dryn, as an act of mercy, you will be allowed to pick the least painful poison from your stock. As for you, Edycl, I have been informed that you have four young children and that, indeed, poverty did drive you to this trade. You will be given twenty lashes in the public square.”

Dryn raised his head, then broke, sobbing aloud, throwing himself from side to side as if he already felt the poison gnawing at him. A guard stepped forward, slapped him into silence, then hauled him to his feet. Ladoic rose and knocked the pommel of the sword onto the table.

“The gwerbret has spoken. The malover has ended.”

Although the guards dragged Dryn away, they left Edycl crouched at the gwerbret’s feet. Quickly the hall
cleared until only Nevyn and Elaeno remained with the lord and the prisoner. Ladoic looked down on Edycl as if he were contemplating a bit of filth on the streets.

“Twenty lashes can kill a man,” he remarked in a conversational tone of voice. “But if you tell these gentlemen what they want to hear, I’ll reduce your sentence to ten.”

“My thanks, Your Grace, oh, ye gods, my thanks. I’ll tell them anything I can.”

“Last year you wintered in Orystinna,” Elaeno said. “After making a very late crossing. Why?”

“Well, now, that was a cursed strange thing.” Edycl frowned in thought. “It truly was late, and I was thinking about putting the
Star
in dry dock, when this Bardek man approaches me and says that a friend of his, a very rich man, had to reach Myleton before winter. He offered me a cursed lot of coin to take them over, enough to turn a big profit even with the expense of wintering in Bardek, so I took them on. I wintered in Orystinna because it’s cheaper than Myleton.”

“I see. What were these men like?”

“Well, the one who hired me was your typical Myleton man, on the pale side, and his face paint marked him for a member of House Onodanna. The other fellow was a Deverry man. Called himself Procyr, but I doubt me if that was his real name. There was somewhat about him that creeped my flesh, but cursed if I know why, because he was well-spoken and no trouble. He stayed in his cabin mostly, because it was a rough crossing, and I’ll wager that he was as sick as a pig the whole way across.”

“What did this Procyr look like?” Nevyn broke in.

“Well, good sir, I’m not cursed sure. It’s cold out to sea that time of year, and whenever he was on deck, he was muffled up in a hooded cloak. But he was about fifty, I’d say, a solid sort of man, gray hair, thinnish sort of mouth, blue eyes. But I remember his voice well. It was oily, like, and too soft for a man. It creeped my flesh.”

“No doubt,” Nevyn muttered. “Well, there you are, Your Grace. Elaeno and I are as sure as we can be that this man Edycl described is very important to the drug trade.”

“Then I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Ladoic said. “Or perhaps, considering his voice, keep my ears out.”

The supposed Procyr was, of course, likely to be more than merely a drug courier. Nevyn was fairly sure that he must have been the dark dweomerman who started Loddlaen’s war the summer before and who seemed to be determined to kill Rhodry. As he thought it over, he wondered why for perhaps the thousandth time.

Salamander, or Ebañy Salomonderiel tranDevaberiel, to give him his full Elvish name, was staying in one of the most expensive inns in Cerrmor. His reception chamber was spacious, with Bardek carpets on the polished wood floor, half-round chairs with cushions, and glass in the windows. When his visitors arrived, he poured them mead from a silver flagon into glass goblets. Both Elaeno and Nevyn looked around them sourly.

“I take it that your tales pay well these days,” Nevyn said.

“They do. I know that you’re always chastising my humble self for my admittedly vulgar, crude, extravagant, and frivolous tastes, but I see no harm in it.”

“There’s not. It’s just that there isn’t any good in it, either. Well, it’s none of my affair. I’m not your master.”

“Just so, though truly, I would have been honored beyond my deserving to have been your apprentice.”

“That’s true enough,” Elaeno broke in. “The bit about ‘beyond your deserving,’ that is.”

Salamander merely grinned. He enjoyed bantering with the enormous Bardekian, though he doubted if Elaeno liked the game as much as he did.

“I know my talents are modest,” Salamander said. “Here, if I had the power of the Master of the Aethyr, I’d be as dedicated as he. Alas, the gods saw fit to give me only a brief taste of the dweomer before they snatched that honey-sweet cup from my lips.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Nevyn said. “Valandario told me that you could easily make more progress—if only you’d work for it.”

Salamander winced. He hadn’t realized that his mistress in the craft had told the old man so much.

“But that’s neither here nor there right now,” Nevyn went on. “What I want to know is why you’re in Deverry.”

“The real question is: Why not be in Deverry? I love to wander among my mother’s folk. There’s always somewhat to see along your roads, and I’m also far, far away from my esteemed father, who is always and in the most perfect prose berating me for some fault or another, both real and imagined.”

“Mostly the former, I’d say,” Elaeno muttered.

“Oh, no doubt. But if I can be of any service to either you or the Master of the Aethyr, you have but to ask.”

“Good,” Nevyn said. “Because you can. For a change, your wandering ways might come in handy. I have every reason to believe that there are several dark dweomermen abroad in the kingdom. I don’t want you trying to tangle with them, mind. They’re far too powerful for that. But they’re also supporting themselves by smuggling drugs and poisons. I want to know where the goods are sold. If we can choke off this foul trade, it will hurt our enemies badly. After all, they have to eat like other men—more or less like other men, anyway. I want you to be constantly alert for signs of this impious trade. A gerthddyn’s welcome anywhere. You just might overhear an interesting thing or two.”

“So I might. I’ll gladly poke my long Elvish nose into the matter for you.”

“Don’t poke it so far that it gets cut off,” Elaeno said. “Remember, these men are dangerous.”

“Well and good, then. I shall be all caution, wiles, snares, and deceits.”

About ten miles east of Dun Deverry lived a woman named Anghariad, who’d been pensioned off on a little plot of land after many years of service in the king’s court. None of her neighbors were sure of what she’d actually done there, because she was the closemouthed sort, but the common guess was that she’d been a midwife and herbwoman, because
she knew her herbs well. Often the folk of the village would trade chickens and produce for her doctoring rather than make the long trudge into the city for an apothecary. Yet when they visited, they usually crossed their fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft, because there was something strange about the old woman with her glittering dark eyes and hollow cheeks.

Apparently the noble-born hadn’t forgotten the woman who once served them, either. It was a common sight to see a pair of fine horses with fancy trappings tied up by her cottage, or even a noble lady herself, talking urgently with Anghariad out in her herb garden. The villagers wondered what the noble-born could possibly have to say to the old woman. If they’d known, they would have been appalled. To the farmers, whose every child was a precious pair of hands to work on the land, the very idea of abortion was repellent.

Besides her abortifacients, Anghariad had other strange things for sale to the right customers. That afternoon she was extremely displeased at the paucity of goods that Sarcyn had to offer her.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “One of our couriers was taken with all his goods down in Cerrmor. You’re cursed lucky that Tve got any opium at all.”

The old woman picked up the black lump and scored it with her fingernail, then carefully examined the way it crumbled.

“I prefer it better refined than this,” she snapped. “The noble-born have more fastidious tastes than some sot of a Bardek dockworker.”

“I told you: you’re cursed lucky to get any at all. Now, if you do me a favor, I’ll give it to you for free.”

Suddenly she was all smiles and close attention.

“I know who some of your regular customers are.”

Sarcyn leaned closer. “And one of them particularly interests me. I want to meet him. Send Lord Camdel news of the delivery and tell him to come out here alone.”

“Oh, ye gods,” Rhodry grumbled. “We finally find a tavern with decent mead, and now you tell me that we can’t afford it.”

“Well,” Jill said, “if you weren’t too beastly proud to take a hire guarding a caravan—”

“It’s not just pride! It’s the honor of the thing.”

Jill rolled her eyes heavenward to ask the gods to witness such stubbornness, then let the matter drop. Actually, they had a fair amount of coin left from the winter, but she had no intention of letting him know it. He was just like her father, drinking the coin away or handing it over to beggars with never a thought for what might lie ahead on the long road. Just as she’d done with Cullyn, therefore, she let Rhodry think that they were close to being beggars themselves.

“If you spend coin on mead now,” she said, “how are you going to feel when we’re riding hungry without even a copper to buy a scrap of bread? I’ll wager the memory of the mead will taste bitter enough then.”

“Oh, very well! I’ll settle for ale.”

She handed him four coppers, and off he went to get the ale. They were in the tavern room of the cheapest inn in Dun Aedyn, a prosperous trading town in the middle of some of the richest farmland in the whole kingdom. When they left Cerrmor, they’d ridden there because they’d heard rumors of a feud brewing between the town’s lord and one of his neighbors, but unfortunately it had been settled by the local gwerbret before they arrived. Dun Aedyn was too important to the rhan for the overlord to sit by while it was ravaged by war. Rhodry returned with two tankards, set them down on the table, then sat next to her on the bench.