The Wind-Witch (24 page)

His companion—who likewise wore a captain’s badge laughed, and Robart scowled at him through the torch glare. “What brings you here, sister?”

“Valadan brought me here,” Druyan answered, for the delight of watching his brows shoot up.

“You still have that old fellow? But he must be—”

She could see him trying to reckon the years in his head. “He must be what I said he was, all along, else he would be too ancient to amble from Splaine Garth to the sea, much less bear me cheerfully all the way to Keverne. You can judge for yourself—I stopped you intending to ask the way to the stables. I knew Riders would know. I had no idea ’twas you.”

“You’re leaving at this hour?” Robart frowned at the notion, ready to forbid it reflexively.

“I only came to chat with our uncle,” Druyan said hastily. “And I didn’t expect I’d be here long enough to bespeak a bed. As matters stand now, I believe I’ll sleep better out on the heather.

You’d rather that than the duke’s roof?” the red-haired captain inquired pleasantly.

“I’d rather get homeward before my farm’s raided and robbed again,” Druyan answered, not wanting her dissatisfaction to tempt her into indiscretion with a stranger. For all she knew, this captain was one of B1ioc’s sons, a cousin she knew too slightly to recognize without his name.

The furrow between Robart’s brows deepened. “Did you sup with the duke? No? Then forget this foolish talk of riding out in the middle of the night.” He took her ann. “Come with me now, we’ll talk while we have at some food. There are reports of raids coming in from up and down the coast, but Darlith is remote—we hear little. Whatever you can tell us of matters there would be useful.” He gestured toward his companion. “This is Yvain of Tolasta, one of my fellow captains.”

Yvain gracefully inclined his chestnut head. The torchlight caressed him. “Your servant, Lady Druyan. Your churlish brother has too seldom mentioned you, and never done you close to justice with his less than nimble tongue.”

“She’s a wed woman, Yvain,” Robart warned.

“As if I’d no manners,” Yvain observed with a wry smile, ignoring him. “Let me light the way, Lady. These cobbles are treacherous even to those of us who know them, and not so clean as they should be. The duke himself never comes this way—”

Robart retained his hold on her, though Druyan couldn’t fathom why she might require the supporting grip, unless he intended to prevent her escaping at such an unseemly hour. Robart was right, come to that—she was too used to being her own mistress to remember that she was among folk apt to judge her actions by their own notions of propriety. To ride out of Keverne alone, at night, was unthinkable. Even an escape at dawn might not be permitted.

The captains led her across one court, then two others, finally up an outside stair to the second story of a slateroofed building snugged against what—by the sound of the sea faintly carried through it—must have been one of Keverne’s outer walls. The door was unbarred, and opened at Robart’s touch.

There were a dozen men, all blue-clad, within the chamber. The scattered remains of a meal covered a long trestle across the far end. “I’ll fetch us food,” Yvain said, while Robart guided Druyan to a chair close by the warm hearth.

“My sister, the Lady Druyan of Splaine Garth,” he announced to the company, lest any form a false impression and taint her reputation with it.

One or two of the men nodded pleasantly in her direction. Druyan returned the greetings with what she hoped was a gracious smile, feeling out of place and awkward. Yvain returned with a platter of meat pies in one long-fingered hand, three mugs of cider juggled somehow in the other.

“We don’t keep quite the same state Brioc does,” Robart said ruefully, looking at Yvain’s meager burden. “Especially once we’re down to scraps. I could send for more—”

“Rather plain food and plain talk here than marchpane swans and folly at the duke’s board,” Druyan declared, and took a sip of her cider. She had not eaten all that day and was famished, but she thought despite all that she would have choked, been unable to swallow a single bite of the daintiest fare at her uncle’s table. She saw his face in her mind’s eye, as he prattled happily of warships being Esdragon’s salvation, and her outrage almost brought the cider up again.

“What did you and our uncle talk about?” Robart asked softly.

Druyan told him—exactly as she had the duke—about the attacks on Splaine Garth, the other raids she had learned and warned of. “The army’s never in time to be any use before it even hears of trouble, the raid’s over, the ships are back at sea looking for another town or farm to rob. But a mounted force could be where it needed to be more easily. He
has
the horses—”

“Not for long,” Yvain intetjected bitterly. “Brioc’s making ready to sell all but the breeding stock, to raise money.

“Money for ships?” Druyan asked, not really a question.

Yvain nodded elegantly. “I see our liege lord has mentioned his passion to you. ‘Ships will save us—’ ” he quoted, in a wicked approximation of Brioc’s habitual tone.

“They might,” Robart answered reluctantly, as if he wanted to be fair about it.

“They never will.” Yvain waved his mug disparagingly. “You know what Meegran suggested?”

Robart made a face. “I hadn’t heard. What’s Councillor Meegran’s latest wise scheme?”

Yvain’s face and voice were devoid of expression. “Hire one of the raider captains and his companions as mercenaries, to defend our coasts while Dimas puts a fleet together,” he deadpanned.

Druyan choked on a mouthful of pie.

“Exactly my opinion,” Yvain said, patting her delicately on the back. Robart scowled at him. “Well, Chief-captain, do you suppose it’s good policy to set the wolf to guard the sheepfold?”

“You
are
joking about this, Yvain?” Robart offered Druyan his own cider, to wash the offending bit of pie away.

“I assure you, Robart, I am not. ’Twas seriously proposed and considered.”

“Brioc’s our duke,” Robart’s face went sunfall red.

“He’s
wrong
,” Druyan said, shocking even herself, putting it so bluntly. “A—anyone can be wrong,” she faltered on, wondering if she could back down, if she should try to qualify what she’d blurted out.

Another Rider crossed the room to join them, making a little bow to Druyan as he arrived. “Well met, Lady, once more. I don’t know that we had one another’s names.” He pulled up a chair. “I’m Kernan. We met at Falkerry. I did pass on your request about sending soldiers, but ’twas not acted upon.” His expression said he was rather used to that outcome.

“What were you doing, at FaIkerry?” Robart asked, looking sharply at Druyan.

“I just told you—carrying warnings—”

“She was at Falkerry,” Kernan agreed. “Told them about the ships upcoast, and the alarm was raised in time to save the city. There was fighting, but they were ready, and prevailed.”

“She was at Teilo, also,” said another grim-faced Rider, entering into the loose circle before the fire. “Though not quite in such good time. And she knew about Porlark. Your pardon, Lady, I know you said you only
heard
about that, but there is no way you could have known about it so soon, if that was true. You warned them, as well, I think.”

“So
that’s
how they knew to hoist the chain!” Yvain exclaimed delightedly. “I wondered at that—they mostly use that marvel to keep captains
in
, who’d otherwise skip out on port fees.” Two or three other men drifted closer, into easy earshot. Another joined them openly, deeming the talk no longer private.

“How did you know where they’d strike, Lady?” the grave man asked. Druyan’s skin prickled—she did not think she dared give him the truth.

“Never mind that,” Robart cut in. “How could you possibly get all the way from Splaine Garth to Falkerry? Where did you see the ships?”

Druyan mock-frowned at him, lifting one corner of her mouth. “All these years, and still you won’t believe me about Valadan!”

“
Valadan!
” The name ran around the room like a trail of fire across the night sky. It was repeated with familiarity, with nostalgia, sometimes with wonder.

“It’s just a black horse she’s named that,” Robart insisted into the hubbub.

“Of course,” Druyan agreed sweetly. “And never mind how I got to Falkeny in one night.”

“I don’t much care what she was riding,” Kernan said, refusing to be distracted, “She was there, in time, with a true warning. That’s what interests me.”

Druyan felt as if she’d been trapped against the wall. If she confessed to them about Kellis and his talents, she might be putting his life at risk—but if she did not, she would lose their confidence, which was now her sole means of spreading the warnings Kellis gave her. These horsemen would never believe she rode widely enough—even upon mage-created Valadan—to see every shipload of raiders approaching. Chance could not account for her knowledge, she would never dupe them that way. They might not even accept the truth. . .

“When my farm was raided, we took prisoners,” she said, the inevitable choice abruptly made. She looked from one face to another, trying not to let Robart’s eye catch hers. “One of those was wounded, left behind when the others escaped. We needed harvest hands, the duke had all Splaine Garth’s men—still has them, come to that! Kellis agreed to work, to pay for his release.”

“What does Travic think he’s doing?” her brother asked, outraged.

Druyan refused to be lured off onto a tangent and ignored Robart. “Kellis turned out not to be one of the raiders’ own folk—the Eral took his people’s land, overran it years ago. He told me what he’d learned about them, where they come from, and why—”

“We all know why!” a tall Rider blurred. “They’re thieves and murderers. I saw Teilo—”

“The Eral despise weakness,” Druyan reported seriously. “What they want, they take. If they can beat us, push us aside, they will. If they can’t, if we stand up to them, they’ll learn to respect us. Then the raiders among them will look elsewhere for their plunder, and the traders will come in their place, with goods to sell.”

“They won’t respect us very much if we pay a few of them to keep the rest away,” Yvain observed cheerfully.

“None of this explains how you knew where they’d be,” Robart persisted, hammering away at her like a raiding ship. “Little bands, striking each at their captain’s whim—how did you know where and when?”

Druyan swallowed hard. “Kellis saw it. He . . . has a gift of prophecy. He looks into water and sees what’s to come.” No sense telling them the rest of it—that yesterday and tomorrow were indistinguishable.

“You said they beat his people. And
he
got himself captured, didn’t he? He can’t be very handy at foreseeing.” It was as if what she sought to hide was written across her face, Druyan thought. And Robart’s objections seemed so logical.

“His people couldn’t fight iron weapons,” she said, tighting back. “Even
we
say iron poisons magic—for his folk it was worse than that. Iron poisons
them
.” She shuddered, thinking of Kellis’ hands after the barley harvest, what he had suffered trying to hide that flaw from his captors, his presumed enemies. “They dare not touch iron, much less stand against it in battle. And they don’t farm, not to any extent. Most of them follow herds of cattle and migrate with the seasons. You can’t defend grassland the way you do a coast, a town.”

“We’re not doing much of a job of defending a coast either,” Yvain observed. He wasn’t smiling.

“We’ve been dismissing the raids as an unpleasant fact of life, like winter storms,” Druyan insisted. “A nuisance, but with an end coming. We can’t do that. They’ll only get worse.”

“Particularly if our duke begins inviting some of the villains for extended visits,” Yvain said under his breath.

“From what Kellis has told me, they’ll test us till we make them stop. The Eral rob any folk they can—but if we fight them, stand them off, they’ll turn to trading instead. They’ll do whatever brings in the profit. Whatever we make them do.”

“You trust this man?” Robart asked incredulously. “He was one of them, Druyan!”

“He was with them,” she corrected, not waiting to let him accuse her of splitting hairs. “Using an Eral ship to carry him over the sea, away from a place where he couldn’t live any longer. I believe him about that. As for trusting him—Kellis has never betrayed me, and his prophecies have always been true.”

“
So far
.” Robart’s hands were white-knuckled fists.

“So far’s as far as we’ve gone,” Druyan said stubbornly. “Ask at Falkerry. And Porlark.”

“You let him send you riding into the middle of a raid?” Robart slammed his right hand, palm flat, onto the tabletop. The sound was as loud as a shod horse kicking his stall. “It’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed!”

“What choice, except to let other people die?” Druyan cried. She wanted to protest, to say how careful she’d been—all the while outraged to be censured so roundly for simple good deeds.

“She needn’t risk that again,” Yvain interjected smoothly. “If
we
do it in her place.”

“We?” Brows shot up, on every face. A few pulled back down into frowns. Other mouths smiled. The cider was making Druyan’s head buzz. Perchance she was not the only one so affected. She found herself agreeing with Yvain, but wasn’t quite sure what the captain was about.

“We have the means for passing news quickly,” Yvain explained, sweeping an arm about to indicate the room. “It is our function, after all. There are a lot of us, tolerably well mounted, so we can get about quickly. We are armed. If we were to stumble upon a raid in progress, even our fearless duke would expect us to pitch in and shove it back out to sea.”

“You’re talking about seeking the raiders out, though,” Robart said, before emotion could sweep sense away. “Aren’t you? And doing it without orders. You’re talking treason.”

“I am talking about stopping trouble, if we should happen to hear of it. Swinging a bit wide of our routes to do it, perhaps.” Yvain gave him an ingenuous grin.

“Happen to hear of it?” Robart queried, shaking his head.