The Bristling Wood

The Lords of Wyrd do not make a man’s life as neatly as a master potter turns out bowls, each perfectly shaped and suitable to its purpose. In the ebb and flow of birth and death are strange currents, eddies, and vortices, most of which are beyond the power of the Great Ones to control.

—The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid

The sound of rain drumming on the ward outside echoed pleasantly in the great hall. In her chair by the fire, Aunt Gwerna was drowsing over her needlework. Occasionally she would look up and answer a dutiful “true-spoken” to one of her husband’s rhetorical questions. Perryn’s uncle, Benoic, Tieryn Pren Cludan, was in one of his expostulatory moods. He sat straight in his chair, one heavy hand gripping a tankard, the other emphasizing his points by slamming the chair arm. Benoic was going quite heavily gray, but he was still as strong-muscled as many a younger man, and as strong in the lungs, too.

“It’s these worm-riddled pikemen,” he bellowed. “Battle’s not the same with common-born men fighting in it. They should be guarding the carts and naught else. Cursed near blasphemous, if you ask me.

“Hah! More of this wretched courtly mincing around, that’s all it is. Trust the blasted southerners to come up with somewhat like this. It’s no wonder the kingdom’s not what it was.”

While Benoic soothed his feelings with a long swallow of ale, Perryn tried to unravel the connection between spearing a man off his horse and the fine manners of the king’s court.

“You young lads nowadays!” his uncle went on. “Now, if you’d only ridden in some of the battles I did at your age, then you’d understand what life here in Cerrgonney means. Look at you, lad, riding around without a copper to your name. Ye gods! You should be getting yourself a place in a warband and working at rising to captain.”

“Now here, Perro,” Gwerna broke in. “You’re welcome at our table anytime you pass by.”

“Course he is, woman!” Benoic snapped. “That’s not the point. He should be making somewhat of himself, that’s all. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, lad, and your cursed cousin Nedd is even worse. At least there’s some excuse for you.”

“But Nedd’s got dun and demesne both, and all he does is ride around hunting all day. By the Lord of Hell’s balls!”

“Now, my love,” Gwerna interceded again. “He and Perryn are both young yet.”

“Well, here, Uncle, I can hardly take a wife when I don’t even have a house to put her in.”

Perryn smiled feebly. Although he was a member of the northern branch of the ancient and conjoint Wolf clan and was thus entitled to be called a lord, he was also the fifth son of a land-poor family, which meant that he owned naught but the title and a long string of relatives to play unwilling host when he turned up at their gates.

The next morning, Perryn rose at dawn and went to the stable long before the dun came awake, He brought out his dapple-gray gelding, a fine horse with some Western Hunter blood in him, and began saddling up. On his travels he packed an amazing amount of gear: two pairs of saddlebags, a bulging bedroll, a small iron kettle, and at his saddle peak a woodcutter’s ax slung where most lords carried a shield. Just as he was finishing, Benoic came out to look the laden horse over.

“By the asses of the gods, you look like a misbegotten peddler! Why don’t you take a pack horse if you’re going to live on the roads this way?”

“Splendid creature. Where did a young cub like you scrape up the coin for him?”

“Might have known! Ye gods, you, and your blasted cousin are going to drive me to the Otherlands before my time.”

When he left the dun, Perryn set off down the west-running road in search of a pack horse. Around him stretched the fields of Benoic’s demesne, pale green with young barley. Here and, there farmers trotted through the crops to shoo away the crows, who rose with indignant caws and a clatter of wings. Soon, though, the fields gave way as the road rose into the rocky hills, dark with pines. Perryn turned off the muddy track that passed for a road and worked his way through the widely spaced silent trees. Once he was in wild country, he had no need of roads to find his way.

Early in the afternoon, he reached his goal, a mountain meadow in a long valley that belonged to a certain Lord Nertyn, one of his uncle’s vassals but a man Perryn particularly disliked. Out in the tall grass twenty head of Nertyn’s horses grazed peacefully, guarded by the stallion of the herd, a sturdy chestnut who stood a good sixteen hands high. When Perryn walked toward the herd, the stallion swung his way with a vicious snort, and the others threw up their heads and watched, poised to run. Perryn began talking to the stallion, a soft clucking noise, a little murmur of meaningless sound until the horse relaxed and allowed Perryn to stroke his neck. At that, the rest of the herd returned to their feed.

“I need to borrow one of your friends,” Perryn said. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ll take splendid care of him.”

As if he agreed, the stallion tossed his head, then ambled away. Perryn picked out a bay gelding and began patting its neck and combing its mane with his fingers.

“Aren’t you sick of that fat lord who owns you? Come along and see somewhat of the road.”

When the gelding turned its head, Perryn smiled at it in a particular way he had, a deep smile that made him feel slightly cool, as some of his warmth was flowing out to the recipient of the smile. With a soft snort, the bay leaned its head against his chest. He patted it for a few more minutes, then walked away, the bay following close behind. Although Perryn honestly didn’t understand why, once he got a few minutes alone with a horse, the animal would follow him anywhere without halter or rope. It was a useful trick. Whenever his coin ran low, he would simply take a horse from someone he disliked and sell it to one of the dishonest traders he knew. Because of his noble blood, no one ever suspected him of being the worst horse thief in the northern provinces. He’d often stolen a horse from a cousin one week, then ridden back the next to express surprise and sympathy at the loss. Only Benoic and Nedd were safe from his raiding.

That night, Perryn and the two horses made a comfortable camp in a forest clearing, but the next day they had to return to the road or go miles out of their way around a steep hill. They had barely reached the track when it began to rain. Perryn kept riding until the mud made traveling difficult for the horses, then turned a little way into the forest and dismounted. In the imperfect shelter of the pines he crouched down between the horses and waited for the storm to slack. It was uncomfortable, of course, with his clothes stuck to him and water running into his boots, but he ignored the discomfort, the way forest deer ignored the rain, browsing in the wet when they were hungry. If someone had asked him what he thought about during those two cold hours, he wouldn’t have been able to say. He was merely aware of things: the rain, the smell of pine, the slick-wet trunks and pale green ferns. Every sound brought a message: a squirrel scuttling into its hole, a deer moving cautiously far away, a stream running close by. Eventually the rain stopped. By the time he reached Nedd’s dun, he was dry again. Indeed, he’d quite forgotten that he’d been caught by the storm.

The dun stood on a muddy hillock behind a crumbling stone wall and a pair of rusty iron-bound gates that squeaked like a demon when Perryn shoved them open. Instead of a broch, Nedd had a stone round house with a roof that leaked all round the edge and two hearths that smoked badly. Although there were the usual barracks over the stables for a warband, the roof there was so bad that Nedd had simply moved his ten men into the half round of a room that passed for his great hall. They slept on straw mattresses, laid any which way in the dry spots out in the middle of the room. Nedd, as befitted his rank, had an actual bed by one hearth. Scattered through this disorder of moldy straw were also two tables, benches, a collection of leather buckets for drips, and one elegant chair, carved with the Wolf blazon. When Perryn came in after stabling his horses, he found his cousin sitting in the chair with his feet on one of the tables.

“By the gods,” Nedd said with a grin. “You’ve come like an omen, cousin. Here, fetch yourself some ale. There’s an open barrel by the other hearth.”

Since their mothers were sisters, the cousins looked much alike. They both had flaming red hair, freckles, and bright blue eyes, but while Nedd was a good-looking man, the most charitable description of Perryn would have been “nondescript.” Tankard in hand, he joined Nedd at his table. At the other, the warband were drinking and dicing.

“You’re just in time to ride to war with me.” Nedd smiled as if he offering a splendid gift “I’ve got this ally to the west, Tieryn Graemyn—you’ve met him, haven’t you—and he’s sent out a call for aid. I’m supposed to bring him twelve men, but I’ve only got so I’ve got to scrape up the other two somewhere. Come along, cousin! It’ll be good sport, and you can spare me the cost of a silver dagger.”

Seeing no way out of it, Perryn sighed. Nedd had fed him for any a winter, and besides, a noble lord was supposed to respond joyously to the call for war. He forced out a smile.

“Just jesting,” Nedd said hurriedly. “Well, I hope a silver dagger turns up soon. There’s always a lot of them in Cerrgonney. We’ll wait a couple of days, then ride, even if we’re one short. Better that than riding in after the fighting’s over.”

The gods, however, apparently decided that if Lord Nedd was going to march to war, it might as well be straightaway. On the morrow, not long after breakfast, the kitchen gardener ambled in to announce that there was a silver dagger at the gates.

“And he’s got a woman with him, too,” the old man said. “I feel cursed sorry for her kin.”

In a few minutes the silver dagger and his woman came in, both travel-stained and roughly dressed, the lass in men’s clothing with a sword and silver dagger of her own. Although her blond hair was cropped short like a lad’s, she was not merely pretty but beautiful, with wide blue eyes and a delicate mouth.

“Good morrow, my lords.” The silver dagger made them a courtly bow. “My name’s Rhodry of Aberwyn, and I heard in your village that you’ve got a hire for the likes of me.”

“I do,” Nedd said. I can’t offer you more than a silver piece a week, but if you serve me well in the war, I’ll shelter you and your lass all winter.”

Rhodry glanced up at the roof, where sunlight broke through in long shafts, then down at the floor, where Nedd’s dogs snored in mildewed straw.

“Oh well,” Nedd said hastily. “I can squeeze out two silver pieces a week, and there’ll be battle loot, too.”

For Jill’s sake, Lord Nedd gave his silver dagger an actual chamber to sleep in instead of a mattress out in the great hall, Although the wickerwork walls were filthy, it did have a door. Rather than sit on the straw of the floor, which seemed to be inhabited, Jill perched on top of an unsteady wooden chest and watched as Rhodry cleaned his chain mail. As he ran an old rag through the rings, to wipe away the rust, he was frowning in the candlelight.

”Lord Nedd’s a marvel and a half, isn’t he? Are we actually going to stay here all summer and the winter, too?”

“Of course not. I’d rather sleep beside the roads. Are you sure you’ll fare well enough when I leave you behind?”

“Oh no doubt the kennel will be comfortable enough when the dogs are all out of it. How long do you think the war will last?”

“War?” He looked up with a grin. “I wouldn’t dignify it with the word, my love. If Nedd’s allies are anything like him, no doubt there’ll be a lot of shouting and skirmishing, and then an end to it.”

“Just that, but it’s not battle danger, exactly. I’m not even sure what I do mean. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

“I wish you hadn’t, truly.” He hesitated, for a long moment, staring down at the straw. “I . . . ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, let’s just forget it.”

“I know what you want to know. I don’t see your death coming. Ah, ye gods, if ever I did, don’t you think I’d beg you not to ride to war?”

“And, what good would that do? When my Wyrd comes, upon, me I’ll die as easily from a fever or a fall from a horse as from a sword. Let me beg a boon from you, my love. If ever you see my death, say not a word about it.”

With a nod of thanks, he got up, stretching, and looked down at the mail glittering in the candlelight. He was so beautiful that she felt like weeping, that he would have to risk his life in the petty feuds of men like Lord Nedd. As she always did on the nights before he was about to ride to war, she wondered if he would live to ride back to her.

“Let’s lie down together, my love,” he said. “It’s going to be a long while before I sleep in your bed again.”

Once she was lying in his arms, Jill felt the wondering grow to a cold stab, closer and closer to fear. She held him tight and let his kisses drown it away.

Early on the morrow, the warband made a sloppy muster out in the ward. Jill stood in the doorway and watched as the men drew their horses up in a straggling line behind the two lords. The four men at the rear, including Rhodry, led pack horses laden with provisions because Nedd didn’t own an oxcart and couldn’t have spared the farmers to drive it if he had. Just as it seemed the line was finally formed, someone would yell that he’d forgotten something and dash back to the house or the stables. At the very last moment, Nedd discovered that Perryn didn’t own a pot helm. A servant was dispatched to the stables, which apparently did double duty as an armory, to look for one.

Perryn stood rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while Nedd berated him for a woodcutter and worse. When Jill caught Rhodry’s eye, he sighed and glanced heavenward to call the gods to witness Perryn’s eccentricity. She had never seen a noble lord like Perryn, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over him. He was tall, but slender and ill proportioned, with narrow shoulders, long arms, and big, heavy hands out of scale to the rest of him. Although his face wasn’t truly ugly, his eyes were enormous, his mouth thin, and his nose on the flat side. When he walked, he all the grace of a stork strutting.

When the servant came back with a rusty helm, Nedd announced that if anyone had forgotten anything else, he’d cursed well have to do without it. Jill gave Rhodry one last kiss, then ran to the gates to wave the warband out. In a disorderly line they trotted down the hill, then into the road, disappearing to the west in a spatter of mud. With a prayer to the Goddess to keep her man safe, Jill turned back to the dun and the long tedium of waiting for news.

The small demesne of Tieryn Graemyn lay three days’ ride to the west of Nedd’s dun. The road ran narrow through sharp hills and scrubby pine, mostly uninhabited, until some ten miles from the tieryn’s dun the warband came to a small village, Spaebrwn, one of three that paid Graemyn allegiance. As the warband watered their horses at the village well, Perryn noticed the townsfolk watching with frightened eyes. A Cerrgonney war was like a Cerrgonney storm, blowing the thatch from cottage and lord’s manor alike.

Late in the afternoon they reached Graemyn’s dun, set up on a low hill out in the middle of a stretch of fairly flat pastureland bordered by trees. The big gates swung open to admit them into a ward crowded with men and horses. As Nedd’s warband dismounted, stableboys ran to take their horses and lead them away into the general confusion. The tieryn himself strolled out to greet these reinforcements. A grizzled dark-haired man, he bulged with muscles under his linen shirt.

“I’m truly glad to see you, Nedd,” he remarked. “Your twelve brings us up to what strength we’re going to have.”

Under the tieryn’s firm voice there was an anxious edge that made Perryn apprehensive, and for good reason, as it turned out at the council of war in the great hall. Even with Nedd and three other allies, Graemyn had only some two hundred men. Ranged against them were Tieryn Naddryc and his allies with close to three hundred. The dispute concerned two square miles of borderland between their demesnes, but it had grown far beyond the land at stake. Although Graemyn was willing to submit the matter to the arbitration of the high king, Naddryc had refused the offer some weeks past. In a subsequent skirmish between mounted patrols, Naddryc’s only son had been killed.

“So he wants my blood,” Graemyn finished up. “I’ve stripped the countryside to provision the dun. You never know what’s going to happen when a man gets it into his head to start a blood feud.”

The other lords all nodded sagely, while Perryn devoutly wished that he had been born a woodcutter. A feud could rage for years, and here he was, honor-bound to ride in it for Nedd’s sake.

After the meal, the lords gathered round the honor table and studied a rough map of eastern Cerrgonney. They drank over it, argued over it, and yelled at each other while Perryn merely listened. He was part of the council only by courtesy to his birth; he had no warband, he had no right of decision. He stayed until the lords adopted Nedd’s plan of making a surprise attack on enemy’s line of march, then slipped away, getting a candle lantern from a page and taking it out to the stables. When he found his dapple gray, he hung the lantern on a nail in the wall of the stall and sat up on the manger. The gray leaned his face into Perryn’s chest with a small snort. He gently scratched its ears.

Blissfully unaware that there was such a thing as a future to consider, the gray nibbled on his shirt.

“At least you’ll be safe and out of it. That’s somewhat to be glad about.”

If Cerrgonney men had fought on horseback, as warriors did in most of Deverry, no amount of honor or obligation would have induced Perryn to ride to war, but since up in that grain-poor province horses were too valuable to slaughter, Cerrgonney men rode to battle but dismounted to fight. Yet even though he knew his friend would be safe, Perryn’s heart ached at the thought of battle. As he did every time he was forced to ride to war, he wondered if he were simply a coward. Doubtless every lord in the province would have considered him one if they’d discovered his true feelings about honor and battle glory, which seemed far less important to him than fishing in a mountain stream or sitting in a meadow and watching the deer graze. At times like these, the old proverb haunted him: what does a man have worth having but his honor? A good bit more, to Perryn’s way of thinking, but he could never voice that thought to anyone, not even Nedd, no matter how much he simply wanted to ride away from killing men he didn’t know in a war that never should have happened in the first place.

“Well, my friend, my Wyrd will come when it comes, I suppose. I wonder if horses have Wyrds? It’s a pity you can’t talk. We could have a splendid chat about that, couldn’t we?”

Suddenly he fell silent, hearing someone open the stable door. His silver dagger gleaming in the lantern light, Rhodry strode briskly down the line of stalls.

“Oh, it’s you, my lord. The tieryn’s captain detailed me to keep an eye on the stables, you see, and I heard someone talking.” Rhodry glanced around puzzled. “Isn’t someone else here?”

Rhodry’s eyes glazed with a suppressed mockery that Perry was used to seeing on men’s faces.

Rhodry smiled in honest pleasure at the news. He was handsome, strong, and eager for battle, just the sort of man that Perryn, was supposed to be and the type who always despised him. Perryn wasn’t sure if he envied or hated the silver dagger—both, he decided later.

On the morrow, the army mustered before dawn in a ward bright with iaring torchlight. The men were silent, the lords grim, the horses restless, stamping, tossing their heads at every wink of light on helm and sword. As usual, Nedd’s warband was the last to take their place in line, shouting at each other and squabbling over who would ride with whom. As he took his place beside his cousin, Perryn noticed Rhodry, smiling to himself as if he were gloating over a beautiful woman.

“We’re going to cut straight across country, Nedd said. “We’ll need you to scout, Perro.”

“No doubt. None of you could find your way through a copse to a mountain, I swear it.”

Perryn merely shrugged. The restlessness of the horses was making him wonder if disaster lay ahead of them; sometimes animals could tell such things, in his experience. At last Graemyn blew his silver horn. As the first dawn silvered the sky, the gates swung open. With his sword raised high, the tieryn rode out, his personal warband clattering behind him, four abreast, the line snaking out and down the hill. Suddenly Perryn heard distant war cries, as if someone were racing to meet Graemyn beyond the walls. The men nearest the gates screamed in rage; the horns rang out to arm and charge. Naddryc had prepared a surprise of his own.

The ward turned into a shoving, shouting chaos as men dismounted, grabbing shields and helms, and rushed out the gates. Perryn swung down, then gave the gray one last pat.

Then he ran after Nedd and out the gates. The battle was sweeping halfway up the hill, a raging, ragged swirl of men and riderless horses as Naddryc’s men struggled up while Graemyn’s tried to shove them back. In the dust pluming upward Perryn lost sight of Nedd almost at once. A burly fellow with an enemy blazon of blue and yellow on his shield charged him and swung in hard from the right. Perryn flung up his shield, caught the blow and thrust it away, then swung back, slapping his opponent hard on the thigh. Cursing, the man stumbled; Perryn got a hard cut on his sword arm. Bleeding, the man withdrew, feinting, parrying more than he swung. As he followed, Perryn realized that the enemy tide was ebbing back down the hill. Screaming war cries, Graemyn’s men swept after. We should hold this higher ground, Perryn thought. But it was too late, and no one would have taken orders from him, even if he’d tried to give them.

Down on the flat the battle re-formed itself into random knots and mobs of fighting. As Perryn ran toward the closest one, he suddenly heard laughter off to one side, a bubbling sort of chuckle that rose now and then to a howl over the smack and clang of swords striking shield and mail. It was such an eerie sound that for a moment he paused, looking this way and that to try to find the source. That brief curiosity cost him dear. At a shout behind him he turned to see three men running straight for him, and they all carried the blue-and-yellow shield. With a yelp of terror, Perryn flung up his shield and sword barely in time to parry the two hard blows that swung in on him.

Although the third man dodged past and ran on, the other two enemies closed in for a quick if dishonorable kill. As he desperately dodged and parried, Perryn heard the laughter again, shrieking, sobbing, ever louder, until all at once Rhodry lunged at the man attacking from the right and killed him with two quick slashes, back and forth with a gesture like waving away a fly. Gasping for breath, Perryn took a wild swing at the other blue-and-yellow, missed, nearly tripped, and regained his balance just in time to see the man fall, spitted in the back through the joining rf his mail. Rhodry jerked his sword free with a shake to scatter drops of blood.

For an answer Rhodry merely laughed, and his eyes were so glittering-wild that for a moment Perryn was afraid he’d turn on him. Yelling at the top of their lungs, five men from Nedd’s warband ran up and swept Rhodry and Perryn along toward a hard knot of fighting around Graemyn himself. Although Perryn tried to keep up, the entire line was swirling and breaking, falling back around him as Naddryc’s superior numbers began to tell. He got cut off as two of his allies shoved past him, running for their lives. When he ran for a man he thought was one of Nedd’s, the fellow swung his way and raised a shield marked with the red acorns of another enemy warband. Swearing, Perryn charged, but something struck him from behind.

Fire stabbed, then spread down his shoulder. All at once, his fingers were loosening on the sword’s hilt of their own will. He swirled around and caught a strike on his shield, but when he tried to raise his right arm, his fingers dropped the sword, Then he felt the blood, sheeting down his arm and pouring into his gauntlet. As the enemy pressed in, Perryn brought up the shield like a weapon and swung hard, as he dodged back, stumbling over uncertain ground. Yet there were enemies behind him.

With a shout of desperation, Perryn charged and rammed the shield full strength into the enemy in front of him. Taken utterly off guard by this suicidal manoeuvre, the man slipped and fell backward. A startled Perryn fell on top of him, with his shield caught between them and his whole weight slamming it down. The enemy’s head jerked back, and he lay still, whether dead or merely stunned Perryn neither knew nor cared. He scrambled up, shamelessly threw his shield, and ran for the dun—but only for a few yards. Suddenly he realized that the battle was lost, that the field belonged to the enemy, that the last of his comrades were fleeing through the gates just ahead of a line of blue-and-yellow shields. He fell to his knees and watched as the gates swung shut. Enemies ran past, shouting to one another.

“They’re going to stand a siege—whoreson bastards—get to the postern!”

No one even looked at the half-dead warrior slumped on the ground, It occurred to Perryn that without his shield, no one would even recognize him as an enemy in this confusion . . . His head spinning, he staggered to his feet and grabbed a sword with his left hand from a nearby corpse, then took off, trotting after the others and yelling, “To the postern!” While he didn’t give a pig’s fart about Graemyn, Nedd was trapped in the dun in a half-provisioned siege with no one to lift it. Graemyn had called in every ally he had for this battle.

In the dust-smeared, milling mob, the ruse worked well. He kept with them for about twenty yards, then fell back and ran for the trees edging the battlefield. If anyone even saw him go, they had no time to chase after. Among the pines, neatly tethered, were Waddryc’s horses with only a couple of servants to guard them. Perryn charged the nearest horse handler, who promptly broke and ran. In one smooth slash Perryn cut a tether rope, threw the sword away, and grabbed the reins of a solid chestnut gelding.

The chestnut stood patiently as Perryn hauled himself into the saddle. Keeping to the trees, he rode away from the battle. Although every step the horse took made the world swim in front of him and his dangling right arm throb, he bit his lower lip until it bled and kept riding. He had to get news to Benoic. That was the only thought he allowed himself to have. When he reached the road, he kicked the horse to a gallop and stayed on by sheer force of will. Gallop, trot, gallop, trot, walk—on and on he went, reminding himself that he could get help in Spaebrwn. Although he wondered at times if he’d live to reach the village, the blood was drying on his arm, not welling up fresh.

Just before noon, he crested the last hill above Spaebrwn and pulled the horse to a halt. For a long time he stared down at the glowing spread of ashes and charred timbers, half hidden under a drift of smoke. The breeze brought with it a sickening smell, too much like roasted pork. Some of the villagers had waited too long to flee.

“Ah ye gods, our Naddryc takes his revenge a bit too seriously, if you ask me.”

The gelding snorted and tossed its head, spooked by the smell of burning. Perryn urged him on, skirted the ruins, and turned back into the pine forest. Even though he could neither raise his arm nor move his fingers, he was going to have to try to ride back to Nedd’s dun on his own. By taking side trails through wild country, he could shorten the distance to some forty miles. Once they were well among the trees, he paused the horse again and thought of the dun, pictured it clearly in his mind, and remembered all the safe times he’d enjoyed Nedd’s company there. Then he went on, heading straight for it. Every time he started drifting from the most direct path, he felt a deep discomfort, something like a fear or anxiety, pricking at him. As soon as he turned the right way, the discomfort vanished. Although he didn’t understand it in the least, this trick had led him back to places he thought of as home many a time in the past.

Perryn picked his way through the forest until sundown, then dismounted and led his horse through the dark for a few miles more, stumbling only to force himself up again, until they reached a small stream. Slacking the horse’s bit with his left hand seemed to take an eternity. Finally he got it free and let the gelding drink.

In a golden mist the forest was spinning slowly around him. He sat down just before he fainted.

Like sheep in a snowstorm, the remains of the army huddled in Graemyn’s great hall that night, eighty-odd men in decent shape, twenty-some badly wounded. Rhodry sat on the floor with the last six men of Nedd’s warband. No one spoke as they watched the table of honor across the hall, where Graemyn and his allies talked, heads together, faces drawn and tight-lipped in the torchlight. Frightened serving lasses crept through the warband and doled out scant rations of watered ale. By the servants’ hearth, a young page sat weeping, wondering, most like, if he’d ever see his mother again. Finally Nedd left the honor table and limped, back, to his own men. He slid down the wall rather than sat until, he could slump half upright in the straw.

“The blasted cut’s not that bad.” Nedd laid his hand on his thigh, as if trying to hide the bloody bandage.

“Oh, and you have mine. We’re all going to have to watch our cursed tempers.”

Everyone nodded, looking at the floor, out into space, anywhere rather than at each other.

“We’ve got provisions for a good six weeks,” the lord went on. “Longer if we start eating horses.”

“There’s always a chance. Graemyn’s sending a herald out on the morrow.”

Rhodry watched the parley from a distance, because at dawn he drew a turn on guard up on the ramparts. Outside, Naddryc’s men had cleared the battlefield of corpses, leaving a torn, bloodstained stretch of bare ground for about three hundred yards. Beyond that were the tents and horses of the besiegers. Around the dun, beyond javelin range, trotted a mounted patrol. In a rough count, Rhodry estimated that Naddryc had at least a hundred and thirty men left. When the sun was about an hour’s worth up in the sky, the gates opened, and Graemyn’s chamberlain, carrying a long staff wound with red ribbons, slipped out. The patrol trotted over to him, made honorable half-bows from their saddles, then escorted him over to the camp. Rhodry leaned onto the ramparts and waited. When a flutter of crows flew past cawing and dodging, he envied them their wings.

Although the herald returned in about half an hour, Rhodry had lo wait to hear the news until he was relieved from watch. He scrambled down the ladder and hurried into the great hall, where the warbands were eating in an ominous silence. Although the other lords were gone, Nedd was eating with his men. Rhodry sat down and helped himself to a chunk of bread from a basket, but he looked expectantly at the lord.

“Naddryc won’t parley,” Nedd said quietly. “He’s made Graemyn one offer. If we surrender without a fight, he’ll spare the women and children. Otherwise, he’ll raze the dun and kill every living thing in it.”

“He’s a hard man, Naddryc,” Nedd went on. “And he’s sworn a vow of blood feud.”

“And if we surrender, what then?” Rhodry said. “Will he hang every man in the dun?”

Rhodry laid the chunk of bread back down. For a moment he wished that they’d sally, die fighting, die clean, instead of swinging like a horse thief, but there was the tieryn’s lady, her serving women, his daughters and little son.

“Ah well,” Rhodry said. “A rope’s a better death than a fever. They say you jerk once and there’s an end to it.”

“For all your silver dagger, you’re a decent man, Rhodry of Aberwyn. I only hope that my noble allies are as honorable as you.”

“They are. Well, by the hells, we’ll hold out for a while before we do anything at all. The bastard can wait for a few days while he savors his piss-poor victory.”

“What if he changes his terms? I wouldn’t put it past the whoreson to demand prompt surrender if we’re going to save one woman’s life.”

Perryn woke to sunlight streaming down between the trees, like golden spears of light to his dazed sight. When he sat up, he shrieked at the pulse of pain in his arm. On his knees he crawled to the stream and drank, cupping the water in his left hand, Then he realized that his horse was gone. He staggered up, took a few steps, and knew that he would never be able to walk the remaining twenty miles to the dun. Fortunately, there was no reason that he’d have to. He walked another couple of yards, then went very still, waiting, barely thinking, until he felt the odd sensation, a quivering alertness, a certain knowledge that somewhere close was, if not that horse, then another. Following its lead, he angled away, ignoring the discomfort that told him he was no longer heading straight for the dun, and worked his slow way through the trees until at last he saw the brightening light ahead that meant a mountain meadow. The pull of a horse was so strong that he forgot himself, hurried, and banged his injured arm against a tree. When he yelped aloud, he heard an answering whicker just ahead. More cautiously this time he went on and broke free of the forest into a little grassy valley, where the chestnut was grazing, the reins tangling in the grass. When Perryn staggered over, the horse raised its head and nuzzled his good arm.

“Let’s get that bridle off, my friend. If I die along the way, you’ll starve if you get those reins, wrapped around a bush or suchlike.”

Taking the bridle off with only one hand was a long agony of effort, but at last he got it done. Leaning against the gelding for support, he went through the saddlebags and found the horse’s previous owner’s spare shirt and a chunk of venison jerky. He managed to tear the shirt into strips by using his teeth and made himself a rough sling, then ate the jerky while he rode on, guiding the horse with his knees. All afternoon they rode slowly, dodging through the widely spaced trees, climbing up and down the hills, until by sunset they’d made another ten miles. When they found another meadow, he let the horse graze and envied him the grass with his stomach clenching in hunger. Although he was only intending to rest for a few moments, as soon as he sat down sleep took him.

When he woke, moonlight flooded the meadow. Nearby the chestnut stood, head down and asleep. The night was unnaturally silent. Not the cry of an owl, not the song of a cricket, nothing. As sat up, wondering at the silence, he saw something—someone—standing at the edge of the meadow. With a whispered oath, he rose, wishing for the sword he’d left behind on the battlefield. The figure took one step forward, tall, towering in the moonlight—or it moonlight? He seemed to drip pale light as palpable as water running down the strong naked arms, glittering on the gold torc around his neck, shimmering on the massive antlers that sprang from a head mostly cervine, though human eyes looked out of it. Perryn began to weep in a fierce, aching joy.

The great head swung his way. The liquid dark eyes considered him not unkindly, but merely distantly; the god raised his hands in blessing to the man who was perhaps his last true worshipper in all of Deverry. Then he vanished, leaving Perryn wrapped in a shuddering awe that wiped all his pain and exhaustion away. With tears running down his face, he went to the place where the god had appeared and knelt on the grass, now god-touched and holy. Eventually the chestnut raised its head with a drowsy nicker and broke the spell. Perryn mounted and rode on, guiding the horse instinctively through the dark forest. Although he rode for the rest of the night and on into the morning, he felt no hunger, no pain, his wound only a distant ache like a bee sting. About an hour after dawn, they came out of the trees just a mile from Nedd’s dun. He trotted up to the hill, then dismounted and led the tired horse up to the gates. He heard shouts and people running, but all at once, it was very hard to see. He concentrated on keeping his feet as Jill raced toward him.

“Cursed near. Besieged.” he fainted into a merciful darkness, where it seemed a stag came to meet him.

Between them Jill and a servant named Saebyn got Perryn up on a table in the great hall. As she soaked the blood-crusted shirt away from his wound, Jill found herself trying to remember everything Nevyn, had ever told her about herbcraft, but the memories did her little good, because she had no proper tools and precious few herbs. The only thing Saebyn could turn up for a vulnerary was rosemary from the kitchen garden. At least Nevyn had always said that any green herb was better than none. When she finally loosened the shirt from the wound, she sent Saebyn off for more hot water and some mead, then carefully peeled the crusted linen away. Her gray gnome popped into reality and hunkered down on the table for a look.

“It’s not as bad as I feared,” Jill said to him. “See? It just sliced the muscle and missed those big blood vessels in the armpit.”

With a solemn nod, the gnome tilted his head to one side and considered the unconscious man. All at once it leapt up and hissed like a cat, its skinny mouth gaping to show every fang, its arms extended and its hands curled like claws. Jill was so surprised at hearing it make a sound that she caught it barely in time when it launched itself at Perryn and tried to bite him.

“You can’t bite Lord Perryn. He’s ill already, and he’s never done anything to you, either.”

“What? Here, little brother, why don’t you come back later, and try to explain.”

It vanished just as Saebyn returned with the stableboy behind him. Jill washed the wound with water, then had Saebyn hold Perryn’s arms down and the stableboy his feet. Gritting her teeth, she poured the mead directly into the open wound. With a howl of pain, Perryn roused from his faint and twisted round. It was all the two men could do to keep him lying there.

“My apologies, my lord,” Jill said firmly. “But we’ve got to disperse the foul humors in this wound.”

For a moment he merely gasped for breath; then he turned his head to look at her.

Jill wadded up a bit of rag and made him bite on it, then washed the wound again. He trembled once, then lay so still that she thought he’d fainted again, but his eyes were open in a stubborn resistance to pain that she had to admire. Mercifully, the worst was over. She made a poultice of the rosemary leaves, laid it in the wound, then bound it up with clean linen.

“You can’t. You could bleed to death if you try. Tell me the message, and I’ll take it on.”

“Ride to my uncle. Tell him Nedd’s trapped in Graemyn’s dun.” His voice fell into a whisper. “Your Rhodry was still alive, last I saw of him.”

“My thanks.” Although she nearly broke, she forced her voice steady. “I’ll pray that he still is.”

While Saebyn told her who Benoic was and what road to take to Pren Cludan, Jill cut one of the embroidered wolves from Perryn’s bloody shirt to take as a token. When she rode out, she took two horses. By switching her weight back and forth, she would be able to ride at close to a courier’s speed. As soon as she was well away from the dun, she called to her gnome, which promptly appeared on the saddle peak.

It nodded yes, patted her hand, then disappeared. Out on the road, where no one could see her, Jill allowed herself to cry.

A little after dawn on the next day Rhodry climbed the ramparts and looked out over the dun wall. In the misty morning the enemy camp was coming awake; cooking fires blossomed among the dirty canvas tents, and men strolled around, yawning as they tended their horses. Just beyond the camp was the beginning of a circle of earthworks, about twenty feet, so far, of packed mound edged with a ditch that would soon close them round and block any attempts at escape. It was also an unnecessary effort on Naddryc’s part. The decision had been made. Soon the lords would surrender and hang to spare the women and children. All that Rhodry wanted was for it to be very soon to end the waiting. When he was fourteen years old, he’d begun learning how to live prepared to die; at twenty-three, he was a master at that part of the warrior’s craft. Now the day was upon him, but his Wyrd would come at the end of a rope.

To die by hanging, to be thrown into a ditch with a hundred men who’d met the same priest-cursed end, to lie far from Eldidd, unmarked, unmourned, nothing but a silver dagger who’d had the ill luck to take the wrong hire—that was his Wyrd, was it? Rhodry his head in sheer disbelief, that all his berserk battle glory, strange dweomer prophecies and magical battles had led him to this, a thing so numbing that he felt no fear and very little grief, only a dark hiraedd that he’d never see Jill again. What if he’d only ridden east instead of west and been hired by Naddryc instead of Nedd? That would have been worse, he decided, to be party to this dishonorable scheme. He would die and Naddryc live, but at least he would have his honor, while the lord had thrown his away for hatred’s sake.

Rhodry was so wrapped in his brooding that when something tweaked his sleeve, he spun around, his sword out of its scabbard before he was aware of drawing. Jill’s gray gnome stood on the rampart, grinning at him while it jigged up and down in excitement. Rhodry felt a flare of hope. If only he could make the little creature understand, if only it could tell Jill—but what was she supposed to do then? Run to some great lord and say that the Wildfolk had told her the tale? The hope died again.

“It’s cursed good to see you, little brother, but do you realize what kind of evil has befallen me?”

Much to his surprise it nodded yes, then held up one long finger as a sign, to pay attention. Suddenly there were Wildfolk all around it, little blue sprites, fat yellow gnomes, strange gray fellows, and parti-colored ugly little lasses. Never had Rhodry seen so many, a vast crowd, along the rampart.

When the gray gnome snapped his fingers, the Wildfolk lined up in pairs, then began to bob up and down with a rhythmic motion, each with one hand held out before it. The gray gnome stood at the head of the line with one hand out like the others, but the left raised as if holding a sword. Rhodry finally understood.

“An army! Oh, by great Bel himself, do you mean that someone’s riding to relieve this siege?”

The gnome leapt up and danced, while it nodded yes. With a rushy sound, the rest of the pack disappeared. When Rhodry’s eyes filled with tears he wiped them away, swallowing hard before he could speak.

This time the answer was no. The gnome sucked one finger for a moment, then began to walk back, and forth, while it imitated a stiff, clumsy, bowlegged gait.

Although the gnome nodded yes, its expression was peculiarly sour. It shrugged, as if dismissing something, then leapt to Rhodry’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek before it vanished. Rhodry tossed his head back and laughed—until it occurred to that now he had to convince the noble lords that rescue was on the way, that there was no need to surrender, without, of course, mentioning the Wildfolk.

All morning, while he watched the mounted patrols ride round and round the dun, he went over and over the problem, trying out phrases, rejecting them, trying some more. Eventually Lord Nedd climbed awkwardly up the ladder onto the catwalk and limped over.

“Just thought I’d have a look at the bastards.” Nedd leaned onto the wall and stared down, his red hair oddly dull in the sunlight, as if he were ill. “Ah well, at least we’ll hang soon and get it over with.”

“At least I don’t have a widow to mourn me.” The lord went on as if he hadn’t heard Rhodry’s tentative words. “By the Lord of Hell’s balls, I’d always wanted my land to revert to Perryn if I died, and now he’s died before me.”

Nedd was close to tears over his cousin’s death, a surprising thing to Rhodry, who considered him no great loss. Or had considered him lost, until just a few hours ago.

“Oh, indeed! What if a crow sang like a little finch, too? Perryn wasn’t much of a swordsman, silver dagger, and Naddryc’s bastards were slaughtering the wounded after the battle.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nedd snarled. “Why mourn poor Perryn? He’s better off dead.”

“My apologies. I forget you didn’t know him well. By the asses of the gods, I got so blasted sick of all the chatter. What’s wrong with your wretched cousin, how can you stand him in your dun, he’s daft, he’s a half-wit, he’s this or he’s that. He wasn’t daft at all, by the hells! A little . . . well, eccentric, maybe, but not daft.” He sighed heavily. “Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ll see him in the Otherlands tomorrow morn.”

Nedd looked at him as if he were thinking that Rhodry was daft. Here was the crux, and Rhodry steadied himself with a breath before he went on.

“My lord, you must have heard the old saw, that Eldidd men often have a touch of the second sight? It’s true, and I’ll swear to you that I know deep in my heart that Perryn’s alive, and that he’s bringing an army back to relieve the siege.”

“Look at me, a misbegotten silver dagger. I’ve been in more battles and tavern brawls than most men even hear of. I’ve faced hanging before, too, for that matter. Am I the kind of man to turn to fancies because he can’t face death? Didn’t you praise me for my courage on the field?”

“So I did.” The lord looked away, thinking. “I’ve seen you go berserk, too. Why wouldn’t you have a touch of the sight as well, for all I know? But—”

“I know it sounds daft, but I beg you, believe me. I know it’s true. It comes to me in dreams, like. I know there’s a relieving army on the way.”

“But who—oh ye gods, my uncle!” Suddenly Nedd grinned. “Of course Perryn would ride straight to Benoic—well, if he’s truly alive.”

“And that’s the holiest oath a man, like you can swear. Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell, what does it matter if we hang tomorrow or in an eight night, anyway? Come along, silver dagger. We’ve got to convince my allies of this, but I’ll wager they’ll grab at any shred of hope they can see.”

Four days after she left Nedd’s dun, Jill rode back with an army of two hundred twenty men, every last rider that Tieryn Benoic could scrape up, whether by calling in old alliances or by outright threats. As the warband filed into the ward, Saebyn ran out, clutched the tieryn’s stirrup as a sign of fealty, and began telling the lord everything that Perryn had told him, over the past few days. Jill threw her reins to the stableboy and hurried into the great hall, where Perryn lay propped up on Nedd’s bed with a pair of boarhounds on either side of him and, three of those sleek little hounds known as gwertraeion at his feet. She shoved a dog to one side and perched on the edge of the bed to look over her patient, whose eyes were clear and alert, and his cheeks unfevered.

“It is. You must have brought my uncle with you from, all the noise outside. I knew he’d come. If he didn’t have me and Nedd to complain about, his life would be cursed dull.”

At that, Benoic himself strode in, slapping his pair of gauntlets impatiently against his thigh.

“You dolt, Perro! And Nedd’s twice a dolt! But Naddryc’s a whoreson bastard, having the gall to besiege my kin. Well and good, we’ll wipe him off the battlefield for it. Are you riding with us?”’

“Now wait a moment, my lord,” Jill broke in. “If you ride, that cut could start bleeding again.”

“Let it. I’ve got to go with them. I can lead the army through the forest, you see. We’ll save twenty miles and a night that way.”

“Splendid,” Benoic said. “Glad to see you’re finally showing some spirit, lad. Don’t worry, Jill. We’ll have your man out of that worm-riddled dun as fast as ever we can.”

“Your Grace is most honorable and gracious. If I were a bard I’d praise your name for this.”

With a small bow she retired and left them alone. Out in the ward a pair of Benoic’s vassals were conferring with their captains while the men unsaddled and tethered their horses outside for want of room in the stables. She went out the gates and walked about halfway down the hill, then sat down where she could be alone and called to the gray gnome, who appeared promptly.

It nodded yes, then hunkered down in front of her and began picking its teeth with one fingernail.

It paused to screw its face up in irritation, then went on picking until it’d finally gotten its fangs clean enough to suit it.

“Come on now, little brother. You could at least tell me why. Or is it too hard to explain?”

Frowning in concentration, the gnome waggled its hands as if to say: not exactly that, either.

It smiled, pressed its hands to its temples as if it had a headache, then disappeared. Jill supposed that she’d never find out the reason, but as long as the gnome behaved itself and didn’t pinch the lord or tie knots in his hair, it didn’t particularly matter at the moment, not when she had Rhodry’s safety to worry about. She decided that she couldn’t bear to sit here in Nedd’s moldering dun and wait for news.

Since she had a mail shirt and a shield of her own, on the morrow Jill rose and armed when the warband did. Once the army was mustered outside the gates, she led her horse into line at the very rear. Since these men had been hastily assembled from Benoic’s various allies and vassals, everyone who noticed her at all seemed to assume that she was a silver dagger hired by some other lord. All that counted to them, truly, was that she was another sword.

By keeping strictly to herself and speaking to no one, Jill escaped discovery all that day, because Perryn led the army off the road into the forest on a track so narrow that they had to ride single file. All day they wound around hills and through the trees by such confusing paths that she prayed Perryn actually knew what he was doing. She also understood why all the provisions were on pack mules, not in carts; apparently Benoic knew his nephew’s daft ways very well. That night, however, they made camp in a mountain meadow, and there Jill was caught out. Like the excellent commander he was, Benoic made a point of walking through the camp and speaking to his men personally. When he came to Jill, he stared for a moment, then, roared with laughter.

“Have all my men gone blind? Mail or no, Jill, you don’t look like a lad to me. What are you doing with the army?”

“Well, Your Grace, my man’s all I have in the world. I’ve got to see him with my own eyes as soon as ever I can.”

“Huh. Well, we can’t be sending you back. now. You’d only get lost trying to follow Perm’s wretched deer trails. You’d best come camp with me. You can keep your eye on Perryn’s wound, and everyone will know you’re under my protection.”

When Jill shifted her gear over to the tieryn’s campfire, she found Perryn there, slumped against his saddle. Although he was pale with exhaustion, he looked up and smiled at her.

“Oh, er ah, just rather thought you were that sort of lass. I hope Rhodry’s worthy of you.”

Nodding absently, he stared into the fire. She was struck by how he looked, a perpetual melancholy that was beginning to wear lines a face too young to have them, rather as if he were in exile from some far country rather than among his kin. A puzzle, that one, she thought to herself.

On the morrow, Jill saw yet another puzzling thing about the lord. Since she was riding right behind him, she could watch how he managed his leading. When they came to a spot where two trails joined or one petered out, he would wave the army to a halt, then ride a few steps ahead to sit on his horse and stare blankly around him, his head tilted as if sniffing the wind. For a moment he would look profoundly uncomfortable, then suddenly smile and lead the men on with perfect confidence. She was also impressed with his riding. Most of the time he left the reins wrapped around the saddle peak and guided the horse with his knees, while he swayed in a perfect balance in spite of having one arm in a sling. On horseback he looked much more graceful, as if his peculiar proportions had been designed to make him and a horse fit together in an artistic whole.

About two hours before sunset, Perryn found the army a large meadow in which to camp and announced that they were a scant six miles from Graemyn’s dun. After the horses were tended, Jill put a clean bandage on Perryn’s wound, which was oozing blood and lymph, and tied up his sling again. Although he pleaded that he was too weary to eat, she badgered him into downing some cheese.

“We’ll reach the dun tomorrow,” he remarked. “I can rest then, after the battle, I mean.”

“Now listen, my lord. You can’t fight. Trying to swing a sword would open that wound up again.”

“Oh, don’t trouble your heart about that. I’ll just trot around the edge of things. See what I can see.”

“Oh, er, ah, well, I heard my uncle talking with the other lords, they’re thinking of riding right into battle.” He looked sincerely distressed. “There’s bound to be wounded horses, and maybe I can get them to safety.”

“So do I,” she said instead. “You seem to honor your cousin highly, my lord.”

“I don’t, because he’s not truly honorable. But I love him. We were pages together in Benoic’s dun. I think I would have gone mad if it weren’t for Nedd.”

As she waited for him to finish, Jill wondered if Nedd’s efforts to keep him sane had all gone for naught. Finally he got up and went to his blankets without another word.

“As certain as the sun is shining,” Rhodry said. “Your Grace, I know it sounds daft, but I swear to you that the relief army’s close by. We’d best be ready to arm and sally. If they don’t come, then Your Grace will know I’m daft, and we can all surrender and be done with it.”

For a long moment Graemyn considered him with an expression that wavered between doubt and awe. Perched on Rhodry’s shoulder, the gray gnome squirmed impatiently until at last the tieryn nodded his agreement.

“True enough, silver dagger.” He turned to his captain. “Have the men arm. One way or another, today sees the end of this.”

The warband drew up behind the gates; watchmen climbed to the ramparts. As the waiting dragged on in the hot sun, the men ended up sitting down on the cobbles. No one spoke; every now and then someone would look Rhodry’s way with a puzzled frown, as if thinking they were daft to trust this silver dagger’s words. All at once, a watchman yelled with a whoop of joy.

“Horsemen coming out of the forest! I see the Wolf blazon! It’s Benoic, by the gods!”

Laughing, cheering, the men leapt to their feet. Nedd threw an arm around Rhodry’s shoulders and hugged him; half a dozen men slapped him on the back. At the tieryn’s order, two servants lifted down the latch beam at the gates and rushed to man the winches. From outside, the battle noise broke over them; men yelling, horns blowing, horses neighing in panic, and through it all was the strike of sword on shield and mail. Rhodry started to laugh, a little cold mutter under his breath; he felt so light on his feet that it seemed he hovered over the cobbles.

With a groan and creak the gates swung back. Screaming and jostling, the warband rushed out, just as when leaves and sticks dam a stream, which worries at them, nudges them, and at last breaks free in a churn of white water. Down the hill, the enemy camp was a screaming, shoving, bloody madness. Half of Naddryc’s men had had no time to arm; those wearing mail were trying to hold the breach in the earthworks against a full cavalry charge, and they were doing it with swords, not pikes. Horses went down; others screamed and reared; but for every horse lost, three or four of the enemy were trampled. All at once the cry went up: the sally to our rear! the sally to our rear! Rhodry’s laugh rose like a wail as the horsemen drove through. The defenders broke, swirling and running to face the new threat as Graemyn led his men downhill.

A burly man with mail but no helm was racing across the battlefield in retreat, the silver edging on his shield winking in the sunlight. At an angle Rhodry went after him, his laugh gone as he thought only of running, and soon he’d left the wounded Nedd behind. Naddryc was slowing, panting, gasping for breath. Then he stumbled, and Rhodry dodged round to cut him off. For a moment they merely stared at each other, panting while they got their breath back, Naddryc’s mouth working under his blond mustache.

“So,” Rhodry said. “Here’s the man who was going to kill women and children.”

Then the cold, mad chuckle took over his voice. As he lunged, Naddryc dodged back, flinging up his sword and shield. He parried gracefully, his shield a little high to protect his bare head, and made a quick thrust that Rhodry easily turned aside. Suddenly light flared in a drift of black smoke; someone had fired the tents. Rhodry feinted in from the side, then struck; Naddryc parried barely in time, jumped back, and began to circle. As Rhodry swung to face him, the murk reached them, smoke, dust, thicker than a sea fog. They both checked, coughing for a moment, but the smell of burning drove Rhodry mad.

With a choking, gasping howl he charged, as wild as an injured lion, striking, parrying, cursing, and coughing while Naddryc desperately tried to fend him off, rarely getting in a blow of his own as he parried with both sword and shield. Yet even in his madness Rhodry saw that the lord was tiring. He feinted to the side again, dodged fast to the other, and then back as. Naddryc tried to follow—too slowly. Rhodry’s blow caught him hard on the side of the neck. With a ghastly bubbling scream he fell to his knees, then buckled as his life’s blood pumped out the artery.

Rhodry’s berserker fit left him, dropped away like a wind-caught cloak, but he was possessed by an even madder panic. Somewhere Jill was lying dead or wounded, somewhere in the burning. He knew it, even as he knew that he was being irrational. He heard Nedd yell his name, but he turned and ran toward the blazing tents in the same blind way that he’d charged Naddryc. All at once he heard hoofbeats and saw a horse emerging from the murk. Even flecked with soot, Sunrise’s pale gold coat still shone.

“Rhoddo!” Jill yelled. “Get up behind me! Naddryc’s horses are about to stampede.”

Rhodry sheathed his sword and swung up behind her. He was barely settled when she kicked Sunrise to a trot.

“Rescuing you. I could hear you laughing and rode straight for the sound. Look behind us. Are they coming?”

When he glanced back, he could, see little in the smoke and dust, but he did make out an orderly procession of horselike objects moving away from the burning camp.

“It must be Epona herself, then. When I rode by a few minutes, ago, they were screaming and puling at their tethers.”’

She paused the horse and turned in the saddle to give him a puzzled look. He grabbed her and kissed her, remembered his irrational panic, and kissed her again. With a laugh she pushed him away.

“You’re breaking my neck, twisted around like this. Wait til we’re alone, my love.”

At that Rhodry remembered that they were in the middle of a battle, but as he looked around, somewhat dazed as he always was when the fit left him, he realized that the fighting was over. Naddryc been so outnumbered that most of his men had been slaughtered and the fortunate few remaining taken prisoner. As they dismounted and walked on, leading the horse over the uncertain ground, he saw Nedd talking to Graemyn over Naddryc’s corpse.

“Come here, silver dagger.” Nedd hailed him with a shout. “Your Grace, this is the man who killed this bastard.”

“You’ll be well rewarded for this, silver dagger,” Graemyn said. “Indeed, well rewarded for everything you’ve done for me.”

The tieryn knelt beside the corpse, then took his sword two-handed and severed Naddryc’s neck in one swift blow. Rhodry’s stomach churned; it was an impious thing that he was seeing. Graemyn grabbed the head by the hair and stood up, looking at every man nearby as if challenging them to say one wrong word, then strode away, the head dangling in his hand. Even though the priests had long since banned the taking of trophy heads with mighty curses, the sight of Graemyn with his enemy’s head touched something deep in Rhodry, as one string of a harp will sound when another is plucked. Although Jill and Nedd were watching the tieryn in honest revulsion, he felt a certain dark satisfaction.

“Well,” Nedd considered this briefly. “He had provocation, sure enough.”

Before he went back to the dun, Rhodry knelt beside the headless corpse and methodically looted it of every small and valuable thing, coin, ring brooch, a gold-trimmed scabbard, and a silver belt buckle. This hire had drawn to an end, and a silver dagger had to think of eating on the long road.

When the fire broke out in the tents, Perryn was riding around the edge of the actual battle rounding up wounded horses and leading them to safety outside the earthworks. The meaning of the spread of smoke didn’t quite register on him until the chestnut he was riding snorted nervously and danced. Then he remembered Naddryc’s horses, tethered behind the tents. With an oath he turned the chestnut and galloped straight for the camp. At first the horse balked, but Perryn talked to him, patted him, soothed him til at last he picked up courage and allowed himself to be ridden near to the fire.

Between the burning and the earthwork, horses were rearing, screaming with that ugly half-human sound a horse makes only in terror, kicking out at the grooms trying to save them as they pulled desperately at their tether ropes. Perryn wrapped his reins around the saddle peak and guided the chestnut with his knees as he rode right into the panic. Although the chestnut trembled and threatened now and then to buck, he kept moving as Perryn talked, pouring out the words, smiling his special smile, reaching out with his one good hand, patting a horse here, slapping one there, as if he were the stallion of a herd, who asserts his control with nips and kicks as much as affectionate nuzzles. The panic began to ebb. Although the horses were dancing and sweating with gray fear-foam, they fell in behind and around him in the swirling smoke. At last the grooms cut the last tether.

With a wave and a yell, Perryn led the herd forward at a calm jog. Circling around the inner earthwork, they swept free of the burning camp just as a rain of sparks and glowing bits of canvas began to fall. Perryn called out wordlessly, and they galloped out of the breach to the safety of the meadow beyond. When he looked back, he could barely see the dun, rising half hidden in the murk. With the horses huddled around him, he waited for a good half hour until the smoke diminished to a few wisps. As he was leading the herd back, Nedd came out on horseback to meet him.

“I was looking for you,” Nedd said. “I figured that you were the only man on earth who could have saved Naddryc’s horses.”

“Er, well.” Perryn said at last. “Did you think me slain in that first scrap?”

Leaning from their saddles, they clasped hands, and they were both grinning as if they could never stop.

Back at the dun, the cousins turned the horses over to the servants, then went into the great hail, where a conference of sorts was in progress at the table of honor. While the lesser lords and allies merely listened, Benoic and Graemyn were arguing, both red-faced and shouting.

“Now listen here!” Benoic bellowed “You’ve made it cursed hard for Naddryc’s brother to settle this peacefully. What’s he going to when he gets his brother’s body back in two pieces?”

“Anything he blasted well wants to say! What’s he going to fight me with? Ghost riders from the Otherlands?”

“And what about Naddryc’s allies? Were their mothers all so barren that they only had one son apiece? Don’t they have uncles to ride to their nephew’s vengeance?”

“If you want this thing over and done with,” Benoic went on in a normal tone, “you’d best send messengers down to Dun Deverry straightaway to plead for the high king’s intervention. If you do, I’ll back you in this war, for my misbegotten nephew’s sake if naught else. If you don’t, I’m pulling my men and Nedd’s out right now.”

Benoic had always had a splendid talent for blackmail. “Done, then,” Graemyn said. “I’ll get the messengers on the road today.”

With a nod of satisfaction, Benoic rose and gestured for Nedd and Perryn to follow.

“Come along, lads. We’ve got wounded men to look in on and that silver dagger deserves some praise. He’s the one who slew Naddryc, eh? Hah! Just what the bastard deserved—cut down by a wretched silver dagger.”

Although his head was swimming with exhaustion, Perryn went along with them because he was afraid to tell his uncle how weak he felt. They found Rhodry standing by the door and drinking ale down like water while Jill smiled at him as if she were thinking he’d won the battle all by himself. Perryn sighed at the cruel injustice, that she would honestly love her arrogant berserker. He found her appealing, a lovely lass, half wild and wandering, with her golden horse that suited her so well, but she was also attached to the best swordsman he’d ever seen. Although he hated to admit it, Perryn was terrified of Rhodry.

“Well, silver dagger,” Benoic said, “you’ve earned your hire twice over. You always hear about people with the second sight seeing deaths, or shipwrecks, that sort of evil thing, but your touch of it has come in cursed handy.”

Although the others laughed at the jest, it made Perryn’s unease deepen. There was something odd about the silver dagger that he couldn’t put into words but that pricked at him, a discomfort much like the one that warned him he was straying from a true path. Rhodry was more than a danger to him; he was a reproach or part of a curse, or—something. Perryn felt so baffled that he shook his head, a gesture that was a mistake. All at once the room seemed to spin around him, and a crackling golden fog rose out of nowhere. He heard Nedd call out, then fainted. Although he woke briefly when Nedd and Benoic laid him on a bed, he was asleep before they left the chamber. All that day he slept, and he dreamt of Jill.

On the morrow, every unwounded man in the dun rode out with the noble-born, ostensibly in honorable escort as they returned the bodies of Naddryc and his allies, but in reality as a warband in case Naddryc’s kin decided to continue the blood feud. Jill spent a long morning helping Graemyn’s wife, Camma, tend the wounded, a job that usually fell to the wives of Cerrgonney lords for want of enough chirurgeons in the province. When noon came, they were both glad of the chance for a wash and the time to sit down over a light meal of bread and cheese.

“So you must have, following your silver dagger around like this. He’s certainly a handsome man, isn’t he? I can see how he’d turn the head of a young lass, I truly do, but do you ever regret riding with him? You must have left a great deal behind for your Rhodry.”

“I didn’t, my lady. All I’ve ever known in my life is poverty. Rhodry has never let me starve, and well, that’s good enough for me.”

Camma stared, caught her rudeness, then gave Jill a small smile of apology. Jill decided that it was time to change the subject.

“Lord Perryn’s wound seems to be healing well. I’m awfully glad. After all, Rhodry owes his life to him.”

“So do we all.” For a moment Gamma’s face turned haggard. “Well, his clan breeds stubborn men, the stubbornest in all Cerrgonney, I swear, and that’s saying a great deal.”

“I do. His aunt and mother are both cousins of mine, or I should say, his mother was, poor lamb. She died some years ago, you see, but Perryn’s Aunt Gwerna and I often meet. Gwerna had the raising of him, truly. He was the last of seven children, you see, and his mother was never truly well again after his birth. She had a hard time carrying him, some bleeding and bad pains, and then he as in her womb only seven months, not nine.”

“So were Gwerna and I. He was such a scrawny little thing, but healthier than any other early babe I’ve ever seen. Since his mother was so ill, Gwerna found a wet nurse, and she made the lass carry Perro in a kind of sling right against her breasts and under her dresses day and night for the warmth, you see, and the lass sat by the fire all day and slept by it at night, too. I think that’s what saved him, constantly being kept warm for a couple of months.” She paused, considering. “Maybe it was his hard start in life that made him so odd, the poor lad. Gwerna always called him the changeling. He made you think of all those old tales where the Wildfolk steal a human babe and leave one of their own in its stead.”

Jill felt an odd wondering whether, if in Perryn’s case, the old superstition might be true, but the gray gnome materialized on the table and gave Camma such a nasty sneer that it seemed to be heaping scorn on the very thought. It sat down by the trencher of cheese and rested its chin on its hands to listen as Camma went on.

“It’s naughty of me to be telling tales on him, now that he’s a man and grown, but if you’d seen him, you’d understand, Jill. Such a skinny little lad, and that red hair of his was always like a thrush’s nest, no matter how much Gwerna combed it.” Camma smiled, taking a sincere pleasure in these memories of better times. “And he was always out in the hills or the woods, every chance he got. He used to sob every autumn when the snows came, because he’d have to stay indoors for months. And then, there was the time he ran away. He couldn’t have been more than eight. Graemyn and I rode to pay Gwerna and Benoic a visit, and one day Perryn got caught stealing honey cake from the kitchen. Well, every lad does that now and again, but Benoic got into one of his tempers. He was going to beat the lad, but little Nedd begged and begged his uncle to spare him, so Benoic relented. Well, the next morning, there was no sign of Perryn. Gwerna had every man in the dun seeching for him, but the whole two weeks we were there, no one ever found him, and Gwerna was in tears, sure he was starved or drowned. I thought so myself. But then, when it was almost winter, Gwerna sent me a message. When the snows came, Perryn turned up at the gates, dirty and tattered, but well fed. He’d lived in the hills on his own for three months.”

“Well, he’d heard everyone calling him the changeling, and so he got it into his head that he should go live with the Wildfolk where he belonged. But I never found any, he says, the poor little lad. Poor Gwerna, she wept over that, and even Benoic stopped being so hard on him—well, for a while, anyway.”

Jill would have liked to hear more, but the object of these reminiscences came strolling over to the table. The gnome snarled at him, then disappeared.

“Perro, you should be in your bed,” Gamma said. ”One of the servants can bring you a meal.”

Cradling his sling-supported arm Perryn sat down across the table from Jill. Under his eyes were dark shadows like smears of soot.

“I’ll never mend shut up like a hog in a pen. I want to go out to the woods, sit out there for a while.”

Coupled with Gamma’s tale, his request made an odd sort of sense. Out of duty to the man who’d saved Rhodry’s life, Jill saddled up his gray gelding, helped him mount, then led the horse out of the dun. Out in the fields, only part of the earthwork still stood; the day before, Benoic’s men had dumped the bodies of the slain into the ditch and filled it in, with the mound above. They walked beyond this grim scar on the earth to the edge of the forest and found a spot among the scattered pines, where the ground was cushioned with needles, and the sunlight, came down in, shafts. With a sigh of pleasure, Perryn sat down, his back to a tree. He actually did seem stronger now that he was outside, with color in his face and life in his eyes.

“You don’t, at that. I made that ride for Nedd’s sake and my own. What was I to do? Lie there and let them kill me? I wasn’t even thinking of Rhodry, so there’s no need for thanks.”

“I’ve never known anyone who thinks like you. You’re as scrupulous as a priest.”

“Everyone says that. I wanted to be a priest, you know. My uncle got into a temper over it, and my father just laughed.”

“Well, I can’t see Benoic allowing one of his kinsmen to serve Bel instead of the sword.”

“Oh, not Bel. I wanted to be a priest of Kerun, but I couldn’t even find a temple of his.”

Jill was quite surprised. She knew little of Kerun’s worship, except that he was one of the dark gods of the Dawntime who had been displaced as the temples of Bel and Nudd grew in power. The stag god was lord of the hunt, while Bel presided over the settled life of the growing grain. Vaguely she remembered that you were supposed to give the first deer taken in a new year to Kerun, but she doubted if anyone bothered anymore.

“Oh, truly, but Kerun’s the only one who . . . oh, er, ah, well, who seemed to suit me, I suppose I mean.” He thought for a long moment “Or, er, I should say, he’s the only god that I’m suited for. Or somewhat like that I’ve always felt that if I prayed to the others, they’d take it as an affront.”

“What? Oh, come now, don’t be so harsh with yourself. The Goddess of the Moon is mother of us all, and she and the Three Mothers will listen to anyone’s prayer.”

Although Jill supposed that this statement bordered on blasphemy, she neither knew nor cared enough about the worship of the gods to refute it

“It’s not that I like being this way, mind,” Perryn went on. “It’s just that I know it in my heart. Kerun’s the only god who’ll have me. I would have liked being his priest, living out in the wilderness somewhere and doing whatever his rites are. I couldn’t even find anyone who knew much about that, you see.”

“Well, here, maybe you should go to Dun Deverry. I’ve been told there are ancient temples there where the priests know everything there is to know. I’ll wager there’s a book or suchlike, and you could maybe hire someone to read it to you.”

“Now there’s a thought!” He smiled at her. “You’re actually taking me seriously, aren’t you?”

“Of course. My father always said that if a man wants to be a priest, the gods will favor those who help him.”

“Your father sounds like a splendid fellow. But it’s just that no one ever takes me seriously, not even Nedd. I mean, he cares about me and defends me and suchlike, but he thinks I’m daft, you see, even though he won’t admit he does.”

“Truly. I’ll be honest with you. I think you’re a truly eccentric man, but I’ve met stranger fellows than you along the long road. Compared to some of them—why, you’re perfectly ordinary.”

With a toss of his head, he laughed. She was surprised at his laughter, deep, smooth, genuinely humorous, and realized that she’d been expecting it would be as halting and strange as his way of speaking.

“Well, then, maybe I should ride to Dun Deverry and see more of the world,” he said at last. “I could scrape up some coin from my brothers. They’d probably give me a bit, you see, just to be rid of me for a while. My thanks, Jill. I never thought of that. I hate cities, and it never occurred to me that there’d be anything worth having in one.”

“Well, I like them myself. They stink, but there’s always so much to see among the smells.”

He smiled, watching her so warmly that she went on her guard, mindful that they were alone and hidden. Since she could have bested him easily in any sort of fight, she wasn’t afraid of him, but she refused to give him the slightest encouragement that might cause trouble with Rhodry. She had no desire to see poor Perryn dead at the hands of her jealous man. Aware that her mood had changed, he sighed and looked away.

“Oh, er, ah, well, I might have made a good priest. I’m certainly not much of a warrior.”

He nodded absently. She waited for him to go on and waited and waited, until in some twenty minutes she realized that he was capable of sitting silently for hours. Although she felt no interest in him as a man, as a puzzle he was fascinating.

That night, the army made camp about twenty miles north and east of Graemyn’s dun, on the very spot of land that was the cause of the war, where they would remain while a messenger went ahead to Naddryc’s brother. Since the weather was warm, the cart containing the noble remains was stowed a good bit downwind of the camp itself. As Nedd remarked to Rhodry, it was possible that Aegwyc wouldn’t even unwrap his brother’s corpse to see how it had been mutilated.

“So we can hope, my lord,” Rhodry said. “How far away is it to Lord Aegwyc’s dun?”

Together they walked back to the camp, sprawled over a meadow. Although the dust was thickening to a velvet gray, Rhodry, of course, could see quite well with his half-elven eyesight. As they passed a clump of scrubby bushes, he saw something move within it and stopped for a better look, as it was unlikely that a rabbit or other animal would come this close to so many human beings. Cowering among the twisted trunks was one of the Wildfoik, but he’d never seen one like it: a blackish, deformed gnome with long fangs, bulging eyes, and red claws. For a moment it stared at him in terror, then vanished.

“Naught, my lord. It just looked like . . . oh, like someone had dropped a bit of gear in there, but it was only a rock.”

Later, as they sat by the campfire, Rhodry had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, but although he looked carefully around him, he never caught either man or spirit looking his way.

“Using the Wildfolk to spy could be cursed dangerous,” said the man who was calling himself Gwin.

“I know that, but there’s naught else I can do until I get a look at Rhodry in the flesh.” His companion looked up from the scrying mirror, laid out on a square of black velvet on the table in front of him. “At least he’s got out of that siege. That stinking little feud could have been the ruin of all our plans.”

Gwin merely nodded, well aware how close they’d come to losing their prey to a warrior’s Wyrd. The man who was using the name Merryc carefully wrapped up the mirror and put it back into the secret pocket of his saddlebags. Although they were both Bardek men, they’d been chosen for this hunt because there was Deverry blood in their families. Both had straight, dark brown hair and skin light enough to go unremarked in the kingdom, especially in the northern provinces, where men of their homeland were rarely seen. Gwin’s mother, in fact, had been a Deverry girl, sold by her impoverished clan to a Bardek merchant as a concubine. As he vaguely remembered, his father had been fairly pale by Bardek standards, too, but then he’d only seen the man a handful of times before they’d sold him off as an unwanted slave child at the age of four. He knew nothing about Merryc’s background nor in fact, his true name. Men who were chosen for the Hawks of the Brotherhood kept their own secrets and allowed others theirs.

“I do,” Merryc said, buckling the saddlebag. “It’s not far. I think it’ll be perfectly safe for us to ride by on the morrow. We can stop and gawk at the army for a few minutes. No one will think much of it. What traveler wouldn’t stop and stare at the doings of the noble-born?”

“We watch. Naught more. Remember that well. All we do is watch from a distance until Rhodry and the lass are out on the road alone. Then we can summon the others and make our move.”

“Well and good, then, but there’s somewhat about this plan that vexes me. It’s too complex, all twisted, like a bit of those interlaced decorations they favor here.”’

“Well, and I have to admit I feel the same, but who are we to argue with our officers?”

Gwin felt a sudden shudder of fear, as if by saying the ordinary phrase “nev yn” he might have summoned Nevyn into their inn chamber like a demon, rising at the very sound of its name. Then he brushed the irrational thought aside. It was only a symptom of his unease with the convoluted scheme which his superiors in the blood guild had laid upon them. It was all very well for them, safely back in the islands, to talk of kidnapping Rhodry unharmed without attracting the attention of the dweomer of light.

“Has anyone told you, what we’re supposed to do about that lass of his?” Merryc said.

“They have. Kill her. If there’s time, we’re allowed to have a bit of sport with her first.”’

“But only if it’s safe. She’s not important at all to whatever the point of all, this is, or so I was told. She just needs, to be gotten out of the way.”’

Merryc nodded, considering this new bit of information. They were both too low in, the Hawks’ guild to have been given more than what they absolutely needed to know. Although he accepted his ignorance as part of the discipline, privately Gwin wondered just what the blood guilds intended to do with Rhodry once they had him safely back in Bardek. Naught that was pleasant, no doubt, but that was no affair of his. In fact, neither he nor Merryc had any idea of who had hired their guild and sent them on this errand. The blood guilds took work from whoever could pay their high price, and there were men in Deverry as well as Bardek who knew it.

On the morrow they rode out of Bobyr, the village in which they’d been staying, and headed northeast. Some two hours after noon, they came to a wide meadow and the army camp, a sprawl of tents thirty feet off the road, with the horses grazing beyond them. Although most of the men were sitting on the ground, most of them dicing, there were guards spaced at regular intervals around the encampment.

In a moment they had worse things to worry about than where Rhodry might be. As they walked their horses slowly along, stopping now and then to stare in feigned amazement, they heard someone yell in the camp. A mounted squad of ten galloped out from behind the tents, split into two, and surrounded them before they could think of running. Trying to escape, in any case, would have been a mistake. The leader of the squad, a gray-haired man in the plaid brigga of the noble-born, guided his horse up to them.

“No need for trouble, lads,” he said. “I just want to know who you are, and who you ride for.”

“My name’s Gwin, and this is Merryc, my lord, and we don’t ride for any noble lord. We work for the merchant guild down in Lyn Ebon, mostly as caravan guards, but they sent us up here with letters and suchlike for the new guild in Dun Pyr.”

“Got some proof of that, lad? There’s a war on, and for all I know, you’re spies.”

Gwin reached into his shirt and pulled off a thin chain with a stolen seal ring of the guild in question. The lord examined it, grunted in approval, and handed it back.

“My apologies, then. Ride on, but be careful on the road. Most like, you won’t meet any trouble, but it pays a man to keep his eyes open.”

The lord waved his arm, the squad parted and let them through, directly by a man who had to be Rhodry from his description. Luck and twice luck, Gwin thought, but he let nothing show on his face but a careful indifference as he casually glanced the silver dagger’s way. With the same indifference, Rhodry looked back, then turned his horse and followed the squad back to camp. Neither Gwin nor Merryc spoke until they had gone another mile or so; then Merryc laughed, a dark chuckle under his breath.

“Well and good, then. I won’t need to be ordering the Wildfolk about from now on.”

“They haven’t. I talked to Briddyn through the fire last night, and they’re still too far south. They won’t need to do their own scrying, anyway, unless somewhat happens to me.”

“Arrogant, aren’t you?” Merryc turned in the saddle and smiled at him. “But I won’t deny that you’re the best swordsman in the Brotherhood. Let’s hope you can best Rhodry if things come to that.”

During the first days after the army rode out, while the dun waited tensely for news, Jill spent a fair amount of time with Perryn, usually out in the woods. The cure, if such it was, of sun and open air was doing him far more good than bed rest. Soon the dark circles were gone, and he could spend a whole day awake. Yet no matter how much time she spent with him, she never felt that she was getting to know him, because he was as guarded and private as one of the wild animals he loved so much. After that first day he never mentioned his longing for Kerun’s priesthood again. When she tried to talk about his kin or the life of the dun, he always drifted into saying some daft thing that put an end to the conversation. Although he seemed to be glad of her company, at times she wondered if he would prefer to be alone. On the third day, however, she had a disturbing revelation of his feelings.

In the afternoon they went out for their usual walk, but this time he told her to lead the horse a little farther into the forest, where there was a tiny stream bordered by ferns that he wanted her to see. After she watered his gray, Jill dutifully admired the ferns, then sat down next to him in the cool shade.

“We should be getting news of the army soon,” he remarked. “If here was a battle, they’d send messages.”

“Let’s pray they’re on their way home, and without another army chasing them.”

Jill waited patiently while he collected his thoughts. She was beginning to get used to his lapses.

“Er, ah, it’s been splendid sitting out in the woods with you. No doubt we won’t be able to when Rhodry rides home.”

“Of course not. Rhodry can turn rotten jealous, even though he’s got no reason to be.”

She went on guard, waiting to see how he would take her firm dismissal. For a moment, he considered the ferns sadly.

He turned his head and smiled at her, a peculiar sort of smile, open and intense, that seemed to reach out and wrap round, troubling her will with a warmth as palpable as a touch of a hand. When she wrenched her eyes away, he laid a gentle hand on her cheek. She twisted away and knocked his hand off, but he smiled again in a way that made him seem to glow. She stared at him, because for a moment she was incapable of moving. When he kissed her, his mouth was soft, gentle, but sensual with a thousand promises.

“Now, here,” she snapped. “There can’t be any more of this between us.”

His smile was so disturbing that Jill scrambled up and stepped back as if he were an enemy with a sword. He made no effort to follow, merely watched her with his head tilted in a childlike, questioning way. When she stepped back a few more feet, she felt the spell break.

“I’m going back to the dun,” she snarled. “Obviously you’ve got the strength to ride back alone.”

As she jogged back to the dun, she was debating the problem. He can’t be dweomer—he must be dweomer—where would he even have learned it—but what else could that be? Now that she was away from him, the incident was oddly blurred in her mind, as if it had never truly been registered in her rational memory. She decided that, dweomer or not, she was going to avoid being alone with Perryn from now on. When he returned, late in the afternoon, she saw him from across the great hall. He was so bland, so vague and awkward, that she found herself wondering if she’d dreamt the incident by the stream.

Hunkered down in the middle of the field, the lords were parleying, Aegwyc with ten of his men for an escort, Graemyn with ten of his, one of whom, was Rhodry. Since he was the man who’d killed Aegwyc’s brother, he had to be there to admit it if the lord demanded. He profoundly hoped that he wouldn’t, even though Graemyn assured him that he would pay the lwdd himself. So far Graemyn had had little chance to say anything, because Benoic was doing most of the talking.

“It is.” Aegwyc sounded very tired, “I’ll abide by the high king’s arbitration—provided I feel it’s fairly run.”

“And I’ll do the same,” Graemyn broke in before Benoic could agree for him. “I swear it on. the honor of my clan.”

“And I on mine.” With a sigh, Aegwyc rose, staring past them to the full army. Rhodry supposed that he was counting up the odds against the few men, he could muster. “Send me a herald when the king’s men arrive.”

“I will.” Benoic got to his feet and waved the rest of the men up. “You have my hand on that.”

Solemnly they shook hands. For a moment Aegwyc lingered, looking over the ten men around the tieryn. He would know that one of them had to be his brother’s killer, and he looked each one full in the face, pausing a little longer when he came to Rhodry. Rhodry looked boldly back and saw the lord’s mouth tighten in bitterness. There was only one reason that a silver dagger would be part of this parley, after all. With a sudden wrench Aegwyc turned and led his men away. Rhodry let out his breath in a long sigh of relief.

“So I did, but still, it’s a hard thing to look a man’s kin in the face when you’ve brought him his Wyrd.”

As he mounted his horse for the ride back to camp, Rhodry had the feeling that someone was staring at him. He twisted in the saddle to look, but everyone around him, was busy mounting up. No one would be staring at me, anyway, he thought, unless Aegwyc can send the evil eye from far away.

Yet the feeling persisted for a moment before it faded. During the long ride back to Graemyn’s dun, he would feel it every now and then, that someone, somehow, and for some strange reason, was spying on him.

He picked up a leather ball, hard-packed with straw, and began squeezing it repeatedly to exercise his hand. Soon he would have to start working his arm, too, but it ached so much that he wanted to wait a day or so. Nedd paced back and forth across the small bedchamber and watched with a worried frown.

“Don’t know yet. I never was much good with a sword anyway. It’s not like I’ve got fine-honed skills to lose.”

“Well, the war’s over, if you ask me. Aegwyc can’t cause much trouble. His brother bled the demesne white for his war with Graemyn.”

“Not him. He’s having a fine time bullying Graemyn and doing his talking for him. But I know it aches your heart to be shut up inside a dun like this. You could just ride on if you like.”

“My thanks, but I’ll stay. Just in case . . . oh, ah, er, well, somewhat happens.”

“Even if the fighting did break out again, you wouldn’t be able to join us with your arm so weak.”

“What? You’re daft! Rhodry could cut you into shreds, and I mean no insult, because he could do the same to me—easily.”

“Oh, none at all. There’s no reason that the sun has to rise every morning, either, but somehow it always does.”

His hands on his hips, Nedd considered Perryn as if he were thinking of drowning him.

“Of course. That’s why I’m so blasted worried. Ye gods, I’ve never known a man with your luck for the lasses. How do you do it, anyway?”

“Just smile at them a lot and flatter them. It can’t be any different than what most men do.”

“Oh, you’re probably not smiling the right way. You’ve got to . . . oh, er, let some warmth flow out with it. Easy, once you get the knack.”

“Then you’ll have to tell me how. But here, if you lay a snare for Jill, you’ll likely catch a wolf in it.”

“The wolf’s going to be following my beloved cousin’s orders and riding with him all over Cerrgonney.”

“What about all those times I lied to our uncle for your sake? That was dishonorable, too.”

“Ah, curse you, you bastard! Well and good, then. Rhodry and I will find somewhere to ride together.”

They had a long wait ahead of them while the speeded courier traveled the two hundred-odd miles to Dun Deverry. Although he could buy a swift passage on one of the many barges that sailed down from the mountain mines on the Camyn Yraen, he would have to ride back. In other parts of the kingdom, of course, there would have been local gwerbrets to bear their appeal, but the various gwerbrets who had once ruled in Cerrgonney warred so incessantly among themselves that King Maryn the Second had abolished the rank in the summer of 962, After a bloody rebellion, his son, Casyl the Second, made the decree of abolishment stick in 984. From then on, the kings personally took the fealty of every Cerrgonney lord and judged the various squabbles among them.

During the wait, Perryn stalked Jill, but from a wary distance, always watching for those rare times when Rhodry left her alone. The moments were hard to catch, because she was doing her best to avoid him. Since she was the first woman who’d ever resisted his strange appeal, he was puzzled, but the resistance only made her the more desirable. Finally his chance came to make his move. At sunset on the tenth day, Graemyn’s courier returned, with the news that the king would most graciously take this matter under his regal judgment. In fact, a herald and a legal councillor were coming directly behind him on the road.

“Splendid!” Benoic said. “Now, here, Graemyn, you’ve got to send an honor guard along to meet them.”

“I was just about to say exactly that. If one of my noble allies would care to take his warband on this errand, I’d be most grateful.”

“I’ll do it gladly, Your Grace,” Nedd said. “I have six men left as well as my silver dagger. Will that be the proper size for the escort?’

“Exactly right. If the warband’s too large, Aegwyc might claim intimidation. My thanks, Lord Nedd.”

Nedd scowled Perryn’s way with a face as sour as if he’d bitten into a Bardek citron. Perryn merely smiled in return.

“Oh here, what’s so wrong?” Rhodry went on. “We won’t be in the slightest danger.”

“I know.” She found it very hard to speak. “It’s just that we’ve been apart so much.”

“I know, but I’ve got plenty of battle loot, and the reward from Tieryn Graemyn, so once this hire’s over, we’ll settle into a decent inn for a while.”

With a nod, she turned away, tempted to tell him the truth, that she was afraid of being left in the same dun as Perryn, but the truth might lead to bloodshed. Although she would have been pleased by the sight of Perryn lying dead, his kin would only cut Rhodry down in turn. He put his arms around her and drew her close.

“I hope so.” She reached up and kissed him. “Rhoddo, oh, Rhoddo, I love you more than I love my life.”

As it turned out, the warband left a good hour after dawn, because Nedd and his men could never leave a place simply and easily. When they were finally on their way, Jill stood at the gates for a long time, wishing she could ride with them, feeling the dweomer cold run down her back in warning. When she turned she found Perryn watching her. She brushed past him without so much as a “good morrow” and hurried to the safe company of Lady Camma and her serving women. All day she avoided him and that night she barred her chamber door from the inside.

On the morrow, however, Perryn caught her alone. Jill had gone down to the stables to tend Sunrise, as she never left him to the slipshod attentions of stableboys. She was just leading him back to his clean stall when Perryn strolled over.

“Good morrow,” he said. “I was thinking of going riding. Won’t you come with me?”

When she stepped back, she found herself against the stall door. With another smile, he laid his hand on her cheek, a touch that flooded her with warmth. Dweomer, she thought, it has to be dweomer. When he kissed her, she knew in a nightmarish way that she was weakening, that she was sorely tempted to betray Rhodry for this skinny, daft, nondescript man.

“We could ride into the meadow,” he whispered. “It’s lovely out in the sun.”

His words—the very rational act of speaking—broke the spell. She shoved him so hard that he nearly fell and twisted free.

“Leave me alone!” she snarled. “Love me all you want, but I belong to Rhodry.”

As soon as she was back in the great hall, her fear turned to hatred, a blind murderous thing because he’d made her feel helpless, her, who could fight with the best of men and fend for herself on the long road. If she could have murdered him and escaped scot-free, she would have. All day her fury grew as she watched him stalk her. Finally, early in the evening she noticed that he’d left the hall. A servant told her that he’d gone to bed because his wound was bothering him. Good, she thought, may it burn like fire! As she sipped a last tankard of ale in the company of the other women, she barely listened to their talk. She would have to do something about Lord Perryn, she decided, and then finally thought of the obvious place to turn for help. Nevyn. Of course! He’d understand, he’d tell her what to do. She got a candle lantern, then went up to her chamber. Using the candle flame, she could contact him, wherever he might be.

She went into the chamber, set the lantern down, then barred the door. As she turned round, she saw Perryn, sitting so quietly in the curve of the wall that she’d never noticed him, her mind full of dweomer thought. When she swore at him, he grinned at her, but it was only an ordinary sort of triumphant smile.

“Jill, please.” He gave her one of those entrancing smiles. “Let me stay with you tonight.”

Smiling, always smiling, he walked toward her. She felt mead-muddled, her thoughts hard to form, harder yet to voice, and she tried to move away, she staggered. He caught her by the shoulders, then kissed her, his mouth so warm and inviting on hers that she returned the kiss before she could stop herself. Her body was as out of control as a river in full spate. When he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, she wondered if she’d ever truly wanted a man before or merely been like a young lass, flirting without even knowing what she’s offering.

“You know you want me to stay,” he whispered. “I’ll leave early. No one has to know or see a thing.”

When she forced herself to think of Rhodry, she had just enough strength to shove him away, but he caught her wrists and pulled her back. Although she struggled, her knees seemed to have turned to lead and her arms to water. Still with his ensorceling smile, he pulled her back and kissed her. She felt herself give in with one last muddled thought that Rhodry would never have to know. The pleasure she felt came from her surrender as much as his caresses. She could hardly let go of him long enough for them to get into bed, and once they were lying down, she was trembling. Yet Perryn himself was in no hurry, kissing her, caressing her, taking off their clothing one piece at a time, then caressing her for a while more. When he finally lost his patient reserve, his passion for her was frightening. She could only surrender to her own, let it match his and carry her where it willed.

Afterward, she lay in his arms and clung to him while the candlelight cast a pale, dancing glow on a world gone strange. The stone walls seemed alive, swelling and shrinking rhythmically as tthey breathed. The light itself broke up and flared as if it came from a great fire to fall on shards of glass. If Perryn hadn’t kissed again, she would have been frightened, but his lovemaking was too engrossing for her to think of anything else. When they were finished she fell asleep in his arms.

She woke suddenly a few hours later to find him asleep beside her. In the lantern the candle stub guttered in a spill of wax. For a moment she was so confused that she wondered what he was doing there, but an odd bit at a time, she remembered. She nearly wept in shame. How could she have betrayed her Rhodry? How could she have played the slut with a man she hated? She sat up, waking him.

He merely smiled and reached for her, but the candle went out with a last dancing flare. A red eye in the dark, the wick slowly faded. In the darkness she was freed from his smile, and she got up before he could grab her.

Without a word of argument he got up and began searching for his clothes. She leaned against the wall, because the room seemed to be spinning around her. Every little scuffle or rustle Perryn made was unnaturally loud, as if the noise echoed in a chamber ten times the size. Finally he was done.

“I truly do love you,” he said meekly. I’d never just trifle with you once and then desert you.”

With a dramatic sigh he slipped out, shutting the door behincd him. Jill fell onto the bed, clutched her pillow, and sobbed into it until finally she’d cried herself to sleep. When she woke, sunlight poured into her chamber window as thickly as a flood of honey. For a long time she lay there, wondering at light made solid. The dented pewter candle lantern shone like the finest silver, and even the gray stone of the walls seemed to pulse within this splendid light. With some difficulty she dressed, because the patterns of stains and pulled threads on her clothing were as engrossing as fine needlework. When she went to the window, she thought she’d never seen such a fine summer day, the sky so bright it was like sapphire. Down below in the ward stableboys were tending horses and the sound of hooves on cobbles drifted up like the chime of bells. Her gray gnome appeared on the windowsill.

“Good. Oh ye gods, I might be able to live with myself over this, and then again, I might not. Pray that Rhodry never finds out.”

Puzzled, the little creature hunkered down and began picking its toes. She realized that its skin, instead of being the uniform gray she’d always thought it, was made up of colors, many different ones in minute specks, that merely blended to gray from a distance. She was so busy examining it that she didn’t hear the door opening until it was too late. She spun around to find Perryn, his hands full of wild roses, smiling at her.

Jill was tempted to throw the lot right in his face, but their color caught her. She had to take them, to study them, roses more lovely than she’d ever seen, their petals the color of iridescent blood, always shifting and gleaming, their centers a fiery gold.

“We’ve got to talk,” he said, “And we don’t have much time. We’ve got to make a plan.”

But he smiled, and this time, after their lovemaking, she felt the bewitchment a hundredfold. Even as her thoughts grew muddled, she knew that somehow he’d linked himself to her, that some strange force was iowing through the link. Then he took her shoulders and kissed her, the flowers crushed between them with a waft of scent

“I love you so much,” he said. “I’ll never let you go. Come with me, my love, come to the hills with me. That’s where we belong. Well ride free together, all summer long.”

Jill had one last coherent thought, that he wasn’t daft: he was downright mad. Then he kissed her again, and it was too difficult to think.

Lord Nedd’s warband met the king’s herald a day and a half’s ride from the dun. Rhodry was riding next to his lordship when they crested a small hill and saw, down below them on the road, the royal emissaries, all mounted on white horses with red trappings set with gilded buckles. At the head came the herald, carrying a polished ebony staff with a gold finial strung with satin ribbons. Behind him rode an elderly man in the long dark tunic and gray cloak of a legal councillor, with a page on a white pony at the man’s side. Bringing up the rear were four of the king’s own warband, wearing purple cloaks and carrying gold-trimmed scabbards. Nedd stared slack-mouthed.

“Ye gods,” he said feebly. “I should have made the men put on clean shirts.”

The two parties met in the road. When Nedd announced himself, the herald, a blond young man with a long upper lip made longer by pride, looked him over for a moment stretched to the limit of courtesy.

“My humble thanks for the honor, Your Lordship,” he said at last. “It gladdens my heart that Tieryn Graemyn takes our mission with serious intent and grave heart.”

“Well, of course he does,” Nedd said. “Why else would he have sent the wretched message in the first place?”

The herald allowed himself a small, icy smile. Rhodry urged his horse forward, made a graceful half-bow in the saddle, and addressed himself to the herald.

“O honored voice of the king, we give you greetings, and pledge our very lives as surety for your safe passage.”

The herald bowed, visibly relieved to find someone who knew the ritual salutations, even, if that someone was a silver dagger.

Rhodry had to tell Nedd how to dispose his men: his lordship to ride with the herald, his warband to fall in behind the king’s men. Rhodry himself was planning on taking the humblest place at the very rear, but as he rode down the line, the councillor caught his eye and beckoned him to fall, in beside him.

“So Rhodry Maelwaedd,” he said. “You’re still alive. I’ll tell your honored mother that when next we meet at court.”

“I’d be most grateful, good sir but have I had the honor of meeting you? Wretch that I am, I fear me I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Oh, I doubt if you, ever knew it It’s. Cunvelyn, and I know your lady mother fairly well.” He considered Rhodry shrewdly for a moment. “It truly does gladden my heart to see you alive and well. Doubtless you haven’t heard the news from Aberwyn.”

“Ah. Well, your brother’s second wife appears to be barren, while his cast-off lady was delivered of a fine healthy son.”

Rhodry swore under his breath with a most uncourtly oath, but the councillor merely smiled. It was a moment he’d remember all his life, a moment as unlikely as the sun rising suddenly in a midnight sky, changing night magically into day. When Rhys died, he would be Aberwyn’s heir, and he allowed himself to hope for the thing that he’d long since given up hoping for: recall. Aberwyn was such an important rhan that the king himself might well take a hand in bringing home its heir from the dangers of the long road.

“I would advise you to keep yourself as safe as possible,” Cunvelyn said. “Are you short up for coin?”

Although Rhodry’s heart ached to ask more, he knew that the old man’s court training would allow no more answers. For a few moments they rode in silence; then Cunvelyn turned to him.

“Your little daughter’s well, by the by. Your lady mother keeps her always by her side.”

Rhodry had to think for a moment before he remembered the bastard he’d sired on a common-born lass. How many years ago was it? he wondered. Three, I think.

“That’s most kind of my lady mother,” he said hurriedly. “And what is she named?”

Rhodry spent the rest of the journey in a fury of impatience to tell Jill the councillor’s news. If he were reading the hints aright, soon they would be back in Eldidd, living in the comfort and splendor he assumed that she wanted. And this time, she would be more than just his mistress. He was no longer a spoiled younger son who needed a strong wife to keep him in rein; he was a man they needed, a man in a position to make demands. He would get her a title, settle land upon her as a dower gift, and marry her, no matter what his mother and the king thought of it.

Late on a splendid sunny day, the herald and his escort rode up to Graemyn’s dun. As they clattered through the gates, Rhodry was looking around for Jill. The ward was full of riders, standing in a reasonable excuse for a formation, while the two tieryns stood at the door of the broch to greet their honored guest. In the confusion, he saw no sign of her, nor did she come to meet him while he stabled his horse and Nedd’s. Although he was rather hurt, he thought little of it, assuming that Lady Camma had kept her at her side for some reason, until Nedd came hurrying into the stable.

“Oh, by the black balls of the Lord of Hell!” Nedd snarled. “He wouldn’t have—the rotten little weasel—oh, curse him for a pig’s bollock!”

Rhodry tagged after as Nedd searched the great hall for Camma, finally finding her as she gave orders to the servants about the feast to come. When Nedd caught her arm, she saw Rhodry and gasped, a little puff of breath.

“Oh, by the gods,” she said. “But you’ve got to know, and it best be sooner than later, I suppose. Nedd, if I ever get my hands on your misbegotten wretch of a cousin, I’ll beat him black and blue.”

Camma laid a maternal hand on Rhodry’s arm, her large dark eyes full of sincere apology.

“Rhodry, your Jill’s gone. All I can think is that she rode off with Perryn, because he disappeared not an hour after she did. My heart truly aches for you.”

Rhodry opened his mouth and shut it again, then clasped his sword hilt so hard that the leather bindings bit into his palm. Nedd had gone dead white.

“Oh, er, ah, well, not truly. I mean, ye gods! I knew he fancied your lass, but I never thought anything would come of it.”

With a great effort of will, Rhodry reminded himself that it would be dishonorable to kill him in front of a lady. Camma gave his arm a little shake.

“Oh, come now,” she said. “Who in their right mind would ever have thought that Jill would leave a man like you for one like Perryn?”

“Now, here,” Nedd said to the lady. “Did my uncle know of this? I can’t believe he’d let Perro do such a dishonorable thing.”

“And why do you think your wretched cousin slipped out like a weasel? Benoic chased him with some of his men, but Perryn went off through the forest. They never found a trace of him.”

Nedd started to answer, then simply stared at Rhodry. They were in a terrible position, and they both knew it. If Rhodry swore bloody vengeance where the lord could hear, he would be honor-bound to stop Rhodry from riding—if he could. The fear in Nedd’s eyes was satisfying to see.

“Humph! Now listen, Nedd, your worm-riddled cousin’s in the wrong, and you know it as well as I do. On the other hand, silver dagger, she wasn’t legally your wife, so you’ve no right to kill him. Beat him black and blue, decidedly, but not to kill him. Will you make me a solemn oath that you won’t kill or maim him? If you do, you ride out of here with my blessing and a bit of extra coin. If you won’t, then you’re not leaving at all.”

“Now, now, come to your senses, lad,” Benoic went on. “I know cursed well that the first thing a man thinks of in times like this is spilling blood. But ask yourself this: if you cut your Jill’s throat, wouldn’t you be weeping over her not five minutes later?”

“Good. I feel the shame my nephew laid upon his clan. Do you want her back or not? If not, then I’ll pay you a bride price, just as if she’d been your wife. If you do, then swear me that vow, and ride with my aid.”

Faced with this scrupulous fairness, Rhodry felt his rage slip away. In its place came a cold realization that nearly made him weep: Jill didn’t love him anymore.

“Well, Your Grace, call me a fool if you want, but I do want her back. I’ve got a thing or two to say to her, and by every god in the Otherlands, I’ll find her if I search all summer long.”

“In a way,” Gwin said. “We won’t have to bother with the lass, sure enough, but Rhodry’s going to be following her, not moving in the direction we want him to.”

“Oh, indeed? Think, young one. From everything I’ve been able to see, this Perryn fellow knows the woods like his mother’s tit. What does a man like Rhodry know of woodcraft? When he was a lord, he had foresters and game wardens to worry about such things, and silver daggers stick to the roads.” He smiled gently. “I’ll talk to Briddyn through the fire about this, but I think we’ve found the perfect bait to lure our bird down to the seacoast. The only clues he’ll find are the ones we throw in his path.”

Part Two

Summer, 1065