Darkspell (21 page)

“Now, here, good Nevyn,” she said at last. “You’ve got to come up to the dun. Did the dweomer bring you back to us?”

“Not truly. Why? Is somewhat wrong?”

“Somewhat like that.” Ricyn glanced around and lowered his voice. “It’s our liege, you see. He’s been having these black moods, and no one can bring him out of them.”

“He broods on things,” Gweniver put in, also in a whisper. “And he says things like he can’t be the true king after all and other utter nonsense. The queen’s half-afraid he’s going mad.”

They both looked at him in expectant faith that he would solve everything. He felt so helpless that their trust came close to making him weep.

“What’s so wrong?” Gweniver said.

“Ah, well, I’m just so cursed weary these days, seeing the land in turmoil, and there’s naught I can do to stop the suffering.”

“Well, by the gods! It’s not yours to stop. Don’t vex yourself so deeply. Don’t you remember what you told the king when he was so heartsick over Dannyn’s death? You said it was only vanity that makes a man think he can turn aside someone else’s Wyrd.”

“Vanity? Well, so it is.”

In her unthinking way she’d given him the very word he needed to hear. A vanity much like Glyn’s, he thought. In my heart I’m still the prince, thinking that the kingdom still revolves around me and my doings. When he reminded himself that he was only a servant, waiting for a command, he was suddenly sure that the command would come. Someday he would see the Light shine again.

When they went up to the dun, servants came running and clustered round him as if he were indeed a prince. Orivaen insisted on giving him an elegant chamber in the main broch and personally accompanied him up. While Nevyn unpacked, the chamberlain gave him various bits of gossip. Lord Gwetmar and Lady Macla had two sons; Prince Mael was still in the tower; Gavra, his old apprentice, was now an herbwoman in the city.

“And what of our liege?” Nevyn said.

Orivaen’s eyes darkened.

“I’ll arrange a private audience this evening. Once you’ve seen him, we can speak further.”

“I see. And what about Saddar? Is he still at court, or did he finally take his humbling to heart and leave?”

“He’s dead. Strange, in a way. It happened directly after you left us that summer. He developed a peculiar congestion of the stomach.”

When Nevyn swore under his breath, Orivaen’s expression turned completely bland. Nevyn wondered if the king himself had ordered the old man poisoned, or if some loyal courtier had taken the little task on himself, once the only herbman who could have saved Saddar had gone away.

In the afternoon Nevyn went down into Cerrmor and found Gavra, who was living with her brother’s family over his inn. She fell laughing into his arms, dipped him up some ale, and took him up to her chamber for a chat. She’d
grown into an imposing young woman, still pretty and sleek, but with a depth of feeling and shrewdness in her dark eyes. Her chamber was stacked with herbs, jars of salve, and the other tools of her trade, neatly arranged around the furniture, a single bed, a wooden chest, and by the hearth, a cradle. Asleep inside was a pretty little lass about ten months old.

“Your brother’s youngest child?” Nevyn said.

“She’s not, but mine. Do you despise me for it?”

“What? Whatever made you think I would?”

“Well, my brother was none too pleased at having a bastard in the family. I’m just lucky I can bring in coin to feed us.”

As if she knew she was being discussed, the baby yawned, opened cornflower-blue eyes, and fell back asleep.

“Why hasn’t the father married you?”

“He’s married to someone else. I know I’m but a fool, but I love him all the same.”

Nevyn sat down on the wooden chest. He’d never expected that his clever Gavra would have gotten herself into this sort of mess. She leaned on the windowsill and looked out at her narrow view, the side of another house, a small dusty yard with a chicken coop.

“Prince Mael,” she said abruptly. “My poor captive love.”

“Ye gods!”

“I beg you, don’t tell a soul. They might kill my babe if they knew that Eldidd had a royal bastard here in town. I’ve told everyone that her father was one of the king’s riders, Dagwyn his name was, who was killed in last year’s fighting. Lady Gweniver’s been helping me, you see. I guess Dagwyn was quite a lad with the lasses, and everyone believed it of him without thinking twice.”

“Is Gweniver the only one who knows?”

“Just that, not even Ricyn.” She paused to look into the cradle with a wry smile. “I had to tell someone, and Gweniver is a priestess, no matter what else she may be. It’s sad, though. Ricyn comes here sometimes and gives me
coin for his friend’s daughter. Little Ebrua seems to mean much to him.”

“Then it’s best that he never learn the truth. But, here, how did this happen? Can you fly through the air like a bird?”

“Oh, I climbed the stairs to the tower, sure enough,” she said, half laughing. “But not long after you left, the prince got a fever, and all the chirurgeons were gone with the army. So Orivaen sent for me to keep their bit of booty alive. Ye gods, I felt so sorry for Mael, and Orivaen allowed me to visit him like you used to. Mael offered to teach me to read and write, you see, just to have somewhat to pass his time. So I had my lessons, and we grew to be friends, and well—” She gave an eloquent shrug of one shoulder.

“I see. Does he know about the child?”

“Oh, how could he not know? My poor captive love.”

When he returned to the dun, Nevyn made a point of going up to the tower to see the prince. Although his pleasant chamber had changed not at all, Mael was a man now. Tall, filled out, he paced gravely round the room instead of throwing himself about in an agony of impatience. He was also dead pale, his alabaster skin making his raven hair look even darker. With a start Nevyn realized that it had been seven years since the prince had been out in the sun.

“You can’t know how much it gladdens my heart to see you,” Mael said. “I missed my tutor badly when he left.”

“My apologies, but the dweomer calls a man down many a strange road. I seem to have left you some comfort, though. I’ve spoken to Gavra.”

The prince turned scarlet and looked away.

“Ah, well,” he said after a moment. “It’s strange, truly. There was a time when I would have thought that a common-born woman was beneath my notice. Now I wonder what Gavra could possibly want with a wretch like me.”

“Your Highness has had a harsh Wyrd, truly.”

“Oh, not as harsh as many. I’ve grown tired of pitying myself, you see. Some men are like hawks, dying young in battle. I’m a little finch, kept in a royal cage and dreaming
of trees. But it’s a nice cage, and there’s plenty of seed in my bowl.”

“True enough.”

“The books you left me have become more and more of a comfort, too. And Gavra found me an interesting thing down at the bookseller’s in the temple of Wmm. It’s a compendium of works by a philosopher named Ristolyn, who wrote in the Dawntime. Was he a Rhwman?”

“He wasn’t, but one of a tribe called the Greggycion, a wise folk judging from what little we have of their books. I believe that the beastly Rhwmanes conquered their kingdom, much as they did the one belonging to our ancestors back in the Homeland. Ristolyn always struck me as a writer worthy of much thought. I’ve read part of his
Ethics of Nichomachea.”

They passed a pleasant hour discussing things that Nevyn hadn’t heard so much as mentioned in years. Although the prince talked with the eagerness of a born scholar, when it was time for Nevyn to leave, melancholy settled over Mael like a sea fog. He wasn’t a scholar, after all, but a desperate man clinging to whatever would keep him sane.

Leaving Mael’s silent room and going into the great hall was like walking into another world. Since the army was mustering, the hall was filled with lords and warbands: men shouting, men laughing, yelling for ale, and throwing jests like daggers at one another. Nevyn sat at Orivaen’s table with the king’s councillors just below the dais. As the meal was being served, Glyn came through his private door with Gweniver. When he went to the honor table, however, she left the dais and went to eat with the king’s guards and her Ricyn.

“Lady Gweniver seems to hold her nobility in contempt,” Nevyn remarked to Orivaen.

“She does. I’ve spoken to her about it ever so often, but one simply can’t argue with the god-touched.”

During the meal Nevyn watched Glyn, who seemed to have changed not at all, still as straight and gracious as ever as he smiled at a jest or listened to the conversation of
his honored lords. Yet the change came clear later, when a page took Nevyn to the king’s private apartments.

Glyn was standing by the hearth. Candlelight shone and sparked on silver, gleamed on the rich colors of the hangings and carpets, and picked out the hollow shadows under his eyes. Although he insisted that Nevyn take a chair, he himself paced restlessly by the hearth as they talked. At first they exchanged little more than news and pleasantries, until slowly, a bit at a time, the regal presence wore away, and Glyn leaned wearily against the mantel, a heartsick man.

“My liege seems to honor Lady Gweniver highly,” Nevyn remarked.

“She’s worthy of honor. I’ve given her the place at the head of my guards, you see. No one will dare envy a god-touched warrior.”

There it was, the memory they would have to face.

“Does my liege still miss his brother?”

“I doubtless will every day of my life. Ah, ye gods, if only he hadn’t killed himself! We could have met now and then in secret, or perhaps I could even have recalled him someday.”

“Well, his pride wouldn’t let him wait.”

With a sigh, Glyn sat down at last.

“So many men who’ve served me have come to grief,” he said. “There’s no end in sight, either. By the gods of our people! Sometimes I think I should just let Cantrae have the wretched throne and be done with it, but then everyone who’d died for me would have died for naught. And my loyal friends—Cantrae might slaughter the lot.” He paused for a weary, twisted smile. “How many people here at court have told you that I’m going mad?”

“Several. Are you? Or are they merely mistaking sanity for madness?”

“I’d prefer to think the latter, of course. Ever since Danno died, I’ve felt besieged. I could talk to him, and if he thought I was babbling like a fool, he’d say so. Now what do I have? Flatterers, ambitious men, jackals, half of them, and if I don’t throw them enough scraps of meat,
well, then, they bite. If I try to ease my mind of some dark thought, they cringe.”

“Well, my liege, their lives depend on you, after all.”

“I know. Oh, ye gods, I know that so well! I wish I’d been born a common rider. Every man in the court envies the king, but do you know whom the king envies? Gweniver’s Ricyn. I’ve never seen a happier man than Ricco, farmer’s son or not. No matter what he does, no matter what happens to him, he calls it the will of his Goddess and gets a good night’s sleep.” Glyn paused briefly. “Do you think I’m mad? Or am I just a fool?”

“The king has never been a fool, and he would be happier if he were mad.”

Glyn laughed in a way that suddenly reminded Nevyn of Prince Mael.

“Nevyn, I’d be most grateful if you’d rejoin my court. You see things from very far away. The king humbly admits that he needs you.”

Because he saw nothing but grief ahead of him, Nevyn wanted to lie and claim that the dweomer forbade him to stay. He liked all these people too much to stay aloof from their inevitable sufferings. Yet suddenly he saw that he had a role to play, that he’d deserted Glyn, Mael, and Gavra when he’d fled for his own selfish reasons.

“I’m most honored, my liege. I’ll stay and serve you as long as you have need of me.”

And so, utterly reluctantly, Nevyn received what many men would have killed to get: a position as a royal councillor with the personal favor of the king. It took him two difficult years to untangle the web of envy that his sudden elevation created, but after that time no one questioned his place. Everyone in the kingdom knew that the center of court power rested with this shabby old man with his eccentric interest in herbs, but few, of course, knew why.

And during those two years, and on into the third, the war dragged on, a sporadic thing of raids and feints.

The rain caught them a good forty miles from the main camp. A slantwise-driving storm, with a cold wind that
cut through cloaks, turned the road to muck. Even though the situation was desperate, it was impossible for the horses to go at more than a walk. The one good thing about the rain, Ricyn reflected bitterly, was that it was slowing the enemy down, too. He made a point of saying so to the thirty-four men left out of the hundred fifty who’d ridden out. No one responded with more than a grunt. Ricyn rode up and down the line twice, spoke to everyone by name, yelled at the slackers and praised the few who had the least bit of spirit left. He doubted if it was doing any good. When he said as much to Gweniver, she agreed.

“The horses are in worse shape than the men,” she said. “We have to stop soon.”

“And if they catch us?”

Gweniver merely shrugged. Neither of them had the slightest idea of how far behind them the Cantrae warband was. The one thing they could count on was that they were being chased. The hard-won victory that had reduced their warband to this weary fragment was just the sort of battle that Cantrae would feel honor bound to avenge.

Close to sunset they met a pair of farmers, struggling with a cart pulled by a balky milk cow for want of a horse. In the darkening light, Ricyn could just see that the cart was full of furniture, tools, and barrels. When the warband surrounded them, the farmers looked up in blank exhaustion, as if they didn’t even care if they were slaughtered on the road.

“Where are you fleeing from?” Gweniver said.

“Rhoscarn, my lady. The dun fell yesterday, and we’re trying to get south.”

“Who razed it?”

“These men with green beasts, like, on shields.”

Ricyn swore under his breath: the Cantrae Wyvern.

“They didn’t raze the dun, you dolt!” the second farmer said. “We didn’t see any smoke, like, did we now?”