Darkspell (44 page)

“His grace is ever a quick man with his jests, but I’d rather hire tusks than grow them. Truly, the silver dagger was an excellent bargain, seeing as the nasty fellow actually drew on me.”

Blaen nodded, then glanced at Jill.

“Well, silver dagger, I begin to think you were justified in drawing first blood.”

“My thanks, Your Grace, and truly, I had no way of knowing that the fellow was going to poison himself.”

At that peculiar statement Rhodry forgot himself enough to step forward. With an oath the guards grabbed him and pulled him back. Blaen turned toward the interruption.

“Bring him forward. So you caught this miserable lout of a silver dagger, did you?”

“Riding in the south gate as bold as brass, Your Grace,” said a guard. “And he’s got a Western Hunter with him that I’ll wager is stolen.”

“No doubt. He always was too fond of other people’s horses.”

Although Blaen was trying to suppress a grin, Rhodry caught him at it.

“Blaen, you bastard!” Rhodry snapped. “This is one of your cursed jests.”

Although everyone in the room gasped at the insult, Blaen burst out laughing and rose, striding across the chamber to grab his cousin’s hand.

“Well, so it is. I thought we’d have a laugh by arresting you like the silver dagger you are. Ah, by the gods, it gladdens my heart to see you.”

As they shook hands, Rhodry felt like weeping.

“It gladdens my heart to see you, too,” he said. “But what are you doing with my woman?”

“Naught, I assure you. I’ve got more honor around women than some of my kin I could mention.”

With a grin Rhodry punched him on the shoulder. Everyone in the chamber was staring at them, and Blaen suddenly remembered that he had a judicial proceeding on hand.

“Go stand with old Nevyn, will you? Let’s finish this blasted thing up.”

When Rhodry did so, Nevyn gave him a thin, dry smile, but the old man’s eyes were deeply troubled. Rhodry found out why when the warden stepped forward to give evidence about a stranger who took poison rather than face the gwerbret and who wore some sort of witchcraft talisman around his neck. Blaen considered the matter for a moment, announcing that he found no fault with anyone over the death, then closed the hearing.

“Doubtless Dun Hiraedd is better off without him,” he said cheerfully. “So that’s that.”

Ogwern and his witnesses rose, bowed to the gwerbret, then made a frank dash for the door. As the puzzled councillors gathered around Blaen to ask questions about the poisoning, Rhodry strode over to Jill and caught her by the shoulders.

“Ye gods, my love! What is all this?”

“I don’t truly know. Rhoddo, you can’t know how much it gladdens my heart to see you.”

When he threw his arms around her and pulled her close, he felt her shaking with fear. Since he’d never seen her afraid of anything before, he felt a cold knot form in his stomach.

“Well, my love,” he said, “we’ve ridden together in some hard battles before. We’ll win this one, too.”

“You better be right. That’s all I can say.”

His back against a birch tree, Alastyr sat very quietly on the ground and tried to stay calm. He had just tried to scry Jill out and had seen nothing at all, no matter how hard he bent his will to the task. It could mean only one thing: Nevyn had arrived to put a seal over her. When he heard hoofbeats coming his way, he jumped to his feet, half thinking that the Master of the Aethyr was riding for him,
but it was only Sarcyn, dismounting near the camp, then leading his horse into the trees.

“Back so soon?” Alastyr said.

“I didn’t linger in town. The place was full of gossip, about this shabby old herbman who’d just ridden in and seemed to have some influence with the gwerbret.”

Alastyr swore with every foul oath he knew. Sarcyn merely stood and watched him impassively till he finished.

“How tired is your horse?” Alastyr said. “If we’re going to pull this chestnut out of the fire, we have to have some place to hole up for a while. We can’t go on camping like brigands on the road. This morning I went out on the etheric and took a good look around the countryside, and I think me I’ve found a perfect place.”

“I’ll ride one of the fresh horses and put Camdel on mine. He’s a fair bit lighter than I am.”

“Very well. Get him ready. I’ll saddle my horse myself. We’ve got to make all speed.”

No bard or gerthddyn had ever had a more attentive audience than Nevyn had that afternoon, and he couldn’t resist playing up to it. In Blaen’s private chamber, a plain little room that held a hearth, five chairs, Blaen’s shield, and nothing more, Rhodry, Jill, and the gwerbret himself sat and watched him as he stood by the hearth and lounged against the mantel. After the inevitable mead had been served and the page sent away, Blaen gestured at him with his goblet.

“Here, good sorcerer,” the gwerbret said firmly. “You owe me an explanation of this matter.”

“So I do, Your Grace, and you shall have it. Jill, give me that bit of jewelry you’ve got in your pouch.”

When she handed him a cheap ring brooch, he laid it on his palm and held it out for all to see, then thought a brief instruction to the spirits attached to it.

“This, Your Grace, is called the Great Stone of the West.”

“That ugly thing?” Blaen sputtered.

At that precise moment the stone shapechanged, glowing,
wavering, seeming to dissolve. Suddenly an enormous opal, the size of a walnut, lay in Nevyn’s hand. It was so beautifully polished that its surface gleamed, catching the light from the window and turning it to fire in its deep-running veins, while a rainbow of iridescence played upon it. When his audience gasped aloud, Nevyn could feel how smug the spirits were. They were a higher type of spirit than the Wildfolk, of the order commonly called planetary spirits, though their connection is not with the actual planets themselves, but rather with the forces the planets represent.

“Oh, ye gods!” Jill said. “Is that what I’ve been carrying around?”

“This is its true form. There are spirits who guard it, you see. They can cast illusions over it when they have to, and also move it around—not far, but enough to hide it when there’s danger. Our unlovely enemies didn’t realize those two things, and that’s why we’ve managed to thwart them so far.”

Nevyn let everyone chew over this information while he slipped the stone into the pouch at his neck. The spirits sighed in relief, an audible sound in his thoughts, at being close to him again. Several times Blaen started to speak, then thought better of it. Finally the dweomer-master nodded politely at him, giving the gwerbret permission to speak in his own dun.

“And who, good sorcerer, are these enemies?”

“Men who follow the dark dweomer, of course. You’ll notice, Your Grace, that I keep saying ‘our’ enemies. You see, this gem belongs to the High King himself, and the dark dweomer wants it to work him and the kingdom harm.”

Blaen and Rhodry swore aloud in rage. Though one was the honored lord, and the other the dishonored exile, they’d both sworn oaths of personal fealty to their liege.

“The king lives in the middle of the best fortress in all Deverry,” Blaen snapped. “How could they steal from him?”

“With great difficulty. I suspect that they’ve been plotting
this for a very long time indeed. The opal is one of the greatest dweomer-gems the world has ever seen. About a hundred years ago a certain dweomerman shaped it and asked spirits to inhabit it, then gave it to the royal line.” Nevyn sighed a little, just remembering the long hours it had taken him to polish and grind the thing into a perfect sphere. “I’m forbidden to tell you all its powers, as I’m sure you’ll understand. To keep it safe, various dweomermen are appointed as its guardians. When one of us dies, another takes its place. It’s now my turn to hold that post.” There he almost slipped and said, “my turn again.” “The secret of the gem is passed down from king to Marked Prince, and so the kings know enough to guard it well. They keep it within their own chambers, not the royal treasury. No thief would have a chance to bribe outright the loyal men and women who have access to the royal apartments, of course. There are, however, more ways to work on a man’s mind than gold. Here, Your Grace, and Rhodry, too, did you ever meet a man named Camdel at court?”

“I did,” Blaen said. “The Master of the King’s Bath, wasn’t he? A proud sort of fellow, as I remember, but the queen seemed to favor him for his well-spoken ways.”

“He was an arrogant bastard,” Rhodry broke in. “I won a mock combat from him once, and he sulked all day.”

“That’s the man,” Nevyn said. “He’s the younger son of the gwerbret of Blaeddbyr. I’m afraid his arrogance was only one of his faults, but still, he doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him. The dark dweomermen have taken him over, mind and soul, and they’ve been using him like a farmer uses a mattock—to dig out a stone.”

“What?” Blaen said. “I can’t imagine Camdel stealing from his liege!”

“Of his own will he never would have, Your Grace. Now, I still don’t know how the dark dweomermen got in touch with him. I have a friend who’s up in Dun Deverry right now trying to find out. But once they did get a hold over him, Camdel had no control over his own actions, none. I’ll wager that the last few months have all seemed
like a dream to him, one long, confused waking dream that ended in a nightmare.”

“So,” Blaen said, and there was a growl in his voice, “my sword and my warband are at your disposal, good sorcerer. Do you know where these men are?”

“I don’t, and here, Your Grace, you see the limits of the dweomer. I can keep these poisonous dolts from scrying me out, but alas, they can do the same to me.”

Blaen shuddered at all this talk of scrying and dweomer. Although Nevyn disliked telling so many secrets, he truly had no choice. For all he knew, he might need to take Blaen up on his offer of the warband.

“Until this morning,” Nevyn went on, “they couldn’t have been more than a day’s ride from Dun Hiraedd, but for all I know, they may be fleeing for their lives. If I catch them, I’m going to wipe them off the face of the earth for this.”

“Well,” said Blaen, thinking, “if we split the warband into squads, we can start scouring the countryside. Some farmer or suchlike must have noticed if peculiar strangers have been riding around the rhan.”

“It may come to that, Your Grace, but I’d like to hold off for a while. Because of Camdel, you see. If this dark master should scry out your men riding his way—and the dolt is bound to be keeping such a guard—then he’ll just slit Camdel’s throat and ride out fast. If I possibly can, I want to pull our young lordling out of this alive. I have a few more tricks at my disposal, too.”

Blaen nodded. Nevyn himself was more worried than he wanted to show. Although he could ask the Wildfolk to find the dark master, to do so would expose them to the chance of grave harm. Likewise, he could go out into the etheric in the body of light, but to do so meant risking open battle with his enemies. From piecing together what Jill had told him, he could guess that this dark master had apprentices with him; he simply didn’t know how many. If he should be slain in an astral battle, then Jill and Rhodry would be defenseless against the dark ones, who would doubtless take a horrifying revenge. Although he had
called upon other dweomermen for aid, it was going to take days for the nearest one to reach him. By then Camdel might well be dead.

“Ah, well,” Nevyn said at last. “This cursed mess is just like a game of gwiddbwcl, Your Grace. They have Camdel, their king’s peg, and they’re trying to move him off the board while we place our men and try to stop them. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the next move is ours or theirs. Jill, come have a private talk with me. I want to hear every detail of the days you spent alone, and there’s no need to bore his grace and Rhodry with it.”

Obediently she rose, looking at him in a desperate hope that he would keep her safe. Deep in his heart, he prayed that he could.

As the chamber door closed behind Jill and Nevyn, Blaen drained the rest of the mead in his goblet in one long swallow, and Rhodry had a good slug of his, too. For a moment they looked at each other in an understanding that had no need for words. Rhodry knew perfectly well that they were both terrified. At last Blaen sighed.

“You’re filthy, silver dagger. Let’s have the pages draw you a bath. I could use some more mead, too.”

“You’ve had enough drink for one afternoon.”

Briefly Blaen looked furious; then he shrugged.

“So I have. Let’s go get you that bath.”

While Rhodry bathed in the elegant chamber he would share with Jill, Blaen perched on the edge of the bed and handed him the soap like a page. As he splashed around in the wooden tub, Rhodry wished that he could wash all this talk of dweomer away as easily as the dirt from the road.

“Are you thinking that I’ve got cursed strange taste in women?” Rhodry said at last.

“You always did. But truly, Gilyan suits you well enough, and the life you’re leading. It aches my heart to see that silver dagger in your belt.”

“It’s better than starving on the roads. There wasn’t a cursed lot else I could do.”

“True spoken. I talked with your most honored mother
the last time I was at court. She asked me to urge Rhys to recall you, but he wouldn’t listen to a blasted word I said.”

“Don’t waste your breath again. He always wanted me gone, and like a dolt, I gave him his chance.”

Rhodry got out of the tub and took the towel Blaen handed him.

“I have no formal alliance with Aberwyn,” Blaen said. “I can offer you a place here with me. You could marry your Jill and be my equerry or suchlike. If Rhys doesn’t like it, what’s he going to do? He’s too cursed far away to start a war with me.”

“My thanks, but when I took this dagger, I swore I’d carry it proudly. I may be an exile, but I’d die rather than be an oath breaker, too.”

Blaen raised one quizzical eyebrow.

“Ah, by a pig’s cock,” Rhodry sighed. “The truth is, I think it’d be worse, living on your charity, watching the honored guests sneering at Aberwyn’s dishonored brother. I’d rather ride the long road than that.”