Isle of Glass (30 page)

He added another line to his army, and over it a banner of
rosemary. “I suppose not. Who would go if we agreed to do this? One of us?”

Thea rested a light hand on Gwydion’s bandaged one. “That
would be tempting fate. It has to be someone whose life isn’t vital to the
survival of the kingdom. And,” she added, for Alf had started forward, “who
isn’t one of our people. Rhydderch has learned to hate us; we want him to come
as quietly as possible, not bound and raging. But since he’s madder than a wild
boar, his keeper had better be strong enough, and clever enough, to handle
him.”

Richard nodded slowly. “If I agree, will you give me the
right to choose the messenger?”

“Whom would you choose?” Kilhwch asked sharply.

“The best man I know of: well-born, strong as a bull, and
clever as a fox.”

They were all staring at Jehan again. He stared back and
tried not to shake.

Kilhwch’s black brows met. “He looks more than strong
enough; he seems clever. But he’s only a boy.”

Thea laughed. Kilhwch’s scowl grew terrible.

“My ancient lord,” she said, “even children have their uses.
You were one once. Remember?”

He flushed darkly. “I wouldn’t have entrusted myself to
Rhydderch’s tender mercies.”

“Wouldn’t you? Who was it who went after a boar with his
bare hands? Give in, Kilhwch. Just because you can’t go doesn’t mean you have
to hold him back.”

“If he wishes to go,” Gwydion said.

Jehan drew a shuddering breath. “Of course I want to. Though
I don't deserve the honor.”

“Why not?” asked Richard. “You’re a Sevigny; you’re trained
in arms and a scholar besides; and no one who looks at you could possibly think
you have a brain in your head. If anyone can lure Rhydderch out of his lair,
you can.”

He bowed low, unable to speak.

Richard struck the table with the flat of his hand. “Well.
That’s settled. Alfred, wine for everybody, and double for our ambassador.”

As Alf filled Jehan’s cup, he met the wide blue stare. His
own held fear for the other’s safety, but pride also, and deep affection.

The novice smiled crookedly and toasted him with a
remarkably steady hand, and drank deep.

Night was falling with winter’s swiftness, but what light
clung still to the low sky cast into sharp relief the castle on its rock.

Jehan muscled his red stallion to a halt; behind him his
escort paused. A thin bitter wind tugged at their banners: Gwynedd’s scarlet
dragon, Anglia’s golden leopards.

He stared up at Rhydderch’s fortress, his face within the
mail-coif grim and set. He liked the sight of the castle as little as Gwydion
had. Less.

But Gwydion had not ridden up to it with a dozen knights
behind him and two kings’ banners over him. Jehan turned in his saddle,
scanning the faces of his company. Strong faces, a little disgruntled perhaps
to be under the command of a half-grown boy, but warming to his gaze. He
grinned suddenly. “Well, sirs. Shall we see if the boar’s in his den?”

The drawbridge was up, a chasm between it and the track.
Jehan rode to the very edge of the pit, so close that the stallion’s restless hooves
sent stones rolling and tumbling into space. No light shone above the gate, nor
could he discern any figure upon the battlements.

He filled his lungs. “Hoi, there!” he bellowed.

No response.

Again he mustered all of his strength and loosed it in a shout.
“Open up for the King’s messenger!”

After an intolerably long pause, a torch flickered aloft. A
voice called out: “Which King?”

“Anglia,” he shouted back, “and Gwynedd.”

Rhydderch’s man raised his torch a little higher. Jehan
could see a sharp cheekbone, an unshaven jowl. “Take your lies somewhere else
and let us be.”

One of the knights urged his mount to Jehan’s side. Light
flared, illumining a thin nondescript face, a straggle of brown beard. But the
eyes were Thea’s.

She raised her brand high, casting its light on the banners
that strained in a sudden blast. Dragon and leopards seemed to leap from their
fields toward the guard on the battlements.

“Open up,” Jehan commanded, “and take me to your lord.”

“He isn't here,” the man said harshly.

Jehan’s mount snorted and half-reared. “Then by Saint George
and Saint Dafydd, let me in to wait for him!”

The torch wavered. After a moment it dropped from sight.
With a groaning of chains, the drawbridge lowered; the iron portcullis rose.

Light glimmered within. Jehan sent the red stallion
thundering to meet it.

o0o

Jehan sat on the high seat in Rhydderch’s hall, his mail
laid aside for a princely robe, Kilhwch’s gift as the stallion had been
Richard’s.

Gwydion’s gift contemplated the array of dishes that the
cook had hastened to prepare for them, and nibbled fastidiously on a bit of
bread. "Barbarians,” she said in her own voice, although her face remained
that of the young knight from Gwynedd.

He nodded, holding his breath as a squire leaned close to
refill his cup. The youth had not encountered soap or water in longer than he
cared to think.

He looked about, surveying Rhydderch’s domain. Caer Sidi was
a fortress above all; on the bare stone walls of its hall hung neither
tapestries nor bright banners but ancient shields blackened with smoke. The men
beneath them, the servants who moved among the tables, had a dark wild look,
ever wary, like hunted beasts.

“I’ve seen such faces elsewhere,” Thea said in Jehan’s ear.
“In Sicily in the cave of a bandit chieftain. In Alamut among the Hashishayun.”

He shivered and set down his new-filled cup.

She laughed softly. “All men who follow madmen have the same
look. But this is only a petty madman and a fruitless madness. You’re easily a
match for both.”

“I’m not so sure,” he muttered under his breath.

o0o

As the hour grew late, Rhydderch’s men waxed boisterous with
wine. But Jehan’s knights clustered together near the high table, drinking
little and eating less, casting longing glances toward the weapons heaped just
outside the door. The air around them was heavy with hostility, the servants’
conduct hovering on the edge of insolence.

The knights endured it grimly, for they had been chosen with
utmost care. But they had their pride. The youngest of them bore with fortitude
the wine poured down his rich tunic, but when the offender grinned at him, he
struck the man down.

The servant leaped up with a long knife gleaming in his
hand. Jehan sprang to his feet. What he felt, he realized later, was not fear
but cold fury.

His voice cracked through the hall. “Put down that knife!”

Silence fell abruptly. Among Rhydderch’s men, eyes rolled
white. Half a dozen blades clattered to table or bench or floor, the servant’s
among them.

Jehan caught the knight’s blazing eye and willed him to
return to his seat. Slowly he obeyed.

Jehan sat himself, trying not to shake. With reaction, or
with laughter that was half hysteria. He pushed his cup aside and gathered
himself to rise again, to put an end to this mockery of a feast.

And froze. Men had come and gone often, as always during a
banquet, but those who strode in came armed and helmeted, their cloaks dabbled
with mud.

A short broad man walked at their head, clad in mail with no
surcoat. But once one had seen his eyes, one forgot all else: strange, almost
as light as Brother Alf’s, but red-rimmed and glaring like a wild boar’s.

He halted in front of the high table, his men fanning out
behind him. Eight, Jehan counted, no more than an escort. But there were five
times that in the hall, watching him as the hound watches the huntsman, with
hate and fear and blind adoration.

Jehan leaned back, running a cold eye over him. “Is it the
custom to walk armed into hall?”

“In my hall," Rhydderch answered, “I make my own
customs. Who are you, and what are you doing, lording it in my castle?”

“
Your
castle?” Jehan’s eyes were wide, surprised.
“Are you the Lord Rhydderch then?” He rose and bowed as equal to equal. “Jehan
de Sevigny, body-squire to the Lord Chancellor of Anglia and ambassador from
the Kings of Anglia and of Gwynedd, at your service, sir.”

Rhydderch’s nostrils flared; his knuckles whitened on his
sword hilt. “Anglia?” he demanded. “Gwynedd? Anglia
and
Gwynedd?”

“You heard me rightly,” Jehan said. “Come, my lord. Share
the feast. Your cook’s outdone himself tonight by all accounts.”

The baron did not move. “Gwynedd and Anglia together?” He
seemed stunned. “What do they want with me? I’m but a poor Marcher lord.”

“Let’s say,” said Jehan, “that you’re not as insignificant
as you’d like Their Majesties to think you are.”

“But not so significant that I’m worth a made knight.”

“Well,” Jehan said. “There are twelve of them with me, and
I’m bigger than any. And the alternative was war.” Rhydderch’s eyes gleamed; he
smiled. “The two kings against you and your men. But they’ve been feeling
compassionate lately. It must have hit you hard when Sir Alun escaped.”

It was a long while before Rhydderch could master his voice.

“Sir AIun?”

“Of Rhiyana. A remarkable man, that.”

“A spy,” grated Rhydderch.

“An ambassador,” Jehan countered. “Like me, but not quite so
well attended. Nor so well treated. Through sheer stubbornness he found his way
to an abbey. The Abbot sent word to the King, and the King met with Kilhwch of
Gwynedd.”

“Peaceably?”

“Perfectly so. They’re two of a kind, after all.”

Rhydderch did not sneer. Not quite. “And why have they
honored me with your august presence?”

“Out of longing for your own. You’re bidden to attend them
on Ynys Witrin as soon as you can ride there.”

“I?” Rhydderch asked. “What can I do for Their Majesties?”

“You can go to them and ask.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t,” Jehan said, “they come and get you.”

“Am I to be punished for arresting and dealing with a spy?”

“I don’t know about punishment, but my lords would like to
talk to you,” answered Jehan. “You have a day or two to think about it.”

“And then?”

Jehan’s smile was affable. “If I’m not back in St. Ruan’s by
the third day from now, in your company, both kings will come to find us. On
the other hand, if you ride with me, Richard might be disposed to be friendly.
Even if he can’t exactly condone his vassal’s warmongering in his absence and
without his consent, he can understand it.”

Slowly Rhydderch shrank in upon himself. He had planned for
every contingency but this one, that the kings would ally against him; his
swift mind raced, seeking wildly for an opening.

He bowed his head as under a yoke, fierce, hating, yet
apparently conquered. “I’ll do as my King commands. We ride out tomorrow at
dawn.”

Jehan nodded. “Excellent. You may take one man. Be sure he
has a good horse.”

As Rhydderch turned away, Thea left her seat beside Jehan
and followed him. She paused only once, to retrieve her sword from its resting
place near the door and to meet Jehan’s eye. Her own was bright and fierce.
With the slightest of bows, she strode after the baron, silent as his shadow
and no less tenacious.

Jehan released his breath slowly and beckoned to the hall
steward. “More wine,” he commanded.

Somewhat to his surprise, the man obeyed him. He returned to
Rhydderch’s seat and sat there, lordly, unconcerned, and shaking deep within
where no one could see.

Half a mile from St. Ruan’s, where three days ago Richard’s
knights had begun their race for the gold bezant, a figure stood alone. From a
distance he seemed a lifeless thing, a stone or a tree-trunk set upon the road,
dusted with the snow that had begun to fall a little after noon. Now and then a
gust of wind would snatch at his dark cloak, baring a glimpse of brightness,
scarlet and blue and gold, or plucking the hood away from a white still face
that turned toward the north and west.

The snow thickened. He paid no heed to it, nor tried after
the first time or two to cover his head, although the flakes clung to his hair
and lashes, half-blinding him.

He heard them long before he saw them: the pounding of
hooves, the jingle of metal, the harsh breathing of horses driven fast and hard
over rough country. Through a gap in the swirling snow burst a company of
knights.

Their leader well-nigh rode over him. The red stallion
reared, its iron-shod hooves seeming almost to brush his face. Its rider cried
out. “Brother Alf! For the love of God!”

The stallion stood still, trembling and snorting. Alf laid a
gentle hand on its neck and regarded the company, and Rhydderch a shadow in
their midst.

He shivered slightly. “You’re back,” he said, looking from
Jehan to Thea. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

“Obviously.” Jehan held out his hand. “Come up behind me.”

He shook his head. “Your poor beast has all the burdens he
needs.” Yet he clasped Jehan’s hand, a brief, tight grip, fire-warm, and
smiled. “I’m glad to see you safe." He turned away too quickly for Jehan
to answer, and swung up behind Thea on the grey mare of Rhiyana.

o0o

The kings received the arrivals in the Abbot’s hall, in
royal state. Even Gwydion had put aside his brown robe for a cotte that seemed
made of the sky at midnight, a deep luminous blue worked with moonlit silver in
the image of the seabird crowned. Both Richard and Kilhwch, to his right and
his left, blazed in scarlet and gold.

Through all the journey from his stronghold, Rhydderch had
spoken no word. When royal guards relieved him of his weapons and monks bathed
him and trimmed his hair and beard and clothed him as befit his rank, he
offered no resistance. He seemed half-stunned by the failure of all he had
plotted.