“Oh, he’s a good lad.” She chuckled briefly. “He prenticed with my man and me, and I taught him how to use his two eyes.”
After Nesta said farewell, Nevyn spent some time pacing in his chamber and considering this news. Since neither he nor anyone else had picked up any other traces of dark dweomer, he was quite sure that Nesta had spotted the enemy. It made him curse aloud, because with a winter’s head start, the enemy would be impossible to find in Bardek, a land of many small states and constant political turmoil that made local authorities very lax on matters of civil law. Since not even the greatest dweomermaster in the world could scry or send a projection over a large body of water, Nevyn would even have to wait until spring to send letters to those who studied the true dweomer in Bardek and warn them of this enemy’s coming. As much as it ached his heart, he was going to have to let the enemy escape. For now, he told himself—just for now. Then he put the matter aside forcibly and went to distract himself by dressing for the gwerbret’s inquiry into the rebellion.
The formal hearing was held in the gwerbret’s chamber of justice, an enormous half-round of a room on the second floor of the main broch. In the exact middle of the curve were two windows with the dragon banner of Aberwyn hanging between them. Under it was a long table, where Rhys sat in the center with the golden ceremonial sword of Aberwyn in front of him. To either side of him sat priests of Bel, his councillors in the laws. A scribe had a little table to the right, and the various witnesses stood to the left, Rhodry himself, his various allies, and Loyvan, who as a mark of respect had a chair. The rest of the room was crowded with the merely curious, including Nevyn, who stood by the door and watched sourly as the proceedings dragged on.
One at a time, Rhodry’s allies knelt in front of the table and answered Rhys’s questions about every detail of the war, day by day, until Nevyn wondered if the wretched thing would take longer to discuss than it did to fight. Over and over again, the allies testified that Rhodry had comported himself mercifully and abided by every law of honor. Yet Rhys sent for Cullyn, too, and questioned him while Rhodry turned dangerously sullen and Sligyn’s face blossomed red with rage. Finally Rhys summoned Rhodry one last time.
“There’s only one small point left, Lord Rhodry. How do you expect me to believe all this talk of dweomer?”
Nevyn sighed; he should have expected that.
“Because it’s true, Your Grace,” Rhodry said. “As all my witnesses have attested.”
“Indeed? It makes me wonder if you’re all spinning a wild tale to cover a worse one.”
When Sligyn, his face scarlet, lunged forward, Peredyr grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Lovyan rose from her chair and stalked over to the table.
“If I may have leave to speak, Your Grace? Will you sit there and say that your own mother is lying to you?”
“Of course not. But you may have been lied to.”
Sligyn made a noise as if he were choking, and Edar muttered something under his breath.
“I take it, then, Your Grace,” Lovyan said, “that the reports of dweomer are the whole point of this malover.”
“They are. I want the truth.”
“Then you shall have it.” Lovyan turned, her eyes searching the crowd. “Nevyn, will you assist me in this matter?”
Nevyn hesitated, wondering if displaying the dweomer before a crowd were contrary to his vows. Then it occurred to him that perhaps it was time for more men to know that the dweomer existed; after all, one reason that the dark dweomer could thrive was that most educated people laughed at the very idea of dweomer. He worked his way through the crowd and made the gwerbret a bow, but he stayed standing.
“Your Grace, I understand your skepticism in the face of such peculiar events, but I assure you that men such as me have all the strange powers of which Lord Rhodry has spoken.”
The crowd gasped and eased forward. Rhys leaned back insolently in his chair.
“Indeed? And do you expect me to believe that on your word alone?”
Nevyn raised his hands and called upon the Wildfolk of Air and Aethyr in his mind, where he gave them his commands. Suddenly a blast of wind stormed through the chamber and set the banner flapping and the parchments of priests and scribes flying through the air. Thunder boomed, and bolts of blue fire crackled and gleamed like miniature lightning. Nevyn himself glowed with an intense golden light. Screaming, shoving each other, the crowd of onlookers fled the chamber. Rhys leapt to his feet with an oath, his face dead white, and the priests clung together like frightened women as the wind raged around them with strange, half-heard laughter rippling in it. Nevyn raised his arm slowly and snapped his fingers. The wind, fire, and light all vanished.
“Not on my word alone, Your Grace, no.”
Sligyn was laughing so hard that he nearly choked, but Peredyr dug his elbow into the lord’s ribs and made him hold his tongue. Rhys looked this way and that, his mouth working as he tried to speak. Rhodry got to his feet and bowed to him.
“Does my brother still disbelieve me?”
Rhys turned to Rhodry’s allies and made them the bow.
“My lords, you have my sincere and humble apologies for ever doubting one word you spoke. I beg you to find it in your hearts to forgive me for slighting your honor, because I was ignorant and had never seen the things you have seen.”
Sligyn growled, but Peredyr got in before him.
“No need to grovel, Your Grace. We all had a hard time believing it ourselves at first.”
“My humble thanks, my lord.” Rhys picked up the ceremonial sword without so much as glancing Rhodry’s way and rapped the pommel three times on the table. “The malover is closed. The gwerbret has spoken.”
Since he had no desire to be mobbed by the curious, Nevyn lingered just long enough to grab Rhodry’s arm and haul him away. They hurried out to the gardens, where the leafless aspens shivered in a cold wind, and the marble dragon in the fountain seemed to shiver under the fall of water.
“My thanks, Nevyn. I’ve never treasured any sight more than the sight of Rhys’s pig face when the fires went crackling round him. Do you want Corbyn’s demesne? I’ll get Mother to bestow it upon you.”
“Spare yourself the effort, though I appreciate the thought. I think I’m going to have to hide in my chamber for the rest of this miserable visit.”
“Then come with me. I’m going to leave tomorrow with Jill and some of the men. Cursed if I’ll sit around here and let Rhys insult me. You saw him turn and speak to Peredyr, not me.”
“I did, and you’ve got every right to be furious, but please, lad, try to contain yourself. You’re right. By all means, let’s leave on the morrow—and early.”
“At the crack of dawn. I can stand it for one more night.”
Rhodry spoke so calmly, and his plan of leaving was so sensible, that Nevyn never felt the trouble coming. Later, of course, he would curse himself for a fool.
In Lovyan’s enormous suite, the noble lords who’d fought with Rhodry were having a conference of sorts. For all that Peredyr tried to calm them, they were furious at the insult. Sligyn in particular limped round and swore that if he weren’t such a law-abiding man, he’d lead another rebellion then and there. Rhodry perched on the windowsill and rather wished that he would. Finally, when Dannyan and Jill came to serve the men ale, Sligyn stopped his puffing and sank wearily into a chair.
“My lord?” Jill offered Sligyn a tankard.
“My thanks.” Sligyn took one from the tray. “I’m glad you weren’t there to listen to His Grace’s little farce, Jill. Would have ached your heart, eh?”
“That’s an odd thing,” Lovyan broke in. “I wonder why he didn’t have Jill summoned. He certainly had everyone else up before him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d hauled in the carters and spearmen.”
“I admit I wondered about that, Your Grace,” Jill said. “But I’m glad he didn’t.”
“No one likes being called a liar to your face, eh?” Sligyn paused for a
soothing gulp of ale. “Cursed good thing old Nevyn was there.”
Jill came over to Rhodry and offered him the tray. When he took one, she smiled at him in a way that soothed him considerably. The lords went on with their wrangling.
“We’re leaving for home on the morrow,” Rhodry said softly. “Nevyn’s going to come with us, too. I’ve had all I can stand of my cursed brother for now.”
“So have I, truly.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Naught. The way he treats you aches my heart, that’s all.”
With his free hand Rhodry caught her arm so hard that she nearly dropped the tray.
“What has Rhys been saying to you?”
“I just happened to meet him in the corridor, that’s all.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“Well, he bowed and said I was beautiful. Just a courtly sort of compliment.”
All at once Rhodry realized that every person in the room had turned their way. He let Jill go and stood up to face his mother’s level gaze.
“Rhodry,” Lovyan said wearily. “Your brother was doubtless speaking to Jill only to annoy you. He’s so torn to pieces about his wife that he’s not going to prowl round some other woman.”
“You’d best speak the truth, Mother.”
“I do. I swear it to you.”
“Then I believe you.”
Much later, when it was time to go down to the great hall for dinner, Rhodry had a chance for a private word with Lovyan. She agreed wholeheartedly that he should leave on the morrow.
“The rest of the settlement lies between me and Rhys, anyway. You’ll only have one more meal at his table, so please, Rhoddo, watch what you say tonight?”
“I will, Mother. I promise.”
When he took his place at Rhys’s left, Rhodry did his best to keep that promise by attending strictly to his food and speaking only when spoken to. Rhys never said one word to him, since he was discussing the land settlements with Lovyan. Finally, when the mead was being served, Rhodry got up and bowed to his brother.
“If His Grace will excuse me?”
“By all means.” Rhys paused, smiling. “By the way, brother, you’ve found yourself quite a little mistress, haven’t you? She seems to be as skilled with a sword as she is in other matters.”
Through a red berserker’s haze Rhodry heard Lovyan gasp.
“I’d rather His Grace left Jill out of this,” Rhodry said.
“Indeed?” Rhys rose to face him. “You seem to have kept her quite in the middle of it. How does it feel to have a lass fight your battles for you?”
Rhodry’s sword was half out of its scabbard before he realized what he was doing. The screams of the women brought him to his senses, and he froze, his hand still on the hilt, the blade still exposed, about sixteen inches of cold steel that was going to hang him. Rhys stepped back, and he was smiling in the fierce joy of victory.
“So! You’d draw on a gwerbret in his own hall, would you?”
Rhodry had the brief thought of killing him, but Lovyan threw herself in between them. The entire great hall was silent, staring. When Rhodry sheathed his sword, the slap of metal into leather seemed to ring to the ceiling.
“Rhys,” Lovyan hissed. “You provoked that!”
“It’s no affair of yours, Mother.” Rhys caught her arm and shoved her aside. “Call your women to you and leave the hall. Go!”
Her head held high, Lovyan turned away just as the shouting broke out on the riders’ side of the hall. Rhodry dodged Rhys and ran for his warband, who were rushing to meet him. Cursing and shoving, Rhys’s men were on their feet and trying to surround the Clw Coc men, but there were only two men between Rhodry and Cullyn. The way the silver dagger looked at those two made them back off, and Rhodry was through to the solid comfort of his twenty-five loyal riders. Cullyn gave him a grim smile.
“Do we make a fight of it, my lord?”
All round them the two hundred men of Rhys’s warband went dead silent, hands on sword hilts as they waited for Rhodry’s answer. Rhodry glanced round and saw that his men were ready, that they were willing to die there with him in one last hopeless fight. All he had to do was say the word, and Rhys’s great hall would run with blood. He could die clean, not hang like a horse thief. He wanted it so badly that it was like a fever, burning him, troubling his mind as slowly his hand drifted to his sword hilt. But some of that blood would belong to Jill’s beloved father, and to men who had no graver fault than the ill luck to be serving the Clw Coc. He wrenched his hand away.
“We don’t. Stand aside and let them take me. Cullyn, serve my mother faithfully, will you?”
“I will, my lord, and I’ll see you again.”
The meaning hung there as clear as a noose—again, before they drag you out and hang you. Rhodry had one last thought of drawing and fighting, but he forced himself to stand still as his men drew back and the gwerbret’s men grabbed him by the arms, hauled him forward, and disarmed him.
Nevyn was eating in the privacy of his chamber when Cullyn burst in to give him the news. Cullyn spoke briefly, quietly, his eyes so bland that Nevyn feared he would murder Rhys if all else failed. As he followed the captain back to Lovyan’s suite, Nevyn was remembering Gweran the bard, who so long ago had played a similar trick himself. I tried to warn him, Nevyn thought, I told him that it would come round on him someday. Only then did Cullyn’s news come real to him, that the man who carried Eldidd’s Wyrd in his hands was going to hang on the morrow morn.
Lovyan’s reception chamber was packed with angry lords, cursing Rhys and his provocations. Lovyan herself half reclined in a chair with Jill and Dannyan hovering behind her. When Nevyn came in, Lovyan looked his way with hopeless, tear-filled eyes. Jill ran to her father and buried her face in his chest.
“If Rhys hangs Rhodry,” Sligyn announced, “he’ll have a rebellion on his hands that will make the Delonderiel run red. I heard what he said to the lad. We all did, eh?”
“Just so,” Peredyr said. “We’d best get the men and ride out tonight, before he traps us here.”
“Hold your tongues!” Nevyn snapped. “Until we have just cause, let us not discuss rebellion, my lords. I intend to speak to the gwerbret myself, and I’m going to do it now.”
They cheered him as if he were the captain and they the warband. When Nevyn left, Cullyn came along with him.
“I’ve ridden outside the laws for so long that I don’t remember them much, but doesn’t a lord’s captain have the right to beg for his lord’s life?”
“He does.” Nevyn was surprised that he hadn’t remembered that himself, but then he realized that he’d been assuming that Cullyn would have been unwilling to do any such thing. “Here, would you truly go down on your knees for Rhodry?”
“I would, and I will, if you let me come with you.”
Cullyn was looking at him in a weary grief. Only then did Nevyn realize that Cullyn loved Rhodry as much as Gerraent had loved Blaen before Brangwen came in between them. He realized another thing, too, that he respected this hard-bitten silver dagger who was willing to humble himself for those he loved. As palpably as if he’d thrown down a heavy-laden sack, Nevyn felt the chains of Wyrd break and set him free. Cullyn would never be Gerraent to him again, but merely himself—not even a man he’d forgiven for a fault, but a friend. For a moment, he wept. Cullyn laid a well-meaning if misunderstanding hand on his shoulder.
“I feel like weeping over it, too, but we can pull him out of this rope if ever two men can.”
And together, truly together like a pair of blood-sworn warriors, Nevyn and Cullyn went straight to Rhys’s private chambers. When Nevyn pounded on the door, a page opened it with the news that His Grace was receiving no visitors.
“Then tell him that no one is here, or I’ll send a dweomer-storm in ahead of me.”
With a yelp the page flung the door wide and dodged back out of their way. Rhys was seated in a heavy carved chair with the lady Donilla crouche
d on a footstool at his side. He rose to meet his uninvited guests, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and tossed his head back. Nevyn had to admire him for refusing to be intimidated by the best swordsman in all Deverry and a man who could burn his broch to the ground with a snap of his fingers.
“I suppose you’ve come to beg for Rhodry’s life.”
“We have, Your Grace,” Nevyn said. “And both of us will go down on our knees if we have to.”
Rhys considered them for a moment, then smiled, a cold twitch of his mouth.
“I have no intention of hanging my own brother. I just want to make sure that the young cub knows his place. All he has to do is beg my forgiveness in open malover, and that’s an end to it.”
Nevyn let out his breath in a long sigh of relief.
“Here, both of you,” Rhys went on. “Did you truly think I’d break my mother’s heart and see half of western Eldidd go into rebellion by hanging him?” When they hesitated, Rhys smiled again. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Well, Your Grace,” Nevyn said. “You’ve made your feelings about your kin quite clear in the past.”
“Ah, by the gods!” All at once, Rhys exploded, talking so fast that it was hard to understand him. “And why shouldn’t I hate him? All my life all I’ve ever heard is Rhodry this and Rhodry that, Rhodry’s the one with the honor, what a cursed shame that Rhodry wasn’t born first so he could have the rhan, Rhodry, Rhodry, Rhodry!” Rhys’s face was a dangerous shade of scarlet. “To hear them talk you’d think I’d cheated the little turd out of his inheritance when all the time it was rightfully mine!”
With a fluid grace, Donilla rose and caught her husband’s arm.
“My lord distresses himself.”
“So I do.” Rhys paused to force himself under control. “My apologies, good sorcerer, and to you, captain. Rest assured that your lord’s life is safe from me.”
“Your Grace, meaning no insult and all,” Cullyn said, “but do I have your sworn word on that?”
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