Daggerspell

by Katharine Kerr

  When he reached the edge, he could see that this forest was old, thick with shrub and bracken among the enormous oaks. He swung down and led his sweating horse through the underbrush. They’d gone about a mile when he heard distant yelling behind him. He found a little dell, coaxed the frightened horse down and into tall shrubs, then left it and slipped through the trees. He moved as silently as a deer, thankful for the first time for his elven blood. After some minutes, he heard men calling out behind him and froze between two low-growing trees.

  “Must be his horse.”

  “Leave it for now. He can’t have gone far.”

  The voices were vaguely familiar—his brother’s men, sure enough. He could hear them crashing through the underbrush and fanning out, at least four of them, judging from the jingle of scabbards and spurs. Suddenly Rhodry was sick to his heart of running like a hunted hare; he decided that it would be better to let them find him quick and get his dying over with. He started to step forward from cover and tripped.

  Or something tripped him. He was sure of it, because the fall came so suddenly. As he went down, he felt hands grab him, a myriad of tiny hands that lowered him to the ground without a sound. He was too frightened to shout or even think as a rain of leaves and twigs pattered over him. The men were coming closer, clumsy and loud in the forest.

  As Rhodry lay stone still, he heard another set of noises far past and to the right of where he was, noises that sounded exactly like a man running through the underbrush. With shouts and hunting calls, the gwerbret’s men took off after them. A little hand patted Rhodry’s cheek, and it seemed that he heard a giggle, a bare whisper of sound. He could hear the false hunt driving forward, turning this way and that, the noises fading slowly as the men were led in circles, back and forth, but always farther away. At last the sound died away. A hundred little hands plucked and picked the leaves off him, then one grabbed his hand and pulled.

  “You want me to get up?”

  The pull came again. Rhodry got to his feet and looked round. Here and there a branch bobbed or a cluster of leaves shivered in the perfectly windless air.

  “You must be the Wildfolk. Well, by every god, you have my heartfelt thanks.”

  Suddenly they were gone; he could somehow feel that he was alone. As he made his careful, silent way back to his horse, it occurred to him to wonder if Nevyn had sent this unexpected help. He retrieved his mount and headed out fast on foot. Apparently his hunters were far away, because he reached the edge of the forest without hearing anyone coming after him.

  Out in the meadow stood four horses, tethered to a shrubby bush and carrying saddles marked with the silver dragon of Aberwyn. One of them suddenly stamped; another tossed its head in irritation; then all four of them were nickering, stamping, throwing up their heads in panic. As Rhodry mounted, he saw the knots that held their reins slip loose, untied by invisible fingers. The horses pranced, whinnied—and all at once they bolted, racing north in blind panic. Rhodry laughed aloud and called out a last thanks as he turned his horse and galloped south, back to the main road.

  • • •

  Nevyn was riding alone at the rear of the warband when two Wildfolk came back, popping into manifestation on his horse’s head and on his saddle peak. The obese yellow gnome was particularly pleased with himself, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing his fat little stomach. Nevyn slowed his horse and dropped even farther back, out of earshot of the men.

  “Did you do what I told you to?”

  The yellow gnome nodded a yes and stretched its mouth in a soundless peal of laughter.

  “And Rhodry’s safe?”

  This time the blue sprite nodded vigorously. She shaded her eyes with one hand and did a pantomime of someone peering and searching while her face registered sheer frustration.

  “And you got the horses?”

  They both nodded.

  “Splendid, splendid. You have my thanks, and you come tell me if Rhodry’s in danger again.”

  They disappeared in a swirl of breeze. As Nevyn rode back up to join the others, he allowed himself a smile for the thought of Rhys’s men, walking the whole fifteen miles back to Aberwyn in soft riding boots. It’s a good thing I decided to scry Rhodry out, he thought to himself, curse Rhys and his murdering bastards all!

  “The warband must have reached your cousins dun by now,” Dannyan remarked.

  “Just so,” Lovyan said. “It was sensible of Cullyn to think of taking the men away. At least Rhodry’s left me a good man to captain the band.”

  With a sigh, Lovyan sat up on the bed and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She had wept enough for one day; in spite of the pain she felt over Rhodry’s exile, she had to pick up the broken pieces of her plans and make new ones.

  “Dann, would you get a servant to fetch me hot water?” Lovyan said, “I’ll have a wash and dress now. I must have a word with the gwerbret.”

  “So soon? Is my lady sure that’s wise?”

  “Not wise at all, but necessary.”

  Yet in the end, Rhys came to her. Lovyan had just finished dressing when a page appeared to ask if she would receive the gwerbret. Lovyan took a place by the window and drew herself up to full height as Rhys came in. He looked so timid that Lovyan suddenly remembered that there was something he very badly wanted from her.

  “Mother, my apologies. Truly, I never meant to send Rhodry away, or to hang him either. I was honestly glad when his captain reminded me of my promise. Don’t you see? After he stood there and defied me in open malover, what could I do? Knuckle under and be shamed in every man’s eyes?”

  Lovyan wished that she could believe him. In time, perhaps, she would be able to make herself believe him.

  “Mother, please! I’d already shamed myself once by admitting my fault there in the malover.”

  “I have no doubt that His Grace perceived his choice that way. I have hopes that he will see a better choice at some future time.”

  “I suppose you want me to recall him.”

  “Does His Grace truly have to ask me that?”

  With a toss of his head, Rhys began pacing back and forth. Lovyan considered refusing to make the marriage for Donilla unless Rhys recalled his brother, but she knew him too well. In angry pride, he would refuse the bargain, and then Donilla would suffer for her husband’s fault.

  “I wish to leave your court on the morrow,” Lovyan said. “If Donilla’s going to ride with us, you’ll have to drink the bitter ale and put her aside. It’s only hurting both of you by delaying it, anyway.”

  “My thanks.” Rhys turned to her in honest relief. “I was afraid that you’d—”

  He could not quite bring himself to finish. She let the silence build until he looked down, shamed by her generosity.

  “Mother, please? Won’t you accept my apology?”

  “Mother? Never call me that again.”

  Rhys flinched as if she’d slapped him. She paused just long enough for him to feel the sting.

  “Not, at least, until Rhodry’s back home.”

  Rhys started to speak, then turned and strode out, slamming the door so hard that the silver oddments on the mantel rattled. Lovyan allowed herself a small smile.

  “I’m a warrior’s wife and a warrior’s daughter. And the war, Your Grace, has just begun.”

  The sun was low in the sky when Rhodry came to the stone slab marking the border between the gwerbret-rhynnau of Aberwyn and Abernaudd. He paused his horse and contemplated the dragon carved on the west side and the hippogriff rampant carved on the east, then rode the last few feet across. For all the good it was going to do him, he was safe. Rhys’s men would never risk starting a war by pursuing him into another gwerbrets rhan and thus usurping that gwerbrets jurisdiction.

  As the evening wind picked up from the sea, he shivered and pulled his plain blue cloak round his shoulders. His stomach was growling and knotting; he hadn’t eaten since the ill-fated feast of the night before. A few more miles brought him to a big farming vill
age and the Gray Goat tavern, a thatched roundhouse with a stable out in back. As he dismounted, the taverner came out, a bulky blob of a man who reeked of garlic. He looked Rhodry over with a shrewd eye for the blazons on his shirt and worn spot on his belt where a scabbard should have hung.

  “I’ll wager you got into a bit of trouble with the captain of your warband.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Naught. And a silver dagger in your belt, is there? Who pledged you to that?”

  “Cullyn of Cerrmor.”

  “Oho!” The taverner gave him a wide grin, revealing stubs of front teeth. “Then come in and welcome. You can work around the place, like, to earn your keep while you figure out what you’re going to do next. Here, lad, have you been flogged? My wife can give you a poultice or somewhat for your back.”

  “I haven’t, but my thanks.”

  “Good, good. At least your lord was a merciful man, eh? Well, put your horse in the stables. My name’s Gadd.”

  “And mine’s Rhodry.”

  Just in time, he stopped himself from calling himself Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd. That he only had part of his name left gave him a cold feeling, but at the same time, he was relieved at Gadd’s easy assumption that he was a disgraced rider. Outside of Rhys’s gwerbretrhyn, no one but the noble lords would know who he was, and once he left Eldidd, few of them would recognize him either. Without his name and his plaid, he would only be another silver dagger.

  Apparently Gadd had a higher opinion of horses than he did humans, because while the stable was clean and well tended, in the tavern room the battered tables were slick with grease and the straw on the floor smelled like kennel bedding. The stew, however, that Gadd put in front of Rhodry was thick with meat and turnips, and the bread that went with it was fresh-baked. Rhodry gobbled while Gadd brought him a tankard of dark ale and pointed out where the open barrel stood.

  “Dip out what you want. No doubt you’ll be drinking yourself blind tonight. Just do your puking out in the stableyard.”

  Yet Rhodry stayed reasonably sober. As the place filled up with local farmers and their wives, he saw them watching him with the hungry curiosity of those to whom a fallen tree is a village event. Even though Gadd told everyone to leave him alone, Rhodry felt as vulnerable as if he were walking naked through city streets. He nursed a couple of tankards and huddled by the warmth of the hearth while he wondered if Cullyn truly would be able to get him some coin and a sword. Without a weapon, he couldn’t fight, silver dagger or no. The irony struck him hard. Before, he’d been the great lord, able to load Cullyn with honors; now, if he stayed alive, it would be only because Cullyn had befriended him. Out on the long road, Cullyn’s name meant as much as Maelwaedd did in the world he’d irrevocably left behind.

  Rhodry had no hope at all that Rhys would ever recall him. The more their mother pressured him, the more stubborn Rhys would become—Rhodry was sure of it, and with good reason. If he’d been the gwerbret and Rhys the exile, he never would have relented. Locked in their hatred, he and Rhys shared a core where they were twins, not merely brothers, and when they reached that core, they understood each other better than anyone else in the world could ever do. No matter how much his kin schemed and begged, Rhodry would live and die a silver dagger. He knew it there, in that core.

  Idly he pulled the dagger from his belt to look at Cullyn’s device. At his touch the blade ran with silvery light. He sheathed it fast and glanced around, but fortunately no one had noticed. You’re worse than just an exile, Rhodry told himself, you’re half an elf, too. All at once he felt dizzy, just from seeing that he no longer fit anywhere in his world, not among the Westfolk, not among men, a half-breed with no clan, no rank, no place to call home, nothing but the silver dagger to give him the identity he’d always taken for granted. He laid his hand on the dagger’s hilt and understood why, scum of the kingdom that they were, silver daggers clung to their name and their band. He got up and dipped himself out another tankard, drank it fast, and went out to the hayloft over the stable. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted simply to go to sleep and wipe the world away.

  Yet he had a restless night of it, because he was cold. He had no blankets, he was too proud to ask Gadd for some, and the chill autumn night had driven away the false summer warmth of the day. He wrapped himself in his cloak, burrowed into the straw like a dog in a kennel, but every time he drowsed off, he would wake shivering. Finally he sat up to ease the cramps in his back and wondered if he could stand the stink of his saddle blanket. It was small, but it would be something.

  Then he heard a horse trotting into the stableyard. Since it was highly unusual for anyone to travel at night, he hoped that this traveler was Cullyn’s messenger, sent to him as fast as possible to make sure that Rhys never knew. His mind mostly on warm blankets, Rhodry climbed down the ladder and hurried out into the moonlight. He recognized the horse before he did the rider, who was just dismounting. Sunrise tossed a weary head and nickered in greeting.

  “There you are, my love,” Jill said. “I’ve got your sword. Da and Lord Sligyn bribed the guards, and we nipped it out right under your stinking brothers nose.”

  In sheer disbelief, Rhodry stood stock-still. He was sure that he was having a desperate dream and nothing more until Jill walked over and laid her hands on his chest. They were solid and warm.

  “Oh, here! Did you think I’d let you go into exile and not follow?”

  “I did. Forgive me. You’d even leave your father for me?”

  “I would.” She went tense, and he could hear tears under her words. “But it’s hard. I won’t lie and say otherwise. But I had to go, and oh, ye gods, Rhoddo, I love you so much.”

  Rhodry threw his arms around her and kissed her. Tight in each other’s arms, they laughed and wept by turns until a grumbling Gadd ran out to see who was making all that noise in his stableyard.

  Since Lord Petyn, the cousin who was sheltering Lovyan’s men, paid direct fealty to Gwerbret Rhys, there was no doubt that it was awkward for him to have the Clw Coc warband under his roof. Just at dawn, Cullyn woke the men, got them fed, and told them to start saddling their horses so that they could meet their lady on the road and spare Petyn the further sight of them. He was just finishing with his own horse when a worried-looking Nevyn jogged over to him.

  “Cullyn, where’s Jill? I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “No doubt. She rode out last night to follow her Rhodry.”

  Nevyn froze, staring at him openmouthed.

  “You let her go?” the old man said at last.

  “And what choice did I have? She could have sneaked off like a thief, but she paid me the honor of coming to me and telling me the truth.” Afraid that he would weep, he busied himself with adjusting the bridle, which needed no adjustment. “Besides, the lad needs her. He’s never ridden anywhere without a pack of servants. Do you think he could even tell green wood from dry if he wanted a fire?”

  “Doubtless not, truly. You know, my friend, you’re a cursed strong man.”

  “I’m not, just one who knows enough to send his weakness far away from him.”

  When he risked a look, he found the old man smiling in a friendly kind of disbelief. He was surprised at how much having Nevyn’s honor meant to him.

  “I’ve had one of the lads ready your horse. We’ll be riding soon.”

  “My thanks, but would you mind if I rode after Jill? I want to say farewell to her.”

  “Mind? Not in the least, and besides, it’s not for me to say anymore what she does or doesn’t do.”

  Cullyn escorted Nevyn down to the gates and held the bridle of his horse while the old man swung into the saddle.

  “Tell Lady Lovyan that I’ll return to Dun Gwerbyn soon,” Nevyn said. “If naught else, I have to claim my mule and my herbs.”

  “Done, then. I’ll look forward to seeing you there.”

  “Will you, now?” Nevyn shot him another smile. “And I’ll look forward to seeing you.
Do you have any message for your silver dagger of a daughter?”

  “Naught. I told her I love her last night. There’s naught else to be said.”

  Cullyn leaned back against the wall and watched him ride off into the brightening dawn. He felt himself trembling like a beggar in the snow.

  “Jill. Oh, ye gods, Jill, Jill, Jill.”

  Yet now she would never learn of his shame, never have to know that he’d been tempted to dishonor them both. Cullyn was smiling as he walked back into the ward, where his men were waiting for him.

  Since Nevyn often stayed in the Gray Goat when he was doctoring the local farmers, Gadd knew him well. When he rode up that evening, Gadd waddled out, all smiles and bows, to take his horse for him.

  “What? No mule? You haven’t given up herbcraft, have you?”

  “I haven’t. I’m just here to look for someone—a young silver dagger and Cullyn of Cerrmor’s lass. Which way did they ride when they left you?”

  “Left me? Hah! They’ve been up in my hayloft all day, they have. Ah, young lads! A man just doesn’t have that kind of stamina when he gets on in years.” Gadd shook his head mournfully. “It’s a cursed good thing that custom’s slow this time of year.”

  “I see your point, truly. Well, I’ll wait in the tavern until they get hungry enough to come down.”

  Nevyn was just settling down to a bowl of Gadd’s good stew when Jill walked into the smoky firelight of the tavern. As tense as a hunted deer, she paused just inside the door and watched him warily.

  “Have you come to fetch me back? You’ll have to ensorcel me or suchlike to do it. Maybe Rhodry’s an exile and a dishonored man, but I’d follow him anywhere.”