An Armory of Swords

by Fred Saberhagen

  They rode along in cold silence. Derina looked at the splashes of lichen coloring the stone walls and wondered if Norward, with his poor vision, could see them at all.

  “I’m caught,” Norward said finally. He pulled his beast to a halt. “Reeve pushing from below, and F-father pushing from above. What can I d-do?”

  She had no answer for him. Norward was weak, and that was that. It wasn’t his fault, and it was sad that Landry despised him, but any sympathy on Derina’s part was wasted effort.

  Her father had taught her that only power mattered. Norward had none, and Derina could lend him none of her own. And so she left his question unanswered, just rode on, and Norward could do nothing but follow.

  His lips twisted, a knowing, self-hating smile. “Have you looked c-closely at f—at our parent’s new sword?” he asked.

  “I’m not engrossed by swords,” Derina said.

  “Ah. Well. This one is interesting. I f-found it, you know—and got a look at it before Father took it away.”

  “What’s so interesting about it?” Derina demanded.

  That smile came again. “Perhaps nothing.”

  Derina rode on, Norward lagging behind, and wished she were alone.

  The next morning Derina looked at the sword hanging above the mantel in the great hall, and wondered what it was that had attracted Norward’s interest. The hilt was fine work, that was clear enough, possessing a handsome scalloped black pommel with the badge of a white hand on it. But there was little special about it, no exquisite workmanship, no gilt or jewels.

  She did not dare defy her father by touching the sword, drawing it to look at the blade.

  “Please, miss.”

  The voice startled her, and she jumped. Derina turned and saw Nellda, and a bolt of hatred lodged in her heart.

  “Please, miss.” Nellda pushed a packet into Derina’s hands. “Give this to your father.”

  Derina looked at the packet, badly wrapped and tied with a bit of green ribbon. “Why should I?” she said.

  There were tears in Nelly’s eyes. “He won’t see me! You can get to him, can’t you?”

  Derina fingered the ribbon. “What is it? Love tokens?”

  “And a letter. I can write, you know! I’m not just a foolish girl.”

  “So you say.” Coldly. Derina thought a moment, then shook her head. “Go home, Nellda. Go back to whatever little sty it was he found you in.”

  “I can’t! He turned my father out! We had a bad year and—” Her voice broke. “He said he’d take care of me!”

  For a moment a little spark of sympathy rose in Derina’s heart, but with an act of will she stamped it out. Power was all that mattered, and Derina’s, such as it was, was only to hurt. “Go away,” she said, and held out the packet.

  Nellda, weeping, fled without taking it.

  Derina turned and—she hesitated, and for some reason she glanced up at the great sword—she threw the packet into the fire.

  Burning up, it scarcely made a flame.

  So there was her future husband, pimples and round shoulders and hoggish eyes. His name was Burley, and his father was a gentleman of no great land or distinction who lived farther up the valley, a man of thin beard and cringing deference.

  “His arm will be of use to you, sir,” said the father, Edson, whose own arm was of little use at all.

  “It’s not his arm that’s in question,” Landry muttered. Derina caught Reeve’s smirk out of the corner of her eye and wanted to claw it off his face.

  Derina looked at her family. Kendra looked as if she were trying to make the best of it. Norward was gazing at his feet and frowning. Edlyn was quietly triumphant, eyes glittering with malice.

  I won’t make your mistake, Derina thought fiercely; but she knew that Edlyn’s mistakes hadn’t been Edlyn’s to make—and her own mistakes wouldn’t be hers, either.

  “We’ll send to the temple for a priest to draw up the contract proper,” Landry said. He looked at Derina, grinned at her.

  “Kiss your future husband, girl.”

  All eyes were on Derina and she hated it. She stepped forward obediently, rose on tiptoe—Burley was taller than his posture made him—and kissed his cheek.

  His breath smelt of mutton. His cheek was red with embarrassment. He didn’t seem to be enjoying this any more than she was—which was, she supposed, a point in his favor.

  She would never dare to love him, she knew. Most likely he wouldn’t live long.

  The wedding took place a few weeks later, in order to give all the poor relations a chance to swarm in from the countryside to get their free meal. The ceremony was at noon, the priest already drunk and thick-tongued, and the rest of the company was drunk soon after.

  Nellda was seen, at the food of the long table, wolfing down food and drink. One of the servants, sensitive with long practice to Lord Landry’s moods, pushed her away, and she was seen no more.

  Derina looked down at her dowry, a small chest of coins and a modicum of old loot, silver cups and candlesticks polished brightly to make them seem more valuable than they were—the guard, standing by with his pike, seemed almost unnecessary. Described in the marriage agreement, signed and sealed with red ribbon, was another part of the dowry: a lease on some high pastureland.

  “Nice to know what you’re worth, eh?” Reeve said.

  “More than you,” Derina said.

  Reeve sneered. “You don’t think father favors me? You don’t think I’ll have all this in the end?” He gestured largely, swayed a bit, and leaned harder on the milkmaid under his arm.

  He followed his father in this as in all things.

  “If you live, perhaps,” said Norward’s mild voice. He had ghosted up without Reeve’s noticing.

  Reeve swung round. His compact, powerful body seemed to puff like a bullfrog’s before his brother’s gangling form. “And who’ll kill me?” he demanded. “A blind man like you?”

  Mildly Norward placed a hand on Reeve’s chest. “Yourself,” he said, “most like,” and gave Reeve a gentle push. Reeve went down hard, the milkmaid on top of him in a flurry of skirts. The dowry’s guard, stepping back with a grin, put out a hand to still a rocking candlestick. Reeve, sprawled on the flags, pushed the girl away and clapped a hand to his belt for a knife that wasn’t there; and then he glanced for a moment at Landry’s sword, hanging just a few feet away—but Norward just stood over him, looking down, and after a long, burning moment Reeve got to his feet and stalked away, the milkmaid fluttering after.

  Some people laughed. Norward himself seemed faintly puzzled. He looked at his hand and flexed it.

  “I must not know my own strength,” he said.

  “He was drunk, and off balance.”

  “That must be it,” Norward agreed. He looked at the dowry on its table, then at Derina. “I like your Burley,” he said.

  “He’s not my Burley,” Derina said, “he’s Father’s Burley.”

  Norward nodded, looked at his hand again. “Have you noticed?” he said. “My stammer’s getting better.”

  The wedding bed, surrounded by curtains and screens, was set before the fire in the great hall and wrapped with symbols of fertility—ivy and pinecones and orange and yellow squash, the best that could be done in autumn.

  The newlyweds would have the big bed in the main hall for a week, then move to Derina’s room. They wouldn’t be leaving Landry’s halls till Yule, when their new rooms at Edson’s house would be ready.

  Derina endured the public “consummation,” sitting upright in bed with Burley while the guests cheered, filled their cups with wine, and made ribald jokes. Landry loomed over her, patted her, placed a wet kiss on her cheek. “You’re my treasure,” he said. “My truest daughter.”

  Something—wretched love, perhaps—churned in Derina’s heart.

  Edlyn watched with cold, hidden eyes—less than two years ago, she’d been put through the same business, received the same caresses and praise.

  Next came the
closing of the curtains and Landry’s loud orders ending the festivities. Lights were doused. The dowry was packed and carried to Landry’s strongroom—“just for the night,” he said.

  In the corners of the big room, drunken relations snored and mumbled.

  Derina looked at Burley, profiled in the firelight. His wedding garments—black velvet jacket slashed with yellow, jaunty bonnet with feather—had shown him to advantage, far more presentable than in his country clothes the day they’d met. Now, in his shirt, he looked from Derina to his wine cup and back.

  Derina felt the warmth of the big fire warming her shoulders. She tilted her head back and drank her wine, hoping it would bring oblivion. She put the cup away and lay on the bed and closed her eyes.

  She hoped he would get it over with quickly.

  She tasted wine on his breath as he kissed her. Derina lay still, not moving. His hands moved over her body. There was nowhere for them to go where her father hadn’t already been.

  Burley’s hands stopped moving. There was a loud crack from the fireplace as a log threw up sparks.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said, “if you’re not in the humor.”

  Faint surprise opened her eyes.

  Burley rolled himself onto his stomach, propped himself on his elbows. Firelight reflected in his dark eyes. “Perhaps you had no mind to be married,” he said.

  She shrugged. Wine swam in her head. “I knew it would happen.”

  “But not to me.”

  Another shrug. “As well as another.”

  Burley gnawed a knuckle and stared at the fire. Derina propped herself up on her elbow and regarded him. Wine and relief made her giddy.

  “I think my father was afraid to say no to this,” Burley said. “I think it was Lord Landry’s idea, not his.”

  Derina was not surprised. People in the dales treaded warily where Landry was concerned.

  “My father says that the connection will be of advantage,” Burley said. “And we need the grazing on the upland pastures.”

  “I hope you’ll get it.”

  Burley gave her a sharp look. “What d’you mean?”

  The wine made her laugh. “Edlyn’s dowry gave the mowing on forty hectares of river pasture, but there wasn’t much hay made there, for my father’s beeves grazed the land all summer.”

  Burley nodded slowly. “I see.”

  “And Edlyn’s dowry never left my father’s strongboxes.” The wine made her laugh again. “It was an autumn wedding, like ours, and father always had an excuse. Bad autumn weather, then winter snows, then muddy spring roads. And by summer, Barton was dead, and his father with him, and the beeves already in the pasture.”

  “And the little girl—”

  “Daryl.”

  “Daryl. She’s the heir to her father’s estate, and Barton the eldest son.”

  “And my father has use of the estate through her minority, which will last forever. And that is why Edlyn will never be allowed to marry again, for fear that Daryl would have another protector.”

  And that is why Edlyn hates me. Derina left the concluding thought unspoken.

  Burley frowned for a long moment, then spoke with hesitation. “How did Barton and his father die?”

  Derina’s head spun. Probably the wine.

  “In battle,” she said.

  “And who killed them?”

  For a moment Derina was aware of her father’s looted sword, bright and powerful, hanging over the fireplace.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Burley didn’t reply. Derina watched him frowning into the fire, eyes alight with thought, until wine and main weariness dragged her into sleep.

  When she woke in the morning, her father-in-law had gone, and all his folk with him.

  The conventions forced Edlyn to be sisterly, which included helping Derina make the bed. “No blood on the sheets,” she observed. Her flat face regarded Derina. “Was he incapable? Or you no virgin?”

  Derina felt color rise to her face. For all they never talked of it, Edlyn knew perfectly well who’d had Derina’s virginity, two years before when Edlyn married and moved out of the room they shared.

  At least it hadn’t lasted long. Landry had found a girl he’d liked better—another of his fleeting favorites.

  “Whatever version you like best,” Derina said. “When you talk to the old gossips in the kitchen hall, you’ll say whatever you like anyway.”

  Edlyn’s expressionless face turned back to her work. Derina fluffed a pillow. “Perhaps,” said Derina, “he was merely gentle.”

  Edlyn’s tone was scornful. “So much the worse for him.”

  There was a lump in Derina’s throat. She put the pillow down. “Can we not be friends?” she asked.

  Edlyn only gazed at her suspiciously.

  “It’s not my fault,” Derina said. “I didn’t ask to marry any more than you. It’s not my fault that Barton died.”

  “But you profit by it.”

  “Where’s my profit?” Derina demanded.

  Edlyn didn’t answer.

  “Father’s favor changes with the wind,” Derina said. “He does it to divide us.”

  “And what good would combining do?” Scornfully. “D’you think we could beat him?”

  “Probably not. But it would ease our hearts.”

  Stony, Edlyn looked at her.

  Lord Landry’s voice rose in the court. “Gone?” The doors boomed inward, and Landry stalked in, rage darkening his face. He swung accusingly to Derina. “D’you know what that brother of yours has done?”

  “I l-looked for you.” Norward’s voice. He came tumbling down the stair, having heard his father’s bellow from his quarters. “Y-you weren’t there.”

  “You gave away the dowry, damn you!” Landry rampaged up to his son, seemed to tower over him even though Norward was taller. “Edson’s gone, with all his folk!”

  “It—” Norward struggled for words through the stammer that had suddenly returned, bad as ever. “It was his. Edson’s. He asked for it.”

  “You should have delayed! Sent for me!”

  “I—I did. But Edson’s relatives were all there—I couldn’t refuse ’em all. But you weren’t in your room, and hadn’t slept there.”

  “Who are you to tell me where to sleep?” Landry roared.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Liar! Liar and thief!” Landry seized his son by the neck, began wrenching him back and forth at the end of his powerful arms. Norward turned red and clutched hopelessly at his father’s thick wrists. Derina desperately searched her mind for something she could do.

  “Is it a matter of the dowry, then?”

  Burley’s voice cut over the sound of Landry’s shouts. He had followed Norward down the stair, was watching narrowly as father and son staggered back and forth.

  Landry froze, breath coming hard through wide nostrils. Then he released his son and forced a smile. “Not at all, lad,” he said. “But Norward let your father leave without telling me of his going. I would have said my farewells.” He glared at Norward, who clutched his throat and gasped for air. “Reeve would not have so forgotten.”

  “My father bade me thank your lordship for all your kindness,” Burley said. “But he and our folk wanted to get an early start lest a storm break.”

  A storm, Derina thought. Apt enough analogy.

  “I would have said goodbye,” Landry mumbled, and turned to slouch away.

  Derina, seeing Norward and Burley exchange cautious looks, knew then that this had been carefully arranged. For a moment anxiety churned in her belly, fear that Landry would discover she had talked too freely to Burley the night before.

  There was a touch on Derina’s shoulder, and she jumped. Edlyn clasped her arm, squeezed once, looked in her face, and then silently returned to her work.

  Truce, Derina read in her look. If not quite peace, at least an end to war.

  A real storm, snow and wind, coiled about the house the next two days, gla
zing windows with sleet, shrieking around the walls’ flinty corners, banking up shoals of sooty white in the courtyard. Landry’s relations and dependents, unable to leave for their own homes, ate up his provender and patience at an equal rate. The huge fire in the great hall blazed night and day and almost cooked Derina and Burley in their bed.

  The storm died down the third night after the wedding. Burley and Derina, next morning, hadn’t yet risen when Norward brought in Nellda, who’d fallen in the storm the night before while trying to leave the house.

  Nelly’s flesh was turquoise blue and cold, and her breath was faint. There was snow and ice in her tangled hair. Norward put her in Derina’s wedding bed, and called for a warming pan.

  “I was at the north corner,” Norward said, “checking the roof for storm damage. And there she was, past the Stone Eagle, halfway to the valley and lying in a drift.”

  “Who saw her?” Derina asked.

  “I did.”

  Derina looked at him in surprise. “But your eyes—how could you see her?”

  Norward shrugged. “My eyes seem to be better.”

  With warmth and warm broth brought by a servant, Nellda was brought around. Her eyes traveled from one member of the family to another.

  “Where is he?” she asked faintly.

  “He isn’t here,” Norward said.

  Nellda’s eyes trembled, then closed. “He’s with Medora,” she said. “You should have left me in the snow.”

  Burley frowned and took Derina aside. “Who is this person?” he asked. “Does she have a place here?”

  “She’s my father’s whore,” Derina said. “And apparently now my father has a new whore, this Medora.”

  “And who’s she?”

  “I don’t know. Probably some crofter girl. That’s the sort he likes.”

  Burley narrowed his eyes in thought. “Can’t we find her a place here? We can’t let her die in the snow.”

  Derina’s spine turned rigid. “In our house?” She shook her head. “My mother lives here. I won’t insult her by having Nelly around. Not when Father doesn’t want her anymore.”

  Burley sighed. “I will try to think of something.”