Greylady

by Peter Morwood

  “I agree that the idea is good, but… But you’ll need the Overlord’s permission, and I don’t think—”

  “On this one day, set down from the old time, Overlord Albanak has no say in what I do. I am newly come into my authority as Clan-Lord ar’Diskan, and within reason I can do as I please. And I ask you, Bayrd-eir ar’Talvlyn, if you will be my Companion and my banner-bearer.”

  Bayrd was not the only one to gasp aloud, for such a position had the same responsibilities as a Companion in a duel: in essence, to keep both sides honest. The Companion and banner-bearer of a high-clan lord was the only man or woman in hall with the right to correct the lord himself; to call his faults and failings to attention; to criticize a lack of honour or equally, the other side of the coin, to take the lord to task for being concerned with honour to the exclusion of all else.

  Lord Albanak had used the term to Bayrd in jest. Now Lord ar’Diskan was offering it in reality. He wanted Bayrd to be his conscience. Such offers of preferment were not made twice. Bayrd swung from Yarak’s saddle and sank gracefully down to give Second Obeisance, touching his brow to his crossed hands on the ground before him.

  “I, Bayrd-eir, kailin-eir ilauan ar’Talvlyn, do become your liege man by faith and fealty, freely given and freely taken…” And then he stumbled, for while the first part was common to most oaths a kailin might be called upon to take, the rest was unfamiliar.

  “In the absence of my lord father,” Gerin bowed respectfully towards the makeshift bier, “there’s no need to stand overmuch on ritual. Say what words you feel are right.”

  Colouring at the honour done him, so that his complexion came almost back to normal for a few minutes, Bayrd racked his brain for fair-sounding phrases. After all the reading of old chronicles he had done in his use, the words were there.

  “To… To stand by your side and be your banner-bearer, to stand by your heart and be your Companion and your conscience, to stand by your honour and keep it true, and homage and true service I will bear unto you, to live and to die as you direct, against all peoples save only the clan of my own blood.”

  Steel glinted as Lord Gerin drew the tsepan from his belt and ran the thin, triangular blade lightly across his left hand’s palm. Blood oozed out and formed a long, bright trickle. He bent down and scooped a handful of sand from the beach, then trickled it onto the small wound until the blood was stanched. “Honoured by this, I accept you. Be honoured by this: upon this blood, upon this earth, before these witnesses and beneath the Light of Heaven, your friends shall be my friends and your enemies mine also. I so swear it on my word and on my Honour.”

  Everything went still and silent as Gerin ar’Diskan looked his new liegeman up and down. “Bayrd ar’Talvlyn,” he said, “you have been raised to kailin-eir of my household. So the single braid is wrong. Go see to it.”

  6

  Companion

  Lord Gerin’s plan for an alliance to cement peace between two clans and thus act as an example for others to follow was a good one – in theory. But in practice, the new Clan-Lord ar’Diskan discovered all too quickly that he had left several elements out of his equation. Most immediate, most obvious, and by that very nature most easily forgotten, was that he was lord over an Alban high-clan household, with all the difficulties it could – and did – mean.

  Clan ar’Diskan’s resentment was immediate, general, and gathered force during the course of the next hour. They resented Bayrd ar’Talvlyn, their lord’s new Companion and Bannerman, because an outblood low-clan kailin had been appointed to such a high position over the heads of more worthy and better-born ar’Diskan clansmen. They resented their clan-lord since he had made such a decision without consulting his own supporters, by which, of course, they meant the old, hidebound kailinin-eir who had supported his father before him. They resented Overlord Albanak for permitting him to do so, conveniently forgetting that Gerin had merely invoked the old tradition with which no Overlord could interfere, and if Albanak had done so, they would have resented him even more. And they even resented old Lord Serej for choosing to die at so inconvenient a time.

  “A pretty stew, eh?” said Marc ar’Dru, under the pretence of offering Bayrd a congratulatory cup of unwatered wine. “If this is the result of a, a…” he tried for the exact words, “‘an alliance of blood and honour’, then what in the name of the Black Pit would a feud look like?”

  “Probably much like this,” Bayrd said grimly. “Except with more swords.” He took a long swig of the wine, deliberately insouciant for the benefit of any ar’Diskan’r warriors who might be watching, and had to fight the twist of disgust off his face. Briej white was dry and refreshing when properly chilled; drunk warm, it was little different from expensive vinegar. But warm or cold, it was strong enough – and right now the alcohol content was welcome. He felt its acidic burn right down into the pit of his stomach, and let out a long breath that distant, unfamiliar observers might have assumed was satisfaction.

  Marc was neither. “That bad?” he said.

  “Worse.” Bayrd held out the cup. “Another. Though this one’s just for show.” Which meant that though he intended to drink it, he would do so at his own pace and taste, and not for mere display. He waved one hand towards the green shadows of the forested inland hills, and as if by accident sent a small arc of wine spraying from the cup in casual libation to a worthy enemy. It might have been a libation indeed, or just an accident after all. He wasn’t sure. Right now, Bayrd wasn’t sure of many things. “We have Lord Gelert and his people out there, ready and willing to push us back into the sea. We have only the Light of Heaven sees how many others who might ally with him—”

  “Or against him, in hope of some sort of gain.”

  “Maybe. But here, we have an Overlord who encouraged our endeavours by making certain that we couldn’t leave, one clan-lord who tried to kill me earlier this morning…”

  “I wonder if he could have managed it any better than that Prytenek axeman did.”

  Even though Marc had spoken softly enough, Bayrd still shot him a warning glance that said shut up! as plainly as the words would have done. “He might, or he might not. But now that one’s successor is another clan-lord who might get me – or even himself – killed because he’s trying to bring some peace and unity into all this mess. He was right. If Gelert stays away for long enough that we can start fighting the ones we really hate, all he’ll need to see us off his shore will be brooms and a good high tide.”

  “Then perhaps we should just have another clan war, like the old days, and get it all over and done with?” Marc ar’Dru sounded sarcastic, but not in the usual way. There was agreement in his voice as well. Safely out of involvement with all this, he had the advantage of neutrality – at least for the time being.

  But if events took a turn for the worse, House ar’Dru would find itself dragged into the fray, forced to choose between friends and allies who might have picked different sides. And forced to kill them, or be killed. The personal problems of an involuntary sorcerer were growing less important with every minute that passed, with every curse that was uttered, with every fist that was raised. Even though the fists were empty. At least for now.

  Bayrd kept his own hand well clear of any of the weapon-hilts jutting from his belt. It would be all too easy for the armed stranger to be the spark that ignited this visibly smouldering hostility at his very presence, and at the same time all too unlikely that his restraint would serve to calm things down. People – Alban people – just didn’t think that way.

  He found himself hoping for another Prytenek attack. Not a big one, just enough to remind this crowd of once-dignified men and women that their previous lord lay dead among them, that their new live lord was trying to act wisely, and that most of all they were still stranded in unpacified enemy territory. He wanted to yell at them, to call their stupidities to notice, to do something besides just stand here being calm and dignified in the hope that it would do some good. If every Alban on this beac
h shared the same face and the same shoulders, he wanted to slap the one and shake the other until something like sense entered their petty little minds. He wanted…

  Bayrd’s teeth clenched and his lips stretched in a swift grimace of discomfort, but the hot, pungent heat that rose through him wasn’t a wine-created belch. Although by now it was a sensation just as familiar. It was needing less and less passion to summon up the power – or summoning it was growing easier. Either way, he was Companion and banner-bearer to the Clan-Lord ar’Diskan, and he couldn’t let it show. No fire, no sparks, not even healing – because there was nothing to heal, Serej ar’Diskan was far beyond the reach of any surgeon, and even if death could be turned back on itself for anyone other than himself, Bayrd was none too sure that he wanted that one back to life again. Or even if Serej would want such a thing himself, to owe such a debt of gratitude to the man he had so plainly despised. Except that, knowing him, it would be a debt of hatred, to know he owed his life not only to Bayrd ar’Talvlyn, but to sorcery. No. Best let him lie. He was a better man dead than he had ever been alive.

  And as a respected corpse rather than a resurrected one – Bayrd’s eyes narrowed as the thought took shape – the old man served a better purpose not just for him, but for everyone close enough to see.

  Even though his conversation with Skarpeya all those months ago had never come around to the practicalities of sorcery and the Art Magic, he knew what to do, not needing to think how to do it any more than he had to think the breath into his lungs or the blood through his veins. For the man whom everyone claimed thought too much, it was an ironic discovery. The shapes formed unbidden in his mind, inchoate shadows that hovered on the edge of recognition: a rope, an outstretched hand, a hook. Other shapes that made no sense except that they somehow represented grasping, drawing, pulling…

  For an instant Bayrd closed his eyes and let the pulling take control – when it came, it was a long, steady pressure, without any violence – then opened them again and watched it happen. The banner-draped bed on which Serej ar’Diskan lay swayed slightly as though brushed by a careless passer-by, even though it was of such massive construction, a bed fit for a clan-lord, that the passer-by would have needed a siege-ram to get any response at all. Then without any noise or fuss, it slumped sideways and pitched the dead man out onto the ground at his clansfolk’s feet. Serej rolled over once and lay, no longer shaded beneath the banners raised by honourable grief, with his face upturned accusingly to the hard blue sky and the all-seeing Light of Heaven.

  The curses and the shouting and the accusations cut off like a violently snuffed candle, and only a trickle of nervous muttering trailed off into silence like the candle’s final wisp of smoke. Someone coughed uneasily, and the sound was shockingly loud, drawing turned heads and anxious stares from all sides.

  “Is this how the people of high-clan ar’Diskan give honour to their worthy dead?” Bayrd ar’Talvlyn’s voice was cold and quiet, but in that appalling stillness he had no need to shout. “The merest independent House can show better than that. Brawling and complaint, with your last lord’s body still unburnt. With it lying at your feet.”

  He took pains not to accuse them of spilling it there; since everything else he had said was true, there was no need to add lying and hypocrisy to his use of sorcery, and their own shame was doing more than further reproaches. Regardless of how he had felt about Serej ar’Diskan alive, the man had been a lord, and once dead he deserved some courtesy. If being untimely tumbled from his bier gained him – and more especially his son – the respect that they had not been getting, then that tumble was well-timed.

  Many hands struggled the dead man awkwardly back to his proper place, too many to do other than get in each others’ way though all determined to atone in some way for what had happened. Bayrd watched, his face expressionless, and only when Serej was once more laid out on his last bed did he raise his wine-cup to his lips, drinking once and then pouring the rest out onto the sand in a pointed final salute. As Bannerman and Companion to the new clan-lord, he had that right.

  The right to be the conscience not merely of the lord, but of his whole clan.

  * * * *

  “You’re growing bold, my friend.”

  Marc ar’Dru was not accusing, not blaming, simply stating a fact. His sister Mevn sat quietly, listening hard but saying not a word. She knew what he meant, because Bayrd had told her himself – and then been unsure whether to be gratified or vaguely discomfited by her lack of surprise. Formally invited to a private dinner at House ar’Dru in celebration of his new rank – which for the present meant sitting with the other two around a fire built on the sand, and the luxury of freshly shot game rather than salted rations – he had debated whether he wanted anyone other than Marc, who had found out almost by accident, to learn about what he still regarded as a guilty and dishonourable secret.

  But there was a comfort in company, and this company was one he trusted with his life if necessary, so why not with his honour? Honour was always the more important: it lived on as reputation or notoriety after a kailin’s death, colouring the way he was remembered in the Books of Years of afterwards. If anyone was to set the matter straight, they would have to know the truth of it.

  And Mevn had raised her eyebrows, and nodded, and poured more wine – red Seurandec this time, she had explained, so that the problem of chilling wouldn’t arise – and that was all the astonishment she expressed. It was a relief, and at the same time it was somewhat disappointing – if disappointment was quite the word he wanted, and Bayrd wasn’t sure that it was. At least she had been suitably delighted at his advancement, and even managed to restrain herself from more than a single finger-wagging observation that she had been right about him all along. That was real, that mattered where his honour was concerned, and so far as Mevn was concerned it clearly mattered more than any amount of sorcery.

  And neither of them had asked him to perform conjuring tricks after dinner.

  Bayrd grinned and drank Seurandec wine. Like the other two he was savouring each sip with the air of someone uncertain of where the next would come from. The attitude was entirely correct. All the ships had been burnt save those of the Ship-Clans, and every man and woman aboard them was out of favour. Though the Pryteneks presumably imported wine of their own, they would hardly sell it to the people who had invaded them. And King Daykin of Kalitz was severely out of pocket to the tune of a treasure-barge and its entire cargo, thus unlikely to countenance trade with his thieving ex-employees. For all that, Bayrd was feeling more at ease than he had done for some time.

  “Bold?” he said. “I thought I was being very circumspect and subtle.”

  “Oh, you were,” said Marc. “At least, to someone who didn’t know you better. But I’ve known you for four years, and…” He stared at the contents of his wine-cup for a few seconds, as if the dark liquid was a page on which he could read…something. Then he shuddered visibly and drained the cup in a single long draught. “And suddenly you were different.”

  “Different?” asked Mevn. “How?”

  “Changed. Another man, and yet the same. But… He was harder. Colder. More—”

  “Powerful?”

  “Menacing.”

  “I didn’t feel menacing,” protested Bayrd, slightly embarrassed at the way this examination of his character had slipped into the third person without so much as a by-your-leave; as if he wasn’t there any more. “I felt angry at how stupid they were being, given all that had happened, but—”

  “You looked willing to hurt someone,” said Marc flatly. “Or to do something you had decided, whether there would be hurt involved or not. You looked as if you didn’t care. And even when you were fighting, against Lord Serej and then against the Pryteneks, you didn’t look like that. As I say: changed.”

  Mevn gazed thoughtfully at them both; at her brother the young gallant with his fashionably flowing locks, and at her ex-lover, whose face had become shuttered against scrutiny in a w
ay it had never been before. “There may be a lot of changes needed before this business is all over,” she said at last. “And this change of yours may be one we’ll all live to be glad of.”

  Bayrd glanced at her and then looked away. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “Then take it as meant: well. And have some more wine. We’ve already opened the flask, and you know it won’t keep when the seal’s been broken.” She smiled mischievously. “If it’s going to be a while before we drink any more of this particular vintage, then I’d rather it was consumed by… Let’s just say an influential friend of the family, and leave it at that.”

  * * * *

  Bayrd had counted short: the Albans had been thirteen thousand and some odd when they left Kalitz, and he had estimated eleven thousand had survived the journey. It was nearer twelve and a half; and he was able to see how twelve and a half thousand people could, at need, eat into the edge of a forest like flame into dry grass. That need was strong here: to clear the land and build a place in which they could live like human beings, rather than merely scratch out an existence along the shoreline like so many wading birds.

  Though many initially suffered intestinal disorders from eating too much meat and not enough vegetables until they became accustomed to identifying the half-forgotten wild varieties of greenstuff again, at least no-one starved. The woodland was astonishingly rich in game, birds and beasts together, and the rivers were thick with fish. Though it surprised them at the time, later knowledge explained the reason why – and one more reason why Gelert had been so angry to find them here. They had landed on the seaward side of a province-wide game preserve.