Читать книгу A Time of Justice - Katharine Kerr - Страница 8

CONJUNCTIO

This figure brings good out of prior good, and evil out of prior evil. Yet by a most cunning paradox, when it does fall into the Land of Steel, which governs marriages, it produces evil even unto the point of death.

The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster

The tavern catered, it seemed, to shabby young men, laughing and talking among themselves – craftsmen’s apprentices from the look of them. Jill propped one foot up on a bench and settled her back against the curved stone wall. Since she and her man both carried the silver dagger, the mark of a notoriously poor band of wandering mercenaries, the other customers seemed willing to ignore them, but she preferred to take no chances. Besides, even though she wore men’s clothing and had her blonde hair cropped off like a lad’s, she was very beautiful, back in those days, and men had seen through her ruse before.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Rhodry whispered.

‘They’re all thieves.’

‘Ye gods! Do you mean we’re drinking in a –’

‘Shush, you dolt!’

‘My apologies, but why are we –’

‘Not so loud! What other tavern in Caenmetyn is going to serve a pair of silver daggers? It’s a fancy sort of town, my love.’

Rhodry studied the crowd and scowled. Even in a black mood, when Rhodry was young (and he was barely one and twenty that year) his elven blood was obvious to those who knew how to look; his face, handsome all through his life, was so finely drawn in those days with a full mouth and deep-set eyes, that it would have seemed girlish if it weren’t for the nicks and scars from old fighting.

‘Which way shall we ride tomorrow?’ he said at last. ‘I’ve got to find a hire soon.’

‘True enough, because we’re blasted low on coin. You should be able to find a caravan leaving here, though.’

‘Ah by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! I’d rather find some lord with a feud going and ride a war. I’m as sick as I can be of playing nursemaid to stinking merchants and their stinking mules! I’m a warrior born and bred, not a wretched horseherd!’

‘How can you be sick of it? You’ve only ever guarded one caravan in your life.’

When he scowled again, she let the subject drop.

Oddly enough, about an hour later someone offered Rhodry a very different type of hire. Jill was keeping a watch on the door when she saw a man slip into the tavern room. All muffled in a grey cloak, with the hood up against the chill of a spring night, he was stout and on the tallish side. When he approached the table, the hood slipped, giving Jill a glimpse of blue eyes and a face handsome in a weak sort of way.

‘I heard there was a silver dagger in town.’ He spoke with a rolling Cerrmor accent. ‘I might have a hire for you, lad.’

‘Indeed?’ Rhodry gestured at the bench on the opposite side of the table. ‘Sit down, good sir.’

He took the seat, then studied them both for a moment, his eyes flicking to Jill as if her standing while he sat made him nervous. Since he was wearing striped brigga and an expensive linen shirt under the cloak, she figured he might be a prosperous craftsman, perhaps a man who made incense for the temples, judging by the scent that lingered around him. All at once, Jill’s grey gnome popped into manifestation on the table. He had his skinny arms crossed over his narrow chest, and his long-nosed face was set in a disapproving glare for the stranger, who of course saw nothing. He leaned forward in a waft of Bardek cinnamon.

‘I have an enemy, you see,’ he whispered. ‘He’s insulted me, mocked me, dared me to stop him, and he knows blasted well that I’ve got no skill with a blade. I’ll pay very high for proof of his death.’

‘Oh indeed?’ Rhodry’s dark blue eyes flashed with rage. ‘I’m no paid murderer. If you want to challenge him to an honour duel and formally choose me for your champion, I might take you up on it, but only if this fellow can fight and fight well.’

Biting his lip hard, the stranger glanced round. The gnome stuck out its tongue at him, then disappeared.

‘An honour duel’s impossible. He … uh … well won’t respond to my challenge.’

‘Then I’m not your man.’

‘Ah, but they always say that silver daggers have their price. Two gold pieces.’

Jill nearly choked on her ale. Two gold pieces would buy a prosperous farm and its livestock as well.

‘I wouldn’t do it for a thousand,’ Rhodry snapped. ‘But at that price, doubtless you’ll find someone else to do your murdering for you.’

The fellow rose and dashed for the door, as if the dolt had just realized that he’d said too much to a perfect stranger. Jill noticed one of the thieves, a slender fellow with a shock of mousy-brown hair, slip out after him, only to return in a few minutes. He sat down companionably across from Rhodry without so much as a by-your-leave.

‘You were right to turn him down, silver dagger. I just talked to the idiot, and he let it slip that this enemy of his is a noble lord.’ The thief rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘As if anyone would touch a job like that! If one of the noble-born got himself done in, wouldn’t the town be crawling with the gwerbret’s marshals, poking their stinking noses into every corner and wondering how the likes of us made our living? You silver daggers can just ride on again, but us Guildsmen have to live here, you know.’

‘True spoken,’ Jill broke in. ‘Here, did he say where this noble lord lived?’

‘Not to put a name to it, but I got the feeling, just from a few things he said, like, that it was somewhere to the south.’

After the thief took himself off again, Jill sat down next to Rhodry on the unsteady bench.

‘Thinking of riding south, my love?’

‘I am. It gripes my soul, thinking of one of the noble-born murdered by some base-born coward. Wonder if we can find our plump little killer again?’

But although they searched the town before they rode out, they never saw nor smelled him.

The late afternoon sun, flecked with dust motes, streamed in the windows of the great hall. At the far side of the round room, a couple of members of the warband were wagering on the dice, while others sipped ale and talked about very little. Tieryn Dwaen of Bringerun lounged back in his carved chair, put his feet up on the honour table, and watched the first flies of spring as he sipped a tankard of ale. His guest, Lord Cadlew of Marcbyr, sat at his right and fussed over a dog from the pack lying round their feet. A fine, sleek greyhound of the breed known as gwertroedd, this dog was new since Cadlew’s last visit, or at least, the last one when he’d had time to pay attention to something as mundane as a dog.

‘Do you want him?’ Dwaen said. ‘He’s yours if you do.’

‘Splendidly generous of you, but not necessary.’

‘Go ahead, take him. He’s the last thing my father ever bought, and for all that he’s a splendid hunter, I’d just as soon have him out of my sight.’

Cadlew looked up with a troubled toss of his blond head.

‘Well, in that case I’ll take him with me when I ride home. My thanks, Dwaen.’

Dwaen shrugged and signalled the page, Laryn, to come pour more ale. The boy was the son of one of his vassals sent to the tieryn for his training, and raising him was now Dwaen’s responsibility. Even though it was over a month since he’d inherited, Dwaen still found it terrifying that he was the tieryn, responsible for the demesne and the lives of everyone on it.

‘You know,’ Cadlew said, and very slowly and carefully. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the death. I can’t help thinking you were a bit of a fool.’

‘Fine friend you are. Did you ride all this way just to twit me?’

‘Nah, nah, nah, my friend, and I call you that truly. I came to give you a warning. Lord Beryn offered you twice the gold of your father’s blood price. I don’t see why you didn’t take the lwdd and be done with it.’

‘Because I wanted my father’s murderer hanged. It should be obvious.’

‘But young Madryc was the only son Beryn had. He won’t forget this.’

‘Neither will I. Da was the only father I happened to have, too.’

With a sigh Cadlew drank his ale in silence. Although he felt his wound of rage opening, Dwaen could forgive his friend’s lack of understanding. Doubtless every lord in Gwaentaer was wondering why he’d pushed the law to its limit and insisted that the gwerbret hang Madryc. Most would have taken the twelve gold pieces and got their satisfaction in knowing that Beryn had impoverished himself and his clan to raise them.

‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ Dwaen said, choosing his words carefully, ‘It’s a wrong thing to take gold for blood when a man murders in malice. If it’d been an oath-sworn blood feud or suchlike, no doubt I would have felt different, but that drunken young cub deserved death.’

‘But it would have been better if you’d killed him yourself instead of running to the laws like a woman. Beryn would have understood that.’

‘And why should I add one murder to another when we’ve got a gwerbret not forty miles north of here?’

‘Ye gods, Dwaen, you talk like a cursed priest!’

‘If I’d had brothers I would have been a priest, and you know it as well as I do.’

In a few minutes what kin Dwaen did have left came down from the women’s hall, his mother, Slaecca, and his sister, Ylaena, with their serving women trailing after. Her hair coiffed in the black headscarf of a widow, Slaecca was pale, her face drawn, as if she were on the edge of a grave illness, every movement slow and measured to mete out her shreds of strength. Ylaena, pretty, slender, and sixteen, looked bewildered, as she had ever since the murder.

‘Here, Mother, sit at my right, will you?’ Dwaen rose to greet the dowager. ‘Cado, if you’ll oblige by sitting with my sister?’

Cadlew was so eager to oblige that it occurred to Dwaen that it was time he found his sister a husband. Although he glanced his mother’s way to see if she’d noticed the young lord’s reaction, she was staring absently out into space.

‘Oh now here, Mam, Da wouldn’t have wanted you to fill your life with misery just because he’s gone to the Otherlands.’

‘I know, but I’m just so worried.’

‘What? What about?’

‘Dwaen, Dwaen, don’t put me off ! I can’t believe that a man like Beryn is going to let this thing lie.’

‘Well now, it’d be a grave thing for him to break the gwerbret’s decree of justice, and he knows it. Besides, he’s got his own sense of honour. If he kills me, there’ll be no one left to carry on the blood feud, and I doubt me if he’d do a loathsome thing like killing a man who had no hope of vengeance.’

Slaecca merely sighed, as if in disbelief, and went back to staring across the hall.

On the morrow Dwaen and Cadlew took the gwertrae out to hunt rabbits in a stretch of wild meadow land some few miles from the dun. They had no sooner ridden into the grass when the dog raised a sleeping hare. With one sharp bark, it took off after its prey. Although the brown hare raced and dodged, leaping high and twisting off at sharp angles, the gwertrae ran so low to the ground and fast that it easily turned the hare in a big circle and drove it back to the hunters. With a whoop of laughter, Cadlew spurred his horse to meet it and bent over to spear the hare off the ground with one easy stroke. All morning they coursed back and forth until the leather sack at Cadlew’s saddle peak bulged bloody from their kills.

The chase took them far from the farmlands of the demesne to the edge of the primeval oak forest, dark and silent, which once had covered the whole southern border of the Gwaentaer plateau, but which in Dwaen’s time existed only in patchy remnants. At a stream they dismounted, watered the horses and the dog, then sat down in the grass to eat the bread and smoked meat they’d brought with them. Cadlew cut the head off one of the hares and tossed it to the gwertrae, who stretched out with its hind legs straight behind and gnawed away.

‘Oh, a thousand thanks for this splendid gift,’ Cadlew said. ‘I think I’ll name him Glas.’

‘If you like, tomorrow we can take the big hounds and ride into the forest. We could do with some venison at the dun.’

‘And when have I ever turned down a chance to hunt?’

Thinking of the morrow’s sport, Dwaen idly looked into the forest. Something was moving – a trace of motion, darting between two trees among bracken and fem. Even though the oaks themselves were just starting into full leaf, the shrubs and suchlike among them were thick enough. Puzzled, he rose for a better look. Cadlew followed his gaze, then with a shout threw himself at Dwaen’s legs and knocked him to the ground just as an arrow sped out of the cover. It whistled over them by several feet, but if Dwaen had been standing, he would have been skewered. Growling, the gwertrae sprang up and barked, lunging forward at the hidden enemy. Another arrow sang and hit it full in the chest. With a whimper Glas fell, writhed and pawed at the air, then lay still. Another arrow hit the grass and struck quivering not two feet from Dwaen’s head. He felt a cold, rigid calm: they were going to die. With neither mail nor shield, it mattered not if they lay there like tourney targets or tried to charge; it was death either way. Oh great Bel, he prayed, come to meet us on the misty road!

‘Shall we charge?’ Cadlew whispered.

‘Might as well die like men.’

Cadlew rolled free, grabbed a spear, and jumped to his feet with a warcry. As he did the same, Dwaen could almost feel the bite of the arrow bringing his Wyrd. But the enemy never loosed his bow again. When they took a couple of cautious steps forward, he saw nothing moving among the trees but a bird on a branch.

‘Well,’ Dwaen said. ‘I think me I’ve just been given a message.’

‘Beryn?’

‘Who else? I wager that if I’d been alone, I’d be dead by now, but no doubt he didn’t want to murder you with me. He’s got naught against you and your clan.’

‘If he tries to kill you again, he’ll have to kill me first, but I’d rather it was in open battle.’

‘It might come to that.’

Cadlew picked up the dead gwertrae and slung it over his saddle, but since Dwaen didn’t want his womenfolk alarmed, they asked a farmer to bury it for them rather than taking it back to the dun.

All that afternoon, even though he managed to make polite conversation with his guest and bis family, Dwaen brooded. Lord Beryn’s lands were only about ten miles to the west, close enough for him to haunt the edges of the demesne in hope of catching his enemy unaware. Yet he couldn’t imagine Beryn using a bow instead of a sword, and besides, how had the old bastard known exactly when and where he’d gone to hunt? Not that he and Cadlew had made any secret of their plan – the question was how Beryn had heard of it, a question that was answered the very same night, when he went up to bed.

Theoretically, now that he’d inherited, Dwaen should have been using his father’s formal suite on the floor just above the great hall, but since he had no desire to move his mother out of her bed, he kept to his spare, small chamber on the third floor of the broch. When he came in that night, carrying a lantern himself rather than bothering a page, he saw a lump under the blankets on the narrow bed. He threw the covers back and found a dead rat, mangled, stabbed over and over to a blood-soaked mess, and stuffed into a neck wound was the tail feather of a raven.

With an involuntary yell, Dwaen jumped back, the lantern shaking and bobbing to throw wild shadows on the walls.

‘Dwaen?’ Cadlew’s voice came muffled through the door. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Not truly. Come in, will you?’

When Cadlew saw the rat, he swore under his breath, then took the poker from the hearth and flipped the foul thing onto the floor.

‘Beryn’s got a man in this dun,’ Cadlew said.

‘Obviously, unless that pedlar who was here this afternoon was actually a spy.’

‘Who would have let him come upstairs? Here, on the morrow. I’ll send a message home and tell them that I’m staying at your side.’

‘You’ve never been more welcome.’

Dwaen gathered up his blankets and went to share Cadlew’s chamber, but he lay awake for a long time after his friend was snoring. Although he’d realized that Beryn would hate him for demanding justice, he’d never thought the lord would seek such a coward’s revenge. But he’s got no choice, he thought, because if he challenges me openly, the gwerbret will intervene. A traitor in his own dun! The thought sickened him, that one of his own men could be bribed against him. It might only be a servant, of course, but still, he was forced to realize that from now on, he could trust no one.

The round, thatched farmhouse sat behind a low earthen wall about a hundred yards from the road. Out in the dusty yard, a man was throwing a bucket of slops to a pair of skinny grey hogs. When Jill and Rhodry led their horses up to the gate, he lowered the bucket and looked them over narrow-eyed.

‘Good morrow,’ Rhodry said. ‘Would your wife happen to have any extra bread to sell to a traveller?’

‘She wouldn’t,’ he paused to spit on the ground, ‘silver dagger.’

‘Well, then, could we pay you to let us water our horses in your trough?’

‘There’s plenty of streams in the forest down the road. But here, that forest is our lord’s hunting preserve. Don’t you silver daggers go poaching in it.’

‘And who is your lord?’

‘Tieryn Dwaen of Bringerun, but he’s too good a man to have any truck with the likes of you.’

At that the farmer picked up his bucket and turned back to his hogs. As they rode off, Rhodry was swearing under his breath.

About a mile further on, the forest sprang up abruptly at the edge of cleared land, a dark, cool stand of ancient oaks, thick with underbrush along the road. In the warmth of a spring day Jill found it pleasant, riding through the dappled shade and listening to the bird-song and all the rustling, scrabbling music of the lives of wild things – the chatter of a squirrel here, the creak of branches there, the occasional scratching in the bracken that indicated some small animal was beating a retreat as the horses passed by. That she would be riding through this splendour with her Rhodry at her side seemed to her the most glorious thing in the world.

‘Shall we stop and eat soon?’ Jill said. ‘We’ve got cheese, even if that whoreson piss-pot bastard wouldn’t sell us any bread. I hear water running nearby.’

Sure enough, the road took a twist and brought them to the deep, broad Belaver, which paralleled the road. At the bank they found a grassy clearing that sported a tall stone, carved with writing. Since Rhodry knew how to read, he told Jill that it served notice that no one could hunt without permission of the tieryn at Bringerun. After they watered their horses, they ate their cheese and apples standing up, stretching after the long morning’s ride, and idly watched the river flowing past, dappled with sun like gold coins. All at once Jill felt uneasy. She walked away from the river and stood listening by the road, but she heard nothing. That was the trouble: the normal forest noise had stopped.

‘Rhodry? We’d best be on our way.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you hear how quiet it is? That means there’s men prowling round, and I’ll wager they’re the tieryn’s gamekeepers. We’d best stay on the public road if we don’t want trouble.’

They mounted and rode out, but as they let the horses amble down the road, Jill realized that she was still listening for something, hunting horns, barking dogs, some normal noise that should accompany gamekeepers on their rounds, but she heard nothing. In about a mile the bird-song picked up again.

As they rounded a bend, they met another party of riders ambling toward them. Two women led the way, a pretty lass in a rich blue dress and an older person in grey who seemed to be her serving woman from the deferential manner in which she spoke. Behind them on a pony rode a page carrying a big basket and bringing up die rear, a swordsman on a warhorse, their escort. Since he was wearing no mail, they could see the blazon, a stag leaping over a fallen tree, embroidered on the yokes of his shirt. Jill and Rhodry pulled off the road to let the lady past, a courtesy which she acknowledged with a sunny smile and a wave of her gloved hand.

‘My lady?’ Rhodry called out. ‘May I ask whom we have the honour of seeing?’

‘Lady Ylaena of Bringerun.’ The page answered for the lady as was his place. ‘Sister to Tieryn Dwaen.’

Rhodry bowed from the saddle with such a bright smile that Jill felt a stab of jealousy. She would never have pretty dresses and soft, pale skin like Ylaena’s. On the other hand, she could knock Rhodry all over a stable-yard if he ever tried to betray her, an advantage that the lady would lack in dealing with her eventual husband. Once the noble party had ridden by, they returned to the road.

‘No doubt they’re meeting that hunting party we heard,’ Rhodry remarked.

But his words caught Jill like an omen. Although she tried to talk herself out of it, she felt trouble round them like a cold wind. They’d ridden no more than half-a-mile when she surrendered.

‘Rhoddo, we’ve got to turn back. That lady’s in danger. I know it sounds daft, but I know it as well as I know the sky’s blue. If we meet them, and I’m wrong, we can make up some tale about having lost a bit of gear in the road or suchlike.’

Jill could hear her voice shaking, and it was this fear that convinced Rhodry. As they turned back, she wished that they could dismount and put on their mail, but she somehow knew that there was no time. Suddenly they heard a woman scream, and then a shout and the clash of metal on metal. With a howl of unearthly laughter, Rhodry drew his sword and kicked his horse to a gallop. Sword in hand, Jill raced after him.

As they charged up to the clearing by the river, Jill saw a welter of horses and ill-armoured men: two attacking the Stag rider, who was already bleeding as he swung his sword and yelled; two more grabbing the reins of the ladies’ horses, and one last beating the helpless page about the head. Rhodry charged straight into the mêlée and killed a man from behind, then swung on another. Jill galloped past and cut at the man struggling with the reins of Ylaena’s terrified palfrey. When she sliced him across the back, he screamed and dropped the reins.

‘Ride!’ Jill shouted at the lady.

When Jill shifted her weight in the saddle her battle-trained horse swung round to the rescue of the serving woman, whose screams echoed above Rhodry’s berserker’s laugh. Jill ducked her enemy’s clumsy blow and slashed him across the throat.

‘My apologies,’ Jill said. ‘You poor bastard.’

For the briefest of moments he stayed upright, staring at her in disbelief, then fell dead over his horse’s neck. Jill’s stomach churned; for all that she was good with the blade she carried, she hated killing. She had no need of sending another man to the Otherlands that day, however, because the rest of the bandits were already racing down the road to the north.

‘Let them go!’ Rhodry called out. ‘We can’t leave the women.’

When Jill turned back, she found him dismounted and pulling the Stag rider down from his saddle. Although the serving woman clung to her saddle peak and sobbed, Ylaena dismounted and ran to the page.

‘Get down, Larro. Let me see what that man did to you.’

Shaking too hard even to weep, the lad swung down and threw himself into her arms. Jill dismounted and joined Rhodry, kneeling beside the Stag rider. His face slashed with bloody cuts, he tried to speak, then died in Rhodry’s arms.

‘Ah horseshit.’ Rhodry laid him down gently. ‘I didn’t think they had brigands in this part of the kingdom.’

‘Not brigands,’ Ylaena said from behind them. ‘My brother would never allow such a thing, not if he had to call in every alliance he had to chase them from his lands.’

They rose, Rhodry hastily wiping his blood-stained hands on his brigga.

‘I owe you my life, silver daggers. Will you escort us back to my dun? I’ll see that you’re well-paid for it.’

‘My lady will have our protection for the honour of the thing.’ Rhodry made her a bow. ‘But we’d best hurry. Those cowards might realize that there’s only two of us and come back.’

Between them Jill and Rhodry got the dead men tied over their saddles. When they rode out, the lady, her serving woman, and the page each led one of the extra horses to leave Jill and Rhodry free in case of attack, her at the head of the line, him in the dangerous rear-guard. As they trotted down the road, Jill turned constantly in her saddle and peered into the trees, but apparently the attackers were the cowards Rhodry had called them, because their terrified procession came free of the forest without any more trouble. Out on the open road among the settled farms they were safe. With a sharp sigh of relief Jill sheathed her sword, then fell back to ride beside Ylaena.

‘I’ll take the reins of that horse, my lady. You shouldn’t have to lead it like a caravan guard.’

‘My thanks.’ Ylaena handed them over. ‘You know, I think it’s the strangest thing of all that another lass would save my life, but you have my heart-felt thanks.’

Tieryn Dwaen stood by the hearth in his great hall and shook with rage. Rhodry had never seen a man as furious as this slender, dark-haired young lord, whose right hand clenched and unclenched on his sword hilt for the entire time that it took for Ylaena to tell the tale, sitting in her brother’s chair with Lord Cadlew behind her. When she was done, the tieryn turned to the silver daggers.

‘And how can I ever repay you for this? I never dreamt they’d dare harm my womenfolk, the bastards!’

‘They, Your Grace?’ Rhodry said. ‘Who?’

‘Someone’s been trying to murder me. It’s just that I never would have thought in a thousand years that Beryn would take his vengeance out on my sister.’

Ylaena covered her face with both hands and wept, while Cadlew patted her shoulder.

‘Dwaen,’ he growled. ‘I want blood for this.’

‘So do I. Lots of it.’

‘They weren’t going to kill me.’ Ylaena struggled with her voice to steady it. ‘I heard them yelling. Don’t harm the ladies, they said. They were just going to take us somewhere.’

‘And what would they have done then?’ Cadlew snarled. ‘When you ride to war, Dwaen, me and my warband will ride with you.’

‘If it comes to war. I intend to let the gwerbret settle this by law if ever I can.’

Cadlew muttered some inaudible frustration.

In the great hall every man in the warband and every servant in the dun stood round, straining to hear. Dwaen yelled at them all to get out, then asked Cadlew to escort Ylaena up to the women’s hall. He himself took Jill and Rhodry to the table of honour and insisted on pouring them mead with his own hands.

‘My lord?’ Rhodry said. ‘I was just up in Ebonlyn, and someone tried to hire me to murder a noble-born man. I’m beginning to wonder if the man was you.’

‘Mayhap it was. Let me tell you my tale.’

While Dwaen told him of the previous attempt on his life and Beryn’s probable motive, Rhodry grew more and more baffled.

‘By the pink asses of the gods, Your Grace, why doesn’t he just challenge you to an honour duel? You could have the matter settled before the gwerbret even heard of it.’

‘I’ve spent many an hour wondering the same thing. Rats in my bed? It sounds like old tales of witchcraft and suchlike. I can’t believe Lord Beryn would stoop so low.’

Lallyc, the captain of the tieryn’s warband, trotted over and knelt at his lord’s side.

‘Your Grace? None of the men recognize those two dead ‘uns, and here we spent plenty of time with Beryn’s men before the murder.’

‘Well, I never thought Beryn would send men from his own warband.’ Dwaen gave him a black-humoured grin. ‘He might as well hire a herald to proclaim his intent as do that. But I can’t think of another man in the world who’d want me dead. Unless, captain, I’m just being vain?’

‘Not in the least, my lord,’ Lallyc said with a firm nod. ‘I’ve never known you to harm anyone. Why, you wouldn’t even cheat in a horse race. Besides, if anyone else felt injured, they’d know they could come sit by our gates and starve in safety. I can’t see you breaking the holy laws by driving them away.’

‘True enough. Well, looks like I’ve got a hire for you, silver daggers.’

When Cadlew returned, the two lords worked out what struck Rhodry as a sensible plan. If Dwaen rode to the gwerbret in Ebonlyn, he would be vulnerable out on the road, because his rank only allowed him to bring an honour guard of fifteen men into the gwerbret’s presence, fewer than Beryn kept in his warband. If Cadlew accompanied him, however, the young lord could bring ten men of his own, and since it seemed clear that Beryn had no intention of murdering Cadlew if he could help it, having him along would doubtless be the best protection Dwaen could have. They could also bring the two silver daggers in addition to the honour guard, because Jill and Rhodry qualified as witnesses.

‘I’ll take Laryn, too,’ Dwaen said. ‘But I don’t want to risk bringing Ylaena in to give evidence.’

‘Your Grace?’ Rhodry put in. ‘But will she be safe here as long as there’s a traitor in the dun?’

‘She won’t, and that’s true enough. Ah by the hells! To think that I got into this stinking mess out of regard for the laws and naught more!’

As she considered Dwaen’s peculiar story, Jill grew more and more sure that the traitor had to be a servant, not a rider, because members of the warband had no business being anywhere near the tieryn’s chambers. A servant seen near his bedroom, however, would be taken for granted. All afternoon she wandered round the dun and introduced herself to the various servitors, the head groom, the blacksmith, the pigkeeper, and finally, the cook, each of whom told her they thanked the gods daily for giving them places in the dun of a lord who was, for a change, so generous and just. Jill found it very hard to believe that any of them would ever betray their master.

Jill left the kitchen hut to find a battle brewing. A pair of kitchen maids were standing by the well, their buckets forgotten beside them while they took turns sneering at a blonde lass who had her hands set on her hips and her mouth twisted in sheer rage.

‘You’ve got a man in the village,’ said one of the mockers.

‘And what business is it of yours?’

‘None, I’m sure, but you’d best be careful, you with one bastard already.’

‘You’re naught but a slut, Vyna,’ the other mocker joined in, and she was a severe sort with squinty eyes at that. ‘I don’t see how you can carry on like that, with never a thought for the consequences.’

‘Don’t you call me a slut.’ Vyna’s voice was dangerously level.

‘I will!’ said Squinty Eyes. ‘Slut! Slut! Slut! Leaving your baby behind you!’

Scarlet with rage Vyna charged, grabbing the maid’s hair with one hand and slapping her across the mouth with the other. Shrieking, the third lass joined in, all of them pulling each other’s hair and scrabbling with their nails at each other’s faces. Jill ran forward and intervened just as the cook came waddling and yelling out of the kitchen. While the cook bellowed for peace Jill grabbed the pair of lasses and knocked them apart so hard that they cowered back by the wall. Vyna stood sobbing, her dress torn, the tears running down her face.

‘My thanks, silver dagger,’ the cook said. ‘As for you two, get on with your work. You’ve tormented the lass enough, and I’m sick to my guts of hearing it.’

Jill caught Vyna’s arm and led her to a private spot among the various huts and storage sheds. Snivelling, the lass wiped her face on her apron and stammered out thanks.

‘Most welcome. I hate seeing two against one in a fight.’

‘They’ve been on me and on me ever since I came here. Don’t they know how much it ached my heart to give up my baby? I miss him every day, but I had no choice.’

‘Where did you leave him? With your kin?’

‘I didn’t. My Mam wouldn’t take me in.’ Vyna stared down at the ground, and her voice dropped. ‘But I was lucky, I suppose. I used to work in another dun, and the lady gave me the coin to put my baby in fosterage to a farmer’s wife she knew.’

‘I see. It wasn’t Cadlew’s dun, was it?’

‘It wasn’t. What made you think so?’

‘Oh, just an idle wondering. He and the tieryn seem such close friends.’

‘They are, but they’d never notice the likes of me. Here, my thanks again, but I’ve got to get back to my work.’

She turned and ran across the ward, dodging among the huts as if to hide from Jill and the world as well.

Jill went upstairs to the women’s hall, which filled half of the second floor of the broch, a spacious sunny room with two Bardek carpets on the polished wood floor and a profusion of chairs and cushions scattered about. Ylaena and the dowager Slaecca sat together near a window, sewing on an embroidered coverlet that draped both their knees – part of Ylaena’s dowry, Jill assumed. Jill bowed to the dowager and knelt beside her chair.

‘Now you’re not to trouble your heart, my lady. Lady Ylaena can tell you that I don’t carry a sword just for the pretty scabbard, so no one’s going to harm you.’

Slaecca whispered out a thanks so faint that her daughter leaned forward and squeezed her hand for reassurance.

‘Come now, Mam, Lord Cadlew’s promised me that he’ll guard our Dwaen, too. I’ll just wager the gwerbret puts a stop to all of this as soon as he finds out.’

‘I’ll pray so,’ Slaecca said. ‘Oh by the Goddess! I don’t want things coming to a war.’

At dinner that night Dwaen found out how seriously Rhodry took his post as bodyguard when a page brought them each a tankard of ale. Just as the tieryn went to drink, the silver dagger grabbed his wrist and snatched the tankard.

‘Allow me. Your Grace.’ Rhodry took a cautious sip, thought about it for a moment, tried another, waited, then finally handed the ale back. ‘If his grace would oblige, he’d best not have so much as a drink of water from the well without me or his captain trying it first.’

‘Ye gods, I think I’d rather die than have another man poisoned in my stead.’

‘His grace is honourable, but we’ve sworn to die protecting you in battle, so why not at table, too?’

Dwaen forced out a sickly smile. He felt like a badger in a trap, waiting for the hunter to appear and spear him through the wickerwork. Rhodry, fortunately, proved good company, whether talking about his life on the long road or passing along bits of gossip about the noble-born. Dwaen began to wonder about this silver dagger, a courtly man by every phrase he used or graceful bow he made, but a dishonoured outcast all the same. Jill puzzled him just as much. It was extremely odd to think of a woman charging right into the fight on the road, odder the more because as the women settled themselves at table, Jill was talking with his mother about some typical female matter. While he waited for Rhodry to sample the meat and bread on his plate, he overheard a bit of it: one of the kitchen lasses apparently had a bastard out in fosterage, and Jill and Slaecca were predictably (to his mind at least) distressed for the lass.

‘How awful to leave your baby behind!’ Slaecca said. ‘Jill, later you might ask Cook for me just where Vyna was in service before. The poor lass.’

‘My lady, I already did, and it’s rather interesting. Cook seems to know an awful lot about the countryside round here.’

Just then, Rhodry handed the tieryn his plate back.

‘Well, my mouth’s not burning yet. Your Grace.’

‘Good. I’m wretchedly hungry.’

At the end of the meal, Slaecca spoke to one of the serving lasses, who trotted off only to return in a few minutes with another servant, a blonde woman, heavy-breasted yet lithe. If she’s the one with the bastard, Dwaen thought, it’s no wonder.

‘Now here,’ the dowager was saying. ‘How old is your baby?’

‘Just a year, my lady.’

‘Well, it would be hard for you to tend both your work and him, but when he’s two years old, you may fetch him and bring him to live with you. Let me think on it: mayhap we can find him fosterage closer to us, so you can visit him more often.’

The lass broke out sobbing and stammered her thanks through a flood of tears. Dwaen noticed Jill watching with an odd expression, a crafty sort of curiosity, as the lass rose with an awkward curtsey and fled the great hall. Yet she assumed a small sentimental smile when she noticed the tieryn leaning forward to speak.

‘Now here, Mam, that was kind of you.’

‘Well, the poor child!’ Slaecca said. ‘She looks naught but sixteen, and it was probably some handsome lout of a rider, pressing her with compliments and little gifts from the day she entered service.’

‘And the compliments stopped,’ Jill remarked. ‘As soon as her belly began to swell.’

Dwaen had no doubt of that. In a few minutes the women rose to go upstairs and leave the men to their drinking. Dwaen and Rhodry settled in over flagons of mead and seriously discussed the possible identity of the traitor in the dun.

‘It has to be someone good with a bow,’ Dwaen said.

‘Well, more like he’s just running messages out. If this Lord Beryn hates you so much, he’s probably salting men round the countryside.’

One at a time the tieryn considered the men in his warband and his noble-born servitors, even though the very wondering ached his heart. That one of his own men, someone who’d pledged his life to him in return for his shelter would turn against him was worse than a physical blow. Although he wanted to believe the traitor a servant, there he was at a decided disadvantage, because he barely knew one servant from another.

‘We’ll have to question your chamberlain. Your Grace,’ Rhodry said at last. ‘Can he be trusted?’

‘By the gods, I always thought so! Brocyl served my father for twenty long years.’

‘Then there’s no reason for him to turn against you now.’

‘So one wants to believe, silver dagger. I’ll talk to him in the morning; I see he’s left the hall already tonight, and he’s getting on in years.’ Dwaen drained the last drops in his goblet and got up. ‘I want to talk to my sister. I suppose you’d best come with me, much as I hate feeling like I’ve got a nursemaid.’

‘I can always wait outside the women’s hall, but I’d best be along on the stairs, Your Grace.’

Yet when Ylaena opened the door she automatically ushered Rhodry in with her brother. Slaecca was sitting on a cushioned chair near the hearth while Jill sat on a footstool at the lady’s side. The tight lines round his mother’s mouth spoke of tears hastily stifled.

‘Ylaena my sweet, there’s somewhat I’ve got to settle before I ride to the gwerbret, just in case I don’t come back.’

Ylaena drew herself up straight with a flash of worried eyes.

‘It’s time we discussed your betrothal. What would you say to Lord Cadlew?’

His sister’s smile was as bright and sharp as a flash of sun dancing on water, but it faded as she cast a nervous glance her mother’s way.

‘Do you have somewhat against him, Mother?’ Dwaen said.

‘Naught, except his rank. He’s an ordinary lord, for all that his lands are rich enough.’ Absently she looked away into the fire. ‘These are no times for joy, Dwaen, but if your sister can find a little in her betrothal, I won’t say her nay.’

‘My thanks.’ Ylaena turned to her with her eyes spilling tears. ‘And my thanks to you, brother.’

Dwaen realized then that she and his mother had doubtless discussed possible suitors for many a long hour already. He was about to try to make some jest to lighten the mood of things when someone knocked with a timid little rap on the door. Jill was up so fast that it seemed she’d been waiting for this and ran to open it. Outside stood the kitchen lass who had the bastard.

‘Oh, his grace is here!’ The lass looked genuinely terrified. ‘I’ll come back.’

‘Don’t run now.’ Jill grabbed her wrist and hauled her inside. ‘Come along, Vyna. I swear that no one will harm you, even if I have to fight them off myself. Come tell our lady whatever it was you wanted to say.’

Trembling, on the edge of tears, Vyna walked over and knelt at Slaecca’s side, bringing with her the scent of roasted meat and soapy water.

‘Come now, child,’ the dowager said. ‘Is it somewhat about your baby?’

Vyna wept with a shaking of her whole body.

‘My lady, I’m so sorry. I’m so frightened, but I can’t lie any more. I never thought they’d try to hurt the Lady Ylaena, truly I didn’t.’ She began to sob, the words bursting in little spurts. ‘They said they’d kill my baby. Don’t let them kill my baby. I didn’t want to. Don’t let them kill my baby. I swear it, they made me do all those things. I can’t do it any more, you’re too good and kind, but please by the Goddess herself, don’t let them kill my baby.’

Dwaen felt that he’d turned into an oak and put down roots. So this was their terrible traitor! Jill knelt down next to her and put an arm round her shoulders.

‘You met a man places and gave him information, didn’t you? Who was he?’

‘I don’t know. One of Lord Beryn’s riders. He came to the dun just as I got kicked out of it. I met him in town or down by the river. Everyone thought I had another man. You heard them, Jill, you heard them call me a slut.’

‘Of course. What do you think made me wonder about you? Now here, when do you meet him again?’

‘On the morrow, but I won’t go. Oh, Goddess, Goddess, Goddess, don’t let them kill my baby.’

‘No one’s going to harm him, because if his grace gives me permission, I’m riding tonight to fetch him.’

‘His grace will give you an escort of twenty men to make sure you bring him home safely,’ Dwaen said. ‘I’d go myself except I doubt that your Rhodry will let me.’

‘His grace is ever so correct.’ Rhodry bowed in his direction. ‘Not at night, Your Grace, when it’s easy for accidents to happen.’

The farm where Vyna’s son was in fosterage was twelve miles away on the edge of Lord Beryn’s lands. As the warband alternately trotted and walked their horses down the dark road, Jill was praying that the baby would still be there. It was possible that Beryn’s men had taken the child hostage just to make sure that its mother stayed under their control. Of course it was also possible that they had no intention of ever harming the baby but had merely counted on a young and ignorant lass believing that they would. Finally, after a long three hours and a last few minutes of confusion at a dark and unmarked crossroads, the warband found the farm. As they rode up, dogs began barking hysterically inside the earthen wall that surrounded the steading. When Lallyc pounded on the gate and shouted, in the tieryn’s name, a crack of light appeared around a shuttered window. After a short while, an old man came out with a tin lantern in his hand. Lallyc leaned down from his saddle.

‘Do you have a baby here in fosterage for a lass named Vyna?’

‘We do, sir, we do at that. What’s all this?’

‘We’ve come to fetch him to his mother in the tieryn’s name. Do you recognize the blazons on my shirt? You do? Splendid. Now go get the child, and wrap him in a blanket or suchlike, too.’

At the head of the line Jill waited beside the captain. She could hear the old man shouting inside the farmhouse, and a woman yelling in anger. Finally a youngish woman with a dirty, torn cloak thrown over her nightdress ran out to the gate.

‘Who are you?’ she snarled. ‘How do I know you won’t hurt the child?’

‘I’m the tieryn’s captain, and I’m here to keep the child from getting hurt. Now fetch him out or we’ll knock this gate down to come get him.’

‘Here, lass,’ Jill said and much more gently, ‘The tieryn sent a woman along to carry the baby home. Would he have done that if he were going to have it killed or suchlike?’

The woman raised the lantern and stared into Jill’s face; then she nodded agreement.

‘He’s a sweet baby. I’ll miss him.’

Jill supposed that the sweetness of babies was an acquired taste. On the long ride home she found the squirming, wailing bundle a nuisance and little else, even though one of the men led her horse to give her both hands free for the job. She tried singing to him, bouncing him, even kissing him, but the baby, torn out of his warm cradle into a cold night and the arms of a stranger, wept the whole way home until the poor little thing was hoarse and whimpering. By the time she could finally hand him over to his jubilant mother, she was praying to die Goddess that she’d never conceive.

Before she went to bed, Jill joined the tieryn and Rhodry at the table of honour for a well-earned flagon of mulled ale.

‘No trouble on the road, I take it?’ Dwaen said.

‘None, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart that you’ll forgive poor Vyna.’

‘She seems as much a victim as any of us. While you were gone, she described this fellow that she’s been meeting. The cook always sent her on errands into town, you see, because she was the oldest of the three kitchen lasses, so she could get a word with him when she needed to.’

‘We’ve got to get our hands on him,’ Rhodry put in. ‘But if his grace sends the warband into town, the bastard will probably flee.’

‘And the whole town will know what’s been happening, too,’ Dwaen said with a pronounced gloom. ‘I hate to think of my subjects gossiping about me night and day.’

‘I’m sure they do that already. Your Grace.’ Jill helped herself to some of Rhodry’s ale while she thought. ‘Here, it’s still cold, this early in the spring. I can wear some of Vyna’s clothes and muffle myself up in her cloak. Then when he follows me, Rhodry can pounce on him.’

‘Excellent, but I’ll send Lallyc in, too. We can’t have you getting hurt, lass.’

At noon on the morrow Jill went to Vyna’s tiny room, which she shared with the other two kitchen maids, in the servants’ quarters over one of the stables. Next to Vyna’s straw mattress was the bottom of an ale barrel, sawed down and filled with straw for a rough cradle for the baby. While Jill changed into Vyna’s clothes, the kitchen lass sat the baby on her lap and cooed to him.

‘What’s his name?’ Jill said.

‘Bellgyn, Mam’s pretty little Bello. Oh you just can’t know how glad I am to have him here and safe.’

‘Um, well. My heart’s pleased for you, anyway. Can I ask who his father was? Some good-looking young rider?’

Her face dead-pale, Vyna busied herself with arranging Bellgyn’s little shirt.

‘My apologies. It’s no affair of mine, and I don’t need to press on an old bruise.’

‘Bruise? I suppose it is.’

‘Didn’t it ache your heart to love a man and then have him refuse to claim you?’

Vyna shook her head in a hard shudder.

‘There was never any way he would have married me. I always knew that. All this time, I’ve been carrying the secret in my heart, and it hurts like poison. It was Lord Madryc, Beryn’s son.’

‘So that’s why his noble mother was so kind.’

She nodded, her eyes brimming tears.

‘Did you love him?’

‘I hated him and every inch of his twisted guts, but how could I say him nay? He always stank of ale, and he’d grab me so hard that I truly thought he’d kill me some night in his pleasure. When I heard he’d been hanged, I laughed and laughed and laughed.’

‘Ah. He sounds a man much like his father. I can’t say I honour this stinking Beryn, if he’d be ready to kill his own grandson to drive home a threat.’

‘That’s not true. His lordship would never know who sired my baby. Madryc never would have admitted the thing, not to his father. I swear, the old man has twice the honour of his rotten ugly son, and he might have beaten him black-and-blue. Her ladyship made me promise never to tell the lord. That was the price of the coins she gave me. You should have seen her, Jill, mincing and practically holding her noble nose, and all because her precious little son had blasted well raped me. Ah ye gods, I hated him, always stinking of sweat and ale.’

Picking up her mood, the baby began to whine and fuss. Jill finished her dressing and left them alone.

Although Jill rode behind Rhodry for most of the way to town, when they came in sight of the walls she dismounted and walked on alone, getting a good headstart in case Vyna’s mysterious contact should be waiting at the town gates. Following the kitchen lass’s instructions, Jill went past the market square, turned down the street by the saddlemaker’s, and saw at last the tavern with the wooden sign of an ox hanging over the door. At the doorway she paused, peering into the dim smoky room, which smelled of sour ale and roast meat. Near the hearth the man Vyna had described was watching a couple of merchants play at dice. A blond man, with the high cheekbones and narrow eyes of a southerner, he glanced her way and smiled.

Jill looked over her shoulder as if she were afraid of something, then beckoned him to follow her. As he set his tankard down she left the doorway and walked round back, to find no sign of Rhodry and Lallyc. In her heart she cursed them both and wished she were wearing her sword. When the fellow came up, Jill let out a little squeak and pretended to have a stone in her shoe. She knelt down, letting the hood fall around her face, and mimed getting it out.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Is someone following you?’

Jill shook her head no.

‘You’re not Vyna! What is this?’

‘She sent me instead.’ Jill got up slowly. ‘Cook wouldn’t let her leave the dun.’

‘I don’t believe a word of that, lass.’

When he stepped forward to grab her, Jill charged, taking him so off-guard that she got a good punch in his stomach before he could defend himself. With a grunt he staggered back, then recovered and swung open-handed at her face. Hampered by the long dresses, Jill dodged barely in time.

‘You little bitch! What is this?’

When he lunged again, she dodged sideways, then tripped over the hem of her dress and nearly fell. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up, yelped as she raised a knee and got him hard between the legs, but hung on grimly and tried to pin her back against a wall. A shout – Rhodry’s voice – the man let go and spun round to run for it. Jill slammed her fist into his kidneys, kicked him in the back of the knee, and shoved him to the ground just as Lallyc and Rhodry raced up.

‘You bastards! What took you so blasted long?’

‘A crowd on the streets.’ Lallyc knelt down and disarmed their prey.

By then the noise had attracted a smallish crowd of its own.

‘Naught to worry about, lads,’ Rhodry called out. ‘This stinking swine was trying to rape this poor innocent lass. We’ll just take him along to the tieryn.’

Dwaen and half the dun were waiting by the honour hearth in the great hall. Although Vyna identified their prisoner as the man who met her regularly, nobody in the warband recognized him for a member of Lord Beryn’s troop. The tieryn questioned him, Rhodry mocked him, and Lallyc got in a few barbs of his own, but the prisoner never said a word, not even his name, merely smiled with faint contempt during the entire session. Finally, Lallyc glared at the man and rolled up a sleeve with exaggerated care.

‘There’s more than one way to get a man to talk, Your Grace.’

‘Not in my dun!’ Dwaen snapped. ‘I know what you’re planning, and you can just put it out of your mind.’

‘His grace is an honourable man,’ Rhodry broke in. ‘But his life is at stake. Lallyc and me can just work him over some place where you don’t have to watch.’

‘You won’t! I won’t have a helpless man tortured. It’s against the will of the gods, and that’s an end to it.’

The prisoner looked at the lord with eyes poisoned by contempt.

‘We’ll take you along to the gwerbret.’ Dwaen seemed unaware of the look. ‘If you refuse to give evidence in the malover, then the laws state he can put you to death, and so we’ll see how long you keep your lips laced. Lallyc, get one of the men to shut him in a shed. Keep him under guard, and make sure he’s got food and water, decent food and water, mind.’

Later that afternoon Lord Cadlew returned with ten men from his warband. As the two lords, with Rhodry in attendance, sat drinking in the great hall, Dwaen noticed Ylaena halfway up the spiral staircase and hanging over the rail like a child trying to see what the grown-ups are doing down below. Apparently Cadlew noticed her, too, because he blushed for no discernible reason.

‘There’s somewhat we’d best settle before we ride,’ Dwaen said. ‘Do you want to marry my sister? She wants to marry you.’

Cadlew’s grip tightened on his tankard.

‘I realize she’s far above me in rank, and never would I let such a thing come between us, Your Grace.’

‘Don’t be a stuffy bastard. I have every intention of seeing you two betrothed if it pleases you both.’

‘Oh.’ Cadlew considered the ale in his tankard for a long moment, then got up, slowly and deliberately. ‘Perhaps I’d best speak formally to your mother.’

‘It seems advisable, truly.’

Cadlew looked his way, started to speak, then merely grinned. He dashed for the staircase, though Ylaena was gone, doubtless back to the women’s hall to wait for her suitor there as formality demanded. Dwaen watched him running up after her till he ducked out of sight onto the landing above, then turned to Rhodry.

‘Well, there. If Beryn does manage to dispose of me, Cadlew will inherit through Ylaena, and Beryn will regret the day he ever made an enemy out of my friend.’

‘I believe it, Your Grace. From what I’ve seen of Lord Cadlew, he’d get you a splendid revenge, but I’d just as soon he didn’t have to. I’ve been thinking about the precautions we should take once we reach the gwerbret’s dun. I haven’t forgotten that fellow in Caenmetyn who tried to hire me to kill you.’

‘For all we know, Beryn’s planning on attacking us on the road. If he’s got one of his men watching the dun from a distance, he’ll know when we’re riding out and lay another ambush in the forest. That reminds me – where’s Jill?’

‘Up in the women’s hall, Your Grace. She told me earlier that the local gossip was truly interesting, whatever she means by that.’

Like Dwaen, Jill had been wondering if Beryn was going to try another ambush, but the combined warbands, followed by a six pack of horses laden with gifts of food for the gwerbret’s hall, reached Caenmetyn without incident. Although Gwerbret Coryc’s provincial demesne was a poor one by gwerbretal standards, his dun walls rose imposingly enough round a huge central broch surrounded by four squat half-brochs and a cobbled ward. While Dwaen, with Cadlew and Rhodry along for witnesses, went to the great hall to lay his formal complaint, Jill helped the servants haul all their gear up to the tieryn’s chambers in the main tower. While they worked, she made friends with one of the menservants and got him to introduce her to the various servitors, particularly to the head groom, a stocky fellow, mostly bald, named Riderrc.

It was easy for her to use her horse, a beautiful golden gelding of the breed known as Western Hunter, to get a friendly conversation going. While they discussed Sunrise in particular and horses in general, she asked casual questions about the various important officials in the dun, particularly the chamberlain, the most important of all.

‘He’s a decent enough lord, I suppose.’ Riderrc sucked his teeth in a meditative way. ‘Fussy about every blasted detail, but no one bribes him for a favour, I tell you.’

‘Amazing! Many a chamberlain’s got rich selling access to his gwerbret.’

‘Our Tallyc would choke rather than take lying silver.’

‘Interesting. Well, I’d best be getting back upstairs.’

But Jill went to the kitchen hut, which was as big as a small house. In the thick smoke two cooks were frantically yelling at a squad of kitchen maids while the chamberlain himself supervised the carving of a whole hog, and serving lasses and pages dashed around filling baskets with bread and bowls with stewed cabbage. In that madhouse a would-be poisoner could slip all manner of things into the food and drink, but on the other hand, it would be near-impossible to ensure that only Dwaen and his retinue ate the tainted servings. Jill hoped, at least, that the murderer would draw the line at poisoning the gwerbret, his entire household, and several hundred riders just to finish off one man. For a few minutes she hesitated, wondering if she should tell Rhodry where she was going, then realized that she wouldn’t be able to get him alone to tell him privately. With a glance at the lowering sun, she trotted off to the main gates, pausing only to identify herself to the guards so they’d let her back in, and headed out into the town.

It took her some time to find the thieves’ tavern again, curiously uncrowded for the dinner hour. She got herself a tankard of dark ale and stood chatting with the tavernman while she jingled a couple of coppers in one closed hand.

‘Do you remember the night that me and my man were in here? We were sitting right over there, and this fellow in a long grey cloak came in.’

‘Remember it I do. I thought he was a strange one to be coming into a place like this.’

‘Just so. You don’t happen to know who he is, do you?’

‘I don’t, but he must have been a master craftsman, all right. There was fine wool in that cloak of his.’

‘Or maybe a scribe or suchlike? He had soft hands, and he smelled like temple incense.’

‘So he did.’ The tavernman spat into the straw to help his concentration. ‘Never seen him before or since, so he can’t live here in town. I’ve lived in Caenmetyn all my fifty years, I have, and I know everyone in it.’

When Jill returned to the gwerbret’s palace, she snagged a page and sent him up to the women’s hall with a message. Before they’d left Dwaen’s dun, she’d asked Ylaena to write her a note to the gwerbret’s lady, Ganydda, giving Jill a formal introduction. The lad returned quickly enough and escorted her up to the reception chamber, littered with a profusion of heavy furniture and silver oddments. At each long window hung a curtain of Bardek brocade in the gwerbretal colours of green, silver, and yellow. Ganydda, a slender woman with greying hair, startled-looking blue eyes, and prominent teeth, greeted her kindly and had a serving lass bring a cushion so that Jill could sit near her feet.

‘The lady Ylaena speaks highly of you, Jill.’

‘My thanks, my lady, though doubtless she flatters me unduly.’

‘How well spoken you are! You must forgive an old woman’s curiosity, but whatever possessed a pretty lass like you to ride off with a silver dagger? He’s awfully handsome, of course, but honestly, my dear! It must have been quite a scandal.’

‘Not truly a scandal, my lady, because you see, my father was a silver dagger, too. I had no position or anything to lose.’

‘Really? How fascinating! You must tell me all about it.’

Although Jill normally parried such questions, that night she chattered about true love in general and Rhodry in particular until she could see she’d won the lady’s confidence – although she avoided telling her why Rhodry was riding the long road. At that point she worked the conversation round to Tieryn Dwaen’s current troubles.

‘My heart absolutely goes out to Slaecca, losing her husband to that drunken little – well, in a drunken little brawl,’ Ganydda said. ‘And now to have her son threatened is really too much to bear. I pray that things won’t come to open war.’

‘It must be sad for Lord Beryn’s wife, too, the poor lady, seeing her husband put himself in danger after losing her only son.’

‘Well, perhaps it would distress her.’ Ice formed in Ganydda’s voice. ‘One must always think the best thoughts one can about people, mustn’t one? But then there’s no doubt that Mallona’s had a hard enough life. My dear Jill, wait until you see Beryn puffing and snorting at my husband’s court, and he’s a good bit older than her, you know.’

‘Truly? Lady Slaecca never mentioned that.’

‘She’s so charitable, isn’t she? But he is, and I’ve often wondered why she only had that one pregnancy, if you take my meaning.’

Jill smiled and arched one eyebrow.

‘Oh dear, what if worst comes to worst?’ Ganydda went on with a certain relish. ‘I wonder what poor dear Mallona will do. I can’t see her fitting into the temple life, I just simply can’t.’

‘Doesn’t she have a brother to go back to, my lady? The lady Ylaena mentioned one.’

‘Um, well, a brother of a sort. Let me see, what did happen to him? He was the youngest son of a poor clan, you see, and so he ended up living just like a commoner, and his mother was so upset. He received a small inheritance from an uncle, and he became a merchant – can you imagine it – some said he was actually running a brothel down in Cerrmor, but I never believed it for a minute – people will say the nastiest things sometimes.’

‘But what about all her other brothers, then?’

‘Well, you see, when this Graelyn – I believe that was his name – betrayed the honour of his blood, Mallona was the only one who spoke on his side, and she and her kin no longer speak, for all that it’s been ten years now. I think her father arranged the match with Beryn as revenge of a sort, although I shouldn’t say that. I mean, he might have thought it a perfectly good match. After all, you can’t tell one old man that another doesn’t have much life left, if you take my meaning.’

When Jill managed to make her escape from the lady’s side, she headed upstairs to Tieryn Dwaen’s chamber. On her way she met a serving lass, carrying a tray with a silver flagon and goblets upon it.

‘Here, silver dagger,’ she called out. ‘You’re with the tieryn’s party, aren’t you?’

‘I am. Shall I save you a few steps and carry that up?’

‘Would you? Some fellow from his grace’s retinue handed it to me and said to deliver it, but with all these guests I’ve got so much work to do.’

‘Of course you do. Rude of him.’

Dwaen, Cadlew, and Rhodry were all sitting in the reception chamber of the suite, the two lords in chairs, Rhodry on the floor by the door. When she brought the mead in, Cadlew rose with a small bow and took the tray from her.

‘Splendid idea, Jill. We found a water jug in one bedchamber, but that won’t do a man any good.’

‘Well, my lord, I’m afraid you don’t dare drink this mead. I’ve got the feeling it’s been poisoned.’

Her feeling was confirmed when Rhodry dipped the corner of a rag in the mead, tasted a scant drop of it, and immediately washed his mouth out with the aforementioned water.

‘Crude,’ he remarked. ‘Cursed crude. No one in their right mind would have drunk more than one sip of this.’

‘Ah by the great hairy balls of the Lord of Hell!’ Dwaen was decidedly pale. ‘Why would someone go to all this trouble to poison the stuff, then?’

‘Why did they put that rat in your bed, Your Grace? To make you squirm, to drag it out and make you wonder when they’ll finally kill you.’ Rhodry glanced at Jill. ‘Think I should go berate the chamberlain?’

‘It won’t do any good, and spreading the news around might do harm. You could go down to the great hall and find out how easy it is for someone to get into the broch.’

Rhodry did just that, but he came back with the discouraging news that it was remarkably easy, even at night, for any well-dressed man who was generous with his small coins. Merchants and travellers did it all the time, mostly to gawk at the dun and maybe to get a glimpse of the gwerbret or his wife. At times, even, after a particularly lavish feast, the gwerbret summoned the town poor into the ward to be given the leftovers. Jill and Rhodry both agreed that the only way they were going to keep strangers away from the tieryn was to raise a general alarm and have the gwerbret put the dun on full alert, a plan that Dwaen outright forbade, much to Cadlew’s annoyance and Jill’s relief. Rousing the dun would give her whole game away.

Since it would be several days before Lord Beryn would arrive at court to answer the formal charges, Rhodry resigned himself to keeping a close watch over the tieryn and hoping for the best. As the tedious time crawled by, he grew annoyed with Jill for leaving the whole job to him. It seemed that the only time he ever saw her was at meals; she was always off talking to the servants, gossiping with the women in the dun, or wandering around town where, for all he knew, she might well be in danger. By the end of the third day he was ready to shake her. They finally got a few minutes alone after dinner.

‘Just where were you this afternoon?’ Rhodry snapped.

‘Talking with the head of the merchant guild. It took me all day to bribe my way in to see him.’

‘What did you want to do that for?’

‘And then I went to the temple of Nudd to talk to the priests. Every merchant who comes through town stops to pray there.’

‘So what? What do merchants have to do with anything?’

‘Lots, my sweet love. I think me you’re going to be surprised.’

‘I don’t want to be surprised, blast you. I want to know right now what you’re up to.’

‘All right. Here come his grace and Lord Cadlew now. Let’s see if they’ll ask the gwerbret a favour for me. I want to speak to our prisoner again.’

Since his own curiosity was running high, Dwaen was willing to do just that, and Coryc himself was more than willing to grant Jill’s boon for the same reason. With four of the gwerbret’s men along for a guard, they all trooped out to the gaol, a long, squarish stone shed, half of which served as a general dungeon for beggars, drunkards, and suspected thieves, and half as private cells for more unusual men. Inside one of these tiny rooms was their prisoner, sitting on a heap of fetid straw. When a guard opened the door he rose, setting defiant hands on his hips.

‘If you persist in refusing information,’ Gwerbret Coryc said, ‘I’ll have you hanged.’

Stubbled and dirty, the prisoner ducked his head in a submissive nod. Several days of bad food and living with the results of the same had erased his contemptuous confidence.

‘This shouldn’t take long, Your Grace.’ Jill stepped forward. ‘Would you have the guard see if he’s been flogged recently?’

Although the prisoner fought and squirmed, a pair of guards pinned him and pulled his shirt up with little trouble. In the torchlight they could all see the fresh pink scars, about ten of them, criss-crossing his back.

‘Very well,’ Jill said. ‘Now, lad, I’ve got just one question for you. Who’s Lady Mallona’s lover?’

Although for a brief moment Rhodry thought she’d gone daft, the prisoner yelped like a kicked dog, and all the colour left his face.

‘So.’ Jill favoured him with a smile. ‘I thought she had one, truly. Was it you? You’re good-looking when you’re clean.’

‘It wasn’t, by every god of my people. I wouldn’t have a thing to do with her when –’ He broke off with a foul oath.

‘So, she was sniffing round you, was she? It’s no wonder you refuse to talk. One word, and you start giving everything away. Very well, then, hold your tongue a while longer. I’ll nose him out sooner or later.’

With a nod to the guard to lock the prisoner up again, Coryc led the rest of them out into the ward.

‘All right, silver dagger, you’ve got some game afoot, and you can blasted well let the rest of us know what it is.’

‘Your Grace,’ Jill said, ‘I’ll beg you a boon. If I’m right, this crime is truly scandalous. So I don’t want to make any charge or raise anybody’s suspicions until we’re assembled in a proper court of law. Of course I’ll tell you if you order me to, but I truly do think we should wait until your malover. Your wife will tell you that I’m trustworthy.’

‘She already has, actually. Very well. Your request’s both fair and honourable.’ The gwerbret looked round with an apologetic smile, since he doubtless knew perfectly well that everyone there was burning with curiosity. ‘After all, Lord Beryn should arrive on the morrow.’

Lord Beryn did indeed arrive during the noon meal. As Dwaen’s bodyguard, Rhodry was sitting next to the tieryn at the gwerbret’s table when from out in the ward came the clatter and bustle of armed men dismounting. The enormous hall fell silent as everyone, noble-born and commoner alike, turned to stare at the door. With ten of his men behind him, Lord Beryn strode in, a tall man, rawboned and grizzled, with sweeping grey moustaches and narrow dark eyes that darted this way and that. Rhodry figured that he was about fifty winters old. He gestured to his men to wait, then strode across the great hall and knelt, with a profound grunt, at the gwerbret’s side.

‘Now what’s all this, Your Grace? I’ve been wading through rivers of evil gossip, saying that I’m trying to kill Tieryn Dwaen of Dun Ebonlyn. It’s cursed well not true.’

‘True or not, the matter’s serious enough to warrant an inquiry.’ Coryc rose to tower over him. ‘If both parties agree, we’ll convene the malover immediately. The priests are here and waiting.’

‘Indeed?’ Beryn swung his head and glared at Dwaen. ‘Listen, you little coward, I’ve got every reason in the world to kill you, but if I was going to, I’d call you out to a duel like a man – if you had the guts to face me.’

Rhodry grabbed Dwaen’s arm and forced him to sit back down.

‘Lord Beryn, I call for silence!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Tieryn Dwaen, there’ll be no duelling in my hall.’

With a dog-like growl, Beryn settled back on his heels.

‘My lord,’ Coryc went on, ‘the tieryn has reliable witnesses. We are going to hear these witnesses in proper order, in my chamber of justice, with the priests of Bel there as well. Am I understood?’

‘You are, Your Grace.’ Beryn’s voice began to shake. ‘Didn’t I accept Your Grace’s judgment on my son? Didn’t I stand in your ward and watch without lifting a finger when –’

‘Don’t vex yourself, Beryn.’ Coryc turned and made an ambiguous gesture with one hand. ‘All the witnesses present? Good. Then come along, come along. I want this grievous affair settled and done.’

The gwerbret’s chamber of justice was a big half-round of a room, hung with banners in his colours. In the curve of the wall stood two tables, one for his grace and his scribes, one for the priests and theirs. The witnesses stood on the gwerbret’s right, the accused and his supporters on his left. The rest of the hall was packed with spectators – officials, riders, servants, even a few townfolk, a quiet but jostling crowd that spilled out through the double doors into the corridor beyond. As Dwaen and Cadlew laid their deposition concerning the archer and the dead dog, the rat in the bed, Vyna’s tale and the capture of the prisoner, the crowd stopped moving and seemed to crouch on the floor, straining to hear every word. Beryn’s colour turned from sun-bitten tan to red and back again. Finally, Rhodry was called forward to tell of the attack on Lady Ylaena. He’d barely finished when Beryn broke, charging forward to stand before the gwerbret.

‘Your Grace, never would I order such a cowardly thing! How could you believe it of me, attacking a woman!’

‘His lordship forgets himself again. As of yet I believe naught, one way or another.’

Beryn started to speak, but just then two guards appeared, shoving their way through the crowd and dragging the prisoner along with them.

‘You!’ Beryn snarled. ‘You little bastard! What by every god are you doing here?’

‘My lord!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Do you know this man?’

‘I do. His name’s Petyn, and I had him flogged and kicked out of my warband not long ago. He was stealing from me.’

Although everyone in the crowd gasped, Coryc turned to look at Jill, who was smiling to herself as she stood out of the way near the wall.

‘All right, silver dagger,’ the gwerbret said. ‘It’s time for you to spill everything you know.’

‘So it is, Your Grace.’ Jill came forward and made a reasonable curtsey, seeing as she was wearing a pair of brigga. ‘Petyn, let’s start with you. There you were, publicly shamed, turned out of the warband without a copper to your name. I’ll wager you rode south. Where did you meet the man who hired you?’

Petyn shook his head in a stubborn no.

‘I know what he looks like,’ Jill went on. ‘A stout fellow, with a high voice, and he’s a merchant pretending to be a scribe. He deals in perfumes and incenses, actually. He was a friend of Lady Mallona’s brother, and he was kind enough to bring her news every now and then, until Graelyn died last year. That’s the brother’s name, Your Grace – Graelyn. But this incense seller was a rich man, and I’ll wager he offered Petyn plenty, especially since he had him round up four other lads for the hire.’

‘Here!’ Lord Beryn’s voice rose to a squeak. ‘Are you talking about Bavydd? He used to stay in my dun with us, just every now and then.’

‘So that was his name, was it? He gave a different one to the priests of Nudd here in town, but I figured it was a false one. Come on, Petyn. Are you really going to hang for a man who wouldn’t lift a finger to help you?’

‘I’ll hang no matter what I do, you little bitch! Why should I say anything? You seem to know the lot already.’

‘What is this?’ Coryc slammed one hand down on the table. ‘Jill, are you saying that this merchant is behind these murder attempts?’

‘Not exactly, Your Grace. I don’t think for a minute that he wanted to kill the tieryn. He wanted to push Beryn and Dwaen into open war and let them kill each other. Or maybe he was hoping you’d believe it was all Beryn’s fault, and you’d hang him for breaking your ban on the blood feud. Then he, Bavydd I mean, could marry the lady Mallona and take her away.’

‘I see.’ Dwaen’s voice was more a sigh. ‘Beryn, I owe you both an apology and some restitution for this.’

‘No doubt,’ the gwerbret said. ‘But that will be a separate matter. Jill, I take it you’re laying a formal charge of attempted murder, as well as adultery, against this Bavydd, a merchant of Cerrmor.’

‘I’m not, my lord. He was just a tool.’

Everyone was staring at Jill now, from the priests of Bel to the lowliest servant in the crowd. Rhodry had never heard such a crush of people keep such a silence.

‘Well, you see, Your Grace,’ Jill went on. ‘They could have run off together any time and been safe in Cerrmor, under another gwerbret’s jurisdiction, before her husband could track her down. Bavydd’s wealthy. He could pay Lord Beryn three times his wife’s marriage-price when the matter came to court, and I’ll bet his lordship would have taken the money, too, and not pressed the matter, because everyone tells me he didn’t much fancy her any more. So why this elaborate plot? Your Grace, it had to be someone who hates Tieryn Dwaen, and there’s only one person under Great Bel’s light that it could be.’

Involuntarily, the gwerbret glanced at Beryn, but Jill shook her head in a mournful no.

‘Your Grace, you’ve all been looking for a man, haven’t you? Women hate just as bitterly and as well. Your Grace, everyone tells me that Lady Mallona doted on her son, and he wasn’t just her only son, he was her only child. She must have hated Dwaen for having him hanged and brooded on it till she went mad. And then there’s the serving lass. Who else could have got Vyna a place in Dwaen’s dun, all under the cover of kindness? And who else would have known that Vyna had a child they could hold hostage? Who else would have hated the Lady Ylaena, too? The women in your dun told me that Mallona was awfully taken with Lord Cadlew, and it’s also common knowledge that he spurned her cold. Ylaena was her rival. Mallona would have enjoyed her revenge, all right, if that pack of brigands had got Ylaena alone somewhere. But how could Mallona hire the men and give them orders? Send a messenger along the roads to announce she had a hire for murderers? Invite them into her husband’s hall? That’s where Bavydd came in.’

All at once Rhodry remembered Lord Beryn and looked his way to find the lord kneeling on the floor. It seemed that Beryn had shrunk into himself, turned old and grey and somehow smaller. With a drunken gesture Beryn raised his head and keened like a man over his dead.

‘Your lordship has my sympathy,’ Jill said. ‘Truly he does. But I don’t see why he should suffer for someone else’s crimes.’

‘No more do I,’ Coryc said. ‘I want the lady brought here for questioning. Indeed, with his lordship’s permission, I’ll summon an honour guard and ride to fetch her myself.’

Like a warrior stabbed on the battlefield but determined to stand until he dies, Beryn staggered to his feet. By law he had the right to ride home and defend his lady with his life from these charges, and Rhodry stepped forward, half without thinking, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Beryn saw the gesture and began to laugh, a ghastly sobbing mirth.

‘Stay your hand, silver dagger. Your milksop lord’s safe from me. I only ask one boon, Your Grace. Don’t make me watch her hang. I loved her once.’

‘Done.’

Coryc began to speak further, but the crowd broke, first into whispers, then into an excited gabble that grew louder and louder as the people swirled about. Coryc hesitated, then yelled at the guards to clear the hall and be done with it. In the confusion Beryn gathered his sworn men round him like a dressing for a wound and was swept away; when Dwaen tried to follow to apologize further, Rhodry and Cadlew held him back. The gwerbret was so thickly surrounded by clamouring priests that he never did bother to formally adjourn the malover.

Once the chamber was reasonably clear, Rhodry looked around for Jill, but he found her gone. Blast her! he thought. What’s she up to now? Since Dwaen was quite obviously safe, he left his hire and went after her. As he was walking down the stairs, he smelled something, a familiar scent – a hint of cinnamon and musk, exactly that which had hung round the man who’d tried to hire him for murder. Rhodry threw up his head like a hunting dog and raced down the spiral at a dangerous pace. For a moment, at the foot of the stairs, he caught the scent again, but the great hall was packed with gossiping people. By the time he made his way to the door out, he could find neither scent nor sight of the man who, he could assume, had to have been Bavydd of Cerrmor.

After a short search Jill discovered Lord Beryn and his men out by the stables. Silent and miserable, they were unsaddling their horses, and when she approached they all stared at her in angry bewilderment, as if they couldn’t decide whether she was the cause of their lord’s trouble or his saviour from it. Beryn himself, however, raised one hand and flapped it in dispirited greeting.

‘My lord, I know I’ve brought you great grief, but I’ve come now to bring you a little solace. May I speak?’

‘Why not, silver dagger? I can’t think of one wretched thing you could do to hurt me any worse.’

‘You’ve lost your only son, and I know it’s a grievous thing to think your clan will die when you do. But I’ve come to tell you that your son sired a son before he died. It’s the child we spoke about in the malover, Vyna’s babe. The child’s a bastard, of course, but he could be legitimized.’

Beryn wrenched himself half round, then began to shake, like a spear stuck in the ground with a smack that then quivers itself still. At last he turned to her again.

‘I remember when the lass was sent away. Didn’t take any notice at the time. Some woman’s matter, I thought. Why didn’t my lady tell me about the child?’

‘Would she have told you anything that would have pleased you?’

‘Ye gods.’ For a long moment he was silent. ‘The little bitch.’

‘Here, my lord, how could the poor lass have turned your son away?’

‘Not the lass, you wretched imbecile of a silver dagger! My wife.’ He began to pace round and round in a tight circle. ‘Is the babe healthy?’

‘He is, my lord. His name’s Bellgyn.’

Round and round, and always he stared at the dirt beneath his feet. Jill made him an unnoticed bow and slipped away.

On the morrow, as soon as the dun came awake, the gwerbret summoned the two lords and their retinues to the table of honour in the great hall. Coryc rose, carefully impassive, and gave Beryn a nod of greeting.

‘I have a formal announcement to make, my lord,’ Coryc said quietly. ‘I intend to ride to your dun to question your lady on this matter of justice. If his lordship wishes to ride to her defence, then he has my guarantee of safe conduct out of my city and on my roads.’

Beryn snorted profoundly.

‘When you ride, Your Grace, I want to join your hunt for this piss-poor bastard merchant.’ Beryn jerked his thumb in Rhodry’s direction. ‘This silver dagger tells me that he’s sure Bavydd was in town last night. I’ll bet he’s fleeing south right now. A boon, Your Grace. If we catch him, let me have him.’

Coryc hesitated, looking Dwaen’s way as if the tieryn were his own conscience, there to testify about Bel’s laws.

‘It’s not for me to say what his grace may or may not do,’ Dwaen said. ‘My father’s death was more than I could bear in silence, but this time I’ll no longer push my rights before the law. Whatever you want done with the merchant, Your Grace, do.’

‘Then your boon is granted, Lord Beryn,’ Coryc said. ‘And we’d best get ready to ride.’

All that day the warbands pushed their horses hard and arrived at Dun Ebonlyn in early afternoon, where they stopped to eat and to tell Lady Ylaena the news. As the men were filing in, Jill saw Lord Beryn turn his men out of line and stop beside the gates. When she pointed him out to Dwaen, the tieryn rode over and made Beryn a small bow from the saddle.

‘His lordship is welcome in my dun,’ Dwaen said. ‘If he can bring himself to enter it.’

Slouched in his saddle, Beryn considered the offer. In the strong afternoon light, he looked exhausted, his eyes blood-shot, his cheeks slashed with deep wrinkles from a life out in the sun and wind. Finally Beryn sighed.

‘His grace is most generous,’ Beryn said. ‘My men and me can eat out in your ward. I’ve no desire to distress your lady mother and sister with my presence at your table.’

‘As his lordship desires, but I’ll have food from my stores brought out to you.’

‘My thanks. That much I’ll accept from you.’

The two men looked at each for a moment, neither smiling nor scowling.

‘I have a small matter to lay before you,’ Beryn went on. ‘Your silver dagger here tells me that kin of mine is sheltering in your dun.’

‘Vyna’s baby, Your Grace,’ Jill put in. ‘Madryc sired the lad.’

Dwaen caught his breath in a little whistle of surprise.

‘I’ll want to claim the lad,’ Beryn said. ‘Formally and legally, once we settle this other matter. He’s the only blasted kin I’ve got left.’

‘Never would I stand in your way, my lord, provided the lass agrees.’

Beryn scowled, started to speak, then merely shrugged and rode on inside.

Beryn’s men found a place to sit in the curve of the inner wall. Servants hurried out, bringing bread and cold meat for the men and the best oats for their horses. Beryn sat down on the cobbles in the midst of his warband and bellowed for ale. Jill hurried to the kitchen hut, where she found Vyna piling bread into a basket. On her back the baby slept in a cloth sling.

‘Cook?’ Jill called out. ‘Lord Beryn’s men need ale.’

‘Men always need ale,’ the cook said. ‘Pages! Where are you, lads? Run and get a small barrel.’

In the resulting confusion Jill could draw Vyna to one side.

‘I’ve got some important news. Lord Beryn knows about your baby. He wants to claim him and raise him as his heir.’

Vyna froze.

‘Can you bring yourself to give him up?’ Jill went on. ‘You know that Dwaen would never let the lord take him against your will.’

Vyna laid the basket down and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

‘He’d have everything in life this way,’ Jill said. ‘Even a title, and you’d have a chance to find a man of your own.’

Vyna turned and walked blindly out of the kitchen hut, the baby swaying and bobbing on her back. Jill ran after her, catching up to her near the well just as Lord Beryn himself came hurrying over with a chunk of bread in his hand. Her head high, Vyna refused to curtsey; she stood her ground and let the lord look her over.

‘I do remember you, truly,’ Beryn said. ‘And that’s the baby, is he?’

‘He is, my lord,’ Vyna said. ‘My child.’

Beryn had a thoughtful bite of bread and went on considering her. He towered over her, a strong man still, grey hair or not, his narrow eyes utterly cold and not a trace of a smile on his face, but Vyna stared back at him with her mouth set like a warrior’s.

‘You’ll swear the child’s my son’s?’ Beryn said.

‘He’s mine first, my lord, but your son had somewhat to do with getting him.’

‘A strong-minded lass, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve had to be, my lord.’

Beryn finished most of his bread, then threw the crust away.

‘Well, you’ll be better off in a dun than you’ve been in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘After we’ve attended to this other matter I’ll ride here and fetch you and the lad.’

‘Me, my lord?’

‘Well, think, woman! What am I going to do with a babe in arms? I’d only have to find him a nurse anyway. Might as well be you.’

Lord Beryn turned on his heel and walked back to his men. Vyna covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.

‘Hush, hush,’ Jill said, patting her shoulder. ‘There, see? No one’s even going to take him away from you. But I don’t envy you, shut up in that dun with his lordship there.’

‘I’d put up with the Lord of Hell if I had to for my baby. He’s better than that, I suppose.’ With one last sob, she wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘I’m more afraid of what everyone’s going to say about me than I am of him.’

‘I doubt me if you’ve got much to worry about. Lord Beryn would take it as an insult if anyone mocked the mother of his heir, and I’ll wager no one insults his lordship lightly.’

Once the men had eaten, they changed horses, then rode out fast, determined to reach Beryn’s dun by sundown. A few miles down the road they met a single rider, coming fast on a grey gelding. With a yell, Lord Beryn pulled out of line and galloped to meet him with the rest of his escort streaming after. A river of men and horses surrounded the rider and swept the noble lords into the eddy as well. Rhodry, of course, stayed close to Dwaen.

‘It gladdens my heart to see you, my lord,’ the rider said to Beryn. ‘I was riding to Caenmetyn with a message for you.’

‘Indeed?’ Beryn leaned forward in his saddle. ‘Then spit it out, lad.’

‘Somewhat’s wrong with your lady. After you left, she was all upset, like, but well, we figured that she would be, with you gone off like that to face – well, trouble and suchlike.’ He gave the gwerbret a nervous sidelong glance. ‘But anyway, in the middle of the night, that merchant comes to the gates on a foundered horse. Bavydd. Do you remember him, my lord?’

‘Very well indeed. Go on.’

‘And he says he has news from Caenmetyn, and so of course we let him in. We all thought it was good of him to ride so fast with the news for your lady. So anyway, Bavydd stays for a bit, and Lady Mallona tells us not to worry, because the malover’s gone in your favour. And so we cheered the merchant and then all went to bed. In the morning, the gatekeeper tells us that Bavydd rode out not long after we left the great hall, on a horse your lady gave him, to make up for his, like. But now the Lady Mallona’s shut up in her chamber, and none of her women can get her to answer the door. So we thought about climbing up and going in through the window, but we couldn’t do that, not into your lady’s chamber, so we thought we’d better get you a message and ask what to do.’

Beryn looked Rhodry’s way with expressionless eyes. Rhodry merely shrugged, supposing, as the lord doubtless did, that the lady had chosen to cheat the gwerbret’s justice and die on her own terms. Beryn turned back to the rider.

‘Well, here I am. Let’s ride and get back there.’

Behind its low walls, Beryn’s dun was a straggly untidy place, a low squat broch, a dirt ward crammed with stables and storage sheds. When the warband streamed in through the gates, it filled the ward and turned it to a riot of confused servants and dismounting riders. Shouting his name, Beryn’s fort-guard mobbed their lord, then told him the same story all over again, while the chamberlain bowed to the gwerbret and apologized repeatedly for the humble lodgings. At a whispered order from Dwaen, Rhodry stuck close to Lord Beryn, who barely seemed to notice he was there.

‘Should we get a couple of axes and break down the door, my lord?’ a rider said. ‘Take a while, but we’ll get it in the end.’

‘My lord?’ Rhodry stepped forward. ‘I’m good at climbing. If you’ll give me permission to enter your lady’s chamber, I can go up the broch and come in through the window easy enough.’

‘My thanks, silver dagger,’ Beryn said. ‘Come round here. I’ll show you which window it is.’

As they hurried around the broch, Beryn’s narrow eyes showed no more than a flicker of distaste for the discovery that inevitably waited for them. He pointed out a window on the second floor of the rough stone broch, then ran inside to wait in front of the lady’s door. Rhodry took off his spurs and sword belt, handed them to Jill, then jumped to a windowsill and started up from there. Since little ledges and flat flints stuck out all over the wall, the rough stone was easy climbing. At the window, he found the shutters closed, but he pushed them open with one hand and clambered inside.

The dimly-lit chamber reeked with the sickly odour of vomit and some sweetish drug. On the canopied bed lay a figure, huddled up, clasping its stomach with both hands. Rhodry strode over and pulled the blanket back to find a stout man, naked, his skin bluish, his broad face contorted and blue from his last agony. He lay in a pool of vomit and urine, and his blood-shot eyes stared up sightless at the embroidered blazons on Lord Beryn’s bed. Rhodry stepped back fast.

‘Gods preserve us! She’s a ruthless little bitch!’

He ran to the door and unbarred it to let Lord Beryn and the gwerbret in. At the sight of the corpse in his bed Beryn swore aloud. He began to shake, a tremor of rage that left him speechless and scarlet-faced. Behind him came Coryc with Dwaen and Lord Cadlew, with Jill trailing behind. Coryc’s careful mask of sympathy shattered at the sight.

‘Bavydd!’ Coryc said. ‘It has to be! Oh by the hells, then where’s Lady Mallona?’

‘Your Grace, if I may speak?’ Jill broke in. ‘I’ll wager she’s wearing Bavydd’s clothes and riding one of her husband’s horses. It must have been her that the servants saw leave the dun last night.’

‘And she’s heading south for Cerrmor,’ Beryn snarled. ‘I’ll wager on that.’

‘Cerrmor?’ the gwerbret said. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘Where else can she go?’ Beryn spoke so quietly that it was frightening. ‘Her wretched brother had a wife and children there, and Bavydd must have kin. I know my wife, Your Grace. She could fool the gods themselves when she gets to lying. But she’ll never reach Cerrmor. I swear it by the Lord of Hell himself. She’ll never reach it alive.’

Yelling for fresh horses, Beryn ran down the stairs. Although the gwerbret hurried after him, Dwaen hesitated, motioning to Jill and Rhodry to wait with him.

‘Think we’ll catch her?’ the tieryn said.

‘Who knows, my lord?’ Rhodry said. ‘She’s got a day’s start on us, but only one horse. Huh. I’ll wager she can steal others. I wouldn’t put anything past her.’

‘Not after this.’ Dwaen shuddered. ‘She must have been driven mad, the poor woman. Maybe she started hating her merchant, seeing him as the man who’d led her into these crimes or suchlike. The source of her dishonour, that kind of thing.’

‘His grace is much too kind,’ Jill broke in. ‘I’ll wager she wanted to save her own skin and naught more. But she hasn’t ridden south.’

The men turned to stare at her. Rhodry was struck by how odd she looked, pale, yes, as might be expected, but cold sweat beaded her forehead, and her eyes stared across the room as if she were seeing someone standing there. When Rhodry glanced, he could see no one.

‘Jill, what do you mean?’ Dwaen said. ‘How do you know?’

She shook her head, on the verge of trembling. ‘I don’t know how I know, Your Grace, but I do know. We can ride south all we want, but we won’t find her.’

In the event, Jill was proved right, but they did take a prize of sorts. The gwerbret left Tieryn Dwaen and Lord Cadlew behind to keep order at the dun, then rode out with Lord Beryn and a token escort from his personal warband. Rhodry went with them to bring back a report for the tieryn. In the blue twilight they trotted fast down a dirt road and headed for the forest preserve where Beryn had his hunting lodge. By the time they reached the forest edge night had fallen, forcing Beryn to slow the line of march. Their only road was a winding track between old oaks.

‘I trust his lordship knows the trail,’ Coryc shouted.

‘Like a gamekeeper,’ Beryn called back. ‘It’s not far now.’

In a bit a faint glow appeared in the darkness ahead. Cursing under his breath, Beryn broke into a jog and headed straight for it. Rhodry kicked his tired horse and caught up just as they burst out into a clearing, wherein stood a long wooden building, half-house, half-shed. The glow came from its unshuttered windows, a pleasant firelight burning against the night’s chill. Out in front three men were yelling at each other as they frantically tried to saddle their horses; they’d been warned by the unmistakable clatter of riders coming their way. Screaming a warcry, Beryn drew his sword with a flourish and charged. Sword in hand, Rhodry followed, but at the sight of the gwerbret and his men pouring into the clearing, the three fell to their knees and cried surrender.

‘Where’s Mallona?’ Beryn yelled. ‘Where’s my wife?’

‘Not here, my lord. I swear it! We were waiting for Bavydd to bring her.’

The lords and their men dismounted and surrounded their prey.

Rhodry ducked into the house and took a good look round. Bedrolls and other gear lay strewn on the uneven wood floor; hunting spears hung on the wall by the rough hearth. Judging from the garbage strewn about, the pack had been waiting here for some days. Only one unusual thing caught his eye, a little silver chain, lying on a bench near the door. When he picked it up, he found hanging from it not a pendant or silver bauble, but a raven’s feather. Reflexively he slipped it into his pocket, then trotted back out and found the three men spilling everything they knew in the hope of a quick death, not a slow one.

Jill’s theories had been as accurate as they needed to be. Petyn had hired the fellows in a town to the south, where they were hanging round a tavern in the hope of getting work as caravan guards. He’d taken them to the hunting lodge, where Bavydd had turned up, scattering coins and bringing good provisions to buy loyalty. At first they’d had their doubts about the job, until Bavydd made it clear they weren’t really going to murder Dwaen, just make it look like they were going to.

‘But then he told us to take that lady on the road,’ one of the men burst out. ‘I didn’t like that.’ He shot his fellows a venomous glance. ‘Bastards, all of you, and Petyn was the worst.’

‘Oh, bastards, are we?’ snarled the other. ‘You were quick enough to take that fat merchant’s coin, lad.’

‘That’s enough,’ Coryc said. ‘What did the merchant tell you to do to the lady after you’d taken her?’

‘Whatever we wanted to,’ the lad said. ‘I didn’t like that, Your Grace, I swear it. We were to bring her here, have our sport with her, and talk like we were Beryn’s men. Then we were supposed to put her back on her horse and let her go.’

‘It’s a cursed good thing Tieryn Dwaen isn’t here right now,’ Coryc remarked, to no one in particular.

All three of the captured men were staring at Rhodry.

‘Oh, I recognize you well enough.’ Rhodry turned to the gwerbret. ‘These are the lads, all right, who killed Dwaen’s rider, the one who was escorting Ylaena and her serving woman.’

‘Very well, silver dagger. They’ll pay for that, too. My lord Beryn? Let’s get our three rats on their horses and get back to your dun.’

Before they rode out, Beryn found a torch in the lodge and lit it at the hearth, then had one of the gwerbret’s men put out the fire. Everyone followed the bobbing point of light from the torch at the head of the line as they picked their way back through the forest and across the meadow. By the time they reached the dun, it was close to midnight.

Beryn’s great hall, such as it was, was crammed with men, sitting on straw, standing and leaning against the wall, while frantic servants rushed back and forth with ale and bread. The noble-born found what stools and benches they could and moved them round the battered-planks-over-trestles that served Beryn as a table of honour. Beryn sat slouched in the only chair, one foot braced against the table, and drank steadily, looking across the room with eyes so dark it was doubtful that he was seeing the farther wall.

‘Now, here,’ Coryc said at last. ‘It’ll be futile to take tired men on tired horses out on the south road tomorrow. I want to see your lady brought to justice as much as you do, but by the hells, we don’t even know if she went straight south. If she keeps her wits about her, she’ll ride a roundabout road to throw us off the track.’

Beryn grunted and stared into his tankard of ale.

‘Wits are the one thing she’s never lacked,’ Dwaen put in. ‘I wonder if we’ll ever get her back.’

‘I’ll send messengers to Cerrmor tomorrow,’ Coryc said. ‘The gwerbret there will relay them to the city council, and out of courtesy to him, they’ll find her.’

‘If she’s even going to Cerrmor,’ Jill muttered.

The noble-born ignored her and went on squabbling for some time, until Dwaen found his common sense.

‘Now here, Your Grace, we’ve got a pair of silver daggers, and they’re famous for tracking men who need to be tracked. Why not a woman?’

‘True spoken.’ Coryc turned to Rhodry. ‘I’ll put a bounty on her. There’ll be fifty silver pieces for you if you bring her back to my justice.’

‘His grace is most generous,’ Rhodry said. ‘But there’s somewhat about being a bounty hunter that rubs me wrong.’

‘Don’t be a dolt, Rhodry,’ Jill snapped. ‘That’s enough coin to buy you a remount if you lose your horse in a scrap someday.’

‘True enough. Well and good, Your Grace, we’ll take your hire – if, of course, Tieryn Dwaen will release me.’

‘Gladly. I don’t suppose my life’s in danger any more.’

Beryn got up, the tankard in his hand.

‘Not from me. That rotten young cub of mine was too much like his mother, anyway.’

Beryn hurled the tankard against the wall, then ran from the room. They heard the door slam behind him.

‘The poor old bastard,’ Cadlew remarked with a sigh. ‘I’m blasted glad now I never screwed his wife.’

‘You’re the very soul of honour,’ Dwaen said. ‘But you should be glad for more reasons than one. If she’d got tired of you, she might have served you some cursed strange mead.’ All the men laughed in a small spasm of nerves.

Noble-born and commoners alike, the men found themselves what places they could to sleep that night. A little hunting out in the ward brought Rhodry and Jill a storage shed, festooned with the few remaining strings of last year’s onions, with enough room near the door for them to spread out their blankets. Exhausted as he was, Rhodry sat awake, watching the dapples of candlelight on the rough walls.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jill said.

‘I just keep thinking of poor old Bavydd. He wasn’t a pretty sight.’

‘He wasn’t, but well, we’ve both seen worse.’

‘Just so, but this was a particularly vile sort of death. I mean, there he was, poisoned by a woman.’

‘Is that what makes it so vile, that his killer was a woman?’

‘Of course. Ye gods, she must be a fiend from hell!’

‘I don’t know. I mean, truly, she broke every law of the gods and the king both, but I almost feel sorry for her.’

‘Have you gone daft?’

‘Well, here she was, trapped in this dun with a man like Beryn.’ Jill sat up, shoving the blankets back. ‘Everything I’ve heard about her said she’s got more wits than most people, and a strong will, too, and some of the women said that when she was young she was so merry, always laughing and singing. She would have been a perfect wife for a great lord, running his big household and angling to get him favours at court and suchlike. But she ends up mouldering here, and all because she defended her brother from their father’s wrath.’

‘A lot of women end up in country duns. They make the best of it without taking lovers and studying poisons.’

‘True enough. I suppose you’re right.’

Yet she sounded doubtful still. He would have said more, but she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He could forget all his worries in the feel of her body, pressed close to his.

Yet in the morning, the worries about the bounty hunt ahead of them came back with the rising sun. After they dressed, they opened the door against the reek of onions. Jill pulled on her boots, then merely sat on the floor, looking out at nothing in particular.

‘Somewhat’s troubling you,’ Rhodry said.

‘It is. Where did she get that poison?’

Rhodry had to admit that it was an interesting point. When he’d been growing up in Aberwyn’s court, he’d been taught a bit about poisons in sheer self-defence – highly-placed men were always in danger of intrigues – but he’d never seen or heard of anything like the drug that had killed Bavydd.

‘Well, they say you can buy some cursed strange things on the Cerrmor docks,’ Rhodry said. ‘Imports from Bardek. Bavydd probably brought it to her.’

‘If he brought it, how come he was stupid enough to drink it?’

‘Good point. Unless it was tasteless. The best poisons always are.’

‘Maybe. I mean, it must have been that. But I’d like to make sure, and for that, we’ll need its name.’

‘Well, I can tell you the one Bavydd used in the gwerbret’s palace – just a raw dose of belladonna.’

‘Bavydd? Oh, of course, it must have been him who gave that serving-lass the mead. So if he had the belladonna, he must have brought her the other poison, too.’

‘He just never dreamt she’d use it on him.’

It made perfect sense, yet they exchanged an uneasy glance. With a toss of his head Rhodry rose, catching the door jamb in one hand and staring out across the ward, where the gwerbret’s men were beginning to ready their horses.

‘Jill? Do you think there’s sorcery mixed up in this somehow?’

‘I do, but I couldn’t tell you why.’

A cold stripe of fear ran down his back. Just the summer before, dweomer had swept into his life like a storm wave, bringing Jill with it and leaving her behind like some long-buried treasure brought up from the sea. Yet he was always aware that sorcery threatened to sweep her away again. He kept remembering a man named Aderyn, who had magical powers beyond what Rhodry had ever believed possible, telling him that Jill was marked for the dweomer herself. He refused to believe it. She loved him, she belonged to him, and that’s all there was to that. But when he turned to look at her, sitting on their dirty blankets amid sacks of mouldy flour, he found her staring off into one of those private spaces that only she could see.

‘Let’s ride,’ he snapped. ‘Mallona has, I’ll wager, and she’s getting farther away all the time.’

‘No doubt.’ Jill scrambled up. ‘Which way shall we go?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me that.’

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. There it was again: dweomer. As if she knew what he was thinking, she smiled in a wry sort of way.

‘Well, let’s go south for a little ways. That’s what I would do if I were her. Lay a false trail toward Cerrmor, and then go somewhere else.’

‘Sounds reasonable. Oh. Ye gods, I nearly forgot.’ He reached into his brigga pocket and pulled the by now ill-used feather on its chain. ‘What do you think about this? I found it in Beryn’s lodge.’

Jill took the chain and considered it with the same look she’d give maggoty meat.

‘I’ve seen one of these before, when I was still travelling with my Da,’ she said at last. ‘They’d hanged the woman who was wearing it. I don’t know why. Da wouldn’t let me look at the corpse for more than a moment, and he wouldn’t let me ask the townfolk, either.’

She started to toss it away, then reconsidered, kneeling down to put it in a saddlebag.

‘You should give that to the gwerbret,’ Rhodry said.

‘Well, sooner or later. But I want to show it to someone else first. I’m starting to get another idea. You know, I heard some rather strange things about Lady Mallona when I was up in the women’s hall of Coryc’s dun.’

‘Obviously. Ye gods, I’ll never forget the look on poor old Cadlew’s face.’

‘Not just that, dolt. There were rumours that Mallona studied the Old Lore. Lady Ganydda swore she didn’t believe it, but she was awfully eager to repeat it. She was supposed to have been fond of a strange old woman near her brother’s dun when she was a child –’

‘And of course the poor old woman was a witch,’ Rhodry finished this all-too-familiar bit of gossip for her. ‘Any old woman who lives alone is always supposed to be a witch.’

‘True spoken, but consider this. Mallona had that lover for a couple of years, and she only had the one child by Beryn. Now, whether that was Beryn’s trouble, who knows, but if that lover was a cold stick, she wouldn’t have bothered with him, and she wasn’t interested in Cadlew for fine conversation. Why doesn’t she have a couple of bastard children to palm off as her husband’s?’

‘They always say the Old Lore can remove that kind of nuisance from a woman’s life, don’t they?’

‘Just that.’ Jill thought for a moment. ‘Lord Beryn’s cook told me that every now and then, the Lady had weak spells, when she’d take to her bed for days and look terrible-ill.’

‘Ye gods! I never realized that the servants in a dun know about every blasted thing their masters do.’

‘Oh, doubtless the cooks and suchlike in Aberwyn could tell plenty of fine tales about you, Rhodry Maelwaedd.’

Rhodry had the unpleasant feeling that he was blushing.

The hunt should have been easy. A woman travelling alone was such an unusual thing in those days that anyone she passed should have noticed and remembered her. A woman who’d spent most of her life shut up in a dun should have had every possible trouble on the road, too. Although Lady Mallona’s life had hardly been pampered and courtly, still she’d doubtless never had to build a camp-fire, haggle for food, find water for her horse, or do any of those hundred other tasks that fell to travellers on the Deverry roads.

An easy task to find her, stuck somewhere with a lame horse or trying to bargain with suspicious innkeeps – except that after a full day on the south-running road, Rhodry had to admit that she seemed to have disappeared like dweomer. No farmer had remembered seeing her, no tavernman had given her shelter, no noble lord had wondered about a solitary rider travelling across his demesne.

‘I’m beginning to think that she didn’t go south after all,’ Rhodry said. ‘Not even to lay a false trail. May the gods blast me if I give up, though. If any woman ever deserved hanging, she does.’

‘I suppose.’ Jill thought for a while, staring moodily into the flames of their campfire. ‘Now, from the way she was described to us, I can’t believe she’d have any luck disguising herself as a man, not during broad daylight.’

‘I’ve been wondering about that myself.’

‘And she’s never been more than thirty miles from her home in her life. You’d think she’d get lost or suchlike.’

‘So you’d think.’

They shared a sigh of frustration and contemplated the fire.

‘I wonder if she’s dead,’ Jill said abruptly. ‘Maybe she killed herself somewhere, or ran into a pack of young men who raped and murdered her.’

‘It would be a fitting end, so fitting that I doubt the gods would be so kind to us. Well, here, should we go all the way to Cerrmor? If she does end up there, probably she’ll be arrested. Coryc made those messages pretty urgent.’

‘True spoken, but if we don’t find her first, we don’t get the bounty.’

Although it was true, it was also so cold-blooded that Rhodry didn’t even know what to say to it.

‘Let’s ride south for a bit longer,’ Jill went on. ‘There’s a town not far from here, Muir it’s called, and there’s a temple of the goddess there.’

Rhodry swore under his breath.

‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘Sanctuary. Do you think she’d have the gall to seek it?’

‘Why not? Gall seems to be the one thing she’s never lacked.’

If Mallona had indeed sought refuge with the Holy Ladies, they were going to have a fine time trying to get her out again. Gwerbret Coryc would have to confer with the gwerbret of this rhan, and if that worthy agreed, they would have to set up a judicial council that would meet outside the temple gates and present evidence to the high priestess and the temple council. Only if the high priestess agreed that Mallona was guilty would the Holy Ladies surrender her. Since every gwerbret in the kingdom grumbled that the priestess always sided with the woman in the case, no matter what, it was quite possible that Mallona would convince them with her lies and end up spending the rest of her life in the penitential rites of the temple. Penance was not going to be satisfying. Rhodry wanted to see her dead.

The sun was low and golden in the sky when they reached the rich farms of the temple’s lands, worked by free farmers who owed fealty to the high priestess, not a lord. The temple itself rose on a hill behind high stone walls, an enormous complex for the time, spilling half down the hillside and guarded by iron-bound gates trimmed with silver interlace and the holy symbols of the Moon. Above the walls, among the towers of the various brochs inside, Rhodry could see trees growing, the dark green bushy cedars brought all the way from Bardek and coddled to keep them alive in this colder land. Although the gates stood open, Rhodry stopped his horse and dismounted the ritual hundred feet away. Jill would have to go on alone to this place that no man could enter or approach.

Beside the road was a stand of poplars, a water-trough, a rail for tying horses and a pleasantly carved wooden bench.

‘At least you’ll be provided for, my love,’ Jill said. ‘It shouldn’t take me long, truly, to ask a few questions of the priestesses. By law they have to tell anyone who asks if Mallona’s in there. Oh, wait! That silver chain you found? It’s in my saddlebags, isn’t it, not yours?’

‘I saw you put it there. Why?’

‘I want to show it to the Holy Ladies, of course. They’ll know what it means.’

Rhodry watched as Jill rode the last hundred feet and dismounted at the gates. A small flock of priestesses ran to greet her. He heard one woman shriek; then everyone began to laugh, their high pure voices drifting down the hill. They’d probably thought Jill was a lad, he figured, and he smiled at the jest himself. Surrounded by the priestesses, Jill led her horse inside, and the gates closed behind her.

Rhodry watered his horse, tied it up, then sat down on the bench with a chunk of bread. It was pleasant in the warm shade, silent except for the buzz of a drowsy fly. Rhodry stretched his legs out in front of him and enjoyed the soldier’s luxury of merely sitting still in a safe place.

Like most Deverry men, Rhodry knew very little about the Old Lore, that worship of an ancient goddess which had come with the people of Bel from the Homeland, where it had seemed as dark and primitive then as it did now to the modern Deverrian mind. Aranrhodda was her name, and she had a magical cauldron, which was always full, which would give every man his favourite meat and drink no matter how many kinds were called out of a single batch, and which would also poison those who had displeased the goddess or one of her worshippers.

One old story stuck in his mind. Aranrhodda had tricked the gods into giving her cauldron its dweomer in this wise: she made a magical golden piglet and tethered it in a thorny thicket. One at a time, Bel, Lug, Nudd, and Dwn tried to free the piglet and claim the prize, but every time the thorns drove them back. Only Epona and the Goddess of the Moon refused to try, because they knew their sister too well. Whenever the gods pricked themselves on the thorns and bled, Aranrhodda caught the drops in her cauldron. Finally, when they went away, cursing her soundly for the ruse, she killed the piglet and made the first stew in the cauldron using the divine blood for soup.

Just thinking about the story made Rhodry shudder. Drinking the blood of a god was one of the most impious things he could think of. Of course, the gods themselves did what they willed and lived by their own laws, ones that humanity could only shake their heads and wonder over. But it was no wonder that Aranrhodda’s followers were reputed to do so grisly things: use the fetuses they’d aborted in strange spells, for one, and make up poisons to order for another, along with the usual curses and love charms. He sincerely hoped that the wretched Mallona wasn’t up to her neck in this magical muck, because at heart, he was afraid to pull her out of it. Rhodry got up and began pacing beside the road.

It was sunset before Jill came back, leading her horse down the hill from the temple, all cheerful efficiency.

‘Sorry I lingered so long, my love, but I heard many an interesting thing from the Holy Ladies. Mallona’s not there, but the high priestess knows about the Old Lore. What I learned might come in awfully handy. Just for starters, that chain with the feather? It’s a thing you make to give to someone in your service.’

‘Too bad Bavydd took it off, huh? It might have brought him better luck. Here, is there a village nearby, or can we camp on the temple’s roads?’

‘There’s a village with a tavern not far to the west. The tavernman’s used to sheltering the men who escort their wives here, so we can find good lodging, or so Her Holiness told me.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on a decent mattress for a change. I don’t suppose Her Holiness had any idea of where we might look for Mallona.’

‘West, near Lughcarn. I swear it, the priestesses hear everything worth hearing in their part of the country. This is only a hint, mind, and it might well turn out to be a false trail.’

‘Better than no trail at all. Well and good, then. Let’s ride.’

In the fine dusting of soot on the windowsill, Sevinna idly printed her name, then flicked the soot away with the side of her hand. No matter how often the servants cleaned, there was always soot on everything in Lughcarn. She looked out the window to the ward of the gwerbretal dun, a small village within the city, with its barracks, stables, round huts, and even some little houses for the privileged servants, all of them topped with dirty grey thatch. The sky beyond glowed hazy and golden from the smoke of the thousands of charcoal fires burning in the iron smelters at the edge of town. Most of the iron ore that came downriver from the northern mines passed to be smelted down into ingots before being traded further, because by the king’s own charter, Lughcarn held a virtual monopoly on rough smelting in the northern kingdom. The monopoly, of course, made the gwerbretrhyn rich, less so only than Cerrmor and the King’s own city of Dun Deverry itself.

‘Sevvi?’ Babryan called out. ‘Is somewhat wrong?’

‘Oh, naught.’ Sevinna turned from the window. ‘Just wondering if Mam and her escort were home by now.’

‘Probably. Are you going to miss your family?’

‘Of course, but it’s splendid getting to stay here, anyway.’

Babryan smiled and gestured at a cushioned chair next to her own. Sevinna dutifully sat down and looked round the richly furnished room, the top floor of a half-broch entirely devoted to the gwerbret’s womenfolk, and the private preserve of Babryan and her sister, Wbridda, Sevinna’s cousins. That unmarried lasses would have a hall of their own was a breathtaking sort of luxury to Sevinna, who had been raised in her father, Tieryn Obyn’s, country dun to the north. Babryan and Wbridda had fine silk dresses, too, and lots of silver jewellery and soft wool cloaks, dyed in any colour they chose. At one side of the room stood four carved chests, packed full of extra clothing. Those chests made Sevinna painfully aware of her own coarse linen dresses, all three of them, which sat neatly folded on a chair beside her bed. Her one consolation was that she was as pretty as they were, in spite of their jewellery. In fact, she looked enough like them to be another sister – blonde lasses, all of them, with wide blue eyes and a heavy but sensually curving mouth that was the mark of the gwerbret’s line.

‘I’m truly glad you’re here,’ Wbridda said. At thirteen, she was the youngest of the girls. ‘I’ll wager we can find you a better husband than you’d ever find up north.’

Sevinna giggled and covered her mouth with her hand.

‘And what makes you think I’m looking for a husband?’

‘Oh huh! Why else are you here?’ Babryan broke in. ‘Mam told us all about it. She doesn’t want you to marry some rough northern fellow, either. Don’t worry. There’s lots of young men hanging around Da. I’ll wager there’s a truly handsome man who’ll be thrilled to marry the gwerbret’s niece.’

‘Baba, you’re so cold!’ Sevinna said.

‘Oh, you’ve got to be when you pick a husband.’ Babryan leaned forward earnestly in her chair. ‘Mam was telling me. She’s hoping to get me a place at court next year, you see, one of the princess’s serving women, maybe. Oooh – who knows who I’ll meet there?’

‘Someone very rich,’ Wbridda said. ‘And old and ugly.’

All three of them giggled, then laughed, the giggles feeding on themselves and turning into a wave of something near hysteria. I don’t want to marry yet, Sevinna thought, but Da says I’ve got to. She laughed with the rest until at last the giggling stopped as suddenly as it had come.

‘I just hope I don’t fall in love with someone who doesn’t favour me,’ Sevinna said. ‘But maybe I’ll never fall in love at all, and that will settle that.’

‘Oh, listen to Sevvi.’ Wbridda rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘Baba used to talk that way, and then last year she met Lord Abryn, and all I heard was men men men. You’re disgusting, Baba.’

‘You just wait,’ Babryan tossed her head. ‘Besides, Lord Abryn was only a passing fancy. I must have been daft. He’s got hair on the backs of his hands.’

‘Hah!’ Wbridda said. ‘You mean he was only a lord. Da was ever so angry, Sevvi. He practically turned Lord Abryn out of the palace, and all he did was give Baba some roses.’

‘Well, I should think that was quite enough,’ Sevinna said. ‘When a young man gives a lass flowers, it means something serious.’

‘He was a rake, too,’ Wbridda pronounced.

‘Now here, Bry,’ Babryan snapped. ‘You’re too young to even know what that means.’

‘I am not. I heard Mam and Da talking.’ She rolled her eyes significantly.

‘I’m not marrying her to a common lord, baby or not, Da said, and then he said, so you’d better be cursed sure he never gives her one. Mam was so mad! Oh, you should have heard her, Sevvi.’

‘You hold your tongue!’ Babryan said with a blush.

‘Shan’t.’ Wbridda simpered at her. ‘And then Da said –’

Babryan rose from her chair and raised her hand to threaten a slap, but the door opened and Lady Caffa swept into the room. Although she was growing stout, Caffa was still a beautiful woman with thick blonde hair and eyes of the deepest violet. Her long green silk dress trailed behind her in a train and was bound in at the waist with a kirtle of her husband’s green and blue plaid. At the sight of her mother, Babryan curtsied and sat down again.

‘Sevinna dearest,’ Caffa said. ‘I’ve summoned one of the clothsellers from the town. We must get you some decent dresses soon, and I’ll need you to pick out the colours you want. Then we shall set the women sewing.’

‘My lady is ever so generous.’ Sevinna rose and curtsied to her. ‘I don’t deserve such honour.’

‘Oh, hush, child.’ Caffa smiled vaguely in her direction. ‘Of course you do. You poor thing! Here you are, eighteen and not even married, and perhaps it’s just as well, of course, considering what your poor dear mother has to pick from, but still! I’m so glad she finally listened to reason and sent you to me. Poor dear Maemigga.’

Sevinna curtsied again, but her heart was aching. She felt like a charity project, some farmer’s widow plucked from poverty and given a decent place in the kitchen. Her mother’s marriage was the big scandal of the gwerbret’s clan; Maemigga had loved her land-poor tieryn so much that she’d ridden off on her own one night and married him before her family could stop her. By the time the gwerbret had caught up with her, she was so obviously no longer a maiden that his grace could do nothing but formally approve the match and make sure that Obyn never forgot what he owed him, either. To the children of this love-match, the gwerbret and his wife had always been kind, very very kind, as Caffa was now, smiling as she studied Sevinna like a bit of cloth on which she planned to embroider.

‘Baba,’ Caffa pronounced. ‘Surely you can lend Sevvi some of your dresses until hers are ready. We have guests tonight at dinner, you see.’

‘Handsome guests?’ Babryan said with a grin. ‘Of course, Sevvi. Mine are yours. We’ll look through and pick one out.’

‘Good child. But truly, you lasses must stop thinking of little things like a man’s looks. Most good-looking men are so horribly vain – well, Sevvi dear, your father’s an exception, truly, but he’s the only one I’ve ever met – and anyway it’s things like steadiness and kindness that matter in a marriage, not curly hair and blue eyes.’

‘Of course,’ the three girls chorused.

‘Oh I know!’ Caffa waggled a playful finger at them. ‘I was your age once, wasn’t I? But it’s time for all of you to think of the things that matter. We shall have lots of nice chats now that Sevvi’s here.’

When Lady Caffa turned away, Babryan rolled her eyes heavenward, and all three girls broke out giggling.

Dinner that night was a splendid meal, as every meal seemed to be in the gwerbret’s palace. The gwerbret and his family ate at a carved and polished table near a hearth inlaid with Bardek tiles. On the other side of the enormous hall, a warband of two hundred men sat listening to their own bard. Servants in spotless embroidered clothes silently and gracefully served four elaborate courses, starting with a vegetable aspic made in colourful layers as intricate as the tiles and ending with an apple cake soaked in fine mead. While Sevinna desperately tried to mimic her cousins’ delicate manners, she watched this guest, who, or so Caffa had made clear, had been invited expressly to look over the gwerbret’s unmarried niece. Although his title was simple, Lord Timryc was one of the King’s own equerries with a large holding of land near the Holy City itself. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, about thirty, with sandy-blond hair, a prominent chin, and undeniably kind eyes. Every now and then he would look Sevinna’s way and smile at her, a gesture that flustered her so much that she would bury her nose in her water-goblet. When at the end of the meal the ladies retired to their hall, Sevinna was profoundly glad to be gone.

Caffa took the girls to her own hall, a vast round room where Bardek tapestries hung at intervals on the walls and cushioned furniture stood in profusion. The serving women lit candles in silver sconces, then sat down on cushions near the mistress’s chair.

‘Well, Sevinna dearest,’ Caffa said. ‘He seems a very nice man. Not too young, of course, but his first wife died in labour, you see. He’s been consolidating his position at court, and a man like that can hold out for a good match. But anyway, I think we shall arrange a little riding party tomorrow.’ She glanced at Wbridda. ‘Now Bry, if you mind your manners and that tongue of yours, you may join us and bring your little falcon.’

‘My thanks, Mam,’ Wbridda said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way. He looks dull to me.’

‘Now hush,’ Caffa snapped. ‘You may all go upstairs.’

No sooner were they safely in their own hall than Babryan wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.

‘He’s too old. You can do better than that, Sevvi.’

‘I hope so,’ Sevinna said. ‘I didn’t like his chin, either.’

‘It’s his beastly position that Mania’s so smitten with,’ Wbridda put in. ‘But he just won’t do.’

‘I’m glad you agree with me. Well, maybe he won’t like me. My father can’t give me that big a dowry, after all.’ Wbridda smiled in an oddly sly way and sat down on a chair with a flounce of her dresses.

‘We can make sure he’s not interested. Can’t we, Baba?’

‘If we have to. We’ve got somewhat to tell you, Sevvi. It’s a secret, so you’ve got to promise you’ll never tell anyone, especially a man.’

‘Of course I’ll promise. What is it?’

‘It’s a thing we learned from Lady Davylla. She’s the wife of Lord Elyc of Belgwerger.’

‘All the ladies are doing it,’ Wbridda put in. That’s why we’ve got to keep it a secret, you see. But anyway, Lady Davylla spends lots of time in court, and she says that even the princesses know. I don’t know about the Queen, though.’

‘Oh, she’s doubtless too busy with all that court stuff she has to do. But it’s ever so amusing, Sevvi, and I’ll wager it works.’

‘What?’

‘You have to swear first,’ Babryan said. ‘Just a promise won’t do. Come on, Bry. Go get your little knife. We’ll do it by the fire.’

While Wbridda rummaged through her jewellery casket, Babryan put out all the candles so that the only light was a pool from the fire. When Sevinna and Babryan knelt down in the flickering shadows, Babryan giggled in pleasant excitement, and Sevinna caught her mood. Whatever this mysterious something was, it was much more amusing to think about than marrying a man she hardly knew. Wbridda knelt down beside them and opened her hand to show Sevinna a tiny knife with a silver handle and a blade of black obsidian.

‘Lady Davylla has a Wise Woman living in her dun,’ Wbridda explained. ‘She’s awfully awfully old, she doesn’t even have any teeth, but she knows everything. She makes these knives, you see. Lady Davylla gives them to her special friends, and she gave one to us.’

‘What are they for?’

‘We’ll tell you once you swear,’ Babryan said. ‘Here, we’re going to have to have a bit of your hair and a drop of your blood, but it won’t hurt. That knife’s awfully sharp.’

Wbridda cut off a tiny bit of Sevinna’s hair and laid it on the hearthstone, then pricked her index finger and squeezed a drop of blood onto the hair. Sevinna sucked her fingertip.

‘Now you’ve got to swear you’ll never repeat any of this to one who doesn’t know the goddess,’ Babryan said.

‘Which goddess?’

‘We can’t say yet. Just swear.’

‘All right. I swear I won’t betray the secrets to one who doesn’t know the goddess.’

‘And to any man ever.’

‘And to any man ever.’

Babryan picked up the bit of hair and threw it into the fire.

‘Aranrhodda,’ she called out. ‘Aranrhodda, favour our cousin and us, too, for bringing her to you!’

The bit of hair caught and burned with a drift of stench in the wood smoke. Sevinna went cold, wondering what she’d just done to herself, wishing she’d asked more before she’d sworn the vow, but Babryan and Wbridda were giggling. Oh, there can’t be any harm in it, Sevinna thought, not if they’d do it.

‘There, now you’re one of us,’ Babryan announced. ‘Lady Davylla will probably ride our way soon for a visit, and you’ll get to meet her. Oh, she’s ever so splendid.’

‘But anyway,’ Wbridda said. ‘If you don’t like this Timryc fellow, we’ll just work a charm to turn him cold to you. You can work lots of charms when you learn how, Sevvi. There’s one to turn a man cold to you, and one to make him love you, and one to make your father or brother favour the man you favour, just lots of them.’

‘Oh here,’ Sevinna said. ‘I thought you didn’t even care what men did.’

‘Well, it’s all going to come in handy someday.’ Wbridda shrugged. ‘I don’t want to marry some dry stick of a man just because Da says I have to. This way there’s stuff you can do about it, you see. Otherwise there isn’t.’

Sevinna nodded. She did see, entirely too well.

On the morrow, Gwerbret Tudvulc called Sevinna into his private council chamber for a little chat. Her uncle, so tall and stout and noisy, had always intimidated Sevinna, and being dependent on his charity only frightened her the more. Tudvulc sat her down in a chair and strode back and forth by an open window while they talked. His mop of brown hair and moustache had gone quite grey since the last time she’d seen him.

‘Now here, lass. No use in mincing words, eh? I want you to take a good look at Timryc here. He’s got splendid connections, a good bit of land. You’d have plenty of pretty dresses from a man like that, eh?’

Sevinna smiled out of duty alone.

‘But there’s no use in jumping at the first hare out of the bushes, either,’ Tudvulc went on. ‘You’re my niece, got connections of your own, and you’re blasted good-looking, too. A pretty face is worth half a dowry, eh? So you just wait and see what kind of game we can beat out of the forest, lass. No rush. You’re always welcome at my table.’

‘His grace is ever so kind.’ Sevinna bowed her head. ‘I’m willing to wait for the right match.’

‘Good, good. Never know about you lasses, eh? Most of you are so eager to get that crown of roses on your head you can’t think straight.’ He gave her a twisted grin that was doubtless meant to be jolly and avuncular. ‘Oh, the gwerbret of Buccbrael has a young son, too. Be a cursed good alliance for both our clans, and I hear the lad’s already turning the heads of the local lasses. Good-looking sort. A year or two younger than you, but young men grow faster with a wife in their bed. We’ll see what we can turn up, truly.’

Bowing, a page appeared in the doorway.

‘Your Grace? There’s a messenger here from the gwerbret of Caenmetyn. He says it concerns an urgent matter of justice, an escaped murderer.’

‘Indeed? Send him straight in. Here, lass, you run along to your aunt and have a nice little ride.’

Sevinna rose, curtsied and made a grateful escape. In the corridor she passed the messenger, a warrior with the blazon of Caenmetyn on his road-stained shirt.

The afternoon’s expedition rode slowly along the grassy banks of the Sironaver, sparkling in the sun, until they came to a spot where willow trees had been planted to give some shade for just this sort of party. The grass had been trimmed back with a scythe, too, and beds of bright flowers made pleasant curves by the riverbank. When the others dismounted, Wbridda, with her falcon on her gloved wrist and one of the pages riding behind, went off into the grasslands to hunt. As she’d been told to do, Sevinna waited a moment before dismounting. Sure enough, Lord Timryc hurried to her side to help her down from her side-saddle. His hands were strong on her waist, his smile carefully courtly as he set her down.

‘This is truly a lovely place,’ Timryc said. ‘Will my lady honour me by walking down the river to see the view?’

‘My thanks, my lord. What a pretty thought.’

As they walked, Sevinna found herself tongue-tied; all she could do was ask him questions about his life at court, but the questions had to be carefully phrased, as it would be most discourteous if he thought she were prying into his financial worth or standing. Fortunately, Timryc had no difficulty at all keeping a conversation going, especially when the subject was himself. Sevinna was amazed at how often he could mention the times the King had spoken to him or the Queen had thanked him for some favour.

Getting back to the privacy of the women’s quarters was like finding refuge from a storm. Sevinna sank gratefully into a chair and wondered if she could feign a headache to get out of sitting next to Timryc at dinner. Babryan sat down next to her and gave Wbridda a scowl.

‘Go change that dress! You’ve got blood all over your sleeve.’

‘We had a good hunt,’ Wbridda said. ‘Two sparrows and a crow.’

‘Ugh! I don’t care. Or wait! Did you get some of the crow’s feathers?’

With a grin, Wbridda pulled three black tail feathers out of her kirtle and held them up.

‘Those are ever so useful for charms, Sevvi,’ Babryan explained. ‘If you don’t want Lord Timryc, we’ll work one tonight on him.’

‘Oh splendid! Because I don’t.’

The girls waited till late that night to make the charm. Wbridda brought one of the black feathers, Babryan, a candle-end, and Sevinna, a bone stylus. They crouched down close to the hearth, and Babryan laid the candle-end down a little distance from the flames.

‘We’ll let the wax soften.’

‘All right,’ Sevinna said. ‘Now here, though, this won’t make his lordship sick or anything, will it?’

‘Oh, of course not,’ Wbridda chimed in. ‘It’s awfully hard to make someone sick or have them die or suchlike. You’ve got to have bits of their fingernails or hair, and you’ve got to have special herb-oil, and you’ve got to work the charms nine times at midnight and do all sorts of stuff.’

‘All right, then. He’s only an awful bore. I don’t want to cause him any harm. Do you know anyone who’s ever worked this charm before?’

‘Oh, lots of people,’ Babryan said. ‘Lady Davylla’s sisters, and then their friends. I don’t know anyone who’s ever worked the death curse, though. Oooh! That would be awful. You’d have to really hate someone.’

‘I bet Lady Davylla’s Wise Woman could do it, though,’ Wbridda said. ‘Or one of her friends.’

‘There’s some round Lughcarn, too,’ Babryan added. ‘We’ve got a little silver chain Lady Davylla’s Wise Woman gave us, you see. If we show it to one of the Wise Women here, they’ll know that we’re their friends.’

‘Have you talked to any of them?’ Sevinna said.

‘Not yet, because it’s so hard to get away from Mam. Now that you’re here, we’ll have to think of a way to do it. We can pretend to hunt with falcons or suchlike. It’ll be ever so exciting.’

‘Let’s do it soon,’ Sevinna said. ‘Look, the wax is getting really soft.’

Babryan picked up the warm candle-end and kneaded it into the shape of a heart. When it was cool, Sevinna scratched Timryc’s mark onto the surface, then handed it to Wbridda, who stuck the shaft of the feather into the wax. While Sevinna held the heart over the fire, the other two began to chant Aranrhodda’s name. She threw the heart into the hottest part of the fire and watched as the feather singed and flared.

‘Let his regard for her melt, melt, melt,’ Babryan chanted.

For a moment the heart held steady, then began to twist and run. The wax flared with a plume of black smoke. Sevinna was suddenly frightened: it seemed that a face looked out of the flames, a pair of eyes, dark and grim, looking her straight in the face and marking her presence.

‘Aranrhodda, Aranrhodda, Aranrhodda!’ Babryan was whispering the chant over and over. ‘Let his heart melt, melt, melt.’

The face disappeared; there was only the fire and the flaring wax along a log. Sevinna felt herself shuddering as if she knelt by a winter window instead of a roaring fire.

Black thatch covered the inn roof, the inn yard stank from a dirty stable, and the innkeep kept picking at a boil on his face, but the place was the only one in Lughcarn that would take in silver daggers. All the time they were sweeping out stalls and tending their horses, Rhodry grumbled, but Jill ignored him. He grumbled about the food, too, and she had to admit that fried turnips flecked with mutton weren’t her favourite dinner, but when he insisted on wiping the rim of the tankard with the hem of his shirt before he drank from it, she’d had enough.

‘Oh, stop it! I suppose you think we should be sleeping in the gwerbret’s broch!’

‘Don’t pour vinegar in my wounds. I have stayed in the dun, and it’s the memory that aches my heart now.’

‘Huh. Do you think his grace would remember you?’

‘Most like. Ah by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I hope our paths don’t cross. The last thing I want is for his grace to see me now, a lousy silver dagger.’

‘If you’ve really got lice, I’d better go through your hair tonight.’

‘Just a way of speaking! You don’t need to make light of my shame.’

‘Oh now here, my love.’ Jill laid her hand on his arm and smiled at him. ‘It’s just hard for me to remember how shamed you feel, because to me you’re the most wonderful man in all Deverry.’

Mollified, Rhodry returned the smile. Jill went back to thinking about plans in peace. Having the local gwerbret remember Rhodry would be useful if he’d only agree to face him. On the other hand, if Lady Mallona had found a refuge somewhere near Lughcarn, it might be better if they kept as quiet and anonymous as possible. If the priestesses of the Moon were right, some very high-bom women, who doubtless had connections at the gwerbretal court, were amusing themselves by pretending to follow the Old Lore. The Holy Ladies considered such pastimes dangerous.

‘Ye gods,’ Rhodry groaned. ‘Mallona could be anywhere.’

‘Just that, but maybe we can find some kind of a trail. I’ve got an idea, you see.’

Since it was market day, Jill and Rhodry walked round the town to look the place over. Lughcarn was a big city for that time, close to twelve thousand people, cobbled street after street lined with round houses, always topped with dirty-grey thatch. They passed the foundries, long half-open sheds and fenced yards where deep pits gaped to smelt the ore, and sticks and chunks of black charcoal lay piled in covered sheds. At the centre of town Rhodry pointed out the gwerbret’s dun. Behind the smooth stone walls rose the tops of the broch and the half-brochs like a thick cluster of spears. Jill counted seven towers in all, each with slate roofs. Here and there in a favoured window a piece of glass caught the light and gleamed.

As they lingered, admiring, the iron-bound gates swung open, and a riding party came out on matched bay palfreys, three young lasses in linen riding dresses, draped gracefully over their side-saddles. Behind them came a falconer and an escort of five riders from the gwerbret’s warband. Rhodry grabbed Jill’s arm and pulled her into a deep doorway behind them.

‘Those are the gwerbret’s daughters. Doubtless Babryan would remember me, and I don’t want her to see me.’

‘Why? Did you break her heart or suchlike?’

‘Naught of the sort! The last time I saw her she was a child with her hair back in a braid. I just don’t want to have to face her.’

As the lasses rode slowly by, the people on the street hurried to get out of their way, the men bowing, the women dropping curtsies. The lasses hardly seemed to notice; they were talking among themselves and letting their gentle horses pick their own way through the streets.

In the middle of town Jill and Rhodry found the market square, cluttered with booths, built all anyhow, and farmers with produce spread out on the ground wherever they could find a bare spot. Through it all wandered shabby women with baskets on their arms, elegant women with a servant trailing behind to carry their purchases, young men hanging round and merely watching the passing show, servants hurrying on errands. Jill and Rhodry picked their way through heaps of cabbages and baskets of eggs, walked past a man with a stack of round yellow cheeses, and generally looked over the various rural people come to town to sell.

Eventually they saw an old woman kneeling on the ground behind a blanket, spread with bunches of tied kitchen herbs, basil, chervil, and rosemary, both fresh and dried. Her grey hair was neatly caught back with the black headscarf of a widow, and her faded brown dress was scrupulously clean. When Jill knelt down in front of her, the old woman raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘You don’t look like you do much cooking, lass.’

‘Well, actually, I’m looking for a different kind of herb, but I was wondering if you knew a woman who deals in physic.’

‘Here, there’s a fine apothecary in town. Duryn’s his name, and he has a shop over by the west gate.’

‘Well, er ah, you see, I was hoping to find a woman with herb lore, not a man.’

The old woman sighed in faint disgust, looked at Rhodry who was hovering nearby, sighed again, then crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Jill.

‘Now you should have thought of such things before you ran off with a handsome silver dagger,’ the old woman snapped. ‘Oh, your poor family! Is it too late for you to ride home?’

‘Far too late,’ Jill said, thankful that she was lying about this supposed pregnancy. ‘They’ll never take me back now.’

‘Well, my heart aches for you, lass, but you waded into this mucky river, and now you’ll just have to dry your own clothes. You lasses! Ye gods! Thinking you can roll around with any man who takes your fancy and not have to give the Goddess the tribute she demands. Lasses weren’t like this in my day, they weren’t. We knew the right side of the blanket from the wrong one. Now it’s a nasty impious thing you’re thinking of, and even if I could do a thing about it, I wouldn’t, and neither would any honest woman, neither. You’d best get yourself to the temple and beg the priestesses to do something about that man of yours. No doubt he’ll try to run out on you, but our gwerbret will put a stop to that if the Holy Ladies ask him. Lasses! Ye gods, didn’t you think?’

Jill hastily rose and began babbling something about having to leave. The old woman followed and caught a startled Rhodry by the arm.

‘You’d best do the right thing by this lass and marry her, silver dagger,’ she announced. ‘Maybe she was stupid, but you lads are the scum of the earth, getting lasses with child and then riding on again. You had the fun of getting the baby, and now you’d best turn your hand to supporting it.’