Читать книгу A Time of War - Katharine Kerr - Страница 10
ОглавлениеA good omen for the taking of prisoners, but otherwise, evil in all things, though with great hope of mitigation. If it should fall under the presidency of Tin, the ninth land upon our map, it signifies evil without any such hope, for in all matters pertaining to the gods and their worship, this figure works naught but ill and harm.
The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster
Approached from the west, Cengarn loomed. The day when Jahdo saw it for the first time was beautifully sunny and fresh, too, as if the gods were mocking his fate and making sure he could see every detail of the Slavers’ evil city. As usual, he and Meer, doubled up on Baki, were being led along at the rear of the squad. When it crested one last hill, the men spread out to rest their horses, and Jahdo could look ahead. Down below the view stretched out, the sparse woodlands dropping to a valley of rolling meadows and green crops. Toward their side of the valley stood a solitary farmstead. Some way beyond that ran a stream, bordered with trees.
‘The house be round, Meer, and there does stand this dirt wall, a mound like, all round it. I can see some cows, too, and it looks like they be white. It’s kind of hard to tell from here.’ Jahdo shaded his hand with his eyes. ‘Oh! I do think that’s the city.’
In the strong morning light he could pick out, far across the valley, three grey hills surrounded by what seemed to be stone walls, being as they were too smooth and circular to be cliffs. Spread across the hills were the tiny shapes of white-washed houses, all of them round, and some larger stone buildings. Over it all hung a faint haze – the smoke of cooking fires, most likely – out of which, at the top of the highest hill, rose a cluster of round stone towers with flat roofs, just like the ones mentioned in the old tales, as dark and grim and ugly as chunks of iron. When Jahdo described this view, Meer sighed, but he said nothing.
‘It be not far.’ Jahdo swallowed heavily. ‘We should get there before noon.’
‘To find out our fate at last. I can only pray that some kind and decent master buys you, lad. What happens to me is of no moment, for I am a broken man with no house or clan, but you have a life ahead of you.’
‘Not much of one.’
Meer stayed silent. Over the past three days, as the squad rode for Cengarn, Jahdo had run out of tears for his lost family, his lost freedom. He felt numb, as if he’d been so ill with a fever for so long that life had receded to some far distance.
‘Come on, lads!’ Rhodry called out. ‘Almost home.’
In a clatter and jingle of tack and hooves the squad jogged off downhill. When they came onto the flat, Jahdo got his first omen of what their welcome might be like. Just by the road they saw a young girl, her blonde hair hanging in one long pigtail down her back. She was wearing a dirty brown dress, cinched in at her waist with a length of old rope, and carrying a wooden crook, apparently to help her herd the cows. At the sound of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of tack, she turned toward the road and watched as the men rode by. When Rhodry made her a gallant bow from his saddle, she laughed and waved, until she got a look at Meer. At that she turned and ran screaming for the farmstead.
‘Stop!’ Rhodry called out. ‘We won’t let him hurt you.’
When the other men laughed, Jahdo remembered how he hated them. Although the girl stopped screaming, she kept running, darting inside the earth work wall. They could hear a gate slam, and dogs began barking hysterically – an entire pack, from the sound of it.
‘Better trot, men,’ Rhodry said, grinning. ‘Let’s get out of here before they set the dogs on us.’
Since they passed the farmstead with no more trouble than the din of angry hounds, Rhodry called the squad to a walk. Apparently he was in no hurry to reach the city, for all that he’d called it home earlier, not on such a lovely day, perhaps, with songbirds warbling and the sun glinting on the stream. As they rode closer, Jahdo found himself thinking of the city as a storm cloud, floating nearer and nearer, rising high and dark on the horizon at first, then looming to fill the view. He couldn’t decide whether he wished that they’d reach the city and get it over with or that Time would slow and they’d never quite arrive.
At length, though, they came to the West Gate, where a sheer rise of cliff, hacked smooth with tools and reinforced at the base with stone blocks, guarded a winding path up to the town. By tipping his head back Jahdo could just see the tops of the towers, rising over a dark grey wall at the brow of the highest hill. The gate itself stood partly open, a massive thing of oak beams bound with iron strips and chains. In the shadows inside he could just make out a huge winch. Armed guards stepped forward and hailed the squad.
‘So, silver dagger,’ one of them said to Rhodry. ‘You had a good hunt, I see.’
‘Well, we’ve netted what Jill wanted, sure enough. Tell me somewhat. Are there a lot of people out and about in the streets today?’
‘More than a few, it being so warm and all. Why?’
‘I don’t want the prisoners stoned and injured.’
Jahdo felt briefly sick.
‘True enough,’ the guard said. ‘You’d best dismount, I’d say, and put them in the middle of you.’ He jerked a thumb at Meer. ‘The rumours have spread about that fellow you killed, and his kind’s not exactly well-loved round here.’
Meer grunted, just once, but it was close to a sob.
‘Don’t worry, good bard,’ Rhodry said. ‘We’ll get you through in one piece. Yraen, we’ll wait here. You go fetch Otho the dwarf. I’ll wager he and his kin have ways through this city that are out of the common sight.’
Although he grumbled, Yraen dismounted and puffed off uphill to follow orders. A few at a time the entire squad dismounted as well, leading their horses through the gates. Opposite the huge winch was a small wooden guardhouse, and everyone drifted over in front of it to stand round gossiping with the guards about things that had happened during their absence. Meer stood stiff and straight, his hands clasped tight round his staff, his lips trembling. When Jahdo laid a hand on his arm to comfort him, Meer shook it off. Rhodry noticed the gesture.
‘I won’t let anything happen to the pair of you,’ Rhodry said. ‘That’s why we’re waiting here.’
‘It’s not that what does ache his heart. The Gel da’Thae you did kill was his brother.’
The moment he spoke Jahdo rued it. Even though he was visibly trying to choke back the noise, Meer keened, just briefly before he forced silence. Rhodry winced and swore.
‘Well, my apologies.’ And oddly enough, he sounded perfectly sincere. ‘But Meer, your brother was doing his cursed best to kill me.’
‘No doubt.’ Meer let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘You are a warrior as he was a warrior. Your kind lives and dies by a different code than we ordinary men.’
Jahdo noticed the squad looking at Meer with a trace of new respect. Rhodry seemed to be trying to find something further to say, but Yraen came bustling back with three men in tow, two of them armed and mailed, the third elderly with a long white beard, but all of them the shortest, stockiest people that Jahdo had ever seen. The shortest of all, though obviously a grown man, was just his height, though twice his breadth. Jahdo frankly stared until one of the axemen glanced his way with a scowl, frightening him into looking elsewhere.
‘My thanks for coming,’ Rhodry said. ‘What do you think, Otho? Can we pass by one of your roads?’
‘Up to Jorn, here.’ Otho waved in the direction of the taller axeman. ‘By the by, silver dagger, young Yraen had the cursed gall to remind me about that little matter of the coin. I’m waiting for somewhat to sell at a good price, and then I’ll bring it to you, so stop your badgering.’ He turned, looking Meer up and down. ‘Ah, he’s blind! I couldn’t imagine what you were thinking of, asking us to take a spy up this way, but if he can’t see, then the secret’s safe enough.’
Meer bared his fangs but said nothing.
‘Can’t bring the horses through.’ Jorn stepped forward. ‘What about having Yraen and the squad take ’em up to the dun?’ His voice turned contemptuous. ‘You don’t need twelve men to guard a blind man and a boy.’
‘Ah, but they’re wily, wily.’ Rhodry was grinning. ‘Yraen, the rest of you – I’ll see you back in the great hall.’
Collecting the horses, including Baki and Gidro, the squad moved off, leading the stock up the steep hill. As he watched, Jahdo realized that he was sorry to see them go. Even though he hated each one for helping capture him, they were at least familiar, men he’d grown used to in the horror of the past few days.
‘Come round here.’ Otho gestured at a twisting lane that led behind the guardhouse.
With Jorn in the lead they walked to the base of the hill just beyond the gates, where the slope had been cut to the vertical, then faced with stone blocks to produce an artificial cliff. When Jorn pounded on one block with his axe, a good quarter of this structure creaked back three inches to reveal a sliver of face and a suspicious eye.
‘Ah, it’s you already,’ said a voice from inside. ‘Stand back, and I’ll open up.’
With much groaning and the crunching of dirt and the bouncing of pebbles the massive door opened just far enough for everyone to slip in sideways, one at a time. The two younger men ushered them down a long, cool tunnel of worked stone, a good ten feet wide but a bare six tall, so that both Meer and Rhodry were forced to walk stooped. Once everyone was safely in, the doorkeeper seized an enormous lever and pulled. The door inched shut to groan into place so tightly that Jahdo could see not the slightest crack of sunlight round it. The only light, a sickly blue glow, oozed from phosphorescent mosses and fungi, gathered into baskets and hung from iron pegs in the wall. Jahdo shuddered, wondering if a rat felt this way, caught in one of his family’s traps. Remembering how the creatures squealed and clawed when the trap splashed down and water rose to cover them made him want to weep.
‘Come along, come along,’ Otho snapped. ‘Stop goggling, lad. Haven’t got all day.’
The tunnel ran straight for some ten feet, then turned into a flight of stairs, climbing steep and narrow for an ordeal of hundreds of yards. Before they’d gone halfway up Jahdo’s heart was pounding, and he fought for breath in the stuffy air. Once he stumbled, and his sore and sweaty hands slipped from the narrow stone ridge that did for a railing. For a brief moment he thought of letting himself fall backwards and plunge down to die, but Rhodry caught his arm and yanked him up.
‘No hurry, lad,’ the warrior said. ‘Get your feet under you.’
Jahdo had no choice but to keep climbing. By the time they reached the top, everyone was panting for breath, but Meer was downright sobbing. Rhodry allowed them a few moments of rest.
‘Tell me somewhat, lad,’ Otho said. ‘You seem to have great respect for this creature you serve. Were you raised among his kind?’
Jahdo started to tell him the truth; then it occurred to him to wonder if he truly wanted these people to know about his homeland.
‘I was,’ he said instead. ‘But he be a bard, and it’s needful that you respect him, too.’
Otho shrugged in insulting dismissal.
Another corridor, another stair, another massive door – at last they came blinking out into the sunlight before another pair of guarded gates, as massive and iron-bound as the first. Behind these rose the towers, as grim as a giant’s clubs, stuck into the earth.
‘There you are,’ Otho said. ‘We’ll be heading back now.’
As the three dwarves started back into the tunnel, Rhodry called after them.
‘Remember that coin you owe me, Otho.’
It struck Jahdo as viciously unjust that these people would be haggling over the ordinary details of their lives, something as petty as a gambling debt, probably, while they were dragging him off to slavery.
As they walked through the gates, Rhodry laid a heavy hand on Meer’s shoulder, and Jahdo took the bard’s arm, because his blind man’s staff made a poor guide for leading him through the confusion in the vast ward. Clustering round the towers and the inside of the walls stood wooden sheds, mostly round and thatched. Incorporated into the outer walls were long rectangles of buildings, stables on the lower level, though Jahdo couldn’t see into the upper. Scurrying round through the midst of this jumble were servants – tending horses, carrying things like firewood or sacks of what seemed to be vegetables, or even pulling a squalling goat along or driving a couple of pigs before them. Somewhere close by a blacksmith’s forge rang with hammering; dogs barked; people yelled back and forth. Every now and then an armed man strolled by, knocking any servant in his way out of it.
‘Straight ahead,’ Rhodry barked. ‘Quick like, before I find myself defending you. See that long straight building there past the pigsty, lad? That’s where we’re heading.’
Fear made Jahdo co-operative. He hurried Meer along while Rhodry kept a nervous watch behind them, and the various servants all shrieked at the very sight of them and rushed to goggle. When the armed men started jeering, Jahdo was more than glad to duck into the long stone structure, even if it did reek of the nearby hogs and something worse, too, an undertone of human filth. Inside he found a narrow passageway, lined with doors, each with a small opening near the top and a heavy oak bar across to lock them.
‘The dungeon keep,’ Rhodry remarked, confirming Jahdo’s worst guess. ‘With luck you won’t be here long.’
An elderly man, dressed in brown tatters that had once been clothes, came hobbling out of a room at the far end of the corridor.
‘Prisoners of war,’ Rhodry said to him.
‘Put them here, silver dagger.’ With arthritic hands he lifted a bar and swung a door back. ‘Shove them right along.’
Jahdo helped Meer cross the high threshold, then stepped in after, his heart pounding as badly as it had on the underground stairs. He was profoundly relieved to find a small window, barred, on the opposite wall, and thick straw, reasonably clean, on the floor. In one corner stood a leather bucket, crawling with flies – otherwise, nothing, not so much as a blanket.
‘I want them decently treated,’ Rhodry was saying to the old man. ‘Plenty of food, mind you, and clean water, and none of that mouldy bread, either. I’ll be stopping by now and again to see that you’ve made it so.’
‘It’ll be done, it’ll be done.’
The door eased shut, and the bar fell down with a thump. Jahdo could hear Rhodry and the old man squabbling down the corridor for a moment; then the old man returned.
‘Lad, lad! I’m handing you water in through the window.’
A clay pitcher appeared in the slit in the door. Jahdo could just pull it through. A clay cup with a broken handle followed, and after that a loaf of brown bread, reasonably fresh.
‘There,’ the old man snapped. ‘Cursed arrogant bastard of a silver dagger, giving an honest man orders like that.’
‘Bain’t Rhodry a lord, then?’
‘What did you say, lad?’
‘Bain’t Rhodry a lord?’
After a moment the old man laughed, and hard.
‘Not half, lad, not half. A stinking mercenary and naught more, fighting for coin, not honour like a decent man. Little better than thieves, all of that lot. Got into trouble young, they did, or they wouldn’t be riding the long road at all, would they now?’ There was the sound of him spitting onto the floor. ‘The gall, a silver dagger giving me orders.’
Muttering under his breath, the fellow stumped away, and this time he never returned. Jahdo poured Meer a cup of water – it was indeed clean, even cool – and helped him drink.
‘I can break this bread up with my fingers,’ he said. ‘You know what I really hate, Meer? They did take my grandfather’s knife, and it were the only thing of his I ever did have that were just mine.’
Meer moaned as he passed the cup back.
‘If only I’d never brought you on this fool’s errand!’
‘It’s what the gods did decide for us. I guess.’ Jahdo heard his voice break as he wished from the bottom of his heart that he’d never come, either. ‘You couldn’t know Thavrae was going to be killed.’ He swallowed hard, concentrating on pouring himself water. ‘Oh. You know what? I do have somewhat to give you, and I never did remember it till this moment.’ He gulped the water, set the cup down, and began fishing in his pocket. ‘Here they are. It’s the stuff Thavrae wore, the amulets and things. I did cut them off for you.’
When Jahdo laid them in Meer’s palm, the bard tightened his fingers over them for a moment, then muttered a curse and flung them hard against the wall.
‘I have done what our mother asked. I will do no more. If it weren’t for him and his foul demons, his false gods, his blasphemy and his heresy, then our clan would still have the hope of life, and neither you nor I would be caged here in this loathsome dungeon. Is it not one of the seven worst things in all of life, to fall into the hands of one’s enemies?’
Jahdo tried to find some comforting thing to say and failed. He broke the bread up into chunks and gave Meer a big one, but the bard handed it back.
‘Eat it all, lad, the whole loaf. You are young, and you have hope. Many a faithful slave’s been rewarded with freedom.’
‘But bain’t you hungry?’
Meer shook his head no.
‘Meer, you must be – oh Meer, don’t. Don’t starve yourself to death. You mayn’t, you mayn’t! You’re all I’ve got, Meer. Please eat some of this bread. Please.’
Meer folded his arms over his chest and turned his head away. No matter how Jahdo begged and wept, he spoke not one word. In the end Jahdo gave up. His own stomach was growling from the scent of food. He wiped his face as best he could on his filthy sleeve and began to eat. Meer must have heard, because he allowed himself a brief smile.
Jahdo finished one chunk and started on another. He was wondering if they’d be fed more later in the day, or if he should be saving half the loaf, when he heard a slight sound without the door, or so he thought until he looked up to find someone inside the cell with them.
In the dim light she seemed to glow, a beautiful woman, tall and slender with long ash-blonde hair that cascaded down her back, deep-set eyes the colour of storm clouds but slit vertically like a cat’s, and the strangely long and curled ears he’d seen on the god by the stream. She was dressed in clothes of silvery grey, a full shirt, belted at the waist, a pair of doeskin trousers, and boots of the same.
‘Evandar wouldn’t come himself, but I can’t bear to leave you this way, child. Fear not: things aren’t as dark as they must seem. I promise you that.’
She seemed to swirl like a trail of smoke above a campfire; then she was gone.
‘What was that voice?’ Meer snapped. ‘Who was that?’
‘It were a goddess.’ Jahdo had never been so sure of anything in his life. ‘A goddess did come to us, Meer. It’s needful for you to eat now, bain’t it? She came and did say that all be well.’
When Jahdo handed him the bread, he began to eat, slowly, savouring each bite in something like awe, while Jahdo poured himself more water and drank it the same way.
After he made his final threats to the jailor, the man who preferred to be known only as Rhodry from Aberwyn stood in the ward for a moment, considering how badly he wanted a bath and some clean clothes after a fortnight in the saddle. He knew, however, that he’d best make his report to those who’d sent him on this hunt. He headed across the ward to the broch complex, aiming for one of the smaller towers that were joined to the flanks of the main broch. Although he was planning on slipping in quietly, he found waiting for him a man he couldn’t ignore. A tall, hard-muscled fellow with moonlight-pale blond hair and grey eyes, Lord Matyc of Dun Mawrvelin was leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Since he had no choice, Rhodry made him a bow.
‘Good morrow, my lord. Somewhat I can do for you?’
‘Just a word, silver dagger. Those two prisoners you just brought in? By whose order did you take them?’
‘The gwerbret’s himself, my lord. He sent me and Yraen out with a few of his own men.’
‘I see.’
His lordship peeled himself off the door and walked away without so much as a fare thee well. And since it was the gwerbret, Rhodry thought, there’s not one wretched thing you can do about it, is there? He would have disliked so arrogant a man as Matyc on principle alone, but recently an incident or two had left Rhodry wondering just how loyal the lord was to his overlord, Gwerbret Cadmar of Cengarn. What interested him about this latest brush with his lordship was not that Matyc had asked him a question – simple curiosity would have explained that – but the lack of further questions, such as a wondering about who Meer might be or how he’d been found, the normal sort of things you’d expect a man to ask. Rhodry watched Matyc until the lord had gone into the main broch, then went on his own way.
Right inside the door of the side tower a wrought iron staircase led up every bit as steeply as the dwarven stairs, spiralling round and past all four floors of the small and wedge-shaped chambers belonging to various of the gwerbret’s honoured servitors. On the fifth and final floor was an open area for storing sacks of charcoal to one side and one last chamber to the other. Rhodry stood for a moment catching his breath, then knocked. A woman’s voice called for him to enter. He hesitated ever so slightly before he opened the door and strode in.
Dressed in pale grey brigga and a heavily embroidered white shirt, Jill was sitting on a curved, three-legged chair with a large leather-bound book on the table in front of her. Her hair, cropped off like a lad’s, was perfectly white, and her face was thin, too thin, really, so that her blue eyes seemed enormous, dominating her face the way a child’s do. Overall, in fact, she was shockingly thin, and quite pale, yet she hardly seemed weak, her eyes snapping with life when she smiled, her voice strong and vibrant as well.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Success?’
‘Just that. We followed your directions and found them just about where you said they’d be, one human lad, one Gel da’Thae. I’ve stowed them in the dungeon keep.’
Jill made a face.
‘Oddly enough, they’re safer there than anywhere,’ Rhodry went on. ‘Feeling in the town’s running high. A lot of townsfolk lost kin to those raiders, and the word’s gone round that their leader was a hairy creature straight out of the third Hell. How are they going to feel about having another of the same lot right within reach? Here, an odd thing. That Gel da’Thae I killed was this bard’s brother.’
‘Odd, indeed. How do you know the prisoner’s a bard?’
‘His servant told me. And here’s the oddest thing of all. They speak the same tongue as Deverry men do. I’ve never been so surprised in my life, Jill. The lad just spoke right up, and I could understand him. Not easily at first, mind. His way of speaking’s a fair bit different, all flat and watery, like, and he uses a lot of words that I’d say were very old. The kind of thing you find in my esteemed ancestor’s books – words that haven’t been spoken round here in two hundred years.’
‘No doubt they haven’t, and no doubt he was as surprised as you were. If I’m guessing a-right, his forefathers were escaped bondsmen. The bondfolk came from many different tribes, you see, before our ancestors conquered the lot. And each of those, or so the lore runs, had its own language, a hundred of them all told, or so the priests say.’ She tapped the book before her with reed-slender fingers. ‘The only tongue that they all had in common was the language of their old masters, and they were forced to use it to survive.’
‘I’ll wager it griped their souls. It would have mine.’
‘No doubt.’ She smiled briefly, then glanced at the book. ‘It must be a strange place, the Rhiddaer. I haven’t been able to learn much about it, which is why this pair of prisoners is so important. But there’s no high king, and no lords nor gwerbrets, either, to keep order or form alliances – not that I can truly blame the people for wanting to leave all that behind forever. The High King’s justice never did apply to them, did it? But as for the lad and the bard, I hate to do this, but I’d say leave them where they are for a while, at least, until they’re scared enough to consider talking to me and the townsfolk find somewhat else to gossip about.’
‘Done, then.’
‘Tell me, was your ride quiet enough?’
‘It was. No signs of trouble, no sign of more of those raiders, but we might have ridden right past them, and they past us, with no one being the wiser. It’s wild country out that way.’
‘It’s wild country all round here. That’s the problem with Cengarn, isn’t it? Ye gods, we’re isolated! Tell me somewhat, Rhoddo. How many men do you think Cadmar could field, if things came to some sort of war?’
‘Not all that many. Let me think. Matyc’s his only vassal to the north, and then Gwinardd is his richest vassal, which should tell you somewhat about this place, when you look at the kind of gear his men have. There’s a lot of small lords round here, with say, five, ten men sworn to them. But anyway, our gwerbret has alliances further east, of course, but Arcodd province isn’t exactly a rich and settled place itself. Say five hundred men easily, another five hundred if all his nearby allies sent their treaty-bond due. And of course, the common-born are all free farmers, out this way. They’ll fight for their own, and they could field what? Say another thousand men, half-armed and half-trained, but brave and determined.’
‘And if the entire province were threatened, the High King would march, wouldn’t he?’
‘Of course, but it would take months to mobilize and get an army out here.’ All at once the implications of all these questions sank in. ‘Jill! What are you saying? Do you really think we’re in that kind of danger?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not. But all my life I’ve expected the worst and planned for it, and you know what? I’ve never been disappointed yet.’
Rhodry tried to laugh, then gave it up as a bad job.
‘I honestly don’t think we’ve seen the last of this trouble,’ Jill went on. ‘But how big the danger is? Well, I have no idea. As soon as I find out anything, I’ll tell you and the gwerbret both.’
‘Fair enough, and speaking of his grace, I’d best find him and tell him I’ve brought his men back.’
‘Just so. And give him my thanks, will you?’ She turned another page in the book. ‘I’ll come down the great hall in a bit.’
The great hall of Gwerbret Cadmar occupied the entire ground floor of the main broch. On one side, by a back door, stood enough trestle tables and backless benches for a warband of well over a hundred men; at the hearth, near the table of honour itself, furnished with actual chairs were five tables more for guests and servitors. On the floor lay a carpet of fresh braided rushes. The walls and the enormous hearth were made of a pale tan stone, all beautifully worked and carved, while huge panels of interlacement edged the windows and were set into the walls alternately with roundels of spirals and fantastic animals. An entire stone dragon embraced the honour hearth, its head resting on its paws, which were planted on the floor, its winged back forming the mantel, and its long tail curling down the other side. Even the riders’ hearth on the far side of the hall was heavily decorated with interlacing and dragons’ heads. When Rhodry walked in, he found the hall mostly empty, except for a couple of servant lasses over by the warband’s hearth, and a page, polishing tankards up at the table of honour. When Rhodry hailed the page, the boy ignored him.
‘You, Allonry! I know your father’s a great lord, but you’re here to run errands for anyone who asks.’
Scowling, the lad slouched over, a willowy lad of about ten summers, red-haired and freckled.
‘Where’s his grace?’ Rhodry said.
‘Out in the stables with the equerry.’
‘Will he be there long?’
‘I wouldn’t know. Go ask him yourself, silver dagger.’
Rhodry restrained himself with difficulty from slapping the boy across the face. Although he himself had served as a page in a gwerbret’s dun, he couldn’t remember having been this arrogant. He’d been terrified, mostly, of making a wrong step and disgracing himself, but young Allonry seemed to have no such worries.
‘I will, then,’ Rhodry said. ‘But I wouldn’t strut like this around Lord Matyc and his ilk, if I were you.’
The boy ducked his head and looked away. Rhodry turned to go, but the gwerbret himself made the point moot by coming in, trailed by the equerry and the chamberlain. Even though he limped badly on a twisted right leg, Gwerbret Cadmar was an imposing man, standing well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders, broad in the hands. His slate-grey hair and moustaches bristled; his face was weather-beaten and dark; his eyes gleamed a startling blue under heavy brows. As he made his way over to the table of honour, the page bowed, and Rhodry knelt.
‘Get up, silver dagger, no need to stand on ceremony.’ The gwerbret favoured him with a brief smile. ‘You’re back, are you? I’ve heard that you brought prisoners. I take it Jill was right, then, and there were spies prowling round my borders.’
‘Well, Your Grace, we found a couple of prowlers, sure enough, but I doubt me if they’re truly spies. One’s but a lad, you see, and the other’s blind.’
The equerry and chamberlain exchanged startled looks, and Cadmar himself grunted in surprise.
‘Cursed strange, then. Why were they riding in my lands?’
‘I have no idea, Your Grace. I do know that Jill has great hopes of getting information out of them.’
‘No doubt she’d like me to leave the matter in her hands?’
‘If his grace agrees, of course.’
‘Well, most likely I will.’ The gwerbret turned to the page. ‘Alli, run up to Jill’s chambers and ask her, and politely, mind, but ask her to come down for a word with me.’
Although the boy bowed and ran off fast, he was obviously smarting at the vertical hike ahead of him. Cadmar glanced at the chamberlain.
‘Think he’ll learn courtesy one of these fine days?’
‘I can only hope so, Your Grace,’ the old man sighed. ‘I’m doing my best to teach the wretched little snot.’
Cadmar laughed, then remembered Rhodry and turned to him with a quick wave of one hand.
‘You may go, silver dagger. No need for you to be standing round here.’
‘My thanks, Your Grace.’
Rhodry went out to the barracks, those structures built into the walls that had so puzzled Jahdo, and drew himself water at the stable well for a cold bath. Once he was shaved and reasonably clean, he went back to the great hall to keep an eye on things. He got himself some ale, dipping his own tankard to avoid giving a servant lass the chance to snub him, then found himself a seat at a table on the far side of the hall, where he could watch the noble-born from a proper distance. A few at a time, the honour-bound men in the various warbands quartered at the dun came drifting in, chivvying the lasses and settling down at one table or another to wait for the evening meal. Unlike the servants and the noble-born, most of the men had a friendly greeting for Rhodry or a jest to share. They’d seen him fight, after all, and judged his worth on that.
The hall filled up fast. For the war against the raiding party captained by Meer’s brother, Cadmar had called in two of his closest vassals, Lord Matyc and Lord Gwinardd, and as their oaths of fealty demanded, they’d brought twenty-five men apiece with them to add to Cadmar’s oath-sworn riders. One of the latter, a young brown-haired lad named Draudd, sat himself down beside Rhodry.
‘Where’s Yraen?’
‘Don’t know, but he’d better be cleaning himself up,’ Rhodry said. ‘I thought he’d be in by now. Why?’
‘Just asking, wondering if he’s up for a game of carnoic or suchlike.’ Draudd yawned profoundly. ‘He plays cursed well. Here, Rhodry, some of the men have a wager on, like, that Yraen’s noble-born.’
‘Do they now? I hope they don’t go asking him outright and hope to live to collect it. Prying into a silver dagger’s past is bad for a man’s health.’
Draudd snorted into his ale.
‘I’m not having a jest on you,’ Rhodry spoke quietly, levelly. ‘Tell them to lay off.’
Draudd looked up sharply, his good cheer gone.
‘And another thing,’ Rhodry went on. ‘Am I included in this little game?’
Draudd turned beet-red in silent confession. Rhodry grabbed him by a twist of shirt that nearly choked him and hauled him face to face.
‘Lay it off, lad. Do you understand me?’ He let Draudd go with a thrust of his wrist that sent the lad reeling. ‘Do you?’
‘I do, and I will, then.’ He hesitated, rubbing his throat with one hand, then swung himself free of the bench. ‘I’ll just go have a word with the captain, like.’
Rhodry realized that a clot of men were hovering in the door and watching. He ignored them and picked up his tankard again. When he checked a few moments later, he found them gone.
Soon after, Jill appeared at the far side of the great hall and hurried up to the gwerbret’s table, where Cadmar himself rose to greet her, insisting she take the place of honour at his right hand. Although he was too far away to hear their talk, Rhodry could guess that the gwerbret was trying to winkle information out of her – never the easiest task in the world. Rhodry suspected that she knew a great deal more than she was saying about this mysterious bard from so far away. In a few minutes the gwerbret’s other vassal in residence, Lord Gwinardd, joined the honour table, a young man, brown-haired and bland, his title newly inherited, sitting diffidently at the far end from his overlord and not saying a word.
As the afternoon drowsed on, Rhodry started keeping a watch for Lord Matyc, who would be expected to join the other noble-born men for the evening meal if not before, but he had a long wait before Matyc finally strode in. Right behind him came Yraen. Rhodry allowed himself a small smile as the two parted company, Matyc to greet his overlord, Yraen to stroll down and join Rhodry.
‘And where have you been?’ Rhodry said.
‘Keeping an eye on his lordship. What do you think? I caught him showing a bit too much interest in those prisoners for my taste, so I stood on guard for a while. When he kept hovering round, I distracted him, like, with talk of horses, and manoeuvred him into taking a look at the gwerbret’s new mare and suchlike.’
‘And how did our lordship take that?’
‘Badly.’ Yraen shrugged. ‘Let him. I don’t like the look of the man. Somewhat about him turns my gut.’
‘Mine, too. I’ll try to get a word with Jill, and as soon as I can. I wouldn’t mind having our prisoners moved to some fresh place, and that without our lordship knowing.’
Round sunset the jailor brought Jahdo and Meer a fresh loaf of bread, more water, chunks of cheese, stiff with rind but not bad tasting and plenty of it, and a couple of fresh peaches, which, he said, came by Rhodry’s direct order. Although he was glad of the food, thinking that they were dependent on the good will of the man who’d killed Meer’s brother and then captured them made Jahdo profoundly uneasy.
‘I do feel that we shouldn’t eat it,’ he said to Meer.
‘Slaves take what they can get, lad.’
‘I know that, but then it really creeps my flesh, thinking what will happen to us if Rhodry’s killed or suchlike. How will someone else treat us?’
‘Slaves live one day at a time, as well.’
While they ate, sitting in the straw, Jahdo looked up and out the barred window on the opposite wall. Outside the sky, streaked here and there with gold clouds, was darkening to a velvet blue. He could hear voices passing, harried servants, laughing men, the occasional bark of a dog or whinny of a horse. When he was done, he walked over to the window and found below it on the wall a couple of uneven stone blocks. By stepping on them and grabbing the window bars to hoist himself up, he could look out to a view of two storage sheds, the pigsty and, in the distance, the massive outer walls of the dun, all of which he described to Meer, mostly to pass the time.
‘And then round the top of the dun there’s these wooden catwalks, like we have back home, for the militia to walk round on and guard things. These are kind of broken in places, though, like they haven’t been kept up right. Maybe they don’t have a lot of wars here or suchlike.’
‘This dun seems to be the strong point of the entire area and not very likely to be attacked. I wonder what a gwerbret is? The lord of this place, obviously, but I’ve never heard the word before.’
‘Neither have I.’
Meer considered the problem for a moment, then felt for his staff, lying near him in the straw.
‘Do you need the bucket?’ Jahdo said.
‘I don’t. Help me to stand, lad.’
When Jahdo did so, Meer tapped his way to the door and felt for the little window. Once it was found, he put his face close to the bars.
‘Jailor!’ he roared. ‘Jailor! Come here!’
He kept it up until the old man appeared, cursing and complaining as he stumped down the hallway. A whiff of sour ale came with him.
‘And what’s wrong with you, you hairy cow? Disturbing an honest man at his hard-earned meal, not that I’ll be making much of a profit, feeding the likes of you, and that worm-riddled silver dagger giving me orders.’
‘I require the meaning of a word.’
The jailor stared, his mouth flopping open and silent.
‘I am Meer, bard and loremaster,’ Meer bellowed. ‘Tell me what this word, gwerbret, means. Such lore is my due.’
With a shake the jailor recovered himself.
‘Oh is it now? Since when do hairy dogs have bards?’
‘You better watch your tongue!’ Jahdo snapped.
‘Hush!’ Meer waved him away. ‘Old man, first you called me a cow, now a dog. In my homeland you would have been publicly strangled for those insults. Here, as a slave, I have no choice but to forgive you. Yet even a slave-bard is a bard still. You will answer me my question, or I’ll call down the wrath of the gods.’
‘Call away. I’ll not be telling you one wretched thing.’
As the jailor turned to go, Meer sang a high, piercing note whose harsh texture made Jahdo squirm. Louder and louder he sang, and longer and longer, until the jailor shrieked.
‘Very well! Hold your ugly tongue, bard! I’ll tell you. I should have known that hairy savages like you would be as ignorant as you are ugly. A gwerbret’s a kind of lord, see, the most powerful lord there is, except for the princes and suchlike of the blood royal. He’s got vassals what owe him service and pay him dues. And he judges criminals and suchlike, and I hope to every god that when it comes to the judging of you, he hangs you good and proper.’
This time when the old man hurried off, Meer let him go.
‘May his heart burst within him,’ Meer remarked. ‘Or better yet, may the gods plug his kidneys so that he dies in a stink of piss. Ah well. At least I’ve got my bit of new lore.’
Jahdo felt a profound relief. Obviously Meer had truly decided to live if he’d go worrying about some funny name. He got the bard settled, then climbed back to his window perch to watch the twilight fading. After a few minutes he saw a familiar figure come striding out of the main broch.
‘Someone’s coming. It be Rhodry, and he’s got Yraen and a couple of men from the squad with him.’
When he heard Rhodry’s voice in the corridor, and the jailor’s snivelling answers, Jahdo climbed down from his perch and handed the Gel da’Thae his staff. Meer rose to his feet just as they lifted the bar and opened the door. Rhodry made them a formal bow, but he was grinning all the while.
‘Feel like a stroll in the evening air?’ Rhodry said. ‘The ward’s nice and quiet at the moment, because most everyone’s still eating. I think we can get you across to the broch safely, if you hurry and if you cause me no trouble. Agreed?’
‘We don’t have any choice, do we?’ Jahdo said.
Rhodry laughed as hard as if the world were one daft jest.
‘None,’ Rhodry said. ‘So march.’
Jahdo caught Meer’s arm, and they hurried out, striding fast across the ward with the men disposed around them – not that they could hide Meer, tall as he was, of course. Jahdo, however, had trouble seeing through them, although he could just make out the many-towered broch complex, looming against the darkening sky and drawing closer and closer. They ducked suddenly into a door, which Rhodry slammed behind them, turning wherever they were as dark as pitch.
‘Curse you, Rhodry!’ Yraen snarled. ‘I’m not climbing all those stairs in the dark.’
‘Then get yourself into the great hall and grab us a candle lantern. The servants should be lighting them about now. Draudd, Maen – when Yraen returns, you’re dismissed, but say one word about this, and you’ll have me to deal with.’
‘I’ve forgotten already,’ Draudd said. ‘Even though I’m still here.’
Once Yraen came back with a punched tin lantern, they climbed the staircase by its mottled and flickering light, up and up, round and round, until Meer and Jahdo both were panting for breath. At the landing at the top, Rhodry let them pause among the heaped sacks.
‘Now mind your manners in here,’ he whispered. ‘We’re going to see Jill, and she holds your fate in her hands.’
Jahdo immediately pictured some great queen out of the ancient tales. He was not, therefore, prepared for the reality when Jill flung open the door. The chamber behind her glowed with a peculiar silver light that clung to the ceiling and sheeted down the walls as if it were water, and backlit as she was, he honestly thought her a skeleton or corpse. He screamed, making Meer grab his shoulder hard.
‘What is it?’ the bard snapped. ‘What is it?’
Jahdo tried to speak but could only stammer. When Rhodry howled with his usual crazed laughter, the boy burst into tears.
‘What are you doing to him?’ Meer bellowed with full bardic voice. ‘He’s done no harm to aught of you.’
‘It’s all right,’ Yraen broke in. ‘Jahdo, stop snivelling.’
‘Ye gods,’ Jill snarled. ‘Will you all hold your wretched tongues? Do you want half the dun running up here to see what the commotion is?’
That sensible question silenced everyone.
‘Much better,’ Jill said. ‘Come in, come in, and my apologies for frightening you, lad.’
With new courage Jahdo led Meer straight into the chamber. Now that he could see that she was a perfectly normal woman, though certainly not an ordinary one, he was expecting to find the peculiar glow just some trick of moonlight or torches. Unfortunately, it was nothing of the sort.
‘Meer, there be magic at work here,’ he whispered. ‘The light does shine all over everything, like dust or suchlike. I mean, if moonlight were dust it would look like this, and she’s got books, great big books. There must be twenty of them.’
Jill grinned at that. The Gel da’Thae was turning his huge head this way and that, listening to every sound he could register, and his nostrils flared, too, as if he were sniffing the air like a horse. Since his hand lay on Meer’s arm, Jahdo could feel him trembling. All at once Jahdo remembered hearing Rhodry and Yraen speak of this woman during the long ride back to Cengarn.
‘You be the mazrak!’ he burst out. ‘The falcon I did see following us.’
Meer clutched his staff hard between both hands and growled under his breath.
‘I have no idea what a mazrak may be,’ Jill said mildly. ‘So how could I be one?’
‘But the falcon. We did see it, and then Rhodry and Yraen did come with the squad, and they knew right where we’d be, didn’t they? They did speak of you and said your name, and I could tell they were following your orders.’
Jill glanced at Rhodry.
‘I agree with you,’ she said. ‘This child’s much too bright to be locked in a stinking dungeon.’
She was admitting he’d guessed right that indeed he was facing a real sorcerer. Jahdo clutched the talismans at his neck.
‘I understand that you’re a bard,’ Jill said to Meer. ‘So you shall have the only chair I’ve got. Rhodry, Yraen, if you’ll just stand by the door? In fact, Yraen, if you wouldn’t mind standing on the other side of it to keep the curious away, I’d be grateful. Jahdo, get your master settled, and then, I think, it’s time for some plain talk.’
Jahdo helped Meer sit, then knelt beside him on the floor, which was covered with braided rush mats and reasonably comfortable. The room itself seemed ordinary, except for the presence of books, containing only a small table, a chair, a charcoal brazier, an alcove with a narrow bed, a pair of carved storage chests. Jahdo realized that he’d been expecting sorcerers to live somewhere grand and cluttered, with demons standing round in attendance, not in an everyday sort of room like this. There was, however, no explaining away the silver light. When Jill leaned against the wall facing him and Meer, the drape of light parted, as if dodging her.
‘Well, good bard,’ she said. ‘My apologies for the rough treatment you’ve received, but your people are not so well-liked round here, thanks to the raiders.’
‘So I’ve noticed.’ Meer’s voice was stiff and cold. ‘Wait. What do you mean, raiders?’
‘A band of men, led by one of the Horsekin, have been raiding hereabouts, burning farms, killing the men and any pregnant women, enslaving the rest.’
‘What?’ Meer tried to speak, sputtered, caught his breath at last. ‘Lies! Disgusting, demon-spawned lies! No man of the Horsekin would ever harm a pregnant female, no matter whether she were kin or utter stranger, horse or Horsekin, human or hound, and he’d kill any man under his command in an instant for doing the same. Never! The gods would send down vengeance on him and strike him dead.’
‘Well, in a way they did,’ Rhodry said, rubbing his chin with one hand. ‘But Meer, I’ll swear to you it’s true. I saw one victim myself, a woman not far from giving birth, lying dead in the road from a sword-slash, and her babe butchered inside her.’
Meer turned toward the sound of the silver dagger’s voice, then hesitated, his mouth working. Jill stood utterly still, watching all of this with her blue eyes as cold and sharp as thorns, as if she could bore through the faces of the men into their very souls.
‘Do you believe me?’ Rhodry said. ‘I can bring you other witnesses, Yraen for one.’
Meer shook his head in a baffled gesture that might have meant either yes or no.
‘One thing,’ the Gel da’Thae said at last. ‘Are you sure that the raiders you fought were indeed the same band that committed these heinous sins?’
‘We are. The men they’d taken for slaves? After we rescued them, they gave evidence against the raiders, and they all swore that the man of the Gel da’Thae was the leader, ordering the murders.’
Meer grunted, his hands clasping and twining round his staff, then loosening again, over and over.
‘I’ll bring you witnesses,’ Jill said.
‘No need.’ Meer’s voice rasped in a whisper. ‘Are we prisoners of war, then, or slaves?’
‘Never slaves,’ Rhodry broke in. ‘Never would I lend my hand and sword to the enslaving of anyone, good sir, and I’ll swear that on anything you like.’
Jahdo goggled, desperate and afraid both to believe him.
‘Did Rhodry and the men treat you decently?’ Jill asked.
‘Better than prisoners of war can usually expect,’ Meer said. ‘I have no complaint to lay before you.’
‘Good.’
Jill leaned back against the wall, waiting, letting the silence grow.
‘Answer me one thing, Meer,’ Rhodry said at length, ‘if you can without dishonouring yourself, anyway. Are there going to be more of these raiding swine coming our way?’
‘How would I know?’ Meer snarled. ‘This first lot should never have been here in the first place. To send more would be infamy compounded, outrage and abomination writ large, if they’ve come to break every law of god and Gel da’Thae by killing females in foal! Who am I to say what men like that will do or not do next?’
Jill nodded, considering his outburst carefully.
‘It sounds to me, then,’ Rhodry said, ‘like this was no ordinary raid.’
Meer glowered with his lips tight-clenched.
‘It were the false gods,’ Jahdo burst out. ‘The false goddess must be making them do that.’
‘False goddess?’ Jill swung her head round fast. ‘What false goddess?’
‘Her name be Alshandra, and she’s only a demon or suchlike, but some people do worship her, just as if she were a true god from the Deathworld.’
Never before had a mere bard’s servant got such a profound reaction with a tale as Jahdo did with that blurt. Rhodry went dead-white, then swore a long string of foul curses while Jill laughed, a nervous giggle and much too high.
‘Alshandra a goddess!’ she said at last. ‘Oh by all the ice in all the hells!’
Rhodry made a sputtering sort of noise under his breath.
‘I agree,’ Jill said, grinning. ‘Well now, this may bode ill, or it may bode worse, but I’ll wager it proves interesting. My thanks, lad. That makes a great deal clear.’
‘Answer me somewhat in return,’ Meer said. ‘I take it that you know about this Alshandra creature?’
‘I do, and a goddess she’s not and never will be. You’re right a thousand times about that.’
‘What is she then? A demon?’
‘A meddling bitch,’ Rhodry snarled. ‘That’s what she is.’
‘Whist! Let me finish.’ Jill waved a hand in his direction. ‘She’s not a demon, and neither human nor Horsekin, but a very strange sort of being indeed. Let’s see, how can I explain this clearly?’ She thought for a long moment. ‘I’m not sure I can. She doesn’t live in this world, so in that respect she’s like a spirit of the sort people call demons, but she’s vastly more intelligent. She can move about much more freely than a demon, as well, and when she’s here in our world she can make herself a body of sorts. She can work magic, some truly spectacular magic, in fact, from what I’ve heard, enough so I can see how some people think her a god.’
‘She sounds even more dangerous than I thought her, then.’
‘Unfortunately, that’s very true. What’s even worse is she’s quite mad.’
‘Mad? May the gods preserve us!’
‘I wouldn’t mind their help, truly.’ Jill smiled in a wry sort of way. ‘Now here, did your brother worship this creature?’
Meer nodded, his mouth slack, then bent his head as if he were staring at the floor. His hands rubbed up and down his staff for the comfort of it.
‘The infamy!’ he snarled. ‘That my own brother’s dishonour and sin would lead me to trust strangers who are no doubt no better than he and perhaps a good bit worse! Are you truly a mazrak?’
‘I have no idea.’ Jill turned irritable. ‘If you’d deign to tell me what one is, I might be able to answer.’
‘A shapechanger, one who takes animal form.’
‘Oh. As a matter of fact, I am that.’
She spoke in such an ordinary way that Jahdo shuddered, a long convulsion of terror. Meer growled under his breath and showed fangs.
‘But which one are you? The falcon or the raven? My servant here told me of two.’
‘What?’ Jill hesitated. ‘The falcon’s the form I take. Are you sure you saw another dweomer shape, Jahdo, or were you just scared or suchlike? I wouldn’t blame you, mind. There’s no shame attached, none at all, to being frightened of such things.’
‘I do know I did see it. It were a raven, and it were huge, and I did see it the morning Meer knew his brother was dying. It was flying close over the trees, so I could see how big it were.’
‘Well, well, well, could you, then?’ Jill glanced Rhodry’s way. ‘You didn’t happen to see any birds that looked unnaturally large, did you? When you were riding to fetch Meer and Jahdo, I mean.’
Rhodry shook his head no. He’d gone white about the mouth.
‘But all those weeks ago, when you and Yraen were riding to Cengarn, you saw a raven, didn’t you?’
‘So we did,’ Rhodry said. ‘It was just when we stumbled across that farm the raiders destroyed, the one where that poor woman was lying dead and her unborn babe with her. Ye gods! I made a jest about the wretched bird, teasing Carra, like, and saying it was a sorcerer, most like.’
‘Were you really only jesting?’
Rhodry grinned, briefly.
‘Not truly. Are you telling me I was right, and a dweomermaster it was?’
‘I’m not telling you anything. But I begin to think it likely.’
‘Ah, infamy and abomination!’ Meer whispered at first, but slowly and steadily his voice grew louder, till it rumbled in bardic imprecation. ‘O Thavrae, how could you, brother who is no longer no brother of mine! May your spirit walk restless through all the long ages of ages! May the gods turn you away from their doors! May their gardens be forbidden you! May you never drink of their drink, may you never taste of their food! That you could commit such sin, such perfidy! That you could break every law of every god! A brother’s curse fall upon you! And in the end, if ever our mother should learn your evil, may her curse pierce your spirit as you writhe in the thirteen pairs of jaws of many-headed Ranadar, the Hound of Hell!’
‘So be it,’ Jill said, and her own voice boomed like a priest’s. ‘May the gods be his witness.’
The room seemed to ring for a long long moment. As he crouched beside Meer and watched the dweomer light swirling over the walls, Jahdo felt a peculiar intuition, that this moment marked a great change for more than the few individuals in this chamber, that some mighty thing, a destiny indeed, had begun to rouse itself from some age-long sleep, or that some vast night had begun to turn toward day – he could not find words, not even for himself, but he knew, he knew.
‘You look solemn, lad,’ Jill said. ‘What ails you?’
He stared up at her, then rose, laying one hand on the back of Meer’s chair.
‘I just felt – I don’t know –’ The moment was passing, the insight fading, even as he struggled to grab it and pin it down. ‘That some great thing will happen, and I be glad I’m here to see it.’
Meer swung his head round and grunted.
‘Have you gone daft?’ he snapped.
‘I have not. You were right, that’s all, when you did tell me that great things were on the move. This be all real important, bain’t it, Jill?’
‘It is, truly, or so the omens tell me. Great things or evil things, or, most like, a fair bit of both.’
Although by then the evening was growing late, by the light of candle lanterns Gwerbret Cadmar lingered at the head of the table of honour with Lord Gwinardd sitting at his right hand. Nearby a bard waited, drowsing over his harp, in case his lord should ask him to sing. Across the great hall the riders’ tables were mostly deserted, and a few servants sat yawning by the empty hearth. Jill hesitated in the doorway for some moments. She’d been hoping that she’d find his grace alone. Matyc at least was gone. Although she herself had nothing against Matyc, she trusted Rhodry’s judgement in such matters. If he said he smelt festering meat, then doubtless something had died under the stairs. On the other hand, no one had ever said a word against young Gwinardd, and she refused to keep silent and send Meer and his boy back to the dungeon for the night.
When she approached the table, Cadmar greeted her with a smile and a wave, calling for a servant to bring up another chair so that she could sit nearby without displacing Gwinardd from his honoured position. The lord rose, bowing her way, then sitting down again rather than leaving. As usual, Gwinardd looked puzzled at the honour in which his grace held this common-born old woman, even though he knew that her herbcraft had saved the gwerbret’s life the winter past. She wondered if he suspected her other skills as well.
‘Well Jill,’ Cadmar said. ‘Have you spoken with those prisoners yet?’
‘I have, Your Grace, and it’s about them, in fact, that I’ve come. Spies they’re not, as you might expect with one of them blind. That Gel da’Thae is a bard and here on a tragic errand indeed. I’d like to treat them as guests – well, guarded guests, if you take my meaning – and put them in a chamber here in the broch. Is that possible?’
‘And have I ever turned away a man who deserved my hospitality? But –’
‘I’ll explain, Your Grace,’ Jill went on. ‘When these raiders first showed up in your lands, I thought they were after the usual sort of booty. Do you remember the talk we had about that, what they wanted, I mean, after you tracked down and destroyed the raiding party?’
‘I do, not that you told me much in the way of hard fact.’ Cadmar allowed himself a smile. ‘You were starting to get a different idea, you said, but you didn’t tell me what you meant.’
‘Well, my apologies, but my idea sounds far-fetched, you see, so much so that I’m still not sure of it. I do think, though, that Meer can tell me what I need to know, that he’s got the missing piece of this puzzle, somewhere in his stock of bard lore. But if we don’t treat him well and show him some trust, he’s not going to trust me enough in return to tell me one word of what he might know.’
‘That’s quite true.’ Cadmar snapped his fingers at a serving girl. ‘Run fetch the chamberlain. Tell him that we have a guest to accommodate and him a travelling bard at that.’
The lass curtsied and hurried away. Gwinardd was staring, as shocked by this ready acquiescence as young Jahdo had been by her dweomer light.
‘My thanks.’ Jill rose, nodding his way in lieu of a bow, since she was wearing brigga and thus had no skirt to curtsey with. ‘May I have your leave, Your Grace?’
‘Of course. But where is this sudden guest, then?’
‘With Rhodry and Yraen. Look. Here he comes now, across the hall. The lad will have to stay with him, of course, not be quartered with the other servants.’
‘Of course. I’ll have the chamberlain tend to it.’
‘My thanks, Your Grace. I thought that if you received him here in the open hall, everyone would know he’s your guest now, and the threats against him and his kind would stop.’
‘No doubt, Jill. They had better.’
When the gwerbret and his vassal turned to look at Meer, Jill slipped away. Although no dweomerworker can make herself truly invisible, despite what the old tales may say, Jill could gather her aura so tightly about her and move so silently and smoothly that she could pass unnoticed unless someone happened to be looking straight at her. Wrapped in these shadows she hurried up the staircase to her chamber. Judging from what she’d heard about this mysterious raven, she had to keep a close watch on Cengarn and the countryside round about, and for that she needed to fly.
For all that Meer hated and feared mazrakir, the process by which a dweomerworker takes on animal form is really only an extension of the perfectly ordinary procedure of constructing a body of light, in which the magician makes a thought-form in human or elven shape as a vehicle for his or her consciousness out on the etheric plane. Although at first he has to imagine this form minutely every time he wishes to use it, eventually a fully-realized body, identical to the last one, will appear whenever the dweomermaster summons it, out of no greater dweomer than ‘practice makes perfect’. This happens in exactly the same way as a normal memory image, such as the memory-house a merchant uses to store information about his customers, becomes standardized after a long working with it. A shapechanger starts with the same process, substituting an animal form for the human, although, of course, the mazrak does take things a fair bit farther.
That evening Jill followed her usual practice. First she look off all her clothes, because not even the mightiest dweomermaster can transform dead matter like cloth, and opened the wooden shutters at the window. She laid her hands far apart on the windowsill and stared up at the starry sky, letting her breathing slow and her mind clear as the cool night air swept over her. She felt power gather, invoked more, until it flowed through her mind like water. In her mind, as well, she formulated the image of a grey falcon, but many times life size, and by a mental trick sent this picture out through her eyes until she saw it perching on the windowsill. Now, at this point the falcon image existed only in Jill’s imagination, though an imagination that had been highly trained and disciplined by years of mental work, and it was only in imagination that she transferred her consciousness over to the bird until she seemed to perch on the sill herself and look down at the ward below through the bird’s eyes.
