I have an enemy, you see, he whispered. Hes insulted me, mocked me, dared me to stop him, and he knows blasted well that Ive got no skill with a blade. Ill pay very high for proof of his death.
Oh indeed? Rhodrys dark blue eyes flashed with rage. Im 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 duels impossible. He uh well wont respond to my challenge.
Then Im 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 wouldnt do it for a thousand, Rhodry snapped. But at that price, doubtless youll 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 hed 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, wouldnt the town be crawling with the gwerbrets 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 Cadlews last visit, or at least, the last one when hed had time to pay attention to something as mundane as a dog.
Do you want him? Dwaen said. Hes yours if you do.
Splendidly generous of you, but not necessary.
Go ahead, take him. Hes the last thing my father ever bought, and for all that hes a splendid hunter, Id just as soon have him out of my sight.
Cadlew looked up with a troubled toss of his blond head.
Well, in that case Ill 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 Dwaens responsibility. Even though it was over a month since hed 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. Ive been wanting to talk to you about the death. I cant 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 fathers blood price. I dont see why you didnt take the lwdd and be done with it.
Because I wanted my fathers murderer hanged. It should be obvious.
But young Madryc was the only son Beryn had. He wont 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 friends lack of understanding. Doubtless every lord in Gwaentaer was wondering why hed 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.
Its the principle of the thing, Dwaen said, choosing his words carefully, Its a wrong thing to take gold for blood when a man murders in malice. If itd 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 youd 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 weve got a gwerbret not forty miles north of here?
Ye gods, Dwaen, you talk like a cursed priest!
If Id 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 womens 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 youll 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 mothers way to see if shed noticed the young lords reaction, she was staring absently out into space.
Oh now here, Mam, Da wouldnt have wanted you to fill your life with misery just because hes gone to the Otherlands.
I know, but Im just so worried.
What? What about?
Dwaen, Dwaen, dont put me off ! I cant believe that a man like Beryn is going to let this thing lie.
Well now, itd be a grave thing for him to break the gwerbrets decree of justice, and he knows it. Besides, hes got his own sense of honour. If he kills me, therell be no one left to carry on the blood feud, and I doubt me if hed 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 Cadlews 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 Dwaens 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 theyd 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 Ill 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 morrows 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 Dwaens 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 Dwaens 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 Ive just been given a message.
Beryn?
Who else? I wager that if Id been alone, Id be dead by now, but no doubt he didnt want to murder you with me. Hes got naught against you and your clan.
If he tries to kill you again, hell have to kill me first, but Id 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 didnt 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 Beryns 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 couldnt imagine Beryn using a bow instead of a sword, and besides, how had the old bastard known exactly when and where hed 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 hed inherited, Dwaen should have been using his fathers 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? Cadlews 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.
Beryns 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. Ill send a message home and tell them that Im staying at your side.
Youve never been more welcome.
Dwaen gathered up his blankets and went to share Cadlews chamber, but he lay awake for a long time after his friend was snoring. Although hed realized that Beryn would hate him for demanding justice, hed never thought the lord would seek such a cowards revenge. But hes 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 wouldnt, he paused to spit on the ground, silver dagger.
Well, then, could we pay you to let us water our horses in your trough?
Theres plenty of streams in the forest down the road. But here, that forest is our lords hunting preserve. Dont you silver daggers go poaching in it.
And who is your lord?
Tieryn Dwaen of Bringerun, but hes 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. Weve got cheese, even if that whoreson piss-pot bastard wouldnt 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 mornings 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.