The Bristling Wood
Nevyn suddenly smiled. She’d just handed him the missing piece of his plan. What better way to have a true and noble king than to raise the prince? Maryn was still young and malleable; he needed tutors, and he would respond to the proper influence. One of us can find a way into the court, Nevyn thought; we’ll make sure the lad grows up well while we lay the rest of the groundwork.
That night, Nevyn walked on the hill just as the full moon was at her zenith. Clouds came in from the north, casting moving shadows across the sleeping countryside. For too long now, darker shadows had killed all joy in Deverry. Nevyn smiled to himself. Deep in his heart, he saw the coming peace and the victory of the light.
THREE
The year 837. Olaedd the high priest died in the spring. Retyc of Hendyr was appointed high priest by the northern conclave. In the summer a little lad with falling sickness was brought to the temple. He had a seizure at Retyc’s feet and cried out that the king was coming from the west. When he awakened he repeated that the king was in the west, but he could give no reason why he said it. Retyc declared the speaking a true one …
—The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn
Up on the dais of the great hall, Ogretoryc, king of all Eldidd and what little of Deverry he could hold with his army, was sitting in his high-backed carved chair. Behind him hung a finely worked tapestry depicting Epona riding with her retinue of godlets in the Otherlands. To either side the tapestry were long banners in blue and silver cloth, with the Dragon of Eldidd appliqued in green. At the king’s feet lay a blue and green carpet, covering a floor of inlaid slate. His bard sat nearby; his picked guard stood behind him; two pages waited with a golden goblet and a pitcher of mead. The king, however, was asleep, slumped to one side and snoring, a line of drool running from his toothless mouth down his wrinkled, flabby chin. Out in the circular expanse of the hall, the noble lords, their warbands, and the king’s own men went on with their feasting and tried to ignore their liege lord.
Because they were mercenaries, the silver daggers were seated in the back and to one side of the hall, where they caught the drafts from the door and the smoke from the fire, but by leaning back on his bench, Maddyn could keep an eye on the dais and the sleeping king. In only a few minutes, Prince Cadlew, heir to the throne, mounted the dais and hesitantly went over to his father. A lean man, his face positively gaunt, Cadlew was tight-muscled and hard from long years in the saddle. His raven-dark hair was heavily streaked with gray, and his cornflower-blue eyes were webbed with crow’s-foot wrinkles, yet he could still swing a sword with the best of them. Cadlew caught the king’s arm and shook him awake. Surrounded by guards, with the pages trailing uncertainly behind, the prince led his father away. The entire hall sighed in relief. Caradoc leaned over to whisper to Maddyn.
“I’ll wager there’s plenty of men who’d rather see our prince sitting on that fancy chair.”
“It’d be a safe wager, sure enough. Here, I’ve been stewing with curiosity. What did the prince say when he called you to his chamber this afternoon?”
“Offered to take us into his warband. I turned him down.”
“You what?!”
“Turned him down.” Caradoc paused for a calm sip of mead. “Thanked him for the honor, mind, but I’d rather negotiate our wages summer to summer than swear fealty.”
“Ah, curse you to the ninth hell!”
“Listen, Maddo. I know it sounds splendid to think of being honorable men again and all that, but a silver dagger’s got to be free to change sides if he doesn’t want to hang after a defeat.”
“Well, true-spoken. We’ve changed sides too often before to be treated honorably, no matter what a prince says about us.”
“Just that. Not a word of this to the others, mind.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. You should know that we’d all follow you to the death.”
Caradoc looked away, tears in his eyes. Maddyn was too embarrassed to do more than leave him his silence.
While he sipped his mead, Maddyn considered the troop, seventy-five strong, and everyone of them a blood-besotted man who fought like a demon from hell. It had taken Caradoc three years, but he’d scraped and scrounged and bargained until he had a troop so valuable that the prince would consider taking them into his own warband. Every one of them, too, had one of Otho’s mysterious daggers at his belt. Some of the best smiths in the king’s court had gone down on their knees to beg the dwarf for the secret of that metal, but not even the offer of whole sacks of gold coins and jewels would have softened Otho’s stance. Once he had remarked to Maddyn that someday, when he found a deserving lad, he’d pass the secret on, but so far, no such paragon of smithly virtue had ever appeared.
After a hard summer’s fighting, the men of Eldidd, paid and pledged alike, were back in winter quarters in the king’s palace at Abernaudd. They’d fought late, that autumn, skirmishing in the hills with Cerrmor troops, or riding raids up to the borders of Pyrdon, which the people of Eldidd still insisted on calling a rebellious province. The rumors were going round that in the spring they’d make a proper attack on Pyrdon, but those rumors went round every winter. The truth was that Eldidd couldn’t afford to drain off men and supplies to conquer Pyrdon when it had two bigger enemies at its eastern borders. Maddyn frankly didn’t care where they rode in the spring. All that mattered was that for the winter they’d be well fed and warm.
To avoid drunken brawls between his men and the king’s, Caradoc led the silver daggers back to their own barracks before the great feast was truly over. As they crossed the ward, Maddyn lingered to walk with Caudyr, whose clubfoot slowed him down. With the clatter of hooves and a jingle of tack, a squad of the king’s personal guard came through the gates. Back from a cold, long patrol, they were hungry and eager to get to the warm feast inside. Even though there was plenty of room to pass, they started cursing and yelling at Maddyn and Caudyr to move aside. They were both willing, but Caudyr had no choice but to lurch slowly along. One of the horsemen leaned over in his saddle.
“Move your cursed ass, rabbit! They should have drowned a lame runt like you at birth.”
When most of the squad laughed, Maddyn swirled around, reaching for his sword, but Caudyr grabbed his arm.
“It’s not worth it. I’m used to being the butt of a jest.”
As they went on, Caudyr tried to hurry.
“Look at him hop!” called another guardsman. “You were right enough about the rabbits.”
At that, the squad leader, who’d drifted on ahead, turned his horse and trotted back.
“Hold your tongues, you bastards!” It was young Owaen, and he was furious. “Who are you to mock a man for a trouble that the gods gave him?”
“Oh, listen to you, lad!”
Like a bow shot, Owaen was out of his saddle. He ran over to the guardsman and grabbed, pulling him down and dumping him on the cobbles before the startled fellow could react. With an oath, the man leapt up and swung at him, but Owaen dropped him with one punch. The laughter and catcalls abruptly stopped.
“I don’t want to hear anyone else mock a man for a trouble he can’t help.”
Except for the nervous horses, stamping restless hooves, the ward was dead silent. Puzzled as much as pleased, Maddyn kept his eyes on Owaen, who was barely seventeen, for all that he’d been riding to war for the past three years. Normally he was the most arrogant man Maddyn had ever met. Wearing the Eldidd dragons on his shirt wasn’t enough for Owaen, who had his own device of a striking falcon marked on his shirt, his dagger, his saddle—on every piece of gear he owned, from the look of it. He was also the best swordsman in the guard, if not the entire kingdom, and his fellow riders knew it. When the squad dismounted, it was only to pick up the unconscious man and sling him over his saddle to carry him away. With a small, friendly nod in Caudyr’s direction, Owaen followed them.
“Now that’s a puzzle and a half,” Caudyr said. “Owaen’s the last man I ever thought would do such a thing.”
“No m
ore did I. I know that Caradoc thinks highly of the lad. Maybe he’s right, after all.”
In the barracks a couple of the men were building a fire in the stone hearth. Others sat on the line of bunks and talked of dice games. Pale, mousy Argyn, who was one of the most cold-blooded and vicious killers in the warband, was already asleep, but for all that he was snoring like a summer storm, no one disturbed him to shut him up. The long room smelled of sweat, woodsmoke, and horses, especially of horses, since the troop’s mounts were stabled directly below the slatted floor. To Maddyn, it was a comfortable kind of smell that said home to him after all these years of riding in one warband or another. He sat down on his bunk and took his harp out of its padded leather bag.
“Here, Maddo!” Aethan called out. “For the love of every god in the Otherlands, don’t sing that same blasted song about King Bran’s cattle raid, will you?”
“Ah, hold your tongue. I’m trying to learn it.”
“And don’t we all know it?” Caradoc broke in. “I’m as sick as I can be of you missing that stanza in the middle and going back over it.”
“As the captain orders. But don’t be taking my head off, then, for never knowing a new song.”
In sheer annoyance he put the harp away and stomped out of the barracks, followed by a small crowd of disappointed Wildfolk, who tugged at his sleeve and his brigga leg to try to get him to go back and sing. When he ignored them, they disappeared, a few at a time, but all of them with reproachful looks on their tiny faces. He went straight to the kitchen hut, where there was a scullery lass, Clwna, who liked him well enough to sneak out to the hayloft with him every now and then. By his reckoning, she should have been done with her work. The kitchen hut’s door was open to let a cheerful spill of light fall across the cobbles, and clustered around it were the king’s hunting dogs, waiting hopefully for scraps. Maddyn kicked his way through the pack and stood in the doorway. The scullery boys were washing the last of the kettles at the hearth, and the cook herself, a gray-haired woman with enormous muscular arms, was perched on a tall stool and eating her own dinner out of a wooden bowl.
“I know what you’re after, silver dagger. Clwna’s gone already, and no doubt with another of you lads.”
“No doubt. With my lady’s gracious permission, I’ll wait here for a bit to see if she comes back.”
The cook snorted and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead with her little finger.
“You silver daggers are a strange lot. Most men would be howling with rage if their wench slipped out with another lad.”
“We share what we get when we can get it. I’m just glad that Clwna’s a sensible lass.”
“Sensible, hah! If you call it sensible to get yourself known as one of the silver daggers’ women. I’m fair minded to beat some sense into the lass, I am.”
“Oh, now here! How could you be so cruel to deny us a bit of comfort when we’re fighting for the very honor of Eldidd?”
“Listen to him!” The cook rolled her eyes heavenward to invoke the gods. “Out of my kitchen, bard! You’re giving the scullery lads wrong ideas.”
Maddyn made her a mocking bow and left, shoving his way through the dogs. As he crossed the ward, it occurred to him that the entire troop had been in the barracks when he’d left it. While he was willing to share Clwna with other silver daggers, the thought of sharing her with an outsider griped his soul. He ducked inside the back door of the great hall and snagged himself a torch from one of the sconces, then searched through the ward with a growing sense of righteous irritation. In the aftermath of the feast there were lots of people about: servants bringing firewood and barrels of ale, glutted riders strolling slowly back to barracks or privy, serving lasses intent on flirtations of their own or running similar errands for their noble mistresses. About halfway to the stables he saw his prey—Clwna walking along arm in arm with one of the king’s guard. From the disarray of her dresses and the bit of straw in her hair, Maddyn knew that his suspicions were justified. Clwna herself settled any lingering doubt by screaming the moment she saw him.
“So!” Maddyn held the torch up like a householder apprehending a thief. “And what’s all this, lass?”
Clwna made a miserable little shriek and stuffed her knuckles into her mouth. With his hand on his sword hilt, Owaen stepped forward into the pool of light. Maddyn realized that the situation could easily go beyond irritation to danger.
“What’s it to you, you little dog?” Owaen snapped. “The lady happens to prefer a real man instead of a bondsman with a sword.”
It took every scrap of will that Maddyn possessed to stop himself from hitting Owaen in the face with the flaming torch. In his rage he was only dimly aware that they were gathering a crowd, but he did hear Clwna nattering on and on to some sympathetic listener. Owaen stood smiling at him, his mouth a twist of utter smugness.
“Well, come on, old man,” he said at last. “Don’t you have a word to say to me?”
“Oh, I’ll have plenty of words, little lad. You forget that you’re talking to a bard. I haven’t made a good flyting song in a long, long time.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Owaen’s voice was a childlike howl of indignation. “That’s not fair!”
At that the ring of onlookers burst out laughing; for all his swordcraft, he looked such an outraged boy standing there that Maddyn had to chuckle himself, thinking that in truth it hardly mattered who tumbled Clwna around in the hay. He was just about to say something conciliatory to the lad when Owaen, his face blushing red, unbuckled his sword belt and threw it onto the cobbles.
“Well and good, then, bard!” he snarled. “It’s breaking geis to draw on you, but hand that torch to someone, and I’ll grind your face in the stones for you!”
“Oh, for the sake of every god in the sky, Owaen,” Maddyn said wearily. “She’s hardly worth—”
Owaen swung at him, an open-handed slap that he dodged barely in time. At that there were yells, and a couple of men in the crowd leaped forward and grabbed the lad. Howling and swearing, he tried to break free, but they dragged him back and held him. By the blazons on their shirts Maddyn could tell that they were guardsmen, too. The reason for this unexpected civility pushed his way through the onlookers.
“Now, what’s all this?” said Wevryl, captain of the king’s guard. “Owaen, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! I swear that Trouble was your dam and Twice Trouble your grandam! What was he doing to you, bard?”
“Naught, truly, but making a fool of himself.”
“My apologies!” Clwna broke in with a wail. “I never meant to cause trouble, Maddo.” She paused for a couple of moist sobs. “Truly I didn’t.”
“Oh, over a lass, was it?” The captain looked profoundly annoyed. “The same tedious old horse dung, is it? Ye gods, it’s only fall! What are you lads going to be like when the winter sets in, eh? Very well, bard. Take the lass away, will you? Owaen, as for you, it’ll be a couple of lashes out in the ward tomorrow morn. I’ll not be having trouble over a kitchen slut.”
Owaen’s face drained dead white. In the crowd, a couple of men snickered.
“Oh, here, Captain,” Maddyn said. “If you’re flogging him for my sake, there’s no need.”
“Not for your sake—for the sake of peace in the dun. You might pass that on to that troop you ride with, too. I won’t tolerate this sort of fighting. Save the bloodlust for spring and our enemies.”
In the morning, when they dragged Owaen out to the ward for his lashes, Maddyn refused to go watch, although most of the other silver daggers and half the dun did. It was entertainment of a sort. With his blue sprite and a couple of gnomes for company, he wandered around to the back of the stables and lounged on a bale of straw in the warm sun. Caradoc eventually found him there.
“Is it over?” Maddyn said.
“It is. Wevryl tells me that Owaen’s been naught but trouble ever since he rode his first battle, bragging and swaggering around, so he decided it was time to show
the lad his place. Aches my heart. Look, they put this young hothead in the king’s guard because he’s the best swordsman they’ve ever seen, and so what does he do? Sit around most of the year and watch the old king sleep. No wonder he’s as hot as summer tinder. He’d be better off in the silver daggers.”
“You keep saying that. Well, if he keeps on being so cursed arrogant, you might have your chance to recruit him yet.”
They always say that bards have a touch of prophecy. For close to a week, Maddyn saw no sign of Owaen, not even in the great hall at meals. He was apparently keeping strictly to himself and letting his wounds heal, and as painful as two stripes were, it would be the shame that would be paining him the more, Maddyn assumed. Since every silver dagger knew what shame tasted like, when Owaen did reappear, they went out of their way to treat him as if nothing had happened. The young handpicked riders in the king’s guard had no such hard-earned compassion. When a stiff-backed Owaen took his place at table for the first time, he was greeted with a chorus of catcalls and a couple of truly vicious remarks about whipped dogs and kennels. Since Wevryl was nowhere in sight, Caradoc stood on his position as a captain and went over and broke it up. His face bright red, Owaen gulped ale from his tankard and stared down at the tabletop.
When Caradoc came back, he sat down next to Maddyn.
“Little pusboils,” the captain remarked. “Now that’s a truly stupid way to treat a man when your life might depend on him someday in a scrap.”
“Even stupider when he’s a man who could cut you into pieces without half trying.”
“Now that, alas, is true-spoken.”
Later that morning Maddyn was grooming his horse in front of the stable when Clwna, all nervous smile and sidelong glance, came sidling up to him. If she hadn’t been so thin and pale, she would have been a lovely lass, but as it was, her blond hair always smelled of roast meat and there was always grease under her fingernails.