The Bristling Wood
“How far is it to King Casyl’s dun, lass?”
“About two miles on the west-running road. You must be from a long way away if you don’t know that.”
“I am, truly. Now tell me, has a troop of mercenaries been through here? They hail from Eldidd, the lads I want, and they all carry daggers with silver pommels.”
“Oh, they were, sure enough, and a nasty lot they looked. I don’t know why the king took them on.”
“Because they’re some of the best fighting men in the three kingdoms, no doubt.”
He strode away before she could flirt with him further. Out in the tavern yard his chestnut gelding stood waiting, laden with everything he owned in the world: a bedroll, a pair of mostly empty saddlebags, and a shield, nicked and battered under its coat of dirty whitewash. He hoped that Caradoc wouldn’t hold his lack of mail against him, but he had a good sword at least, and he knew how to use it.
When Branoic rode up to the causeway leading to Casyl’s dun, the guards refused to let him pass, and no more would they take in a message for a dirty and dangerous-looking stranger. Since he had no money for a bribe, Branoic tried first courtesy, then arguing, but neither worked. The guards only laughed and told him that if he wanted to see Caradoc, he’d have to camp there until the captain rode out. By then Branoic was so furious that he was tempted to draw his sword and force the issue, but common sense prevailed. He hadn’t ridden all the way from Eldidd only to get himself hanged by some petty king.
“Well and good, then,” he said. “I’ll sit at your gates and starve until you’re shamed enough to let me in.”
As he strode away, leading his horse, he glanced back to see the guards looking apprehensive, as if they believed him capable of it. In truth, since he had neither coin nor food, he had little choice in the matter. In the meadow across the road he slacked the chestnut’s bit and let it graze, then sat down where he could glare at the guards and be easily seen. As the morning crept by, they kept giving him nervous looks that might have been inspired by guilt, but of course, they may have been merely afraid of his temper. Although he was only twenty, Branoic was six foot four, broad in the shoulders, with the long arms of a born swordsman and a warrior’s stance. Down his left cheek was a thick, puckered scar, a souvenir of the death duel that had gotten him exiled from his father’s dun in Belglaedd. Better men than Casyl’s guards had found him nerve-wracking before.
He’d been waiting by the road about two hours when he heard the blare of silver horns. As the farther gates opened, the guards by the road snapped to smart attention. Walking their horses down the causeway rode the silver daggers, sitting with the easy, arrogant slump in their saddles that he remembered. At their head was a lad of about fourteen, with a red, gold, and white plaid slung from his shoulder. When Branoic started forward, one of the guards yelled at him.
“You! Get back! That’s the marked prince, Maryn, and don’t you go bothering the captain when he’s riding with him.”
Although it griped his soul, Branoic retreated without arguing. The affairs of a prince were bound to take precedence over those of a commoner. He was just about to sit back down when he heard himself being hailed, but this time by the prince himself. He hurried back over and clasped the lad’s stirrup as a sign of humility.
“Any man who asks has access to me.” Maryn shot a pointed glance at the guards. “A prince is the shepherd of his people, not one of the wolves. Remember that from now on.” He turned back to Branoic with a distant but gracious smile. “Now. What matter do you have to lay before me?”
“My humble thanks, Your Highness.” Branoic was practically stammering in amazement. “But truly, all I wanted was a word with Caradoc.”
“Well, that’s an easily granted boon. Get your horse and ride with us a ways.”
Branoic ran to follow his order. When he fell into line beside Caradoc, the captain gave him an oddly sly smile.
“Branoic of Belglaedd, is it? What are you doing on the long road north?”
“Looking for you. Do you remember when last we met? You told me you’d take me on if I wanted to ride with you. Was that just a jest?”
“It was a jest only because I didn’t think you’d want to leave your noble father’s court, not because I wouldn’t be glad to have you in my troop.”
“Thanks be to the gods, then. A bastard son’s got a shorter welcome than a silver dagger unless he minds every courtesy. I’ve been exiled. It was over an honor duel.”
Caradoc’s eyebrows shot up.
“I heard about that. You killed the youngest son of the gwerbret of Elrydd, wasn’t it? But why would your father turn you out over that? I heard it was a fair fight.”
“It was, and judged so by a priest of Bel, too.” For a moment Branoic had trouble speaking; he felt as if he could physically choke on the injustice. “But it made my father a powerful enemy, and so he kicked me out to appease the misbegotten gwerbret. The whole way north, I was afraid for my life, thinking that Elrydd would have me murdered on the road. But either I’ve thought ill of him unjustly, or else I gave his men the slip.”
“I’d say the latter, from what I remember of His Grace. Well and good, lad, you’re on, but you have to earn this dagger. If we see fighting, you’ll get a full share of the pay, mind, but you’ll have to prove yourself before I have Otho the smith make you a blade. Agreed?”
“Agreed. And my thanks—there’s not a soul in the world to take me in but you.”
For a few minutes they rode in silence. Branoic studied the young prince riding some few yards ahead and wondered what it was that made him seem so unusual. He was a handsome boy, but there were plenty of good-looking men in the kingdom, and none of them had his aura of glamour and power. There were other princes, too, who had his straight-backed self-confidence and gracious ways, but none that seemed to have ridden straight out of an old epic like Maryn. At times, it seemed as if the very air around him crackled and snapped with some unseen force.
“And what do you think of our lord?” Caradoc said quietly.
“Well, he makes me remember some odd gossip I heard down in Eldidd.”
“Gossip?”
“Well, omens and suchlike.”
“Omens of what?”
In a fit of embarrassment Branoic merely shrugged.
“Out with it, lad.”
“Well, about the one true king of Deverry.”
Caradoc laughed under his breath.
“If you stick with this troop, lad, you’ll be leaving Eldidd and Pyrdon far behind. Can you stomach that?”
“Easily. Oh, here—what are you telling me? Will we be riding all the way to Dun Deverry some fine day?”
“We will, at that, but I can promise you a long bloody road to the Holy City.” Caradoc turned in his saddle. “Maddyn, get up here! We’ve got a new recruit.”
Somehow or other, Branoic had missed meeting the bard in his previous encounters with the silver daggers. About thirty-three, he was a slender but hard-muscled man with a mop of curly blond hair, streaked with gray at the temples, and world-weary blue eyes. Branoic liked him from the moment he met him. He felt in some odd way that they must have known each other before, even though he couldn’t remember when or how. All that afternoon, Maddyn introduced him around, explained the rules of the troops, found him a stall for his horse and a bunk when they returned to the dun, and generally went out of his way to make him feel at ease. At the evening meal they sat together, and Branoic found it easy to let the bard do most of the talking.
The other lieutenant in the troop, Owaen, was a different matter altogether. They had barely finished eating when he strode over, his tankard in hand, and Branoic found himself hating him. There was just something about the way that the arrogant son of a bitch stood, he decided, all posturing with his head tossed back, his free hand on the hilt of his silver dagger.
“You!” Owaen snapped. “I see by your blazon that you used to ride for the Eagle clan of Belglaedd.”
?
??I did. What’s it to you?”
“Naught, except for one small thing.” Owaen paused for an insolent sip of ale. “You’ve got the clan device all over your gear. I want it taken off.”
“What!?”
“You heard me.” Owaen touched the yoke of his shirt, which sported an embroidered falcon. “Those eagles look too much like my device. I want them gone.”
“Oh, do you now?” Slowly and carefully Branoic swung free of the bench and stood up to face him. Dimly he was aware that the hall had fallen silent. “I was born into that clan, you piss-proud little mongrel. I’ve got every right to wear that device if I want, and want it I do.”
Like dweomer Caradoc materialized in between them and laid a restraining hand on Branoic’s sword arm.
“Listen, Owaen,” the captain said. “The lad’s gear will get lost or broken soon enough, and the eagles fly away of their own accord.”
“That’s not soon enough.”
“I won’t have fighting in our prince’s hall.”
“Then let’s go out in the ward,” Branoic broke in. “Let’s settle it, Owaen, with a fistfight between the two of us, and the winner gets the device.”
“For a new man, you’re an insolent little bastard.” Then Owaen caught the grim look on Caradoc’s face. “Oh, very well, then. You’re on.”
Nearly everyone in the great hall trooped after them to watch when they went out. While a couple of pages ran off for torches, the combatants took off their sword belts and handed them to Maddyn. Wagers went back and forth between the onlookers. When the torches arrived, Branoic and Owaen faced off and began circling, sizing each other up. Since Branoic had won every fistfight he’d ever fought, he was confident—too confident. He plunged straight in, swung, and felt Owaen block his punch at the same moment that a fist jammed into stomach. Gasping, he dodged back, but Owaen was right there, dancing in from the side, clipping him on the side of the jaw. Although the blow stung more than hurt, Branoic went into a berserker rage, swinging back, closing, punching, feeling nothing but a swelling dizziness as Owaen blocked and danced and hit in return.
“Enough!” Caradoc’s voice sliced through the red haze surrounding him. “I said hold and stand, by the Lord of Hell’s balls!”
Arms grabbed him and pulled him back. With a gasp for breath Branoic tossed his head and saw blood scatter from a cut over his left eye. Owaen was standing in front of him, his nose running blood. He smiled as Branoic took a step back and felt his knees buckle under him. When the men holding him lowered him gently to the cobbles, all he could do was sit there, gasping for breath, feeling his face and stomach throb with pain and the blood run down his cheek.
“This had better end it,” Caradoc said. “Owaen gets the little chickens since he’s so fond of them, but I don’t want anyone mocking Branoic for this, either. Hear me?”
There were mutters of agreement from the other silver daggers. In a flood of good-natured laughter the crowd broke up, settling wagers as they drifted back to the great hall. Branoic stayed outside; he felt so humiliated that he was sure he could never look another man in the face again. Maddyn caught his arm and helped him stand.
“Now look, lad, I’ve never seen a man before who could give Owaen a bloody nose.”
“You don’t need to lie to spare my feelings.”
“I’m not. If you can keep Owaen from knocking you out cold on the cobbles, then you’ve won a victory of sorts.”
It was so sincerely said that Branoic felt his shame lift. Stumbling and staggering, he had to lean on Maddyn as they headed for the barracks. About halfway there they were stopped by the old man whom Maddyn had pointed out earlier as the prince’s councillor. Nevyn held up the lantern he was carrying and peered into Branoic’s bleeding face.
“I’ll tell Caudyr to get out to the barracks. This lad needs a couple of stitches in that cut over his eye. Make sure you get him to lie down, Maddo.”
“Oh, I’ll wager he won’t be wanting to dance the night away.”
Although Branoic tried to smile at the jest, his mouth hurt too badly. Suddenly Nevyn looked straight into his eyes, and the gaze caught him like a spear, impaling deep into his soul. In his muddled state, he felt as if he’d been trying to find this man all his life for some reason that he should remember, that he absolutely had to remember. Then the insight vanished in a flood of nausea.
“He’s going to heave,” Nevyn said calmly. “That’s all right, lad. Get it all out.”
Branoic dropped to his knees and vomited, his stomach burning from Owaen’s fist. Never in his life had he felt so humiliated, that Nevyn would see him like this, but when he was finally done and looked up to apologize, the old man was gone.
Nevyn returned to his chamber, lit the ready-laid fire with a wave of his hand, and sat down in a comfortable chair to think about this blond, young Eldidd man that Caradoc had brought in from the road like a stray dog. Nevyn had recognized him the moment he’d seen him, or rather, he knew perfectly well that he should recognize the soul looking out through those cornflower-blue eyes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite remember who he’d been in former lives. While Maddyn felt well disposed to the lad, Owaen had hated him on sight, a mutual feeling, it seemed. Logically, then, in his last life Branoic might have been a loyal member of Gweniver’s warband, still bearing his old grudge against the man who had tried to rape a holy priestess. Since Nevyn had never paid any particular attention to the warband, it was also logical that he wouldn’t remember all its members. On the other hand, he’d felt such a strong dweomer touch at the sight of the lad that surely he had to be someone more important than one of Gwyn and Ricyn’s riders.
“Maybe her brother-in-law?” he said aloud. “What was his name, anyway? Ye gods, I can’t remember that either! I must be getting old.”
Over the next few days, his mind at odd moments worried over the problem of Branoic’s identity like a terrier in front of a rat cage—it growled and snapped but couldn’t get the rat out. He did decide, however, that the lad’s arrival was an omen of sorts, a true one rather than another faked and theatrical glamour such as those that he and the priests were spreading about the coming of the king. One or two at a time, men he had trusted in lives past were coming to help him bring peace to the kingdom.
Soon enough he had news of an ominous kind to occupy his attention. Some weeks past, he had sent to the temple of Bel at Hendyr for copies of two important works on Deverry common law, and when the messenger returned, he also brought a letter from Dannyr, the high priest down in Cerrmor, a letter that was sealed twice and written in the ancient tongue of the Homeland that few could read.
“King Glyn has fallen ill,” Dannyr wrote. “Everyone whispers of poison, although such seems doubtful to me. The king’s chirurgeons have diagnosed a congestion of the liver, and truly, it is no secret that the king has indulged himself with mead in unseemly quantities ever since he was old enough to drink. Yet I thought it wise to inform you of these rumors nonetheless, for we cannot have it said that the true king poisoned one of his rivals. Any counsel you might send would be appreciated, but for the love of every god, write only in the ancient tongue.”
When he finished, Nevyn swore aloud with vile oaths in both the ancient and the modern tongues. Dannyr was exactly right; no one would believe Maryn the true king if they thought he’d used poison to gain a throne. All the blame—if, indeed, blame there were—had to be cast onto the other claimant up in Dun Deverry, or rather, onto the various minions of the Boar clan that surrounded the eighteen-year-old king. At that point Nevyn remembered Caudyr, and he thanked the Lords of Light with all his soul for giving him the weapons he needed to win this battle. The chirurgeon’s evidence about the circumstances surrounding the death of the last king would no doubt throw any suspicion firmly where it belonged. Smiling grimly to himself, Nevyn went to his writing desk and drafted a letter to Dannyr straightaway.
Yet when he was done, and the letter safely sealed against the off chance tha
t there was someone around who could read it, he sat at his desk for a long time and considered this matter of poison. Even though it seemed that Glyn was dying of self-induced natural causes, there was no doubt that poison had become available in the torn kingdoms. Who was brewing it? What if there were followers of the dark dweomer around, waiting their chance to plunge the country deeper into chaos? And did they know about Maryn? He went cold all over, cursing himself for a fool, for a proud, stupid dolt to think he could keep such a crucial secret from those who made it their business to ferret out secrets. He would have to see if his suspicions were correct, and if they were, mere scrying through a fire would be useless.
He barred the door to his chamber, then lay down on his bed, lying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest. First he calmed his breathing, then summoned the body of light, seeing the glowing man shape first in his mind, then pouring his will into it until it seemed to stand beside him in the chamber. He transferred his consciousness over, heard a rushy click, and floated in the air, looking down at his inert body. Slipping out a window, he flew up high until he could look down on the dun, a black, dead lump in the throbbing silver mist of elemental force arising from the lake. Although the mist made it difficult for him to hold his place—he was forced to fight against some truly dangerous currents—still he was glad to see it, because its presence would make scrying into the dun difficult indeed. The lake had turned the dun into a safe fortress on more planes than one.
Navigating carefully, Nevyn got clear of the lake’s aura and flew over the sleeping countryside, a dull red-brown now that autumn was sapping the energies of the plant life. In their true forms, beautiful, ever-changing crystalline structures of colored light, the Wildfolk swarmed around and accompanied him on his flight. About five miles from the dun he had his first warning of evil when the spirits paused, shuddering, then disappeared in silver flashes and long winking-outs of light. He stopped and waited, hovering above a patch of woodland to take imperfect shelter in its ebbing glow. None of the Wildfolk returned. Whatever had frightened them had done so badly. He flew up higher until the blue light was as thick as fog, ever swirling and drifting, hiding the landscape below. When he visualized light flowing from his fingertips, light appeared, the volatile mind-stuff responding instantly to the form he imposed upon it. With glowing lines of light he drew an enormous sigil of protection in front of him. Since it would be visible for a great distance, it was the perfect bait to draw the attention of any other travelers on the etheric that night.