The Bristling Wood

  “Well, the war’s over, if you ask me. Aegwyc can’t cause much trouble. His brother bled the demesne white for his war with Graemyn.”

  “So is our uncle going to pull out?”

  “Not him. He’s having a fine time bullying Graemyn and doing his talking for him. But I know it aches your heart to be shut up inside a dun like this. You could just ride on if you like.”

  “My thanks, but I’ll stay. Just in case … oh, ah, er, well, somewhat happens.”

  “Even if the fighting did break out again, you wouldn’t be able to join us with your arm so weak.”

  “I know. Not the point, you see.”

  “And what is the point?”

  “Oh, er, ah, Jill.”

  “What? You’re daft! Rhodry could cut you into shreds, and I mean no insult, because he could do the same to me—easily.”

  “No reason it has to come to an open fight, is there?”

  “Oh, none at all. There’s no reason that the sun has to rise every morning, either, but somehow it always does.”

  His hands on his hips, Nedd considered Perryn as if he were thinking of drowning him.

  “I’ll wager I can get Jill away from him,” Perryn said.

  “Of course. That’s why I’m so blasted worried. Ye gods, I’ve never known a man with your luck for the lasses. How do you do it, anyway?”

  “Just smile at them a lot and flatter them. It can’t be any different than what most men do.”

  “Indeed? It’s never worked that well for me.”

  “Oh, you’re probably not smiling the right way. You’ve got to … oh, er, let some warmth flow out with it. Easy, once you get the knack.”

  “Then you’ll have to tell me how. But here, if you lay a snare for Jill, you’ll likely catch a wolf in it.”

  “The wolf’s going to be following my beloved cousin’s orders and riding with him all over Cerrgonney.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s dishonorable.”

  “What about all those times I lied to our uncle for your sake? That was dishonorable, too.”

  “So it was. Do you want a night in Jill’s bed as badly as all this?”

  “I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I do her.”

  “Ah, curse you, you bastard! Well and good, then. Rhodry and I will find somewhere to ride together.”

  “My thanks, cousin. My most humble thanks.”

  They had a long wait ahead of them while the speeded courier traveled the two hundred-odd miles to Dun Deverry. Although he could buy a swift passage on one of the many barges that sailed down from the mountain mines on the Camyn Yraen, he would have to ride back. In other parts of the kingdom, of course, there would have been local gwerbrets to hear their appeal, but the various gwerbrets who had once ruled in Cerrgonney warred so incessantly among themselves that King Maryn the Second had abolished the rank in the summer of 962. After a bloody rebellion, his son, Casyl the Second, made the decree of abolishment stick in 984. From then on, the kings personally took the fealty of every Cerrgonney lord and judged the various squabbles among them.

  During the wait, Perryn stalked Jill, but from a wary distance, always watching for those rare times when Rhodry left her alone. The moments were hard to catch, because she was doing her best to avoid him. Since she was the first woman who’d ever resisted his strange appeal, he was puzzled, but the resistance only made her the more desirable. Finally his chance came to make his move. At sunset on the tenth day, Graemyn’s courier returned with the news that the king would most graciously take this matter under his regal judgment. In fact, a herald and a legal councillor were coming directly behind him on the road.

  “Splendid!” Benoic said. “Now, here, Graemyn, you’ve got to send an honor guard along to meet them.”

  “I was just about to say exactly that. If one of my noble allies would care to take his warband on this errand, I’d be most grateful.”

  Perryn shot Nedd a pointed glance. Nedd sighed.

  “I’ll do it gladly, Your Grace,” Nedd said. “I have six men left as well as my silver dagger. Will that be the proper size for the escort?”

  “Exactly right. If the warband’s too large, Aegwyc might claim intimidation. My thanks, Lord Nedd.”

  Nedd scowled Perryn’s way with a face as sour as if he’d bitten into a Bardek citron. Perryn merely smiled in return.

  “Well, my love, we’ll be riding out at dawn.”

  Jill went cold with fear.

  “Oh here, what’s so wrong?” Rhodry went on. “We won’t be in the slightest danger.”

  “I know.” She found it very hard to speak. “It’s just that we’ve been apart so much.”

  “I know, but I’ve got plenty of battle loot, and the reward from Tieryn Graemyn, so once this hire’s over, we’ll settle into a decent inn for a while.”

  With a nod, she turned away, tempted to tell him the truth, that she was afraid of being left in the same dun as Perryn, but the truth might lead to bloodshed. Although she would have been pleased by the sight of Perryn lying dead, his kin would only cut Rhodry down in turn. He put his arms around her and drew her close.

  “I’ll be back soon, my love.”

  “I hope so.” She reached up and kissed him. “Rhoddo, oh, Rhoddo, I love you more than I love my life.”

  As it turned out, the warband left a good hour after dawn, because Nedd and his men could never leave a place simply and easily. When they were finally on their way, Jill stood at the gates for a long time, wishing she could ride with them, feeling the dweomer cold run down her back in warning. When she turned back, she found Perryn watching her. She brushed past him without so much as a “good morrow” and hurried to the safe company of Lady Camma and her serving women. All day she avoided him, and that night, she barred her chamber door from the inside.

  On the morrow, however, Perryn caught her alone. Jill had gone down to the stables to tend Sunrise, as she never left him to the slipshod attentions of stableboys. She was just leading him back to his clean stall when Perryn strolled over.

  “Good morrow,” he said. “I was thinking of going riding. Won’t you come with me?”

  “I won’t, my lord.”

  “Please don’t call me ‘lord’ all the time.”

  Then he smiled his warm bewitchment, coiling round her heart.

  “I love you, Jill.”

  “I don’t give a pig’s fart. Leave me alone!”

  When she stepped back, she found herself against the stall door. With another smile, he laid his hand on her cheek, a touch that flooded her with warmth. Dweomer, she thought, it has to be dweomer. When he kissed her, she knew in a nightmarish way that she was weakening, that she was sorely tempted to betray Rhodry for this skinny, daft, nondescript man.

  “We could ride into the meadow,” he whispered. “It’s lovely out in the sun.”

  His words—the very rational act of speaking—broke the spell. She shoved him so hard that he nearly fell and twisted free.

  “Leave me alone!” she snarled. “Love me all you want, but I belong to Rhodry.”

  As soon as she was back in the great hall, her fear turned to hatred, a blind murderous thing because he’d made her feel helpless, her, who could fight with the best of men and fend for herself on the long road. If she could have murdered him and escaped scot-free, she would have. All day her fury grew as she watched him stalk her. Finally, early in the evening she noticed that he’d left the hall. A servant told her that he’d gone to bed because his wound was bothering him. Good, she thought, may it burn like fire! As she sipped a last tankard of ale in the company of the other women, she barely listened to their talk. She would have to do something about Lord Perryn, she decided, and then finally thought of the obvious place to turn for help. Nevyn. Of course! He’d understand, he’d tell her what to do. She got a candle lantern, then went up to her chamber. Using the candle flame, she could contact him, wherever he might be.

  She went into the chamber, set the lantern down
, then barred the door. As she turned round, she saw Perryn, sitting so quietly in the curve of the wall that she’d never noticed him, her mind full of dweomer thought. When she swore at him, he grinned at her, but it was only an ordinary sort of triumphant smile.

  “Get out! Get out right now, or I’ll throw you out bodily.”

  “What a nasty tongue you have, my love.”

  “Don’t you call me that.”

  “Jill, please.” He gave her one of those entrancing smiles. “Let me stay with you tonight.”

  “I won’t.” But she heard her voice waver.

  Smiling, always smiling, he walked toward her. She felt mead-muddled, her thoughts hard to form, harder yet to voice, and she tried to move away, she staggered. He caught her by the shoulders, then kissed her, his mouth so warm and inviting on hers that she returned the kiss before she could stop herself. Her body was as out of control as a river in full spate. When he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, she wondered if she’d ever truly wanted a man before or merely been like a young lass, flirting without even knowing what she’s offering.

  “You know you want me to stay,” he whispered. “I’ll leave early. No one has to know or see a thing.”

  When she forced herself to think of Rhodry, she had just enough strength to shove him away, but he caught her wrists and pulled her back. Although she struggled, her knees seemed to have turned to lead and her arms to water. Still with his ensorceling smile, he pulled her back and kissed her. She felt herself give in with one last muddled thought that Rhodry would never have to know. The pleasure she felt came from her surrender as much as his caresses. She could hardly let go of him long enough for them to get into bed, and once they were lying down, she was trembling. Yet Perryn himself was in no hurry, kissing her, caressing her, taking off their clothing one piece at a time, then caressing her for a while more. When he finally lost his patient reserve, his passion for her was frightening. She could only surrender to her own, let it match his and carry her where it willed.

  Afterward, she lay in his arms and clung to him while the candlelight cast a pale, dancing glow on a world gone strange. The stone walls seemed alive, swelling and shrinking rhythmically as if they breathed. The light itself broke up and flared as if it came from a great fire to fall on shards of glass. If Perryn hadn’t kissed her again, she would have been frightened, but his lovemaking was too engrossing for her to think of anything else. When they were finished she fell asleep in his arms.

  She woke suddenly a few hours later to find him asleep beside her. In the lantern the candle stub guttered in a spill of wax. For a moment she was so confused that she wondered what he was doing there, but an odd bit at a time, she remembered. She nearly wept in shame. How could she have betrayed her Rhodry? How could she have played the slut with a man she hated? She sat up, waking him.

  “Get out of here,” Jill said. “I never want to see you again.”

  He merely smiled and reached for her, but the candle went out with a last dancing flare. A red eye in the dark, the wick slowly faded. In the darkness she was freed from his smile, and she got up before he could grab her.

  “Get out, or I’ll find my sword and cut you in pieces.”

  Without a word of argument he got up and began searching for his clothes. She leaned against the wall, because the room seemed to be spinning around her. Every little scuffle or rustle Perryn made was unnaturally loud, as if the noise echoed in a chamber ten times the size. Finally he was done.

  “I truly do love you,” he said meekly. “I’d never just trifle with you once and then desert you.”

  “Get out! Get out now!”

  With a dramatic sigh he slipped out, shutting the door behind him. Jill fell onto the bed, clutched her pillow, and sobbed into it until finally she’d cried herself to sleep. When she woke, sunlight poured into her chamber window as thickly as a flood of honey. For a long time she lay there, wondering at light made solid. The dented pewter candle lantern shone like the finest silver, and even the gray stone of the walls seemed to pulse within this splendid light. With some difficulty she dressed, because the patterns of stains and pulled threads on her clothing were as engrossing as fine needlework. When she went to the window, she thought she’d never seen such a fine summer day, the sky so bright it was like sapphire. Down below in the ward stableboys were tending horses, and the sound of hooves on cobbles drifted up like the chime of bells. Her gray gnome appeared on the windowsill.

  “Do you know how I’ve shamed myself?”

  It gave her a look of utter incomprehension.

  “Good. Oh ye gods, I might be able to live with myself over this, and then again, I might not. Pray that Rhodry never finds out.”

  Puzzled, the little creature hunkered down and began picking its toes. She realized that its skin, instead of being the uniform gray she’d always thought it, was made up of colors, many different ones in minute specks, that merely blended to gray from a distance. She was so busy examining it that she didn’t hear the door opening until it was too late. She spun around to find Perryn, his hands full of wild roses, smiling at her.

  “I picked these out in the meadow for you.”

  Jill was tempted to throw the lot right in his face, but their color caught her. She had to take them, to study them, roses more lovely than she’d ever seen, their petals the color of iridescent blood, always shifting and gleaming, their centers a fiery gold.

  “We’ve got to talk,” he said. “And we don’t have much time. We’ve got to make a plan.”

  “What? Plans for what?”

  “Well, we can’t be here when Rhodry rides back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. I never want you in my bed again.”

  But he smiled, and this time, after their lovemaking, she felt the bewitchment a hundredfold. Even as her thoughts grew muddled, she knew that somehow he’d linked himself to her, that some strange force was flowing through the link. Then he took her shoulders and kissed her, the flowers crushed between them with a waft of scent.

  “I love you so much,” he said. “I’ll never let you go. Come with me, my love, come to the hills with me. That’s where we belong. We’ll ride free together, all summer long.”

  Jill had one last coherent thought, that he wasn’t daft: he was downright mad. Then he kissed her again, and it was too difficult to think.

  Lord Nedd’s warband met the king’s herald a day and a half’s ride from the dun. Rhodry was riding next to his lordship when they crested a small hill and saw, down below them on the road, the royal emissaries, all mounted on white horses with red trappings set with gilded buckles. At the head came the herald, carrying a polished ebony staff with a gold finial strung with satin ribands. Behind him rode an elderly man in the long dark tunic and gray cloak of a legal councillor, with a page on a white pony at the old man’s side. Bringing up the rear were four of the king’s own warband, wearing purple cloaks and carrying gold-trimmed scabbards. Nedd stared slack-mouthed.

  “Ye gods,” he said feebly. “I should have made the men put on clean shirts.”

  The two parties met in the road. When Nedd announced himself, the herald, a blond young man with a long upper lip made longer by pride, looked him over for a moment stretched to the limit of courtesy.

  “My humble thanks for the honor, Your Lordship,” he said at last. “It gladdens my heart that Tieryn Graemyn takes our mission with serious intent and grave heart.”

  “Well, of course he does,” Nedd said. “Why else would he have sent the wretched message in the first place?”

  The herald allowed himself a small, icy smile. Rhodry urged his horse forward, made a graceful half-bow in the saddle, and addressed himself to the herald.

  “O honored voice of the king, we give you greetings and pledge our very lives as surety for your safe passage.”

  The herald bowed, visibly relieved to find someone who knew the ritual salutations, even if that someone was a silver dagger.

  “My hu
mble thanks,” he said. “And who are you?”

  “A man who loves our liege more than his own life.”

  “Then we shall be honored to ride beside you on our journey to justice.”

  “May the king’s justice live forever in the land.”

  Rhodry had to tell Nedd how to dispose his men: his lordship to ride with the herald, his warband to fall in behind the king’s men. Rhodry himself was planning on taking the humblest place at the very rear, but as he rode down the line, the councillor caught his eye and beckoned him to fall in beside him.

  “So, Rhodry Maelwaedd,” he said. “You’re still alive. I’ll tell your honored mother that when next we meet at court.”

  “I’d be most grateful, good sir, but have I had the honor of meeting you? Wretch that I am, I fear me I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Oh, I doubt if you ever knew it. It’s Cunvelyn, and I know your lady mother fairly well.” He considered Rhodry shrewdly for a moment. “It truly does gladden my heart to see you alive and well. Doubtless you haven’t heard the news from Aberwyn.”

  “None, good sir, except what scraps the occasional traveler gives me.”

  “Ah. Well, your brother’s second wife appears to be barren, while his cast-off lady was delivered of a fine healthy son.”

  Rhodry swore under his breath with a most uncourtly oath, but the councillor merely smiled. It was a moment he’d remember all his life, a moment as unlikely as the sun rising suddenly in a midnight sky, changing night magically into day. When Rhys died, he would be Aberwyn’s heir, and he allowed himself to hope for the thing that he’d long since given up hoping for: recall. Aberwyn was such an important rhan that the king himself might well take a hand in bringing home its heir from the dangers of the long road.

  “I would advise you to keep yourself as safe as possible,” Cunvelyn said. “Are you short up for coin?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Good. Perhaps then you can avoid hiring out your sword straightaway.”

  “I will, good sir.”

  Although Rhodry’s heart ached to ask more, he knew that the old man’s court training would allow no more answers. For a few moments they rode in silence; then Cunvelyn turned to him.