The Bristling Wood
“Your little daughter’s well, by the by. Your lady mother keeps her always by her side.”
Rhodry had to think for a moment before he remembered the bastard he’d sired on a common-born lass. How many years ago was it? he wondered. Three, I think.
“That’s most kind of my lady mother,” he said hurriedly. “And what is she named?”
“Rhodda, to keep her father’s memory alive.”
“I see. Mother always did know how to badger Rhys.”
The councillor allowed himself the briefest of smiles.
Rhodry spent the rest of the journey in a fury of impatience to tell Jill the councillor’s news. If he were reading the hints aright, soon they would be back in Eldidd, living in the comfort and splendor he assumed that she wanted. And this time, she would be more than just his mistress. He was no longer a spoiled younger son who needed a strong wife to keep him in rein; he was a man they needed, a man in a position to make demands. He would get her a title, settle land upon her as a dower gift, and marry her, no matter what his mother and the king thought of it.
Late on a splendid sunny day, the herald and his escort rode up to Graemyn’s dun. As they clattered through the gates, Rhodry was looking around for Jill. The ward was full of riders, standing in a reasonable excuse for a formation, while the two tieryns stood at the door of the broch to greet their honored guest. In the confusion, he saw no sign of her, nor did she come to meet him while he stabled his horse and Nedd’s. Although he was rather hurt, he thought little of it, assuming that Lady Camma had kept her at her side for some reason, until Nedd came hurrying into the stable.
“My lord?” Rhodry said. “Is Jill in the great hall?”
“She’s not. Is Perryn in here?”
“He’s not. Isn’t he with the other noble-born?”
Nedd went a little pale about the mouth.
“Oh, by the black balls of the Lord of Hell!” Nedd snarled. “He wouldn’t have—the rotten little weasel—oh, curse him for a pig’s ballock!”
“My lord, what is all this?”
“I don’t know yet. Come with me.”
Rhodry tagged after as Nedd searched the great hall for Camma, finally finding her as she gave orders to the servants about the feast to come. When Nedd caught her arm, she saw Rhodry and gasped, a little puff of breath.
“Oh, by the gods,” she said. “But you’ve got to know, and it best be sooner than later, I suppose. Nedd, if I ever get my hands on your misbegotten wretch of a cousin, I’ll beat him black and blue.”
“I’ll hold him down while you do it. What’s he done with Jill?”
Camma laid a maternal hand on Rhodry’s arm, her large dark eyes full of sincere apology.
“Rhodry, your Jill’s gone. All I can think is that she rode off with Perryn, because he disappeared not an hour after she did. My heart truly aches for you.”
Rhodry opened his mouth and shut it again, then clasped his sword hilt so hard that the leather bindings bit into his palm. Nedd had gone dead white.
“Did you know somewhat about this?” Rhodry growled.
“Oh, er, ah, well, not truly. I mean, ye gods! I knew he fancied your lass, but I never thought anything would come of it.”
With a great effort of will, Rhodry reminded himself that it would be dishonorable to kill him in front of a lady. Camma gave his arm a little shake.
“Oh, come now,” she said. “Who in their right mind would ever have thought that Jill would leave a man like you for one like Perryn?”
His pride was sopped just enough to make him let go the hilt.
“Now, here,” Nedd said to the lady. “Did my uncle know of this? I can’t believe he’d let Perro do such a dishonorable thing.”
“And why do you think your wretched cousin slipped out like a weasel? Benoic chased him with some of his men, but Perryn went off through the forest. They never found a trace of him.”
Nedd started to answer, then simply stared at Rhodry. They were in a terrible position, and they both knew it. If Rhodry swore bloody vengeance where the lord could hear, he would be honor-bound to stop Rhodry from riding—if he could. The fear in Nedd’s eyes was satisfying to see.
“Now, here!” came Benoic’s bellow. “What’s all this?”
Hands on hips, the tieryn strode over and shoved himself between them.
“I take it Rhodry’s found out the truth?”
“He has,” Camma said.
“Humph! Now listen, Nedd, your worm-riddled cousin’s in the wrong, and you know it as well as I do. On the other hand, silver dagger, she wasn’t legally your wife, so you’ve no right to kill him. Beat him black and blue, decidedly, but not to kill him. Will you make me a solemn oath that you won’t kill or maim him? If you do, you ride out of here with my blessing and a bit of extra coin. If you won’t, then you’re not leaving at all.”
Rhodry glanced around at the hall, filled with armed men.
“Now, now, come to your senses, lad,” Benoic went on. “I know cursed well that the first thing a man thinks of in times like this is spilling blood. But ask yourself this: if you cut your Jill’s throat, wouldn’t you be weeping over her not five minutes later?”
“Well, Your Grace, so I would.”
“Good. I feel the shame my nephew laid upon his clan. Do you want her back or not? If not, then I’ll pay you a bride price, just as if she’d been your wife. If you do, then swear me that vow, and ride with my aid.”
Faced with this scrupulous fairness, Rhodry felt his rage slip away. In its place came a cold realization that nearly made him weep: Jill didn’t love him anymore.
“Well, Your Grace, call me a fool if you want, but I do want her back. I’ve got a thing or two to say to her, and by every god in the Otherlands, I’ll find her if I search all summer long.”
“This is a bit of luck,” Merryc said.
“Well, in a way,” Gwin said. “We won’t have to bother with the lass, sure enough, but Rhodry’s going to be following her, not moving in the direction we want him to.”
“Oh, indeed? Think, young one. From everything I’ve been able to see, this Perryn fellow knows the woods like his mother’s tit. What does a man like Rhodry know of woodcraft? When he was a lord, he had foresters and game wardens to worry about such things, and silver daggers stick to the roads.” He smiled gently. “I’ll talk to Briddyn through the fire about this, but I think we’ve found the perfect bait to lure our bird down to the seacoast. The only clues he’ll find are the ones we throw in his path.”
TWO
All summer long Salamander, or Ebañy Salomonderiel, to give him his full Elvish name, had been riding through Deverry and tracking his brother down, but he’d done it slowly by a long, winding road, because the People never hurried anywhere, and for all his human blood, he’d been raised among the elves. Right at first, just over the Eldidd border, he’d found a pretty lass who’d taken to more than his songs; he idled in Cernmetyn with her for a pair of pleasant weeks. Then, once he was up in Pyrdon, a noble lord paid him well for entertaining the guests at his daughter’s wedding—six merry days of feasting. After that, he wandered through Deverry, always heading north to Cerrgonney, but sometimes lingering in an interesting town for a few days here, a lord’s dun for an eightnight there. When he’d scried Rhodry out and found him besieged, he’d put on a good burst of speed, but only until he saw the siege lifted. Then it had seemed that his brother would be perfectly safe for a good long time, so he’d dallied again with another lass who’d been faithfully waiting for him since the summer before. It had seemed terribly dishonorable, after all, to just ride out quickly after she’d waited for such a long time.
And so it was that he was some hundred miles to the east of Graemyn’s dun on the sunny afternoon when Rhodry escorted the herald and the councillor there. He’d made an early camp by a stream, early simply because he was tired of riding, and tethered his horses out in a tiny meadow before he went down to the running water to scry. He saw Rhodry trembl
ing as Camma told him her news, and with so much emotion behind it, the vision was strong enough so that he actually could hear—though not with his physical ears—something of what was said. It seemed, indeed, that he stood beside his brother as Benoic took the matter in hand. Then the vision vanished abruptly, banished by his own flood of feeling. He leapt to his feet and swore aloud.
“By the gods!” He shook his head in amazement. “Who ever would have thought it, indeed? I can’t believe Jill would desert him, I quite simply can’t.”
Kneeling again, he stared at the sun-dancing water and thought of Jill. Her image built up slowly, and when it came, it was oddly wavering and blurred. She was sitting in a mountain meadow and watching while Perryn tethered out three horses, including her Sunrise. His first thought was that she was ill, because she sat so quietly, her mouth slack like a half-wit’s, yet it was hard to see, because the vision was so misty. With a toss of his head, he dismissed it.
“Now, this looks most dire, peculiar, and puzzling. I think me I’d best try for a better look.”
When he called aloud in Elvish for Wildfolk, four gnomes and a sylph materialized in front of him.
“Listen carefully, little brothers. I’ve got a task for you, and if you do it, I’ll sing you a song when you’re done. I want to go to sleep, and I want you to stand here and watch for danger. If anyone or any animal comes toward me, pinch me and wake me up.”
The gnomes nodded solemnly, while the sylph dipped and hovered in the air. Salamander lay down on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and slowed his breathing until he felt that his body was melding with the sun-warmed earth. Then he closed his eyes and summoned his body of light. Unlike human dweomermasters, who use a solid, bluish form shaped like their own body, the elven thought form is much like an enormous flickering flame, yet with an ever-shifting face peering out of the silver light. Once Salamander’s form lived steady in his imagination, he transferred his consciousness over to it, at first only pretending to look out of its eyes at his body lying below, then seeing the world in the bluish etheric light. He heard a sound like a sharp click; he was out on the etheric plane, looking down from the flame shape at his sleeping body, guarded by the Wildfolk, and joined to him by a long silver cord.
Slowly he rose up, orienting himself to the valleys, bright red and glowing with the dull auras of plants, and to the stream, which exhaled elemental force in a rushy silver curtain that rose high above the water. Getting entangled in that curtain could tear him apart. Carefully he moved away from it before going higher, then thought of Jill. He felt a certain tug pulling him in her direction, and set off to follow it For a long ways, impossible to measure on the etheric, he sped over the dull-red forests, broken here and there by brighter patches of farmlands, tended by the peasants whose auras gleamed around them, pale yellows and greens, mostly, in the bluish light of the plane. As he traveled he became more and more aware of Jill’s presence, pulling him forward.
Yet in the end he had a guide. He had just flown high over a small stream when he saw one of the Wildfolk coming toward him. In its proper sphere the creature was a beautiful nexus of glowing lines and colors, a deep olive, citrine, and russet with a spark here and there of black, but it was obviously in distress, swelling up twice its size, then shrinking and trembling.
“Here, here, little brother,” Salamander thought to it. “What’s so wrong?”
For an answer it spun and danced, but dimly he could feel its emotions: rage and despair for something it loved. He remembered then Jill’s gray gnome.
“Do you know Jill?”
It bobbed and swelled with joy.
“I’m her friend. Take me to her.”
The gnome swept on ahead of him like a hunting dog. As he flew after, dodging round the curves of a hill, Salamander saw far below him the mountain valley, a red-glowing bowl of grass, dotted with the dim silvery auras of the horses, and two human auras, Perryn’s a strange green and gray that Salamander had never seen before, Jill’s pale gold—but enormous, swelling up around her, sending off billows, then shrinking again but to a size far too large for any human being. When he dropped down toward her, he saw Perryn turn and say something. From the young lord’s aura came a light-shot surge, spilling over Jill like an ocean wave. In response, her aura billowed and sucked the magnetic effluent up.
Salamander hovered, trembling with shock. At that moment, Jill looked up, straight at him, and screamed aloud. She had seen his body of light.
“Jill, I’m a friend!”
Yet although she could see him, she couldn’t seem to hear his thought. She flung herself to her feet and pointed at him, yelling all the while at Perryn, who merely looked puzzled. Salamander swooped away, following the silver cord as fast as he dared back to his body, which lay safely where he’d left it with the Wildfolk still on guard. He swooped down until he hovered over it, then let himself go. Again the click, and he felt flesh wrap him round, warm and painfully heavy for a moment. He dismissed his body of light, then sat up, slapping his hand thrice on the ground to seal the end of the working. The gnomes looked at him expectantly.
“My thanks, my friends. Come travel along with me for a while. I’ll sing you the song I promised, but I’ve got to make speed. A good friend of mine has been well and truly ensorceled.”
In a flood of silver light the dawn climbed up purple mountains and washed over the meadow, a green torrent of grass that swirled in the summer wind. Jill sat on their blankets and watched Perryn, crouched down by the fire, where he was heating water in a little iron kettle. He took his razor, a bit of soap, and a cracked mirror out of his saddlebags and began to shave, as calmly and efficiently as if he were in a bedchamber. Jill had a vague thought of slitting his throat with the long, sharp steel razor, or perhaps her silver dagger, but thinking was very difficult.
“You’d best eat somewhat,” he remarked.
“In a bit.” Speaking was difficult, too. “I’m not truly hungry.”
Idly she looked away, only to see her gray gnome, hunkered down some yards beyond Perryn. She was so glad to see the little creature that she jumped up and ran over, but just as she bent down to pick it up, it snarled, swiped at her with its claws, and vanished. Very slowly she sat down right where she was, wondering why the gnome was so angry at her. It seemed that she should know, but the memory wouldn’t return. She picked up a pebble from the grass and stared at it, a constant wavering flow of crystalline structure made visible, until Perryn came to fetch her away.
All that morning they rode through the forest, following long, roundabout trails. Every tree was a living presence, leaning over the trail and reaching down to her with brushy fingers. Some frightened her; others seemed perfectly harmless; still others, a definite few, seemed to be asking her to befriend them with a trembling outreach of leafy hands. When she looked away from the trail, the forest changed into a maze of solid walls, broken only by shafts of sunlight as heavy as stone. Although at times Jill considered simply riding away from Perryn, she was hopelessly lost. Every now and then, she thought of Rhodry and wondered if he was trying to follow them. She doubted that he’d believe her when she told him that she hadn’t ridden away of her own free will—if, indeed, he ever caught them. How could he find her, when the whole world had changed?
Every color, even the somber gray of the rocks, seemed as bright and glowing as a jewel. Whenever they came to a clearing or a mountain meadow, the sun poured over her like water; she could swear that she felt it dripping and running down her arms. The sky was a solid dome of lapis lazuli, and for the first time in her life she truly believed that the gods traveled across the sky the way we travel across the earth, just because the color truly did seem fit for divinities. Under the heavy burden of all this beauty, she felt as if she were reeling in her saddle, and at times tears ran down her face, just from the loveliness. Once as they rode through a meadow, a pair of larks broke cover and flew, singing their heartbreaking trill as they went up and up into the az
ure, crystalline sky, their wings rushing and beating in a tiny thunder. Jill saw then that whatever else might happen, that moment, that beating of wings, that stripe of sound would all endure eternally, as indeed would every moment, a clear note in the unfolding music of the universe. When she tried to tell Perryn of the insight, he only stared at her and told her she was daft. She laughed, agreeing with him.
That afternoon, they camped early near a good-sized stream. Perryn took a line and hook from his gear, remarked that he was after fish, and wandered away upstream. For a long time Jill lay on the bank and stared into the water, watching the Wildfolk in the eddies, a white foam of little faces, traces of sleek bodies, little voices and lives, melding and blending into each other. It seemed that there was something that they wanted of her, and finally she stripped off her clothes and joined them. Giggling, laughing, she ducked and splashed in the water with the undines, tried to catch them as they swam away from her, and for the first time she heard them clearly, giggling in return, calling out her name, Jill, Jill, Jill, over and over again. Then suddenly they shrieked and disappeared. Jill turned in the water and looked up to see Perryn, standing on the bank with a string of three trout in one hand. Her heart sank, just as when a pupil looks up from a game to find her tutor glaring with a piece of unfinished work in his hand.
Yet when she clambered up onto the bank, he was far from angry with her, catching her, kissing her, wrapping her round with his desire until she wanted him, too, and lay down willingly with him in the grass. Afterward, he got up, dressed, and methodically began cleaning the fish, but she lay naked in the soft grass and tried to remember the name of the man she once had loved and who, or so she suspected, still loved her. Although she could see his face in her mind, her memory refused to give up his name. Puzzling over it, she got up and dressed, then chanced to look down at the stream. The Wildfolk were back, staring at her reproachfully.