The Red Wyvern

  “Tieryn Peddyc,” Maryn said. “This is my most trusted councillor, Nevyn.”

  “My lord.” Peddyc inclined his head Nevyn’s way. “I’m honored.”

  “And I in return.” Nevyn sat down with a nod at young Anasyn. “The princess herself is making your sister welcome, my lord.”

  “My thanks,” Anasyn said. “I’ll owe her a debt forever.” Nevyn’s curiosity flared, but Maryn had matters of war on his mind.

  “Peddyc’s been telling me that he’s bringing other allies with him,” Maryn went on. “A certain Lord Camlyn and his men should arrive shortly, and Gwerbret Daeryc of Glasloc will try to make his escape when the regent’s men march out.”

  “Some of my lords already went over to the true prince,” Peddyc said. “At least, when I rode their way to muster them, I found them not at home.”

  “Daryl and Ganedd, my liege,” Nevyn put in. “They sought your pardon a good month or so ago.” He turned to Peddyc. “No doubt they’ll be wondering what to say to you, my lord.”

  “No doubt.” Peddyc stared down at the table and rubbed the back of his neck with a road-dirty hand. “I wish I’d gone with them, now. But no man knows what tricks the gods are going to play on him, eh?”

  Behind the dais were several doors; pages came through one of them with goblets and a flagon of mead. Since the prince would wait to discuss grave matters till they were gone, Nevyn took his chance. He caught Peddyc’s attention and Anasyn’s as well.

  “If you’ll forgive my curiosity, my lords,” Nevyn said. “Some great tragedy seems to be weighing upon you.”

  “The councillor has sharp eyes.” Peddyn smiled briefly. “My wife was a jewel among women, good Nevyn. Lady Merodda of the Boar had her first dismissed from court, then murdered. It took us days to ride down here, and I’ve been trying to chew over why she’d do such a heinous thing. My foster-daughter tells me that Merodda was probably jealous of my wife’s influence over Queen Abrwnna. That’s the only thing we could come up with, truly.”

  “But the murder’s not in doubt?”

  “None, my lord,” Anasyn broke in. “It would gladden my heart to tell you all the—”

  “Not now, Sanno,” Peddyc said. “The prince has no time to waste on things like this.”

  “But I’ll gladly listen.” Nevyn nodded Anasyn’s way. “Perhaps we’ll have the time later in the day.”

  Carrying a cushion under one arm, Councillor Oggyn was approaching the dais. Nevyn felt his usual weariness at the sight of the man, a reaction that went back a hundred years—not of course that Oggyn would remember. In his last incarnation Oggyn had served another king in Cerrmor, Glyn the First, when Nevyn had been part of that court as well. Saddar, Oggyn’s name had been then, although Nevyn had had to look it up in the court annals to make sure. Since at that time he was already well over two hundred years old, names had begun to escape his memory in an alarming manner.

  “Tieryn Peddyc,” Oggyn said. “Your men have been quartered, and the chamberlain has arranged a chamber for you and your son.”

  “My thanks,” Peddyc said.

  Oggyn bowed low to the prince, then laid down his cushion and seated himself across the table from Nevyn in a place that was one chair closer to Maryn than Nevyn’s stood.

  “I have heard, though,” Oggyn went on. “A most interesting thing. Is it true that your foster-daughter is by blood a daughter of the Boar clan?”

  Anasyn went white about the mouth. Peddyc laid a hand on his son’s arm and addressed the councillor.

  “She was, but she renounced them.” Peddyc glanced Nevyn’s way. “My wife had the fostering of her, and she was the only mother Lilli ever had.”

  “Ah.” Oggyn rubbed his hands together. “My liege the prince, this is a most fortuitous hostage that the gods have brought us. We can bargain, perhaps, for—”

  “Now here!” Anasyn slammed one hand flat on the table.

  “Hush!” Peddyc snapped.

  The men all turned to look at Maryn, who had been leaning back in his chair and listening.

  “Lillorigga is my guest, not a hostage, Councillor Oggyn,” the prince said. “I made Lord Anasyn a promise, and keep it I shall.”

  “Well, my dearest liege,” Oggyn said, “never would I suggest that you dishonor yourself by breaking a promise, but—”

  “Good.” Maryn flashed him a smile. “Don’t. Lord Anasyn, your sister shall be treated as my sister here.”

  “My humble thanks, my prince.” Anasyn could hardly speak. “We owe her so much.”

  “Tieryn Peddyc, no doubt you and your son are weary. Oggyn, summon a page, will you? Have him take the men of the Ram to their new chambers.”

  A simmering Oggyn rose and bowed. To make sure the peace got kept, Nevyn did the same. As Peddyc turned to leave, he touched Nevyn’s arm.

  “My lord?” Peddyc said. “When will the prince muster his full army?”

  “The whole pack never will come to Cerrmor. The lords along the coast will be riding in with their men on the morrow. Once they’ve gathered, we’ll head north, picking up lords and their warbands as we go. It spreads the cost of feeding everyone around.”

  “And a good idea, that. But we’ll ride out soon?”

  “We will. You must be anxious to avenge your lady.”

  “I am, truly.” But Peddyc looked so weary, so dreadfully, impossibly weary, that Nevyn wondered if he were longing not for vengeance but for death.

  As the afternoon unrolled, Lilli felt as if she were dancing some complex figure to a tune she’d never heard before. At least in Dun Deverry, as a daughter of the Boar clan, she’d had a place and a rank, neatly defined. Here? She would have only what Princess Bellyra chose to give her. She did, however, have fewer personalities to sort out in Cerrmor than she had in her mother’s circle. Since Maryn held most of southern Deverry loyal to him, and thus his vassals’ lands lay safely behind the disputed border, there were surprisingly few homeless noblewomen living at court, and of those, only two seemed to be much in the princess’s confidence. Blond, merry Elyssa was a widow and the daughter of Tieryn Elyc, regent in the dun when Bellyra was a child. Degwa, twice widowed, belonged to the dispossessed Wolf clan, who formerly had held lands that the Boar held now.

  Once Lilli had had her bath and put on a pair of her hand-me-down dresses, she returned to the women’s hall to find Degwa there alone. They chatted, while they waited for the princess’s return, about Degwa’s young sons and daughters, living in fosterage in various safe duns on the coast.

  “Someday,” Degwa remarked, “I hope my children will have our lands back and restore my clan’s name. My sons will go to their father’s clan, of course, but my daughter knows her duty.”

  “Um, I don’t think I understand—”

  “Of course! My apologies.” Degwa’s voice turned cool. “An outsider wouldn’t know. The Wolf lands pass in the female line, you see. It was a ruling of Glyn the First of Cerrmor. My daughter’s husband will be the Wolf.”

  “How very interesting! And where are your lands, my lady?”

  “Along the river Nerr, some miles south of Muir. Our village is named Blaeddbyr.”

  “Ah. I’ve never been there.” Lilli was profoundly relieved—she’d been afraid that close kin of hers held those lands. “But no doubt the prince will grant them back to the Wolf when the time comes.”

  Degwa smiled—oddly coldly, oddly thinly. Lilli tried to think of some conciliatory remark, but at that moment the princess herself swept into the women’s hall with maidservants behind her.

  “The first peaches!” Bellyra announced. “We can all gorge ourselves.”

  A laughing maidservant set a big basket down on the table, and Elyssa pulled up a chair for the princess. Degwa turned her cold stare away from Lilli and let it warm. Although all the other women, even the servants, dug into the basket, Lilli waited until Elyssa shoved it her direction.

  “Do have one, Lilli!” Elyssa said.

  “Thank y
ou, I will. I wasn’t sure—”

  “Oh please!” Bellyra put in. “Do you think I’d be mingy to an exile?”

  “It happens, my lady,” Degwa said. “Especially, or so I gather, among those around the false king.”

  Lilli forced out a smile, then bit into her peach, wonderfully sweet and juicy. Summer comes earlier here, she thought. It seemed fitting, somehow. She reminded herself to tell Bevyan and Sarra this fancy—then remembered, of course, that she would never share a word with them again. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and found the others watching her.

  “Are you all right, Lilli?” Elyssa said.

  “My apologies. I was just thinking of my foster-mother. She died just a fortnight past, you see.”

  “Oh! That saddens my heart,” Bellyra said. “No doubt it will take you some while to put your grief aside.”

  “Her Highness is so kind.”

  “I have my better moments, or so I’ve been told.” Bellyra smiled briefly, then turned to Degwa. “I have a message for you. From your own true love.”

  “Oh don’t, Your Highness!” Degwa blushed furiously. “He’s such a bore!”

  “One of my husband’s councillors,” Bellyra explained. “He thinks to better himself by marrying a noble-born widow.”

  “Not Nevyn?” Lilli said.

  “Alas, Degwa’s not had the luck. Oggyn’s his name. Nevyn would make an interesting husband, I should think.” The princess turned to Degwa. “But Oggyn most urgently requested you spare him a moment for some news he’s had.”

  Degwa raised her eyes heavenward. The maidservants giggled, watching her.

  “Do go,” Elyssa said, grinning. “Now I’m curious. Sacrifice yourself in our cause.”

  “He said he’d be waiting near the door to the great hall,” Bellyra put in.

  “Oh, very well.” Degwa rose with a dramatic sigh. “I shall do my duty to Her Highness, then. No doubt he’ll insist I walk with him a ways to earn my bit of news.”

  A long walk, apparently—the women talked for some while before she returned. Bellyra and Elyssa took it upon themselves to tell Lilli the gossip of the dun: who might befriend her, who to keep at a safe distance. At first she merely listened, but a few words at a time she risked joining in to find her comments welcome. She had just begun to feel at ease when Degwa returned, striding into the chamber. With a furious glance Lilli’s way, she stood at the princess’s chair.

  “And what did Oggyn have to say?” Bellyra said. “It must have been utterly dishonorable, from the look of you.”

  “Not in the least, Your Highness. He told me that our guest was born a daughter of the Boar clan.”

  Lilli felt herself turn cold all over. She laid a shaking hand on her throat.

  “A Boar!” Degwa was near snarling. “How can you treat her so well?”

  “Oh, for the love of the Holy Moon!” Bellyra snapped back. “She had the good sense to desert them, hasn’t she?”

  “I don’t care, Your Highness! She could be a spy and a traitor.” Degwa began pacing back and forth. “All my life I’ve heard naught but ill about the Boar clan. Why should we trust this little stranger?”

  “Hold your tongue, Decci!” Elyssa snapped. “You’re being wretchedly rude, and you know it.”

  Degwa crossed her arms over her chest. The princess sighed.

  “Lillorigga of the Boar,” Bellyra said. “Are you a traitor?”

  “I’m not, Your Highness! Oh, please believe me! How could I be a spy anyway? When the prince leads his army out, the regent and his men can count them easier than I can, can’t they?”

  “Just so. And I can’t see you murdering my husband by moonlight one night, either. He’s quite a bit bigger than you.”

  At this joke Degwa practically snarled.

  “Please don’t,” Lilli said to Degwa. “I’m not a Boar anymore, anyway. I’ve no kin or clan except for Peddyc and Anasyn and the Rams of Hendyr.”

  “I rather thought so.” Bellyra stood by pushing herself up on the chair arms, then heaving herself and the latest heir to her feet. “Ye gods, I am pregnant, aren’t I? Degwa, Lilli is no longer a Boar, and thus what you heard about them doesn’t really apply, does it?”

  “Whatever my princess commands me to believe,” Degwa said. “I shall believe it.”

  “It’s not a question of believing in me like a goddess or suchlike. Nevyn’s vouched for Lilli, you know.”

  “Oh.” Degwa turned scarlet again. “Forgive me.”

  The three women looked at Lilli, who sat fumbling for words. Nevyn again, and he’d vouched for her. Why? She could ask him, she knew. If she dared. Elyssa caught her arm.

  “You’ve gone pale. Are you going to faint?”

  “I’m not,” Lilli said. “Everything’s just so difficult.”

  Degwa stared at the floor.

  “It aches my heart,” Lilli said to her, “that the Boars have brought you and yours the same kind of grief they’ve brought to me and mine.”

  The silence grew. Lilli felt that she could hear her own breathing, ragged in her chest. At last Degwa looked up.

  “I’d have peace between us,” Degwa said.

  “And so would I.”

  When Lilli held out her hand, Degwa took it in a limp clasp, briefly but long enough. Bellyra and Elyssa exchanged an approving nod.

  “What I want to know,” the princess said, “is why Oggyn took it upon himself to tell you this.”

  Degwa frowned, thinking it through.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “But he thought she’d be better off locked up somewhere, so the king could bargain with her as a hostage.”

  For a moment Lilli nearly did faint. She steadied herself, then slipped off her chair to kneel in front of the princess.

  “Please don’t send me back.” She had to force out each word from a trembling throat. “They’d kill me if you did.”

  “Of course I won’t, and I shan’t let Maryn do any such thing, either.” Bellyra reached out one hand. “Do get up. I hate it when people kneel to me. Come sit down again. Decci, can’t you see? Oggyn’s got one of his beastly schemes in mind, and he was using you to get at me.”

  Degwa blushed scarlet; she tried to speak, then turned and ran out of the room. Lilli rose and flopped into a welcome chair.

  “My humble thanks, Your Highness,” Lilli said.

  Bellyra dismissed the thanks with a careless wave.

  “When it comes to the Wolf clan, Decci never thinks,” Elyssa muttered. “And that man plays her like a harp, I swear it.”

  “He’s the bald one with the beard?” Lilli said.

  “He is. It always looks to me like his hair slipped off his head and got caught under his chin.”

  The princess laughed, then smothered a sudden yawn.

  “I’ve really got to lie down and nap,” Bellyra announced. “I’m ever so tired. My ladies, please do as you wish.”

  Both Elyssa and Lilli stood and curtsied, then stayed standing while the princess and her servants left the hall.

  “I have to go speak to the chief cook,” Elyssa said. “If Nevyn’s coming up to talk with you, you can just wait here for him.”

  “My thanks.” Lilli curtsied to her as well. “I shall.”

  Nevyn arrived not long after, all good humor, but his smile struck her as dangerous. She considered feigning a headache to get out of this little conversation, but sooner or later, she knew, she would have to face him.

  “And a good afternoon to you, Lilli,” Nevyn said.

  “And the same to you, my lord. It’s very kind of you to spare time for such as me.”

  “Indeed?” He raised one bushy eyebrow. “I was thinking you’d be dreading talking with me.”

  Lilli forced a smile.

  “Let’s sit down. In the window seat, perhaps? After you, my lady.”

  They walked together across the wide room. As Lilli passed it, sunlight fell across the silver casket on its little table nearby. It was a lovely th
ing, about a foot high, and its two sides rose in curves, so that the lid arched up to fit over them and sweep down again to close in front. All over this curve of silver, roses bloomed—engraved, of course, but so cunningly drawn that they seemed almost real. Only half-thinking, Lilli reached out and ran her fingers over the pattern.

  “Oh!” She pulled her hand back fast and rubbed her fingers. They felt as cold as if she’d clutched an icicle.

  “What is it, Lilli?” Nevyn said. “What’s so wrong?”

  “Naught.” Yet she could not stop the chill that ran down her back and made her tremble. “I, uh, it must be the drafts.”

  “Nonsense! What did you feel when you touched the casket?”

  Nevyn was watching her with such honest concern that Lilli could no longer think of him as a possible enemy.

  “Somewhat evil,” she said. “I don’t know how to describe it, my lord, but somewhat evil and foul dwells inside that thing. The princess should throw it into the sea and be rid of it. You must feel it, too. How can you let her keep it in here?”

  “The princess knows about the evil. She’s chosen to guard it rather than let it fall into the hands of those who might use it to harm the prince.”

  With a long sigh Lilli sat down on the cushioned window seat. Nevyn sat at the other end and folded his hands across his stomach.

  “I think me it’s best we be honest with each other,” he said. “About dweomer.”

  Lilli laid a hand at her throat and turned to look out. Directly across, sunny towers rose at the far side of the ward. A few mare’s-tail clouds hung against the sky, and seabirds wheeled and called.

  “I think me that you were born with a great talent for dweomer,” Nevyn said. “And then someone taught you a few tricks about using it. I’ve always felt that there must be evil magic in Dun Deverry, but truly, there’s none of that about you.”

  “I should hope not, my lord. Never did I want to work anyone harm.”

  “I can see that. When you were scrying—you must remember the night our paths crossed—when you were scrying, was someone else guiding you? Come now, lass, do tell me. It’s important for your welfare, you know. My guess is that someone was riding your will like a horse. If so, it’s dangerous and could have done you harm.”