The Red Wyvern

  Now of course her lord, his hair streaked with grey, rode grim and silent, and behind them came what of an army he and his overlord could muster.

  Along the way the entourage planned to shelter at the duns of various lords who owed men to either the tieryn or the gwerbret, but they found their plans changed for them. Their first night, when they came to the dun of a certain lord Daryl, they found it empty. Not a chicken pecked out in the ward, not a servant stood in the broch. While Daeryc and the men waited out in the ward, Bevyan followed Peddyc through rooms stripped bare.

  “They even took the furniture,” Bevyan said. “Even the bedsteads. It’ll be a long hard haul of it they’ll have, getting those all the way to Cerrmor.”

  Peddyc nodded, glancing around what had once been the lord and lady’s bedchamber. All at once he smiled, stooped, and pulled something out of a crack between two planks.

  “A silver piece,” he said, grinning. “Well, I’ll take that as tribute. Here’s one bit of coin that won’t buy a horse for the Usurper’s army.”

  Their second night on the road brought an even nastier surprise. Lord Ganedd’s dun was shut against them, the gates barred from inside. Daeryc and Peddyc sat on their horses and yelled out Ganedd’s name, but no voice ever answered. No one appeared on the walls, not even to insult the two lords. Yet the place felt alive and inhabited. In the long silences Bevyan heard the occasional dog bark or horse whinny. Once she thought she saw a face at a window, high up in the broch. When Peddyc and Daeryc rode back to their waiting entourage, they were red-faced and swearing.

  “Are they neutral, then?” Anasyn asked. “Or gone over to the Usurper?”

  “How would I know, you young dolt?” Peddyc snarled. “Oh, here, forgive me, Sanno. No use in taking this out on you.”

  When the entourage camped, out in a grassy field stripped of its cows, Bevyan had the servants build a separate fire for the womenfolk. All evening, as they sat whispering gossip and fears, they would keep looking to the men’s fire, some twenty feet away, where Peddyc and Daeryc paced back and forth, talking together with their heads bent.

  The third evening, then, they rode up to Lord Camlyn’s dun with dread as a member of their entourage, but the gates stood open, and Camlyn himself, a tall young man with a shock of red hair, came running out to the ward to greet them with four grey boarhounds barking after him. He yelled the dogs into silence, then grabbed the gwerbret’s stirrup in a show of fealty and blurted:

  “Your Grace, what greeting did you get at Ganedd’s door?”

  “A cursed poor one,” Daeryc said. “I’m glad to see you held loyal to the true king. This autumn, when we ride against Ganedd, his lands are yours.”

  At dinner that night the talk centered itself upon broken fealties—who had gone over to the Usurper, who was threatening neutrality, who was weaselling any way he could to get out of his obligations for fighting men and the provisions to feed them. Since only one honor table stood in the poverty of Camlyn’s hall, Bevyan heard it all. She shared a trencher with Camlyn’s wife, Varylla, at the foot of the table. In unspoken agreement the two women spoke little, merely listened. By the time the page poured the men mead, Gwerbret Daeryc had forgotten tact.

  “It’s the cursed Boar clan that’s the trouble,” he snarled. “Men would rally to the king, but why should they rally to the Boar?”

  “Just so,” Camlyn said. “The wars have made them rich while the rest of us—huh, we’ll be out on the roads like beggars one fine day.”

  The two men were looking at Peddyc and waiting.

  “I’ve no love for Burcan or Tibryn,” he said. “But if the king had chosen them, I’d serve in their cause.”

  “I like that if.” Daeryc paused for a careful bite of food; he could chew only on one side of his mouth, since most of his teeth were gone. “I’d do the same. If.”

  Peddyc glanced down the table and caught Bevyan’s glance. She answered the unspoken question with a small shrug. It seemed safe enough to voice their long doubts here.

  “Well,” Peddyc went on. “They say that King Daen made Burcan regent when he was dying. I wasn’t there to hear him.”

  “No more was I,” Camlyn snapped.

  “Nor I either. And with Daen’s widow such close kin to the Boar …” Daeryc let his words trail off into a swallow of mead.

  “Hogs root,” Camlyn said, seemingly absently. “If you let hogs into a field, they’ll tear it up with tusk and trotter till the grass all dies.”

  “There’s only one thing to do in that case,” Peddyc said. “And that’s turn them out of it.”

  “Only the one, truly.” Daeryc hesitated for a long time. “But you’d best have a swineherd with well-trained dogs.”

  The three men looked back and forth at one another while Bevyan felt herself turn, very slowly, as cold as if a winter wind had blown into the hall. She glanced at Varylla.

  “I should so like to see the embroideries you’ve been making,” Bevyan said. “You do such lovely work.”

  “My thanks, my lady.” Varylla allowed herself a shy smile. “If you’ll come with me to my chambers?”

  As they headed for the staircase up, Bevyan caught Peddyc’s eye. He winked at her in thanks, but his smile was forced. Why shouldn’t it be, she thought, if they’ll be talking treason?

  Late on the next day, with Lord Camlyn and his men as part of the army, Gwerbret Daeryc’s entourage came to the city, which rose high on its hills behind massive double rings of stone walls, crenellated and towered. A cobbled road led up to the main gates, ironbound and carved with the king’s blazon of the wyvern rampant. To either side honor guards in thickly embroidered shirts stood, bowing as the gwerbret and his party rode through. Yet as soon as they came inside to the city itself, the impression of splendor vanished.

  Ruins filled the space inside the walls—heaps of stone among rotting, charred timbers from the most recent siege; heaps of dirt covering stone razed long years past. Most of the remaining houses stood abandoned, with weed-choked yards and empty windows, the thatch blowing rotten through the streets. In the center of the city, though, around and between the two main hills, Bevyan did see some tenanted homes, surrounded by kitchen gardens. A few children played in the muddy lanes; more often the people she saw were old, stooped as they tended their produce or sat on a bench at their front door to watch the gwerbret’s army ride by. No one called out a greeting or a cheer. Bevyan turned in her saddle to look her husband’s way.

  “It’s even worse this summer,” she remarked. “The city I mean. It’s so desolate.”

  “Just so,” Peddyc said. “Everyone who could get out of here did.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “To kinsfolk, I suppose. The gods all know that there’s plenty of farmland lying fallow these days. Hands to work it would be welcome enough.”

  “It’s so eerie, seeing all these empty houses. There can’t be any militia left to help hold the city walls.”

  “There’s not, truly.” Peddyc looked abruptly away. “If there’s a siege this summer, we’ll have to cede the Usurper the town and hold the dun.”

  Or try to—Bevyan seemed to hear that thought hanging in the air like a rebel lord. All at once she realized that this summer could easily bring her husband’s death. She had faced widowhood for so many years that the thought merely angered rather than frightened her.

  The dun at least seemed in good repair. Through ring after ring of warding stone they rode, winding round on a spiral path to the top of the hill. A small village huddled around the final wall—the houses sheltering the king’s important servants, the blacksmiths and the like. Inside the palace ward itself Bevyan saw plenty of armed men, and these did cheer when they saw Gwerbret Daeryc and his contingent. Outside the double doors to the great hall, pages and servants stood waiting to take horses and unload carts. Bevyan waited until Peddyc had dismounted, then allowed him to help her down.

  “I have to attend upon the gwerbret,” Peddyc
said.

  “Of course, my love.” Bevyan patted his arm. “I’ve been here often enough to take care of myself and my women.”

  With a nod Peddyc strode off, yelling orders to his men. Anasyn followed his father without even a look back. Bevyan smiled—her son was growing up, all right, at home in the king’s own dun.

  “Bevva!”

  Dashing like a dog greeting its master, Lillorigga raced across the ward and flung herself into her foster-mother’s arms. Laughing, half on the edge of tears, Bevyan hugged her tight, then held her by the shoulders.

  “Let me look at you, dear,” Bevyan said. “Oh, you are so tall now! It’s so good to see you!”

  Lillorigga beamed. She was tall, yes, and far too thin, far too pale, with her long blond hair hanging limp and dead around her face. Bevyan first suspected roundworms, always a problem in a winter dun, even the king’s, but then she wondered, thinking of Lady Merodda. In the bustle of the open ward, with armed men trotting by, with servants flocking around, they could not talk openly, not even of matters of health.

  “Come with me, dear,” Bevyan said. “I’ve got to get our things into our chambers, and then we can talk.”

  At the queen’s orders, or so the servant said, Lady Bevyan and her serving woman had been given a large suite in the king’s own broch. While the servants hauled up chests and satchels, and Sarra fussed over each, Bevyan and Lilli stood by a window and looked down into the inner ward. This high up, sunlight could gain the walls and stream into the room. Lilli held her hands out to the warmth and laughed.

  “It’s been a hard winter, has it?” Bevyan said.

  “It has, truly. I’m so glad of the spring, although …” Lilli let her voice trail away.

  “Although it brings the wars again?”

  “Just that. Oh Bevva, I’m so sick of being frightened.”

  “Well, we all are, dear, but the gods will end it when they will and not before. There’s so little that we womenfolk can do.”

  Lilli turned to her with a look so furtive that Bevyan forgot what she’d been about to say.

  “Lilli, is somewhat wrong?”

  “Naught, naught.” Yet she laid a skinny hand on her pale throat.

  “You’ve been ill, haven’t you, dear?” Bevyan said.

  “A bit. I’m fine now though, truly I am.” Lilli turned her back and looked out over the chamber. “Sarra, there you are! Did you have a decent journey?”

  And what was the child hiding? Soon enough, Bevva knew, she’d unburden herself of the secret. She could wait until Lilli was ready to tell her.

  The dun, it seemed, held more than one trouble. At the evening meal in the great hall, Peddyc was seated at the king’s table as a mark of honor, while Anasyn went with a pack of unmarried lords. Bevyan and Lilli sat together at one of the tables for the noblewomen and shared a trencher, though they talked more than ate. Although the young king came down early, escorted by Regent Burcan, the queen made a much later appearance, sweeping into the hall in a crowd of young women. Queen Abrwnna was a pretty girl, about Lilli’s age, with striking green eyes and coppery hair that in the uncertain firelight shone with streaks of gold among the red. That evening it seemed the queen had been weeping; her eyes were bloodshot and her full mouth screwed up into a most decidedly unpretty scowl. As the retinue walked by on their way to the table reserved for the royal womenfolk, Bevyan noticed that one of the queen’s serving women, also young and lovely, had a scowl of her own and a rising purple bruise on the side of her face.

  “Oooh, that’s nasty,” Lilli whispered. “I take it Abrwnna found out about Galla and Lord Aedar.”

  “Some sort of love affair?”

  “Just that, and I’ll wager Abrwnna’s ever so jealous. There’s a sort of fellowship of young lords devoted to her, you see—the queen that is, not Galla. They all wear her token into battle, a bit of one of her old dresses I think it is. Anyway, she absolutely hates it when one of her serving women dallies with one of them—her sworn lords I mean.”

  Bevyan laid her table dagger down and considered the queen’s retinue, settling itself at table.

  “How interesting,” Bevyan said mildly. “How many of these lords are there?”

  “Only six. It’s ever so great an honor to be taken among them.”

  “No doubt. I do hope their devotion’s an innocent one.”

  Lilli blinked in some confusion.

  “Well,” Bevyan went on. “The king’s wife absolutely has to be above suspicion. How else will men believe that she’s carrying the true heir once she’s with child?”

  “Oh, that!” Lilli smiled, her confusion lifting. “Well, the king’s but five summers old, and he won’t be getting her with child soon anyway.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Oh.” Lilli turned solemn. “Oh, I do see what you mean.”

  During the rest of the meal, Lilli pointed out the various lords of the queen’s fellowship, all of whom were reasonably good-looking and generally wealthy. Bevyan told herself that she was turning into a small-minded old woman, but she couldn’t help but wonder about the safety of this arrangement when she saw the various lords bowing over the queen’s hand and kissing it. Upon the virtue of the queen rested the honor of the blood royal; not for her the small freedoms of other noblewomen. As the wife of a mere tieryn, Bevyan’s own rank would hardly allow her to admonish the queen. She did her best, therefore, to put the matter out of her mind.

  Toward the end of the meal, Bevyan and Lilli were sharing dried apples when a page came trotting over. He bowed low to Bevyan, then turned to Lilli.

  “Your mother wishes to see you,” he announced. “In her chambers.”

  Lilli turned dead white.

  “What’s so wrong, dear?” Bevyan said softly.

  “Oh, she’ll want to talk about my marriage.” Lilli turned anguished eyes her way. “I hate it when she does.”

  Plausible, yes, but Bevyan had fostered too many children to miss a lie when she heard one. Lilli got up and ran across the great hall. As she watched her go, Bevyan was thanking the Goddess in her heart for her decision to come to Dun Deverry.

  And yet, that evening Lilli had inadvertently spoken the truth. When she arrived at her mother’s chamber, she found both her uncles waiting. For the occasion the table had been spread with a white cloth; candles gleamed and among them stood a dented silver flagon and pottery goblets. Burcan sat across from Merodda in a cushioned chair while Gwerbret Tibryn stood by the hearth, where a small fire burned to take off the chill.

  “Come in, child.” Merodda pointed to a footstool placed near her chair. “Sit down.”

  With a curtsy to her uncles, Lilli did so. Both Burcan and Tibryn considered her for a long cold moment.

  “It’s time you married,” Merodda announced. “You’ve been out of fosterage for what? two winters now?”

  “It’s been that, Mother.”

  “Very well, then. We’ve been discussing the matter. We need to determine how best your marriage could serve the clan, you see.”

  They all seemed to be waiting for her to say something. Lilli pushed out a watery smile and clasped her hands tightly to hide their shaking. After a moment Merodda went on.

  “Your Uncle Tibryn wants to marry you to one of his allies in Cantrae, up in the Northlands. Tieryn Nantyn.”

  “He’s so old!” Lilli regretted the blurt the moment she’d said it and shrank back, expecting her mother to slap her.

  Instead, Merodda laid a warning hand on her shoulder and squeezed, but not painfully hard. Tibryn glowered, his mouth set in a thin line under his heavy moustaches.

  “Worse than that,” Burcan snarled. “He’s a brutal man who’s already buried one wife.”

  “So he did,” Tibryn said levelly. “But who’s to say he had somewhat to do with her dying? Or have you been listening to women’s gossip?” His eyes flicked to his sister and then away again.

  “And why shouldn’t she listen?” Burcan snapped. “Lilli’s
her only daughter.”

  “Your Grace?” Merodda broke in. “To have her only daughter sent so far away would grieve any woman in her old age.”

  “Oh ye gods!” Tibryn rolled his eyes to heaven. “You should have been a bard, Rhodi! The poor old woman and her daughter!”

  “Don’t be such a beast! I do want Lilli near court. You’re my elder brother and the head of our clan, but surely I’m not forbidden to speak as a mother?”

  “The gods could forbid it, and it wouldn’t keep you quiet.” Tibryn allowed himself a short bark of a laugh. “So why would you listen to a mere mortal man? Nantyn is important to me. So far all the northern lords have held loyal to us, but this talk of the Usurper’s pardons is troubling a lot of hearts.”

  “There are other ways to bind a man to his gwerbret,” Burcan said. “There’s that bit of land in dispute twixt him and me. I’ll cede it if you think it necessary.”

  Tibryn turned toward his younger brother, seemed to be about to speak, then hesitated. Burcan looked steadily back at him.

  “If the matter vexes you as much as that,” Tibryn said at last, “then very well.”

  “My thanks, Your Grace.”

  “And mine, too,” Merodda put in. She let Lilli’s shoulder go and leaned back in her chair. “My humble humble thanks.”

  Tibryn made a snorting sound, no doubt at the thought of Merodda being humble. Lilli realized that she’d been holding her breath and let it out with a small sigh.

  “Who else, then?” the gwerbret said. “If we’re not to send her off to a northern lord, where’s the best place for us to spend this coin?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Burcan said. “Perhaps it would be best to keep it in the clan. All things considered. Do you want your niece and her child held hostage one day by someone who just went over to the Usurper? Turning Lilli over might be a good way for a new man to prove his loyalty.”

  “True enough.” Tibryn paused to swear with a shake of his head. “There’s your lad Braemys.”

  “Imph, well,” Burcan said. “I was thinking about one of the conjoint lords—”