Daggerspell

  She wanted to speak, but no words came. When he misread her silence, his eyes filled with tears.

  “Done, then. It was too much to hope for.”

  The wire broke. In a rush of tears, Brangwen flung herself against him.

  “Gerro, Gerro, Gerro, you can’t die.”

  Gerraent dropped the dagger and slowly, hesitantly, put his hands on her waist, as if to shove her away, then clasped her tight in his arms.

  “Gerro, please, live for my sake.”

  “How can I? What shall I do, live hating my blood-sworn friend if you marry Blaen? Every time you looked at me, I’d know you were remembering my fault.”

  “But the clan! If you die, the clan dies with you. Ah, by the Goddess of the Moon, if you kill yourself, I might as well do the same. What else would be left for me?”

  He held her a little ways away from him, and as they looked into each other’s eyes, she felt Death standing beside her, a palpable presence.

  “Does my maidenhead mean so much to you?”

  Gerraent shrugged, refusing to answer.

  “Then you might as well take it. You wouldn’t force me for it, so I’ll give it to you.”

  He stared at her like a drunken man. Brangwen wondered why he couldn’t see what was so clear to her: if they were doomed, they might as well live an hour longer in each other’s arms. She put her hands alongside his face and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands dug into her shoulders so tightly that it hurt, but she let him kiss her again. As his passion for her flared, it was frightening, wrapping her round, catching her up like a branch in a fire. When she let herself go limp in his arms, Brangwen felt more like a priestess in a rite than a lover. She felt nothing but the force of him, the solid weight of him, her mind so far away that she felt she was watching their love-making in a dream.

  When they finished, he lay next to her and pillowed his head on her naked breasts, his mouth moving on her skin, a gentle, nuzzling kiss of gratitude. She ran her fingers through his hair and thought of the dagger lying ready for them. I never wanted to die a maid, she thought, and who better than Gerro? He raised his head and smiled at her, a soft drunken smile of pleasure and love.

  “Are you going to kill me now?” Brangwen said.

  “Why? Not yet, my love, not after this. There’ll be time enough later for the pair of us to die. I know we will, and the gods know it, too, and that’s enough for them. We’ll have our summer first.”

  Brangwen looked up at the sky, a pure blue, glittering like a fiery reproach from the gods. Her hand groped for the dagger.

  “Not yet!”

  Gerraent caught her wrist, those heavy calloused hands circling it, mastering her, grabbing the dagger away. He sat up and threw it. It glittered through the air and plunged into the stream. Brangwen thought of protesting, but his beauty caught her, a cruel flaming beauty like the angry sun. He ran his hand down her body, then lay down beside her and kissed her. This time she felt her desire rise to match his, a bittersweet lust, born of despair.

  When they rode home that evening, Brangwen was surprised that everyone treated them so normally and easily. She was expecting that everyone would see if not their dishonor then at least their coming death, as if death should cast a glow around them that could be seen for miles. But Brythu merely took their horses and bowed; the chamberlain came hurrying over to Gerraent with some tedious news from the village; Ludda met Brangwen and asked if she should set the kitchen maid to laying the table. The evening turned so normal that Brangwen wanted to scream.

  After the meal, the servants settled in at their hearth and Gerraent, with a tankard in his hand, at his. The great hall was dark except for the crossed and battling glows from the two small fires. Brangwen watched her brother’s shadowed face and wondered if he was happy. She hardly knew what she felt. For the past year, she’d been readying herself for marriage, when she would swear an oath to her husband and bind herself under his will. Instead, she’d sworn a blood oath, giving up her will to a pledge of death. There was nothing left but to center herself on Gerraent, her first man, her brother, just as she’d planned to do with her prince. Until she let Gerraent slit her throat, she would serve him as her lord. The decision gave her a precarious peace, as if she had closed a door in her mind on the tragedy of the past. Galrion was gone, and all the promise he’d held out of a different kind of life.

  “Gerro? What are you thinking about?”

  “That rebellion. If there’s a war this summer, I won’t go, I promise you that—I’ll find a way out.”

  Brangwen smiled, her heart bursting with love. He was making the biggest sacrifice a man like him could, giving up his glory to live with her in the summer and die with her in the fall.

  Brangwen would have liked to have slept in his bed, as was her place, but it was of course far too risky with so many servants in the dun. If the priests in the village ever learned of their evil, they would come tear them apart. Often, over the next few weeks, they rode out together to lie down in the soft grass. Wrapped in his arms, Brangwen could think of Gerraent as her husband. Her calm continued, as fair as the weather, summer day after summer day slipping by, like water in a full stream, silent, smooth as glass, glistening. Nothing could disturb her calm, not even her occasional thought of Ysolla, whose betrothed she had taken away. At first, it seemed that Gerraent, too, was happy, but slowly his brooding and his rages returned.

  Gerraent was growing more and more like their father, dark as a storm when he was idle, glowering into the fire and pacing restlessly around the ward. One evening, when Brythu brought him ale, the lad slipped and spilled it. Gerraent swung and slapped him so hard that the lad fell to his knees.

  “You clumsy little bastard.”

  As the lad cowered back, Gerraent’s hand went to his dagger almost of its own will. Brangwen threw herself in between them.

  “Hold your hand, Gerro! You’ll be weeping with remorse not five minutes later if you hurt the lad.”

  Sobbing, Brythu fled the hall. Brangwen saw the rest of the servants watching with pale faces and terrified eyes. She grabbed Gerraent by the shoulders and shook him hard.

  “Oh, by the hells,” Gerraent said. “My thanks.”

  Brangwen fetched him more ale herself, then went out to the stable, where, as she expected, she found Brythu weeping in the hay loft. She hung her candle lantern on a nail in the wall, then sat down and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was only twelve, a skinny little thing for his age.

  “Here, here,” Brangwen said. “Let me have a look.”

  Brythu wiped the tears away on his sleeve and turned his face up to her. An ugly red puff was swelling on his cheek, but his eye was unharmed.

  “Lord Gerraent’s sorry already. He won’t do this again.”

  “My thanks, my lady,” Brythu stammered. “What’s so wrong with Lord Gerraent these days?”

  “He’s half mad from mourning his father, that’s all.”

  Brythu considered, touching the swelling on his cheek.

  “He would have killed me if it wasn’t for you. If ever you want me to do anything for you, I swear I will.”

  Late that night, when everyone was asleep, Brangwen crept out of her chamber and went to Gerraent, who was sleeping in their father’s room and in their father’s bed—the great carved bedstead with embroidered hangings, marked with falcons and the privilege of the head of the clan. She slipped in beside him, kissed him awake, and let him take her for the sake of peace in the house. Afterward, when he lay drowsy in her arms, every muscle at ease, she felt for the first time the one power allowed to her as a woman, to use her beauty and her body to bring her man to the place where he would listen to her instead of only to his whims. It would have been different with my prince, she thought. Tears ran down her cheeks, mercifully hidden from her brother by the darkness.

  Though Brangwen was careful to leave his bed and return to her own, that next morning she had her first intimation that the rest of the household was beg
inning to suspect. The men seemed utterly unaware, but at times Brangwen caught Ludda watching her with a frightened wondering in her eyes. Brangwen took Gerraent aside and told him to go hunting and leave her alone.

  Over the next few days, he ignored her for long hours at a time, going hunting or riding round the demesne; he even began talking of visiting Madoc or Blaen. But always she felt him watching her whenever they were in the same room, as if he were guarding her like a treasure. Although she tried to put him off, finally he insisted that she ride with him into the hills.

  That afternoon they found a copse of willows for their lovemaking. She had never seen him so passionate, making love to her as if every time he had her made him want her more rather than satisfying him. Afterward, he fell asleep in her arms. She stroked his hair and held him, but she felt weary, so tired that she wanted to sink into the earth and never see the sky again. When Gerraent woke, he sat up, stretching, smiling at her. Beside him, tangled in his clothes, lay his dagger.

  “Gerro, kill me now.”

  “I won’t. Not yet.”

  All at once, Brangwen knew it was time to die, that they had to die now, this very afternoon. She sat up and grabbed his arm.

  “Kill me now. I beg you.”

  Gerraent slapped her across the face, the first blow he’d ever given her. When she began to cry, he flung his arms around her, kissed her, and begged her to forgive him. She did forgive him, simply because she had no choice—he was more than her whole life; he was her death as well. All during the ride home, she felt her urgency ache her: they should be dead. When they rode into the ward, she saw horses tied up outside. Lord Blaen had come to visit.

  Blaen stayed for three days, hunting with Gerraent, while Brangwen crept round and tried to avoid them both. Only once did she have to talk with Blaen alone, and then he held to his pledge and said not one word about marriage.

  On his last night there, however, he begged her to stay at the table after dinner. Gerraent brooded, staring into the fire and drinking as steadily as if he’d forgotten they had a guest. When Blaen started talking to Brangwen about his mother, she could only listen miserably, hardly able to answer, because she was wondering what Rodda would say when she learned the truth. Apparently Blaen misread her silence.

  “Now, here, my lady,” Blaen said. “I promised you that I’d never even speak of marriage till the spring, and I keep my word.”

  “What’s this?” Gerraent swiveled round in his chair.

  “I’ve spoken to you before about paying court to your sister.”

  “So you have,” Gerraent said, smiling. “I’ve made her a promise, you see. I told her that I’d never make her marry unless she chooses to.”

  “Indeed? Even if she stays under your roof all her life?”

  “Just that.”

  Blaen hesitated, his eyes darkening.

  “Well, my lady,” he said to Brangwen. “You’re lucky in your brother, aren’t you?”

  “I think so. I honor him.”

  Blaen smiled, but all at once, Brangwen was frightened. The glow from the smoky fire danced, but it seemed to her that the fire came from Gerraent, as if long tendrils of flame were reaching out for Blaen against all their wills.

  With summer at its height, the sun lay hot along the dusty road, its light as gold as the grain ripening in the fields. Nevyn, who had once been Prince Galrion, led a pack mule laden with baled herbs across the border of the Falcon lands. As he walked, he kept a constant lookout for Gerraent, who might well be riding his roads. Nevyn doubted if anyone else would recognize the prince in this dusty peddler with his shabby clothes, shaggy hair, and old mule. He was learning that a man could be invisible without mighty dweomer-workings merely by acting in unexpected ways in unexpected places. No one would expect the prince to dare come near the Falcon again.

  When he came to the village, Nevyn even risked buying a tankard of ale from the tavernman, who barely glanced his way after he’d taken his copper. Nevyn sat in the corner near an old woman and asked her foolish questions about the countryside, as if he’d traveled from far away. When he left, no one even noticed him go.

  It was toward evening when he reached his destination, a wooden hut on the edge of the wild forest. Out in front, two goats were grazing on the stubby grass, while Ynna sat on her stoop and watched them, an old woman, thin as a stick, with long twiglike fingers, gnarled from her long years of hard work. Her white hair was carelessly caught up in a dirty scarf. An herbwoman and midwife, she was thought by some folk to be a witch, but in truth, she merely loved her solitude.

  “Good morrow, lad,” Ynna said. “Looks like old Rhegor’s sent me a pretty thing or two.”

  “He has. This supply should last you through the winter.”

  Nevyn unloaded the mule and carried the herbs inside, then watered the animal and sent it out to graze with the goats. He came back to the hut to find Ynna laying bread and cheese on her small unsteady table. When she handed him a wooden cup of water and told him to set to, Nevyn dug in, spreading the soft pungent goat’s cheese on the dark bread. Ynna nibbled a bit of bread and studied him so curiously that Nevyn wondered if she knew he’d once been the prince.

  “It’s wearisome, having old Rhegor gone from this part of the forest,” Ynna said. “And so sudden it was, him coming by one day to tell me he was going. Has he ever told you why?”

  “Well, good dame, I do what my master says and hold my tongue.”

  “Always best with a strange one like our Rhegor. Well, if he sends you to me with herbs every now and then, I’ll manage.”

  Ynna cut a few more slices from the loaf and laid them on Nevyn’s plate.

  “I miss Rhegor, though. I could always count on his counsel, like, when there was some troubling thing.”

  Nevyn felt the dweomer-warning down his back.

  “And how fares Lord Gerraent these days?”

  “You’re almost as sharp as your master, aren’t you, lad? Well, here, tell Rhegor this tale for me. He always kept an eye, like, on poor little Brangwen.”

  “Did he, now? I never knew that.”

  “Oh, truly, he did, just from a fatherly distance, like. So tell him about this. About a month ago, it was, the page up at the dun got a bit of fever, and a stubborn thing it was. I must have been back there five times before the lad was right again. And Lord Gerraent gives me a joint of venison for it. He says, do you have an herb to take madness away, Ynna? He was jesting, I suppose, but he smiled so coldlike it troubled my heart. And then the last time I went up the hill, I see Gerraent sobbing on his father’s grave.”

  “You can rest assured I’ll tell Rhegor about it. How does Brangwen fare, shut up with a man like that?”

  “Now, there’s the strangest thing of all. You think she’d be heartsick, but she goes around like a woman in a dream. I’ve never seen the lass look so broodylike. I’d say she was with child, but whose would it be? She’s just as broody as if her belly was swelling, but that betrothed of hers has been gone too long now. Well, tell Rhegor for me.”

  On the ride home, Nevyn pushed the balky mule as fast as it would go, but it still took him over two days to reach his new home. Up in the wild forest north of the Boar’s demesne, Nevyn and Rhegor had cleared a good space of land near a creek. They’d used the logs to build a round house and the land to plant beans, turnips, and suchlike. Because Rhegor’s reputation as a healer moved north with him, they had plenty of food and even a few coins, since farmers and bondsmen alike were willing to pay with chickens and cheese for Rhegor’s herbs. Now, when it was too late, Nevyn clearly saw that he and Brangwen would have had a comfortable if spare life in the forest. If only you hadn’t been such a dolt, Nevyn cursed himself, such a stupid fool!

  Rhegor was out in front of the house, treating the running eye of a little boy while the mother squatted nearby. From her ragged brown tunic, Nevyn saw that she was a bondwoman, her thin face utterly blank, as if she hardly cared whether the lad was cured or not, even though
she’d brought him all this way. On her face was her brand, the old scar pale on dirty skin. Although he was barely three, the lad was already branded, too, marked out as Lord Blaen’s property for the rest of his life. Rhegor stood the lad on a tree stump and wiped the infected eye with a bit of rag dipped in herbal salve.

  Nevyn went to stable the mule alongside the bay gelding. When he came back, the bondwoman looked at him with feigned disinterest. Even from ten feet away he could smell her unwashed flesh and rags. Rhegor called her over, gave her a pot of salve, and told her how to apply it. She listened, her face showing a brief flicker of hope.

  “I can’t pay you much, my lord,” she said. “I brought some of the first apples.”

  “You and the lad eat those on your way home.”

  “My thanks.” She stared at the ground. “I heard you tended poor folk, but I didn’t believe it at first.”

  “It’s true. Spread the tale around.”

  “I was so frightened.” She went on staring at the ground. “If the lad went blind, they’d kill him because he couldn’t work.”

  “What?” Nevyn broke in. “Lord Blaen would never do such a thing.”

  “Lord Blaen?” She looked up with a faint smile. “Well, so he wouldn’t. How would he even know we’re alive to be killed? His overseer, my lord, that’s who’d do it.”

  Nevyn supposed that she spoke the cold truth. As the prince, he’d given less thought to bondmen than to horses. Rhegor was making him see a different world.

  Once the woman went on her way, Rhegor and Nevyn went inside their cabin, a single light, airy room, scented with new-cut pine. They had a scattering of cast-off furniture from grateful farmers: a table, a bench, a freestanding cabinet to hold cookware. On one wall was the half-finished hearth Nevyn was building as his share of the summer’s work. Nevyn dipped them ale from a barrel, then brought the dented tankards over to join Rhegor at the table.

  “And how was the journey?” Rhegor said. “How fares old Ynna?”

  “Well enough, my lord. But she told me a strange tale about the Falcon. Ah, ye gods, my poor Brangwen! I truly wish you’d done what my father would have—beaten me half to death for my fault!”