The Black Raven

  “Armed men riding!” he bellowed. “Ware!”

  In the dodgy light he could see mounted riders turning off the road. They charged across the meadow straight for the horses. Branoic had one dreadful moment to realize that while the Cantrae men were fully armed, he was one of the few men wearing his mail in the entire army. He sheathed his sword and grabbed Maryn by the arm.

  “Your Highness! I’m getting you out of here!”

  “Don’t you—get your hands off me!”

  Branoic ignored him and yanked him back. Although Maryn was no weakling, few men could argue with Branoic when it came to brute strength. Branoic threw both arms around the prince from behind, clasped him in an unbreakable grip, and began frog-marching him back toward the tents while the prince yelled and swore and cursed him with everything foul he could think of. Behind them they heard a roar and shouting, men screaming, horses neighing and shrieking, and the unmistakable sound of metal clashing with metal.

  “Good lad!” It was Nevyn, running toward him. “Owaen’s right behind me.”

  Owaen and twenty silver daggers as well—they poured around Branoic and the struggling prince like water round a stone. Branoic felt in his heart that they were all doomed. In this sort of surprise attack their superior numbers meant little. Nevyn reappeared with the prince’s mail. The men passed it back, and Branoic helped Maryn get it on and laced. Maddyn raced up, his arms full of shields. In the confusion Maryn ended up with a shield bearing the blue device of Glasloc, but no one bothered to change it.

  As the fighting in the meadow raged on, more men came running from the tents, some fully dressed and armed, others half-naked and barefoot, waving their weapons as they ran. Owaen began commandeering the battle-ready men to make a stand around their prince. Grimly they fell into position in the living wall.

  “For the gods’ sakes!” Maryn snapped. “I can’t stand here forever. We’ve got to get to the fighting.”

  Owaen considered, then nodded.

  “Formation round the prince!” Owaen yelled. “Then march!”

  Like a ragged animal with too many legs, they headed for the battle. They had just reached the edge of camp when Branoic spotted Nevyn again. The old man was standing among the last row of tents with his arms held high over his head as if he were waiting for someone to throw him something from above. Branoic stared, wondering if Nevyn had gone daft, but a sudden shout and a flare of light from the battle distracted him.

  On the far side of the yelling, neighing mob of men and horses in the meadow, a line of horsemen was trotting purposefully along, wheeling around the edge of the field and heading for the tents. Each carried a flaming torch.

  “May the gods rot their balls!” Owaen snarled. “They’re going to fire the camp!”

  “We’ve got to stop them,” Maryn shouted. “Form up and we’ll make a stand.”

  Maryn broke free of his guards and started running to meet the oncoming charge. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Branoic took out after him. He could hear Owaen swearing and the rest of their pack pounding along behind. The light from the torches flared, and he could see the Boar blazon on the horsemen’s shields—and they must have seen the shield Maryn was carrying and its Glasloc device. The leader of the torchbearers was yelling out commands, a young man whose voice cracked with excitement.

  “Swing around, lads, swing around! Get the tents! Don’t stop to fight!”

  Braemys’s very cleverness cost him the chance to kill Maryn and gain a throne. The line of torchbearers swung their horses’s heads around and bypassed the prince’s ragged, half-armed line. Maryn and his men turned to follow them just as thunder boomed from the clear sky above. Or not so clear now—Branoic glanced up and saw clouds racing in from only the gods knew where. Prince Maryn threw his head back and howled with berserk laughter. The thunder crashed again, rolling around the battlefield.

  “There wasn’t any lightning!” Branoic yelled.

  For an answer Maryn went on laughing, half-choking, half-screaming with it. The torchbearers were shouting and reining in their spooked horses just a bare hundred yards from the first line of tents. Branoic could hear their leader screaming in rage. All at once rain poured from the massive clouds, a deluge as solid as if the gods had emptied giant buckets onto the earth below. The torches went out. Yelling in rage and frustration the horsemen turned and swept back into the battlefield, but Branoic could hear silver horns crying out through the rain as the Boar sounded the retreat.

  All at once lightning did flash, and in the brief glare Branoic could see that the battle on the meadow was disintegrating into chaos. The prince’s forces were falling back toward camp. The Boarsmen were galloping away northward. The lightning flashed down and struck the road behind them, as if the gods were ordering them to keep riding. They did. Maryn had stopped his berserk laughter and stood panting for breath.

  “Surround the prince,” Owaen called out. “Let’s get him back to camp.”

  Slipping in the sudden mud, the clumsy formation staggered back to the tents. The rain slacked, and when Branoic looked up, he saw the clouds scudding away before a fast wind. In the east the sky was turning the color of steel. He’d never been so glad to see a sunrise in his life. Nevyn trotted up and fell in beside the prince.

  “My thanks,” Maryn said.

  “Most welcome,” Nevyn said casually. “And from now on I think I’d best do a little scrying every night. Those blasted Boars caught me off guard.”

  It took the army the entire day to get itself ordered. All morning soldiers carried a steady procession of the wounded over to the wagons where the chirurgeons had set up an improvised surgery. Without armor of any kind, the men had sustained some of the ugliest stabs and tears that Nevyn, or any of the other physicians, had ever seen. Most of the badly wounded died under their hands. No wounded Cantrae men found on the field lived to reach the chirurgeons.

  When the sun had reached its height, Nevyn poured a couple of buckets of water over himself to clean up and returned to the prince’s side to find Maryn holding a council of sorts. Various lords would hurry up to him and recount their losses or tell him how the horse hunt was going. They had detailed most of their riders to go out and search for the lost mounts; some had been found, and others over the course of the day returned voluntarily to their herd. Still, several hundred head of battle-ready mounts were gone—and doubtless in Cantrae hands.

  By late afternoon Nevyn and Maryn managed to sort out what had happened. Braemys’s men had crept up on the outer ring of guards and murdered them where they stood. They then had slipped in among the horses to cut tethers before the main body of Cantrae men charged the sleeping camp. If Branoic hadn’t chanced to see them and give the alarum early, Braemys might well have ridden straight through the camp and managed to kill an unarmed Prince Maryn or at the least trampled a good many of his vassals. Their tents and food would have gone up in flames as well.

  “Slimy little cub!” Tieryn Gauryc snapped. “A coward and the son of a pig, all right.”

  The other lords in council nodded their agreement.

  “Tonight we put up double rings of guards,” Maryn said. “And when we march tomorrow, we put men at point and off to our flanks. We’d best dispose guards along the supply train, as well.”

  No one argued with him.

  That night passed without any further attacks, and in the morning the army set off even more slowly than before, what with all the extra scouts to come and go from the main line of march and the wounded men to nurse along. Despite the banners and the show of force, every man in the army knew that they were crawling for home, and that against all odds and despite the dweomer on their side, Braemys had scored a victory.

  Since the prince sent messengers on ahead to announce his return, those left behind turned out to cheer him on the day that he marched home. His men swarmed the walls, the main wards, even the road leading uphill to the broch so thickly that Lilli went upstairs in one of the side towers rather tha
n fight for a place. She found a window that gave her a good view down into the main ward. She had just perched on the wide stone sill when she heard the distant shouting that meant the prince was arriving. She leaned out at a dangerous angle to watch the army climbing the hill.

  Just behind the banners she could make out Prince Maryn, riding unhelmed, with his golden hair gleaming in the sunlight. Her heart pounded just at this distant sight of him, but then she spotted Nevyn, riding alongside like a warning. Behind them came the silver daggers. Even in the middle of the troop Branoic stood out because of his height. She realized that he was looking up, studying the windows above him as if he were hoping to see a particular someone. As the troop filed into the main ward, she leaned out a little farther.

  “Branoic!” she called out. “Branno!”

  With a laugh he waved at her, and she waved back. Perhaps the prince would notice and realize that she wasn’t lacking in suitors. She left the window and hurried down to the main ward, a thundering confusion of men and horses. It took her some while to make her way across. In the great hall Nevyn was nowhere to be seen, but a page had heard him remark that he was going to his chamber.

  “More stairs!” Lilli said. “I don’t know why he had to pick the highest chamber in the whole wretched palace!”

  By the time she reached his door, Lilli was gasping for breath. Nevyn opened it before she knocked, and ushered her in.

  “Sit down,” he said. “It gladdens my heart to see you, but there was no need to run all the way here.”

  “I didn’t,” Lilli gasped. “Took my time.”

  She sat on the offered chair and let herself simply breathe. Nevyn cocked his head to one side and considered her with eyes that seemed oddly out of focus. After a moment he glanced away, back to normal.

  “This illness is beginning to worry me,” Nevyn said.

  “But I’ve not been ill.”

  “You may not have been aware of it, but you were and are. I’m glad I’m back.”

  “Well, so am I. Which reminds me.” Lilli reached into her kirtle and brought out a silver message tube. “While you were gone, my lord, a messenger brought you a letter from the princess’s women.” Lilli handed it over. “He gave it to me for safekeeping.”

  “My thanks.” Nevyn cracked the wax seal and slid the rolled parchment out. “I hope this isn’t the news I’ve been dreading.”

  Yet on the outermost bit of the roll Lilli saw the words, “a return of her old trouble.” Swearing under his breath, Nevyn smoothed the parchment out and read it silently—a great marvel in those days, for someone to read without speaking each word to hear its meaning.

  “Bad news indeed,” Nevyn said at last. “It’s the madness again. From childbirth, I mean—her mother was prone to this as well, from what the servants told me. It’s a terrible sadness that overwhelms her rational faculties. Have you ever seen this disease?”

  “I have,” Lilli said. “One of the women here in the dun got that way with her first baby. Bevva told me it was vapors from the womb.”

  “Precisely. In time they dissipate of their own accord, and a good thing, too, because I’ve never found the cure, not in books nor from midwives.”

  “Will we go back to Cerrmor to care for her?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on when the prince summons her here.”

  “Of course. I’d forgotten that.”

  Lilli knew that he was studying her, waiting to see how she would take the news that Bellyra would someday join her husband. Lilli got up, casually she hoped, and began to straighten the clutter on his table—parchments, dirty cups, magical diagrams, little cloth sacks of herbs, and books, all jumbled together.

  “Naught else of import happened while you were gone,” she said. She was pleased that her voice sounded steady. “I was ever so glad to see Branoic safe.”

  “Good. We had entirely too much excitement one night, but doubtless he’ll want to tell you about it himself. He saved the prince’s life.”

  “He did? How splendid!”

  “It was. Tell me somewhat, Lilli. Did you know Braemys well?”

  “I did when he was a child, but once he went back to his father I barely saw him.”

  “I see. When he was a lad, did he impress people as being quite clever?”

  “Oh, he did, truly. I remember him beating everyone at games like carnoic and gwyddbwcl, and he was always leading the other boys in mock battles and suchlike. Everyone said that it was a pity he wouldn’t inherit Cantrae instead of Uncle Tibryn’s son.”

  “I see. Life would be much simpler if only he were stupid.”

  After Nevyn gave her leave to go, Lilli sought out Branoic and found him in the great hall, sitting with Maddyn and a few other silver daggers on the riders’ side of the room. The men from the various warbands filled the tables around him, and they were drinking heavily, teasing the servant girls who were trying to bring them ale and bread. Lilli had no desire to walk through the mob, nor did she want to ask a page to take him a message, not here where half the people in the dun could see. As she stood by the honor hearth, debating what to do, Branoic solved the problem by looking up and seeing her. He stood, waved at her, and came trotting over.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Branoic said.

  “And it gladdens my heart to see you safe,” Lilli said. “Old Nevyn told me an interesting thing about you, just now.”

  “Oh, did he? What?”

  “That your quick thinking saved our prince’s life.”

  Branoic looked modestly down at the floor.

  “Ah well,” he said at last. “I did naught that any other man wouldn’t have done.”

  “Truly?”

  He shrugged and sat on the bench. Lilli glanced around and realized that Maryn and his retinue were coming down the staircase.

  “Somewhat like that deserves a reward,” Lilli said. She leaned over and kissed Branoic on the cheek.

  “I’ll take that for a reward over any favor of princes or priests,” he said, smiling. “My thanks, my lady.”

  Lilli sat down next to him but a decorous distance away. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of Maryn, walking across the great hall with Nevyn while pages trailed along behind. If Maryn had seen the kiss, he showed no sign of caring one way or the other. The two men sat down at the honor table some distance away, well out of earshot. She turned her attention resolutely to Branoic.

  “You must tell me about the battle,” Lilli said. “Nevyn didn’t tell me much.”

  “Well, the details aren’t fit for your ears, my lady. Our prince acquitted himself well, though. Maybe a little too well. All I really did was keep him from making some kind of hopeless charge into the thick of the enemy.”

  “Well, tell me about it!”

  Branoic rolled his eyes heavenward, but tell her he did, though she knew he was leaving out a fair bit of mayhem. Speaking of their prince together was oddly satisfying, she realized. Branoic could show her the part of Maryn’s life that otherwise she wouldn’t see, and it was fascinating. Now and then she’d glance up, but she looked directly only at Nevyn, who smiled at her in approval. Yet always she was aware of the prince, sitting at his distance, like a fire blazing with warmth felt halfway across a room.

  After the evening meal in the great hall, Nevyn retired to his chamber. He lit candles, then laid a leather-bound book, as tall as his forearm, on the table. Although he’d owned this book for many years, it had only recently returned to him after spending some time in the hands of a thief, and he couldn’t remember if it held the information he wanted or not. He had just found a page listing the various kinds of spirits when he heard someone coming up the stairs with a tread far too heavy to belong to Lilli.

  “My lord Nevyn!” It was Oggyn’s voice, puffing from the climb. “Nevyn, are you in?”

  “I am.” Nevyn laid in a scrap of cloth to keep his place, then closed the book. “I’m on my way.”

  Nevyn got up and opened the door to find a w
inded Oggyn, his arms full of parchments. In the dim light spilling out of the chamber, he looked terrified.

  “What’s so wrong?” Nevyn said.

  “A private word with you, if I may. Somewhat’s very wrong indeed.”

  Nevyn ushered him inside. Oggyn dumped his parchments onto the table and sank onto the only chair. He pulled a rag out of his pocket and mopped the sweat from his bald scalp. Nevyn sat down opposite on the edge of his bed.

  “Whilst you were gone, I rode around the royal demesnes to draw up my lists, just as I’d planned.” Oggyn waved at the heap on the table. “I made some very unpleasant discoveries. As soon as he gives up Cerrmor, our liege is going to be a poor man.”

  “Oh ye gods.” Nevyn felt as if he’d been slapped awake. “I should have realized! After all these years of war—”

  “Precisely, and it was the territory around Dun Deverry that bore the worst of the fighting. I mean, by the Lord of Hell’s balls, look at the city! Well, the royal farmlands are in much the same condition.”

  “But we’ve passed prosperous—looking—”

  “Those all belong to the priesthood of Bel.” Oggyn paused, scowling within his black beard. “No one was going to risk the wrath of the gods by overrunning them, were they? Over the years the Boars wangled plenty of favors from the priests, and their rewards always came out of the king’s lands, not theirs.”

  Nevyn swore like a silver dagger about the personal habits of the Boar clan. Oggyn nodded in vigorous approval.

  “We’ve been wondering, you and I,” Oggyn went on, “just how the Boars got such an upper hand over the kings. Well, now we know. The kings needed them, Nevyn, needed them desperately. By the end, the royal house couldn’t have been able to raise and feed more than a hundred men from their own holdings.”

  Nevyn found he couldn’t even swear. Oggyn mopped his head one last time and stuffed the rag back into his pocket.

  “Have you spoken to our liege about this?” Nevyn said at last.

  “I’ve not. I wanted to consult with you first. You’re the man who knows the priests. I was wondering, is there any chance they’d turn some of that land back over to the royal line?”