The Black Raven

  “On the same day that horses sprout wings and fly.”

  “I feared that, truly. Ah ye gods, I don’t know what we’re going to do! Our prince is going to be at the mercy of his vassals now, just like Olaen was. Whoever holds the Cerrmor rhan is going to hold a knife at Maryn’s throat.”

  For some while they sat without speaking, watching the candle-thrown shadows dance over the walls. Nevyn could see all his schemes, his hopes, his long campaign to end the wars crumble like a lump of sand on the Cerrmor beach, washed out on a tide of ambition and arrogance. The ocean, indeed, and all those merchant taxes and dues that had made Cerrmor and its gwerbret both rich—

  “Oh ye gods!” Nevyn said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “I don’t,” Oggyn said gloomily. “I know my place, my lord. I can see the little things, how they lie close at hand, but the long view escapes me.”

  Only then did Nevyn realize how frightened Oggyn truly was, that he’d be so honest to a man he saw as a rival.

  “Well, this may not work,” Nevyn said. “But what if Cerrmor and its attendant lands remained in the prince’s control?”

  “It would save the entire situation. He’d have eight hundred riders of his own and the contingent of spearmen as well, though truly, I think me the town will balk at such a large levy once the wars are done.”

  “What if the levy made them a free city for a hundred years and a day?”

  Oggyn’s smile shone like the sun through storm clouds.

  “I thought so,” Nevyn went on. “Now listen, I don’t know if we can bring this off, but if we can, it will catch a pair of rabbits in one snare. Maryn will be free of the burden of apportioning the rhan to someone, thereby disappointing everyone else, and he’ll have troops sworn to him alone. The taxes due him from the merchant trade will support those riders, while the town can easily outfit the spearmen from what they save in gwerbretal dues and have a good bit left over.”

  Oggyn nodded and went on smiling.

  “First things first,” Nevyn said. “You’re an important man in Cerrmor. Can you get the town council to agree to such a scheme?”

  “My dear Nevyn, an idiot child could get the council to agree to this! They’ll be free of one entire set of taxes and so will their children and grandchildren. There’s going to be grumbling from the noble-born, though.”

  “Grumbling is a mild word for it. Especially the circle around Gauryc. I don’t want them pulling out of the alliance.”

  “I was worrying about them, truly. Gauryc’s been sidling up to me, flattering and suchlike, just because I have the ear of the prince.”

  “Truly?” Nevyn made a great effort and managed to look surprised.

  “Truly. A sad sad thing! But here, I just had another thought. Once he gets rid of Braemys, the prince will have Cantrae to hand out for a prize. It’s not as rich as Cerrmor, but it’ll be a goodly sop nonetheless.”

  “Just so.”

  “One last thing.” Oggyn hesitated, staring down at the table. “What will our prince think of breaking precedents and precedence this way?”

  “I think we’d best go ask him.”

  Prince Maryn, it turned out, had already retired to his private chambers. Since Nevyn was one of the few men in the kingdom who could follow him there, he got a candle lantern and led the way, with a nervous Oggyn trailing behind him. Maryn greeted them both courteously and ushered them into his reception chamber, now free of most of the battered furniture. A low fire smoldered in the hearth, and candles blazed in their wall sconces.

  “I was tired of the noise in the great hall,” Maryn said. “This business of not sleeping all night—it wears a man down.”

  “My apologies, my liege,” Nevyn said, “if we woke you.”

  “No such luck. Be seated, good councillors.”

  Maryn flopped into a half-round chair and slouched down, crossing his long legs in front of him at the ankle. In the candlelight his skin looked as smooth as a child’s, and Nevyn found himself remembering that handsome little boy of years past, who had been so eager to be king.

  “Oggyn?” Nevyn said. “I suggest you lay your findings before our prince.”

  Oggyn explained, with much flapping of parchments, the poverty of Maryn’s new realm. Maryn listened intently, but his face was absolutely unreadable, and he said not a word, not even when Oggyn read off the dismal lists of burnt villages and unplowed fields. When Oggyn fell silent, Nevyn laid out their plan to grant Cerrmor a limited charter in return for revenues. He’d not quite finished when the prince interrupted.

  “I can’t do that,” Maryn snapped. “What will happen when the hundred years are over and the town refuses to accept a gwerbret?”

  “My liege!” Oggyn said. “None of us will be alive in a hundred years.”

  “So?” Maryn got to his feet and began pacing back and forth by the fire. “That’s not the point. It’s the honor of the thing.”

  Since the prince was standing, Nevyn and Oggyn had to stand as well. Oggyn laid his parchments down carefully on a table and tried again.

  “My liege, do you disagree with my words about the state of affairs here in Dun Deverry?”

  “Not at all,” Maryn said. “I meant to commend you on your hard work, in fact. There’s no doubt it’s worrisome, but by Great Bel himself, how can I release Cerrmor from the dues it owes its rightful lords?”

  “Once you’re seated as king, my liege,” Nevyn said, “Cerrmor will have no rightful lord.”

  “Oh come now!” Maryn stopped pacing and turned to face him. “Aren’t you the one who taught me how important order and the laws and honor and such are to the kingdom? There have always been gwerbretion in Cerrmor. That’s the way the gods and the laws both intend the city to be ruled. How can I take my place as high king if I overthrow those laws, even to—” Maryn hesitated for a long moment. “Even to save my rule?”

  “There are times,” Nevyn said, “when a man must break the words of laws in order to honor their spirit. If the kingdom’s to have peace, there absolutely must be strong kings in Dun Deverry.”

  “Well then! How can my vassals respect me if I’ve thrown Cerrmor to the common folk?”

  At that point Nevyn realized that he would never change the prince’s mind, not if he argued the entire winter through. He glanced at Oggyn, standing head down and defeated nearby.

  “Our liege has spoken,” Nevyn said. “Good Councillor, I think we’d best come up with some other remedy.”

  “Just so.” Oggyn made the prince a low bow. “If Your Highness will excuse us?”

  “Of course. And please understand that I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.”

  “My prince?” Nevyn said. “A boon, if I may be so bold.”

  “When couldn’t you ask me for anything?”

  “My thanks. Your silence on this matter is absolutely necessary until your councillors find a solution.”

  “That I can promise you.”

  “Splendid! And my thanks yet once again.”

  Maryn crossed to a window and stood staring out at the night whilst Oggyn, with Nevyn’s help, gathered up his parchments. They let themselves out, shut the heavy door carefully, and stood staring at each other by the light of Nevyn’s lantern.

  “Stubborn mule of a man!” Nevyn whispered. “I wish he were still a lad so I could give him a good clout. Knock some sense into him!”

  “But he’s not.” Oggyn too kept his voice barely audible. “Shall we retire and discuss this further?”

  To spare Oggyn the stairs they went to the quarters he, as chamberlain, had assigned himself, a pair of large rooms that during the day would be sunny and cheerful. During the leisurely sack of the dun after the siege, Oggyn had acquired some of the best chairs, the newest cushions, and a selection of tapestries that were if not splendid then at least less threadbare than most. On his mantel sat a small silver wyvern and a silver flagon. He dumped his parchments onto a long oak table banded with delicate carving, then took Nev
yn’s candle and trotted around, lighting more in their silver sconces.

  “May I offer you mead?” Oggyn said when he was done.

  “None for me, but my thanks. I need to think.”

  “True.” Oggyn sat down in a chair opposite him. “I see no use in trying to hide my deep disappointment in our prince’s opinion.”

  “I see none either. Ye gods!”

  “We’re at such a critical juncture of the war. If we could only keep the problem at bay till Maryn’s brought Braemys to heel!”

  “Well, he remains Gwerbret Cerrmor till the priests declare him king.”

  “A most excellent point! But afterwards—”

  “Indeed. Let me think on this. There has to be a solution.”

  “I hope to every god that you come up with it, whatever it may be.”

  “Until then, no one else had better learn of this situation.”

  “Just so. You can count on my silence.” Oggyn rose and began tidying his parchments. “But if the prince sees this as a matter of honor, then he’ll start his reign so heavily indebted that he’ll be king in name only.”

  On the morrow morning, the prince’s vassals, released from their summer’s service to their liege lord, assembled their men and broke camp, heading for their own lands. Lilli sat in her tower window and watched as one after the other the lords knelt before Maryn to promise him their prompt return, either in the spring or in his great need, whichever came the sooner. By then Lilli saw the Wildfolk as easily as she saw objects on the physical plane, and she studied them as the spirits swarmed around the prince and lent him their energies to augment his own. They supplied the brightness in the air, the private breeze that ruffled his hair, the spring in his walk, even. The Wildfolk of Aethyr swelled his aura to an enormous golden cloud, a crackling globe of sheer astral force that enlivened everyone who came in contact with it.

  Lilli had to admit that she understood now what Nevyn had meant. Maryn’s unnatural allure did lie in the dweomers his councillor worked. She also realized that the admitting had brought her to the edge of tears.

  “Oh stop it!” she told herself. “You’ve got more important things to do, anyway, than daydreaming about Prince Maryn.”

  Tieryn Anasyn, her true brother now, was among the last to leave Dun Deverry. All of the northern lords who’d come over to Maryn the summer past were leaving behind some of their men—technically an extra levy for the prince’s fortguard, but in actuality hostages of a sort. Lilli waited down in the ward while Anasyn commended ten of his best riders to the prince’s care. Abrwnna was already mounted on her palfrey at the head of her husband’s warband. Seeing her there, the new lady of Hendyr, made Lilli weep. Her sister-in-law’s position was the final, irrevocable sign that Lady Bevyan lay dead, that never again would she preside in Hendyr’s great hall.

  Anasyn came hurrying over and flung one arm around Lilli’s shoulders.

  “Here, here,” he said. “I’ll be back in the spring.”

  “Oh, I know.” Lilli snuffled back tears. “I was thinking about Bevva.”

  Anasyn nodded, suddenly solemn.

  “Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about her and Father, too,” Anasyn said finally. “Which reminds me. Father wanted you properly settled in life. Abrwnna tells me that there’s been gossip about you and Branoic the silver dagger.”

  “What? The gall! What sort of gossip?”

  “Naught terrible.” He grinned, and she realized that he was teasing her. “He’s a fine man, Branno. But I doubt me if he can support a wife.”

  “Well, he told me that the prince has promised him a boon, and that he’s going to ask for land.”

  “Oh? Oh, well then! If he can support you decently, I’ve no objections to him.”

  “My thanks, brother. It gladdens my heart.”

  “I thought it might. And now I’d best be off. If you want to come visit us this winter, send me a messenger, and I’ll send men to fetch you.”

  “My thanks! I will!”

  Yet Lilli knew that she’d not have the courage to return to Hendyr so soon, not with Bevyan’s death so fresh in her mind. She ran to the gates of the main ward to wave Anasyn and Abrwnna out, then slowly, thinking of very little, she walked back to the cluster of brochs. Maryn was standing on the steps, waiting for her. She stopped and stared at the wonder of it, that he would wait for her, standing on the steps alone like an ordinary man.

  “Good morrow, Lady Lillorigga,” the prince said.

  “A good morrow to you, Your Highness.” Lilli curtsied and felt her heart flutter like a trapped bird. “I was just seeing my brother off.”

  “So I noticed. He’s a good man, Anasyn.”

  She smiled, Maryn smiled, and neither, it seemed, could think of a word to say. The Wildfolk swarmed round them both, gnomes and sprites and, like crystals in the air, the sylphs, but she could strip the dweomer away, she realized, and see the man himself. He’s still splendid, she thought. I’d find him wondrous if he were the kitchen boy.

  “Lilli!” It was Nevyn’s voice, and the Wildfolk vanished in a burst of fear. “There you are, eh?”

  Lilli spun around, blushing so hard she felt her face burning. Nevyn was striding across the ward.

  “I am, my lord,” she stammered. “Have you need of me?”

  “I do.” Nevyn glanced at the prince. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness? My apprentice and I have important work to do.”

  “Of course,” Maryn said. “And I need to talk with the gwerbret of Yvrodur. He’s doubtless impatient to be on the road.”

  All the way up to Nevyn’s chamber Lilli trembled, sure she was in for the worst lecture of her life. Instead he merely opened his book of dweomers and set her to work memorizing the names and formal terms of address for all the spirits of all the Elemental Courts, kings, queens, champions, and princesses, every last one of them. It was so tedious that, she realized, he’d given her work of a sort to drive all thoughts of Maryn out of her mind.

  In the council chamber of the royal broch the last of the afternoon’s sun fell across the maps spread across the table. The three men studying them stood leaning over the tattered parchments. Although each map purported to show Deverry and the bordering lands, each was so different from the others that Nevyn despaired of ever forming a clear idea of the shape of the kingdom.

  “What matters, though,” Nevyn said, “is simple enough. Eldidd lies west of Deverry, and so does Pyrdon. Pyrdon lies north of Eldidd. When Maryn becomes king of Deverry and Pyrdon both, Eldidd will be like a piece of meat between two jaws.”

  “Just so,” Maddyn said. “And I doubt me if Aenycyr of Eldidd is so blind that he hasn’t seen it too.”

  “It’s a bad situation, all right,” Owaen said. “But we’ve all known about it for years. You called us here for some cursed reason, Councillor. Why don’t you just drop this feint and tell us?”

  Maddyn glared at his fellow silver dagger, but Owaen ignored the black look. There were times when Nevyn wished he actually could blast a man with fire or turn one into a frog, and Owaen always seemed to be the person who inspired those moments.

  “Very well,” Nevyn said. “I want to know how your recruiting efforts are going. I’d like to see the silver daggers brought up to strength as soon as possible.”

  “Do you think I wouldn’t?” Owaen said.

  “Oh hold your tongue, you hound!” Maddyn broke in. “We’re doing pretty well, Nevyn. We’ve now got fifty-six men, fifty-seven if Red-haired Trevyr can ever fight again.”

  Owaen ostentatiously picked up a map and carried it over to the window to study. With him gone, a blue sprite materialized on the table, a pretty little thing except for her mouthful of fangs. She stuck her tongue out at Owaen, then hopped onto Maddyn’s shoulder.

  “I wouldn’t count Trevyr,” Nevyn said. “It’s a miracle that he lived at all.”

  “So we tell him. Daily.” Maddyn smiled in a wry sort of way. “You must be expecting trouble soon,
if you’re worrying about the prince’s guard.”

  “I am. In Eldidd the winters are mild. There’s no reason for King Aenycyr to wait till spring to cause trouble. I’ve had reports that he’s considering how he might exploit Maryn’s half brother to keep Pyrdon out of Deverry hands.”

  “Ah horseshit! That’s the last thing we need. How old is Riddmar, anyway? He’s but a child, isn’t he?”

  “He was born nine summers ago, if I remember rightly. Casyl of Pyrdon’s not in good health. When he dies, who can blame his wife if she’s ambitious for her son? She’s never so much as met Maryn, and he’s the living memorial to Casyl’s first wife, anyway.”

  Owaen turned around and lowered the map to listen. The sprite, whom of course he couldn’t see, stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers at him.

  “I hadn’t heard about King Casyl being ill,” Maddyn said. “That saddens my heart. He was generous to us silver daggers when we were in Pyrdon.”

  “He’s a good man, truly.” Nevyn sighed, genuinely saddened himself. “But be that as it may, when Casyl dies, Maryn inherits, Pyrdon becomes part of Deverry, and there’s Eldidd, squeezed on both its borders. Aenycyr will do anything he can to stop it.”

  “And Riddmar’s the logical weapon for him to wield.” Maddyn considered for a moment. “Is there any way to bind Riddmar to Maryn? Some practical thing, that is. Family sentiment never seems to burn brightly among the noble-born.”

  “That’s it!” Nevyn suddenly burst out laughing. “Maddo, you’ve done it again!”

  “Er, I beg your pardon?” Maddyn said.

  “Given me a splendid idea, that is.” Nevyn did a few quick steps of a jig, then calmed himself. “I must go speak with Councillor Oggyn. Do carry on, lads, with your recruiting. The more men in the prince’s guard, the better.”

  Nevyn practically ran down to the great hall. He found a page and sent him off to look for Oggyn, who appeared promptly. They stood in the curve of the wall out of the general confusion to talk.