The Black Raven

  “We’ll need to find out more about this,” he said at last.

  “If I’m right—” Lilli said. “Oh ych! It’s too disgusting!”

  “Quite so.” Nevyn made a sour face. “Are you thinking that Merodda gave the child over to her tame wizard?”

  “I am.”

  “If the baby was your blood-kin, it would certainly explain your peculiar link to the casket. Or to the evil within it, I should say.”

  “How can we find out if it’s true? I suppose some of the older servants in Dun Deverry might remember things, but I don’t know if I could bear to ask them.”

  “They wouldn’t tell you anyway, most likely. When we get back, leave this task to me.”

  “Gladly. Ah ye gods, if it’s true? It’s just too vile!”

  “It is that. I—” Nevyn paused, holding up his hand for silence.

  A footstep scraped in the hall outside. Lilli rose, thinking that Degwa might be eavesdropping, but when the door opened, Bellyra stood there. As the princess came in, Nevyn got up to bow, and Lilli curtsied.

  “Did you rest well, Your Highness?” Lilli said.

  “I did, truly.”

  Lilli fetched Bellyra’s favorite chair, and the princess sat down with a murmur of thanks. Lilli was shocked at how thin Bellyra had become. Her pale skin stretched over the bones of her face so tightly that it seemed a smile might crack it and make her bleed.

  “We were discussing the casket, Your Highness,” Nevyn said. “It’s time I took it away.”

  “I’ll be glad of that.”

  The silence hung there, heavy in the room. Lilli desperately searched for something pleasant to say, but the casket, glittering in the sun like a vial of poison, seemed to make any pleasant chatter impossible. Nevyn at last took pity on her.

  “Lilli, would you find a page to bring me some ale?” he said. “And perhaps some sweetmeats for Her Highness.”

  “And for you,” Bellyra broke in, “if you’d like some, Lilli.”

  “My thanks.” Lilli rose. “I’ll go down to the kitchens and see what Cook has on hand.”

  Lilli curtsied, then fled the women’s hall. Her mother’s curse—had she been as desperate as all that, to sacrifice her own son to serve the Boar clan’s cause?

  “Will we never be free of these wars?” Lilli whispered.

  She stepped out of the broch to the pleasant sunshine, bright on the pale slate roofs of Dun Cerrmor, but to her inner sight it seemed that storm clouds gathered, dark and evil, over them all.

  With the summer’s fighting past and done, time lay heavy on the silver daggers. Every morning Branoic would groom his horse, sweep out its stall, then go riding for some short while to keep the horse fit and himself as well. He filled part of his day with talking with the new men, like Alwyn. Every now and then the prince wanted to go riding around his new lands; the entire troop of silver daggers went with him on these occasions. But for the most part, life reduced itself to drinking in the great hall and wishing that Lilli would get herself back from Cerrmor.

  “Tell me,” Maddyn said one evening, “how’s your suit proceeding? I haven’t forgotten our wager.”

  Branoic had. “What suit?”

  “Your courtship of Lady Lillorigga. You bet me one silver piece to ten that you could gain her favor.”

  “Oh, that suit! It’s going well, truly.”

  “Indeed? Words are cheap, my friend. What counts is the horse race.”

  “Maddo, lad, cheap or not, you’d best watch how you spend yours. Say one wrong thing about the lady, and I’ll cram the words down your throat.”

  Maddyn stared at him for a long moment.

  “My apologies,” the bard said at last. “I’d not realized that this was a serious thing to you.”

  “It is. I’ve been trying to get up my courage to ask our prince for that boon he promised me.”

  “And what do you want to ask for?”

  “Enough land to support a wife.”

  “Truly serious, then.” Maddyn whistled under his breath. “You’ll never hear a wrong word about the lady from me.”

  “My thanks. I figured I could rely on you to see things right, like.”

  Maddyn waved down a passing servant and had her refill their tankards. For a while they drank in silence, watching Prince Maryn on the far side of the hall. The prince never allowed himself to sit at the head of the table of honor, a place reserved for the king; instead he sat in the place that would have been at the king’s right. Tonight Councillor Oggyn was kneeling beside him, talking earnestly with much waving of hands.

  “I wonder what Slimy Oggo’s up to,” Maddyn said.

  “No good, no doubt,” Branoic said.

  “I’ve not trusted the man since I caught him out over those weevily oats he gave our horses.”

  “I remember that, truly. You should make a song about him, Maddo.”

  “There’s a thought.” Maddyn suddenly grinned. “I wouldn’t mention his name of course. An animal song, mayhap.” He hummed a few notes of a tune. “Oh, the fox went to the henhouse once too often, he found a wolf on guard. That kind of song.”

  “Sounds like a splendid idea!”

  Across the hall Oggyn rose, bowed, and hurried out.

  “Tell me somewhat, Maddo,” Branoic said. “Can the prince settle land upon a man now or will he have to wait till he’s proclaimed king?”

  “I’ve not the slightest idea. You’ll have to ask Nevyn when he gets back. But here, are you that eager to leave the silver daggers?”

  “It’s not the leaving of the troop, you dolt. It’s the gaining of the wife.”

  “Oh. Well, I suppose so. I’ve never cared that much about a woman in my life.”

  “Huh!” Branoic gave him a grin. “Don’t brag where the gods can hear you, Maddo lad. You’ll tempt them.”

  Maddyn laughed.

  “Scoff all you want,” Branoic went on. “But as for me, I’m looking forward to settling down, like, with my lady.”

  On the morrow, Branoic got the answers he needed from the prince himself. He was walking rather aimlessly through the ward when he chanced upon Maryn, doing much the same though with two pages and Councillor Oggyn in attendance. Branoic bowed low, then went down on one knee to let him pass, but the prince stopped and hailed him.

  “Good morrow, Branno. Are things well with you?”

  “They are, Your Highness,” Branoic said.

  “Splendid! When are you going to ask me for that boon?”

  The prince was smiling, as if perhaps he were making a small jest, but Branoic decided that he might as well test his Wyrd right there and then.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Your Highness,” Branoic said. “I’ve just not been sure when the fit time to ask you might be.”

  “Now, if you’d like.” Maryn turned solemn. “I gave my word, and I meant it.”

  “Very well, then, Your Highness.” Branoic took a deep breath. “I’d like a holding with enough land to support a wife, Your Highness, if that’s not too much to be asking for.”

  “Not in the least! The gods all know there are plenty of demesnes that have lost their lords in the wars, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t have one and the title to go with it.”

  Branoic tried to speak, but the words failed him. He could feel himself grinning like a half-wit. Maryn laughed and gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder.

  “Tell you what, Branno,” Maryn said, “when you get that title, we’ll give you your eagle device back.”

  “Ye gods! You remember that, Your Highness?”

  “How could I not, with Owaen ragging you about it for all these years?”

  Had protocol allowed, Branoic would have grabbed the prince’s hand and kissed it. It’s the little things, he told himself, the things like this, that made us all willing to risk our necks for him!

  “Oggyn?” Maryn went on. “I charge you with finding a solid demesne and a lordship for our Branoic here. Once I’m truly the kin
g, we’ll bestow it upon him right and proper.”

  “Very well, my liege.” Oggyn looked sour but resigned.

  “Tell me, Branno,” Maryn said, grinning. “You must have the wife in mind to be asking me for the land. Who is she?”

  “Well, begging your pardon, Your Highness, but I’d like to keep her name to myself until I’m sure she’ll have me.”

  Maryn laughed, and Oggyn smiled, doubtless because the prince had and for no other reason.

  “A wise policy,” the prince said. “Done, then. I’ll get you the land, and you get yourself the lass, and that will be that.”

  “My thanks, Your Highness. I—ah ye gods! My humble thanks!”

  The next few days Branoic spent mostly pacing back and forth, wondering when Lilli would arrive. He took to going down to the town walls, where he could climb to the catwalks and watch the river road that ran to Cerrmor. On the fourth day after Maryn granted his boon, his patience paid off, late on a golden afternoon, when he saw a cloud of dust coming up from the south. Slowly it resolved itself into horses and riders. A small company of armed guards, with the three ships blazon on their shield, surrounded an old man with white hair, and next to him, riding astride like a lad, a blonde lass. Behind them came a cart and more riders.

  Branoic let out a whoop, climbed down the ladder, and ran to his horse, tied nearby in the shade. By the time he mounted, the party was just coming in through the gates. Branoic paused his horse by the side of the road till they reached him, then fell in beside Lilli. She turned in the saddle to laugh at him.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “What do you think? Waiting for you, of course.” Branoic leaned forward and called to Nevyn. “Good morrow, my lord!”

  Nevyn waved. Branoic turned his attention back to Lilli.

  “I thought you travelled by galley,” Branoic said.

  “We did on the way down,” Lilli said. “But it’s too hard a row back with passengers and suchlike, and barges are too slow.”

  “Ah. Well, it gladdens my heart to see you safe. I hope you didn’t meet with any trouble on the road.”

  “None. I doubt me if there’d be any bandits around, with all of Maryn’s vassals gone back to patrol their lands.”

  “True spoken.” He paused, gathering courage. “Uh, speaking of lands, like—”

  Lilli caught her breath. For a long moment they stared at each other, half-smiling, half-afraid. Their horses ambled on, following the others just ahead.

  “I asked him.” Branoic could think of no other way than a blurt. “He granted it.”

  Lilli laughed, one boyish whoop of delight, cut short when Nevyn turned in the saddle and frowned at her. Branoic concentrated on the road ahead, but he could feel his heart pounding. She’s willing to marry me, he thought. She wouldn’t be so blasted pleased if she weren’t.

  Although the previous king’s high-ranking servants as well as his noble-born servitors had left Dun Deverry after Maryn’s victory, the lowest ranks stayed for the simple reason that they had nowhere else to go. Many of them had been born in the royal dun and inherited their work and its meager privileges from their parents. By asking here and there, Nevyn found such an old woman, the swineherd’s widow, Vena, still living in a hut upwind of the pigsties, who had spun wool for the queens of Dun Deverry for many a long year. White-haired and thin as a stick, she was nearly blind, and throwing a drop-spindle for days and years on end had left her hands and wrists swollen and twisted.

  While he brewed up herbs to ease her pain, Nevyn chatted with her and decided that her mind was still sharper than many a youngster’s. A low fire crackled in her little hearth under a big cast-iron hook. He hung his iron pot of herbs and water from the hook, then added a few sticks of wood to the fire.

  “It’s good of you to leave off physicking the prince to help an old woman,” Vena said.

  “The prince is young. He doesn’t need much in the way of herbcraft.”

  “As long as there be no battles, eh?”

  “True spoken. And as long as no one tries to poison him.”

  “Let’s pray that never happens.” For a moment she sat silently. “Well, I heard they were a—hanging of Lady Merodda, so mayhap he’s safe enough.”

  “You think she was a poisoner, then? Most people in the dun seem to.”

  “I do, and not only from the gossip, neither. Many a long year it was now, but she did give my man a handful of copper coins for a piglet. We found the thing dead out on the dungheap some while later, and when one of the dogs did eat of it, he died too, and slowly, poor beast.”

  Nevyn whistled under his breath. She smiled and turned on her wooden chair toward the sound.

  “You think the same, eh?” she said, “that she was a—making sure her evil potions would do the job.”

  “I do indeed. You know, ever since I’ve been in this dun I’ve heard tales of Lady Merodda’s misdeeds, but that’s a new one.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear, good sir. You know how the gossips are. Many a time I’d be attending to my work, and the lasses with me would be spinning more tales than wool. And every time a tale got itself told, the more exciting, like, it would be.”

  Nevyn nodded, smiling. “Now, someone told me a thing about Merodda just the other day,” he said. “That she’d had a bastard child after her husband was slain.”

  “She had a child, sure enough, but it were only some seven months after he’d ridden away to war. So it could have been his easy enough.”

  “They say the baby died. Did she poison it, do you think?”

  “Well, when she come back in the spring, she was all tears, weeping for her dead little son. A fever, said she. Didn’t believe the tears, I didn’t, but the winter’s a powerful bad time to get yourself born. It could have been a fever.”

  “A son, huh?”

  “It was. Now, the lady’s maidservant told us that she’d never seen the poor little thing’s body, and so some of the lasses did insist that a demon had carried the child off in the middle of a night. That’s what I mean about tales getting puffed up, like. A demon! Now I ask you!”

  “A ridiculous idea, indeed.”

  But what if a man of flesh and blood had taken the baby away? Nevyn asked himself. Not so ridiculous, and in fact, entirely too possible.

  “Now, I’ll leave these herbs with you,” Nevyn said at last. “You heat them up and soak your hands in them twice a day. The willow bark will help ease the pain. I’ll stop back by in a few days to see how you fare.”

  “I’ll do that, my lord, and you have my humble thanks.”

  Nevyn went back to the great hall to look for a servant lass named Pavva. By chance he’d run across her when the prince had first taken the dun, and he remembered her as having some association with Lady Merodda. It was late in the day, and most of the servants were in the great hall, laying out food for the evening meal while, a few at a time, the men from the dun’s garrison strolled in and sat down. Not far from the table of honor, a small mob of silver daggers were standing around some central point. Fearing trouble, Nevyn walked over, but in their midst he saw Maddyn, sitting cross-legged on a table and tuning his harp.

  “Good morrow, my lord,” Branoic said to Nevyn. “Maddyn’s going to sing us a new song.”

  “Indeed? Well, that’ll be worth hearing.”

  “I think so, truly.” Branoic grinned, profoundly sly. “Let me know what you think of the words, like.”

  Nevyn would have asked more, but Maddyn began. He had a decent voice for a man who’d never received a moment’s training, particularly suitable for songs such as the new one proved to be, a light little tune with lyrics concerning a fox who tried to steal chickens from a farmer named Owaen. As Nevyn listened, though, he realized that the fox was meant to be a human being, Councillor Oggyn, in fact. Not only was the fox stout from being so greedy but by the end of the song he was bald. The farmer’s trap caught him by the hair on his head and pulled it all of
f when he escaped. Back in his den the foolish animal decided to cut some hair from his tail to cover the bald spot, but he glued it under his chin by mistake.

  “So instead of plump fowl he ate beard for his dinner” was the closing sentiment before the final chorus.

  At the end the silver daggers howled with laughter. Even Owaen managed to crack a smile. Nevyn was about to say something to Branoic when he realized that Oggyn had been standing on the staircase the entire time. Branoic saw him there as well.

  “And what’s he going to say?” Branoic said to Nevyn. “If he takes umbrage, he’ll have to admit the song’s about him.”

  “Oh, you won’t hear a word about it,” Nevyn said. “But Maddyn’s made himself an enemy all the same. Oggyn will remember this, never fear.”

  “So will Owaen.” Branoic grinned at him. “And that’s where I’d lay my money for a wager.”

  “That’s not going to make the situation better, lad.”

  At that moment Nevyn saw Pavva coming in the back door. She was carrying an armful of bread loaves, while her baby slept, strapped on her back.

  “My apologies, Branno,” Nevyn said. “But I’ve got to be off.”

  Nevyn caught up to the girl as she deposited the bread into an enormous basket by the riders’ hearth. Since she was going back to the kitchen hut, he walked with her.

  “Tell me, Pavva,” Nevyn said, “how long did you know Lady Merodda? Were you in her service?”

  “I wasn’t, my lord. She never took no notice of me till that last horrible day. Of the siege, I mean.”

  “I see. Did you ever hear a tale about a baby she was supposed to have had, one sired by a demon?”

  “Oh, that!” Pavva laughed, wrinkling her nose. “The women did say the strangest things about that, but I never believed none of it.”

  “I don’t suppose you know when she supposedly had this child?”

  “I don’t, my lord.”

  Nevyn handed her a couple of coppers and let her get back to work. By then he’d forgotten the flyting song. Later, of course, he would curse himself for a fool.

  “Good morrow, Lilli.”