Days of Blood and Fire

  “Well, a binheddic man is a man with a pedigree, a man who knows who his ancestors were, a noble-born man. When you don’t know and care a fair bit less, then you’re aminheddic, lacking a family tree, common-born.”

  “Oh. And that matters?”

  “It matters a great deal, here in Deverry. Never forget that. Your life might depend on it, remembering that the noble-born see themselves as a good bit more valuable, like, then the aminheddic. But anyway, I’ve got a bondwoman’s name, sure enough, and so I’m guessing that somewhere back in my family, there were freedmen.”

  “And that doesn’t ache your heart?” Meer said with some surprise.

  “Not at all, good bard, not at all. All souls are the same to me, noble or common, human or otherwise. I was given the dweomer to serve them all.”

  Meer sucked his fangs as he thought this over.

  “I have never heard of a sorcerer who used her tricks to serve anyone or anything but herself.”

  “Then I’ll wager you never heard of a sorcerer who had anything more than tricks at her disposal.”

  Meer seemed to be about to speak, then sat back. Out of sheer nerves Jahdo giggled, which earned him a cuff on the shoulder.

  “My apologies, Meer. I wasn’t mocking you or anything.”

  “Good. Don’t.”

  “Meer, bard, loremaster,” Jill said. “I truly believe that we must be allies, not enemies, in this time of danger. Pooling what I know with what you know will be of great profit to both our peoples.”

  “You believe so, do you?” Meer paused for a sip of milk. “Strange stuff, this cow’s milk you people drink. It’s so thick and oily.”

  Jill smiled at the evasion, then merely waited, letting Meer drink his cup of milk as the silence grew thicker in the room. All of a sudden Jahdo wasn’t hungry anymore, though he couldn’t say why. He laid his half-eaten piece of bread down on the wooden trencher. From outside and down below came noises, horses’ hooves clopping on stone, people laughing and talking, the rumbling bump of a barrel being rolled, but they all seemed to be sounding from a great distance away. In the chamber the silence seemed so thick that he felt he’d touch it if he reached out a hand. Meer handed Jahdo the cup, then wiped all round his mouth with the back of his hand in case he’d spilled a drop or two. Jill merely waited, her hands folded in her lap.

  “Ah well,” Meer said at last. “I do happen to know why Thavrae led his men east to your country.”

  Jill smiled again.

  “Thavrae?” she said. “That’s your brother, isn’t it?”

  Meer growled.

  “My apologies,” Jill said and quickly. “The man who used to be your brother.”

  Meer grunted, satisfied.

  “I’d very much like to know that,” Jill went on. “If you could bring yourself to tell me.”

  “I might, mazrak, but in return, I’ll want a promise out of you, that you’ll do everything you can to make sure young Jahdo here returns to his homeland before he’s much older. What happens to me now is of little moment, but I made his mother a promise.”

  Jahdo felt his eyes fill with tears, which he wiped away as unobtrusively as he could.

  “Done, then.” Jill reached out a hand and touched Meer’s arm. “You have my sworn word.”

  They clasped hands for a brief moment.

  “And you have mine that this is the truth, as much as I know of it,” Meer said. “When the man who once was my brother fled our city with his band of soldiers, because by our laws he’d be strangled for heresy should he stay within the city bounds, the high priestess came to my mother, and my mother in turn sent for me. The priestess swore that the god Evandar the Far Archer, he who serves the goddess Rinbala, had appeared to her while she did vigil in the temple and had delivered unto her tidings of great import. The man my mother had birthed before me was fleeing east on his false goddess’s bidding, to fetch some valuable thing for the demoness. The Alshandra creature had charged him with the returning of this precious object to her. As to what it is or was, none of us knew, except that she claimed it was hers and that it had been stolen from her.”

  “Evandar?” Jahdo broke in. “He’s the one who did tell us which road to take!”

  “So he did,” Meer said. “Now don’t interrupt.”

  Jill sat watching them with an expression of stunned surprise.

  “I see,” she said at last. “And we know that Thavrae failed.”

  “Just so, mazrak, just so. I think it likely that this pus-and-pride-swollen false goddess will send others after the thing, don’t you? I was present when some of these heretic prophets were put to the torture in our public square. All claimed their demoness was implacable and unyielding. She is a goddess of war, they cried, not of mercy, and she will revenge us upon you for this torment. Those were their exact words. You may trust that, being as I’m a bard and trained to remember such things.”

  “So you are, though it’s an ill-omened thing you’ve remembered this time, I must say.” Jill paused, thinking for a long moment. “I think I’d best have a word with the gwerbret.”

  “He’s likely to see more raiders on his lands, truly.”

  Jill nodded, distracted. Jahdo suddenly wondered if she knew what Thavrae had been sent to fetch, simply because she looked so troubled.

  “Meer, you have my profound thanks for this information. I can only hope you’ll tell me more if I should need to ask more. I promise you, I swear to you on my honor, that if you do so, you’ll be helping your own people, not betraying them in any way at all.”

  “Listen, mazrak. Fair words mean little between those who have just met.”

  “True enough, bard.” Jill seemed more amused than insulted. “As time goes on, I hope we come to know each other better.” She rose, nodding at Jahdo. ‘I’ll speak to Rhodry and the gwerbret on your behalf. I see no reason for you two to stay penned up like hogs.”

  “Well, neither do I. It’s not like we could escape without any food and stuff.”

  “Just so.”

  Jill walked across the room, opened the door, then turned back for one last look Jahdo’s way. He felt that she was appraising him the way a man might judge a horse at a market fair, and for a good long time that morning, he was afraid, just from remembering her cold stare.

  “Someone’s meddled with that lad’s mind” Jill said.

  “What?” Rhodry looked up sharply from the bridle he was cleaning. “What do you mean?”

  “Jahdo. Somewhat’s wrong with him. I wonder if he’s been ensorcelled? I don’t find all the usual evidence, but maybe it was done very cleverly.”

  “Do you think it happened here in the dun?”

  “Couldn’t have. I’d know if someone were working evil dweomer nearby.”

  Out in the warm sun they were sitting in front of the stables, Jill on a bound shook of hay, Rhodry on the cobbles while he cleaned his tack. Although the ward was its usual busy chaos, the various servants and riders walking by all gave the pair of them a wide berth.

  “Besides,” Jill went on. “Every time I look him in the eye he cringes, while I’ve never noticed him do that to anyone else. I think me he’s felt the touch of magic on his soul.”

  “The lad’s got guts, true enough. I remember the night we captured them. He stood his ground, bold as brass, looking me right in the eye, and when I went to lay a hand on him, he tried to stab me with this miserable little knife, practically a pen-trimming knife, it was. I thought then that he’d make a grand warrior someday, but he’s clumsy. Ye gods, is he!”

  “Oh.” She paused for a smile. “Think he’ll outgrow it?”

  “Some lads do, truly, but somehow I doubt it in this case.”

  “Well, maybe the gods have other plans for our Jahdo.”

  “What?” He looked up again to find her solemn. “Thinking of making him your apprentice?”

  “Oh, not truly, not now that I say it aloud. He seems a stolid sort of lad, all common sense and suchlike. But you
know, it’s getting on to be time I thought of finding some-one.”

  Rhodry winced and concentrated on drawing a rag through a bronze bridle ring to wipe away the green.

  “Well,” Jill said in a moment. “I know you don’t like to think of my dying, but I’ve not got over that fever I picked up in Bardek, and it’s not likely that I ever will. Rhoddo, we’re both well on in years, even if you do look but half your age.”

  The tarnish lay thick on the inside of the ring. He scrubbed hard.

  “Oh, very well, I’ll hold my tongue.”

  “Curse it, Jill!” He let the bridle fall into his lap. “How do you expect me to feel when you turn all morbid like that?”

  “Is it truly morbid?”

  “Well, I suppose not, because you’re right enough that we’re a good bit older than the people we know would think, but—” He hesitated. “It’s not my own death I mind. You know that. It would be losing you.”

  “My thanks. Huh—so I’m morbid, am I? I’m not the one who’s half in love with my own death, like some as I could mention.”

  He shrugged and ignored her. In a moment she laughed, just softly and in defeat.

  “Tell me somewhat,” she said. “When did you meet Dallandra?”

  Worse and worse. He rose, sweeping up the bridle.

  “A long time ago, the year I took Yraen on as an apprentice. It was over that silly matter of the bone whistle.”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, come now, surely you’ve heard that tale.”

  “I haven’t. Will you sit down and tell it to me? What you and Dalla may have done together is no business of mine.”

  He felt his face burning, but he sat.

  “How did you know? Did she tell you?”

  “Not at all, but I felt her mind skip the same way yours just did. What bone whistle?”

  Rhodry picked up the rag again and started in on the buckles on the cheek piece.

  “Come to think of it, you should hear this,” he said. “Uh, you’re sure you’re not jealous?”

  “It’s been how many years since we rode together? A long, long time, for certain. Of course I’m not jealous. Why? Is your vanity hurt because I’m not?”

  He growled under his breath.

  “Ah, it is.” She sounded amused. “But what about—”

  “The whistle, truly. It was a thing Evandar left with me by accident one Samaen day, you see, and sent Dalla to fetch back. It was made of bone, and it looked like a human or elven finger, but it was far too long for that. It had a cursed sour sound to it, I tell you. And all these peculiar creatures came prowling round to steal it. A thing that looked like a man but with a badger’s head tried to murder me for it, so I killed our snouted friend and gave Evandar the wretched whistle back when he came for it himself.” He paused, frowning at the buckle. “Well, there’s a bit more twists to the tale than that, but I don’t truly remember them well.”

  “Ye gods!” Jill’s voice hissed in surprise. “And you never told me?”

  “And when have I had the chance? I don’t see you for years and years, and all at once, you pop up. Not much more than a fortnight ago, was it? And what do you do then? You send me haring off round the countryside, battling raiders and capturing mysterious bards and suchlike.”

  “Well, true spoken, but, Rhoddo, please, after this, tell me straightaway if anything happens that smells of dweomer. I don’t care how small or strange it is. Tell me.”

  “I will then, and gladly. I’ll pass the message along to Yraen, too.”

  “Do that, and my thanks.” Jill thought for a moment. “How big was this whistle?”

  “Oh, let me think.” He laid the bridle down and held up his hands about a foot apart. “About so long. Or maybe a little shorter. Much too long to be the finger bone it looked, at any rate. And someone had cut a couple of holes in it, to make a few sour notes.”

  “Indeed? Huh, I wonder. It looked like a finger bone, did it? It could be. It just could be.”

  “Could be what?”

  “I’ll tell you when I know. I’ve got to be sure first.”

  “You’re as full of riddles these days as Evandar.”

  “I begin to have more sympathy for him, truly.” She smiled, but only briefly. “Do you remember when you first rode into Cengarn, and we had a talk out in the barracks here? I told you that Alshandra had sworn to kill Carra’s child?”

  “I do remember it, indeed. I’ve been wondering if that’s why the raiders—”

  “You’re right, I think, but shush a moment.”

  Rhodry glanced round, then made a show of reaching behind him for another rag. Sure enough, Lord Matyc was standing some yards away, perhaps out of earshot, perhaps not, Rhodry scrambled to his feet and made the lordship a bow.

  “Good morrow, my lord. Do you need me for some’ what?”

  “I don’t, silver dagger. Just passing by.”

  Matyc was forced to turn and stroll away. Rhodry sat down again, but at a different angle, so that he could keep an eye on the various approaches to their position.

  “Anyway,” Jill said. “I’m as sure as I’ll probably ever be that Alshandra sent Meer’s brother and his warband here to kill Carra and the child.”

  “Whatever for?”

  Jill hesitated.

  “Well,” she said at last. “You actually do know already. I’ve told you, here and there, all sorts of things that I never should have let slip, bits of secrets about the dweomer, I mean. I’ve been tired, Rhoddo, worried sick and truly sick with this wretched shaking fever, and for all that I haven’t seen you in so many years, I trust you more than any man on this earth, you know.”

  Rhodry was surprised at how pleased he was to hear her say so. Rather than admit it, he grinned.

  “I don’t recall hearing any secret knowledge of ancient dweomer. No arcane spells nor exotic wizardry seem to have lodged in my soul.”

  “As long as you think of it like that, then you won’t remember. Good.”

  Rhodry had the distinct feeling he’d been outmaneuvered. Jill rose, plucking odd bits of straw from her clothes.

  “I’ve got work in hand, scrying and suchlike,” she said. “Ask me more later—if you dare.”

  Jill hurried off, leaving him irritable behind her. Just what did she mean, if you dare? And all this cursed talk of secrets! And yet he knew deep in his memory what she meant, or rather he knew he would know if only he let himself know, if only he pieced together the odd scattered hints that indeed he did remember, whether he wanted to do so or not.

  Once Jill had mentioned that Alshandra had a daughter who’d been somehow lost to her. And he was sure that Carra’s unborn child was a daughter. Why, he’d been sure enough to tell the child’s father that a daughter it was, weeks ago now when they’d been hunting the raiders together. There could be no logical connection between those two daughters. Of course not. It’s not like the soul of one could be born again as the other. Could it? Why was he wondering if souls could put on new bodies, the way he put on a shirt? And why, he wondered most of all, did that wondering frighten him?

  With a toss of his head like a spooked horse, he rose, gathering up his tack. He refused to let himself answer those questions, and all because they brought him to the edge of an insight he refused to face. He strode into the stables, hoping for some company, but no one was there but the horses and the stable cat, sunning herself in the straw in front of the tack-room window. He hung his gear on the pegs allotted to it, then strode out again, heading for the great hall and a tankard of ale. About halfway across the ward, though, he heard boys’ voices, yelling, taunting, and giggling behind one of the storage sheds. When Rhodry hurried over, he found Jahdo, red-faced with fury, in the center of a circle of pages and scullery lads. Young Allonry seemed to be the chief tormentor. He was waggling a dangerous-looking stick in Jahdo’s direction and so wildly Rhodry angled round to come up behind the page.

  “Slave born, slave born,” the lordling was cha
nting. “Jahdo is a bondman, Jahdo is a bondman.”

  “I was born freer than you are,” Jahdo snarled. “We don’t have any stinking old lords where I come from.”

  Alli swung the stick right for Jahdo’s head. Rhodry caught his wrist just in time and so hard that the page squealed.

  “Drop it,” Rhodry said.

  Alli dropped it because he had no choice, sniveling with pain as he was. When Rhodry let him go, the page danced back out of his reach.

  “I’m going to tell the chamberlain on you!”

  “No doubt you are. Honor doesn’t seem to be one of your strong points, lad. Go on—run to your wet nurse, then.”

  All the other boys howled with laughter. Flushing scarlet, Alli stood his ground for a moment, looking back and forth at his erstwhile allies. When all they did was look right back at him, he turned and ran for the broch complex. With a last round of giggles the other boys straggled away, some to their work in the kitchen hut, some to the great hall. Jahdo watched them go.

  “My thanks, Rhodry,” he said at last. “Are you going to get in trouble for this?”

  “I doubt it, lad. Our Allonry may be noble-born, but he’s a cowardly little get, all in all. I’d watch your back around him, though, if I were you. You’re smaller than him.”

  Jahdo grinned. Rhodry was frankly disappointed that the boy had proved himself so clumsy; he had mettle, did young Jahdo, in his solid little way.

  “How badly has the pack been hounding you?”

  “Not very, truly. No one did cause me grief at all till Alli started in on me just now. Cae and Bran were even kind of nice to me, this morning, like.”

  “Well, I suspect that if you just keep on taking Alli’s — insults like a man, then Cae and Bran will be nice to you again.”

  “Probably so. This be a strange place, Cengarn. I guess the old tales about the Slavers be true. You do all really be cruel and fierce, bain’t?”

  Rhodry was honestly shocked.

  “Well, here, I suppose we’d seem such to you, but—”

  “At least you don’t take heads anymore. Or do you? I haven’t seen any hanging on walls and stuff like the tales talk about.”

  “Of course we don’t!” Rhodry stopped, nagged by a memory of a time he’d seen a lord run the head of a particular enemy onto a pike. “Well, only if we’re truly provoked.”