“We’d all be ever so grateful if you did, Your Grace.” She made him a remarkably graceful curtsey. “And Lord Madoc would be pleased if you stopped and had a bit of a chat with him, since Dun Deverry’s more or less on your way and all.”
“A bit less than more, but he’ll see me as soon as the roads are passable anyway.” Blaen paused, struck by a sudden thought. “I had hoped to be here when my lady came to her time.”
“Oh, you will be, Your Grace. The son she’s carrying will be born a few weeks early, but he’ll be healthy in spite of it, and she’ll have an easy time because he’ll be on the small side.”
“Well, splendid! I … here, how do you know … are you having a jest on me?”
“Not in the least, Your Grace. I was worried about the Lady Canyffa myself, so I asked the Wildfolk. They know these things—I don’t know how—but they do. Trust me.”
And in spite of himself, Blaen had to admit that trust her he did.
There was a different sort of feast held that day as well, all the way across the kingdom in Eldidd and right up at the northern border of Rhodry’s gwerbretrhyn in the holdings of the powerful Bear clan. Tieryn Darryl of Trenrydd was sitting down to table with two close and trusted friends, Gwarryc of Dun Gamyl, who was the younger brother of Gwerbret Savyl of Camynwaen, and Talidd of Belglaedd, and with them was a man from Bardek who’d given his name as Alyantano but who was willing to be known as Alyan here in Deverry, to make things easier all round. So important was the conversation at this dinner that Darryl’s wife Amma was entertaining the other women privately up in the women’s hall. Since Talidd’s wife had stayed at home, and Alyan claimed to have none, Amma was presiding over an intimate meal indeed, for herself, her serving women, and Vodda, Gwarryc’s wife, who was her elder sister. A sleek blonde, Vodda was one of those sleepy-eyed women who cultivate an air of sensual stupidity to cover a roiling mind. She was one of the chief organizers of the faction that was pushing her husband into making a bid for Aberwyn, but to pay her her due, her motives went far beyond some petty wish to spend its taxes on Bardek silk. Their mother, Linedd, had once led a miserable life creeping through Dun Aberwyn’s corridors and chambers as the often-ignored mistress of Gwerbret Tingyr and the overmatched rival of Lady Lovyan. Although Linedd was dead—unkind wags joked that she’d died to get away from the lord and the wife equally—the sisters remembered their days in the court very well indeed.
“Lovyan was always so kind,” Vodda remarked as the roast haunch of boar was served. “I think that was the worst thing of all, her kindness.”
“Especially after Mam died.” Amma picked up a long-bladed dagger and flipped it point upward. “Shall I carve?”
When the rest of the boar appeared at the men’s table, the chamberlain sliced up a platterful and served it round, then retired to head up his own table for the noble-born servitors some distance away. The men at Lord Darryl’s table ate grimly, barely tasting their food, as they went on talking.
“The thing is,” Darryl said. “We’ll never raise enough riders to take Aberwyn. There aren’t enough men or horses here in the north.”
“If things come to war,” Talidd interposed, and he could hear how nervous he sounded, even to himself.
“Well, of course, if.” Darryl shot him a grin and wiped his mustaches on the back of his hand. “What’s wrong, Tal? You’re the one who broke this stag out of cover. Getting worried now that the hunt is up?”
“I never thought we’d be arming a pack of cursed farmers to do our fighting for us.” Talidd shot a murderous glance at Alyan, whose eyes went blank and bland in return. “I don’t like this.”
“My lords.” Alyan rose, towering over them, his dark skin glinting bluish in the firelight. “I’m only one of the Bear clan’s servitors, not one of the noble-born. Let me leave you to discuss this in private.”
Darryl hesitated, then motioned for a servant to carry the Bardekian’s trencher and goblet to the chamberlain’s table.
“Satisfied, Talidd?” Gwarryc said, sniffing a little. He had a bad cold, and his pale gray eyes and his long rabbit’s nose were both more than a little moist.
“Darro, I didn’t mean to insult your man, but I meant what I said. I don’t like this idea of arming a pack of rabble with pikes and teaching them to fight like the cursed islanders.”
“Well, what other hope of winning do we have? You’re not having a lot of luck getting us allies in the south.”
“True enough, but it’s early yet, early. Once the autumn’s here, and there’s no gwerbret in Aberwyn, then we’ll see men coming over to us.”
“Maybe so,” Gwarryc snuffled. “But here, Tal, don’t look so grieved. If I’m the only serious candidate, it’s likely the Council of Electors will settle the matter nice and peacefully.”
“The Council has every right to turn you down and call for other candidates.”
“And will you accept the Council’s vote, then,” Darryl snapped. “If it goes against us?”
“I will, and I’d advise you, my friend, to do so, too. I know how much getting that territory means to you, but …”
“The gwerbrets hold it unjustly!” Darryl slammed his fist onto the table and made the tankards jump.
“And they have for hundreds of years,” Talidd said. “So it won’t shatter your clan’s honor if they keep it a few more.”
“Indeed? I don’t hear you being so reasonable about Dun Bruddlyn.”
Talidd felt his face flush hot, but he kept himself under control.
“I intend to abide by the Electors’ vote even if it costs me what should have been mine.”
“All because of my pikemen, eh?”
Rather than answer, Talidd let out his breath in a sharp puff and had a long pull from his tankard to settle his nerves. Gwarryc blew his nose heavily into a scrap of rag.
“What I don’t understand,” the would-be gwerbret said, “is why we’re squabbling like this. It seems to have come on suddenly, like this cursed catarrh.”
“True spoken,” Talidd said. “My apologies, Darro. Lately I’ve been as jumpy as a cat by a pitch-pine fire.”
“So have I.” Darryl considered the problem with a slight frown. “And my apologies to you, Tal.”
“There’s no use in fighting over hiring a jockey until we’re sure we’ve got a horse race,” Gwarryc went on. “I know you’re both keen on seeing me in the gwerbretal chair, and my wife talks of little else these days, but I’m not convinced Rhodry Maelwaedd is dead.”
“He’s dead, sure enough.” Darryl spoke with a quiet conviction, and his eyes strayed to the other table, where Alyan was joking with the bard. “Before he left Bardek, Alyan heard the story. Rhodry offended some powerful man in the islands, and over there, they have ways of eliminating people who offend them. There’s some sort of paid guild, or so I understand.”
“Bloody barbarians,” Talidd muttered.
“Maybe so, but useful at times,” Darryl said. “Anyway, Rhodry’s death is why Alyan came here in the first place. The story of what happened to the Maelwaedd was common gossip on his island. When his enemies at home got Alyan exiled, he came to Aberwyn because he figured there’d be a lord or two who might need a proper military man’s services. He had old connections there, too, and one of the merchants put him on to me as a favor, like, to both of us.”
“Proper military man, indeed! Common-born men sticking the noble-born like pigs, and you call that proper?”
“Hold your tongues!” There was an impressive snap of command in Gwarryc’s voice. “Naught’s going to happen for months, anyway. Whether Rhodry’s alive or dead, the King’s decree said he had a year and a day to come claim his inheritance, and until then, the Council can’t even begin meeting.”
“And he had his gall, truly, the King I mean, interfering with the Council.” Darryl’s eyes turned dark. “Hundreds of years that treaty goes back, saying the King had better keep his greedy paws off the doings of the Council. Huh, it’s gall
ing all round, how many laws get bent for the wretched Maelwaedds. The High King always favors them.”
Although Talidd couldn’t think of another such incident more recent than ninety-odd years previous, he held his tongue. Once Darryl got to brooding on his clan’s ancient wrongs, there was no reasoning with him. That night, as they drank silently together, Talidd felt an ugly truth pushing itself into his reluctant mind. When he’d gone scurrying around, testing feeling against the Maelwaedds just because he was so furious over the apportioning of Dun Bruddlyn, he’d raised a lot more dust than he’d intended, enough, perhaps, to choke them all.
He found himself watching Alyan, too, with his polished manners, easy way with a jest, and complete lack of airs, and wondered why the man rubbed him so raw. The Bardekian had commanded regiments back in his own country, but he knew that he was a hired drillmaster now and naught more, existing, as so many exiles had before him, on the charity of a noble lord who had some use for him. Even when it came to training pikemen, Talidd had to admit that Darryl was hardly the first desperate lord who’d swelled his ranks with spearmen when there weren’t enough riders to carry his cause. When the emergencies passed, the spearmen always seemed to disband and the noble-born to revert to the traditional and honorable way of carrying out their feuds, face-to-face on horseback.
Yet, despite all these reasonable thoughts, deep in his heart Talidd despised Alyan. That night something else occurred to him. Maybe Alyan would have heard about Rhodry’s death through some kind of ordinary channel since they were both in Bardek at the time. But how had he known, so far away and so late in the sailing season, that Rhodry’s brother Rhys had died without an heir? Yet, Talidd’s honor stopped him from following the thought down. As Darryl said, he was the one who’d flushed this stag, and he’d sworn to his friends that he’d support them in their chase after it, and that, as far as he was concerned, was an end to it.
As regent of Aberwyn, as well as ruler of her own large demesne, Tieryn Lovyan had more to worry about than just her missing son. It seemed to Tevylla, whenever she saw her lady for a few minutes here and there, that the streaks of gray in the tieryn’s hair were getting larger and the wrinkles round her eyes deepening. Yet, harried as she was, Lovyan always had a pleasant word for the nursemaid when she saw her, and she always managed to look in on her granddaughter for some minutes every day. In fact, her brief times with Rhodda seemed to refresh the tieryn, who was not above hiking her skirts, sitting down right on the floor, and playing blocks or dolls with the child until a frantic servitor or page came rushing in with some new crisis.
Since back home in Dun Gwerbyn Rhodda had spent several hours a day with her beloved Granna, the child naturally resented the new order of things. After Lovyan had been dragged away from one of their times together, Rhodda would howl and rage for nearly an hour no matter what Tevylla did to calm her. She was beginning to wonder if something were wrong with the child—not that she was simple or half-witted, far from it. Even though she was only three, she spoke beautifully and knew as many words as an ordinary child of six or seven; in fact, she seemed to have a greedy appetite for words and was always badgering the bards and the scribes by asking what such and such a term meant and how she should use it. But along with all this precocious intellect came odd rages, and odder melancholy sulks, and times when she would tear off all her clothes, sob piteously, and say that she wanted to go live in the woods with the Wildfolk.
Tempers like that drove Tevylla to distraction, but she found that she had an unexpected ally in Nevyn. Not only did he give her good advice about handling the moods, he began taking the child for a walk at least once a day—just to talk about things, he said. Since Rhodda loved to go with him, Tevylla could hand over her difficult charge and get an hour or so alone with a clear conscience.
“I must admit I’m surprised, my lord,” Tevylla said to him one morning. “I thought a learned councillor like you would be above such things.”
“Oh the child has a fine mind. Her company’s very pleasant after hours spent with noble-born lords.”
He looked so sly at his joke that Tevylla had to giggle.
“We’re going to see the gnomes today,” Rhodda announced.
“Are you, dear? How lovely.” Tevylla assumed that the child and the old man had some elaborate game going. “Well, while you’re doing that, I’m going to go see Cook, and we’ll have a gossip.”
To get to the kitchen hut, Tevylla cut through the great hall, and as she happened to be passing the captain’s table, a young lad, slouching at the end of the bench, caught her arm with an ale-damp hand.
“You’re a good-looking woman, aren’t you? How come you keep hiding away in the women’s hall?”
Before Tevylla could reply or pull away, Cullyn was on his feet and moving, hitting the rider so hard across the face that tears sprang to his eyes.
“Hold your tongue, Lwc.” The captain’s voice was low and perfectly steady. “You’re speaking to a widow and the mother of a son.”
Lwc flinched back, one hand pressed over his swelling cheek, his eyes fixed in doglike apology on Tevylla’s face. Cullyn made her a bow.
“My apologies. None of my cubs will dare say one wrong word to you again.”
“No doubt.” Tevylla dropped him a curtsey. “My thanks, captain.”
As she hurried to the door, she saw two of the serving lasses watching Cullyn with undisguised longing from among the ale barrels. Since both pretty blonde Nonna and pinched-face Degwa were young enough to be his daughters, she stopped for a word with them.
“I wouldn’t be staring at the warband if I were you. I’d be going about my work before someone told Cook that you were hunting dangerous game.”
“Oh please, Mistress Tewa, don’t tell her.” Nonna put on her best winsome expression. “You’ve got to admit that the captain’s just absolutely splendid. Look at how he defended you.”
“Frankly, he rather frightens me, and he’s far too old for you. Now get back to the cookhouse and leave the warband alone.”
When she reached the kitchen, she told the cook straightaway about the lasses. Baena too had noticed their infatuation with the captain.
“I’ve spoken to the little sluts about it. I suppose it’s better him than one of his young louts. Cullyn’s a decent man around women, and if it was one of the warband they were after, they’d have big bellies already.”
“So you think the captain’s a decent man?”
“I do. Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure. Here I’ve been spending time with him almost every day for months, and I feel I hardly know him. On sunny days when Rhodda and I go out, he comes along with us, but you know, he rarely says two words together, unless he’s got news of my son to give me. Or sometimes when we’ve left the women’s quarters he’ll just pop up, like, to make sure we’re all right. He moves so quietly for a big man that he can truly scare you when you’re not expecting him.”
“I can believe that well enough. What does the child think of him?”
“Now that’s one good thing. She doesn’t throw her tempers when the captain’s around, I tell you. She’ll start to fuss, but he’ll give her one of his dark looks, and she’s as quiet as quiet again. And yet she never minds him coming along with us.”
“Well, he raised a daughter on his own, you know. His wife died very young, or so I heard the tale.”
“Truly? Now that’s a surprise! I wouldn’t have thought he was that kind of a man at all. Is his lass married now?”
“It’s Cullyn’s daughter that’s off with young Rhodry.”
“Oh! I hadn’t realized that.”
“It’s true, and I don’t know how the poor little lass manages, riding all over the kingdom like that.”
“It would be awful, sure enough. I do hope the King finds the lad soon, though. Our poor Lady Lovyan is eating herself away with worry.”
“Well, so she is. Rhodry’s always been a spoiled little beast, if you ask me. Look a
t him, seducing Rhodda’s mother first and then poor Jill! But truly, I’d rather have him in the gwerbret’s chair than some interloper who isn’t even a Maelwaedd. My mother was head cook here in Aberwyn before me, and her mother before her, and we’ve always served the Maelwaedds. I wouldn’t like to see some other clan come in here. What if they were mingy, like, or nasty tempered? You just never know with the noble-born.”
About an hour later, Nevyn turned up at the door of the kitchen hut with Rhodda and the captain both trailing after.
“I’ve got to go attend upon the tieryn, Tewa,” the old man said. “But Rhodda’s nowhere near ready for her nap yet.”
“We’ll have a bit of a walk, then. I see our bodyguard’s with you.”
Cullyn shot her a wry smile. She was surprised at herself, realizing just how much difference the cook’s news had made. Somehow knowing that the captain had a daughter made him seem like a human being. And what did I think he was before? she asked herself in some annoyance. A fiend from Hell?
As they made their way to the garden, they collected the equerry’s four-year-old son, a leather ball, and a pair of curved sticks that would do for a pretend hurley game. As the children ran around and swatted at the ball, Tevylla and Cullyn perched on the low brick wall and watched. Although the lawn was still green that time of year, it had a sad, thin look, and the western breeze made Tevylla shiver inside her wool cloak. When she looked off to the south, she could see dark clouds massing on the horizon for an assault on the dun.
“The kitchen gardener was telling me that he thinks we’re going to get a bad frost tonight,” Tevylla said. “Or maybe even a bit of snow. He says the omens are right for it.”
“Are they now? That’ll be a cursed nuisance.” All at once he laughed. “Listen to me. I’ve gotten soft and spoiled, living on the coast again. The few dribbles of snow we have down here are naught in a place like Cerrgonney.”