The innkeep was lighting the oil lamps with a long splint from the hearth when Rhodry came into the common room. When he stopped just inside the door, Jill got up, thinking that he would somehow need her physical support like a man recovering from a long illness, but she hesitated, suddenly frightened, as the uncertain light from the lamps grew and flared around him. She had never seen a man in such a rage. His anger poured out like light from the burning oil in one of the lamps, hot and dangerous yet somehow pure as it burned.
“I think me he remembers what they did to him,” Salamander said with the trace of a shake in his voice. “And I don’t think he’s pleased about it.”
As Rhodry stared round the room, everyone fell silent, the men turning to look at him, then hastily looking away again, until at last he moved and released them all. He strode over to Jill, acknowledged Salamander’s presence with a nod, then snatched her half-full wine cup from the table.
“I’m making a vow, my love.” His voice was a growl. “Once I’ve been invested with Aberwyn, I’m raising a fleet and burning Slaith and every stinking pirate with it.” He raised the cup over his head. “May the gods be my witnesses! That hellhole burns to the ground!”
Then he turned and threw the cup into the hearth so hard that it shattered. Although the wine hissed on the burning coals, paradoxically enough the flames leapt up high and flared. Towering among them Jill could see the Lords of Fire, accepting the vow.
Every morning, Cullyn and Tieryn Lovyan were among the first people awake in Dun Aberwyn. Yawning and drowsy, he would usually stroll into the great hall just as she was coming down the spiral staircase. While a sleepy page brought them both bowls of spiced milk and a servant mended up the fire in the hearth, they would sit at the table of honor and discuss the official business of the dun. After she gave Cullyn his orders for the day, Lovyan would always make the same remark.
“Nevyn’s been gone a long time now, captain.”
“So he has, Your Grace,” he would answer. “But spring’s on the way, and the weather will be good sailing soon.”
“Well, true spoken. It’s all on the knees of the gods now, anyway.”
And the regent would nod with a wan sort of smile and dismiss him.
On this particular morning, since Lovyan had no pressing orders, Cullyn wandered down to the gates of the dun and stood chatting with the guards. Although the day was warm, the sky was marbled with clouds, easing in from the south—a sign of coming rain, as he remarked.
“Sure enough, captain,” said a guard. “Seems like it’s been a long winter this year, but maybe that’s just the waiting. Do you think Lord Rhodry’s still alive?”
“I do.”
“Well, I certainly hope you’re right, sir. We all do, truly. When Gwerbret Rhys was still alive, we had to hate anyone he hated, like, but now things are different.”
“Are they? I’d wondered.”
“They are. If Lord Rhodry’s gwerbret, well, we’ll all follow him to the death. If naught else, at least he’s a Maelwaedd.”
“Sure enough, and it gladdens my heart that you can see things so clear, like.”
“I—here, who’s that?”
Cullyn looked where he pointed and saw a pair of travelers coming up the hill, an old man wrapped in an ordinary cloak with the hood up and a young man wearing a short cloak and a floppy-brimmed leather hat. They were leading a pair of beautiful riding horses, both the golden color of fresh-dug river-bank clay, as well as a sturdy chestnut pulling a laden travois.
“Oh, by the Lord of Hell’s hairy ass!” Cullyn muttered. “Well, this should prove interesting. All right, lad, see that old man? You treat him with all the respect due a prince, because he’s a friend of Nevyn’s and the same sort of man—if you take my meaning. As for the fellow with him, well, now, you and everyone else in the dun are in for a bit of a surprise.” He waved to the approaching pair and jogged off to meet them. “Aderyn, my lord, it gladdens my heart to see you again. Calonderiel, if this isn’t a welcome thing! What are you doing so far from your cursed grasslands?”
“Guarding the Wise One from you wretched round-ears.” Grinning, the elf gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “He wanted to come alone, but I wouldn’t hear of it.”
“I wouldn’t have either, if I’d been in your place.” Cullyn turned to Aderyn. “What brings you to us, my lord?”
“Oh, a small matter of my own. Can you get a page to take these horses, Cullyn? I need to talk to Nevyn straightaway.”
“But he’s gone, my lord. He sailed to Bardek weeks ago.”
“He what?” Aderyn’s open-mouthed surprise was close to comical.
“Sailed off for Bardek with Elaeno, the Orystinnian captain. Didn’t he tell you, my lord? I mean, I’ve always thought you had ways of sending messages that were faster than horses.”
“So we do, so we do, but he never did contact me. I assumed there was some sort of danger, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Oh ye gods, Cullyn, he must have simply forgotten! I’m beginning to wonder if the old man’s slipping a bit, I truly am.”
By then they’d gathered a small crowd of the idly curious. Cullyn handed the horses over to one servant, sent a page off to warn the tieryn, and ushered their guests inside the dun. When he realized how glad he was to see Aderyn, he had to laugh at himself. Only a few short years past he would have mocked any man who claimed to believe in sorcerers, and now here he was, outright relieved to have a dweomermaster in the dun again. When they came into the great hall, the tieryn rose from her place at the head of the honor table and turned their way. For a moment she looked terrified, but as they walked over to kneel in front of her, she relaxed and greeted the pair with a gracious smile.
“Calonderiel, isn’t it?” she said. “For a moment there I thought you were someone else. And who, good sir, may you be?”
“My name is Aderyn, Your Grace. Perhaps Nevyn has spoken of me?”
“He has, and truly, you’re more than welcome in my dun for as long as you wish to stay. Page! Run and tell Cook to prepare refreshments for our guests. They’ve come a long way. Bring mead, too. You’ll have to get out the best goblets, by the way. The usual ones are—well, never mind that now.”
“Her Grace is very kind,” Aderyn said. “And truly, if she has any need of me whatsoever, I’m at her service.”
Lovyan’s eyes filled with tears of relief, but she brushed them away and arranged another smile.
“I shall take your offer with humble thanks, good Aderyn. After you and your friend have rested, perhaps we can have a private talk in my chambers.” She glanced at Cullyn. “Maybe now we can get some news. I’ve been driven to distraction, wondering what Blaen’s been up to. Do join us, captain. I know that Calonderiel is a friend of yours.”
As they settled themselves at the table of honor, Calonderiel remembered his manners and took off the leather hat, dropping it casually on the table just as the page returned with a tray of goblets and a flagon of mead. The lad frankly stared at his long ears, curled to a delicate point like a seashell, and at his violet cat-slit eyes, too, until Cullyn leaned forward and intervened.
“You’ve got work to do, lad. Go do it.”
The boy fled. Calonderiel picked up his goblet and had a sip of mead.
“Sweet and light, but good, Your Grace,” he pronounced, saluting the tieryn. “My thanks for your hospitality, but don’t you think I’d better leave now that the Wise One’s safely here? It appears that I alarm your subjects.”
“They’ll have to get used to you and your people sooner or later, good sir.” Lovyan sounded oddly weary. “I have the distinct feeling that my son is going to welcome you in his court once he returns to claim his rhan.”
“No doubt,” Aderyn broke in. “Your Grace, grave matters are afoot, beyond, perhaps, what any of us could know.”
His words made Cullyn feel strangely cold and solemn. For as long as he lived, he would remember that moment at the table of honor: Lovyan, leaning forward, her blue ey
es deep and shadowed with some private thought; Calonderiel, his lips half-parted, the goblet dutched in his hand as he turned to her as if in support; Aderyn himself, with his white hair swept up from his forehead in two peaks like an owl’s horns and his enormous dark eyes that seemed to look far into a future that none could see but him. Yet, at that moment, Cullyn had an odd instinctive glimpse of that future, and the even odder feeling that someday he and the elven warleader beside him would play an important part in it.
“So great things are on the move, are they?” Cullyn said to the dweomerman.
“They are. We’ll talk later, captain, but I’m going to need your help.”
“You’ll have it, of course.” With a nod to the tieryn, he rose, then made her a bow. “My lady, with your permission, I’ve somewhat that needs attending to.”
“By all means, captain.”
“My thanks, my lady. Cal, I’ll see you in a bit. Come sit at my table for dinner, will you?”
“Gladly. I’m an archer, not a horse soldier, but I feel more at home in a warband anyway.”
Cullyn strode off, heading for the stairway up to the women’s hall. Soon, he knew, he’d be riding over half of Eldidd on Gwerbret Rhodry’s business, and there was something he wanted done before he left. He’d only gotten to the first landing when he met Tevylla coming down with Rhodda clinging to one hand and a basket in the other.
“I was just going to look for you,” she said. “Rhodda and I were thinking we’d have our noon meal outside.”
“Good idea. I’d best come with you, then.”
Since the day was sunny and warm enough if you were out of the wind, they took the chunks of sweet bread and pot of soft cheese in the basket out to the sheltered rose garden in a curve where two half-brochs met. Although the roses were still naught but mulched sticks, the lawn there was green again, and Rhodda was happy to sit on the grass and pretend to share her meal with her imaginary friends, the ones she called gnomes. Cullyn and Tevylla sat down on a stone bench nearby. Now that the crux was here, Cullyn found himself utterly tongue-tied until Tevylla gave him an opening.
“How’s my Merddyn these days? I never seem to see him anymore, except from a distance.”
“He’s been working hard, and I’m pleased with him, though I’ll ask you not to tell him I said that. He’s got a good hand for a sword and the right amount of courage—enough to make him fight, but not enough to make him do stupid things in a scrap.”
She winced.
“Well, my apologies. I don’t suppose any mother wants her son to go for a rider.”
“None that I know of, truly. I think you bewitch your young men, Cullyn. They all want to be just like you, and they never think once of what you risked to become the man you are.”
“That’s true spoken, and it aches my heart. But lads are like that. You never think that you could be the one to die in battle, not till you’re twenty or so, and by then, well, all you know is the warband. But here, I didn’t mean to trouble your heart about his future.”
“Tact’s never been a weapon in your armory, has it?” But she was smiling at him.
“It hasn’t, at that. I’ve never been much for words. Somewhat of a pity, now.”
“Indeed? Why?”
He shrugged to gain a little time, wishing that he could think of some elegant or flowery phrase, wishing that he’d asked one of the bards for advice. Women were supposed to like it, weren’t they, when you said fine words to them? She was watching him with her head tilted a little to one side.
“You know,” he said at last. “That widow’s black doesn’t suit you.”
“Indeed? Well, it’s not truly my choice to wear it, you know.”
“If you were the captain’s woman, you could have it off and be done with it.”
She went stone-still, her lips half-parted, as surprised as if he’d barked at her like a dog. Since he’d been counting on her answering, one way or another, he began to feel a little desperate.
“Ah well, think you could put up with me?” he went on. “We wouldn’t make such a bad pair, you and I. We’ve both been through too much to babble about love and suchlike.”
“So we have, truly.”
For a long moment they stared at each other, half-listening to Rhodda as she sang to the Wildfolk. Cullyn struggled to find something to say, then broke off a bit of bread and offered it to her, the way a man would do to his wife. She hesitated only briefly before she bent her head and took it from his fingers. He smiled and felt that the sunlight had just turned a little warmer.
“I’ll be asking the tieryn for permission to marry this afternoon, then,” he said. “I wonder if I can find a jeweler to sell me a brooch for you straightaway. We’re going to have to be quick about it. Spring’s almost here.”
“Do you think there’s going to be a war in the rhan?” Unconsciously she laid one hand on her throat.
“I don’t know. There’s a lot of powerful men working to keep the peace. I just want to make sure that nothing gets in the way of us marrying, one way or the other.”
“I see. You know, in its way that’s more flattering than any fine words or poetry I ever heard.”
He grinned, thinking that he’d made the right choice for a certainty.
Although Tevylla had always considered the captain an efficient man, she was surprised at the ruthless speed with which he got them married. That very afternoon Tieryn Lovyan called her into her private chamber to congratulate her on the coming wedding.
“We’ll have to get a lass to help you with Rhodda,” Lovyan said. “You’ll need time for your husband now, too.”
“My thanks, Your Grace. What about that new lass, Glomer? She struck me as a clever sort.”
“More clever than you know, actually. She’s a very good choice indeed. Speak to her about it today, will you?”
“I will, my lady. Oh, do you know where Cullyn’s got to?”
“He’s down in town, talking to the priests about the wedding.”
“I see.” Tevylla dropped her a curtsey. “I’d best go find Glomer. I’ll doubtless be needing her soon.”
After some searching, she found Glomer out in a storage shed by the back wall. Balanced precariously on a pile of wooden crates, the lass was untying onions from a long garland and filling a basket with them. She was more than pleased to come down and hear about her new job, which she greeted with a shriek of delight.
“I’ll get to work in the broch itself? Oh, that’s so splendid, Mistress Tevylla! I promise HI work truly hard.”
“Good. Let’s go tell Cook, and then you can come up to the women’s hall and meet Rhodda. I’ve left her with the serving women, and she’s probably driven them daft by now.”
As they were walking round to the kitchen hut, they saw Calonderiel, rubbing down his golden horse with a twisted swatch of straw. At the sight of him a big-eyed Glomer stopped and made the sign of warding against witchcraft. Since Tevylla had been born and raised in Dun Gwerbyn, she’d seen elves before, but she couldn’t deny that they made her nervous.
“Tevylla?” Glomer’s whisper was barely audible. “Is that one of Nevyn’s demons?”
“It’s not, but a man of flesh and blood. Very real flesh and blood for that matter. Now listen, lass. I don’t know why myself, but a lot of women fancy the Westfolk men the way a cat fancies catmint, and the Westfolk men have absolutely no honor where women are concerned. You leave him strictly alone, or we’ll end up with another babe to watch over.”
Tevylla slipped her arm through the girl’s and led her firmly away, but once or twice Glomer looked back, furtively, reluctantly, as if she couldn’t quite help herself. Tevylla could only hope that Calonderiel hadn’t noticed.
When Cullyn returned, late that afternoon, he brought two things with him. One was a silver betrothal brooch, made of two wires so cunningly interlaced and spiraled that they looked like a single strand. The other was a priest of Bel, who announced the betrothal that very evening in the
great hall, as the warbands and the servitors were lingering over their ale. When the captain pinned the brooch on her dress, his men started cheering, and everyone else joined in, making Tevylla blush like a lass. Cullyn, however, seemed oddly distracted, his face impassive, his eyes distant while he watched his new wife take off the black headscarf and toss her head as if she were physically shaking off the burden of widowhood. Later, when she grew to know him better, Tevylla would remember that look of profound boredom and realize that he was brimming with feeling like a goblet about to spill over with mead.
“If any man or woman either has reason to speak against this wedding,” the priest called out, yelling over the general noise, “let them step forward now or come to me in private at the temple on the morrow morn. Otherwise the wedding will proceed at noon.”
“Noon?” Tevylla blurted. “On the morrow?”
“Why not?” Cullyn said. “I’m not a little lad who needs to say farewell to his mam.”
At that she could laugh, and she felt much better. Yet, as soon as she decently could, she made her escape and went out to the kitchen hut to talk with Baena, who was cracking parched oats on a quern for the morrow’s porridge. Automatically Tevylla picked up a wooden scoop and began transferring the cereal into a kettle as they talked.
“I’m so happy for you, Tewa, I truly am.”
“My thanks. Our Cullyn certainly doesn’t waste any time once he makes up his mind about somewhat.”
“True enough. He’s a good man, though. I’m happy for him, too.” Baena paused, laying down the heavy stone grinder so she could tuck a wisp of hair back under her headscarf. “The regent called me in earlier. We’ll have a nice feast on the morrow.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have to go to all that work. It seems silly to make a fuss over a second marriage.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t, and I don’t mind the work at all, I don’t. Everyone needs a bit of fun to lift their spirits these days, and that’s the truth.”
Since she had to instruct Glomer in her new dudes, the following morning passed quickly for Tevylla with hardly a thought of her coming marriage. Yet, as she watched the lass playing with little Rhodda, she found herself remembering her first wedding day. Since her father had picked him out from another village, she’d barely known her husband, and she’d spent the whole morning alternately vomiting or giggling hysterically. Now, when Cullyn appeared in the doorway, she merely smiled at him.