Sword of Fire Read online

  “Curse the young cub, anyway!” Ladoic said. “What was he doing in my city? Spying, most like! Causing trouble!”

  “Oh, come now, Father. He’s the third son. He was hoping to be accepted into Wmm’s priesthood one day.”

  “Third son, eh? Well, then, I can probably afford his wyrd price.” Ladoic had a long swallow of ale, which he preferred to the new fashion in hops-flavored beer. “I’ll admit it, lass, it troubles my heart thinking about the other two dead lads. I’ve given that young butcher’s family twice his lwdd price, and the guild scholar’s kin a fair bit, too.”

  “That was good of you.” And also, Dovina thought to herself, it’ll help calm the outcry against you. “Their poor mothers! What about the woman who lost an eye?”

  “Paid that too, of course. Very sad, that! But I wish you’d see that you’re helping those wretched bards stir up a pot of poisoned trouble, you and your scholars.”

  “What made the pot boil over was your warband charging into the crowd.”

  Ladoic growled under his breath, then calmed himself. “You have a point,” he said. “Your brother’s not got enough experience of such matters, is the trouble. He lost his head and command of his men both. But truly, these things are going to happen in these delicate situations.”

  “You have a point, too, Father. By the by, I saw Gwarl ride out this morning with ten of your men.”

  Ladoic looked over her head at the far wall. “Just exercising their horses, I wager.”

  “Father! You didn’t send them after the silver dagger, did you?”

  He said nothing, but his glower at the innocent stones told her what she needed to know.

  “I don’t understand why you’d put Gwarl in command after what happened before. He’s too young to make decisions like—”

  “How else is he going to get the experience he needs, eh?”

  She decided that arguing further would only make things worse. She stood up and curtsied.

  “If I may speak—”

  “Since when have you ever held your tongue?” At last he looked her way.

  “The people are truly concerned about the courts. It’s not as if the Bardic Guild came up with this idea in the first place.”

  “Imph.” He drank from his tankard. “We’ll be traveling to Cerrmor by ship. So you can bring all the clothes and such as you women always seem to want.”

  She knew from long experience that she’d have to accept the change of subject. She was used to waiting for the right times to have these calm talks with her father.

  In the morning, however, she realized that the right time would doubtless not come soon, if ever. The Bardic Guild’s messengers arrived just as Dovina and her mother were leaving the breakfast table in the great hall. Although Rhosyan hurried up the stairs with her maid in attendance, Dovina lingered on the bottom step to watch as Ladoic broke the seal on the folded packet of pabrus, shook the pages out smooth, and glanced at the writing. His face slowly darkened to a dangerous shade of red.

  “Nallyc!” Although he kept his voice steady, the name boomed through the hall. “Get your arse up here!”

  With his black robes flapping around him, the councillor ran for the dais like a startled raven seeking a perch. Ladoic shoved the handful of pabrus into his hands, then slowly and carefully exhaled. He picked up his tankard and sipped from it while Nallyc read through the documents.

  “I see why Your Grace is distressed,” Nallyc said eventually. “But truly, it was honorable of them to notify you.”

  “Horseshit! They’re trying to outflank us on the road to battle, aren’t they?” He glanced Dovina’s way, then back to the councillor. “Read it aloud, will you?”

  For a moment Nallyc merely stared at the offending words while Dovina fretted. Read it, old man! she thought. Finally he sighed with a shake of his head. “We wish to inform you that we are appealing directly to the Prince Regent on the matter of appointing a justiciar on the western border to judge such affairs as the recent death of our guildsman Cradoc of Cannobaen.” He coughed and shook his head again. “I see.”

  “The regent’s as eager as a stud around mares to plant his men all over the kingdom. And if we get his cursed justiciar, then the pisspot bards will file suit against me. Am I right?”

  “You are, Your Grace—well, in my opinion, anyway. We should get in a law-speaking priest to confirm it.”

  Father’s not quite as furious as I thought he’d be, Dovina thought. She sat down on a step to continue watching.

  Ladoic stood up and bellowed for his scribes. Like Nallyc the two of them arrived on the run with their satchels in hand. Once they were ready, Ladoic sat down again.

  “I’ll want seven of these messages sent,” he said. “I’ll give you the names when we’re done.”

  The message was brief. He told the recipients about the petition, remarked that this was a threat that “none of us” could ignore, and ended with an invitation to meet and discuss the matter further. The list of names he rattled off made Dovina turn cold, all five western gwerbretion and two from central Deverry. He’d even included Standyc. Rebellion? she thought. Surely not!

  With the scribes hard at work, Ladoic stood up and started toward the staircase. Dovina rose and curtsied to him.

  “Father?” she said. “They’re giving you grief, aren’t they? The other gwerbretion?”

  He started to snarl, checked himself, and smiled in a tight-lipped way. “I’m the man in the first line of the shield wall. That’s how they see it. If I go down, the line’s broken, and this cursed court argument spreads into their territories.”

  “I wish you’d told me this earlier. I heard the list of names. Some of them come from upstart clans, don’t they? I wonder about their sense of honor.”

  “You see things clearly, don’t you? Despite your watery eyes. Ah, bad cess to the god who made you female!”

  With that he brushed past her and hurried up the stairs. Once he was well away, Dovina returned to the dais. The scribes had gathered up their things and left for some better place to work. Only two pages remained, clearing away Ladoic’s interrupted meal. She knew one of them well, the son of a lord who held land in fealty to Aberwyn.

  “Darro!” She summoned him with a flick of her hand. “I have an errand in town for you.”

  With a grin he trotted over and bowed. Going into town was much preferable to the usual afternoon job required of the pages, mucking out the stables and garderobes.

  “See if you can find a silver dagger or some other messenger who’s available for a long ride. Make sure he knows he’ll be well paid. If you find one, bring him to the dun and have him wait outside the gates. Then fetch me.”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  Dovina fished in the pouch tucked into her kirtle and brought out a couple of small coins.

  “If anyone asks,” she said, “tell them I want to send a very private letter to a lord of my acquaintance. The mails won’t do.”

  His eyes widened in hopeful curiosity.

  “That’s all you need to know.” She handed over the coins.

  He grinned again, slipped the coins into his own pouch, and hurried off. A little false gossip to chase the truth away, Dovina thought. Let’s hope it works.

  While he searched, Dovina wrote Alyssa a long letter and sealed it into an old-fashioned silver message tube. From her jewelry box she took a small silver square stamped with her father’s seal, an official token that would allow her messenger to change horses at any loyal lord’s dun. Should the lord get an inferior horse or none at all in return, the token ensured that the gwerbret would make good the loss. She’d taken the precaution, some years before, of stealing a handful of these pieces from the chief scribe’s chamber.

  Long before the noon meal Darro returned with the news that he’d found a silver dagger in a local tavern. Dovina had
him accompany her. As she walked across the ward to the dun gates, she saw a youngish man, dark-haired and clean-shaven, standing just outside and holding the reins of a dun gelding. His clothes, though road-stained, were in reasonably good repair, and he carried a broadsword on his belt. When she drew close enough to see the fine points, he turned out to be remarkably good-looking. She found herself surprised by this, as if she’d expected that all silver daggers would be weaselly or brutish or at best like Alyssa’s Cavan, decent-looking provided you liked a touch of wild animal in a man.

  When she walked outside the gates to join him, the silver dagger started to kneel, but she waved him up.

  “No need for that,” she said. “Your name?”

  “Benoic, my lady.”

  “And you’re in Aberwyn because?”

  “I heard there was a feud brewing. Work for my sword, I thought.”

  For several moments she considered him. He was, she supposed, as trustworthy as any silver dagger, which meant he’d be completely loyal as long as he was paid—a cut above the average mercenary.

  “Tell me summat,” she said. “Do you know a silver dagger named Cavan of Lughcarn?”

  He smiled. “I do, my lady, and a good friend he is.”

  “Excellent! I have a hire for you.” She glanced back at the dun gates, where two guards were lounging against the stone wall. “Here, come walk a ways with me. Darro, you stay here.”

  They went some hundred yards away from possible eavesdroppers before Dovina explained the errand to Benoic. It turned out that he came originally from Pyrdon and knew the territory around Haen Marn quite well. Along with the message tube and token, she handed him coins, a pair of Eldidd brazens, to provision him on the journey.

  “At the end of my letter,” she said, “there’s a message to the recipient, saying to pay you well. If she never gets the letter—”

  “Understood, my lady.” He made her a bob of a bow. “I swear on my silver dagger that I’ll put it into her hands and no one else’s.”

  Dovina returned to the dun gates. She and Darro stood watching while Benoic mounted up and rode off.

  “Not a word of this to anyone,” she said to the page, “or I won’t take you to Cerrmor with me.”

  “Cerrmor?” He grinned, all wide-eyed. “I could go to Cerrmor?”

  “If you say naught a word—or wait, you can hint that I’ve sent a letter to a man I fancied, ending things, like, now that my father wants to betroth me to someone else.”

  He made her a deep and courtly bow. “Your heart must ache, my lady,” he said, still grinning. “And his, too.”

  * * *

  Alyssa and Cavan had reached a proper town, Lynarth. They paused their horses and considered the town walls, a tall, thick half-circle facing the road with the open side directly fronting the river. A flimsy wooden bridge, easily destroyed in case of siege, crossed the river to a huddle of shacks and tumble-down houses on the far bank. Men wearing hauberks stood at the iron gates. Some carried pikes, a few had clubs, and the rest, swords of various ages and sorts. None wore any sort of formal livery.

  “Local militia,” Cavan told Alyssa. “Looks like they’ve been recruited just recently, too.”

  “No doubt they have been. When the lords feud, the people crouch in fear.”

  “Nicely put.”

  “It’s just an old proverb.”

  “Truly? I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Doubtless the noble-born don’t repeat it.”

  Cavan blushed.

  At the gates, they dismounted. Two of the militia men came forward and greeted them politely enough.

  “Where are you headed, silver dagger?” the elder said.

  “Haen Marn. I’ve been paid to escort the lady there.”

  “Be here long?”

  “Only the one night. I assume we can find a decent place to stay?”

  The militiaman nodded, then looked them both over slowly and carefully. He had narrow blue eyes in his weather-beaten face, and a full mouth pursed in thought under his gray mustache. At length he shrugged.

  “Go in, then,” he said. “But if you stay longer, you’ll have to report to the mayor. The innkeep will tell you where.”

  He turned and walked away with a wave to the others, who stepped back and cleared the gates. As they led their horses down the winding main street, Alyssa noticed townsfolk hurrying about their business as if they hated being away from their homes.

  They found an inn easily enough, but for the evening meal the dining room was so crowded that the innkeeper denied Cavan a place at table. The silver dagger had to sit on the floor at Alyssa’s feet like a dog and hold his bowl of stew in his lap. She assumed that he found it humiliating, but his position brought him advantages. Alyssa could slip him extra food, and he could hear the gossip and news from the other diners.

  A stout fellow wearing the checked waistcoat of a merchant had just returned from escorting his wife to Haen Marn and back. The wife, a pale and exhausted little thing with scant dark hair, leaned against him while she picked at her dinner and let him do all the talking—a habit, Alyssa supposed, that preceded her illness, whatever it might have been.

  “Not sure what I think of Ladoic of Aberwyn,” the merchant said. “Good of him to try to keep the peace, eh? But siding with the Westfolk—don’t know about that. We need to stick to our own kind. And stick up for ’em, too, when sword hits shield.”

  “Aberwyn has ties with the King of the Westlands that go back hundreds of years,” Alyssa said. “And the folk bring in a fair bit of trade all along the western border of his rhan.”

  “Huh, happen the coin explains it, then. Now, Standyc of Pyrdon, he wants those border lands under his rule. Puffed up like a frog, he is, talking about taxes and bringing in the free farmers to pay ’em, Deverry men, that is, not those long-eared barbarians.”

  “So he’s thinking of the coin, too.”

  The merchant paused to shovel in a mouthful of turnips in gravy. “Well, true spoken.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “But you never know where you are with the Westfolk. I’ve heard they eat snakes.”

  Probably tastier than this stew, Alyssa thought, but she smiled rather than speaking the thought aloud. Not long after, the merchant helped his wife rise from table and led her off to their chamber. Alyssa snagged the woman’s untouched portion of bread and handed it to Cavan before the merchant returned.

  * * *

  Direct news from Aberwyn soon reached Cavan and his hire. In the morning they left Lynarth with an anxious eye for clouds that scurried in before a strong west wind. Eventually the sky turned so dark and damp-looking that they decided to stop early. They had reached Draegrhyn, a town that stood just south of the border with Pyrdon. Ahead lay the Bears’ new gwerbretrhyn of Cernmetyn. Once they crossed that border, they’d legally be beyond Ladoic’s reach.

  “Who knows if he’ll abide by the law, though,” Cavan said.

  “Truly. We’ll not have much recourse if he doesn’t, either.”

  “That’s why we’re making this journey, innit?”

  Alyssa rewarded him with a smile.

  They found accommodation in a shabby inn, too small to have a separate chamber for women. Nor was the innkeep too fussy to shelter a silver dagger. Just before the rain started, Cavan was tending their riding horses in high hopes for a bed shared with Alyssa and no other travelers when another silver dagger led his stumbling-tired horse, both of them sweat-stained and dusty from the roads, into the innyard.

  “Benoic!” Cavan called out. “Hell’s arse! You look like a badger’s leavings!”

  Benoic raised a hand in greeting and nodded, as exhausted as his horse. “Been riding urgent messages.”

  “Ah. To the local lord?”

  “To the lass you’re guarding. From the Lady Dovina of Aberwyn.”
r />   To a fighting man in Deverry, the needs of horses always came first. Simmering with curiosity though he was, Cavan tended Benoic’s horse along with the other beasts while Benoic made himself fit to deliver the messages. He poured a bucket of cold well water over his head to wash off the worst of the dirt and wake himself up, then staggered into the inn. Once the horses were watered, fed, and in their stalls, Cavan hurried after him.

  Alyssa was sitting on the end of a bench beside a greasy table and reading a curling sheet of pabrus in the light from a nearby window. His eyes half-shut, Benoic knelt at her feet and leaned against the table leg. When Cavan knelt beside his fellow silver dagger, Alyssa looked up.

  “Can you read?” she said.

  Benoic shook his head no, but Cavan held out a hand for the letter.

  When Alyssa gave it to him, he scanned it fast, then summarized it for Benoic’s sake. Someone had been eavesdropping on Dovina and her mother in the women’s hall and found out that “the silver dagger in the marketplace quarrel” had left Aberwyn. Gwerbret Ladoic promptly sent his town marshals around to find out more.

  “They now know that Cavan rode north,” Dovina wrote. “I’m afraid that he thinks you rode with him. Certainly he knows you’re missing. Father seems inclined to blame the King’s Collegium men for everything, a delusion in which I shall encourage him. He’s sending a squad from his warband north to catch Cavan, though, which means he’ll catch you, too. You’ll have to admit you were eloping out of love and no other reason if that happens.”

  Cavan looked up and stared wide-eyed at Alyssa.

  “She means we should lie, of course.” Alyssa sounded weary. “To protect me.”

  “Oh.” Of course, curse it!

  Cavan returned to the letter. At the end, Dovina stressed that using the new post service to answer her would be unsafe.

  “Father is having the mails searched. My wretched dolt of a younger brother, by the way, is in charge of the squad following you. He’ll probably botch the job somehow, but we can’t be sure of that.”