The Red Wyvern Read online

  “Do sit down, Lilli!” Merodda snapped. “What’s so wrong?”

  Lilli turned and looked at her mother, whose face was its usual bland and shiny mask.

  “Somewhat’s distressed young Lord Anasyn,” Lilli said.

  “Ah.” Merodda looked across the hall. “So it has. How odd.”

  Yet Merodda was fighting to keep from smiling—Lilli could see it in the tightness of her lips, the forced wideness of her eyes. Lilli swung round and saw Burcan rising from his chair to speak to Peddyc. All around them silence spread through the hall like a wave from a stone dropped into a pond, as those close fell silent to listen first, then those farther on.

  “Oh ye gods!” It was a girl’s voice, squealing through the silence. “They’ve murdered Lady Bevyan, and I sent her away, and it’s all my fault!”

  Shrieking the queen leapt up and rushed through the hall in a careening flight toward the stairway. Merodda rose and, cursing under her breath, hurried after as maidservants ran to do the same. All through the hall everyone began talking and yelling back and forth. Cerrmor raiders, they all said—Cerrmor raiders this far north and dishonorable enough to kill women on the road! Lilli stood by the table and tried to think. At first she had trouble identifying the feeling that flooded her, that made her burn and freeze in turn. At last she found its name: hatred. Her mother had killed Bevva somehow, she was sure of it—and Sarra as well. When she remembered the screams that had woken her the day before, she knew that Sarra lay dead without needing to be told.

  “Cerrmor raiders, was it?” she whispered. “And there were Uncle Burcan and his men, riding in with Cerrmor shields.”

  In the uproar no one heard her. She watched as Peddyc and Anasyn left the great hall with the king and his escort, with both the regent and the various gwerbretion in attendance, including Tibryn.

  All afternoon Lilli hung around the great hall and fished for news. The rider who’d brought the message was one of Lord Camlyn’s. When Lady Bevyan and her escort had failed to arrive, Camlyn’s lady had sent out a search party, and they’d found the slaughter. Everyone was dead—every single man, even Bevyan’s little page, as if the raiders had meant to leave no witnesses to their treachery, though carelessly enough, they’d left two dropped and broken shields behind. When she learned this, Lilli’s certainty grew. Burcan wouldn’t have dared let even the page escape, for fear someone had recognized him.

  Toward evening she found a maidservant who’d overheard Tieryn Peddyc’s plans. He’d gotten permission from the king to leave Dun Deverry in the morning with his men and go attend to the burying of his wife. He would then return and join the muster.

  “And oh, how ever so angry he is!” the girl said, all wide-eyed. “Swearing and carrying on and saying no Cerrmor man will ever have quarter from him again! I’ll wager he kills ever so many this summer.”

  “No doubt,” Lilli said. “Tell me somewhat. Yesterday morn, did the regent happen to go to my mother’s chambers?”

  “He did, truly. Why?”

  “Oh, I asked her to ask him a favor for me. But it can wait, what with all this trouble.”

  With a nod, the maidservant hurried off about her chores. All at once Lilli realized that she wanted to scream in rage at everyone over everything—and nothing at all. She fled the unwelcome sight of other people and hurried to her chamber. She barred the door, then leaned against it and looked at the pieces of Braemys’s wedding shirt, lying on the wooden chest where she’d put them the day before. They were the last thing Bevva would ever give her.

  “Why can’t I cry?”

  The hatred seemed to have dried all her tears. She lay down on her bed to watch the evening darken beyond her window. The worst thing was that no one would ever suspect Burcan of this crime, or Merodda, either, who had put him up to it. Lilli was sure of that. Brour had always told her that one day she could read the omens for her own purposes, and she understood now what her dreams had brought her.

  “I know the truth, and I’ll get revenge—oh don’t be silly! What can I do?”

  At that she did weep, sobbing into her pillow until she fell asleep. She dreamt, but this time of armed men and vengeance. She woke abruptly to find the chamber dark except for pale moonlight falling through her slit of a window. Once again the omens had come to her for the reading. She was smiling as she got up and left her chamber.

  Tieryn Peddyc and Anasyn still slept in Bevyan’s old suite. By the time Lilli reached it, her dream courage had faded like the moonlight. What if Peddyc refused to listen to her? What if her mother found out she’d been to see him? Silent, so silent in the corridor—Lilli crept terrified, certain that her breathing would bring every guard in Dun Deverry running. Four doors, five, and under the sixth a gleam of pale light—so, Peddyc did wake still.

  She darted across the corridor and plastered herself against the wall beside the door. Dimly she could hear voices, masculine and unintelligible. She should knock on the door, but what if someone heard? In the dark corridor nothing moved, nothing made a sound. She forced herself to raise her fist, hesitated, felt sweat run down her back. She should turn away, run away, race back to the chamber before her mother found her gone. And what? Let Bevva lie unavenged? Lilli gulped once and slammed her fist against the wood.

  The voices inside stopped, then one grew louder along with the sound of a bar scraping as someone lifted it. The door opened a bare crack to reveal Peddyc’s face, pale and unshaven.

  “Lillorigga!” he said. “What’s this, lass? Can’t you sleep?”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “Please, let me in?”

  Puzzled, he stepped back. She slipped inside, then stood listening to her heart pound while he dropped the bar across the door. Anasyn stood by the hearth, his face a mask, but his eyes were red and puffy. Lilli knew that she could wait not a heartbeat more and still keep her nerve.

  “It wasn’t Cerrmor men,” she blurted. “It was a trick. It was Boarsmen. My mother sent them with captured shields.”

  Peddyc stared, his mouth open. By the hearth Anasyn grunted like a wounded man. Lilli knew she was trembling, and sweat ran down her back.

  “I saw them,” she went on. “My uncle and his men. They were riding back into the dun on tired horses, that night I mean, after Bevva was … after she was slain. And they carried Cerrmor shields. There’s a lot of them in the dun, captured from one battle or another.”

  Anasyn threw up his head like a stag who smells dogs.

  “I saw Boarsmen ride out,” he said. “Do you remember, Da? I mentioned it to you, that some of the Boar’s men were leaving the dun, and a cart followed them.”

  Peddyc nodded. On his temple a vein throbbed.

  “And this morning, when the news came, I watched my mother, and she smiled.” Lilli’s courage came back with a rush. “She tried not to, but she smiled. And I knew then she was behind it.”

  Anasyn had gone an eerie pale in the lantern light.

  “By the gods,” Peddyc whispered. “That stinking rat of a man! The regent himself, was it? May every blessing in life be yours, lass, for bringing me this news.”

  “Father.” Anasyn stepped forward. “I want vengeance.”

  “So do I, and if Merodda weren’t Lilli’s mother we’d go to her chamber and slit her lying throat before we went and did the same for Burcan. But she is Lilli’s mother, and by the gods, cursed if I’ll hang for avenging my wife! Let me think, just let me think for a moment here.”

  Lilli sank to her knees, unsure of why she couldn’t stand. Peddyc bent over and grabbed her hands.

  “Come sit down,” he barked. “Sanno, pour her a drop of mead. Here, here, lass, you’re all to pieces, and who can blame you?”

  In a flurry of murmurs Anasyn and a page sat her down in a carved chair, handed her mead, and brought a cushion for her back. All the while Tieryn Peddyc stood at the hearth and stared at the flames. Lilli took one sip of the drink, then realized her hands were shaking so hard that the pale gold liqu
or danced within the cup.

  “I’ve got to get back.” She set it on the table. “If she finds me gone, she’ll kill me, too.”

  “No doubt.” Peddyc turned from the hearth. “And when me and my men don’t come back when we’ve pledged, there’s a good chance she’ll kill you then, if she and her precious regent guess who told me the truth. You’d best ride with us on the morrow.”

  “You’d take me away?” Lilli found that she could barely form the words.

  “If you’ll go, of course we will! You’re my foster-daughter, aren’t you? And even if you weren’t, what kind of a man would I be, leaving you behind with that murdering bastard?”

  Anasyn knelt beside her with a fluid motion and caught her hand in both of his.

  “Come away with us, Lilli,” he said. “We’ll dress you in some of my clothes, and cut off your hair, and no one will notice another manservant or suchlike riding with us. And then you’ll be safe, back at Hendyr if you like, or you can come with us to Cerrmor.”

  “Cerrmor?” she whispered it like a dweomer spell. “I could go to Cerrmor?”

  “Cursed right, and welcome you’ll be,” Peddyc said. “The Boar’s own niece, gone over to …” He hesitated, his eyes filling with tears. “Gone over to the True King.”

  For the last few hours of that night no one slept. While Anasyn stood watch at the door, Peddyc’s old manservant cut off Lilli’s hair, which she wrapped in a bit of old cloth, every scrap of it, to take with her lest her mother find it and use it to work dweomer against her. She rubbed ashes in the cropped remainder, too, and added a smear of the same along the line of her jaw and on one temple, as if she were a page, sleeping at the hearth. In the privacy of the bedchamber she changed into the scruffiest clothes the men could find her. The three of them looked over the result and pronounced her well-hidden, but all she could do was nod and tremble.

  Yet when the grey dawn’s light finally broke, her terror vanished into a welcome numbness. When they left the chamber, she carried an armload of saddlebags and tried to swagger like a lad. No one noticed or spoke to her, not even Peddyc’s captain when he joined the tieryn out in the ward, where the warband was assembling by the great gates. Lilli followed the manservant into the stables and helped him saddle Peddyc’s and Anasyn’s horses.

  “Hah, here’s a mule for you, lad,” he said, pointing down the line of stalls. “Put that saddle on him, and then we’ll tie a load of grain sacks behind you, and you’ll ride with me at the end of the line, like, and who’s to cast a look your way?”

  No one, in the event. Lilli rode out of Dun Deverry in a cloud of dust and a crowd of yawning men. Ahead lay the long parkland of the hill on which the dun stood. The road down twisted through a maze of baffles and walls, each one manned. They rode through gate after gate, but the gatekeepers never looked at her, nor did the sleepy guards, coming down from their night’s watch on the walls. The last gate—out and safe! The old manservant caught Lilli’s attention and grinned. As the warband made their slow way through the ruins of the city, she slouched in the saddle and leaned against the sacks of grain stowed behind her. No one ever looked her way.

  Ahead the city gates stood open. Beyond them she could see green fields and a flash of silver river. As the warband plodded through, four abreast, she twisted in the saddle and looked back to the dun, rising towered and grey in the brightening light. What would her mother do when she found her gone? Use her dark dweomer and scry her out? The terror came back like a blow to her heart, and she gasped for breath while sweat beaded and ran.

  “Hush, lass,” the manservant whispered. “We’re out now. You’re free, and the good tieryn will keep you that way. Ye gods, I’d lay down my life to keep you safe myself, for bringing the truth of our lady’s death.” His rheumy old eyes overflowed, and he turned away, wiping them on his sleeve.

  “I’ll pray you never have to,” Lilli said. “From the bottom of my heart.”

  While the sun climbed and the dawn turned into morning, the warband rode straight west, heading for Camlyn’s dun and Lady Bevyan.

  “Brour’s gone!” Merodda snapped. “I never had time to look yesterday, what with the uproar over Bevyan’s death. But he’s gone good and proper—his clothes, his book, everything!”

  “Indeed?” Burcan said. “Do you think he’ll be heading back to Cerrmor to sell what he knows?”

  “I don’t. He left there in bad enough odor to never dare go back. He’s gone north, I’ll wager. He comes from the far Northlands, and he’s oft mentioned how he misses his kin and country.”

  Burcan considered with a scowl. The morning light streamed through the windows of her reception chamber, and in the brightness his lined face sagged, all stubbled and pouchy-eyed.

  “Lilli told me he might have a lass here in the dun,” Merodda went on. “No doubt he lied to her—set up a ruse, perhaps.”

  “Could she scry him out?”

  “Now there’s a thought! Wait here. I’ll fetch her.”

  When Merodda went to Lilli’s chamber, she found it empty, though the bed had obviously been slept in. Swearing under her breath, she headed toward the great hall, but at the head of the stairs she found a page, returning from some errand.

  “Go find my daughter and have her come to my chamber.”

  “I will, my lady.” The page bowed and hurried off.

  Merodda returned to her suite of rooms to find Burcan pacing back and forth by a window. She sat down in her chair by the hearth and watched him.

  “Is your heart troubled?” she said at last. “By killing Bevyan, I mean?”

  “What makes you think that?” He paused to give her a puzzled look. “I’m wondering about your scribe, and what he might be in a position to know and tell. A great deal, I should think.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s true.”

  “Indeed.” Burcan flung himself down into the chair opposite her and stretched out his legs with a long sigh. “Not much sleep last night.”

  “I doubt if anyone in the dun did sleep well.”

  While they waited for Lilli, Burcan drowsed, his head nodding against his chest. Merodda watched him, but she was remembering their father, all those years ago before she’d been married off to serve the clan. Father and Tibryn, his little namesake—a perfect pair they were, she thought. How I hated them! And I had naught, unless they threw a few scraps my way, not so much as a decent dress after Mother died. But once she’d made an ally out of her brother, seduced Burcan the only way she knew how, then things had improved for her. Only then, with a man to speak up for her, did they listen to what she wanted and even on occasion give it to her.

  “My lady?” It was the page, standing in the doorway. “I can’t find Lillorigga anywhere.”

  “Oh, she’s probably moping around somewhere because of Lady Bevyan. Never mind—I’ll speak to her at dinner.”

  In his chair Burcan had roused, yawning and stretching. He waited to speak until the page had left.

  “Can’t you do the scrying yourself?” he said.

  “I can, at that. Wait here.”

  Merodda hurried into her bedchamber and barred the door behind her. Under the bed lay a collection of small chests; she knelt and pulled one out. Inside lay two big leather bottles, their mouths plugged and tied shut, and a collection of small pottery jars. There was as well one small glass bottle, containing greyish-white crystals called Dwarven Salts—a gift from Brour, who had got it from the Northlands, or so he claimed—a dweomer-potion indeed, because it worked both fair and foul. Mixed with liquid and drunk, it would poison the drinker; used as a face wash, it kept the skin young and radiant. Merodda held the bottle up to the light from the window; it was nearly full, but she felt a stab of worry. With Brour gone, she’d not be getting any more of these miraculous salts.

  For a moment she allowed herself the luxury of wishing he’d escaped. The man had dweomer, after all. She could lie to Burcan and say that Brour had hid himself with some magic spell and that she
couldn’t scry him out. But what if Burcan were angry with her? She could remember his anger all too well, the sudden way he turned on her, the slap from the back of his hand that flung her against the wall. Without thinking she laid her free hand on her face, as if she could feel the welt and broken skin there still. Over Aethan, that was. Oh ye gods! Aethan! She’d not thought of him in years, the one man she’d ever loved for himself alone—and Burcan had forced her to betray him.

  “I feared he’d kill me. I truly did.”

  Her sweaty hand tightened on the bottle so hard that it threatened to slip out of her fist. And who was she talking to, anyway, she asked herself? Aethan, perhaps, or perhaps, the gods.

  With a shake of her head, Merodda put the dweomer crystals away and took out the leather bottle of black ink, then found the silver basin, also cached beneath the bed, and emptied the ink into it. She sat cross-legged on the floor with the basin in her lap and stared into the pool of darkness. Although she lacked Lilli’s natural talent for seeing omens, she had learned from her first teacher of dark things to scry out people she knew well. When she turned her mind to Brour, she murmured a chant, not magical in itself, but the memory key that unlocked this particular power of her mind. The surface of the ink seemed to swirl and tremble.

  Merodda first saw flecks of sunlight, then a dusty road and Brour. Carrying a pack like a peddlar, he was trudging along beside the river. Ye gods! was he heading to Cerrmor after all? At that point she saw trees and realized that the morning sun was casting clear shadows toward the west, which lay at Brour’s left hand. With a toss of her head she broke the vision. The moment had come. Lie to Burcan or tell him Brour’s whereabouts? She could remember his face in a rage, the purple veins throbbing on his temples. Carefully she set the basin on the floor and rose, then left her chamber.

  Burcan looked up at her with one eyebrow raised.

  “I’ve seen him,” Merodda said. “He’s heading north, all right, strolling along beside the river as happily as you please. He’s got up like a peddlar with a pack.”

  “Good!” Burcan snarled. “I’m going to take some of my men and ride after him. If he’s burdened he can’t have gone far. If he gives us the slip, I’ll tell my vassals there’s a price on his head. They’ll bring it to me soon enough.”