The Red Wyvern Read online

  At length Lady Angmar turned and considered him with eyes so sad they were painful to look upon.

  “I can have the servants give you a chamber,” she said, “or would you prefer to sleep here by the banked fire?”

  “The fireside will do me well, my lady, and I’d not cause you any more trouble.”

  Her mouth twitched in a ghost of a smile.

  “There’s been trouble enough, truly,” she said, then returned to watching the fire.

  Angmar never spoke again. At length she rose and with her elderly maidservant left the hall. Young Mic brought Domnall a blanket; Otho banked up the fire; they took the lantern and left him with the dogs to curl up and sleep.

  When he woke cold grey light edged the shutters. Otho was just letting the whining dogs out at the door. Stretching and yawning, Domnall sat up as the old man came stumping over, poker and tongs in hand, to mend up the fire.

  “I’ll get out of your way, good sir,” Domnall said.

  “You’re a well-spoken lad.”

  “It becomes a Christian man to watch his speaking.”

  Otho glanced puzzled at him.

  “A what kind of man?” he said.

  “A Christian man, one of Lord Jesu’s followers.”

  “Ah. Is this Yaysoo the overlord in these parts?”

  “Er, well, you could say that.”

  Otho hunkered down and began lifting the chunks of sod away from the coals. Domnall pulled on his boots, bound them tightly, then stood up to wrap and arrange his plaid.

  “The Lady Angmar? Has she lost her husband, then?”

  “Lost him good and proper,” Otho said. “No one knows where he may be or if he lives or lies dead, and here she is, heavy with his child.”

  “That’s a terrible sad thing.”

  “It is, truly. If she knew he was dead, she could mourn him and get on with life, but as it is …”

  “The poor lady, indeed.”

  “It’s just like him, though, to do something so thoughtless. An inconvenient man, he was, all the way round. Ah, but who knows why women choose the men they do? She’s still wrapped in sorrow over her Rhodry Maelwaedd, no matter what we may say.”

  That was doubly odd. What was a Sassenach woman doing married to some lord from Cymru? Or could this be the reason for her exile? Otho glared at the coals, then blew a bit of life into one of them and threw on a handful of tinder.

  “Do you have a home near here, lad?”

  “I do. I serve Lord Douglas and live in his hall.”

  “Then let me give you some advice. Get out of here while you can and head home, or you may never see it again. The snow’s stopped falling, and the boatmen will row you across.”

  “I’ll need to give the lady my thanks first.”

  “She’ll not come down till well past midday. Her grief rules her. Get out while you can, while the sunlight lasts, and that won’t be long, this time of year. I warn you.” The old man glared up at him, his face red and sweaty as the fire leapt back to life. “Haen Marn travels where it wills, and faster than spit freezes on a day like this.”

  Grammarie. His memories of the night before, of Evandar and the burning tree, came back like a slap in the face. Domnall grabbed his cloak from the straw.

  “Then I’ll be off. Good day to you, Otho.”

  The old man snorted and turned back to his work.

  Outside, Domnall found a day ice cold but clear, with the watery sun just rising—he’d slept late. At the door he paused, looking around him in the crisp day. Wind whined around walls and soughed in trees. He walked a few paces down the path, then turned back for a proper look at the place. In the sun the island seemed much larger than he’d thought the night past. The manse itself stood long and low, with behind it a rise of leafless trees, pale grey and shivering, and behind them a tall, squarish tower, perched on top of a little hill. He shaded his eyes and studied the tower for a moment; it sported three windows, one above the other, and a peaked roof covered in grey slates.

  In the middle window someone was standing and looking down. From his distance he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, but he suddenly knew that he was being watched, studied as intensely as he’d been studying the tower. There was no malice in the gaze, merely a shocking closeness, as if that person in the window had dropped down to stand in front of him. With a shudder he turned away. He could feel the gaze follow him until he started walking toward the lake. When he risked a quick glance back he found the tower window empty.

  At the end of the gravelled path he saw the jetty and the dragon boat, riding high in the water. No one seemed to be about, but by the time he reached the jetty, the head boatman and his oarsmen came strolling down the shore to join him. Otho must have sent a servant down to rouse them, Domnall supposed.

  “Ready to go back, lad?” the boatman said.

  “I am, though I wish I’d had a chance to pay my thanks to Lady Angmar.”

  “Ah, she won’t be down for a good while yet.” The boatman shook his head. “It’s a sad thing.”

  They all boarded, and when the oarsmen settled at their thwarts, Domnall sat in the stern, out of their way. Here in daylight he noticed a bronze gong, hanging in a wooden frame. The boatman saw him looking at it.

  “That’s for the beasts in the lake,” he announced. “In this cold weather they sink to the bottom and sleep, or some such thing. Like bears do, you know, in caves. In the summer, they’re a fair nuisance, but luckily they hate noise, and banging that gong keeps them off.”

  “Beasts?” Domnall said.

  “In the lake, truly. Huge they are, with long thin necks and mouths full of teeth. They can capsize a boat like this as easy as I can squash a bedbug.”

  All the oarsmen nodded in solemn agreement.

  “Ah,” Domnall said. “This lake must feed into Ness, then. That gives me hope.”

  “Here! You know of the beasts?”

  “Well, of one. It lives in our lake, though you don’t see it often.”

  All the oarsmen glanced back and forth, nodding again, but in satisfaction this time.

  “I think me,” their leader said, “that our island may have returned home. Interesting, eh, lads?”

  The crew nodded but never spoke. The boatswain raised his hand and called out. When he shouted “three,” they all fell to their oars.

  Since sunlight brought safety, the oarsmen could pull the boat close enough in to the narrow strip of sandy beach for Domnall to leap ashore. Still, as a precaution he took off his boots. Better to land barefooted in damp sand and snow than try to walk in wet boots. He made it ashore safely, called out his final thanks with a wave as the boat shoved off, then sat on one of the boulders to put his boots back on. With quick hard strokes the dragon boat fled back across the water, so dark under a winter sky it looked black, toward the rise of the isle. As the sun touched the loch, mist steamed on the surface. All at once Haen Marn seemed very hard to see. Grammarie! It can be naught else, he told himself. The tall tree that had blazed with fire the night before had disappeared, but then, he’d expected no less.

  Ahead lay trouble enough without worrying about magic. He’d had a safe night instead of a cold death, but he still needed to reach home if he were to live through another one. The sun would stay up only a few hours at best, and if the clouds and snow returned, the light would fade even faster. When he thought over yesterday’s misadventure, he could only assume that he hadn’t gone far enough north before turning to search for the road. In the fresh fall of snow the countryside stretched around him like a place in a dream, featureless and forbidding. He commended his soul to the saints and headed out in the direction he hoped would lead him eventually to the road—if he could see it when he found it.

  Yet in the event Lord Douglas himself, riding at the head of his men, found him and well before sunset. Domnall was just climbing a low rise when he heard the sound of horses and horns, blaring from the other side. He whooped, he yelled, he screamed out his l
ord’s name, and sure enough, in a flurry of answering calls they crested the rise and pulled up, waiting for him to flounder through the snow and reach them.

  “My lord!” Domnall called out. “Never have I been so glad to see a man as you!”

  With a toss of his head Lord Douglas laughed. A rider led forward a fresh horse and threw Domnall the reins. Calling out his thanks, Domnall mounted, then made a half-bow to his lord from the saddle. As the warband started off down the road, Douglas motioned him up to ride beside him.

  “How did you live through the night?” Lord Douglas said.

  To lie to his lord galled him, but breaking a sworn promise would have galled more.

  “I hardly know. I prayed to every saint I could think of, and I found a hut of sorts. It stank of shepherd and sheep dung, but it was so small that I stayed warm. Well, warm enough.”

  “Good. We give the saints and their priests enough in tithes. I’m glad to see they keep their side of the bargain.”

  “My thanks for riding out after me, my lord. I thought you’d have given me up for dead.”

  “I did, but you’re one of my men, and damned if I’d leave you out here without so much as a hunt.” Douglas paused, considering something with an odd look on his face. “Besides, Jehan would have sent me to Hell herself if I hadn’t ridden out. You should have heard her, weeping and cursing and carrying on.”

  “Your daughter, my lord?” Domnall felt himself blushing and stammering. “But I never would have thought—I mean, uh er, my lord, I—”

  “Hold your tongue, Domnall Breich. Her mother’s a strong-minded woman, and so is she, and I’ve spent all I’ve a mind to on her sister’s dowry. There’s not much left for hers, but you’d not be asking for much, would you?”

  “My lord, if she would have me, I’d ask for naught but her and count myself the richest man alive.”

  “Good. Then if you can provide for her, you can have her. What about that, eh?”

  “My father promised me a steading if I were to marry. It’s not a great lord’s lands, but we’ll make do.”

  “And I can spare you some milk cows and suchlike.” Lord Douglas considered, frowning. “How long have the pair of you been hiding this secret?”

  “My lord, I swear to you that I never knew she favored me. I held her too far above me.”

  “I believe you. She told me that she never knew she loved you until she thought you dead. ‘It was my grief that made me see,’ she said.”

  Remembering Evandar, Domnall found himself speechless. Had Jehan loved him at all until the night just past? But who was he to question this splendid miracle, this gift beyond hoping for?

  “Then, my lord,” Domnall said, “I’ll count the night I just spent the luckiest of my life, for all that I thought I was a doomed man.”

  When they rode back to the castle, Lady Jehan stood waiting for them on the steps of the keep. As soon as Domnall dismounted, she rushed to him and flung herself into his arms. He held her tight, laid his face against her auburn hair, and thought himself the happiest man in God’s world. Yet even in his joy he remembered the lady of Haen Marn, mourning her lost lord. That night he went into the chapel and prayed for her, that someday Lord Jesu might let her see her Rhodry Maelwaedd again.

  PART ONE

  The

  North Country

  AUTUMN 1116

  Ah, the beginnings of things! In another place have I discoursed upon the complexities that weave the origin of any event, whether great or small. Ponder this well, for if a magician would set a great ritual in motion, then he must guard every word he says and weigh each move he might make, down to the smallest gesture of one hand, for at the births of things their outcomes lie in danger, just as in its cradle an infant lies helpless and vulnerable to the malice of the world.

  —The Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll

  Loathing. Dallandra could put no other name to her feeling. Wrapped in a heavy wool cloak, she was standing on top of the wall that circled Gwerbret Cadmar’s dun. Below and around her the town of Cengarn spread out over three hills, bound them with curving streets, choked them with round stone houses, roofed in filthy black thatch. Behind most of the houses stood pens for cows and chickens and of course, dung heaps. Out on the muddy streets she could pick out movement—townsfolk hurrying about their business or perhaps a pack of half-starved dogs. Here and there stood trees, dark and leafless under the grey sky.

  The view behind her looked no better. Massive stone towers, joined together, formed the dark and brooding broch complex in the center of the dun. The muddy ward of the enormous fort swarmed with dirty servants and warriors, cursing as they led their horses through a clutter of pigsties and sheep pens. A blacksmith was hammering at his forge; pages sang off-key or chivvied the serving wenches, who swore right back at them. In the crisp autumn air the stink rose high—human waste, animal waste, smoke, spoiled food—overpowering the pomander of Bardek cloves she held to her nose. You should be used to it by now, she told herself. She knew that she never would get used to it, no matter how long she lived among human beings.

  “Dalla!” A man’s voice hailed her from below. “Care for a bit of company?”

  Without waiting for her answer Rhodry Maelwaedd, who preferred to be known only as Rhodry from Aberwyn, began climbing the wooden ladder that led up the catwalk. A tall man, but oddly slender from shoulder to hip, he was handsome in his way with his dark blue eyes and ready smile. Despite the touches of silver in his raven-black hair and his weatherbeaten skin, he looked young and moved fast and smoothly, too, like a young man. She knew, however, that he’d been born well over eighty winters ago. Although he shared her elven blood—his mother had been human, his father one of the Westfolk like Dallandra—he seemed to have distinctly human opinions about some things. He leaned on the parapet and grinned down at Cengarn.

  “A fine sight, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Maybe to you. I hate being shut up like this.”

  “Well, no doubt. But I mean, it’s a fine thing to see the town standing and not some smoking heap of ruins.”

  “Ah, now there I have to agree with you.”

  But a few months before, Cengarn had stood in danger of being reduced to rubble, besieged as it was by a marauding army. Now the only threats hanging over the town were those faced by every city in Deverry each winter—disease, cold, and starvation. Dalla leaned on the parapet next to him, then stepped back. He smelled as bad as the rest of them.

  “What’s wrong?” Rhodry said.

  “That stone is cold. Damp, too.”

  “True enough.” But he stayed where he was. “We should have snow soon.”

  She nodded agreement and glanced at the lowering sky. A nice thick white blanket of snow—it would hide the dirt, she hoped, and freeze the offal and excrement hard enough to kill the stink.

  “There’s somewhat I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said after a moment. “I’ve been having some cursed strange dreams. Do you think they might mean dweomer at work?”

  “I’ve no idea. Tell me about them.”

  “Well, it’s the Raven Woman, you see. She comes to me in my dreams and taunts me.”

  “That is serious. Here, let’s go somewhere warm, where we can sit and talk.”

  They climbed down the ladder and picked their way across the mucky ward. As they passed, the various servants and riders out and about fell silent, turned to stare, and even, every now and then, crossed their fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft. Dallandra ducked into a side door of the broch and out of sight of the crowded ward.

  “Safe,” she whispered.

  “What?” Rhodry said. “Do you feel danger coming our way?”

  “My apologies. It’s the way everyone looks at me. I’m not used to being hated and feared.”

  “Oh well, now, they don’t do that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why would they?”

  “All the dweomer they’ve seen lately. Etheric battles
, shapechangers, the way Alshandra would appear in the sky like a goddess—too many strange things, too many things they never should have seen. The Guardians live by their own laws, not those of the dweomer.”

  Rhodry considered.

  “True enough,” he said at last. “We’ve all seen more than we can explain away.”

  Her chambers lay at the very top of a side tower; her door shared a landing with heaps of bundled arrows and piles of stones, ammunition stored against another siege like the one so recently lifted. The chamber itself was a slice of the round floor plan set off from the storage area by wickerwork partitions. Straw covered the plank floor, and wooden shutters hung closed over the single window.

  Rhodry perched on the wide windowsill and let her have the only chair. Before she sat down she heaped chunks and sticks of charcoal into a brass brazier, then snapped her fingers to summon the Wildfolk of Fire. When the charcoal glowed, she held her hands over the warmth.

  “Aren’t you cold there in the drafts?” Dallandra said.

  “Not so I notice.”

  She was always amazed at how little cold and other discomforts, even pain itself, bothered him; his dangerous life had turned his entire body into a weapon, hard as forged steel. Matters of magic, however, lay beyond his strength.