The Red Wyvern Read online

  “It’s not. I am your mother’s scribe, after all. She tells me when she’ll be occupied, and then I assume you’ll be coming up here. Although, to tell you the truth, sometimes I worry about her laying a trap for us, like.”

  “So do I. But today I know she’s gone with the queen to the temple down in the city, so she should be busy for a fair long while.”

  “Good.” Brour considered, tapping his fingers on the closed book. “I’ve got a thing of great import to tell you. Repeat back to me what I told you about the Wildfolk.”

  “They are creatures of the Sphere of the Moon as we are of the Earth. They have eyes that see and ears that hear but not true wits. The dweomermaster can command them at will but should never trust them.”

  “Excellent! And what of the Lords of the Elements?”

  “They, too, are spirits, but of the Spheres of the Planets. They have the beginnings of true wits and thus are wily and hard to command.”

  “Well done again. You have a fine mind, lass.”

  Lilli blushed.

  “What I’m thinking of doing,” Brour went on, “is the evocation of one of the Lords of Earth. There’s a thing I need to find, buried in the earth around this dun. I’ve asked here and there among the servants and the retainers, but no one knows where it lies.”

  “What is it?”

  “Haven’t you ever thought it odd that this dun doesn’t have a bolthole, a way out in case of siege?”

  “You mean it doesn’t?”

  “Not so as anyone remembers. And yet I’ve looked over the chronicles of the kings, as the bards and the priests have kept them. This war’s raged a long time, a hundred years and more, and as will happen in a war, the fortunes ebb and sway. There were times back in the early days when it looked black indeed for the true king here in Dun Deverry, times when one usurper or another had this city sieged. And each time the king disappeared from the dun and just like dweomer turned up in the Boar’s own city of Cantrae, where he could rally his loyal men and ride back with an army to lift the siege.”

  “Was it dweomer, then?”

  “I doubt it very much.” Brour smiled briefly. “I think there was a bolthole, some underground way out of this dun, and it must surface a fair distance from the city, too. Doubtless it was a well-kept secret, and it may have been too well kept. It seems to have died with the last king to use it, and that was fifty years and more ago.”

  “If you could find it again, then you’d have the king’s favor for a certainty. I’ll bet Uncle Burcan would be ever so pleased.”

  “No doubt. So much so that I’m going to ask you to keep this a secret. Your uncle hates me, and I want to win him round, you see. I don’t want someone else running to him first.”

  “I’ll keep it secret, I promise.”

  “My thanks, lass. Now, let me tell you what we’re going to be doing. The best time for this ritual is in the dark of night, but we’ll need to practice it first.”

  “I get to help?”

  “You do indeed. You’ll have to slip out and join me once I find a place where it’s safe to study it. But pay attention now. There are many strange things you need to learn.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’ve got a few moments to ourselves, love,” Peddyc said. “When we’re both awake.”

  “So am I,” Bevyan said. “I’ve stationed Sarra in the antechamber for a sentinel.”

  He laughed and sat down in the chair opposite hers. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows and fell across them, a golden blanket. Peddyc yawned and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  “You look weary,” she said.

  “I am that. I’ve spent the afternoon with our Burcan. That’s enough to weary any man. At least good news is coming in. None of the northern lords have gone over to the Usurper. They’ll hold firm while the border holds.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  Peddyc shrugged.

  “For this summer at least,” he said finally. “Hendyr’s become important. I find myself being courted.”

  “Ah. That’s interesting.”

  “Well, ours is the last big dun on the border to the west of here. The king’s forces have to hold it. If it falls to the enemy, then Prince Maryn can outflank us and start moving into the northlands.”

  “Prince Maryn? I’ve never heard you call him that before.”

  Peddyc winced.

  “A foolish slip, my love. May the gods keep me from doing it in front of Burcan.” He hesitated for a long moment. “Well, Maryn’s a prince over his own lands, no matter what anyone of us think of his claim to the throne of Deverry.”

  “Pyrdon—just so.”

  They fell silent, considering each other, considering—Bevyan supposed—just how much it was safe to say aloud, even in the privacy of their chambers.

  “I’d best get back.” Peddyc rose and glanced toward the window. “The sun’s getting low, and there’s to be yet another council of war.”

  “When will the army march?”

  “I’ve no idea. Soon. It will have to be soon, or we’ll find the Usurper at our gates.” He paused to rub his face with both hands. “Gwerbret Daeryc brought that up this afternoon. Burcan said that he was waiting for more messages from the Northlands. One of the younger lords took offense for some reason, and everything turned into wrangling. A lot of pounding on the table and reminding each other of our rank.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “Oh, it was. I’m of two minds, my love. You know how I feel about the regent as a man, but he’s the only leader we’ve got or are going to have. And without a leader, we’re all—” He paused for a long moment. “Well, I’d best be gone. No doubt I’ll be back late tonight, but if you’re awake, I’ll tell you what decision we’ve reached.”

  “My thanks. Queen Abrwnna has asked me to join her women tonight after the meal, so I may have gossip to tell you.”

  “Good. It gladdens my heart to see you in her favor.”

  “Is it her favor? Or are we being watched?”

  Peddyc considered, his head tilted a bit to one side.

  “Well,” Bevyan went on. “You’ve just told me how important Hendyr is. I keep thinking of the dinner we had in Lord Camlyn’s dun, and I wonder how skilled Daeryc is at hiding what his heart feels.”

  “Not very.” Peddyc gave her an ironic smile. “You speak very true, my love. I hadn’t thought of that. There are times when Daeryc looks at the regent, and the look on his face—you’d think he’d bitten into rotten meat.”

  “Just so. I’ve seen it. And Daeryc is our overlord. If they suspect him, won’t they suspect you?”

  Peddyc nodded, thinking.

  “My thanks for the warning,” he said at last. “I need your sharp eyes. I’ll do my best to act the loyal vassal around Burcan, then, and I just might have a private caution for his grace Daeryc, too.”

  Although Bevyan was undoubtedly rising in the queen’s favor, as yet she hadn’t been invited to eat at the royal women’s table. Her usual bench stood close enough to the queen, however, for her to watch Abrwnna and her women as they sat giggling together over their meat and bread. Not far away, though at enough distance for propriety, the queen’s fellowship shared a table while immediately behind them sat the sons of various high-ranking nobility, Anasyn among them. Bevyan enjoyed watching her son, grown so tall and strong, taken into the company of his peers. She had tried over the years to distance herself from him; she had mourned his brothers too bitterly to wish to repeat that particular grief. Yet she was proud of him and his courtly manners as well. Although the lords around him were drinking hard and laughing, Sanno watched his ale and spoke only quietly if at all.

  Instead of ale, the young men of the queen’s fellowship had been drinking mead, or so Bevyan heard later, and rather a lot of it. All at once one of them shouted, someone else swore, a third oath rang out and stilled the general clamor. Bevyan rose to look just as the queen’s men leapt up, knocking over benches, to
rush the lords at Anasyn’s table. Bevyan saw Anasyn jump free and grab a friend from behind just in time to keep the lad’s sword in its sheath.

  The fight devolved into shoving and cursing. A table went over with the crack of breaking pottery. Someone swung a punch, someone else reeled back with a bloody nose, but the older lords were on their feet and running, calling out to one another like hounds coursing for game. They grabbed the combatants and dragged them apart, then for good measure dragged them clear out of the great hall.

  “And what was all that about?” Lilli said.

  “Oh, who knows?” Bevyan said with a shrug. “Men will take insult and so easily, too.”

  And yet she saw Anasyn, hurrying across to her through the confusion and beckoning her to join him. With a gesture to Lilli to stay put, Bevyan headed to the curve of the wall and a little space free of gawkers, where he joined her. His right sleeve was soaked through with mead, as if someone had thrown a goblet-full.

  “There you are, Mother,” Anasyn said. “Father said I should tell you what happened.”

  “Oh did he? It was more than some stupid insult, then.”

  “Truly. Someone proposed a wager, you see, on how soon one of the queen’s fellowship would bed the queen, and which one it would be. Well, they overheard, and—”

  “Oh ye gods! So the gossip’s got as bad as all that? Who started it?”

  Anasyn shrugged for an answer. Out in the great hall everyone was sitting back down; a pair of pages were righting the overturned benches and picking up trenchers from the straw while assorted dogs wagged their tails and watched, hoping for another spill and sudden meal.

  “Your father was right to let me know,” Bevyan said. “I’ll have a word with Merodda about this. As far as I can tell, she’s the only one with any influence over the lass.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Which reminds me, dear. The queen tells me you were offered a place in her fellowship.”

  “I turned it down.”

  “So she said. I was just curious—”

  “I’ve never wanted to be anyone’s lap dog and run with a pack of them. It’s disgusting, watching them fawn over her.” I see, Bevyan thought. So my lad’s fallen in love! Aloud, she said, “And quite right, too. Well, I’d best see how the poor lass fares.”

  The queen’s hall in Dun Deverry occupied an entire floor of the royal broch. Carved chairs, heaped with faded and torn cushions, stood on threadbare Bardek carpets, while sagging tapestries covered the walls between the windows. When Bevyan came in, she expected to find the queen in tears over this insult to her honor, but instead Abrwnna was pacing back and forth in front of a cold hearth while her maidservants cowered out of her way in the curve of the wall. One of the girls was crying, and her messy hair, pulled every which way in long strands, gave evidence of her royal mistress’s bad temper. Merodda, however, was calmly sitting on one of the wide windowsills as if to take the air. None of the queen’s other serving women were in evidence.

  “There you are, Lady Bevyan,” the queen said. “I have need of your counsel.”

  “Indeed, Your Highness?” Bevyan made a curtsy in her general direction, since she kept pacing.

  “Indeed. Lady Merodda tells me I should disband my fellowship.”

  “Ah. I fear me that I agree with her.”

  “I don’t want to!” Abrwnna swung round and threw one arm up, as if she were thinking of slapping the older women down. “They’re mine and I don’t want to!”

  “No one can force Your Highness,” Merodda put in. “Bevyan, her highness asked my opinion, and so I gave it.”

  “As I have given mine,” Bevyan said. “And there we’ll let the matter drop if Her Highness commands.”

  “Well, I cursed well do!” With a deep breath Abrwnna caught herself and lowered her hand. “We do not wish to hear this matter discussed in our presence.”

  “Very well, Your Highness,” Bevyan said. “So be it.”

  In years past Dun Deverry had sheltered three times the men who lived there now. In its tangle of wards and towers stood many an empty building—sheds and stables, mostly, but in a small ward far from the king’s residence rose a deserted broch. Its lower floors stored arrows, stones, and poles for pushing siege ladders off walls, but the top floor stood empty except for a stack of tanned hides, all stiff and crumbling from age. These Lilli and Brour hung over the windows until, after a lot of struggling and cursing, not a crack of sunlight gleamed.

  “Good,” Brour said. “We don’t want anyone seeing our lantern and coming up here.”

  “How did you find this place?”

  “I’ve been searching for the bolthole for weeks, so I’ve been prying into all sorts of deserted places. I remembered this one when I decided to try a ritual.”

  “Do you think anyone else comes up here?”

  “There weren’t any tracks in the dust.”

  Lilli looked around the room—an ordinary sort of room for Dun Deverry, yet no one had been up here for years, if the dust and the cobwebs could be trusted.

  “I hope my mother doesn’t want me to scry this evening.”

  “She won’t,” Brour said. “She told me she’d be attending upon the queen again. Is somewhat wrong with her highness, do you know?”

  “I don’t, but I’ll wager it’s that fight in the great hall last night. Everyone is saying that the queen’s honor was insulted, and no doubt she’s ever so upset.”

  “No doubt. Well, that should keep your mother nicely occupied, then.”

  “Truly.” Lilli paused for a sneeze. “It’s so dusty up here! Will the Lords of Earth like that?”

  “I’ll sweep up a bit before we start. Now you’d best run along before someone misses you. I’ll go back later. We don’t want anyone seeing us come in together.”

  When Lilli returned to the royal broch, she found servants standing around gossiping about the insult to the queen’s fellowship, if not the queen herself. During their afternoon of sewing, Bevyan seemed worried about the incident as well.

  “What’s causing the trouble,” Bevyan said, “is having all these young hotheads packed in together, waiting for the summer’s fighting to start. The regent needs to lead his men out soon.”

  “I don’t understand why he hasn’t already,” Lilli said. “Do you, Bevva?”

  “Well, I don’t truly know, but Peddyc’s shared his guesses with me.” Bevyan hesitated, thinking something through. “I’d say that the regent doesn’t have enough men to stand against the Usurper, and they’re trying to round up more.”

  “Oh. Oh, that means we’re going to lose, doesn’t it?”

  Bevyan and Sarra both looked up from their sewing and stared at her. Lilli felt her face grow hot.

  “I’m sorry,” Lilli stammered. “I shouldn’t have—oh gods! I always say the wrong thing—I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize, dear,” Bevyan said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to lose. The regent thinks he can find the men we need, and Peddyc seems to agree with him. One good victory, and a lot of the lords who went over to the Usurper will swing back to the king’s side.”

  If, Lilli thought, if we can gain the victory in the first place.

  “The waiting’s just so awful,” she said aloud.

  “Just so, dear, just so.”

  Bevyan sighed and bent her head back to her work, but all at once she seemed old, and to Lilli’s sight the streaks of grey in her pale hair suddenly spread and turned dead-white while her skin turned a cold dead grey to match it. Lilli nearly cried out. She’s just weary! she told herself sharply. You’re just seeing things again.

  As soon as the evening meal was finished, Merodda and Bevyan went to wait upon the queen, and Lilli could slip unnoticed from the great hall. In the abandoned tower she found Brour waiting for her. As she climbed the stairs, she saw a broom leaning against the wall on the landing, and the wooden floor inside had been swept clean. Brour himself was sitting in the middle of
the circular room, while all around him huge shadows danced on the rough stone walls. He’d lit four lanterns and set them equidistant from one another.

  “They sit at the four directions, as far as I can reckon them anyway.” Brour rose to greet her. “East west, north south. It’s in the pillar of light above each lantern that you’re to imagine the great lords of the elements when the time comes.”

  “Very well,” Lilli said. “We’re going to practice this a lot, aren’t we?”

  “Many times over, truly. It has to be done just precisely right. Tonight I’m merely going to tell you the different parts and what they mean. Oh, and I want to give you a lesson on hardening your aura.”

  “My what?”

  “It’s like an egg of invisible light that surrounds every living person. It’s the effect of the etheric plane interpenetrating the physical. When you throw a stone into a pond, the ripples spread. And what are the ripples? A pattern in the same water as fills the pond. Think of the aura as being somewhat like that.”

  Lilli stared at the floor and tried to think.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last.

  “It’s not an easy thing to understand.” Brour sounded amused. “But spend some time thinking on it, and see what comes to your mind. But the point is, once you learn to control yours, your mother won’t be able to pry into your mind again.”

  “Splendid!” Lilli looked up and found him smiling. “There’s nothing I’d like more!”

  “No doubt. Let’s begin.”

  “Braemys rode in this afternoon,” Burcan said. “He’s brought the news I’ve been waiting for.”

  “Indeed?” Merodda said. “Good or ill?”

  “Good. The northern lords have agreed to strip their fort guards. We’ll have a full army when we march.”

  Merodda allowed herself a brief smile, which he returned. Late in the evening, they were sitting alone in her chamber by the light of a smoky fire. Outside, rain hammered against the walls, and every now and then the south wind lifted the leather hides hung at the windows.

  “Have there been any omens?” Burcan said.