Authors: Katharine Kerr
“Good morrow. And what makes you curtsy to the king?”
“Simple manners, my liege. Whether or not everyone else in this cursed town’s forgotten their courtesy or not, and truly, so they must have, to shut a door in the face of a king. Always curtsy to a king, my mam told me, and so I do.”
“Indeed? And what’s your name, pray tell?”
“Oh, they call me Daft Mab, and it’s true enough, my liege. Are you going to burn the place down? I do like a good fire, I do.”
“Well, you’ll have to watch your fires in a hearth, Mab. Tell anyone who asks you that the king says there’s mercy for all, as long as they took no hand in the actual plotting of the rebellion. I’ll put out a proclamation soon enough.”
“Then I’ll tell them first, my liege. You look like a good king, truly.” Daft Mab considered, her head tilted to one
side. “Oh, that you do, and polite to your mother, no doubt.”
“I try my best to be. Good day, Mab.”
When Aeryc rode up to the dun, which stood on the highest of Abernaudd’s many hills, he found a squad of his men waiting at the gates. The place was deserted, they told him, stripped bare of every man, horse, and most of the food. Not even the servants were left behind, though they might be mingling with the townsfolk.
“I don’t care about the cursed servants,” Aeryc said to the reporting captain. “Well and good, then. Mainoic’s wife must have gone elsewhere, which is fine with me. I can’t be bothered sorting out hostages at the moment.”
Aeryc turned his horse over to his page and went into the great hall with Gwenyn, the captain of his personal guard. Aeryc was honestly surprised at how small and shabby it was, not much better than the hall of a tieryn down in Deverry. The tapestries were old-fashioned, the furniture was worn, and there wasn’t room to seat more than two hundred men.
“Well, my liege,” Gwenyn remarked. “The only thing the false king is going to do in this dun is hang. It’s magnificent enough for that.”
One of the men did find a pair of fine maps, treasure enough since neither the king nor any of his captains had ever been in Eldidd before. Aeryc sat on the edge of the table of honor and spread them out himself. While he and his staff ate a hasty meal of cheese and bread, washed down with a forgotten barrel of Mainoic’s ale, they studied the long curve of the Eldidd coast, marked with all the villages and demesnes of the various noble lords. Far to the west stood Cannobaen, where his one loyal vassal was holed up like the badger of his device. Aeryc pointed to the spot with the tip of his dagger.
“One way or the other, we eventually want to sweep by the Maelwaedd’s dun,” Aeryc said. “I have every intention of rewarding him for his loyalty, so it’ll be best to let him join his men up with the army. Our spies say he has only ten or eleven riders, but it’s the honor of the thing that matters to a rustic lord like the Maelwaedd.”
“No doubt, my liege,” Gwenyn said. “Ye gods, there’s not a cursed lot out there on the western border, is there?”
“Forest and fog, or so I hear. I’m in no hurry to march to Cannobaen. There’s no real need. First we’ll wait here in the trap and see if our rebels take the bait.”
Just after sunset, however, a pair of scouts rode in with the news that the rebel army seemed to be swinging toward Aberwyn. Aeryc woke his staff and gave orders to have the men ready to march well before dawn.
Danry, of course, had sent out scouts of his own, and that night, when the rebel army halted, he made sure that guards ringed the camp round on a double watch as well. After a quick and futile conference with the demoralized king, Danry went back to his own fire and found his impatient son waiting up for him.
“Da, I don’t want to sit in Aberwyn all winter! Aren’t we going to get to fight?”
“Eventually. Once the countryside’s roused, and a relief army’s marching our way, we’ll sally from Aberwyn.”
Cunvelyn’s disappointment was almost comical.
“Waiting’s a part of war, lad. Whether you like it or not, you’re a real soldier already.”
At that point, the rebel army had forded the Aver Dilbrae some twenty miles upstream from Abernaudd and camped on its western banks. If they headed southwest on a reasonably direct line, they were only about forty-five miles from Aberwyn. Since even in good summer weather, twenty miles was a solid day’s march to an army of those days, and here in the short damp days of midwinter they were lucky to do twelve, Danry considered that they were safely out of the king’s reach. He quite simply had no way of knowing that the king’s crack cavalry, rigorously trained and drilled, riding the best horses with extra mounts at their disposal, backed by an elaborate supply system that was, ironically enough, one of Nevyn’s legacies to the kingship, could in emergencies cover twice that distance.
Yvmur himself unknowingly made the situation a bit worse on the morrow by insisting that the army swing a few miles out of its way in the direction of another holding, Dun Graebyr, to pick up the twenty men he’d left on fort guard. Since Aeryc would be marching after the main army, Yvmur reasoned, he wouldn’t be attacking the dun, and
they might as well have the men and the fresh horses. Although Danry wanted to scream at the man that they had to make all possible speed, he was painfully aware that he was no cadvridoc, only a councillor of sorts, and very much on sufferance. So he held his tongue and let the army angle sharply west, heading for Dun Graebyr, instead of angling south, as Danry wanted, on the road to Aberwyn.
In the end, Yvmur’s twenty extra men made no difference, because Aeryc caught them on the road on the second day after the surrender of Abernaudd. Since the rebels had scouts riding out on the flanks, Danry wasn’t taken entirely by surprise. They had about an hour to find a good defensible position and arrange the army in it. A broad meadow eased into a low rise, just some twelve feet high, but enough to guard their backs, and on the top of the rise was a loose stand of scattered trees to protect the supply wagons and suchlike. And the king—Yvmur and the two gwerbrets agreed with Danry without one cross word or argument that the lad had better stay safely out of the way for this first, crucial battle. While they waited for Aeryc’s army, Danry collared Cunvelyn.
“Now listen, lad, it’s your first real scrap. You’re going to be one of the men protecting the king.”
“Hiding in the forest, you mean!”
Danry slapped him across the face, but he held his hand a bit, since he was only teaching manners.
“You do what I say.”
“I will, sir.”
“Good.” He allowed himself a smile. “Now come on, Bello, most men would be begging for a chance to ride next to the king. You’re being honored, you silly young cub, and trust me, there’ll be more than enough battles later on to satisfy you.”
Rubbing his face with one hand, Cunvelyn managed a smile at that. His father clapped him on the shoulder, then sent him on his way after the supply wagons and the rest of the king’s guard.
By the time Aeryc’s army came into sight, the sun was as high as it was going to get. When the plume of dust appeared, heading straight for them, horns blared up and down the waiting rebel line. In the clink and rustle of metal, men pulled javelins and readied shields. Danry arranged his
men, with himself at their head, in the center of the lax crescent formed by the army. He offered one prayer to the gods for Cunvelyn’s safety; then the Deverry horns shrieked a challenge, and there was no time for prayer or thought. Aeryc’s army turned off the road, came free of a stand of trees, and paused about a quarter mile away to draw their javelins. There were about a thousand of them, Danry estimated, very fair odds indeed. Although his scouts had set the number higher, he put the discrepancy down to the fears and excitements of untried men. It was the only mistake he made in the whole campaign.
The Deverry army bunched into a loose wedge for the charge. The Eldidd line inched forward, gathering itself as the enemy walked their horses a few hesitant yards closer to get a little momentum. At last, when they were close enough for Danry to see the golden wyverns on their shields, their horns blew for the charge; the line surged; the wedge leapt forward and raced for the rebels. With a shout to his men, Danry flung his javelin and drew his sword on the smooth follow-through as the Deverry wedge flung up shields. A few men went down. Danry shrieked a battle cry and spurred his horse forward. Behind him his men plunged after, turning, as they’d been trained, to smash into the flank of the leading riders and scatter their force. Behind them the field exploded in shouting and the clash of weapons.
Danry faced off with one man, killed him, spun for another—then heard horns—a lot of horns—bellowing above the war cries and the shouting. The Deverry line ahead was wheeling back, almost as if to retreat. Riding hard, his captain, Odyl, fell in beside him.
“My lord! Look back!”
With Odyl there to guard his flank, Danry could turn his head for a look just as a plume of dust began to rise among the trees, and a new set of horns and shouts broke out. The rest of the Deverry army was battling up the other side of the rise. Doubtless they’d merely been trying to hit the rebel army from the rear, but all at once Danry realized that they were getting themselves a splendid prize indeed.
“The king!” he screamed. “Odyl!”
Screaming and cursing, they tried to turn their horses and rally the rest of their men to get them up the rise, but
the Deverrians were all over them. Aeryc’s men fought well, cursed well; Danry had just time for that grudging thought before he found himself fighting for his life, mobbed by three of them. Odyl went down, stabbed in the back. Desperately Danry fought to stay mounted, parrying more than attacking, dodging his way free only to find himself in a new mob. His heart went cold as he realized that Aeryc’s men were deliberately going for the leaders, the noble-born and the captains, the better to crush the common-born. As silent as death itself he went on striking, slashing, dodging, working his horse back and back till at last they reached the rise. There what had been protection became a trap. He was so hard pressed that turning his horse and climbing the rise meant death. He could only fight on and hope for a chance to break out to the side.
The Eldidd horns started shrieking retreat. Everywhere Danry saw the gold wyvern coursing the field. Danry knocked one off his horse, killed another, drove forward, and by a stroke of sheer luck leapt past a pair of Deverry men so fast that they had no time to react. Just as he got through, he saw three Eldidd shields galloping to meet him, Leomyr and two of his men.
“Get out of here, man!” Leomyr screamed at him. “It’s lost!”
“My son! I’ve got to get to the trees!”
“There’s no hope of it. It aches my heart, but for god’s sake, ride! Here the bastards come!”
A squad of some twenty men were bearing straight for them. Only the thought that the king and Cunvelyn might by some miracle be alive and need him made Danry retreat, but he followed Leomyr as they galloped across the field and dashed for the safety of a distant woodland. Later Danry would realize that they’d been allowed to escape by men turned indifferent to their fate by some great victory; at the time he could only thank the gods that they made it out.
On the other side of the woods they found a scattered remnant of Eldidd riders. They herded them up like cattle and led them on, galloping until their horses could gallop no more, then letting the horses stumble to a walk. When Danry turned in the saddle and looked back, he saw no pursuit behind them. The only thing they could do was
head for the nearest loyal dun and hope that the rest of the army would have the same idea. On the way, they gathered stragglers, until at last they brought sixty weary men to Lord Marddyr’s gates. In the ward they found a confusion of wounded, panting horses. Danry turned his contingent over to the frantic servants and led his men inside.
The hall was a sea of riders, sitting on the floor, lying in corners, nursing wounds or merely weeping from the defeat. Marddyr’s lady and her serving women rushed back and forth, tending the wounded. Up on the dais was a huddle of noble lords. When Danry and Leomyr joined them, Danry realized with a sinking heart that the king was not among them, nor Mainoic or Yvmur. There’s time yet, he thought, or maybe they went elsewhere. But Ladoic grabbed him by the arm and spit out the news.
“The king’s captured! Ah, ye gods, they took him prisoner like a common rider!”
Danry began to weep, shaking with the death of all his hopes and his honor, as the grim tale went on, and he wasn’t the only man in tears. One lord saw Mainoic fall, another saw Yvmur slain, a third had seen Cawaryn dragged out of his saddle. As they talked, a few other stragglers staggered into the great hall. At every new arrival, Danry looked up, praying it would be his son. It never was. As servants crept round, lighting candles and torches against the setting of the sun, the lords began arguing over what to do next. Every lord had left men behind on fort guard; if they could gather them, they could field a strength of close to four hundred. The question was how to go about it. Finally Gwerbret Gatryc, wounded though he was with a slashed right arm, rallied his strength enough to take command.
“We’ve got to get out of here, or we’ll be penned in a hopeless siege. Start kicking your men onto their horses. I know it’s bad, but we’ve got to ride west. We’ll have a better chance of hiding in wild country.”
The logic was irrefutable. While Danry was separating his men from the general mob, one of Yvmur’s riders came up to him.
“My lord? I saw your son fall. He’s dead.”
Danry could only stare at him for a long, numb moment. The lad wasn’t much older than Cunvelyn himself.
“We’ll all be dead soon enough,” Danry said at last. “I’ll see him in the Otherlands.”
That night, about two hundred men out of the original thousand took the cold ride west. The horses were too weary to do much more than walk, and no one pushed them, because they had little hope of finding more if they foundered them. They rode until they could ride no more and made a camp of sorts in the wild forest around midnight. Around a sputtering campfire of damp twigs and sticks, the remnants of Eldidd nobility gathered and tried to plan.