“Now,” said the gwerbret, pouring himself a gobletful. “Lord Madoc’s told me, gerthddyn, that, you know how to do more things than spin tales, so you can speak freely. Do you know where Rhodry is?’”
“Almost to Cerrmor. In fact . . . ” He paused to glance out the window to check, the sun. “I’d say he’s in Cerrmor at the moment, But why is he there? That, alas, I cannot say, Your Grace.”
“No more can anyone, apparently, curse them all.” Blaen glanced at Jill. “Pour yourself some mead, silver dagger. You’ve had quite a journey. By the way, Jill, how did Rhodry come to leave you behind?”
“Ah, Your Grace, that’s a strange tale indeed.” Salamander broke in smoothly. “Rhodry was on a hire in Cerrgonney, you see.”
“I’d heard somewhat about Benoic and his unlovely kin.”
“Well and good, then. Well, Rhodry had left Jill at the dun of a certain Lord Nedd, the man he rode for, but he never came back for her. Fortunately I came along—I’d been looking for her for reasons of my own, you see. I scried Rhodry out and found him riding south. I refuse to believe that he simply deserted her.”
“No more do I.” Blaen pledged her with his goblet. “Don’t think that for a moment, lass.”
Jill forced out a brave smile.
“So, after much thought, brooding, and ratiocination, I arrived at the conclusion that someone, for reasons most recondite and unknown, was luring Rhodry south. We have a hint or two that he was told that Jill had left him and was coming after her. Be that as it may, he’s been acting like a hunted man all the way south from Lughcarn, while before that he traveled openly. Either somewhat happened to him in Lughcarn, or someone told him a falsehood of some sort.”
“That would stand to reason, truly.” Blaen sighed and drank heavily. “I’ll wager this has somewhat to do with the situation in Aberwyn. You know Rhodry has enemies, don’t you?”
“We do, Your Grace, Has the king made a decision as yet about a recall?”
Jill turned away and busied herself with pouring a goblet of mead. She wished that she could simply drink herself into forgetting that Rhodry was being taken away from her.
“Jill,” Blaen said. “You look heartsick.”
“Why shouldn’t I be, Your Grace? I’m losing my man. Do you think they’ll let Rhodry marry a woman like me?”
“I see no reason why not, once I’ve done ennobling you. I’m settling land in your name over in Cwm Pecl. The gods all know that there’s plenty to spare in my province.”
Your Grace!” Jill could barely speak. “You’re far too generous! How can I—”
“Hush. Listen, Jill, Rhodry’s no weak younger son any longer. Once we get him recalled, he’ll be Aberwyn’s only heir, and that means he’ll be the gwerbret when his black-hearted brother dies. He’ll be in a position to demand the wife he wants, no matter what his mother or the rest of the noble-born think of it.”
Salamander laughed.
“And there you are, my turtledove—an ending exactly like one of my tales.”
“So it seems.”
Jill smiled, because they both wanted her to be pleased, but she felt the dweomer cold down her back. When Blaen launched into a monologue on Eldidd politics, she wandered away to the window and looked down on the garden below. Salamander had told Blaen a pretty tale, sure enough; she could see how it would protect her. If Rhodry wanted nothing more to do with her, everyone would assume that he’d merely tired of her and left, as men so often did to their women. And if he forgave her . . . the thought staggered her, that she, of all lowly commoners, might someday be the wife of a great gwerbret. For a moment she was terrified, thinking of the responsibilities, the power that could be hers. Lovyan would teach me she thought, if Rhodry even wants me anymore, that is.
But as the thought came to her, so did another . . . or not precisely a thought, a feeling, rather, a sudden urgency. Rhodry was in danger. She knew it with complete clarity, that he was in the worst danger of his life and that in this moment of danger he was thinking only of her. She shut her eyes and thought back to him, tried desperately to reach him, to warn, him. Images flickered in her mind, as hazy as those seen when a person is first falling asleep, ever-changing glimpses: Rhodry on a narrow street, Rhodry ducking down an alley when some of the city wardens strolled by. Although the images flickered, the feeling of danger grew until she could barely breathe. He was talking with, someone—he was asking about Nevyn, asking about her—they were lying, saying that she was in Cerrmor, giving him friendly directions—
“Rhodry, don’t go!”
She heard a crash, looked around dazed and realized, that she’d dropped the goblet she was holding. Blaen and Salamander had whirled round, to look at her. She had screamed her warning aloud.
“What by the gods?” Blaen said.
“Rhodry’s in Cerrmor. He’s in danger. I know he is. I saw—I felt it. I tried to warn him.” She tossed back her head and sobbed because she knew that the warning had never reached him. “We’ve got to get to Cerrmor. We’ve got to leave now.”
Blaen set down his goblet and hurried over to pat her shoulder awkwardly as she wept, as if he thought her mind turned weak and childish by grief, but Salamander was taking her warning in dead seriousness. Through her tears she saw him snap his fingers over the charcoal brazier in the corner, then stare intently into the lambent flames. She forced the tears back and wiped her face on her sleeve.
“Ah ye gods!” There was panic in his voice. “I can’t find him! Jill, I can’t scry him out!”
The chamber seemed to swell around her, and the light grew painfully bright. The silver flagon on the table threw off sparks like a fire.
“Call to Nevyn,” she said.
Then Blaen grabbed her and half led, half shoved her into a chair. She slumped back and watched Salamander, bending over the brazier. His tunic seemed to ripple around him as if he stood in a breeze. She was afraid to look at the intricate carpets.
“Jill, do you need a chirurgeon?” Blaen said.
“I don’t, my thanks. It’s just the fear.” She forced herself to raise her head and look him in the face. “Your Grace, don’t you see what this means? Remember Alastyr? If Salamander can’t scry Rhodry out, someone’s hiding him—with dweomer.”
As it danced over the flames, Salamander’s image looked close to tears. Nevyn himself felt a weary sort of rage, cursing himself because he should have seen this danger coming. Had the Lords of Light sent some omen that he’d overlooked? He quite simply didn’t know.
“I can’t find him either,” Nevyn thought.
“Is he dead, then?”
“He can’t be, because Jill would know if he were. When you consider how much she saw of his danger, I think we can trust that she’d feel his death. How soon can you get to Cerrmor?”
“We should arrive tomorrow.”
“Ye gods! What are you going to do, turn into birds and fly?”
“Naught of the sort, truly.” Salamander managed a faint smile. “The king has placed one of the royal riverboats at Blaen’s disposal. We’ll leave soon, and not only will the current be running our way, but we’ll have a crew of rowers. The Belaver runs cursed fast from here to Drauddbry, I’m told.”
“Splendid. Is Blaen going with you?”
“He’s not. The intrigue at court would gripe your very soul, and he doesn’t dare leave. We have letters from him, though, for the gwerbret in Cerrmor. Are you going to join us there?”
“I’ll leave at once. I never dreamt they would go as far as this. Can’t you see what must have happened? Rhodry’s rivals must have hired one of the Bardek blood guilds to dispose of him.”
Salamander’s image, floating above the fire, looked intensely puzzled.
“How would petty lords from Eldidd even know those guilds exist?”
“Well, some merchant or other must have told them, or . . . I see what you mean. It sounds very farfetched once I say it aloud.”
“Then what’s happened?’
“What indeed? Be very careful until I reach Cerrmor. Ye gods, I’ll have to take a ship! I can’t leave until I’ve spoken with Lovyan, of course, but I can start packing. Her Grace is out hunting with the gwerbret at the moment.”
Down on the Eldidd coast, it was a bright sunny day, although the wind that whipped the silver-and-blue banners of Aberwyn was chilly and the shadows that lay in the great ward of the gwerbret’s dun were positively cold. As she stood beside her horse, Lady Lovyan glanced doubtfully at the sky.
“It might be a bit windy to fly the falcons.”
“Oh, let’s try our luck, Mother,” Rhys said.
He spoke with such forced cheer that she knew this hunting party was merely an excuse to speak with her alone.
“By all means, then. We’ll have a good ride if naught else.”
They mounted and rode out of the dun into the streets of Aberwyn. Behind them came the falconers, with the hooded birds on their wrists, and four men from Rhys’s warband as an escort As they wound their way through the curving streets, the common folk bowed to their overlord, who acknowledged the gesture with an upraised hand. Occasionally—and quite spontaneously—boys and young men cheered him. For all his stubbornness, Rhys was a good ruler, scrupulously fair in his judgments over everyone but his younger brother, and his townsfolk appreciated him for it.
When they left the city, they turned north on the river road that followed the Gwyn, sparkling and full from the summer’s heavy rains. Among the willows and hazels that grew along the water, Lovyan saw a tree or two that were turning yellow.
“It seems that autumn’s coming quite fast this year,” she remarked.
“It does. Well, we’ve had a wretchedly cold summer.” Rhys turned in his saddle to make sure that his men were following at a respectfully far distance behind, then turned her way. “Here, Mother, I’ve got somewhat to ask you. It’s about little Rhodda.”
“Indeed?”
“I was thinking that I might formally adopt the child and legitimize her.”
Lovyan was caught with nothing to say. Rhys gave her an ironic smile that must have cost him dear.
“It’s time I faced the harsh truth of things. I’ll never give Aberwyn an heir.”
“The gwerbretrhyn can’t pass down in the female line.”
“Of course not, but she’ll marry someday, won’t she? Have a husband, maybe a son or two. At least they’ll have some Maelwaedd blood in them.”
“If the Council of Electors accepted her husband as your successor, anyway.”
“There’s precedent for it, hundreds of years of precedent.” He tossed his head in anger. “Besides, at least it’ll give my vassals pause. Ye gods, don’t you think it aches my heart? I know cursed well that every tieryn in Eldidd is already scheming and politicking to get my lands for their son when I die.”
“True-spoken, alas. But you know, my sweet, there’s a much easier solution—”
“I will not recall Rhodry.”
His mouth settled into the tight line she knew so well.
“As His Grace decides, of course, but how can you adopt the child without her father’s permission?”
“Rhodry’s an outlaw. Under the laws she has no father.”
“Very well, then. I’ll think the matter over, since His Grace persists in being as stubborn as a wild boar.”
He merely shrugged the insult away and went back to watching the road in front of him. Lovyan wondered why she even bothered to hint, scheme, and badger to get her youngest son home. Rhys simply couldn’t bear to let Rhodry inherit, she thought. Now, if Rhodry would only get a son on that Jill of his, but there she is, poor lamb, riding all over with him and sleeping out in the rain on the ground, and the Goddess only knows what else. Doubtless her womanly humors are utterly disrupted and—
Suddenly Rhys’s horse went mad. Lovyan could think of it no other way as the black neighed and bucked, then reared, striking out with its forehooves as if at an enemy. Rhys flew forward, caught himself on its neck, then slipped sideways as it bucked again. Although he was a splendid rider, the horse was rearing and pitching in utter panic, and he’d been taken off-guard. She heard his men shouting, heard other hoofbeats, but Rhys’s black twisted, bucked, then slipped and went down, throwing Rhys hard and falling on top of him. She heard a woman screaming, then realized that the voice was hers.
Suddenly the escort was all around her. One man grabbed the bridle of her frightened palfrey and led her away; the others dismounted and rushed to their lord’s side. Back under control, Lovyan gestured at the man holding her horse.
“Ride back to the dun! Bring Nevyn and a cart!”
“My lady.” He made her a half-bow from, the saddle, then galloped off.
Lovyan dismounted and hurried over just as the horse struggled to its feet, its off-fore dangling and broken. One of the riders blocked her way.
“My lady, you’d best not look.”
“Don’t speak nonsense! I’ve tended my share of wounds in my day.”
She shoved him aside and knelt down beside Rhys. He lay so still that at first she thought him dead, but when she touched his cheek, his eyes fluttered open, His face twisted in agony as he tried to speak.
“Whist, whist, little one. Well have Nevyn here soon.”
He nodded, then stared up at the sky, his mouth working in pain. Blood ran down his face from a slash over his eye; she could see that his left leg was broken, probably in several places. Yet she knew that the worst damage might have been done internally where no chirurgeon could heal, not even Nevyn. She could only pray to the Goddess until at last the old man rode up at the gallop, with a wagon rumbling after. Nevyn swung himself down from his horse and ran over.
“Does he live?”
“Barely.”
Lovyan got out of the way and stood with the escort by the side of the road as Nevyn went to work, straightening the leg and roughly splinting it. As he ran his long graceful hands over Rhys’s body, she saw him shaking his head and swearing under his breath, and her heart turned cold. At last Nevyn called the carter to help him lift the injured gwerbret into the wagon. By then, Rhys had mercifully fainted. Lovyan got in with him and cradled his bloody head in her lap. Nevyn watched, his ice-blue eyes unreadable.
“I want the cold truth,” Lovyan said. “Will he die?”
“Well, my lady, I simply don’t know. His Grace is a truly strong man, and he’ll fight for his life, but it’s very grave. A weaker man would be dead already.”