Dawnspell

‘If being lucky and clear-sighted made a man dweomer, lad, then the world would be full of men like me.’

‘Well, that’s not quite what I meant, good sir. A dweomer leader would be different, somehow. Doubtless none exist, but we all want to believe it. You’d love to ride for a man like that, you tell yourself, someone the gods favour, someone you can believe in. Even if you died for him, it’d be worth it.’

Nevyn gave him such a sharp look that Maddyn hesitated, but the old man gestured for him to go on. ‘This is incredibly interesting.’

‘Then my thanks, truly. Now, Slwmar of Dun Deverry’s a great and generous man, but he’s not a dweomer leader. I always had trouble believing he was the true King, frankly, even though I always pledged him that way because my lord did. He used to walk among us men every now and again, talking to us and calling us by name, and it was splendid of him, but he was just an ordinary sort of lord, not a true king.’

‘Indeed! And what should the true King look like, then?’

‘Well, there should be somewhat of the dweomer about him. You should just be able to tell he’s the true King. I mean, he doesn’t have to be as tall as one of the gods, or as handsome, either, but you could look at him and know in your very soul that he was meant to rule. He’d have splendid good luck, and the gods would send omens of the things he was going to do. By the hells, I’d follow a man like that to the death, and most of the kingdom would, too, I’ll wager.’

With a wild, half-mad grin, Nevyn got up and began pacing furiously back and forth in front of the hearth.

‘Have I said somewhat stupid?’ Maddyn said.

‘What? You’ve just said the best thing I’ve heard in many a long year, actually. Lad, you can’t know how glad I am that I dragged you back from the gates of the Otherlands. My thanks for making me see what’s been under my nose all along. I’ll tell you one great fault of the dweomer. You get so used to using it and looking in strange places for stranger lore that you forget to use the wits the gods gave you in the first place!’

Utterly confused, Maddyn could only stare at him as he cackled and paced back and forth like a madman. Finally Maddyn went to bed, but when he woke restlessly in the middle of the night, he saw Nevyn standing by the hearth and smiling into the fire.

Over the next couple of snowbound weeks, Nevyn spent much time brooding over the idea that Maddyn had so inadvertently handed him, a splendid repayment for his healing. Although complex in its details, the plan was peculiarly simple at its core and thus possible. At the moment, things looked as if the wars might rage until the end of time, ravaging the kingdom until there wasn’t a man left fit to fight. After so many years of civil war, after so many leaders slain and buried, so many loyal followers wiped out, it seemed to men’s minds that each of the claimants had as good a right as the next one to the throne. When it came to figuring bloodlines and genealogies, even the priests had a hard time telling who was most fit to be King of all Deverry. The lords, therefore, pledged to the man who seemed to offer an immediate advantage, and their sons changed the alliance if the advantage changed.

But what if a man appeared who impressed his followers as the true King, a dweomer leader, as Maddyn said, whom half the kingdom would follow to the throne or the grave? Then at last, after one final gruesome bloodbath, the kingdom would come to peace. Dweomer leader, is it? Nevyn would think; give me a decent man, and I’ll make him look dweomer soon enough. It would be easy – disgustingly easy as he thought about it – to surround a good-looking man with glamour, to manipulate the omens around him, to pull a few cheap tricks just like the one that the Wildfolk had pulled on Selyn and his friends. They would have the troops on their knees and their lords along with them, all cheering the one true King. He realized, too, in those nights of brooding, that he shouldn’t have been surprised that Maddyn would bring him the idea. In his last life, as young Ricyn down in Cerrmor, he’d been the captain of a warband pledged to just such a dweomer leader, Gweniver of the Wolf, whose madness and undoubted piety to the Dark Goddess had combined to blaze her round with false glamour like a fire.

Thinking about her and her grim fate made Nevyn wary. Did he have the right to subject another man to the forces that had torn her fragile mind apart? He would have to be very careful, to wait and scheme until he found a candidate strong enough for the burden. He wondered, too, if he would even be allowed to use dweomer for such a purpose. He spent long hours in meditation, stripped his soul bare and begged for aid from the Lords of Light. In time, his answer grew slowly in his mind: the kingdom needs peace above all else, and if something goes wrong, then you will be the sacrifice. That he could accept, thinking of himself as the servant of, and the sacrifice for, the King he would create.

The permission given, it was time to plan. While Maddyn was away at Belyan’s, or sleeping his boredom away, Nevyn would talk through the fire to the other dweomerfolk of the kingdom, particularly Aderyn in the west and a woman who bore the honorary name of Rommerdda in the north. Everyone was so weary of war that they were eager to throw their dice on Nevyn’s long gamble.

‘But we can’t do this alone,’ Rommerdda remarked one night. ‘We’ll have to win over the priests. Can we?’

‘I intend to start turning the earth for this particular garden in the spring. At the same time, we can start scouting around for the proper prince.’

Her face dancing in the firelight, Rommerdda looked sceptical. She wore her long white hair in two braids like a lass of the Dawntime, and her face was even more wrinkled than his, so old, so exhausted that Nevyn knew she would never see the end of this work they were planning. Of all the dweomerfolk in the kingdom, only he and Aderyn had unnaturally long lives, each for their separate reasons. There would, however, soon be another Rommerdda to take up the task in hand.

And it was going to be a hard one: find the right man, then lay the proper omens for his coming with the aid of the priests. Once the kingdom lived for the day when the true King appeared, then Nevyn could orchestrate his moves. As he brooded over the details, Nevyn began to long for spring. The sooner he got started, the better.

2

The year 834. This was the year of the first omens of the coming King. A two-headed kid was born in a village near our temple. It died soon after, because a kingdom with two kings cannot live. In the sky we saw a vision of a great horse, running before a storm, and coming from the west. Although the omen was duly recorded, only later did we realize its import …

The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

Spring came too fast that year for Maddyn’s liking. Every morning, he would walk up on the hill and search the sky for weather omens. Although he would have to stay until the snows were well past, at the same time he had to be well away before the real spring, when the riders would be swarming on the Cantrae roads for the summer muster. First came the rains that melted the last of the snow and turned the world to brown muck; then the nights grew warmer until it seemed a hardy man could sleep beside the road without freezing. Yet he found excuses to stay until the pale grass began to come out in sheltered valleys. That very night, he rode down early to see Belyan.

When he climbed through her window, he found her still up, fussing over the fire in the clay stove. She gave him a distracted sort of kiss.

‘Take off those boots before sitting on the bed, will you, love? I don’t want muck all over the blankets.’

Maddyn leaned into the curve of the wall and began to pull them off.

‘Spring’s here,’ he said. ‘Will it ache your heart when I ride?’

‘It will, but not half as badly as seeing you hanged would ache it.’

‘True enough. But, Bell, I wish I could stay, and all for your sake. I want you to know that.’

‘It would be splendid, having you with us on the farm, but I don’t see how we could keep you hidden. A few of our friends already know I’ve got a man, and in a few months, the whole village will know.’

When he looked up, he found her smiling, her dark eyes as calm as always.

‘Oh by the hells, what have I done? Got you with child?’

‘What did you think would happen after all the rolling around we’ve done? I’m hardly barren, am I? Oh here, don’t look so troubled, love. I’ve wanted another babe for ever so long now. I’m just glad we had the time for you to give me one.’

‘But I have to desert you! I don’t even have the wretched coin for the midwife.’

‘Oh, the midwife’s a friend of mine, so don’t trouble your heart over that. I can tend a babe on my own, but I couldn’t have got one without a bit of help, could I?’ She laid her hands delicately on her stomach. ‘Oh, I do hope it’s a daughter, but if it’s a son, shall I name him after you?’

‘Only if you truly want to. I’d rather you gave him my father’s name. It was Daumyr.’

‘Then Daumyr it is, if it’s a lad. Well, either way, I hope it has your curly hair.’

Maddyn hesitated with a troubling suspicion rising in his mind. He’d always known she didn’t truly love him, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d just been put out to stud.

‘Bell? Will you miss me when I’m gone?’

Somewhat startled, she considered the question. ‘Well, I will,’ she said at last. ‘A bit.’

When Maddyn left that night, the air was warm with the moist rich smell of spring earth. At the hilltop he dismounted and stood looking out over the dark countryside, the glitter of streams in the moonlight, the distant mound of the sleeping village, and far away, the gleam of the lake where the gates of the Otherlands had almost opened to receive him. I’ve been happy this winter, he thought; ah, curse both false kings and their balls, too!

In the morning Maddyn led his horse down the gully one last time. Overhead, white clouds sailed by, sweeping their shadows over the pale grass on the muddy moorland. When they reached the foot of the hill, Nevyn handed him a worn leather pouch, jingling with coin.

‘Take it without arguing, lad. I didn’t save your life only to have you starve on the road.’

‘My thanks. I wish I could repay you for everything you’ve done for me.’

‘I’ll wager you will. Your Wyrd brought you to me once, and I suspect it’ll do so again, but in some strange way that neither of us can understand.’

Although Maddyn wanted to head straight west and put Cantrae behind him as soon as he could, he was forced to turn south, because the hills between Cantrae and Gwaentaer province were still snowy at this time of year. He went cautiously, avoiding the main road that ran beside the Canaver down to Dun Cantrae, sticking to winding farm lanes and what wild country there was. The only people he allowed to see him were farmers, who, like Belyan, cared less for the honour of war than they did for the coppers he spent for food. After four days of this careful riding, he was at the Gwaentaer border at a place roughly parallel with Dun Cantrae. Here the hills were low and rolling, dotted with small farms and the winter steadings of the horse-breeders who roamed with their herds all summer in the pasturelands. This time of year, every house bustled with activity. Mares were foaling; hooves needed shoeing; gear needed repairing; food had to be packed against the first long spring ride. No one had time to notice or to care about a solitary rider with a warrior’s saddle but a farmer’s shirt.

Just at dusk one warm day Maddyn came to the pillar stone that marked the boundary between the two gwerbretrhynau. As he rode past, he let out a long sigh of relief. Although he was still an outlaw, his neck was a good bit safer now. Once, back in that peaceful and now nearmythical past, every gwerbret in the kingdom would have honoured Tibryn’s decree of outlawry, but now in the midst of the long-bleeding wars, fighting men were too valuable for lords to go driving them away with awkward questions. For the first time in weeks he felt relaxed enough to sing. Two Wildfolk came for the song, the blue sprite perching on his saddle-peak and showing him her pointed teeth, a gnarled brown gnome who was new to him dancing in the road beside his horse. Maddyn was so glad to see them that he almost wept. At least one small part of his magical winter would travel with him.

As it turned out, he soon had human company, and in a way that he never would have expected. The morning after he passed the boundary stone, he came to the last of the hills and paused his horse for a moment to look down and over the vast green plain of Gwaentaer, the wind’s own country indeed, where the trees that the farmers laboriously planted soon grew leaning, as if they shrank in continuous fear from the constant whistling of the wind. Since the day was sparkling clear, he could see for miles over the land, softly furred with the first green of grass and winter wheat, dimpled here and there with tiny ponds or the round steadings of the widely separated farms. He could also see a well-marked road running deadwest, and on it, not more than a mile ahead of him, a solitary rider.

Something was wrong with the man. Even from this distance Maddyn could see it, because the fellow was riding doubled over in the saddle, and his horse was picking its own way, ambling slowly, pausing every now and then to snatch a tuft of grass from the side of the road before its rider would come to himself and get it back under control, only to slump again a few moments later. Maddyn’s first impulse was to ride on by a somewhat different route and not burden himself with anyone else’s troubles, but then he thought of Nevyn, risking his own life to heal and shelter an outlawed man. With a chirrup to his horse, he started off at a brisk trot. The rider ahead never heard him coming, or else cared not a whit if he were followed, because he never turned or even looked back the entire time that Maddyn was closing with him. Finally, when Maddyn was close enough to see that the entire back of the man’s shirt was thick with rusty-brown dried blood, the fellow paused his horse and sat slumped and weary, as if inviting Maddyn to have a clear strike at him and be done with it.

‘Here,’ Maddyn said. ‘What’s wrong?’

At that the rider did turn to look at him, and Maddyn swore aloud.

‘Aethan, by all the gods! What are you doing on the Gwaentaer road?’

‘And I could ask the same of you, Maddo.’ His voice, normally deep and full of humour, was rasped with old pain. ‘Or have you come to fetch me to the Otherlands?’

Maddyn stared for a moment, then remembered that everyone in Cantrae thought him dead.

‘Oh, here, I’m as much alive as you are. How were you wounded?’

‘I’m not. I’ve been flogged.’

‘Ah, horsedung and a pile of it! Can you ride any farther?’

Aethan considered this for a long moment. He was normally a handsome man, with even features, dark hair just touched with grey at the temples, and wide blue eyes that always seemed to be laughing at some jest, but now his face was twisted in pain, and his eyes were narrow and grim, as if perhaps he’d never laugh again.

‘I need a rest,’ he said at last. ‘Shall we sit awhile, or are you riding on and leaving me?’

‘What? Are you daft? Would I run out on a man I’ve known since I was a cub of fifteen?’

‘I don’t know any more what men will do and women neither.’

In a nearby meadow they found a pleasant copse of willows planted round a farmer’s duckpond, with the farmer nowhere in sight. Maddyn dismounted, then helped Aethan down and watered the horses while his friend sat numbly in the shade. As he worked, he was wondering over it all. Aethan was the last man in the kingdom that Maddyn would have expected to get himself shamed, flogged, and turned out of his warband. A favourite of his captain, Aethan had been a second-in-command of Gwerbret Tibryn’s own warband. He was one of those genuinely decent men so valuable to any good warband – the conciliator, everyone’s friend, the man who settled all those petty disputes bound to arise when a lot of men are packed into a barracks together. The gwerbret himself had on occasion asked Aethan’s advice on small matters dealing with the warband, but now here he was, with his shame written on his back in blood.

Once the horses were watered, Maddyn filled the waterskin with fresh drink and sat down next to Aethan, who took the skin from him with a twisted smile.

‘Outlawed we may be, but we still follow the rules of the troop, don’t we, Maddo? Horses first, then men.’

‘We need these mounts more than ever, with no lord to give us another.’

Aethan nodded and drank deep, then handed the skin back. ‘Well, it gladdens my heart that you weren’t killed in Lord Devyr’s last charge. I take it you found a farm or suchlike to hide in all winter.’

‘Somewhat like that. I was dying, actually, from a wound I took, when a local herbman found me.’

‘Gods! You’ve always had the luck, haven’t you?’

Maddyn merely shrugged and stoppered up the skin tight. For a moment they merely sat there in an uncomfortable silence and watched the fat grey ducks grubbing at the edge of the pond.

‘You hold your tongue cursed well for a bard,’ Aethan said abruptly. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about my shame?’

‘Say what you want and not a word more.’

Aethan considered, staring out at the far flat horizon.

‘Ah horseshit,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a tale fit for a bard to know, in a way. Do you remember our gwerbret’s sister, the Lady Merodda?’

‘Oh, and how could any man with blood in his veins forget her?’

‘He’d best try.’ Aethan’s voice turned hard and cold. ‘Her husband was killed in battle last summer, and so she came back to her brother in Dun Cantrae. And the captain made me her escort, to ride behind her whenever she went out.’ He was quiet, his mouth working, for a good couple of minutes. ‘And she took a fancy to me. Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I should have said her nay – I blasted well knew it, even then – but ye gods, Maddo, I’m only made of flesh and blood, not steel, and she knows how to get what she wants from a man. I swear to you, I never would have said a word to her if she hadn’t spoken to me first.’

‘I believe you. You’ve never been a fool.’

‘Not before this winter, at least. I felt like I was ensorcelled. I’ve never loved a woman that way before, and cursed if I ever will again. I wanted her to ride off with me. Like a misbegotten horseshit fool, I thought she loved me enough to do it. But oh, it didn’t suit her ladyship, not by half.’ Again the long, pain-filled pause. ‘So she let it slip to her brother what had been happening between us, but oh, she was the innocent one, she was. And when His Grace took all the skin off my back three days ago, she was out in the ward to watch.’

Aethan dropped his face into his hands and wept like a child. For a moment Maddyn sat there frozen; then he reached out a timid hand and laid it on Aethan’s shoulder until at last he fell silent and wiped his face roughly on his sleeve.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on her.’ Aethan’s voice was a flat, dead whisper. ‘She did keep her brother from killing me.’ He stood up, and it was painful to watch him wince as he hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’ve rested enough. Let’s ride, Maddo. The farther I get from Cantrae the happier I’ll be.’

For four days Maddyn and Aethan rode west, asking cautious questions of the various farmers and pedlars that they met about the local lords and their warbands. Even though they sometimes heard of a man who might be desperate enough to take them in without asking questions, each time they decided that they were still too close to Cantrae to risk petitioning him. They realized, however, that they would have to find some place soon, because all around them the noble-born were beginning to muster their men for the summer’s fighting. With troops moving along the roads they were in a dangerous position. Maddyn had no desire to escape being hanged for an outlaw only to end up in a rope as a supposed spy.

Since Aethan’s back was far from healed, they rode slowly, stopping often to rest, either beside the road or in village taverns. They had, at least, no need to worry about coin; not only did Maddyn have Nevyn’s generous pouch, but Aethan’s old captain had managed to slip him money along with his gear when he’d been kicked out of Dun Cantrae. Apparently Maddyn wasn’t alone in thinking the gwerbret’s sentence harsh. During this slow progress west, Maddyn had plenty of time to watch and worry over his old friend. Since always before, Aethan had watched over him – he was, after all, some ten years Maddyn’s elder – Maddyn was deeply troubled to realize that Aethan needed him the way a child needs his father. The gwerbret might have spared his life, but he’d broken him all the same, this man who’d served him faithfully for over twenty years, by half beating him to death like a rat caught in a stable.

Always before Aethan had had an easy way with command, making decisions, giving orders, and all in a way that made his fellows glad to follow them. Now he did whatever Maddyn said without even a mild suggestion that they might do otherwise. Before, too, he’d been a talkative man, always ready with a tale or a jest if he didn’t have serious news to pass along. Now he rode wrapped in a black hiraedd; at times he didn’t even answer when Maddyn asked him a direct question. For all that it ached Maddyn’s heart, he could think of nothing to do to better things. Often he wished that he could talk with Nevyn and get his advice, but Nevyn was far away, and he doubted if he’d ever see the old man again, no matter how much he wanted to.

Eventually they reached the great river, the Camyn Yraen, an ‘iron road’ even then, because all the rich ore from Cerrgonney came down it in barges, and the town of Gaddmyr, at that time only a large village with a wooden palisade around it for want of walls. Just inside the gate they found a tavern of sorts, basically the tavernman’s house, with half the round ground floor set off by a wickerwork partition to hold a couple of tables and some alebarrels in the curve of the wall. For a couple of coppers the man brought them a chunk of cheese and a loaf of bread to go with their ale, then left them strictly alone. Maddyn noticed that none of the villagers were bothering to come to the tavern with them in it, and he remarked as much to Aethan.

‘For all they know, we’re a couple of bandits. Ah, by the hells, Maddo, we can’t go wandering the roads like this, or we might well end up robbing travellers, at that. What are we going to do?’

‘Cursed if I know. But I’ve been thinking a bit. There’s those free troops you hear about. Maybe we’d be better off joining one of them than worrying about an honourable place in a warband.’

‘What?’ For a moment some of the old life came back to Aethan’s eyes. ‘Are you daft? Fight for coin, not honour? Ye gods, I’ve heard of some of those troops switching sides practically in the middle of a battle if someone offered them better pay. Mercenaries! They’re naught but a lot of dishonoured scum!’

Maddyn merely looked at him. With a long sigh Aethan rubbed his face with both hands.

‘And so are we. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Maddo? Well, you’re right enough. All the gods know that the captain of a free troop won’t be in any position to sneer at the scars on my back.’

‘True spoken. And we’ll have to try to find one that’s fighting for Cerrmor or Eldidd, too. Neither of us can risk having some Cantrae man seeing us in camp.’

‘Ah, horseshit and a pile of it! Do you know what that means? What are we going to end up doing? Riding a charge against the gwerbret and all my old band some day?’

Maddyn had never allowed himself to frame that thought before, that some day his life might depend on his killing a man who’d once been his ally and friend. Aethan picked up his dagger and stabbed it viciously into the table.