Dawnspell

‘Here!’ The tavernman came running. ‘No need to be breaking up the furniture, lads!’

Aethan looked up so grimly that Maddyn caught his arm before he could take out his rage on this innocent villager. The tavernman stepped back, swallowing hard.

‘I’ll give you an extra copper to pay for the damage,’ Maddyn said. ‘My friend’s in a black mood today.’

‘He can go about having it in some other place than mine.’

‘Well and good, then. We’ve finished your piss-poor excuse for ale, anyway.’

They’d just reached the door when the tavernman hailed them again. Although Aethan ignored him and walked out, Maddyn paused as the taverner came scurrying over.

‘I know about one of them troops you and your friend was talking about.’

Maddyn got out a couple of coppers and jingled them in his hand. The taverner gave him a gap-toothed, garlicscented grin.

‘They wintered not far from here, they did. They rode in every now and then to buy food, and we was fair terrified at first, thinking they were going to steal whatever they wanted, but they paid good coin. I’ll say that for them, for all that they was an arrogant lot, strutting around like lords.’

‘Now that’s luck!’

‘Well, now, they might have moved on by now. Haven’t seen them in days, and here’s the blacksmith’s daughter with her belly swelling up, and even if they did come back, she wouldn’t even know which of the lads it was. The little slut, spreading her legs for any of them that asked her!’

‘Indeed? And where were they quartered?’

‘They wouldn’t be telling the likes of us that, but I’ll wager I can guess well enough. Just to the north of here, oh, about ten miles, I’d say, is a stretch of forest. It used to be the tieryn’s hunting preserve, but then, twenty-odd years ago it was now, the old tieryn and all his male kin got themselves killed off in a blood feud, and with the wars so bad and all, there was no one else to take the demesne. So now the forest’s all overgrown and thick, like, but I wager that the old tieryn’s hunting-lodge still stands in there some place.’

Maddyn handed over the coppers and took out two more.

‘I don’t suppose some of the lads in the village know where this lodge is?’ He held up the coins. ‘It seems likely that some of the young ones might have poked around in there, just out of curiosity, like.’

‘Not on your life, and I’m not saying that to get more coin out of you, neither. It’s a dangerous place, that stretch of trees. Haunted, they say, and full of evil spirits as well, most like, and then there’s the wild men.’

‘The what?’

‘Well, I suppose that by rights I shouldn’t call them wild, poor bastards, because all the gods can bear witness that I’d have done the same as them if I had to.’ He leaned closer, all conspiratorial. ‘You don’t look like the sort of fellow who’ll be running to our lord with the news, but the folk who live in the forest are bondsmen. Or I should say, they was, a while back. Their lord got killed, and so they took themselves off to live free, and I can’t say as I’ll be blaming them for it, neither.’

‘Nor more can I. Your wild men are safe enough from me, but I take it they’re not above robbing a traveller if they can.’

‘I think they feels it’s owing to them, like, after all the hard work they put in.’

Maddyn gave him the extra coppers anyway, then went out to join Aethan, who was standing by the road with the horses’ reins in hand.

‘Done gossiping, are you?’

‘Here, Aethan, the taverner had some news to give us, and it just might be worth following down. There might be a free troop up in the woods to the north of us.’

Aethan stared down at the reins in his hand and rubbed them with weary fingers.

‘Ah, horseshit!’ he said at last. ‘We might as well look them over, then.’

When they left the village, they rode north, following the river. Although Aethan was well on the mend by then, his back still ached him, and they rested often. At their pace it was close to sunset when they reached the forest, looming dark and tangled on the far side of a wild meadowland. At its edge a massive marker stone still stood, doubtless proclaiming the trees the property of the long-dead clan that once had owned them.

‘I don’t want to be mucking around in there when it’s dark,’ Aethan said.

‘You’re right enough. We’ll camp here. There’s plenty of water in the river.’

While Aethan tended the horses, Maddyn went to gather firewood at the forest edge. A crowd of Wildfolk went with him, darting around or skipping beside him, a gaggle of green, warty gnomes, three enormous yellow creatures with swollen stomachs and red fangs, and his faithful blue sprite, perching on his shoulder and running tiny hands through his hair.

‘I’ll have to play us a song tonight. It’s been a while since I felt like music, but maybe our luck is turning.’

Yet when it came time to play, Maddyn’s heart was still so troubled that he found it hard to settle down to one ballad or declamation. He got the harp in tune, then played scraps and bits of various songs or practised runs and chordings. Aethan soon fell asleep, lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on folded arms, but the Wildfolk stayed to the last note, a vast crowd of them stretching out beyond the pool of firelight across the meadow. Maddyn felt awed, as if he were playing in a king’s court, the great hall crowded with retainers. When he stopped, he felt more than heard a ripple of eerie applause; then suddenly, they were gone. Maddyn shuddered profoundly, then put the harp away.

After he had banked the campfire, Maddyn paced a little way into the meadow out of restlessness and nothing more. He could see the forest edge, looming dark not far from them, and even more, he could feel its presence, like an exhalation of wildness. He was sure that more than human fugitives lived there. It occurred to him that while the long wars were a tragedy for human beings, to the Wildfolk they were a blessing, giving them back land that men had once taken and tamed. As he stood there in the silent meadow, it seemed that he heard faint music, an echo of his own. Again he shuddered convulsively, then hurried back to his safe camp.

On the morrow the blue sprite woke him just at dawn by the expedient method of pulling his hair so hard that it hurt like fire. When he swatted at her, she laughed soundlessly, exposing her needle-sharp teeth. Nearby Aethan was still sleeping, but restlessly, turning and stretching like a man who’ll wake any moment.

‘Listen carefully, little sweet one,’ Maddyn said to the sprite. ‘Somewhere in that forest are a whole lot of men like me and Aethan, warriors with swords. They’ll have lots of horses, too, and they live in a stone house. Can you lead me there?’

She thought for a long moment, then nodded her agreement and promptly disappeared. Maddyn decided that either she’d misunderstood or had simply forgotten, but as soon as they were ready to ride, she reappeared, dancing and leaping on the riverbank and pointing to the north.

‘I don’t suppose that misbegotten tavernman gave you any directions to this place,’ Aethan said.

‘Well, he had a confused idea or two. I’ll try to lead us there, but don’t be surprised if it’s a bit roundabout.’

It was a good thing that Maddyn had put in his warning, because the Wildfolk’s idea of leading someone left much to be desired. As soon as the men started riding north, two grey gnomes appeared to join the sprite, but they kept pinching either her or each other and distracting her both ways from her task. Once they were all well into the forest, the Wildfolk disappeared, leaving the men to follow a rough deertrack for several miles. Just when Maddyn had given up on them, they flashed back into being, perching on his horse’s neck and saddle-peak and pointing off to the west down a narrow and rough track indeed. Although Aethan grumbled (and a welcome sign of returning life it was) Maddyn insisted on following it, and every time the path branched, he faithfully went the way the blue sprite pointed. By noon, Maddyn was hopelessly lost, with no choice but to follow where the Wildfolk led. Hopping from tree to tree, they grinned, giggled, and pointed in various directions, but Maddyn always followed the blue sprite, who threatened to bite the grey fellows whenever they contradicted her.

‘Maddo, I hope to every god and his horse that you know what you’re doing.’

‘So do I. I’ve got the ugly feeling I may have got us lost in here.’

Aethan groaned with a drama worthy of a bard. Just as Maddyn was thinking that he’d spoken the bitter truth, the sprite led them to a big clearing, ringed round with stumps of trees. Out in the middle was a hut built of logs, piled up whole to form a square structure – a house different from any that Maddyn had ever seen. The roof was neatly thatched with branches, and a wisp of smoke trailed lazily out of the smoke-hole in the roof.

‘What in the three hells have you found?’ Aethan sputtered. ‘That’s not big enough for a band of mercenaries.’

‘So it’s not. More likely it’s some of those runaway bondsmen the taverner mentioned.’

At the sound of their voices, a man came out. He was one of the shortest men Maddyn had ever seen, not more than five feet tall, but he had broad shoulders and heavy arms like a miniature blacksmith, and his legs were in perfect proportion to the rest of him. His long black beard trailed past the round collar of the wool tunic he wore over brigga. He carried a long woodsman’s axe like a weapon. When he spoke, his voice was rough with a heavy guttural accent. ‘And just who are you, lads?’

‘Naught but a pair of lost travellers,’ Maddyn said.

‘Thieves, more like.’ The fellow hefted the axe. ‘And what brought you into these wretched woods in the first place?’

‘We were looking for a mercenary troop,’ Aethan broke in. ‘A tavernman in Gaddmyr said there might be one quartered in this forest.’

‘All we want to do is see if they’ll take us on,’ Maddyn said. ‘I swear it, we’re not thieves, and I don’t know what a hermit like you would have that’s worth stealing, anyway.’

The man considered, his axe at the ready. When Maddyn noticed the blade, he nearly swore aloud in surprise. Although the metal gleamed exactly like silver, it had an edge as sharp as steel by the look of it, and it carried not one nick or bite.

‘Now here,’ Aethan said. ‘We’ll be more than glad to leave you alone if you’ll only show us the way out of these blasted woods.’

‘Go back the way you came, of course.’

‘Good sir, we’re lost,’ Maddyn said, and quickly, because he didn’t like the black look on Aethan’s face.

‘Indeed? You found me easily enough.’

‘Well, I was following one of the …’ Maddyn broke off just in time.

As if she knew he was thinking of her, the blue sprite popped into existence, settling on his shoulder and kissing his hair. The fellow frankly stared, and lowered his axe to lean on it like a walking-stick. Quickly he darted a conspiratorial glance at Aethan, who of course had seen nothing, and then gave Maddyn a grudging smile.

‘Well, perhaps I could take you to the old lodge after all, but your horses look worn out from all these wretched trees. There’s a spring over there, by that bit of stump. Give them a drink first. My name’s Otho, by the by.’

‘And I’m Maddyn, and this is Aethan. My thanks for your help. Do you know this troop?’

‘Somewhat. I did a bit of work for them this winter, fixing buckles and suchlike. I’m a smith, you see.’

It was Maddyn’s turn to stare. What was a smith doing out in the middle of a wilderness? Then it occurred to him that Otho might have some dishonour of his own behind him.

‘Now, Caradoc – that’s their leader – isn’t a bad man, considering what he is,’ Otho went on. ‘He wants me to ride south with him when they go. I’ve been thinking it over.’

While Aethan watered the horses, Otho went into his cabin, then reappeared wearing a leather vest over his tunic and carrying a different axe, one with a long handle banded with metal and obviously made as a weapon, which he used to good advantage for clearing brush and overhanging branches. The trail was so narrow and twisty that the men had to lead their horses. It was about the middle of the afternoon when they came into a vast clearing of some five acres and saw the high stone walls of what once had been a noble’s hunting-lodge. The wooden gates were long since rotted away, letting them see the broch, still in reasonable repair, and a collection of tumbledown sheds inside.

As they walked up, Caradoc himself came out to meet them. Otho introduced him, a tall, slender man with the long, ropy arms of a born swordsman and the high cheek-bones and pale hair of a southern man. He seemed about Aethan’s age, in his mid-thirties, and for all that he was a dishonoured man, there was something impressive about Caradoc, the proud way he stood, the shrewd way he looked men over with eyes that seemed to have seen a lot of life.

‘Since you’re looking for bodies to sell,’ Otho said, ‘I brought you a couple.’

‘Interesting.’ Caradoc gave them each a pleasant smile. ‘Here’s Aethan with a Cantrae boar on his shirt, and Maddyn dressed like a farmer but carrying a sword. I looked like the pair of you, once. Left a warband down in Cerrmor a bit … well, sudden, like. Never did bid a proper farewell to my lord. I’ll wager, Aethan, that there’s scars on your back, judging from the stains on your shirt.’

‘More than a few. Cursed if I’ll tell you why.’

‘I’d never ask. Now, here’s the terms, lads. I’ll take anyone on for a summer. If you can’t fight, then you’ll die in a scrap, and we’ll be rid of you. If you can fight, then you get an equal share of the coin. And remember: I’m the leader of this pack of dogs. You give me one bit of trouble, and I’ll beat the shit out of you. Scribe that deep into your ugly hearts: you ride at orders, or you don’t ride at all.’

It was obvious that Caradoc meant what he said as soon as they went into the dun. Instead of the bandit-like pile of filth that Maddyn had been dreading, the camp was as clean as a great lord’s barracks. There were thirty-six men in the troop, and their gear was well-tended, their horses good, healthy stock, and their discipline tighter, in fact, than that of Maddyn’s old warband. As Caradoc introduced the new recruits around, the other members of the band paid him such strict and respectful attention that Maddyn began to wonder if he were noble-born. Otho came along with them, listening to Caradoc and stroking his beard in thought, but he said naught a word until they all went outside again so that Maddyn and Aethan could unsaddle their horses and unload their gear.

‘Well, Otho,’ Caradoc said. ‘We’ll be pulling out soon. Coming with us to Eldidd?’

‘I might, at that. I’ve got used to a bit of company, especially company that can pay a smith better than the stinking bondsmen in this forest.’

‘So we can, and you’ll like Eldidd well enough once we get there.’

‘Hah! I’ve got my doubts about that. They always say that there’s elven blood in Eldidd veins.’

‘Not that again!’ Caradoc mugged a doleful expression. ‘As much as I admire your craft, good smith, I have to say that your wits are a bit thin in places. Elves, indeed!’

‘Mock all you want, but elven blood makes a man unreliable.’

‘It’d make any man unreliable to have a myth in his clan’s quarterings.’ Caradoc ran one finger down the silvery blade of Otho’s axe. ‘But talk about elves all you want, just so long as you keep working your witchcraft on metals. When we’re all as rich as lords and the most famous free troop in all of Deverry, you’re going to make us swords out of that warlock’s metal of yours.’

‘Hah! You’d have to be a king to afford that, my friend. You’ll be blasted lucky if you ever get rich enough to have so much as a dagger out of it.’

After Maddyn and Aethan had their horses settled and fed in the stables, one of the men, Stevyc by name, came to help them carry their gear into the broch. When he picked up the big leather bag that held Maddyn’s harp, he broke into a grin.

‘Which one of you is the bard?’

‘I am,’ Maddyn said. ‘But not much of one, a gerthddyn, truly, if that. I can sing, but I don’t have a true bard’s lore.’

‘And who gives a pig’s fart who some lord’s great-great-great-grand-dam was? This is a bit of splendid luck.’ Stevyc turned, calling out to Caradoc, ‘Here, captain, we’ve got a bard of our own.’

‘And next we’ll be eating off silver plates, like the great lords we are.’ Caradoc came strolling over. ‘But a bard would have come in handy this winter, with the pack of you causing trouble because you had naught better to do. Well and good then, Maddyn. If you sing well enough, you’ll be free of kitchen work and stable duty, but I’ll expect you to make up songs about our battles just like you would for a lord.’

‘I’ll do my best, captain, to sing as well as we deserve.’

‘Better than we deserve, Maddyn lad, or you’ll sound like a cat in heat.’

After a rough dinner of venison and turnips, Maddyn was given his chance to sing, sitting on a rickety, half-rotted table in what had once been the lodge’s great hall. He’d only done one ballad when he realized that his place in the troop was assured. The men listened with the deep fascination of the utterly bored, hardly noticing or caring when he got a bit off-key or stumbled over a line. After a winter with naught but dice games and the blacksmith’s daughter for entertainment, they cheered him as if he were the best bard at the King’s court. They made him sing until he was hoarse, that night, and let him stop only reluctantly then. Only Maddyn and Otho knew, of course, that the hall was also filled with Wildfolk, listening as intently as the men.

That night, Maddyn lay awake for a long while and listened to the familiar sound of other men snoring close by in the darkness of a barracks. He was back in a warband, back in his old life so firmly that he wondered if he’d dreamt those enchanted months in Brin Toraedic. The winter behind him seemed like a lost paradise, when he’d had good company and a woman of his own, when he’d seen a glimpse of a wider, freer world of peace and dweomer – a little glimpse only, then the door had been slammed in his face. He was back in the war, a dishonoured rider whose one goal in life was to earn the respect of other dishonoured men. At least Belyan was going to have his baby back in Cantrae, a small life who would outlive him and who would be better off as a farmer than his father would be as a warrior. Thinking about the babe he could fall asleep at last, smiling to himself.

On the day that Maddyn left Brin Toraedic, Nevyn spent a good many hours shutting up the caves for the summer and loading herbs and medicines into the canvas mule-packs. He had a journey of over nine hundred miles ahead of him, with stops along the way that were crucial to the success of his long-range plans. If he were to succeed in making a dweomer king to bring peace to the country, he would need help from powerful friends, particularly among the priesthoods. He would also need to find a man of royal blood worthy of his plans. And that, or so he told himself, might well be the most difficult part of the work.

The first week of his journey was easy. Although the Cantrae roads were full of warbands, mustering to begin the ride to Dun Deverry for the summer’s fighting, no one bothered him, seemingly only a shabby old herbman with his ambling mule, his patched brown cloak, and the white hair that the local riders respected as a sign of his great age. He followed the Canaver down to its joining with the River Nerr near the town of Muir, a place that held memories some two hundred years old. As he always did when he passed through Muir, he went into the last patch of wild forest – now the hunting preserve of the Southern Boar clan. In the midst of a stand of old oaks was an ancient, mossy cairn that marked the grave of Brangwen of the Falcon, the woman he had loved, wronged, and lost so many years ago. He always felt somewhat of a fool for making this pilgrimage – her body was long decayed, and her soul had been reborn several times since that miserable day when he’d dug this grave and helped pile up these rocks. Yet the site meant something to him still, if for no other reason than because it was the place where he’d sworn the rash vow that was the cause of his unnaturally long life.

Out of respect for a grave, even though they could have no idea of whose it was, the Boar’s gamekeepers had left the cairn undisturbed. Nevyn was pleased to see that someone had even tended it by replacing a few fallen stones and pulling the weeds away from its base. It was a small act of decency in a world where decency was in danger of vanishing. For some time he sat on the ground and watched the dappled forest light playing on the cairn while he wondered when he would find Brangwen’s soul again. His meditation brought him a small insight: she was reborn, but still a child. Eventually, he was sure, in some way Maddyn would lead him to her. In life after life, his Wyrd had been linked to hers, and, indeed, in his last life, he had followed her to the death, binding a chain of Wyrd tight around them both.

After he left Muir, Nevyn rode west to Dun Deverry for a first-hand look at the man who claimed to be King in the Holy City. On a hot spring day, when the sun lay as thick as the dust in the road, he came to the shores of the Gwerconydd, the vast lake formed by the confluence of three rivers, and let his horse and mule rest for a moment by the reedy shore. He was joined by a pair of young priests of Bel, shaven-headed and dressed in linen tunics, who were also travelling to the Holy City. After a pleasant chat, they all decided to ride in together.

‘And who’s the high priest these days?’ Nevyn asked. ‘I’ve been living up in Cantrae, so I’m badly out of touch.’

‘His Holiness, Gwergovyn,’ said the elder of the pair.

‘I see.’ Nevyn’s heart sank. He remembered Gwergovyn all too well as a spiritual ferret of a man. ‘And tell me somewhat else. I’ve heard that the Boars of Cantrae are the men to watch in court circles.’

Even though they were all alone on the open road, the young priest lowered his voice when he answered.

‘They are, truly, and there are plenty who grumble about it, too. I know His Holiness thinks rather sourly of the men of the Boar.’

At length they came to the city, which rose high on its four hills behind massive double rings of stone walls, ramparted and towered. The wooden gates, carved with a wyvern rampant, were bound with iron, and guards in thickly embroidered shirts stood to either side. Yet as soon as Nevyn went inside, the impression of splendour vanished. Once a prosperous city had filled these walls; now house after house stood abandoned, with weed-choked yards and empty windows, the thatch blowing rotten in dirty streets. Much of the city lay in outright ruin, heaps of stone among rotting, charred timbers. It had been taken by siege so many times in the last hundred years, then taken back by the sword, that apparently no one had the strength, the coin, or the hope to rebuild. In the centre of the city, around and between two main hills, lived what was left of the population, scarcely more than in King Bran’s time. Warriors walked the streets and shoved the townsfolk aside whenever they met. It seemed to Nevyn that every man he saw was a rider for one lord or another, and every woman either lived in fear of them or had surrendered to the inevitable and turned whore to please them.

The first inn he found was tiny, dirty, and ramshackle, little more than a big house divided into a tavernroom and a few chambers, but he lodged there because he liked the innkeep, Draudd, a slender old man with hair as white as Nevyn’s and a smile that showed an almost superhuman ability to keep a sense of humour in the midst of ruin. When he found out that Nevyn was an herbman, Draudd insisted on taking payment for his lodging in trade.

‘Well, after all, I’m as old as you are, so I’ll easily equal the cost in your herbs. Why give me coins only to have me give them right back?’