When Jill returned to the gwerbret’s palace, she snagged a page and sent him up to the women’s hall with a message. Before they’d left Dwaen’s dun, she’d asked Ylaena to write her a note to the gwerbret’s lady, Ganydda, giving Jill a formal introduction. The lad returned quickly enough and escorted her up to the reception chamber, littered with a profusion of heavy furniture and silver oddments. At each long window hung a curtain of Bardek brocade in the gwerbretal colours of green, silver, and yellow. Ganydda, a slender woman with greying hair, startled-looking blue eyes, and prominent teeth, greeted her kindly and had a serving lass bring a cushion so that Jill could sit near her feet.
‘The lady Ylaena speaks highly of you, Jill.’
‘My thanks, my lady, though doubtless she flatters me unduly.’
‘How well spoken you are! You must forgive an old woman’s curiosity, but whatever possessed a pretty lass like you to ride off with a silver dagger? He’s awfully handsome, of course, but honestly, my dear! It must have been quite a scandal.’
‘Not truly a scandal, my lady, because you see, my father was a silver dagger, too. I had no position or anything to lose.’
‘Really? How fascinating! You must tell me all about it.’
Although Jill normally parried such questions, that night she chattered about true love in general and Rhodry in particular until she could see she’d won the lady’s confidence – although she avoided telling her why Rhodry was riding the long road. At that point she worked the conversation round to Tieryn Dwaen’s current troubles.
‘My heart absolutely goes out to Slaecca, losing her husband to that drunken little – well, in a drunken little brawl,’ Ganydda said. ‘And now to have her son threatened is really too much to bear. I pray that things won’t come to open war.’
‘It must be sad for Lord Beryn’s wife, too, the poor lady, seeing her husband put himself in danger after losing her only son.’
‘Well, perhaps it would distress her.’ Ice formed in Ganydda’s voice. ‘One must always think the best thoughts one can about people, mustn’t one? But then there’s no doubt that Mallona’s had a hard enough life. My dear Jill, wait until you see Beryn puffing and snorting at my husband’s court, and he’s a good bit older than her, you know.’
‘Truly? Lady Slaecca never mentioned that.’
‘She’s so charitable, isn’t she? But he is, and I’ve often wondered why she only had that one pregnancy, if you take my meaning.’
Jill smiled and arched one eyebrow.
‘Oh dear, what if worst comes to worst?’ Ganydda went on with a certain relish. ‘I wonder what poor dear Mallona will do. I can’t see her fitting into the temple life, I just simply can’t.’
‘Doesn’t she have a brother to go back to, my lady? The lady Ylaena mentioned one.’
‘Um, well, a brother of a sort. Let me see, what did happen to him? He was the youngest son of a poor clan, you see, and so he ended up living just like a commoner, and his mother was so upset. He received a small inheritance from an uncle, and he became a merchant – can you imagine it – some said he was actually running a brothel down in Cerrmor, but I never believed it for a minute – people will say the nastiest things sometimes.’
‘But what about all her other brothers, then?’
‘Well, you see, when this Graelyn – I believe that was his name – betrayed the honour of his blood, Mallona was the only one who spoke on his side, and she and her kin no longer speak, for all that it’s been ten years now. I think her father arranged the match with Beryn as revenge of a sort, although I shouldn’t say that. I mean, he might have thought it a perfectly good match. After all, you can’t tell one old man that another doesn’t have much life left, if you take my meaning.’
When Jill managed to make her escape from the lady’s side, she headed upstairs to Tieryn Dwaen’s chamber. On her way she met a serving lass, carrying a tray with a silver flagon and goblets upon it.
‘Here, silver dagger,’ she called out. ‘You’re with the tieryn’s party, aren’t you?’
‘I am. Shall I save you a few steps and carry that up?’
‘Would you? Some fellow from his grace’s retinue handed it to me and said to deliver it, but with all these guests I’ve got so much work to do.’
‘Of course you do. Rude of him.’
Dwaen, Cadlew, and Rhodry were all sitting in the reception chamber of the suite, the two lords in chairs, Rhodry on the floor by the door. When she brought the mead in, Cadlew rose with a small bow and took the tray from her.
‘Splendid idea, Jill. We found a water jug in one bedchamber, but that won’t do a man any good.’
‘Well, my lord, I’m afraid you don’t dare drink this mead. I’ve got the feeling it’s been poisoned.’
Her feeling was confirmed when Rhodry dipped the corner of a rag in the mead, tasted a scant drop of it, and immediately washed his mouth out with the aforementioned water.
‘Crude,’ he remarked. ‘Cursed crude. No one in their right mind would have drunk more than one sip of this.’
‘Ah by the great hairy balls of the Lord of Hell!’ Dwaen was decidedly pale. ‘Why would someone go to all this trouble to poison the stuff, then?’
‘Why did they put that rat in your bed, Your Grace? To make you squirm, to drag it out and make you wonder when they’ll finally kill you.’ Rhodry glanced at Jill. ‘Think I should go berate the chamberlain?’
‘It won’t do any good, and spreading the news around might do harm. You could go down to the great hall and find out how easy it is for someone to get into the broch.’
Rhodry did just that, but he came back with the discouraging news that it was remarkably easy, even at night, for any well-dressed man who was generous with his small coins. Merchants and travellers did it all the time, mostly to gawk at the dun and maybe to get a glimpse of the gwerbret or his wife. At times, even, after a particularly lavish feast, the gwerbret summoned the town poor into the ward to be given the leftovers. Jill and Rhodry both agreed that the only way they were going to keep strangers away from the tieryn was to raise a general alarm and have the gwerbret put the dun on full alert, a plan that Dwaen outright forbade, much to Cadlew’s annoyance and Jill’s relief. Rousing the dun would give her whole game away.
Since it would be several days before Lord Beryn would arrive at court to answer the formal charges, Rhodry resigned himself to keeping a close watch over the tieryn and hoping for the best. As the tedious time crawled by, he grew annoyed with Jill for leaving the whole job to him. It seemed that the only time he ever saw her was at meals; she was always off talking to the servants, gossiping with the women in the dun, or wandering around town where, for all he knew, she might well be in danger. By the end of the third day he was ready to shake her. They finally got a few minutes alone after dinner.
‘Just where were you this afternoon?’ Rhodry snapped.
‘Talking with the head of the merchant guild. It took me all day to bribe my way in to see him.’
‘What did you want to do that for?’
‘And then I went to the temple of Nudd to talk to the priests. Every merchant who comes through town stops to pray there.’
‘So what? What do merchants have to do with anything?’
‘Lots, my sweet love. I think me you’re going to be surprised.’
‘I don’t want to be surprised, blast you. I want to know right now what you’re up to.’
‘All right. Here come his grace and Lord Cadlew now. Let’s see if they’ll ask the gwerbret a favour for me. I want to speak to our prisoner again.’
Since his own curiosity was running high, Dwaen was willing to do just that, and Coryc himself was more than willing to grant Jill’s boon for the same reason. With four of the gwerbret’s men along for a guard, they all trooped out to the gaol, a long, squarish stone shed, half of which served as a general dungeon for beggars, drunkards, and suspected thieves, and half as private cells for more unusual men. Inside one of these tiny rooms was their prisoner, sitting on a heap of fetid straw. When a guard opened the door he rose, setting defiant hands on his hips.
‘If you persist in refusing information,’ Gwerbret Coryc said, ‘I’ll have you hanged.’
Stubbled and dirty, the prisoner ducked his head in a submissive nod. Several days of bad food and living with the results of the same had erased his contemptuous confidence.
‘This shouldn’t take long, Your Grace.’ Jill stepped forward. ‘Would you have the guard see if he’s been flogged recently?’
Although the prisoner fought and squirmed, a pair of guards pinned him and pulled his shirt up with little trouble. In the torchlight they could all see the fresh pink scars, about ten of them, criss-crossing his back.
‘Very well,’ Jill said. ‘Now, lad, I’ve got just one question for you. Who’s Lady Mallona’s lover?’
Although for a brief moment Rhodry thought she’d gone daft, the prisoner yelped like a kicked dog, and all the colour left his face.
‘So.’ Jill favoured him with a smile. ‘I thought she had one, truly. Was it you? You’re good-looking when you’re clean.’
‘It wasn’t, by every god of my people. I wouldn’t have a thing to do with her when –’ He broke off with a foul oath.
‘So, she was sniffing round you, was she? It’s no wonder you refuse to talk. One word, and you start giving everything away. Very well, then, hold your tongue a while longer. I’ll nose him out sooner or later.’
With a nod to the guard to lock the prisoner up again, Coryc led the rest of them out into the ward.
‘All right, silver dagger, you’ve got some game afoot, and you can blasted well let the rest of us know what it is.’
‘Your Grace,’ Jill said, ‘I’ll beg you a boon. If I’m right, this crime is truly scandalous. So I don’t want to make any charge or raise anybody’s suspicions until we’re assembled in a proper court of law. Of course I’ll tell you if you order me to, but I truly do think we should wait until your malover. Your wife will tell you that I’m trustworthy.’
‘She already has, actually. Very well. Your request’s both fair and honourable.’ The gwerbret looked round with an apologetic smile, since he doubtless knew perfectly well that everyone there was burning with curiosity. ‘After all, Lord Beryn should arrive on the morrow.’
Lord Beryn did indeed arrive during the noon meal. As Dwaen’s bodyguard, Rhodry was sitting next to the tieryn at the gwerbret’s table when from out in the ward came the clatter and bustle of armed men dismounting. The enormous hall fell silent as everyone, noble-born and commoner alike, turned to stare at the door. With ten of his men behind him, Lord Beryn strode in, a tall man, rawboned and grizzled, with sweeping grey moustaches and narrow dark eyes that darted this way and that. Rhodry figured that he was about fifty winters old. He gestured to his men to wait, then strode across the great hall and knelt, with a profound grunt, at the gwerbret’s side.
‘Now what’s all this, Your Grace? I’ve been wading through rivers of evil gossip, saying that I’m trying to kill Tieryn Dwaen of Dun Ebonlyn. It’s cursed well not true.’
‘True or not, the matter’s serious enough to warrant an inquiry.’ Coryc rose to tower over him. ‘If both parties agree, we’ll convene the malover immediately. The priests are here and waiting.’
‘Indeed?’ Beryn swung his head and glared at Dwaen. ‘Listen, you little coward, I’ve got every reason in the world to kill you, but if I was going to, I’d call you out to a duel like a man – if you had the guts to face me.’
Rhodry grabbed Dwaen’s arm and forced him to sit back down.
‘Lord Beryn, I call for silence!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Tieryn Dwaen, there’ll be no duelling in my hall.’
With a dog-like growl, Beryn settled back on his heels.
‘My lord,’ Coryc went on, ‘the tieryn has reliable witnesses. We are going to hear these witnesses in proper order, in my chamber of justice, with the priests of Bel there as well. Am I understood?’
‘You are, Your Grace.’ Beryn’s voice began to shake. ‘Didn’t I accept Your Grace’s judgment on my son? Didn’t I stand in your ward and watch without lifting a finger when –’
‘Don’t vex yourself, Beryn.’ Coryc turned and made an ambiguous gesture with one hand. ‘All the witnesses present? Good. Then come along, come along. I want this grievous affair settled and done.’
The gwerbret’s chamber of justice was a big half-round of a room, hung with banners in his colours. In the curve of the wall stood two tables, one for his grace and his scribes, one for the priests and theirs. The witnesses stood on the gwerbret’s right, the accused and his supporters on his left. The rest of the hall was packed with spectators – officials, riders, servants, even a few townfolk, a quiet but jostling crowd that spilled out through the double doors into the corridor beyond. As Dwaen and Cadlew laid their deposition concerning the archer and the dead dog, the rat in the bed, Vyna’s tale and the capture of the prisoner, the crowd stopped moving and seemed to crouch on the floor, straining to hear every word. Beryn’s colour turned from sun-bitten tan to red and back again. Finally, Rhodry was called forward to tell of the attack on Lady Ylaena. He’d barely finished when Beryn broke, charging forward to stand before the gwerbret.
‘Your Grace, never would I order such a cowardly thing! How could you believe it of me, attacking a woman!’
‘His lordship forgets himself again. As of yet I believe naught, one way or another.’
Beryn started to speak, but just then two guards appeared, shoving their way through the crowd and dragging the prisoner along with them.
‘You!’ Beryn snarled. ‘You little bastard! What by every god are you doing here?’
‘My lord!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘I do. His name’s Petyn, and I had him flogged and kicked out of my warband not long ago. He was stealing from me.’
Although everyone in the crowd gasped, Coryc turned to look at Jill, who was smiling to herself as she stood out of the way near the wall.
‘All right, silver dagger,’ the gwerbret said. ‘It’s time for you to spill everything you know.’
‘So it is, Your Grace.’ Jill came forward and made a reasonable curtsey, seeing as she was wearing a pair of brigga. ‘Petyn, let’s start with you. There you were, publicly shamed, turned out of the warband without a copper to your name. I’ll wager you rode south. Where did you meet the man who hired you?’
Petyn shook his head in a stubborn no.
‘I know what he looks like,’ Jill went on. ‘A stout fellow, with a high voice, and he’s a merchant pretending to be a scribe. He deals in perfumes and incenses, actually. He was a friend of Lady Mallona’s brother, and he was kind enough to bring her news every now and then, until Graelyn died last year. That’s the brother’s name, Your Grace – Graelyn. But this incense seller was a rich man, and I’ll wager he offered Petyn plenty, especially since he had him round up four other lads for the hire.’
‘Here!’ Lord Beryn’s voice rose to a squeak. ‘Are you talking about Bavydd? He used to stay in my dun with us, just every now and then.’
‘So that was his name, was it? He gave a different one to the priests of Nudd here in town, but I figured it was a false one. Come on, Petyn. Are you really going to hang for a man who wouldn’t lift a finger to help you?’
‘I’ll hang no matter what I do, you little bitch! Why should I say anything? You seem to know the lot already.’
‘What is this?’ Coryc slammed one hand down on the table. ‘Jill, are you saying that this merchant is behind these murder attempts?’
‘Not exactly, Your Grace. I don’t think for a minute that he wanted to kill the tieryn. He wanted to push Beryn and Dwaen into open war and let them kill each other. Or maybe he was hoping you’d believe it was all Beryn’s fault, and you’d hang him for breaking your ban on the blood feud. Then he, Bavydd I mean, could marry the lady Mallona and take her away.’
‘I see.’ Dwaen’s voice was more a sigh. ‘Beryn, I owe you both an apology and some restitution for this.’
‘No doubt,’ the gwerbret said. ‘But that will be a separate matter. Jill, I take it you’re laying a formal charge of attempted murder, as well as adultery, against this Bavydd, a merchant of Cerrmor.’
‘I’m not, my lord. He was just a tool.’
Everyone was staring at Jill now, from the priests of Bel to the lowliest servant in the crowd. Rhodry had never heard such a crush of people keep such a silence.
‘Well, you see, Your Grace,’ Jill went on. ‘They could have run off together any time and been safe in Cerrmor, under another gwerbret’s jurisdiction, before her husband could track her down. Bavydd’s wealthy. He could pay Lord Beryn three times his wife’s marriage-price when the matter came to court, and I’ll bet his lordship would have taken the money, too, and not pressed the matter, because everyone tells me he didn’t much fancy her any more. So why this elaborate plot? Your Grace, it had to be someone who hates Tieryn Dwaen, and there’s only one person under Great Bel’s light that it could be.’
Involuntarily, the gwerbret glanced at Beryn, but Jill shook her head in a mournful no.
‘Your Grace, you’ve all been looking for a man, haven’t you? Women hate just as bitterly and as well. Your Grace, everyone tells me that Lady Mallona doted on her son, and he wasn’t just her only son, he was her only child. She must have hated Dwaen for having him hanged and brooded on it till she went mad. And then there’s the serving lass. Who else could have got Vyna a place in Dwaen’s dun, all under the cover of kindness? And who else would have known that Vyna had a child they could hold hostage? Who else would have hated the Lady Ylaena, too? The women in your dun told me that Mallona was awfully taken with Lord Cadlew, and it’s also common knowledge that he spurned her cold. Ylaena was her rival. Mallona would have enjoyed her revenge, all right, if that pack of brigands had got Ylaena alone somewhere. But how could Mallona hire the men and give them orders? Send a messenger along the roads to announce she had a hire for murderers? Invite them into her husband’s hall? That’s where Bavydd came in.’
All at once Rhodry remembered Lord Beryn and looked his way to find the lord kneeling on the floor. It seemed that Beryn had shrunk into himself, turned old and grey and somehow smaller. With a drunken gesture Beryn raised his head and keened like a man over his dead.
‘Your lordship has my sympathy,’ Jill said. ‘Truly he does. But I don’t see why he should suffer for someone else’s crimes.’
‘No more do I,’ Coryc said. ‘I want the lady brought here for questioning. Indeed, with his lordship’s permission, I’ll summon an honour guard and ride to fetch her myself.’
Like a warrior stabbed on the battlefield but determined to stand until he dies, Beryn staggered to his feet. By law he had the right to ride home and defend his lady with his life from these charges, and Rhodry stepped forward, half without thinking, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Beryn saw the gesture and began to laugh, a ghastly sobbing mirth.
‘Stay your hand, silver dagger. Your milksop lord’s safe from me. I only ask one boon, Your Grace. Don’t make me watch her hang. I loved her once.’
‘Done.’
Coryc began to speak further, but the crowd broke, first into whispers, then into an excited gabble that grew louder and louder as the people swirled about. Coryc hesitated, then yelled at the guards to clear the hall and be done with it. In the confusion Beryn gathered his sworn men round him like a dressing for a wound and was swept away; when Dwaen tried to follow to apologize further, Rhodry and Cadlew held him back. The gwerbret was so thickly surrounded by clamouring priests that he never did bother to formally adjourn the malover.
Once the chamber was reasonably clear, Rhodry looked around for Jill, but he found her gone. Blast her! he thought. What’s she up to now? Since Dwaen was quite obviously safe, he left his hire and went after her. As he was walking down the stairs, he smelled something, a familiar scent – a hint of cinnamon and musk, exactly that which had hung round the man who’d tried to hire him for murder. Rhodry threw up his head like a hunting dog and raced down the spiral at a dangerous pace. For a moment, at the foot of the stairs, he caught the scent again, but the great hall was packed with gossiping people. By the time he made his way to the door out, he could find neither scent nor sight of the man who, he could assume, had to have been Bavydd of Cerrmor.
After a short search Jill discovered Lord Beryn and his men out by the stables. Silent and miserable, they were unsaddling their horses, and when she approached they all stared at her in angry bewilderment, as if they couldn’t decide whether she was the cause of their lord’s trouble or his saviour from it. Beryn himself, however, raised one hand and flapped it in dispirited greeting.
‘My lord, I know I’ve brought you great grief, but I’ve come now to bring you a little solace. May I speak?’
‘Why not, silver dagger? I can’t think of one wretched thing you could do to hurt me any worse.’
‘You’ve lost your only son, and I know it’s a grievous thing to think your clan will die when you do. But I’ve come to tell you that your son sired a son before he died. It’s the child we spoke about in the malover, Vyna’s babe. The child’s a bastard, of course, but he could be legitimized.’
Beryn wrenched himself half round, then began to shake, like a spear stuck in the ground with a smack that then quivers itself still. At last he turned to her again.
‘I remember when the lass was sent away. Didn’t take any notice at the time. Some woman’s matter, I thought. Why didn’t my lady tell me about the child?’
‘Would she have told you anything that would have pleased you?’
‘Ye gods.’ For a long moment he was silent. ‘The little bitch.’
‘Here, my lord, how could the poor lass have turned your son away?’
‘Not the lass, you wretched imbecile of a silver dagger! My wife.’ He began to pace round and round in a tight circle. ‘Is the babe healthy?’
‘He is, my lord. His name’s Bellgyn.’
Round and round, and always he stared at the dirt beneath his feet. Jill made him an unnoticed bow and slipped away.
On the morrow, as soon as the dun came awake, the gwerbret summoned the two lords and their retinues to the table of honour in the great hall. Coryc rose, carefully impassive, and gave Beryn a nod of greeting.
‘I have a formal announcement to make, my lord,’ Coryc said quietly. ‘I intend to ride to your dun to question your lady on this matter of justice. If his lordship wishes to ride to her defence, then he has my guarantee of safe conduct out of my city and on my roads.’
Beryn snorted profoundly.
‘When you ride, Your Grace, I want to join your hunt for this piss-poor bastard merchant.’ Beryn jerked his thumb in Rhodry’s direction. ‘This silver dagger tells me that he’s sure Bavydd was in town last night. I’ll bet he’s fleeing south right now. A boon, Your Grace. If we catch him, let me have him.’
Coryc hesitated, looking Dwaen’s way as if the tieryn were his own conscience, there to testify about Bel’s laws.
‘It’s not for me to say what his grace may or may not do,’ Dwaen said. ‘My father’s death was more than I could bear in silence, but this time I’ll no longer push my rights before the law. Whatever you want done with the merchant, Your Grace, do.’
‘Then your boon is granted, Lord Beryn,’ Coryc said. ‘And we’d best get ready to ride.’
All that day the warbands pushed their horses hard and arrived at Dun Ebonlyn in early afternoon, where they stopped to eat and to tell Lady Ylaena the news. As the men were filing in, Jill saw Lord Beryn turn his men out of line and stop beside the gates. When she pointed him out to Dwaen, the tieryn rode over and made Beryn a small bow from the saddle.
‘His lordship is welcome in my dun,’ Dwaen said. ‘If he can bring himself to enter it.’
