‘They always say the Old Lore can remove that kind of nuisance from a woman’s life, don’t they?’
‘Just that.’ Jill thought for a moment. ‘Lord Beryn’s cook told me that every now and then, the Lady had weak spells, when she’d take to her bed for days and look terrible-ill.’
‘Ye gods! I never realized that the servants in a dun know about every blasted thing their masters do.’
‘Oh, doubtless the cooks and suchlike in Aberwyn could tell plenty of fine tales about you, Rhodry Maelwaedd.’
Rhodry had the unpleasant feeling that he was blushing.
The hunt should have been easy. A woman travelling alone was such an unusual thing in those days that anyone she passed should have noticed and remembered her. A woman who’d spent most of her life shut up in a dun should have had every possible trouble on the road, too. Although Lady Mallona’s life had hardly been pampered and courtly, still she’d doubtless never had to build a camp-fire, haggle for food, find water for her horse, or do any of those hundred other tasks that fell to travellers on the Deverry roads.
An easy task to find her, stuck somewhere with a lame horse or trying to bargain with suspicious innkeeps – except that after a full day on the south-running road, Rhodry had to admit that she seemed to have disappeared like dweomer. No farmer had remembered seeing her, no tavernman had given her shelter, no noble lord had wondered about a solitary rider travelling across his demesne.
‘I’m beginning to think that she didn’t go south after all,’ Rhodry said. ‘Not even to lay a false trail. May the gods blast me if I give up, though. If any woman ever deserved hanging, she does.’
‘I suppose.’ Jill thought for a while, staring moodily into the flames of their campfire. ‘Now, from the way she was described to us, I can’t believe she’d have any luck disguising herself as a man, not during broad daylight.’
‘I’ve been wondering about that myself.’
‘And she’s never been more than thirty miles from her home in her life. You’d think she’d get lost or suchlike.’
‘So you’d think.’
They shared a sigh of frustration and contemplated the fire.
‘I wonder if she’s dead,’ Jill said abruptly. ‘Maybe she killed herself somewhere, or ran into a pack of young men who raped and murdered her.’
‘It would be a fitting end, so fitting that I doubt the gods would be so kind to us. Well, here, should we go all the way to Cerrmor? If she does end up there, probably she’ll be arrested. Coryc made those messages pretty urgent.’
‘True spoken, but if we don’t find her first, we don’t get the bounty.’
Although it was true, it was also so cold-blooded that Rhodry didn’t even know what to say to it.
‘Let’s ride south for a bit longer,’ Jill went on. ‘There’s a town not far from here, Muir it’s called, and there’s a temple of the goddess there.’
Rhodry swore under his breath.
‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘Sanctuary. Do you think she’d have the gall to seek it?’
‘Why not? Gall seems to be the one thing she’s never lacked.’
If Mallona had indeed sought refuge with the Holy Ladies, they were going to have a fine time trying to get her out again. Gwerbret Coryc would have to confer with the gwerbret of this rhan, and if that worthy agreed, they would have to set up a judicial council that would meet outside the temple gates and present evidence to the high priestess and the temple council. Only if the high priestess agreed that Mallona was guilty would the Holy Ladies surrender her. Since every gwerbret in the kingdom grumbled that the priestess always sided with the woman in the case, no matter what, it was quite possible that Mallona would convince them with her lies and end up spending the rest of her life in the penitential rites of the temple. Penance was not going to be satisfying. Rhodry wanted to see her dead.
The sun was low and golden in the sky when they reached the rich farms of the temple’s lands, worked by free farmers who owed fealty to the high priestess, not a lord. The temple itself rose on a hill behind high stone walls, an enormous complex for the time, spilling half down the hillside and guarded by iron-bound gates trimmed with silver interlace and the holy symbols of the Moon. Above the walls, among the towers of the various brochs inside, Rhodry could see trees growing, the dark green bushy cedars brought all the way from Bardek and coddled to keep them alive in this colder land. Although the gates stood open, Rhodry stopped his horse and dismounted the ritual hundred feet away. Jill would have to go on alone to this place that no man could enter or approach.
Beside the road was a stand of poplars, a water-trough, a rail for tying horses and a pleasantly carved wooden bench.
‘At least you’ll be provided for, my love,’ Jill said. ‘It shouldn’t take me long, truly, to ask a few questions of the priestesses. By law they have to tell anyone who asks if Mallona’s in there. Oh, wait! That silver chain you found? It’s in my saddlebags, isn’t it, not yours?’
‘I saw you put it there. Why?’
‘I want to show it to the Holy Ladies, of course. They’ll know what it means.’
Rhodry watched as Jill rode the last hundred feet and dismounted at the gates. A small flock of priestesses ran to greet her. He heard one woman shriek; then everyone began to laugh, their high pure voices drifting down the hill. They’d probably thought Jill was a lad, he figured, and he smiled at the jest himself. Surrounded by the priestesses, Jill led her horse inside, and the gates closed behind her.
Rhodry watered his horse, tied it up, then sat down on the bench with a chunk of bread. It was pleasant in the warm shade, silent except for the buzz of a drowsy fly. Rhodry stretched his legs out in front of him and enjoyed the soldier’s luxury of merely sitting still in a safe place.
Like most Deverry men, Rhodry knew very little about the Old Lore, that worship of an ancient goddess which had come with the people of Bel from the Homeland, where it had seemed as dark and primitive then as it did now to the modern Deverrian mind. Aranrhodda was her name, and she had a magical cauldron, which was always full, which would give every man his favourite meat and drink no matter how many kinds were called out of a single batch, and which would also poison those who had displeased the goddess or one of her worshippers.
One old story stuck in his mind. Aranrhodda had tricked the gods into giving her cauldron its dweomer in this wise: she made a magical golden piglet and tethered it in a thorny thicket. One at a time, Bel, Lug, Nudd, and Dwn tried to free the piglet and claim the prize, but every time the thorns drove them back. Only Epona and the Goddess of the Moon refused to try, because they knew their sister too well. Whenever the gods pricked themselves on the thorns and bled, Aranrhodda caught the drops in her cauldron. Finally, when they went away, cursing her soundly for the ruse, she killed the piglet and made the first stew in the cauldron using the divine blood for soup.
Just thinking about the story made Rhodry shudder. Drinking the blood of a god was one of the most impious things he could think of. Of course, the gods themselves did what they willed and lived by their own laws, ones that humanity could only shake their heads and wonder over. But it was no wonder that Aranrhodda’s followers were reputed to do so grisly things: use the fetuses they’d aborted in strange spells, for one, and make up poisons to order for another, along with the usual curses and love charms. He sincerely hoped that the wretched Mallona wasn’t up to her neck in this magical muck, because at heart, he was afraid to pull her out of it. Rhodry got up and began pacing beside the road.
It was sunset before Jill came back, leading her horse down the hill from the temple, all cheerful efficiency.
‘Sorry I lingered so long, my love, but I heard many an interesting thing from the Holy Ladies. Mallona’s not there, but the high priestess knows about the Old Lore. What I learned might come in awfully handy. Just for starters, that chain with the feather? It’s a thing you make to give to someone in your service.’
‘Too bad Bavydd took it off, huh? It might have brought him better luck. Here, is there a village nearby, or can we camp on the temple’s roads?’
‘There’s a village with a tavern not far to the west. The tavernman’s used to sheltering the men who escort their wives here, so we can find good lodging, or so Her Holiness told me.’
‘Good. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on a decent mattress for a change. I don’t suppose Her Holiness had any idea of where we might look for Mallona.’
‘West, near Lughcarn. I swear it, the priestesses hear everything worth hearing in their part of the country. This is only a hint, mind, and it might well turn out to be a false trail.’
‘Better than no trail at all. Well and good, then. Let’s ride.’
In the fine dusting of soot on the windowsill, Sevinna idly printed her name, then flicked the soot away with the side of her hand. No matter how often the servants cleaned, there was always soot on everything in Lughcarn. She looked out the window to the ward of the gwerbretal dun, a small village within the city, with its barracks, stables, round huts, and even some little houses for the privileged servants, all of them topped with dirty grey thatch. The sky beyond glowed hazy and golden from the smoke of the thousands of charcoal fires burning in the iron smelters at the edge of town. Most of the iron ore that came downriver from the northern mines passed to be smelted down into ingots before being traded further, because by the king’s own charter, Lughcarn held a virtual monopoly on rough smelting in the northern kingdom. The monopoly, of course, made the gwerbretrhyn rich, less so only than Cerrmor and the King’s own city of Dun Deverry itself.
‘Sevvi?’ Babryan called out. ‘Is somewhat wrong?’
‘Oh, naught.’ Sevinna turned from the window. ‘Just wondering if Mam and her escort were home by now.’
‘Probably. Are you going to miss your family?’
‘Of course, but it’s splendid getting to stay here, anyway.’
Babryan smiled and gestured at a cushioned chair next to her own. Sevinna dutifully sat down and looked round the richly furnished room, the top floor of a half-broch entirely devoted to the gwerbret’s womenfolk, and the private preserve of Babryan and her sister, Wbridda, Sevinna’s cousins. That unmarried lasses would have a hall of their own was a breathtaking sort of luxury to Sevinna, who had been raised in her father, Tieryn Obyn’s, country dun to the north. Babryan and Wbridda had fine silk dresses, too, and lots of silver jewellery and soft wool cloaks, dyed in any colour they chose. At one side of the room stood four carved chests, packed full of extra clothing. Those chests made Sevinna painfully aware of her own coarse linen dresses, all three of them, which sat neatly folded on a chair beside her bed. Her one consolation was that she was as pretty as they were, in spite of their jewellery. In fact, she looked enough like them to be another sister – blonde lasses, all of them, with wide blue eyes and a heavy but sensually curving mouth that was the mark of the gwerbret’s line.
‘I’m truly glad you’re here,’ Wbridda said. At thirteen, she was the youngest of the girls. ‘I’ll wager we can find you a better husband than you’d ever find up north.’
Sevinna giggled and covered her mouth with her hand.
‘And what makes you think I’m looking for a husband?’
‘Oh huh! Why else are you here?’ Babryan broke in. ‘Mam told us all about it. She doesn’t want you to marry some rough northern fellow, either. Don’t worry. There’s lots of young men hanging around Da. I’ll wager there’s a truly handsome man who’ll be thrilled to marry the gwerbret’s niece.’
‘Baba, you’re so cold!’ Sevinna said.
‘Oh, you’ve got to be when you pick a husband.’ Babryan leaned forward earnestly in her chair. ‘Mam was telling me. She’s hoping to get me a place at court next year, you see, one of the princess’s serving women, maybe. Oooh – who knows who I’ll meet there?’
‘Someone very rich,’ Wbridda said. ‘And old and ugly.’
All three of them giggled, then laughed, the giggles feeding on themselves and turning into a wave of something near hysteria. I don’t want to marry yet, Sevinna thought, but Da says I’ve got to. She laughed with the rest until at last the giggling stopped as suddenly as it had come.
‘I just hope I don’t fall in love with someone who doesn’t favour me,’ Sevinna said. ‘But maybe I’ll never fall in love at all, and that will settle that.’
‘Oh, listen to Sevvi.’ Wbridda rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘Baba used to talk that way, and then last year she met Lord Abryn, and all I heard was men men men. You’re disgusting, Baba.’
‘You just wait,’ Babryan tossed her head. ‘Besides, Lord Abryn was only a passing fancy. I must have been daft. He’s got hair on the backs of his hands.’
‘Hah!’ Wbridda said. ‘You mean he was only a lord. Da was ever so angry, Sevvi. He practically turned Lord Abryn out of the palace, and all he did was give Baba some roses.’
‘Well, I should think that was quite enough,’ Sevinna said. ‘When a young man gives a lass flowers, it means something serious.’
‘He was a rake, too,’ Wbridda pronounced.
‘Now here, Bry,’ Babryan snapped. ‘You’re too young to even know what that means.’
‘I am not. I heard Mam and Da talking.’ She rolled her eyes significantly.
‘I’m not marrying her to a common lord, baby or not, Da said, and then he said, so you’d better be cursed sure he never gives her one. Mam was so mad! Oh, you should have heard her, Sevvi.’
‘You hold your tongue!’ Babryan said with a blush.
‘Shan’t.’ Wbridda simpered at her. ‘And then Da said –’
Babryan rose from her chair and raised her hand to threaten a slap, but the door opened and Lady Caffa swept into the room. Although she was growing stout, Caffa was still a beautiful woman with thick blonde hair and eyes of the deepest violet. Her long green silk dress trailed behind her in a train and was bound in at the waist with a kirtle of her husband’s green and blue plaid. At the sight of her mother, Babryan curtsied and sat down again.
‘Sevinna dearest,’ Caffa said. ‘I’ve summoned one of the clothsellers from the town. We must get you some decent dresses soon, and I’ll need you to pick out the colours you want. Then we shall set the women sewing.’
‘My lady is ever so generous.’ Sevinna rose and curtsied to her. ‘I don’t deserve such honour.’
‘Oh, hush, child.’ Caffa smiled vaguely in her direction. ‘Of course you do. You poor thing! Here you are, eighteen and not even married, and perhaps it’s just as well, of course, considering what your poor dear mother has to pick from, but still! I’m so glad she finally listened to reason and sent you to me. Poor dear Maemigga.’
Sevinna curtsied again, but her heart was aching. She felt like a charity project, some farmer’s widow plucked from poverty and given a decent place in the kitchen. Her mother’s marriage was the big scandal of the gwerbret’s clan; Maemigga had loved her land-poor tieryn so much that she’d ridden off on her own one night and married him before her family could stop her. By the time the gwerbret had caught up with her, she was so obviously no longer a maiden that his grace could do nothing but formally approve the match and make sure that Obyn never forgot what he owed him, either. To the children of this love-match, the gwerbret and his wife had always been kind, very very kind, as Caffa was now, smiling as she studied Sevinna like a bit of cloth on which she planned to embroider.
‘Baba,’ Caffa pronounced. ‘Surely you can lend Sevvi some of your dresses until hers are ready. We have guests tonight at dinner, you see.’
‘Handsome guests?’ Babryan said with a grin. ‘Of course, Sevvi. Mine are yours. We’ll look through and pick one out.’
‘Good child. But truly, you lasses must stop thinking of little things like a man’s looks. Most good-looking men are so horribly vain – well, Sevvi dear, your father’s an exception, truly, but he’s the only one I’ve ever met – and anyway it’s things like steadiness and kindness that matter in a marriage, not curly hair and blue eyes.’
‘Of course,’ the three girls chorused.
‘Oh I know!’ Caffa waggled a playful finger at them. ‘I was your age once, wasn’t I? But it’s time for all of you to think of the things that matter. We shall have lots of nice chats now that Sevvi’s here.’
When Lady Caffa turned away, Babryan rolled her eyes heavenward, and all three girls broke out giggling.
Dinner that night was a splendid meal, as every meal seemed to be in the gwerbret’s palace. The gwerbret and his family ate at a carved and polished table near a hearth inlaid with Bardek tiles. On the other side of the enormous hall, a warband of two hundred men sat listening to their own bard. Servants in spotless embroidered clothes silently and gracefully served four elaborate courses, starting with a vegetable aspic made in colourful layers as intricate as the tiles and ending with an apple cake soaked in fine mead. While Sevinna desperately tried to mimic her cousins’ delicate manners, she watched this guest, who, or so Caffa had made clear, had been invited expressly to look over the gwerbret’s unmarried niece. Although his title was simple, Lord Timryc was one of the King’s own equerries with a large holding of land near the Holy City itself. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, about thirty, with sandy-blond hair, a prominent chin, and undeniably kind eyes. Every now and then he would look Sevinna’s way and smile at her, a gesture that flustered her so much that she would bury her nose in her water-goblet. When at the end of the meal the ladies retired to their hall, Sevinna was profoundly glad to be gone.
Caffa took the girls to her own hall, a vast round room where Bardek tapestries hung at intervals on the walls and cushioned furniture stood in profusion. The serving women lit candles in silver sconces, then sat down on cushions near the mistress’s chair.
‘Well, Sevinna dearest,’ Caffa said. ‘He seems a very nice man. Not too young, of course, but his first wife died in labour, you see. He’s been consolidating his position at court, and a man like that can hold out for a good match. But anyway, I think we shall arrange a little riding party tomorrow.’ She glanced at Wbridda. ‘Now Bry, if you mind your manners and that tongue of yours, you may join us and bring your little falcon.’
‘My thanks, Mam,’ Wbridda said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way. He looks dull to me.’
‘Now hush,’ Caffa snapped. ‘You may all go upstairs.’
No sooner were they safely in their own hall than Babryan wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.
‘He’s too old. You can do better than that, Sevvi.’
‘I hope so,’ Sevinna said. ‘I didn’t like his chin, either.’
‘It’s his beastly position that Mania’s so smitten with,’ Wbridda put in. ‘But he just won’t do.’
‘I’m glad you agree with me. Well, maybe he won’t like me. My father can’t give me that big a dowry, after all.’ Wbridda smiled in an oddly sly way and sat down on a chair with a flounce of her dresses.
‘We can make sure he’s not interested. Can’t we, Baba?’
‘If we have to. We’ve got somewhat to tell you, Sevvi. It’s a secret, so you’ve got to promise you’ll never tell anyone, especially a man.’
‘Of course I’ll promise. What is it?’
‘It’s a thing we learned from Lady Davylla. She’s the wife of Lord Elyc of Belgwerger.’
‘All the ladies are doing it,’ Wbridda put in. That’s why we’ve got to keep it a secret, you see. But anyway, Lady Davylla spends lots of time in court, and she says that even the princesses know. I don’t know about the Queen, though.’
‘Oh, she’s doubtless too busy with all that court stuff she has to do. But it’s ever so amusing, Sevvi, and I’ll wager it works.’
‘What?’
‘You have to swear first,’ Babryan said. ‘Just a promise won’t do. Come on, Bry. Go get your little knife. We’ll do it by the fire.’
While Wbridda rummaged through her jewellery casket, Babryan put out all the candles so that the only light was a pool from the fire. When Sevinna and Babryan knelt down in the flickering shadows, Babryan giggled in pleasant excitement, and Sevinna caught her mood. Whatever this mysterious something was, it was much more amusing to think about than marrying a man she hardly knew. Wbridda knelt down beside them and opened her hand to show Sevinna a tiny knife with a silver handle and a blade of black obsidian.
‘Lady Davylla has a Wise Woman living in her dun,’ Wbridda explained. ‘She’s awfully awfully old, she doesn’t even have any teeth, but she knows everything. She makes these knives, you see. Lady Davylla gives them to her special friends, and she gave one to us.’
‘What are they for?’
‘We’ll tell you once you swear,’ Babryan said. ‘Here, we’re going to have to have a bit of your hair and a drop of your blood, but it won’t hurt. That knife’s awfully sharp.’
Wbridda cut off a tiny bit of Sevinna’s hair and laid it on the hearthstone, then pricked her index finger and squeezed a drop of blood onto the hair. Sevinna sucked her fingertip.
‘Now you’ve got to swear you’ll never repeat any of this to one who doesn’t know the goddess,’ Babryan said.
‘Which goddess?’
‘We can’t say yet. Just swear.’
‘All right. I swear I won’t betray the secrets to one who doesn’t know the goddess.’
‘And to any man ever.’
‘And to any man ever.’
Babryan picked up the bit of hair and threw it into the fire.
‘Aranrhodda,’ she called out. ‘Aranrhodda, favour our cousin and us, too, for bringing her to you!’
The bit of hair caught and burned with a drift of stench in the wood smoke. Sevinna went cold, wondering what she’d just done to herself, wishing she’d asked more before she’d sworn the vow, but Babryan and Wbridda were giggling. Oh, there can’t be any harm in it, Sevinna thought, not if they’d do it.
‘There, now you’re one of us,’ Babryan announced. ‘Lady Davylla will probably ride our way soon for a visit, and you’ll get to meet her. Oh, she’s ever so splendid.’
‘But anyway,’ Wbridda said. ‘If you don’t like this Timryc fellow, we’ll just work a charm to turn him cold to you. You can work lots of charms when you learn how, Sevvi. There’s one to turn a man cold to you, and one to make him love you, and one to make your father or brother favour the man you favour, just lots of them.’
‘Oh here,’ Sevinna said. ‘I thought you didn’t even care what men did.’
‘Well, it’s all going to come in handy someday.’ Wbridda shrugged. ‘I don’t want to marry some dry stick of a man just because Da says I have to. This way there’s stuff you can do about it, you see. Otherwise there isn’t.’
Sevinna nodded. She did see, entirely too well.
On the morrow, Gwerbret Tudvulc called Sevinna into his private council chamber for a little chat. Her uncle, so tall and stout and noisy, had always intimidated Sevinna, and being dependent on his charity only frightened her the more. Tudvulc sat her down in a chair and strode back and forth by an open window while they talked. His mop of brown hair and moustache had gone quite grey since the last time she’d seen him.
‘Now here, lass. No use in mincing words, eh? I want you to take a good look at Timryc here. He’s got splendid connections, a good bit of land. You’d have plenty of pretty dresses from a man like that, eh?’
Sevinna smiled out of duty alone.
‘But there’s no use in jumping at the first hare out of the bushes, either,’ Tudvulc went on. ‘You’re my niece, got connections of your own, and you’re blasted good-looking, too. A pretty face is worth half a dowry, eh? So you just wait and see what kind of game we can beat out of the forest, lass. No rush. You’re always welcome at my table.’
‘His grace is ever so kind.’ Sevinna bowed her head. ‘I’m willing to wait for the right match.’
‘Good, good. Never know about you lasses, eh? Most of you are so eager to get that crown of roses on your head you can’t think straight.’ He gave her a twisted grin that was doubtless meant to be jolly and avuncular. ‘Oh, the gwerbret of Buccbrael has a young son, too. Be a cursed good alliance for both our clans, and I hear the lad’s already turning the heads of the local lasses. Good-looking sort. A year or two younger than you, but young men grow faster with a wife in their bed. We’ll see what we can turn up, truly.’
