The Black Raven

‘She has in the past, truly. What’s she done to you?’

‘Naught that I can prove.’

‘Indeed? What do you think she’s done?’

‘Murdered my man, that’s what. I did see her in vision, like, laughing and laughing when he lay dead, but the councilman, and he be her man and not likely to bring her to trial, is he now? But the councilman, he did say it was evil spirits, and now the whole town does believe him.’

‘I have no idea of what you’re talking about.’ Dallandra paused for a smile. ‘Slowly now, lass. I don’t know the councilman nor much about your town. I didn’t even know you’d been married.’

Niffa’s dream image blushed.

‘My apologies,’ the lass said. ‘I do forget that you be your own self, somehow, and not just some woman in my dreams.’

‘And how do you know that?’

Niffa stared at her for a long moment. All at once her image wavered, turned pale, and faded away. No doubt Dallandra’s call for rational thought had woken her, because it takes long years of practice for dweomerworkers to stay lucid and rational in their dreams. Dallandra could safely assume that Niffa held no real control over her magical gifts. Someone should be teaching the lass, she thought. When she looked at the ward-stars that heralded her skill, she laughed at herself. Most likely that ‘someone’ was her. Paths such as hers and Niffa’s never crossed by pure accident.

With the morning the clouds broke up under a cold north wind and let sunlight flood the dun. In her tower room Dallandra took the oxhides down from the windows to let in light for a task she’d been dreading. Jill’s wooden chest held those few things that could be said to be personally hers, as opposed to things, such as her medicinals and dweomer books, which she had collected only to help others. Among the Westfolk, Jill’s bloodkin would have taken or given away her belongings to those who should have them, but Jill had no bloodkin left. The job had fallen to Dallandra, thanks mostly to their common devotion to the dweomer, which made them clanswomen of a sort.

She pulled over the chair, sat down, and lifted the lid of the chest. One piece at a time, she took out Jill’s spare clothing – two shirts, a pair of brigga, all much washed and patched, and a newish grey cloak – and laid them on the table. The cloak would do for Jahdo, who grew taller daily, or so it seemed. The others? Dallandra supposed that the gwerbret’s women would cut them into useful rags. At the bottom of the chest, however, she found things of more interest: two bundles of brown cloth and a brown cloth sack.

The oblong bundle proved to be another book, a huge volume as long as her arm from fingertips to elbow. It smelled of mildew, and the leather cover was crumbling at the edges. When Dallandra opened it, she found tidy scribal writing, faded to brown, announcing that this book belonged to Nevyn, councillor to Maryn, Gwerbret Cerrmor. No wonder, then, that Jill had kept it apart from the other books on her small shelf. Carefully Dallandra turned a few of the parchment leaves, the writing faded, the sheets all ragged and splitting at the edges, and came to a diagram of concentric circles, each labelled to represent the nested spheres of the universe. The mildew made her sneeze, and she shut the book with some care.

Dallandra had met Nevyn once, towards the beginning of his unnaturally prolonged life. Thanks to her long dwelling in Evandar’s Lands, to her the meeting seemed to have happened no more than a few years past, even though it had been close to four hundred years as men and elves reckon Time. He had brought the Westfolk books of dweomer lore, and she remembered sitting in the warm summer sun and turning each page, staring at the diagrams and at the words she couldn’t read. Later, of course, Aderyn had taught her the Deverry alphabet. Aderyn, her husband, back then so long ago – she could still remember how it had felt to love him, though the feeling was only a memory.

‘Four hundred years ago.’ She said the words aloud, but they carried little meaning, just as her own age meant nothing to her. She’d been born more than four hundred years ago, but of that what had she lived, truly lived in the awareness of time passing? Thirty years perhaps, if that, because she had gone to Evandar’s country so young and stayed there so long. Did she regret it? Since nothing could call the years back, regret would only be a waste of time. She returned to her inventory.

The long narrow bundle turned out to be a sword in a sheath of stained, cracking leather, an odd thing for a dweomermaster to carry with her, as it was no ritual weapon but solid Deverry steel. Dallandra drew the blade and saw marks carved near the hilt: a stylized striking falcon, and just below, a lion device that at one time had sported a touch of red pigment. Out of curiosity she held the blade up to sight along it, looking for other marks. When in the cold room her warm breath touched the steel, a little snake made of moisture squirmed and ran down the blade. Startled, she nearly dropped it. She sheathed it and laid it on the table by the book, then opened the sack.

Inside she found a silver dagger in a much newer leather sheath, and a small something wrapped in silk. She put the dagger on the table and unwrapped the silk to find a squarish bone plaque, a few inches to a side, engraved with a portrait of a Horsekin: a warrior, judging from his huge mane of hair and his facial tattoos. The delicacy and realism of the engraving marked it as elven work, and of great age.

‘Meradan,’ Dallandra said softly. ‘Someone recorded what the invaders looked like. I wonder how long the limner lived afterwards.’

For a moment she held the plaque in both hands, as if it were a talisman that could give her knowledge of those ancient days. She felt nothing. She wrapped it up again in its silk and laid it by the other objects that Jill had treasured enough to carry with her through her wandering life. What to do with them? Dallandra had no idea.

Dallandra had known Jill only a brief time, and Jill had not been an easy person to understand. Her workings were so far beyond mine, Dallandra thought. Her knowledge of dweomer lore, too – gods, a thousand times beyond mine! On the wall hung the small shelf of books that Dallandra had begun to study under Jill’s tutelage. Those, she knew, Jill would have wanted her to keep until the time came to pass them on to another student of the lore. But what she would never learn from books was the way Jill lived her dweomer, in complete surrender and service to the Light that shines beyond all the gods. Although her compassion had at times been a cold and abstract thing, it had never wavered, not even when that service had demanded her life.

And what have I been doing? Dallandra thought. Chasing after glamours, living far from the physical world, turning my back on those I was born to serve! She had come to despise the physical world, in fact, with all its stinks and pain and filth. In Evandar’s fair country life flowed like mead, smooth and intoxicating. Yet like the mead its illusions of pleasure wore off soon enough, leaving the drinker muddled and more than a little sick.

Out in the corridor footsteps were coming toward the door. Dallandra stood just as Rhodry opened it and walked in, glancing at the table.

‘Jill’s things?’ he said in Elvish.

‘Just that. Here, take a look at that sword, will you? I’m curious about those marks on the blade.’

Rhodry obligingly picked the sword up, drew it full out of the sheath, and studied the devices. When he looked up, his eyes glistened with tears.

‘This belonged to Jill’s father, Cullyn of Cerrmor,’ he said. ‘She must have carried it with her for his memory’s sake.’

The tears spilled and ran. For a moment he stood sobbing like a child, yet still he held the sword in a practised grasp. If someone had threatened them, Dallandra felt, Rhodry would have killed him instinctively through his tears. With one last sob he laid the sword down on the table and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘It’s still hard, thinking that she’s gone.’

‘So it is,’ Dallandra said. ‘Would you like that sword? I’m sure she’d rather you had it than anyone else.’

‘Most like she would.’ He picked up the blade again and sheathed it before he went on. ‘But I own too many things already for a silver dagger. Here, I know. I’ll give it to Dar for a wedding gift – a bit late, but then, he’s cursed lucky he’s getting anything from me at all.’

Dallandra laughed.

‘So he is,’ she said, ‘and what about the silver dagger?’

Rhodry laid down the sword and picked up the dagger. When he slid it free of its sheath, the silver blade flared with a strange bluish light. Rhodry laughed and held it up while the dagger seemed to burn like an etheric torch.

‘What in the name of the gods?’ Dallandra took a quick step back.

‘It’s a dwarven dweomer working.’ Rhodry sheathed the blade again and put it down on the table. ‘It gives warning when anyone with elven blood touches it. It would do the same for you. The Mountain Folk consider us all thieves, you see.’

‘It would scare a thief away, all right, seeing the blade burn like that! Huh, it’s odd. I’ve always heard that the dwarven race shuns dweomer.’

‘That’s true. Ah, who knows?’ Rhodry shrugged and considered the dagger for a long moment. ‘That should have been buried with Jill.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

‘Not that it matters to her any more, I’d wager.’ He looked up, his eyes bleak. ‘I could take it, or wait! Jahdo shall have it, because when we captured him and Meer, he lost a knife that his grandfather had given him, and it’s irked him ever since.’

‘It’s rather too grand for him, isn’t it? What if the other boys or one of the servants steals it from him?’

‘He can keep it up here.’ Rhodry picked up the sheathed dagger and gestured at a heap of saddlebags and bundles stacked in the curve of the wall. ‘Along with the goods Meer left him.’

‘I suppose, but I don’t understand. If it’s important enough that it should have been buried with her, why are you going to just give it away?’

‘Because what I’m really doing is throwing it onto the river of Wyrd.’ All at once he laughed with a toss of his head. ‘I lost my silver dagger in Bardek once, you see. But it came back to me, twenty years later, and when it did, it brought change with it. I’ve been thinking, just now and again, about the things you told me, Dalla, last summer, about the way that a man might get reborn – or a woman, since we’re talking about Jill. And I wonder if she’s meant to have this dagger back. If so, it’ll find its way, when the time comes.’

Rhodry laughed again, his high berserk chortle. There were times when Dallandra wondered how she could share her bed with a madman like him. As if he heard her thought, he wiped his daft grin away and looked at her solemnly.

‘But you have the last word, on this dagger,’ Rhodry said. ‘Give it elsewhere if you’d like.’

‘No, do give it to Jahdo. You may be right about it finding Jill again. I’ll keep this book, because I doubt if anyone else here could understand it.’

There remained the bone plaque.

‘Shall I give this to Carra?’ Dallandra said. ‘For a wedding gift?’

‘Why?’ Rhodry smiled briefly. ‘I doubt if it would mean one thing to her. She’s so wretchedly young.’

Dallandra had to agree, but later that day, when she joined the dun’s womenfolk in their private hall, she had a surprise coming. As usual Carra – or Princess Carramaena of the Westlands, to give her full title – sat near the fire with her infant daughter sleeping in her lap. Instead of being swaddled in tight wrappings, little Elessi wore only nappies and a loose tunic while she slept. At Carra’s feet lay Lightning, her dog, though the animal looked more than half a wolf. Across the room at an uncovered window the gwerbret’s lady, Labanna, and her serving woman, Lady Ocradda, sat wrapped in cloaks at a big table frame. They wore fingerless gloves to embroider upon a bed hanging, stretched out tight between them.

Dallandra sat down opposite Carra and little Elessi. For a few moments they chatted about the child, but when conversation lagged, Dallandra thought of the bone plaque, which she had carried with her, tucked into the coin pouch she wore hidden under her tunic.

‘What do you think of this?’ Dallandra brought it out and handed it over. ‘Don’t let Elessi touch it. It’s a good thousand years old.’

Carra took the plaque in both hands and stared at it with a fierce concentration.

‘That old?’ she whispered. ‘How amazing! It shows a Horsekin, doesn’t it? Who drew this?’

‘One of your husband’s ancestors. Well, and mine too.’ Dallandra paused for a smile. ‘A limner, an elven limner from one of the Seven Cities.’

‘Fascinating!’ Carra let out her breath in a soft sigh and went on studying the picture. ‘To hold somewhat this old – ye gods, I can’t find words to tell you how it makes me feel.’

The other women left their embroidery and came over to see. When Carra proffered it to Labanna, the gwerbret’s lady drew back.

‘I’d be afraid to touch it,’ Labanna said, smiling. ‘For fear I’d drop it or suchlike.’

‘It’s . . .’ Ocradda hesitated, ‘very interesting. Awfully faded though, what a pity.’

With polite smiles they returned to their work. Carra turned the bit of bone over and studied the back. ‘No maker’s mark or suchlike. I was rather hoping.’

‘I never thought to look for one,’ Dallandra said. ‘But you’re right, that would have been important.’

‘I love things like this.’ Carra laid the plaque in her palm and held it out to Dallandra. ‘You’d best take it back before I turn thief.’

‘Well, now, here! You should have it since you love it.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t. It’s too valuable.’

‘My dear Carramaena! You’re a princess now, and you should have a few treasures in your possession.’ Dallandra handed over the silk. ‘Here’s the wrap for it.’

‘My thanks and a thousand more!’ Carra took the bit of fabric from her. ‘This is so wonderful, Dalla! When you hold it, you feel like you hold the past itself. As if this was a bit of Time, turned frozen or suchlike like ice. Well, that’s a clumsy way of speaking, but do you understand?’

‘I certainly do. I’d no idea that things of the past mattered so much to you.’

‘Well, they do. Does that make me sound silly?’

‘What? Of course not!’

‘Well, my thanks, but my sisters used to tease me and suchlike, saying I was such an odd duck! I always wanted to know the history of things, you see, and I drove our chamberlain half-mad, when I was a child, asking where did this come from and how old is that.’ Carra paused to look at Dallandra’s face, as if searching for scorn. ‘I do think that’s one reason I fell in love with Dar. He never told me he was a prince, but he did talk of the Seven Cities and the kingdom that had fallen to demons, all those ages ago. I’d never heard such wonderful stories, not even when a travelling bard came our way.’

‘Well, it’s a sweet sort of sadness,’ Dallandra said, ‘thinking of all that vanished splendour and brave heroes fighting to the very end.’

‘Oh, that too. But best of all it explained things. About the Westfolk, I mean, why you always come and go on the border and live with your horse herds instead of in towns and duns. I’d always wondered about that. When Dar talked of the old days, it was like clouds rolling back, and you could see a strange new sky.’

Carra seemed about to say more, but Elessi woke with a complaint, wailing and throwing her arms into the air. Carra wrinkled her nose.

‘Oh what a stink! I know what you need, my beloved poppet. Dalla, please hold this picture for me while I change her?’

Dallandra took the bone plaque and laid it on her knee while Carra took the baby to the far side of the room, where a table stood with a chamber pot ready and a pile of rags for nappies. As she listened to Carra croon and chat to the baby, Dallandra felt ashamed of herself. Have I ever really looked at Carra before? she wondered. She had seen what everyone else had seen in her: a young lass, besotted with love – pretty little Carra, with her heart-shaped face and blonde hair, her enormous blue eyes that stared up at her husband in limpid devotion. None of us ever thought she had a brain in her head, Dalla thought. More fool us!

‘I’ve got a legacy to deliver to you,’ Rhodry said.

‘A what?’ Jahdo said. ‘And who would be leaving a lowly lad such as me a thing?’

‘Jill, of course. Here. This is to take the place of your grandfather’s knife, the one I made you lose.’

Jahdo pulled the silver dagger from its sheath and stared at it for a long long time without speaking. They were standing outside in the late afternoon sunlight, not far from the stables, where Jahdo had been shovelling snow with one of the flat mucking-out shovels.

‘Oh, it be so splendid!’ Jahdo held the dagger up, and the blade caught the light and flashed like a mirror. ‘Here, I could never be taking this!’

‘You can, and you shall,’ Rhodry said, grinning. ‘Though I think you’d best keep it up in Dallandra’s chamber where the other lads can’t find it.’

‘True spoken.’ Jahdo ran a fingertip down the blade. ‘There be a device on it, a little falcon, like.’

‘That was Jill’s father’s mark, and she used it too, of course.’

‘He were a sorcerer, then, such as she?’

‘He wasn’t, but the greatest swordsman in all Deverry.’

‘Ah.’ Jahdo sheathed the blade, hefted the dagger for a moment, then handed it back to Rhodry. ‘I do hate to give it up, but truly, it had best wait for me up in the tower.’

‘I’ll take it. And talking of Jill reminds me, lad. I made you a promise, didn’t I? About teaching you letters. It’s a fair way to spring yet, so let’s make a start.’

‘Oh, my thanks! I did wonder, my lord, but I did hate to vex you or suchlike –’

‘No harm in reminding me, and I’m no lord.’

‘Well, you be so to me, as generous as any man could be.’

For a moment Jahdo thought Rhodry was about to cry, from the way he turned away with a toss of his head.

‘My thanks,’ Rhodry said, and his voice was unsteady. ‘Here, I’ll hunt up a slate or suchlike. Cadmar’s scribe should have one. And we’ll start today.’

Rhodry turned and hurried off across the ward. Jahdo watched him go, then went back to his work before the head groom caught him slacking.

Jahdo was just leaving the stables when he saw a small procession coming from the broch complex. At its head trotted Carra’s dog, with Carra and Lady Ocradda just behind, and two pages following along after them. Jahdo felt himself blush. Here he was, with his clothes filthy on top and sweaty inside, and the princess was heading straight for him.

‘Jahdo!’ Carra called out. ‘It gladdens my heart to see you.’

‘And mine to see you, your highness,’ Jahdo said, stepping back. ‘But er, I be a bit mucky right now, and so –’

‘Do you think that bothers me?’ Carra smiled at him. ‘I’ve come to see how my horse fares. I thought I’d fetch him out for a bit of sun and walk him round the ward.’

Ocradda looked as sour as if she’d bitten into wormy meat. Jahdo could guess that the princess had fought a battle to be allowed to come to the stables at all.

‘I’ll bring Gwerlas out for you,’ Jahdo said. ‘You’d best not be going in there with your long dresses and all. Some of the men, well, they be careless when they do muck out their mounts’ stalls.’

‘Oh here! I’ve always cared for my own horses, all the years that I –’

‘Your highness!’ Ocradda interrupted. ‘The lad’s right. Let him wait upon you! Er, I mean, if you please.’

‘Oh very well. But be careful. Gwer can be a bit bitey.’

More than a bit, or so Jahdo knew from the earlier times when he’d cared for the horse. Still, the big dun gelding seemed to be in a good mood that afternoon; he allowed Jahdo to tie a rope onto his halter and lead him out without showing so much as a tooth. Out in the sun Gwerlas snorted and tossed his mane, then spotted Carra and headed straight for her with Jahdo trotting along at his side.

‘There you are!’ Carra crooned. ‘My darling!’

When she threw her arms around his neck, the horse snuffled at her cloak and nudged her. Lady Ocradda rolled her eyes heavenward in something like despair. For their walk around the ward, Carra insisted on leading the horse herself, but she did allow Jahdo to hold onto the loose end of the rope for appearances’ sake. A disgruntled Ocradda and the pages trailed behind as they followed the exercise path, a broad swathe next to the dun walls that had been cleared of the usual sheds and clutter.

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