The Red Wyvern by Katharine Kerr
“Wonderful!” She forced herself to smile. “And he’s carrying a treasure, too, a book.”
“A book?”
“It’s filled with dweomer secrets, a big thing, bound in leather.”
“Very well. If you want it, it shall be yours.”
Burcan rode out around noon, and still Merodda had found no sign of Lilli. The dinner hour arrived but brought no Lilli, either. Merodda sent other servants to scour the dun, but they all returned without the girl. She could scry her daughter out, and she was just heading for the staircase to return to her chambers when a page came rushing up to her.
“My lady, my lady!” He was near tears. “The queen just tried to kill herself.”
“Oh ye gods!” The stupid little dolt! Merodda thought. Aloud she said, “Does she live?”
“She does, my lady. Her throat is ever so bruised, though. She tried to hang herself.”
Everyone in the great hall was turning to look, to listen. In a ripple of hushed noise the news spread out like a ripple in a pond.
“I’ll attend upon her straightaway,” Merodda said.
She turned on her heel and hurried up the staircase, but at the landing she looked back to see the page mobbed by members of the queen’s fellowship. The lad was talking and gesturing while the men listened, white-faced.
Merodda swept into the women’s hall without knocking and found Abrwnna’s maidservants huddled together and weeping. Merodda hurried through to the queen’s chamber on the far side. They’d laid Abrwnna on her bed with her copper-colored hair spread out away from her face like a sunset over the white linen. Two of the royal chirurgeons were attending her; a young man held a flask of liquid to the queen’s bluish-tinged lips and tried to force a few drops down. Old Grodyn stood nearby, leaning on the bedstead and frowning. Abrwnna lay so still that at first Merodda feared her dead; then the girl’s eyes opened and flicked her way.
“Rhodi.” Her voice was a ghastly whisper, like the sound of a metal shovel scraping up coals from a dead hearth. “Let me die.”
“Nonsense!” Merodda hurried to the bedside. “My dearest liege!”
A welt of red and purple bruises circled her throat, with a fist-shaped bruise, bleeding from a scrape, just under one ear. Merodda felt herself turn cold all over, a sick kind of cold, as if she’d just vomited. Her hands shook with terror, but she could not force her gaze away until the chirurgeon spoke.
“It’s a nasty sight, eh?” Grodyn said calmly. “That’s from the knot. They found her just in time. She didn’t give herself enough of a drop, and so she was strangling in the noose.”
“Oh, ah, indeed.” Merodda had to force out the words. Deep in her heart she knew that it wasn’t the sight that had sickened her, but some horrible omen—would she see the same mark on Burcan’s neck one day?
“Are you all right, my lady?” Grodyn said.
“I’ll be fine in a heart’s beat or two. It’s just so awful! Our poor queen!”
Abrwnna stared up at the ceiling and refused to look at either of them. Merodda caught the chirurgeon’s attention and mouthed the words, “Will she live?” He shrugged and held both hands palm up.
“Her throat’s all raw,” the young physician said. “I’m trying to give her somewhat to soothe it.”
“Come now!” Merodda laid one hand on Abrwnna’s face. “Be a good lass and open your mouth, my liege. Just a few drops? Please? Do it for your Rhodi? No one blames you for our poor Bevyan’s death. It was those fiends from Cerrmor.”
Abrwnna flicked her eyes Merodda’s way, but she kept her lips pressed together.
“Just a little swallow,” Merodda went on. “For the sake of the men in your fellowship. Why, just think: if you ask them, my liege, they’ll swear an oath to avenge our Bevva’s death.”
Abrwnna considered, then opened her lips and sipped the liquid.
“Just a bit at a time,” Grodyn said sharply. “Don’t choke her, lad.”
Merodda found a chair and watched the two men fuss over their royal patient. What if the queen did die of her crushed throat? The king would have need of a new wife, then. What a pity that Tibryn had insisted on settling Lilli’s betrothal already! Of course, betrothals had been broken before. Or would it be too obvious? Probably so, and she might find herself suspected. It was a good thing that Abrwnna had tried to hang herself, not eaten poison, what with all the nasty gossip about dear Caetha’s death still very much alive. I should have known they’d suspect me, Merodda thought. But what if Caetha had taken Burcan’s affections away? What place would I have then?
The sick cold swept over her again. Merodda laid a hand at her throat and sat shivering in the warm room.
The sun was well on its way toward setting when Tieryn Peddyc, his men, and Lilli arrived at Lord Camlyn’s dun. Lady Varylla, with a black scarf thrown over her head, met them at the gates.
“Tieryn Peddyc—” Varylla started to speak, then merely wept.
Fortunately her old chamberlain, the only real servitor in the dun, had seen so much death and misery in his life that he kept his composure. While the servants and riders took the horses to the stables, old Gatto stood with Peddyc, Anasyn, and Lilli in the ward and told them how he’d handled matters. The dead riders were all buried in a mass grave by the road along with the two common-born maidservants; the horses left alive had been rounded up; the bridles and saddles from the dead ones had been collected and were waiting for the tieryn to take with him. Lady Bevyan, Sarra, and the young page, who was also of noble blood, had been laid out here in the dun.
“They’re in the buttery, my lord,” Gatto finished up. “It’s got a chill on it, even in summer. When your messenger got here today, round noon it was, my lady had all the servants comb the meadows for flowers, and we’ve piled them around her. Would you be wanting to see her?”
“I would, at that,” Peddyc said, and his voice sounded calm, even distant. “And no doubt Sanno and Lilli will be coming with me.”
The buttery lay under Lord Camlyn’s hall, reached from an outside door by steep stone stairs, dangerous with damp. Through the little stone room itself ran a trickle of water in a stone ditch, and the air was cold enough to make Lilli shiver. All the cheeses and suchlike had been moved to one side. At the other on trestle tables lay the three dead, mounded with wild roses and lilac, lavender and kitchen herbs, Bevyan to the outer side, as if in death she still protected those who had come to her in need of a home. Even with so many flowers a wisp of rot hung in the air. Holding two lanterns high, Gatto stood by the stairs and let the tieryn and his family pay their respects.
Peddyc and Anasyn stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and Lilli had never seen men turn so still, as if they’d willed themselves to stone. She herself could not stop shaking from the chill and grief both. Bevyan’s face had gone a cold-bluish grey, and her dark eyes, so merry in life, had shrunk to a desiccated stare. All over her cheeks and on the hands that emerged from the flower mound lay white blisters. Very very slowly Peddyc reached out one hand and touched his wife’s cheek with one finger. A blister split with a puff of stench.
“Vengeance, my love,” he whispered. “I’d always thought that you would have the burying of me. Never did I dream that I’d be swearing vengeance at your grave. But swear it I will.” Peddyc turned slightly to look at Lilli and Anasyn. “Leave me.”
Lilli had never been so glad to follow an order in her life. That’s not Bevva, she found herself thinking. And that’s not Sarra, either. They’re long gone, and those leavings aren’t them at all. She kept repeating the thought, hoping that it would calm her, but Anasyn had to lift her up to the ground from the last step—she could not see through her tears.
It was a long while before Peddyc returned to join Lilli, Anasyn, and Varylla at the wobbly table of honor. By then servants were laying baskets of bread upon the table and pouring ale, which the tieryn’s riders drank steadily and grimly across the hall.
“Very well, my lady,” Peddyc said to Varylla. ??
“I only wish that this wasn’t a favor that needed doing, my lord.”
Peddyc nodded, accepted a tankard, and drank a good bit off. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand while he thought something through.
“My lady Varylla,” Peddyc said at last. “I had a chance for a quick word with your lord as I was leaving Dun Deverry. He sent you a message: I’ll be coming home in a few days. Be ready to join me and have anything you want to take with you packed in a cart. We’ll be heading to my cousin’s down near Yvrodur. He’ll shelter you while I ride on south.”
Varylla went pale, her eyes wide, but she smiled when she nodded her agreement. Torn with grief as she was, it took Lilli some effort to grasp what Peddyc was telling Camlyn’s lady. Bevyan would have the best possible revenge: the fury over her death would lose the Boar allies.
“And what about our gwerbret?” Varylla whispered.
“He won’t be able to come over until the armies leave Dun Deverry. But come over he will.”
Varylla nodded again, trembling a little, but her smile held firm.
“I’ll pray to our Goddess to get my lord home safely,” she said. “My thanks for the news.”
“Keep it as quiet as possible. You don’t want some servant running to the Boar with the news in exchange for a handful of coin.”
“True spoken. I’ll talk up my fears. I’ll have a dreadful bad dream. I’ll be loading the cart because the dream made me as sure as ever I can be that all is lost, and the horrible Usurper will be upon us any day.”
“Excellent!” With a firm nod Peddyc turned away. “Lilli, Sanno—you two get some sleep. We’re burying our dead with the dawn, and then we’re riding out.”
All that evening visitors filed in and out of the queen’s bedchamber, while Abrwnna lay dead-still, fighting to breathe, or so it seemed, and truly, her throat must have burned with a thousand fires. Still, Merodda decided, after some while it began to look as if the queen were enjoying this unusual reception. Her wan expressions, her little moans, were entirely too graceful and even lovely; finally Merodda caught her looking slantwise at a courtier to see the effect of some gesture. At that point Merodda realized that indeed, the queen would live.
After dinner her husband arrived, carrying a wooden horse under one arm. King Olaen climbed up on his queen’s bed and sat cross-legged near the foot, watching Abrwnna solemnly while he cradled the horse. He was, Merodda supposed, fond of the girl, as a boy would be of his sister. With the king in attendance, the men of Abrwnna’s fellowship could be allowed in without offending the proprieties. Each knelt at her bedside and kissed a pale hand, extended to them with great effort. The queen no doubt truly was exhausted, Merodda reminded herself. She had, after all, very nearly died.
“My liege?” Merodda murmured. “May I leave you for a while?”
With her lords in attendance Abrwnna never noticed when her serving woman left the room.
With the problem of Lilli’s whereabouts still on her mind, Merodda returned to her bedchamber. A servant had lit a small fire at the hearth, and from it she lit candles for the table. The silver basin still sat on the floor beside her bed. She fetched it out and set it among the glittering lights. When she turned her mind to her daughter, the image built up fast on the surface of the ink.
Her face drenched and raw with tears, Lilli stood beside a woman’s corpse, laid on a trestle table and heaped with flowers. Of course! Lilli had crept out with Tieryn Peddyc to go say farewell to Bevyan. With a snap of her fingers Merodda banished the vision. Well, Peddyc would bring her back when he returned to the dun, then, and there was no need to worry. She couldn’t blame the lass; Bevyan had been more of a mother to Lilli than she ever could have been. Eventually Lilli would learn, as Merodda had, that grief and mourning were luxuries beyond the reach of the women of the Boar clan.
With a sigh Merodda leaned back in her chair. She could barely remember her own mother’s face. She did, however, remember how her mother had died, slain by her husband for being unfaithful to him, cut down like a beast in the ward when she ran screaming for the gates. Merodda remembered weeping all night, and the way her brothers had tried to hush her, fearful that their father would kill her, too, if he heard her. No one had ever said a word against their father for the murder. It hadn’t truly been a murder, she supposed, but his right as lord of the dun.
With a sigh Merodda rose. She wanted to sleep, but she knew that her place was at the queen’s side, lest some scheming courtier use her absence against her. She returned to the queen’s chambers to find the king curled up asleep at the foot of his wife’s bed, while Abrwnna drowsed, propped up on cushions, under the anxious eyes of the chirurgeons.
Late on the morrow the muster began in earnest. Those lords whose lands lay nearest rode in, and each brought every man who owed him service or who could be bought or bribed. Behind each warband rolled provision carts, loaded with sacks of grain, wheels of cheese, and squealing pigs. Merodda stood on the walls with the other women in the dun and counted each contingent. The others laughed at how high the count climbed, but Merodda knew better. Burcan had begged and bullied an army of desperation into existence. If it failed to stop Maryn’s advance this summer, then nothing ever would stop the Usurper. The northern lords—any lord in the kingdom—would never risk so much two years’ running.
Burcan himself returned on the day after, around noon. Merodda was in her chamber when a page came running with the news that the regent and his personal warband had ridden in.
“And he’s got ever so many lords and riders with him, my lady.”
“He must have joined up with them on the roads,” Merodda said. “My thanks. I won’t go down now, though. I’m sure he has important business to attend to.”
And yet Burcan came up to her chamber in a brief while. Dust from his ride streaked his clothes and hair. He walked stiffly, more than a little tired, and he was laden with sacks, but he was grinning.
“I’ve brought you a pair of gifts,” he said and held out a leather hunting sack. “I’ve got the book you asked about, and then, this.”
The sour stink of old blood hanging in the air warned her of what lay inside. She forced herself to smile as she opened it and peered in. Sure enough, Brour’s head stared up at her, the stump of neck black with old blood, his flesh blue and rigid, his mouth half-open as if to cry out.
“Good,” Merodda said. “We won’t be worrying about him, then. My thanks, my love, my one and only true love.”
Burcan laughed in a burst of pleasure. She found herself remembering him as a lad, before either of them had married. He would find her the first violets of spring and bring them to her with just this sort of laugh. And they would eat them together, this first taste of fresh food, an omen of the summer to come.
Servants had dug graves for Bevyan and Sarra under an oak in the meadow behind Lord Camlyn’s dun, but getting the bodies out of the cellar room took some doing. No one wanted to pick the remains up and carry them, but the stairs were too steep to use the trestles as a litter and carry them out that way. Servants dithered while Gatto swore until Peddyc bundled Bevyan up in a blanket and carried her out himself, shaming the servants into bringing Sarra and the page. This confusion nearly made Lilli retch. Even Anasyn looked pale and shaken.
Once the dead lay decently in their graves, the servants brought the wilted flowers to cover them. Since the nearest temple lay miles distant, no one sacrificed over the burial. Everyone stood for a moment, wondering what to do, until Peddyc turned to Gatto.
“Have them fill it in,” Peddyc said. “We’d best be on the road.”
“Done, my lord. And may the gods bless you. Lady Bevyan was always so kind to me and mine.”
“That was her way, truly.” Peddyc turned to Lilli. “If you get tired in the saddle, lass, we’ll tie you on so you can sleep, but we’re riding as fast and straight as we can.”
“Very well, Fathe
“Don’t you think it aches my heart, too?” Anasyn said. “But she’ll have our vengeance to wrap her round, and that’ll be better than a silk shroud.”
Since their horses had been well rested, Tieryn Peddyc and his party reached Hendyr late on the second day after leaving Lord Camlyn’s dun. By the time they saw the familiar tower rising on the horizon, Lilli understood Peddyc’s remarks about exhaustion—she ached in every muscle. She had travelled back and forth to Hendyr so often that she knew all the small landmarks—the tall aspens nodding beside the road, Old Mori’s farm, the view of the main broch from the final bend in the road. This time, however, Bevva wouldn’t be waiting at the gates, nor would Lilli run up the stairs to the women’s hall to find her.
When the warband clattered into the great ward, servants came running in a confusion of barking dogs.
“My lord, my lord!” Voryc, the chamberlain, cried out. “Is all lost, then?”
“Not truly.” Peddyc leaned down from his saddle to clasp his outstretched hand. “Only my heart and the light of my life’s been lost. The kingdom still stands.”
Voryc stared up at him.
“Lady Bevyan’s dead,” Peddyc said. “Murdered upon the roads by the Boar clan.”
Voryc threw back his head and howled grief. When Lilli looked around, she saw all the servants weeping, too loudly, too coarsely, for their grief to have been feigned to please an overlord. She herself felt spent of all tears. When Anasyn helped her down from her saddle, he whispered one word to her: vengeance.
Dinner that night was a scratched together and cold meal. At their tables the weary warband ate in silence; at the head of the honor table, Peddyc had nothing to say either, and Lilli and Anasyn followed his lead. But once the food was cleared away and ale poured all round, Peddyc told Voryc to call every servant into the great hall, whether cook or page or pig boy. They crowded in, standing among the tables where the warband sat.