The Red Wyvern by Katharine Kerr
“That’s what he—what I was told.”
“He?” Nevyn sounded amused. “Who’s he? Your teacher? Was he the one controlling you?”
Lilli considered lies, but she was well and truly trapped.
“He wasn’t,” she said. “My mother did that.”
“Your mother? By the gods! Lady Merodda?”
“She is that, truly.”
“From what little I know of her, it seems like she’s the sort of person who would exploit another’s gifts that way. In fact, I’ve long suspected her of being the one who made the horrible thing,” he pointed at the casket, “hidden under those roses.”
“It could well be, my lord. She bragged to me once that the Usurper could never win, because mighty dweomers were working against him.”
“The Usurper? But, of course, that’s what you all would have called him. Do you think your mother wound the spell herself?”
“I don’t. She told me that she’d found a man who could lay snares and traps, ones that the Usurper could never get free of.”
“I see. But she must know some magicks of her own.”
“She knows a lot of dweomer. She learned it from someone who came to her long before I was born. She talked of him now and again, and I think, my lord, that he was your evil man, from what the servants told me. They hated him, blood and bone, but I didn’t know him at all. I was in fosterage, and he was my mother’s retainer. Wait—I wonder if he were the one who laid those traps and snares?”
“It’s a sound enough wager, I’d say. What happened to this man?”
“My uncle slew him before I got back from Bevyan’s. It was in the Boar’s hall one evening, and he was drunk, my mother said—her sorcerer, not Uncle Burcan—and he insulted my mother’s honor somehow. So Burcan drew and killed him on the spot.”
Nevyn swore like one of the riders.
“My apologies,” he said. “I forgot myself.”
“You look so upset, my lord. I should think you’d be glad he’s dead.”
“Indeed? I have no idea of how to unwind that spell.” Nevyn gestured at the casket. “I’d always hoped to catch the man who worked it and force him, one way or another, to tell me how. He won’t be telling me anything now, will he?”
“Oh. Well, truly.”
“What puzzles me is the way you could sense the evil. I supervised the sealing of that casket. When we were done, I couldn’t sense dweomer upon it, not the slightest trace. And yet you touch it, just lay a finger upon it, and immediately you know there’s somewhat wrong.”
“I don’t know how I did it, though. I’d tell you if I did.”
“Oh, I believe you. Well, if your mother has somewhat to do with working the spell, maybe we can worm it out of her—if we ever see her again.” For a long moment Nevyn thought something through. “Well, there’s naught I can do about that now,” he said at last. “So, then—later your mother found herself another man who knew secret things?”
Here was the crux. Lilli refused to betray Brour, who’d been so good to her in his way. Yet, as she thought of Brour, she felt an omen growing in her throat, as if she’d swallowed something so hot that she must spit it out or choke to death.
“He’s dead, anyway,” she said aloud. “Brour. The one who taught me.” She felt tears gather and spill. “He said he’d studied with you once.”
Nevyn made an odd sound—a grunt of pain.
“My mother must have had him caught and killed,” Lilli went on. “He was trying to escape Dun Deverry.”
“Poor little Brour,” Nevyn said. “Poor little talented dolt! It aches my heart to hear it, for all that he stole from me and ran.”
“That was your book? I mean—”
“I’ll wager it was, if he had a book of dweomer secrets. A big thing, bound in leather, and full of Greggyn lore?”
“That’s the one, truly. Just from things he said, I figured he’d done somewhat shameful here.”
“I’ve never known a man who lusted after a lass as badly as Brour lusted after that book. So one night he took it, for all the good it did him.” Nevyn shook his head. “Ah well, at least I know the end of his tale.”
Lilli wiped her eyes on her sleeve. I should be getting used to losing people, she thought.
“How much did Brour teach you?” Nevyn said.
“Not much. We were just starting. I have this—this knack for seeing omens. Not scrying things out, just seeing omens. I never knew what they meant, because my mother would interpret them, you see, but never in front of me.”
Nevyn blinked several times, rapidly.
“Try telling me a bit more about this,” he said. “How do you see omens?”
“Well, sometimes they just come to me as words, and I’d blurt them out just like now, when I knew Brour was dead. So I’d blurt out somewhat about the war, and my mother would notice, and she’d ask me for details and suchlike. And then she and Brour made up a basin of black ink. I’d look in it and see things. It felt like I was dreaming, but I could hear my mother’s voice when she asked me questions.”
“So, they were using you like a line of hooks to troll for fish, eh? Very dangerous, that, very very dangerous.”
“I sometimes feared it would drive me mad.”
“That, too, but I was wondering: do you ever have trouble catching your breath?”
“Often, my lord.” Lilli paused, utterly startled. “What does that have to do with seeing omens?”
“Rather a lot, actually, but it would take far more time than we have now to explain. Curse this war! It’s always getting in the way.” Nevyn paused, thinking. “In a few days I’ll be riding north with the prince. Until then I’ll try to spare you what moments I can, but they won’t be many. Lilli, when the summer’s fighting is over, I’ll want to talk about these matters with you. You’ve got a strange gift, all right, and you’ve got to learn to control it. If you don’t, it could kill you.”
Lilli tried to speak, but she felt herself gaping like a halfwit.
“There, there,” Nevyn said. “You’re not in danger at the moment. You do look exhausted, though. I suggest you lie down and rest before dinner.”
“I will, my lord.” She found her voice at last. “You’ve given me much to think on.”
For courtesy’s sake she walked him to the door. When Nevyn opened it, Degwa nearly fell into the room. She started to speak, then blushed, running a nervous hand through her hair.
“My apologies,” Degwa stammered. “I was just reaching for the door, and then it opened, and I’m afraid I was ever so startled.”
“The apologies are mine, then,” Nevyn said.
Degwa ran across the women’s hall and hurried through the doorway that led to the sleeping quarters for the serving women and servants. Nevyn raised one bushy eyebrow at her retreat, then bowed to Lilli.
“We’ll talk more,” he said. “When it’s private.”
After he left, Lilli stood in the doorway and listened to her heart pound. How much had Degwa heard of their strange talk, she wondered, and would she be running to Oggyn with it?
As Nevyn clattered down the staircase from the women’s hall, he was thinking about Brour. Here he’d tried to train the lad right, and what did he do? Not just steal from his master, but endanger the very life of an innocent like Lilli! It’s just as well he’s dead, Nevyn thought. For his sake. If I’d gotten hold of him …
The long shadows of late afternoon were falling across the ward. Servants hurried back and forth, carrying firewood and water to the cookhouse. At the gates guards shouted a greeting, and in a clatter of hooves the silver daggers rode in with their captain, Caradoc, at their head, and his second in command, Owaen, beside him. Caradoc’s hair had gone mostly grey and his moustaches completely so, but his narrow dark eyes were as shrewd as ever.
“Nevyn!” Caradoc called out. “A moment of your time, if you please?”
He dismounted; then oddly enough, like a servant he took the bridle of Owaen’s black geld
“What’s this?” Nevyn said. “An accident?”
“Just that, my lord,” Caradoc said. “And I’ve seen stupider ones but not very often.”
Owaen shot his captain a murderous glance. The little finger on his left hand stuck out at an impossible angle, and there was a blood-spotted bruise forming in the palm.
“Looks very bad,” Nevyn said. “Hold your paw out a little more, lad, so I can see it better.”
Behind them the rest of the men were dismounting; most were leading their horses away, but Branoic threw his reins to a friend and strolled over. He was enormous, Branoic, the tallest man in the silver daggers, broad-shouldered and a little fleshy at the moment after a winter of eating at the king’s bounty.
“It’s broken, isn’t it?” Branoic said.
“You hold your leprous tongue,” Owaen said, “or I’ll cut off your black and crusted balls. Well, if you’ve got two, which I doubt.”
Branoic laughed, then set his hands on his hips and watched Nevyn study Owaen’s injury.
“Broken it is,” Nevyn said. “And badly so. How did it happen?”
Owaen glared at the cobbles as if he hoped to shatter them by sheer malice.
“His horse got a stone in its hoof,” Branoic said, grinning. “And so he picked the hoof up with his left hand, but he didn’t hold it very firmly, and so the horse took exception to the liberty he’d taken with its person.”
“I thought Owaen was going to slit the poor beast’s throat,” Caradoc put in. “But I stopped him. It’s a good horse, except for its delicate temperament.”
“Give it to me,” Branoic said. “I can handle it.”
Owaen turned on him like a striking snake, but in his rage he forgot his injury. All at once sweat beaded his face; he swore under his breath. Caradoc grabbed him by the elbow and steadied him.
“Branoic, that’s enough!” Caradoc snarled. “Get out of here and right now.”
“Captain.” Branoic ducked his head Caradoc’s way and turned on his heel.
Nevyn watched him striding off across the ward to catch up with his fellows. Although he should have been used to it by then, at moments Nevyn still found himself amazed that the soul inhabiting that body had been for many incarnations a woman, and one he had loved. With a shake of his head he turned back to the immediate problem.
“Small injuries often hurt the worst,” Nevyn said to Owaen. “The hand’s not gone dead on you, at least. You need to get a chirurgeon to set it.”
Owaen let fly with a string of curses, ending with a sensible question.
“How long will it take to heal?”
“Weeks, and you won’t be able to hold a shield, you know, with it bound up against the other fingers. You’ll have to stay out of the fighting.”
“What? I can’t do that.”
“Will you fight without a shield, then?”
Owaen started to answer, then merely glared at the offending finger.
“What if I have the chirurgeon just cut it off?” Owaen said at last. “A clean cut should heal quicker than a break.”
“True, but ye gods! They don’t grow back, you know.”
“I don’t give a pile of horseshit about that. I can steady a shield with four fingers well enough. I want this god-cursed thing healed and done with before we reach the Holy City.”
“It’s your choice.” Nevyn rolled his eyes heavenward. “Tell Caudyr that I said he should let you have your way.”
Some while later, as he was sitting on the dais in the great hall with the prince, Nevyn saw Owaen and Caradoc walking in. Sure enough, Owaen’s hand was bound with a linen bandage instead of splints. Maryn followed his gaze.
“Ah, that reminds me,” Maryn said. “I wanted to ask you somewhat. It’s about Caradoc. You know how much I value his advice. He’s seen fighting in three different kingdoms, after all.”
“And he’s been seeing it for years,” Nevyn said. “Experience is always valuable.”
“Just so, but I worry. I’d hate to see him killed, but he insists on leading his men into battle.”
“Just so.” Nevyn considered for a moment. “Have you talked to Caradoc about this?”
“I hinted, but he turned my words away. He’s a proud man and a touchy one. I wanted your advice first.”
“Then I’ll have a word with him.”
Down in the great hall, Caradoc was pulling out a bench and helping Owaen sit at one of the tables reserved for the silver daggers. The younger man’s face glistened with sweat on pale skin. No doubt his hand hurt worse than he’d ever imagined it could.
“Owaen should be lying down,” Nevyn remarked. “If my liege will excuse me, I’ll tend to it.”
“Of course.”
By the time Nevyn reached them, Owaen was sipping ale from a tankard. He kept his left hand, a club of white linen, in his lap. Caradoc stood, leaning against the table, and watched him.
“I see you had the finger removed,” Nevyn said to Owaen.
“I did, my lord.” Owaen’s voice sounded very small, like a child’s. “It went fast.”
“Indeed? You should be lying down, and don’t argue with me. It’s not a sign of weakness. I don’t want you bleeding to death. The prince needs you, and you’ve got to keep that wounded hand motionless.”
Owaen gulped ale.
“He’s right,” Caradoc snapped. “Will it take a direct order to make you do what Nevyn says?”
“It will.”
“Then I order you to go to the barracks and lie down.” Caradoc glanced around the hall. “There’s Maddyn and red-haired Trevyr. I’m now ordering you to let them help you.”
“As the captain commands, then.”
Caradoc made a snorting sound, then waved Maddyn and the other silver dagger over.
“Why do you always call him red-haired Trevyr?” Nevyn said.
“Because there used to be a black-haired Trevyr in the troop as well. He’s been dead these four years, but somehow the name stuck, like.”
Nevyn gave Maddyn a few instructions on caring for Owaen and sent them off. Both he and Caradoc stood watching them leave the hall; Owaen was weaving a little but managing to walk on his own even though Trevyr Coch kept close to him.
“Stubborn little bastard,” Caradoc remarked.
“Well, some men show themselves less mercy than they’d show an enemy.”
“Owaen never shows anyone mercy. A consistent sort of lad.”
“He’s always been that, truly.” Nevyn was thinking of the other lifetimes in which he’d known this soul. “I suspect he’ll get his wish, though, and the thing will be healed fairly well by the time he sees fighting.”
“Good, because there won’t be any keeping him out of it. He’d feel shamed.”
“Well, some men are like that, truly. They won’t stay out of a battle unless they’re nearly dead already, and all for fear of what other men will think of them.”
“True enough, but you know, all a silver dagger’s got in life is the fighting. Look at Maddyn, now. I told him to give it up, and he did, but that’s because he’s a bard. He has somewhat to live for, like, besides glory and honor. The rest of us don’t.”
All at once it occurred to Nevyn that the captain remembered the prince’s hints perfectly well. Caradoc was watching him tight-lipped, as if squelching a smile.
“I’d say you have a lot to live for,” Nevyn said. “The prince’s favor, for one thing.”
“Huh! And how can a man like me earn favor if he’s not fighting?”
“Giving wise counsel, for one thing. And offering a different voice than Oggyn’s for another.”
“Ah. Now that I hadn’t thought of.” Caradoc spat reflectively into the straw
“You’d be right. He does understand questions of supply. I’ll give Oggyn that. For some years he was the leader of the spearmen that Cerrmor owes the gwerbret, you see, and arming and feeding them was the hardest part of the job. So he knows how to provision an army and organize such things. But matters of strategy and suchlike? You could do the prince a great service by joining his retinue.”
For a moment Caradoc was tempted. Nevyn could see it in the distant way he looked up at the dais, where the prince sat, pretending to ignore the captain and Nevyn both. But all at once Caradoc shook his head.
“I couldn’t live with myself,” he said. “Sending my men into battle while I stayed safely behind.”
“Ah. Do you hold me a shamed man, then, for not fighting?”
“What? Of course I don’t!”
“Why not?”
“Well, my lord, you’re a scholar. You’ve got your medicines, you’ve got your dweomer-lore and suchlike—how could the prince risk losing you? Me—all I’ve ever known is battle.”
“And that knowledge is just as valuable in its own way. Here, how long have you been riding to war?”
“Most of my life. I was born with the turning of the hundred, my lord. My mother told me that, she did, and I’ve remembered it. I was born in the year the priests call 800, and so what does that make me now? Nearly half a hundred years.”
“Well, then, at your age there’s no shame in retiring from the field.”
A blunder—Nevyn saw it instantly, but he couldn’t call it back. Caradoc bristled.
“I’m not as old as all that!” the captain snapped. “I can still swing a sword.”
“I never meant to imply otherwise. It’s just that—”
“Just what? Are you trying to tell me I’m too blasted old to ride to war?”
“Naught of the sort! I was just trying to point out that your experience is long enough to be valuable, that’s all.”
Caradoc set his hands on his hips and scowled.
“Ah well,” Nevyn said. “Keep it in mind, will you, Captain? No doubt the prince would like to speak with you about this later.”