Bristling Wood (43 page)

“Well, you looked chilled, lad. Thought we’d have a bit of a blaze. Now, you young dolt, do you see what you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in? From now on, you’re going to do exactly what I say, or . . . ”

“I will. Anything at all, my lord. I swear to you on the honor of the Wolf clan and the gods of my people.”

“Good. Remember that during your trip to Eldidd.”

“I’m going there? You said you wouldn’t . . . ”

“I said I wouldn’t let Cullyn get hold of you. There’s another man there who very much wants a chat with you. My uncle.”

THREE

In those days, Cerrmor had yet to expand to the place where the Gwarmael and the Bel rivers meet. A small village, Dei’ver, stood there, some forty houses and a pair of wooden docks, with a couple of inns to serve travelers who couldn’t reach Cerrmor before nightfall. The royal galley put in there, ostensibly to buy ale, but in reality to set Jill ashore. Since Salamander had letters for the gwerbret, he would be marked at once as an important man in the city. Since she wanted to ask some questions of the kind of people who would have nothing to do with anyone associated with His Grace and his wardens, she needed to ride in alone.

Carrying the old saddle and bridle she’d brought from Dun Deverry for this purpose, and laden down with her gear, too, she made a great show of limping and cursing as she came into the village, as if she’d had to walk a long way in her riding boots. When she reached the dusty open space that did duty as a town square, she saw a couple of idlers sitting in the shade of a willow tree.

“What happened, silver dagger? Lose your horse?”

“I did. Broke his leg about five miles north of here. Is there anyone in town who can sell me another? By the love of every god, I hope I never walk that far again.”

Since horses were a luxury beyond their reach, the villagers laughed in a nasty sort of way, but one of them waved his hand southward.

“Try the big inn by the Cerrmor road, lad. Old Mat sometimes has an extra horse or two in his stable.”

“My thanks. By the way, have there been any other silver daggers through here recently? I’m looking for a friend of mine, an Eldidd man he is, but I wouldn’t know what name he’s traveling under.”

The two of them exchanged a brief look.

“Well, seeing as how you’re another silver dagger and all, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you. An Eldidd man calling himself Adoryc came through here two days ago. He had the dagger in his belt.”

“What’s he wanted for?” the second man chimed in.

“Cursed if I know. The gwerbret’s men don’t tell the likes of me their business.” Jill shrugged as best she could under all her burdens. “Well, I’ll be getting along. My back’s breaking.”

As she limped away, Jill was thinking that Rhodry must have spread plenty of silver around on his ride south to keep local tongues mute. Even so, it was odd that no one who’d seen him had told the gwerbret’s men the truth once the man who’d given them the coin had ridden on. It was probably the reputation of silver daggers that kept them honest, she supposed, the simple fear that Rhodry or someone else would come back to slit their throats if they failed to keep the bargain.

She found the big inn and Old Mat easily enough, and indeed, he did have a horse for sale, a decent gray gelding with a white off-fore and a white blaze. She haggled long enough to be convincing, then paid over some of Blaen’s coin and saddled up the gelding. They left the village at a quick walk-trot pace, but once they were well on the road, she let the gelding canter.

In about an hour, not long before sunset, Jill reached the north gate of the city. Coming to Cerrmor always made her a bit melancholy. Since her parents had been born and raised there, she’d heard about it all her life, and it seemed that it should have been her home, too. Except that I have no home at all, she thought. Now she had even more reason to feel a total stranger, because dweomer was riding into town with her. With a bitter twist of her mouth, she realized that whether she fought against her own dweomer or not, it had already made her an alien among her people. It was also putting her in danger. As she led her horse down the narrow, twisting streets, through the packs of beggars and crowds of merchants and townsfolk, she was aware of how easy it would be for someone to slip up behind her and stick a dagger in her ribs. During her long walk down to the harbor, she constantly looked around and behind her.

That was probably why she saw the old woman at all. Just as Jill crossed the market square, a wagon filled with hay for the gwerbret’s horses took a turn a little too sharply and tipped, blocking the street. Cursing, the carters picked themselves up off the cobbles as the strollers who had been right behind them milled in confusion and a noble on horseback began yelling at everyone to get out of his way that very instant. Jill turned her horse around and started working her way back along the edge of the square. All at once, she felt that she was being watched and spun around, perched on a low wall with a market basket in her lap was a gray-haired woman wearing the black headscarf of a widow. Although much-mended, her plain blue dress was clean, caught in by a precisely folded kirtle. She was staring at Jill so intensely that Jill laid her hand on her sword hilt without thinking. The old woman shrank back.

“My apologies, lad. You just remind me of someone I used to know, like.”

“No offense, good dame.”

Up ahead the crowd cleared and began to disperse. Jill hurried through the opening, then stopped cold. That voice—the old woman’s voice—by the gods, it had sounded familiar! But whose? Like her mother’s. And the old woman had found her familiar in turn. Swearing under her breath, Jill got her horse turned around in the crowd and shoved her way back to the wall. The old woman was gone. Although she searched the area around the market square for some twenty minutes, she never caught another glimpse of the woman who might have been her grandmother. She felt her eyes fill with tears, irritably wiped them away, then headed down to the harbor. Rhodry—and the dweomer—had to come before her and her kin.

Immediately around the Cerrmor harbor, of course, was the area known as the Bilge, a tangle of narrow alleys, dirty shops, brothels, and taverns, all catering to the sailors, or perhaps preying upon them would be the better said. As much as Jill needed the kind of information the Bilge could give her, she had no intention of spending a night there. A safe distance upriver, in a bleak but decent district of warehouses and longshoremen’s cottages, was an inn called the Capstan that had a good reputation among silver daggers, or at least, as good a reputation as any silver dagger inn could possibly have. Jill stabled her horse in a smelly split-roof shed, while the bald, squint-eyed innkeep scratched himself as he watched without a move to help her.

“You’re cursed young to have the dagger.”

“What’s it to you?” Jill laid her hand on its hilt.

“Naught, naught. You can have a chamber to yourself if you like, lad. Custom’s slow this time of year.”

“Done, then.”

The chamber was a tiny wedge of the second story, with warped shutters over the window and a mattress on the floor. When she kicked it out of the way, bedbugs swarmed and roiled. She dumped her gear in the corner, then left, padlocking the door behind her. The long narrow tavern room was dark and smoky, but the tabletops and the straw on the floor were reasonably clean. Jill swaggered in, trying to look as masculine as she could, and got herself a tankard of dark. Sooner or later someone was bound to realize that she was a lass, but she preferred it to be later. Since it was right at the dinner hour, the tavern was crowded with sailors spending their wages, a couple of wenches to help them at it, traveling peddlers, and a sprinkling of indifferently dressed men who were most likely thieves. The tavernman pointed to the hearth, where a stout woman fussed over a kettle.

“Beef stew tonight, silver dagger.”

“Good.”

Jill saluted him with her tankard and strolled away to stand with her back to the wall. She’d had only a few sips of ale when she heard someone yelling out in the innyard. The tavernman ran to the window.

“Ye gods, it’s some of the gwerbret’s men! They’re coming here.”

Several of the customers melted away out the back as a man in mail threw open the front door. Three swordsmen, all dressed in dark red brigga, marched in and collared the innkeep.

“Any more customers upstairs?” the leader said.

“Not that I know of. Here, what is all this?”

“We’re looking for someone, that’s all.”’ The swordsman turned to study the crowd. “We’ve already swept the Bilge. You can wager that we weren’t entirely welcome, but sweep it we did. Here, you, silver dagger! Get over here.”

Jill walked over as slowly and as insolently as she dared.

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Gilyn. What’s it to you?”

“Naught, scum, if that’s the stance you’re going to take. Do you know a man named Rhodry of Aberwyn? He’s a member of your band.”

“I do. Last time I saw him was up in Cerrgonney. What are you looking for him for?”

“Naught that concerns you.” He started to turn away, then glanced back with a conciliatory smile, “Here, I’ll tell you this, though. I swear on my honor that we mean him good not ill. He’s not wanted for a crime or suchlike. If you see him tell him that, will you? It’s worth gold in his hand if he’ll just come to His Grace’s dun.”

“I will then.”

The gwerbret’s men stomped out again, and the tavern’s customers gave a unison sigh of relief. The tavernman turned to Jill.

“Do you believe what they said about your friend?”

“I do, at that, because Rhodry’s a strange kind of man.” She paused for a sip of ale. “He’s never said a word about his past, and silver daggers don’t pry into what a man may have done, but I’ll wager he was noble-born.”

“Indeed?” His eyes widened. “A lord with the dagger?”

She noticed that a number of people had paused to listen.

“Well, he wasn’t a lord anymore, but he had the manners of the noble-born, all bows and courtesy, and he knew bard lore, too. And then there was the way he sat on a horse. You don’t ride that splendidly unless your noble father’s riding master put you on a pony when you were but three years old.”

“I wonder what he did to be shamed?” a wench said with a melancholy sigh. “It sounds a sad tale. Was he handsome?”

“I suppose.” Jill shrugged as if indifferent. “I was more interested in how well he fought.”

“No doubt. Men!” She flounced off again to wait on a pair of staggering sailors in the corner.

Every one else smiled and drifted back to their tankards and talk. Jill was honestly startled at how well they accepted her as a lad. As she thought about it, she did have a dark voice for a woman in a country where a clear tenor was the most highly prized voice for a man, and no doubt they assumed her young, too, but she still was vaguely troubled when she realized just how much her years on the road had hardened her.

In a few minutes the tavernman and the wenches began passing out bowls of stew, which turned out to be surprisingly good, as was the bread served to sop it up with. When Jill found a place to sit down and eat, she was joined by a gray-haired man she judged to be a wandering peddler from his bent shoulders and the callus across his forehead from a pack strap.

“Tell me somewhat, silver dagger,” he said, wasting no time in pleasantries, “Is this Rhodry a typical Eldidd man, with black hair ad dark blue eyes?”

“He is, and built narrow from shoulder to hip.”

“I think me I saw him two nights ago. He was in a tavern in the crafters’ part of town. It stuck in my mind, like, because you don’t often see a silver dagger doing his drinking among the potters and blacksmiths.”

“True-spoken. Maybe you should tell that to one of the gwerbret’s men.”

“Maybe so. They might pay for it, like. Our Rhodry was calling himself Benoic, by the way. I wonder if he’s lying ill somewhere and that’s why they can’t find him.”

“Ill? Did he look ill?”

“Not that I could see, but he was asking about herbmen. There seemed to be a particular old man he wanted, too. Not just any herbman would do. It had to be this one and his granddaughter.”

“Nevyn.”

“That was the name, truly. Strange sort of name, think I.”

“It is. Well, the granddaughter’s a pretty wench, you see.”

“Ah.” The peddler grinned and winked. “Well, maybe I’ll step out after dinner and see if I can find one of the town wardens.”

“I would if I were you. If they’ve got the warband out as well as the wardens, it must be important.”

With a nod, the peddler devoted himself to his stew. Feeling close to despair, Jill ate mechanically, shoveling down food she no longer wanted just for the look of the thing. It was clear that Gwerbret Ladoic had ordered his men to search for Rhodry the moment he’d received the letters from the king. They hadn’t found him yet, and she was beginning to doubt that they would, simply because the Bilge was the most logical place for him to be. For a moment she toyed with old tales of thieves having a vast system of tunnels under Cerrmor, then dismissed them as a gerthddyn’s fancies. It also seemed clear that Rhodry had been certain that she and Nevyn were in Cerrmor. Someone had lied to him, lured him here—

All at once she broke off the thought and fixed her mind firmly on her meal. She concentrated on chasing a bit of meat through the gravy, forced herself to think of only that. For a moment, as she was thinking about Rhodry, she’d felt the touch of another mind on hers, just a light brush, but she could feel the cold, impersonal malice in it. In a few seconds the mind moved on, leaving hers. She laid the spoon down in her bowl. Appearances or not, she found it impossible to eat another bite.

“Just going out back,” she said to the peddler.

He nodded and went on eating. No one else even looked up as he headed out the back door in the direction of the privy.

Directly behind the inn stood a horse trough, where the water caught the firelight spilling out the windows. She paused beside it, idly trailing one hand in the water as if washing it off, and using the dancing ripples to think of Salamander. Immediately she felt the touch of his mind, but it was some minutes before he answered her. She could see his image on the water only dimly.