“In a way I did choose,” Lilli said. “I asked Brour to show me things. I wanted to know what the omens I was seeing meant, and how it all worked.”
“Ah, but Brour caught your interest with his hints and suchlike, and your mother of course had been exploiting your gifts for some while.”
“Perhaps so. It just makes me feel so helpless.”
“No doubt. I’m sorry, child, but at least you’re free of them now. While I’m gone, please busy yourself with the daily life of the dun. I’ll wager you find yourself tempted, when days pass without news, to try to scry us out. Don’t! You need to let yourself build up strength.”
“Very well, my lord. I can’t really scry anyway.”
“Ah. Well, this winter I’ll teach you.” Nevyn hesitated, then suddenly frowned down at the ground beside her feet. “Tell me somewhat, Lilli. When you were a child, did your foster-mother ever tell you stories about the Wildfolk?”
“Oh, of course. I loved them, too, the thought of all those little tiny people everywhere! I used to wish and wish that they were real.”
“Most children do, truly.” Nevyn smiled, but his eyes were narrow with some puzzlement. “Well, I’ve got to pack my campaign chest and so on, and I know your foster-father wants a word with you. If we don’t have a chance to speak again, fare you well, Lilli.”
“My thanks, my lord, and may you fare well, too.”
Lilli went to look for Peddyc in a hall mobbed by the muster. The prince’s personal guard, the sworn warbands of Cerrmor itself, the soldiers who rode for Maryn’s allies along the sea-coast—they all packed the huge room. Their talk and laughter mingled to such an incomprehensible roar that Lilli’s ears buzzed and ached from it. Finally she found her foster-father, standing in the curve of a wall and talking with a lord she didn’t recognize. At the sight of her Peddyc broke off the conversation and came to meet her. Together they walked out into the blessed silence of the ward. Above the gleaming towers of Dun Cerrmor, the rising moon turned cloud tendrils silver.
“Well,” Peddyc said, smiling. “I hear our banners are done.”
“They are at that. May they bring you good luck.”
“I think our prince’s Wyrd will bring us all the luck we’ll need. Lilli, it’s the regret of my life that I didn’t go over earlier, when I first had the chance.”
“But none of us knew.”
“Just so, and it’s too late to argue with the gods about our Wyrd. I’ve somewhat to say, so listen carefully. I’ve talked with Anasyn, too. It’s time he married, but I want you to know that you’ll always have a place in Hendyr. I’m hoping to get you a better settlement than that. Once the summer’s fighting is over, one of us will see about making you a good marriage among our new allies.”
“Oh, Father, my thanks!”
“It looks like you’ll be well taken care of here for the summer. You might listen to the gossip, see who’s looking for a wife among the prince’s allies, that sort of thing.”
“I will. It’s so good of you to think of me now.”
“And wouldn’t our Bevva have wanted to see you settled?” Peddyc looked away, his dark eyes clouded with tears. “The prince has promised me we’ll try to reclaim Hendyr this summer. If we do, then we’ll go back there for the winter.”
Lilli hesitated, thinking of Nevyn. How could she study her dweomer if she went to Hendyr? Yet at the moment she wanted nothing more than to return to the place she’d always considered home, the one place where she’d ever felt safe, even though now it doubtless lay in the hands of enemies.
“I’ll pray you can take the dun,” Lilli said. “I—oh, what’s this?”
A young page was trotting purposefully toward them.
“Tieryn Peddyc?” the boy said. “One of your vassals is at our gates, Lord Cam-something, and he said you’d go surety for him if we’d open up.”
“I will indeed, lad.” Peddyc gave Lilli’s arm a quick pat. “I’d best go greet him. As for you, foster-daughter of mine, take good care of yourself this summer, will you?”
“I will, Father, and my thanks.”
Lilli watched them hurrying across the ward. She felt sick with fear, wondering if he’d live to summon her to Hendyr in the fall. She could perhaps find some omen—Nevyn’s warning came back to her like a slap across the face.
“Ye gods,” she said aloud. “They’ve not even left yet and already I’m tempted!”
With a shake of her head she strode back into the broch, where the sheer press of humanity made even thinking about dweomer impossible.
“And tomorrow we ride out for the summer’s fighting,” Branoic said. “You can call me daft for it, Maddo, but this is the night every year when I find myself remembering Aethan.”
“Oh, I do the same,” Maddyn said. “You know, back when I first knew Aethan, years ago when he rode for the Boar and I was just a rider in an ally’s warband, we’d not see each other all winter, of course. We’d always meet in Cantrae, when the Boar mustered his lords to lead them down to Dun Deverry. I suppose that’s why I’m remembering him now.”
“Most like. Ah horseshit, we’ll all die soon enough. But I wish he’d lived to see Prince Maryn come into his own.”
Maddyn sighed and raised his tankard.
“To our dead,” he called out.
At their long tables, the other silver daggers returned the toast. They had honored places, these days, right at the front of the hall. Up on the dais itself, Caradoc was sitting at the foot of the prince’s table, dining with the great lords who had, over the years, come to accept his presence there as a whim of the prince’s though not as the captain’s right. Tieryn Gauryc was the worst; he never spoke to Caradoc directly if he could get a servant to relay his message, as if his very words might be dirtied by the captain’s hearing of them. Maddyn watched him for a moment, a heavyset lord, neither old nor young, who wore his dark hair cropped off so close to his skull that it stuck out at assorted ungainly angles.
“What’s old Gauryc up to?” Branoic whispered.
“Naught that I can see. The man just annoys me, is all.”
All smiles and bobs of a subservient head, the tieryn was chatting with Prince Maryn, while Councillor Oggyn looked on.
“Ah well,” Branoic said. “He can swing a sword well enough.”
“True spoken, and that’s all that counts.”
Yet later, oddly enough, Maddyn ended up having a word with Tieryn Gauryc. He had just left the great hall to head back to barracks when he heard an arrogant voice calling after him.
“Silver dagger, hold a moment! I want a word with you.”
Maddyn paused in a spill of light from the hall and let Gauryc catch up with him. The lord was jingling coins in one hand.
“It’s about these Rams,” Gauryc said. “I understand that the lass with them was born into the Boar clan.”
“She was, Your Grace,” Maddyn said.
“Our prince has a great heart for mercy,” Gauryc went on. “Some of us were born with colder natures. You’re part of the prince’s guard, and you hear what’s to be heard, I’ll wager. If you ever hear anything suspicious about this tieryn and his son, there’s profit in it for you if you pass the word along to me or Councillor Oggyn.”
Gauryc held out his hand, the one with the coins. Maddyn shoved his hands into his pockets.
“May I ask why, Your Grace?”
Gauryc nearly dropped his bribe into thin air, then caught himself and the coins and stepped back.
“The Rams were very much in the Boar’s favor. That’s all.”
“Your Grace, you can rest assured that if I see Peddyc or anyone else do anything that might be the least harmful to the prince, I’ll go straight to him with the news.”
Gauryc froze for the briefest of moments, then forced out a thin smile.
“Of course, silver dagger. Of course.”
Maddyn bowed, then turned on his heel and strode away. At a good distance he risked a glance back to find Gaury
c still staring after him. Ah by the hells! Maddyn thought. That’s all I need—a well-born enemy! He decided that if Peddyc proved a decent lord, then he’d have a word with him and his son and warn them about Gauryc and his ilk. As a bard, after all, he could speak freely, whether the great lords liked it or not.
For five days, Prince Maryn’s army crawled its safe if slow way north through the lands of the prince’s truly loyal vassals, the ones who’d backed him from the beginning. Once they reached the demesnes of those whose loyalties depended on the fortunes of war, they would have to travel more carefully. In the order of march Prince Maryn always rode at the head of the army with his silver daggers directly behind him. Alone of all the contingents, even in this safe country they travelled wearing mail and carried shields at their saddle peaks. Behind them came the noble-born and their warbands in order of rank. The spearmen marched at the rear, ready to guard the baggage train trailing along behind.
As the mood took him, Nevyn would ride at different places in the line, but he stayed toward the front to avoid the dust. Every night, he would scry out the terrain ahead of them. Although he felt stabs of guilt for twisting dweomer to such ends, he’d spent so many years using dweomer to put Maryn on his throne that a few more transgressions now weren’t going to matter.
At every town or dun the army grew in size and slowed down just that much more. Each lord they passed was obligated to bring so many riders, and with these warbands came spare mounts, servants, blacksmiths, chirurgeons, carts filled with provisions and other supplies, the carters to handle them, and from the larger demesnes contingents of free-born spearmen. By the time they reached Yvrodur, the army numbered over four thousand riders, a thousand spearmen, and a swarm of servants and skilled yeomen.
“A lot of extra mouths to feed,” Oggyn said dolefully. “Still, we’ve got the first harvests coming in.”
“Oh come now,” Nevyn said, smiling. “You’re in your element, and you do a fine job of it, I must say.”
“Well, my thanks.” Oggyn tried to look humble and failed.
They were standing on a low rise and looking down at the encampment, which spread along the riverbank just north of the town itself. Since the lowering sky promised rain, the men were pitching tents, blossoming like dirty flowers in the midst of a churning confusion of horses and men. In the middle of camp stood the prince’s white pavilion, hung with banners—the Pyrdon stallion, the three ships of Cerrmor, and the new red wyvern of Deverry.
“The greatest army Deverry’s ever seen!” Oggyn rubbed his hands together. “I’ll wager the false king can’t match our numbers.”
“Don’t wager any such thing. Tieryn Peddyc tells us that Regent Burcan has persuaded his lords to strip their fortguards.”
“Oh.” Oggyn went very still. “I hadn’t heard that. Well, then. This is their last stand, then.”
“So we may hope. If we win.”
“Imph, well. Of course.” Oggyn swallowed heavily. “Well, I’d best go down. Yvrodur owes us dried beef as well as spearmen, and I’d best claim it.”
“We ride out tomorrow,” Burcan said. “The Usurper’s army is on its way north.”
“Scouts have come in?” Merodda said.
“Just that. He’s reached Yvrodur, and men are pouring in to the muster, or so they said.”
“Bad news, then.”
“Not so bad as all that. We match him, and we’ll have position. He’s going to have to come to us and fight on the ground I choose.”
Merodda merely nodded. Wrapped in cloaks against the damp of the night, they were walking along the battlements of the inner ward. She’d come up hoping for omens, and he had seen and joined her. She turned and leaned onto the wall to look over and down the hill, ringed with stone walls, black against the grey night. Overhead, rain clouds tore and scudded away south to let the great drift of the Snowy Road hang clear in the sky. Burcan sighed and leaned next to her, so close their shoulders touched.
“It’s a pity that your daughter chose to desert to the enemy,” he said. “We could use her peculiar gifts right about now.”
“Indeed. The little bitch!” Rage swelled and washed away any chance Merodda had of seeing dweomer-omens. “I never thought—and Peddyc, too! Why? Why would he have gone over?”
“He might have seen through your little ruse.”
“Oh, my ruse, is it now? You agreed to it quick enough.”
When she felt him tense, she moved a little away, turning to peer at him. In the dim light from the ward below she could just see his face, an expressionless mask.
“So I did,” Burcan said at last. “I shouldn’t be blaming you. I suppose Lilli unravelled the truth and told Peddyc.”
“I suppose. It’s the only thing I can think of, with them both gone.”
“Doesn’t much matter. What does matter is that he’s gone, and his vassals with him, and ye gods, the grumbling the bastard’s left behind! I’d not realized how many men looked up to him. If I had, I would have courted him more. Too late now.” Burcan shook his head. “It’s blasted cold up here for a spring night. I’m going in. Are you?”
“I’m not. In a bit.”
“Very well.” He ran his hand down her back and let it linger on her buttocks. “I’ll be waiting for you in your chambers.”
Once she was alone, Merodda looked up at the stars and focused her concentration. Against their glitter and light she could often see images of both present and future, but that night they refused to come to her. She tried thinking of Lilli, remembering Lilli’s face, letting the memory slip over into scrying—the stars refused to blur into a dweomer-image. During Lilli’s long traitorous ride south, Merodda had been able to scry her easily until she’d reached Cerrmor. Since then, nothing, and indeed, no matter how she tried, this night too her scrying failed.
Merodda found herself remembering Brour and the warning he’d given her about his old master in Cerrmor. Could he be hiding Lilli from her? Apparently so. She wondered just how powerful this sorcerer, this Nevyn, might be. With an involuntary shudder she left the stars to their own devices and went back to the dun.
• • •
When the Red Wyvern pulled out of Yvrodur, scouts rode ahead in squads of five men for safety’s sake. Since they could travel twice as fast as the massive army, they would leave the river road at intervals and turn down the cross-running lanes through the fields. In the southern river valley the land stretched out flat. A man on horseback who found the slightest rise had a good view.
The first morning out of Yvrodur, Caradoc put Branoic in charge of a squad. The five silver daggers would ride in a loose cluster, ready to break up at the first sign of real danger and head back to the army.
“Remember, lads,” Caradoc said. “No heroics. What counts is warning the rest of us. You can’t do that dead.”
“Just so, captain,” Branoic said. “Come on, lads! Let’s get down the road.”
For a few miles they jogged their horses to put some distance between themselves and the army, then slowed to a steady walk. Off to their right the river flowed past silently; to their left lay a field of grain, pale green and nodding in a light breeze. In the hot summer sun staying alert took some doing. Unfortunately, none of the men who’d drawn scout duty with him were the talkative sort. Branoic’s mind wandered, and as it did so it peopled the world around him with little creatures. He was sure he saw Wildfolk splashing in the river eddies; now and again faces peered out at him from the grass beside the road; once he distinctly heard a voice calling his name. The angrier he grew with himself for giving into these childhood fancies, the more distinct the wretched things became. Grimly he did his best to look only at the road, but even there warty grey gnomes appeared, waving to him pleasantly as the squad ambled past.
At length, when the sun was climbing toward noon, a real distraction presented itself. Where the river curved to the east and the road followed, the squad left both to cut straight across on a narrow track between two fields. Far
ahead of them Branoic spotted a smudge on the horizon.
“Dust!” he called out. “Hold up, lads!”
The squad jingled to a halt behind him. Branoic rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his free hand. A lot of dust, it was, and moving purposefully down the road toward them.
“Trevyr! Head back to the prince and tell him riders are coming, a good-sized contingent but no army.”
“Done, then.” With a wave red-haired Trevyr guided his horse out of line and turned it around. “Do you want more men up here?”
“I don’t, but you’d best get back here straightaway yourself.”
Trevyr trotted off down the lane, and Branoic went back to his watching. The dust cloud came along leisurely, finally resolving itself into a column of mounted men followed by what seemed to be a pair of carts—an ally, most like, joining the muster. Branoic sent another man off with this news, but just in case the column meant trouble, he led his remaining two men back to the main road. By the time they reached it the column had come close enough for him to see the blazons on shields—a blue circle with a line of darker blue knotwork around it, and nothing that Branoic recognized.
“We’d best get out of here,” he said.
The other two silver daggers nodded their agreement, turned their horses in the road, and jogged off fast. Branoic lingered a moment to estimate the contingent’s size, about six twenties, he figured. None of them were wearing their mail, and their shields hung from their saddle bows. Just as Branoic was gathering his reins to gallop away, the lord at the head of the column called out to him.
“Are you a Cerrmor man?”
Branoic hesitated, but he had plenty of room to outrun them, and his own army would have closed much of the gap between him and it by now.
“I am.” Branoic called back. “Friend or foe?”
“Friend! Do you think I’d head toward an army of thousands otherwise?”
Branoic laughed and paused his horse to sit easy in the saddle while the lord and his men travelled the last fifty yards or so between them. When the lord waved him up, Branoic fell in beside him. The lord had a ruddy face, which collapsed toward his chin; he’d lost most of his teeth, whether to age or a blow to the face Branoic couldn’t tell.