Bristling Wood (25 page)

That night, Perryn and the two horses made a comfortable camp in a forest clearing, but the next day they had to return to the road or go miles out of their way around a steep hill. They had barely reached the track when it began to rain. Perryn kept riding until the mud made traveling difficult for the horses, then turned a little way into the forest and dismounted. In the imperfect shelter of the pines he crouched down between the horses and waited for the storm to slack. It was uncomfortable, of course, with his clothes stuck to him and water running into his boots, but he ignored the discomfort, the way forest deer ignored the rain, browsing in the wet when they were hungry. If someone had asked him what he thought about during those two cold hours, he wouldn’t have been able to say. He was merely aware of things: the rain, the smell of pine, the slick-wet trunks and pale green ferns. Every sound brought a message: a squirrel scuttling into its hole, a deer moving cautiously far away, a stream running close by. Eventually the rain stopped. By the time he reached Nedd’s dun, he was dry again. Indeed, he’d quite forgotten that he’d been caught by the storm.

The dun stood on a muddy hillock behind a crumbling stone wall and a pair of rusty iron-bound gates that squeaked like a demon when Perryn shoved them open. Instead of a broch, Nedd had a stone round house with a roof that leaked all round the edge and two hearths that smoked badly. Although there were the usual barracks over the stables for a warband, the roof there was so bad that Nedd had simply moved his ten men into the half round of a room that passed for his great hall. They slept on straw mattresses, laid any which way in the dry spots out in the middle of the room. Nedd, as befitted his rank, had an actual bed by one hearth. Scattered through this disorder of moldy straw were also two tables, benches, a collection of leather buckets for drips, and one elegant chair, carved with the Wolf blazon. When Perryn came in after stabling his horses, he found his cousin sitting in the chair with his feet on one of the tables.

“By the gods,” Nedd said with a grin. “You’ve come like an omen, cousin. Here, fetch yourself some ale. There’s an open barrel by the other hearth.”

Since their mothers were sisters, the cousins looked much alike. They both had flaming red hair, freckles, and bright blue eyes, but while Nedd was a good-looking man, the most charitable description of Perryn would have been “nondescript.” Tankard in hand, he joined Nedd at his table. At the other, the warband were drinking and dicing.

“Why have I come like an omen?”

“You’re just in time to ride to war with me.” Nedd smiled as if he offering a splendid gift “I’ve got this ally to the west, Tieryn Graemyn—you’ve met him, haven’t you—and he’s sent out a call for aid. I’m supposed to bring him twelve men, but I’ve only got so I’ve got to scrape up the other two somewhere. Come along, cousin! It’ll be good sport, and you can spare me the cost of a silver dagger.”

Seeing no way out of it, Perryn sighed. Nedd had fed him for any a winter, and besides, a noble lord was supposed to respond joyously to the call for war. He forced out a smile.

“Oh, gladly,” he said. “And what’s the war about?”

“Cursed if I know. I just got the message today.”

“Can you spare me a shield?”

“Of course. Ye gods, Perro, don’t tell me you ride without one?”

“Er, ah, well, I do at that. They take up too much space on your saddle.”

“You should have been born a woodcutter, I swear it!”

Perryn rubbed his chin and considered the suggestion.

“Just jesting,” Nedd said hurriedly. “Well, I hope a silver dagger turns up soon. There’s always a lot of them in Cerrgonney. We’ll wait a couple of days, then ride, even if we’re one short. Better that than riding in after the fighting’s over.”

The gods, however, apparently decided that if Lord Nedd was going to march to war, it might as well be straightaway. On the morrow, not long after breakfast, the kitchen gardener ambled in to announce that there was a silver dagger at the gates.

“And he’s got a woman with him, too,” the old man said. “I feel cursed sorry for her kin.”

“Is she pretty?” Nedd said.

“She is.”

Nedd and Perryn shared a small smile.

“Splendid,” Nedd said. “Send them in, will you?”

In a few minutes the silver dagger and his woman came in, both travel-stained and roughly dressed, the lass in men’s clothing with a sword and silver dagger of her own. Although her blond hair was cropped short like a lad’s, she was not merely pretty but beautiful, with wide blue eyes and a delicate mouth.

“Good morrow, my lords.” The silver dagger made them a courtly bow. “My name’s Rhodry of Aberwyn, and I heard in your village that you’ve got a hire for the likes of me.”

“I do,” Nedd said. I can’t offer you more than a silver piece a week, but if you serve me well in the war, I’ll shelter you and your lass all winter.”

Rhodry glanced up at the roof, where sunlight broke through in long shafts, then down at the floor, where Nedd’s dogs snored in mildewed straw.

“Winter’s a long way away, my lord. We’ll be riding on.”

“Oh well,” Nedd said hastily. “I can squeeze out two silver pieces a week, and there’ll be battle loot, too.”

“Done then. His lordship is to be praised for his generosity.”

For Jill’s sake, Lord Nedd gave his silver dagger an actual chamber to sleep in instead of a mattress out in the great hall, Although the wickerwork walls were filthy, it did have a door. Rather than sit on the straw of the floor, which seemed to be inhabited, Jill perched on top of an unsteady wooden chest and watched as Rhodry cleaned his chain mail. As he ran an old rag through the rings, to wipe away the rust, he was frowning in the candlelight.

“What are you thinking about?” she said.

“That old saying: as poor as a Cerrgonney lord.”

”Lord Nedd’s a marvel and a half, isn’t he? Are we actually going to stay here all summer and the winter, too?”

“Of course not. I’d rather sleep beside the roads. Are you sure you’ll fare well enough when I leave you behind?”

“Oh no doubt the kennel will be comfortable enough when the dogs are all out of it. How long do you think the war will last?”

“War?” He looked up with a grin. “I wouldn’t dignify it with the word, my love. If Nedd’s allies are anything like him, no doubt there’ll be a lot of shouting and skirmishing, and then an end to it.”

“I hope you’re right. I feel danger coming in this.”’

His smile gone, he laid the mail aside.

“More of your wretched dweomer?”

“Just that, but it’s not battle danger, exactly. I’m not even sure what I do mean. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

“I wish you hadn’t, truly.” He hesitated, for a long moment, staring down at the straw. “I . . . ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, let’s just forget it.”

“I know what you want to know. I don’t see your death coming. Ah, ye gods, if ever I did, don’t you think I’d beg you not to ride to war?”

“And, what good would that do? When my Wyrd comes, upon, me I’ll die as easily from a fever or a fall from a horse as from a sword. Let me beg a boon from you, my love. If ever you see my death, say not a word about it.”

“I won’t, then. I promise.”

With a nod of thanks, he got up, stretching, and looked down at the mail glittering in the candlelight. He was so beautiful that she felt like weeping, that he would have to risk his life in the petty feuds of men like Lord Nedd. As she always did on the nights before he was about to ride to war, she wondered if he would live to ride back to her.

“Let’s lie down together, my love,” he said. “It’s going to be a long while before I sleep in your bed again.”

Once she was lying in his arms, Jill felt the wondering grow to a cold stab, closer and closer to fear. She held him tight and let his kisses drown it away.

Early on the morrow, the warband made a sloppy muster out in the ward. Jill stood in the doorway and watched as the men drew their horses up in a straggling line behind the two lords. The four men at the rear, including Rhodry, led pack horses laden with provisions because Nedd didn’t own an oxcart and couldn’t have spared the farmers to drive it if he had. Just as it seemed the line was finally formed, someone would yell that he’d forgotten something and dash back to the house or the stables. At the very last moment, Nedd discovered that Perryn didn’t own a pot helm. A servant was dispatched to the stables, which apparently did double duty as an armory, to look for one.

Perryn stood rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while Nedd berated him for a woodcutter and worse. When Jill caught Rhodry’s eye, he sighed and glanced heavenward to call the gods to witness Perryn’s eccentricity. She had never seen a noble lord like Perryn, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over him. He was tall, but slender and ill proportioned, with narrow shoulders, long arms, and big, heavy hands out of scale to the rest of him. Although his face wasn’t truly ugly, his eyes were enormous, his mouth thin, and his nose on the flat side. When he walked, he all the grace of a stork strutting.

When the servant came back with a rusty helm, Nedd announced that if anyone had forgotten anything else, he’d cursed well have to do without it. Jill gave Rhodry one last kiss, then ran to the gates to wave the warband out. In a disorderly line they trotted down the hill, then into the road, disappearing to the west in a spatter of mud. With a prayer to the Goddess to keep her man safe, Jill turned back to the dun and the long tedium of waiting for news.

The small demesne of Tieryn Graemyn lay three days’ ride to the west of Nedd’s dun. The road ran narrow through sharp hills and scrubby pine, mostly uninhabited, until some ten miles from the tieryn’s dun the warband came to a small village, Spaebrwn, one of three that paid Graemyn allegiance. As the warband watered their horses at the village well, Perryn noticed the townsfolk watching with frightened eyes. A Cerrgonney war was like a Cerrgonney storm, blowing the thatch from cottage and lord’s manor alike.

Late in the afternoon they reached Graemyn’s dun, set up on a low hill out in the middle of a stretch of fairly flat pastureland bordered by trees. The big gates swung open to admit them into a ward crowded with men and horses. As Nedd’s warband dismounted, stableboys ran to take their horses and lead them away into the general confusion. The tieryn himself strolled out to greet these reinforcements. A grizzled dark-haired man, he bulged with muscles under his linen shirt.

“I’m truly glad to see you, Nedd,” he remarked. “Your twelve brings us up to what strength we’re going to have.”

Under the tieryn’s firm voice there was an anxious edge that made Perryn apprehensive, and for good reason, as it turned out at the council of war in the great hall. Even with Nedd and three other allies, Graemyn had only some two hundred men. Ranged against them were Tieryn Naddryc and his allies with close to three hundred. The dispute concerned two square miles of borderland between their demesnes, but it had grown far beyond the land at stake. Although Graemyn was willing to submit the matter to the arbitration of the high king, Naddryc had refused the offer some weeks past. In a subsequent skirmish between mounted patrols, Naddryc’s only son had been killed.

“So he wants my blood,” Graemyn finished up. “I’ve stripped the countryside to provision the dun. You never know what’s going to happen when a man gets it into his head to start a blood feud.”

The other lords all nodded sagely, while Perryn devoutly wished that he
had
been born a woodcutter. A feud could rage for years, and here he was, honor-bound to ride in it for Nedd’s sake.

After the meal, the lords gathered round the honor table and studied a rough map of eastern Cerrgonney. They drank over it, argued over it, and yelled at each other while Perryn merely listened. He was part of the council only by courtesy to his birth; he had no warband, he had no right of decision. He stayed until the lords adopted Nedd’s plan of making a surprise attack on enemy’s line of march, then slipped away, getting a candle lantern from a page and taking it out to the stables. When he found his dapple gray, he hung the lantern on a nail in the wall of the stall and sat up on the manger. The gray leaned his face into Perryn’s chest with a small snort. He gently scratched its ears.

“Well, my friend, I wonder if I’ll live to see the winter, I truly do.”

Blissfully unaware that there was such a thing as a future to consider, the gray nibbled on his shirt.

“At least you’ll be safe and out of it. That’s somewhat to be glad about.”

If Cerrgonney men had fought on horseback, as warriors did in most of Deverry, no amount of honor or obligation would have induced Perryn to ride to war, but since up in that grain-poor province horses were too valuable to slaughter, Cerrgonney men rode to battle but dismounted to fight. Yet even though he knew his friend would be safe, Perryn’s heart ached at the thought of battle. As he did every time he was forced to ride to war, he wondered if he were simply a coward. Doubtless every lord in the province would have considered him one if they’d discovered his true feelings about honor and battle glory, which seemed far less important to him than fishing in a mountain stream or sitting in a meadow and watching the deer graze. At times like these, the old proverb haunted him: what does a man have worth having but his honor? A good bit more, to Perryn’s way of thinking, but he could never voice that thought to anyone, not even Nedd, no matter how much he simply wanted to ride away from killing men he didn’t know in a war that never should have happened in the first place.

“Well, my friend, my Wyrd will come when it comes, I suppose. I wonder if horses have Wyrds? It’s a pity you can’t talk. We could have a splendid chat about that, couldn’t we?”

Suddenly he fell silent, hearing someone open the stable door. His silver dagger gleaming in the lantern light, Rhodry strode briskly down the line of stalls.

“Oh, it’s you, my lord. The tieryn’s captain detailed me to keep an eye on the stables, you see, and I heard someone talking.” Rhodry glanced around puzzled. “Isn’t someone else here?”