Bristling Wood (36 page)

“Oh, but it does.” Her disarranged mind was casting up images, of Sarcyn and Alastyr, of the dark dweomer that had touched and tainted her life the summer before. For a moment she nearly vomited. When she spoke again, it was only in a whisper. “Go on. I have to know.”

“Well, then, somewhat’s wrong with Perryn. He was pouring the force out like mead at a lord’s feast, more than you could ever possibly replace in the ordinary course of things. And all that extra power was running free in your mind, free to be used in any way you wished, but since, alas, you had no idea of what to wish for, or indeed that it was even there, then it took the first channel it found to run in, like water again, if we may expand and polish our image my turtledove, that escapes from a river only to follow a ditch. You can’t lie and say you’ve no dweomer talent, you know.”

“I don’t care! I never wanted to have anything of the sort.”

“Oh, of course not, you lackwit! That’s not what I’m saying. Listen, these are dark and dangerous matters indeed, and the source of many a strange thing. No one who studies the dweomer of Light would fool with them carelessly, the way Perryn seems to have done.”

“Are you telling me he follows the dark path?”

“I’m not, because that poor, weak, bumbling idiot obviously could do naught of the sort. I know not what Lord Perryn may be, my little robin, but I do know that we’ve got to get you far, far away from him. Let’s ride. We’ll reach some safe spot, and then I’ll see what Nevyn thinks of all this.”

After Jill rode away, Perryn had just enough strength to unsaddle his horse and send him out to graze. He lay down on his blankets and fell asleep, waking for a few moments at sunset, then sleeping the night away. When he woke in the morning, he rolled over, automatically reaching for Jill, and wept when he remembered that she was gone.

“How could you leave me? I loved you so much.”

He forced himself to stop crying, then sat up and looked around the camp. In spite of his long sleep, he was still tired, his body aching as if he’d been in a fight. When he remembered the man who’d taken her away, he turned cold all over. Dweomer. What else would have shown him that peculiar vision of clouds of light and golden swords?
See what you’ve been doing, Lord Perryn
. But he’d done nothing at all, only loved her. What did ropes of mystic light have to do with love? And she’d said that she hated him. He shook his head, refusing to cry again.

At last he forced himself up and began packing his gear. He’d already placed himself in danger by staying so long; the lord who once had owned these colts might come looking for them. As he worked, he wondered which way to ride. He couldn’t go back to Nedd, not for a long time, not with Benoic’s wrath waiting for him. You’re twice a dolt, he told himself, first taking another man’s woman—and then losing her. Benoic would heap scorn on him for years over this, he knew. After the splendor of having had someone to love, of having had someone who had loved him—he refused to believe that Jill had never loved him—his life stretched ahead like a bleak, foggy road. It seemed to take him forever to leave the spot. He would just get some small task done, like rolling up his blankets, when something would make him think of Jill, and he would weep again. The dapple gray stayed close to him, nuzzling his shoulder or nudging him in the back as if to say that he should cheer up.

“At least you love me, don’t you?” Perryn whispered. “But a horse is a wretchedly easy thing to please.”

Finally he was ready to set out, with his gray saddled and his pack horse and the two new colts on lead ropes. He mounted, then merely sat in the saddle for a long time and stared at the place that would hold his last memories of Jill. Where to go next? The question seemed insuperable. At last, when the gray was beginning to dance in irritable restlessness under him, he turned back northwest. Not far away was the town of Leryn, where he knew a dishonest trader who would take the colts and ask no questions. All that day he rode slowly, and the tears came and went of their own accord.

Rhodry might have taken a barge passage immediately if it hadn’t been for the gray gnome, who came to him early on the same morning that Salamander caught up with Jill. The little creature was ecstatic, dancing around and grinning so broadly that it exposed all its long pointed teeth.

“Well, little brother, I take it you know that Jill’s left Perryn.”

The gnome nodded, then pointed to the southeast.

“Is that where Jill is?”

The gnome shook its head no, then pantomimed Perryn’s graceless walk.

“Oho! How far away is our dear Lord Perryn?”

The gnome shrugged and waved its hands as if to say not very far at all. Rhodry debated for a long while. On the one hand, he wanted to be after Jill; on the other, his desire for revenge was like a lust. Finally the vengeance won.

“Well and good, little brother. I’ll saddle up my horse, and you lead me to him.”

The gnome grinned and jigged, pointing always off to the south and east.

It was late in the afternoon when Rhodry came to a scrappy little village, a huddle of houses at the top of a hill without even a proper wall around it. Although there was no tavern, the blacksmith’s wife kept a few barrels of ale in her kitchen for thirsty travelers, but she refused to have a silver dagger in her house. She did, however, let him buy a tankard and drink it out in the muddy yard, where chickens scratched near a small sty that held a pair of half-grown pigs. The woman, a stout sort with wispy gray hair, set her hands on her hips and glared at him the whole time as if she thought he would steal the tankard. When he was done, Rhodry handed it back with an exaggerated bow.

“My thanks, fair lady. I don’t suppose you get many travelers through here.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine, that’s all, a tall, skinny fellow with red hair and—”

“You’d best go over to the baker’s then. A fellow like that bought a tankard from me not half an hour ago, and he said he needed to buy bread.”

“Oh, indeed? He didn’t have a lass with him, did he?”

“He didn’t, just a couple of extra horses. Too many horses, if you ask me. Didn’t like the look of him, I didn’t.”

Following her directions, Rhodry hurried along the twisting street. When he reached the house with the big beehive clay ovens in the front yard he saw Perryn’s dapple gray, his pack horse, and a pair of colts tied up nearby. He laughed aloud, just a quick snatch of a berserker’s chuckle, and thanked Great Bel in his heart. As he tied up his horse, he could see Perryn through the open door, handing over some coppers to a fellow in a cloth apron. Rhodry strode in. His hands full of loaves, Perryn turned and yelped, a satisfying gulp of pure terror.

“You bastard,” Rhodry snarled. “Where’s my wife?”

“Oh, er, ah, well, I don’t know.”

His face pale, the baker began edging for the door. Rhodry ignored him and went for Perryn. He grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the stone wall so hard that Perryn dropped the bread. Rhodry kicked it out of the way and slammed him again.

“Where’s Jill?”

“I don’t know.” Perryn was gasping for breath. “She left me. I swear it. She left me on the road.”

“I know that, dolt! Where?”

When Perryn smirked at him, Rhodry hit him in the stomach He doubled over, choking, but Rhodry straightened him up and hit him again.

“Where did she leave you?”

Half blind from tears in his eyes, Perryn raised his head. Rhodry slapped him across the face.

“I know you’re going to kill me,” Perryn gasped. “Not going to tell you one rotten thing.”

Rhodry saw no reason to admit that he’d sworn a vow to leave him alive. He grabbed him by the shoulders, hauled him forward, and slammed into the stone again.

“Where is she? If you tell me, you live.”

“I don’t know, by the gods!”

Rhodry was about to hit him in the stomach a second time when he heard noises behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the white-faced baker, flanked by the blacksmith carrying an iron bar and two other men with threshing flails at the ready.

“Now what’s all this, silver dagger? You can’t ride in and just murder someone.”

“I’m not going to murder anyone. This whoreson piss-pot little bastard stole my wife away, and now he won’t tell me where she is.”

The four villagers considered, glancing at one another and at the sword at Rhodry’s side. Even though the four of them would have had more than a good chance against one man, no matter how skilled with a sword, it seemed they were the prudent sort.

“Ah well,” the blacksmith said. “Then it’s no affair of ours, if he’s been meddling with your woman.”

“Just get him out of my house,” the baker moaned.

“Gladly. Rats don’t belong in a granary.”

Rhodry twisted Perryn’s right arm behind his back and shoved him out of the bakery. When his victim struggled, Rhodry swung him sideways and knocked him against the wall of the next house so hard that he screamed.

“Where’s Jill?”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

Rhodry hit him in the stomach so hard he vomited, falling to his knees. When he was done, Rhodry hauled him up, twisted his arm again, and then marched him round the bakery to a big stone shed. He threw him face forward against the wall, peeled him off and turned him round, then shoved him back again. By then Perryn could barely stand up.

“For the last time, where is she?”

Gasping, Perryn wiped feebly at the blood pouring from his nose and from a cut over his eye. Rhodry unbuckled his sword belt and let it drop.

“Come on, coward! Draw on me, if you dare.”

Perryn merely gasped and sniveled. Rhodry’s stomach tightened in sheer contempt.

“You base-born little half-gelded swine!”

Rhodry jumped him, grabbed him with one hand, and began hitting him as hard as he could with the other. The pleasure of beating Perryn filled his entire mind, just as when a sheet of flame races through the forest and sweeps everything before it. Suddenly he remembered the holy vow he’d sworn to Benoic. He let Perryn go and leaned him back against the wall. Fortunately, the lord was still breathing. He looked at Rhodry for a moment with glazed eyes, one of which was already swelling shut, tried to speak, gasped, then crumpled, sliding slowly down the wall to the ground. Rhodry gave him one last kick and turned to find the four villagers, standing as solemnly as judges, and three small boys, wide-eyed with excitement. Nearby was the gray gnome, clapping its hands and grinning while it did a little victory dance. Rhodry retrieved his sword belt and buckled it on while he caught his breath.

“There. I didn’t murder him, did I now?”

They all shook their heads in agreement.

“I thought silver daggers didn’t have wives,” said one of the boys.

“I did. Let me tell you somewhat. If ever you find another silver dagger with a wife, then you keep your blasted little paws off her.”

The lads looked at Perryn, then nodded again. When Rhodry walked toward them, they all parted to give him plenty of room and fell in behind him like an honor guard while he fetched his horse. He mounted and rode out, heading northwest to return to the river. His hands were bloody, bruised, and aching, but he’d never enjoyed a pain more in his life. As soon as he was out of sight of the village, the gnome appeared on his saddle peak.

“That was a splendid bit of fun, wasn’t it, little brother?”

With an evil grin the gnome nodded a yes.

“Now, am I going the right way? Is Jill heading for the river?”

Again, it nodded yes.

“Is she going to Cerrmor?”

It waggled its hands and shrugged its shoulders to show that it didn’t truly know. It occurred to Rhodry that place names would mean nothing at all to the Wildfolk.

“Well, if she’s on the river, I’ll catch her up, sure enough. My thanks, little brother. You’d best get back to Jill and keep an eye on her.”

Out of compassion on the one hand and a sense of having seen justice done on the other, the blacksmith and the baker picked Perryn up and carried him into the baker’s cow shed, where they laid him down on a heap of straw. Perryn could barely see them out of his swollen eyes. His chest ached so badly that he was sure Rhodry had broken a couple of his ribs and his lower lip was split and bleeding. The baker’s wife brought out a bowl of water, gave him a drink, then washed his face for him.

“Didn’t like the look of that silver dagger, I didn’t. Here, did you really take his wife?”

Perryn mumbled out a sound, that passed for “I did.”

“Huh. I don’t see why any lass would take you over him, but then, lasses is flighty sometimes. Ah well, you can stay here for a day or two, lad, if you’ll give me a couple of coppers for horse feed.”

Perryn nodded a yes, then fainted.

Irritated to the point of rage, Nevyn sat in his chamber and glared at Salamander’s image as it danced over the glowing coals in the charcoal brazier. The gerthddyn seemed honestly bewildered.

“But I couldn’t leave Jill with that lout—”

“Of course not, you, dolt! That isn’t the point. The point is this Perryn himself. You’ve left behind a gravely ill man—”

“Who repeatedly raped my brother’s woman.”

“I know that, and I’m furious about it, but what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s deathly ill.”

“If he dies, what loss will it be?”

“Hold your tongue, you chattering elf!”

Salamander’s image shrank back and turned pale. Nevyn took a breath and controlled himself.

“Now listen, Ebañy. If Perryn continues on this way, he’s going to pour out his life force until there’s precious little left. Then he’ll get some illness—most likely a consumption of the lungs—and die, just as you’ve guessed. But in the meantime, he’ll also be harming other women because he can’t help himself. He’s like a man with a plague, spreading foul humors and contagion over the countryside even though he doesn’t wish another soul harm. Now do you see?”

“I do at that, and my apologies.” Salamander did look sincerely chastened. “But what could I have done? Ensorceled him? Roped him like one of his horses and dragged him along with us? Jill can’t bear the sight of him, and in her state—”