The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage (4 page)

The
N
orth
C
ountry

AUTUMN
1116

Ah, the beginnings of things! In another place have I discoursed upon the complexities that weave the origin of any event, whether great or small. Ponder this well, for if a magician would set a great ritual in motion, then he must guard every word he says and weigh each move he might make, down to the smallest gesture of one hand, for at the births of things their outcomes lie in danger, just as in its cradle an infant lies helpless and vulnerable to the malice of the world
.

—The Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll

Loathing. Dallandra could put no other name to her feeling. Wrapped in a heavy wool cloak, she was standing on top of the wall that circled Gwerbret Cadmar’s dun. Below and around her the town of Cengarn spread out over three hills, bound them with curving streets, choked them with round stone houses, roofed in filthy black thatch. Behind most of the houses stood pens for cows and chickens and of course, dung heaps. Out on the muddy streets she could pick out movement—townsfolk hurrying about their business or perhaps a pack of half-starved dogs. Here and there stood trees, dark and leafless under the grey sky.

The view behind her looked no better. Massive stone towers, joined together, formed the dark and brooding broch complex in the center of the dun. The muddy ward of the enormous fort swarmed with dirty servants and warriors, cursing as they led their horses through a clutter of pigsties and sheep pens. A blacksmith was hammering at his forge; pages sang off-key or chivvied the serving wenches, who swore right back at them. In the crisp autumn air the stink rose high—human waste, animal waste, smoke, spoiled food—overpowering the pomander of Bardek cloves she held to her nose. You should be used to it by now, she told herself. She knew that she never would get used to it, no matter how long she lived among human beings.

“Dalla!” A man’s voice hailed her from below. “Care for a bit of company?”

Without waiting for her answer Rhodry Maelwaedd, who preferred to be known only as Rhodry from Aberwyn, began climbing the wooden ladder that led up the catwalk. A tall man, but oddly slender from shoulder to hip, he was handsome in his way with his dark blue eyes and ready smile. Despite the touches of silver in his raven-black hair and his weatherbeaten skin, he looked young and moved fast and smoothly, too, like a young man. She knew, however, that he’d been born well over eighty winters ago. Although he shared her elven blood—his mother had been human, his father one of the Westfolk like Dallandra—he seemed to have distinctly human opinions about some things. He leaned on the parapet and grinned down at Cengarn.

“A fine sight, isn’t it?” he said.

“Maybe to you. I hate being shut up like this.”

“Well, no doubt. But I mean, it’s a fine thing to see the town standing and not some smoking heap of ruins.”

“Ah, now there I have to agree with you.”

But a few months before, Cengarn had stood in danger of being reduced to rubble, besieged as it was by a marauding army. Now the only threats hanging over the town were those faced by every city in Deverry each winter—disease, cold, and starvation. Dalla leaned on the parapet next to him, then stepped back. He smelled as bad as the rest of them.

“What’s wrong?” Rhodry said.

“That stone is cold. Damp, too.”

“True enough.” But he stayed where he was. “We should have snow soon.”

She nodded agreement and glanced at the lowering sky. A nice thick white blanket of snow—it would hide the dirt, she hoped, and freeze the offal and excrement hard enough to kill the stink.

“There’s somewhat I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said after a moment. “I’ve been having some cursed strange dreams. Do you think they might mean dweomer at work?”

“I’ve no idea. Tell me about them.”

“Well, it’s the Raven Woman, you see. She comes to me in my dreams and taunts me.”

“That
is
serious. Here, let’s go somewhere warm, where we can sit and talk.”

They climbed down the ladder and picked their way across the mucky ward. As they passed, the various servants and riders out and about fell silent, turned to stare, and even, every now and then, crossed their fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft. Dallandra ducked into a side door of the broch and out of sight of the crowded ward.

“Safe,” she whispered.

“What?” Rhodry said. “Do you feel danger coming our way?”

“My apologies. It’s the way everyone looks at me. I’m not used to being hated and feared.”

“Oh well, now, they don’t do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why would they?”

“All the dweomer they’ve seen lately. Etheric battles, shapechangers, the way Alshandra would appear in the sky like a goddess—too many strange things, too many things they never should have seen. The Guardians live by their own laws, not those of the dweomer.”

Rhodry considered.

“True enough,” he said at last. “We’ve all seen more than we can explain away.”

Her chambers lay at the very top of a side tower; her door shared a landing with heaps of bundled arrows and piles of stones, ammunition stored against another siege like the one so recently lifted. The chamber itself was a slice of the round floor plan set off from the storage area by wickerwork partitions. Straw covered the plank floor, and wooden shutters hung closed over the single window.

Rhodry perched on the wide windowsill and let her have the only chair. Before she sat down she heaped chunks and sticks of charcoal into a brass brazier, then snapped her fingers to summon the Wildfolk of Fire. When the charcoal glowed, she held her hands over the warmth.

“Aren’t you cold there in the drafts?” Dallandra said.

“Not so I notice.”

She was always amazed at how little cold and other discomforts, even pain itself, bothered him; his dangerous life had turned his entire body into a weapon, hard as forged steel. Matters of magic, however, lay beyond his strength.

“These cursed dreams!” he snapped. “I don’t mind admitting that I’m half-afraid to sleep at night. You wouldn’t have a talisman, would you, to drive them away?”

“Nothing so simple. Tell me about them.”

“I’ve been thinking a good bit about it. They have a sameness to them. I’ll be walking somewhere I know well, this dun, say, or the town, or even Aberwyn. And all of a sudden, the air around me will turn thick, like, and a bluish color, like looking into deep water, and there the bitch will be, stark naked and taunting me. She keeps saying she’ll have my head on a pike one fine day and other little pleasantries.”

Dallandra swore at hearing her worst fear confirmed.

“You think it’s dweomer, don’t you?” He was grinning the twisted smile.

“I do. Whatever you do, don’t go chasing after her. She’s trying to draw your soul out of your body, you see.”

“And what then?”

“I don’t know. If she were a master of the dark dweomer, she’d be able to kill you, but she’s nothing of the sort. A poor little beginner, more like, who knows a few tricks and naught more.”

“A few tricks? Ye gods! She can turn herself into a blasted bird and fly, she can visit men in their dreams, and you call that tricks?”

“I do, because I’ve seen just enough of her to know that she doesn’t understand how she does it. Her power is all Alshandra’s doing, or it was. Now it’s Evandar’s wretched brother who’s causing all the trouble.”

Rhodry laughed, a high-pitched chortle that made her wince.

“Tricks,” he said again. “Well, if that’s all they are, you wouldn’t happen to have a few you could teach me, would you?”

“I don’t, but I’ve got a few of my own. I’ll scribe wards around you every night before you go to sleep.”

“Not so easy with me sleeping out in the barracks.”

“What? Is that where the chamberlain’s put you? After all you did this summer in the gwerbret’s service?”

“A silver dagger’s welcome is a short one and his honor shorter still.”

“That’s ridiculous! I’ll speak with the chamberlain for you.” Dallandra hesitated, glancing around. “Here, if you don’t mind a bit of gossip, there’s room enough in this chamber for both of us.”

“And why would a silver dagger mind gossip?” His smile had changed to something open and soft. “It’s your woman’s honor that’s at stake. But if there’s no one up here to know—”

“No one wants to live next to a sorcerer. Which has its uses. No one’s going to argue with me either, come to think of it. Why don’t you just fetch your gear and suchlike?”

“I’ll find young Jahdo and have him do it. He’s been earning his keep as my page.”

“It’s good of you to take the lad on like that.”

“Someone had to.” Rhodry stood up with a shrug. “He’s no trouble. I’m teaching him to read.”

“I keep forgetting you know how.”

“It comes as a surprise to most people, truly. But Jill made him a promise before she was killed, that she’d teach him, and so, well, I’ve taken on that promise with her other one, that she’d get him home again in the spring.”

Later that afternoon, with the chamberlain spoken to and Jahdo found, Rhodry’s gear got moved into her chamber. With the job done, Jahdo himself, a skinny dark-haired lad, brought Dallandra a message.

“My lady, the Princess Carra did ask me to come fetch you, if it be that you can come.”

“Is somewhat wrong?”

“It be the child, my lady, little Elessi.”

“Oh ye gods! Is she ill?”

“I know not. The princess, though, she be sore troubled.”

Dallandra found Carra—Princess Carramaena of the Westlands, to give her proper title—in the women’s hall, where she was sitting close to the hearth with her baby in her arms. Out in the center of the half-round room, Lady Ocradda, the gwerbret’s wife and the mistress of Dun Cengarn, sat with her serving women around a wooden frame and stitched on a vast embroidery in the elven style, all looping vines and flowers. The women glanced at Dallandra, then devoted themselves to their work as assiduously as if they feared the evil eye. Carra, however, greeted her with a smile. She was a pretty lass, with blond hair and big blue eyes that dominated her heart-shaped face, and young—seventeen winters as close as she could remember.

“Dalla, I’m so glad you’ve come, but truly, the trouble seems to be past, now.”

“Indeed?” Dallandra found a small stool and sat upon it near the fire. “Suppose you tell me about it anyway.”

“Well, it’s the wraps. She hates to be wrapped, and it’s so drafty and chill now, but she screams and fights and flings her hands around when I try to wrap her in a blanket. She won’t have the swaddling bands at all, of course.”

At the mention of swaddling, Lady Ocradda looked up and shot a sour glance at the princess’s back. The women of the dun had lost that battle early in the baby’s life. At the moment Elessario was lying cradled in a blanket in Carra’s arms and sound asleep, wearing naught but her diapers and a little shirt made of old linen, soft and frayed.

“Most babies like to be warm,” Dallandra said.

“By the fire like this she’s fine. But when I put her down in my bed, it’s so cold without the wraps, but she screams if I put them round her.”

“It’s odd of her, truly, but no doubt she’ll get used to them in time.”

“I hope so.” Carra looked at her daughter with some doubt. “She’s awfully strong-willed, and here she was born just a month ago. You know, it seems so odd, remembering when she was born. It seems like she’s been here forever.”

“You seem much happier for it.”

Carra laughed and looked up, grinning.

“I am, truly. You know, it was the strangest thing, and I feel like such an utter dolt now, but all the time I was carrying her, I was sure I was going to die in childbed. When I look back, ye gods, I was such a simpering dolt, always weeping, always sick, always carrying on over this and that.”

“Well, my dear child,” Ocradda joined in. “Being heavy with child takes some women that way. No need to berate yourself.”

“But it was all because I was so afraid,” Carra said with a shake of her head. “That’s what I realized, just the other day. I was just as sure as sure that I was going to die, and it colored everything. I’d wake up in the morning and look at the sunlight, and I’d wonder how many more days I’d live to see.”

“No doubt you were frightened as a child,” Ocradda said. “Too many old women and midwives tell horrible tales about childbirth where young girls can hear them. I’ve known many a lass to be scared out of her wits.”

“I suppose so.” Carra considered for a moment. “But it was absolutely awful, feeling that way.”