Kerr,Katharine - Deverry 05 - A Time Of Exile

Prologue

The Eldidd Border

1096

“AS THRIFTY AS a dwarf” is a common catchphrase, and one that the Mountain People take for a

compliment. Although they see no reason to waste anything, whether it’s a scrap of cloth or the heel of a

loaf, they keep a particularly good watch over their gemstones and metals, though they never tell anyone

outside their kin and clan just how they do it. Otho, the silver daggers’ smith down in Dun Mannannan,

was no different than any other dwarven craftsman, unless he was perhaps more cautious than most. His

usual customer was some hotheaded young lad who’d dishonored himself badly enough to be forced to

join the silver daggers, and you have to admit that a wandering swordsman who fights only for coin, not

honor, isn’t the sort you can truly trust with either dwarven silver or magical secrets.

During his long years among humans in the kingdom of Deverry, Otho taught a few other smiths how to

smelt the rare alloy for the daggers, an extremely complicated process with a number of peculiar steps,

such as words to be chanted and hand gestures to be made just so. Otho would always refuse to answer

questions, saying only that if his students wanted the formula to come out right, they could follow his

orders, and if they didn’t, they could get out of his forge right then and spare everyone trouble. All the

apprentices shut their mouths and stayed; they were bright enough to realize that they were being taught

magic of some sort, even if they weren’t being told what the spells accomplished. Once they opened

shops of their own, they went on repeating Otho’s procedures in the exact way they’d been taught, so

that every dagger made of dwarven silver in Deverry carried two kinds of dweomer.

One spell Otho would acknowledge, especially to someone that he liked and trusted; the other he would

have hidden from his own brother. The first produced in the metal itself an antipathy to the auric

vibrations of the elven race, so that the dagger glowed brightly the moment an elf came within a few feet

of it. The other, the secret spell, was its necessary opposite, producing an affinity, in this case to the

dagger’s true owner, so that if lost or stolen, sooner or later the magical currents of the universe would

float that dagger home. The thing was, by “true owner” Otho meant himself, which meant that any lost

dagger would eventually come home to him, no matter who had actually made it or how much its interim

owner had paid for it. Otho justified all of this by thinking of the purchase price as mere rent, a trifling

detail that he never mentioned to his customers.

Once and only once had Otho produced an exception, and that was by accident. Round about 1044, he

made a dagger for Cullyn of Cerrmor, one of the few human beings he truly admired. In the course of

things, that blade passed to Rhodry Maelwaedd, a young lord who was forced by political exile to join

the silver daggers. As soon as Rhodry laid his hand on the dagger, it was obvious that his blood was a

little rarer than merely noble—the blade blazed up and accused him of being half an elf at least.

Grudgingly, and only as a favor for Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter, Otho took off the denouncing spell.

What Otho didn’t realize, since his dweomer was a thing of rote memory rather than real understanding,

was that he’d weakened the complementary magic as well. The dagger now saw Rhodry, not the dwarf,

as its one true owner.

A silver dagger’s life is never easy, and Rhodry’s time on the long road was worse than most, and by

one thing and another he managed to lose the blade good and proper, far away in the Bardekian

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archipelago across the Southern Sea, round about the year 1064. At the same time as Rhodry was killing

the man who’d stolen it, the dagger itself fetched up in the marketplace of a little mountain town called

Ganjalo, where it stayed for several years, stubbornly unsold. The merchant couldn’t understand—here

was this beautiful and exotic item, reasonably priced, that no one ever seemed to want to buy. Finally it

did catch the eye of an itinerant tinker, who knew of a rich man who collected unusual knives of all sorts.

Since this rich man lived in a seaport, the dagger allowed itself to be installed in the collection. Again,

some years passed, until the collector died and his sons divided up the various blades. The youngest,

who happened to be a ship’s captain, felt drawn to the dagger for some irrational reason and traded

another brother an entire set of pearl-handled fish knives for it. The next time this captain went to sea, the

dagger went with him.

But not to Deverry. The captain sailed back and forth from Bardek proper to the off-lying islands of

Orystinna, a lucrative run, and he saw no reason to consider making the dangerous crossing to the distant

barbarian kingdoms. After some years of this futile east-west travel, the dagger changed owners. While

gambling, the captain had an inexplicable run of bad luck and ended up handing the dagger over to a

friend to pay off his debt. The friend took it to a northern seaport and on a sudden whim sold it to

another marketplace jeweler, who bought it on the same kind of impulse. There it lay again, until a young

merchant passed by and happened to linger for a moment to look over the jeweler’s stock. Since this

Londalo traded with Deverry on a regular basis, he was always in need of little gifts to smooth his way

with customs officials and minor lords. The dagger had a barbarian look, and he bought it to take along

on his next trading run.

Of course, poor Londalo didn’t realize that in Deverry offering a silver dagger as a gift was a horrible

insult. He found out quick enough in the Eldidd town ofAbernaudd, where his ill-considered gesture cost

him a trading pact. As he bemoaned his bad luck in a tavern, a kindly stranger explained the problem,

and Londalo nearly threw the dagger onto the nearest dungheap then and there, which was more or less

what the dagger had in mind. Yet, because he also knew a lesson when he saw one, he ended up

keeping it as a reminder to never take other people’s customs for granted again. If silver could have

feelings, the dagger would have been livid with rage. Back and forth it went between Bardek and the

Deverry coast for some years more, while a richer, older Londalo became a respected and important

member of his merchant guild, until finally, in the spring of the year 1096, he and the dagger turned up in

Aberwyn, where Rhodry Maelwaedd now ruled as gwerbret. The magical currents around the dagger

thickened, swirled, and grew so strong that Londalo actually felt them, as a prick of something much like

anxiety.

On the morning that he was due to visit the gwerbret, Londalo stood in his chamber in the best inn

Aberwyn had to offer and irritably applied his clan markings. Normally a trained slave would have

painted on the pale blue stripes and red diamonds that marked him as a member of House Ondono, but it

was very unwise for a thrifty man to bring his slaves when he visited thekingdomofDeverry. Surrounded

by barbarians with a peculiar idea of property rights, slaves were known to take their chance at freedom

and disappear. When they did, the barbarian authorities became uncooperative at best and hostile at

worst. Londalo held his hand mirror at various angles to examine the paint on his pale brown skin and

finally decided that his amateur job would have to do. After all, the barbarians, even an important one

like the lord he was about to visit, knew nothing of the niceties of the art. Yet the anxiety remained.

Something was wrong; he could just plain feel it.

There was a knock at the door, and Harmon, his young assistant, entered with a respectful bob of his

head.

“Are you ready to leave, sir?”

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“Yes. I see you have the proposed trade agreements with you. Good, good.”

With a brief smile Harmon patted the heavy leather roll of a document case that he carried tucked under

one arm.

As they walked through the streets of Aberwyn, Londalo noticed his young partner looking this way and

that in distaste; occasionally he lifted a perfumed handkerchief to his nose as they passed a particularly

ripe dungheap. There was no doubt that visiting Deverry was hard on a civilized man, Londalo reflected.

The city seemed to have been thrown down around the harbor rather than built according to a plan. All

the buildings were round and shaggy with thatch, instead of square and nicely shingled; the streets

meandered randomly through and around them like the patterns of spirals and interlace the barbarians

favored as a decorative style. Everywhere was confusion: barking dogs, running children, men on

horseback trotting through dangerously fast, rumbling wagons, and even the occasional staggering drunk.

“Sir,” Harmon said at last “Is this really the most important city in Eldidd?”

“I’m afraid so. Now remember, my young friend, this man we’re going to visit will look like a crude

barbarian to you, but he has the power to put us both to death if we insult him. The laws are very

different here. Every ruler is judge and advocate both as long as he’s in his own lands, and a gwerbret,

like our lord here in Aberwyn, is a ruler far more powerful than one of our archons.”

In approximately the center of town lay the palace complex, or dun as the barbarians called it, of the

gwerbret. The barbarians all talked about how splendid it was, with its many-towered fortress inside the

high stone walls, but the Bardekians found the stonework crude and the effect completely spoiled by the

clutter of huts and sheds and pigsties and stables all around it. As they made their way through the bustle

of servants, Londalo suddenly realized that he was wearing the silver dagger on his tunic’s leather belt

“By the Star Goddesses! I must be growing old! I don’t even remember picking this thing up from the

table.”

“I don’t suppose it’ll matter, sir. All the men around here are absolutely bristling with knives.”

Although Londalo had never met this particular ruler before, he’d heard that Rhodry Maelwaedd,

Gwerbret Aberwyn, was an honest, fair-minded man, somewhat more civilized than most of his kind.

Londalo was pleased to notice that the courtyards were reasonably clean, the servants wore decent

clothing, and the corpses of hanged criminals were nowhere in sight. At the door of the tallest tower, the

broch proper, the aged chamberlain was waiting to greet them. In a hurried whisper Londalo reminded

Harmon that a gwerbret’s servitors were all noble-born.

“So mind your manners. No giving orders, and always say thank you when they do something for you.”

The chamberlain ushered them into a vast round room, carpeted with braided rushes and set about with

long wooden tables, where at least a hundred men, all of them armed with knife and sword both, were

drinking ale and nibbling on chunks of bread, while servant girls wandered around, gossiping or trading

smart remarks with the men more than working. Near a carved sandstone hearth to one side, one finer

table, made of ebony and polished to a shine, stood alone, the gwerbret’s place of honor. Londalo was

well pleased when the chamberlain seated them there and had a boy bring their ale in actual glass stoups.

Londalo was also pleased to see that the tapestry he’d sent ahead as a gift was hanging on the wall near

the enormous fireplace. As he absently fingered the hilt of the silver dagger, he realized that his strange

anxiety had left him. Harmon, however, was nervous, glancing continually at the mob of armed men

across the hall.

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“Now, now,” Londalo whispered. “The rulers here do keep their men in hand, and besides, everyone

honors a guest. No one’s going to kill you on the spot.”

Harmon forced out a smile, had a sip of ale, and nearly choked on the bitter, stinking stuff. Like the true

merchant he was, however, he covered over his distaste with a cough and forced himself to try again. In

a few minutes, two young men strode into the hall. Since their baggy trousers were woven from one of

the garish plaids that marked a Deverry noble, and since the entire warband rose to bow to them,

Londalo assumed that they were a pair of the gwerbret’s sons. They looked much alike, with wavy

raven-dark hair and cornflower-blue eyes. By barbarian standards they were both handsome men,

Londalo supposed, but he was worried about more than their appearance.

“By the Great Wave-father himself! I was told that there was only one son visiting here! We’ll have to

do something about getting a gift for the other, no matter what the cost.”

The chamberlain bustled over, motioning for them to rise, so they’d be ready to kneel at the proper

moment. Having to kneel to the so-called noble-born vexed Londalo, who was used to voting his rulers

into office and voting them out again, too, if they didn’t measure up to his standards. As one of the young

men strolled over, the chamberlain cleared his throat.

“Rhodry, Gwerbret Aberwyn, the Maelwaedd, and his son.”

In his confusion, Londalo almost forgot to kneel. Why, this lord could be no more than twenty-five at

most! Mentally he cursed the merchant guild for giving him such faulty information for this important

mission.

“We are honored to be in your presence, great lord, but you must forgive our intrusion in what must be a

time of mourning.”

“Mourning?” The gwerbret frowned, puzzled.

“Well, when we set sail for your most esteemed country, Your Grace, your father was still alive, or so I

was told, the elder Rhodry of Aberwyn.”

The gwerbret burst out laughing, waving for them to rise and take their seats again.

“I take it you’ve never seen me before, good merchant. I’ve ruled here for thirty years, and I’m four and

fifty years old. I’m not having a jest on you, either.” Absently he looked away, and suddenly his eyes

turned dark with a peculiar sadness. “Oh, no jest at all.”

Londalo forgot his protocol enough to stare. Not a trace of gray in the gwerbret’s hair, not one true line

in his face—how could he be a man of fifty-four, old back home, ancient indeed for a barbarian warrior?

Then the gwerbret turned back to him with a sunny smile.

“But that’s of no consequence. What brings you to me, good sir?”

Londalo cleared his throat to prepare for the important matter of trading Eldidd grain for Bardekian

luxuries. Just as he was about to speak, Rhodry leaned forward to stare.

“By the gods, is that a silver dagger you’re carrying? It looks like the usual knobbed pommel.”

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“Well, it is, Your Grace.” Mentally Londalo cursed himself all over again for bringing the wretched thing

along. “I bought it in the islands many years ago, you see, and I keep it with me because . . . well, it’s

rather a long story . . . ”

“In the islands? May I see it, good merchant, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Why, no trouble at all, Your Grace.”

Rhodry took it, stared for a long moment at the falcon device engraved on the blade, and burst out

laughing.

“Do you realize that this used to be mine? Years and years ago? It was stolen from me when I was in the

islands.”

“What? Really? Why, then, Your Grace absolutely must have it back! I insist, truly I do.”

Later that afternoon, once the treaty was signed and merchant on his way, the great hall of Aberwyn fell

quiet as the warband went off to exercise their horses. Although normally Rhodry would have gone with

them, he lingered at the table of honor and considered the odd twist of luck, the strange coincidence, as

he thought of it, that had brought his silver dagger home to him. A few serving lasses wandered around,

wiping down tables with rags; a few stable hands sat near the open door and diced for coppers; a few

dogs lay in the straw on the floor and snored. In a bit, his eldest son came down to join him. It was hard

to believe that the lad was fully grown, with two sons of his own now and the Dun Gwerbyn demesne in

his hands. Rhodry could remember how happy he’d been when his first heir was born, how much he’d

loved the little lad, and how much Cullyn had loved him. It hurt, now, thinking that his firstborn was

beginning to hate him, and all because his father refused to age and die. Not that Cullyn ever said a word,

mind; it was just that a coolness was growing between them, and every now and then Rhodry would

catch him staring at the various symbols of the gwerbretal rank, the dragon banner, the ceremonial sword

of justice, with a wondering sort of greed. Finally Rhodry could stand the silence no longer.

“Things are quiet in the tierynrhyn, then?”

“They are, Father. That’s why I thought I’d ride your way for a visit.”

Rhodry smiled and wondered if he’d come in hopes of finding him ill. He was an ambitious man, Cullyn

was, because Rhodry had raised him to be so, had trained him from the time he could talk to rule the vast

gwerbretrhyn of Aberwyn and to use well the riches that the growing trade with Bardek brought it. He

himself had inherited the rhan half by accident, and he could remember all too well his panicked feeling of

drowning in details during the first year of his rule to allow his son to go uneducated.

“That’s an odd thing, Da, that dagger coming home.”

“It was, truly.” Rhodry picked it up off the table and handed it to him. “See the falcon on the blade?

That’s the device of the man you were named for.”

“That’s right—he told me the story. Of how he was a silver dagger once, I mean. Ye gods, I still miss

Cullyn of Cerrmor, and here he’s been dead many a long year now.”

“I miss him too, truly. You know, I think I’ll carry this dagger again, in his memory, like.”

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“Oh here, Da, you can’t do that! It’s a shameful thing!”

“Indeed? And who’s going to dare mock me for it?”

Cullyn looked away in an unpleasant silence, as if any possible mention of social position or standing

could spoil the most innocent pleasure. With a sigh he handed the dagger back and picked up his tankard

again.

“We could have a game of Carnoic?” Rhodry said.

“We could, at that.” When Cullyn smiled at him, all his old affection shone in his dark blue eyes. “It’s too

muggy to go out hunting this afternoon.”

They were well into their third game when Rhodry’s wife, the Lady Aedda, came down to join them at

the honor table. She sat down quietly, even timidly, with a slight smile for her son. At forty-seven she had

grown quite stout, and there were streaks of gray in her chestnut hair and deep lines round her mouth.

Although theirs was a politically arranged marriage, and in its first years a miserable one, over time she

and Rhodry had worked out a certain accommodation to each other. He felt a certain fondness for her, a

gratitude that she had given him four strong heirs for Aberwyn.

“If my lady wishes,” Rhodry said, “we can end this game.”

“No need, my lord. I can watch.”

And yet, by a common, unspoken consent they brought the game to a close and put the pieces away.

Aedda had asked for so little from both of them over the years that they were inclined to give her what

small concessions they could. As the afternoon wore on in small talk about the doings of the various

vassals in the demesne, Rhodry drank more and more and said less and less. The heat, the long silences,

the predictability of his wife’s little remarks all weighed him down until at last he got up and strode out of

the hall. No one dared question him or follow.

His private chamber was on the third floor of a half-broch, a richly furnished room with Bardek carpets

on the floor and glass in the windows, cushioned chairs at the hearth and a display of five beautifully

worked swords on one wall. Rhodry threw open a window and leaned on the sill to look down on the

ward and the garden, where the dragon of Aberwyn sported in a marble fountain far below. One old

manservant ambled across the lawn on some slow errand; nothing else moved. For a moment Rhodry felt

as if he couldn’t breathe. He tossed his head with an oath that was half a keening and turned away.

For over thirty years he had held power, and for most of them he had loved it all: the symbols and

pageantry of his rank, the tangible power that he wielded in his court of justice and on the battlefield, the

subtle but even greater power he exercised in the intrigues of the High King’s court. As he looked back,

he could remember exactly when that love turned sour. He had been at the royal palace in Dun Deverry,

and as he entered the great hall, the chamberlain of course announced him. At the words “Rhodry,

Gwerbret Aberwyn,” every other noble-born man there turned to look at him, some in envy of one of the

king’s favorites, some in subtle calculation of what his presence would mean to their own schemes, others

with simple interest in the sight of so powerful a man. All he felt in return was irritation, that they should

gawk at him as at a two-headed calf in the market fair. And from that day, some two years earlier,

Rhodry had slowly come to wonder when he would die and be rid of everything he once had loved, free

and shut of it at last.

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He left the window and sat down in a half-round rosewood chair, intricately carved with interlace wound

about the dragons of Aberwyn, to draw his newly returned silver dagger and study it. Although the blade

looked like silver, it was harder than the best steel, and it gleamed without a trace of tarnish. When he

flicked it with a thumbnail it rang.

“Dwarven silver,” he muttered to himself. “Ah, by the lord of hell, I must be going daft, to wish I was out

on the long road again!”

He owned another piece of dwarven silver, too, a ring he always wore on the third finger of his right

hand, a simple band of elven workmanship, engraved with roses on the outside and a line of elven writing

on the in. Just as he held up his hand to look at the ring, a page opened the door.

“Your Grace? Am I disturbing Your Lordship?”

“Not truly.”

“Well, Your Grace, there’s this shabby old herbwoman at the door, and she’s insisting on speaking to

you. One of the guards was going to turn her away, but she gave us this look, Your Grace, and

I . . . well, I was frightened of her, so I thought I’d best tell you.”

Rhodry’s heart pounded once.

“Did she give you her name?”

“She did, Your Grace. It’s Jill.”

“I’ll receive her up here.”

The lad frankly stared, then bowed and trotted away.

While he waited for the woman he once had loved more than life itself, Rhodry paced back and forth

from window to door. He hadn’t seen Jill in thirty years, not since the night when she left him, simply rode

out of his life without a backward glance—or so he assumed—to follow a Wyrd even stranger than his

own. At first, he thought of her constantly, wondered if she missed him, wondered if her studies in the

strange craft of the dweomer were bringing her the happiness she sought. Yet as the years passed and his

wound healed, he let her memory rest except for an idle wondering every now and then if she were well.

Although she did come to Aberwyn to tend her dying father, Rhodry was at court in Dun Deverry at the

time. Every now and then, some news of her doings came his way, but never in any detail. Now she was

here. He was dreading seeing her, because she was only a few years younger than himself, and he hated

the thought of seeing her beauty ravaged by age. When he heard her crisp voice thanking the page, his

heart pounded once again. The door opened.

“The herbwoman, Your Grace.”

In strode a woman dressed in men’s clothing, a pair of dirty brown brigga and a much-mended linen

shirt, stained green in places from medicinal leaves and stems. Her hair, cropped like a lad’s, shone a

silvery gray, and crow’s-feet round her blue eyes ran deep, but she seemed neither young nor old, so full

of life and vigor that it was impossible to think of her as anything other than handsome. Beautiful she

wasn’t, not any longer, but as he stared at the face which coincided with the one belonging to his lovely

young lass of past years, he found that it fit her better than the beauty he was remembering. Her sudden

smile could move him still.

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“Aren’t you going to say one word to me?” she said with a laugh.

“My apologies. It’s just a bit of a shock, having you turn up like this.”

“No doubt. You’re in for a worse shock than that, I’m afraid.”

Without waiting to be asked she sat down in one of the chairs by the hearth. He took the other facing,

and for a few moments the silence deepened around them. Then he remembered that his silver dagger

must have been coming home at the same time as she was riding into Aberwyn, and he shuddered, feeling

a cold touch of Wyrd that made the hairs on the nape of his neck bristle.

“And what is this shock?”

“Well, for starters, Nevyn’s dead.”

Rhodry grunted as if at a blow. He’d known Nevyn, her teacher and master in the craft of magic, very

well indeed—in fact, Rhodry owed him his life and his rhan both.

“May the gods give him rest in the Otherlands, then. Somehow I thought the dweomer would keep the

old man alive forever.”

“He was beginning to wonder himself.” She grinned so broadly that it seemed inappropriate. “He was

glad to go, when the time came.”

“How did it happen? Was he ill, or was there an accident?”

“What? Oh, naught of that sort. It was time, and he went. He made his goodbyes to all of us and lay

down on his bed and died. That’s all.” Her smile faded. “I’ll miss him, though. Every hour of every day.”

“My heart aches for you, truly.”

As if to share his sympathy Wildfolk came, sprite and sylph and gnome, materializing like the fall of silent

drops of rain to float down and stand around them. When a skinny gray fellow climbed into Jill’s lap and

reached up to pat her cheek, she smiled again, shoving the mourning away. The sight of the Wildfolk

reminded Rhodry of his own problems. Whatever else Jill might have been to him, she was a

dweomermaster now, the possessor of strange powers and even stranger lore.

“IVe got a question for you,” he said. “How long does an elven half-breed like me live, anyway?”

“A good long while, though not so long as a true elf. I’d say you’ve got a hundred years ahead, easily,

my friend. When I’m buried and gone, you’ll still look like a lad of twenty.”

“By all the ice in all the hells! That can’t happen! How long will it be before all of Aberwyn figures out

that I’m no true Maelwaedd, then?”

“Not very, truly. The common folk are already whispering about you, wondering about dweomer and

suchlike. Soon enough the noble-born will, too, and they’ll come to you with a few hard questions about

exactly how much elven blood there is in the Maelwaedd clan, and whether or no those old rumors about

elves living forever are true. If someone found out who your true father was, it would be a nasty blow to

your clan’s honor.”

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“There’s a cursed sight more at stake than the honor of the Maelwaedds. Can’t you see, Jill? My sons

disinherited, and civil war in the rhan, and—”

“Of course I see!” She held her hand up flat for silence. “That’s the other reason I’ve come.”

He felt the cold again, rippling down his back. Thirty years since he’d seen her, and yet they still at times

shared thoughts.

“I had an omen,” she went on. “It was right after we buried Nevyn—me and the folk in the village where

we lived, that is—and I went walking out to a little lake near our home, where there’s a stand of rushes

out in the water. It was just at sunset, and there were some clouds in the sky. You know how easy it is to

see pictures in sunset clouds. So I saw a cloud shape that looked just like a falcon catching a little dragon

in her claws. Oho, think I, that’s me and Rhodry! And the minute I thought it, I felt the dweomer cold,

and I knew that it was true. And here I am.”

“That simple, is it? You think of me, and here you are?”

“Well, I had to ride to Aberwyn like anyone else.”

“Not what I meant. Why did the omen in the clouds make you come here?”

“Oh, that! None of your affair.”

He started to probe, but her expression stopped him: unsmiling, a little cool, like the cover of a book

abruptly slammed shut. He could remember Nevyn turning that same blank stare on questioners who

pried into things they weren’t meant to know. Gwerbret or not, he would only be wasting his time if he

should ask more.

“I don’t suppose you could cast some dweomer on me to make me age.”

“You’re still a ready man with a jest, aren’t you? I can’t, and I wouldn’t if I could. The way out’s

obvious, anyway. You’ll have to turn the rhan over to your eldest lad and leave Eldidd.”

“What? That’s a hard thing for a man of my rank to do.”

“If you give up the rhan, your son will keep it. If you try to keep it, your son will lose it.”

“It’s not just the blasted rhan! You’re asking me to leave blood kin behind. Jill, by the gods, I’ve got

grandsons.”

“Do you want to see them murdered to wipe out the last traces of a bastard line?”

With a groan he buried his face in his hands. Her voice went on remorselessly.

“Once the first whispers go round that you might not be a trueborn Maelwaedd, you’ll have to settle

them by the sword, and honor duels have led to wars before, especially with a rich prize like Aberwyn at

stake. If you lose the civil war, your enemies will hunt down every child who could even remotely be

considered your heir, even Rhodda’s lad.”

“Oh, hold your tongue! I know that as well as you do.”

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“Well, then?”

He looked up to find her watching him with a calm sort of wondering. For a moment he hated her.

“It’s all well and good to talk of me leaving Eldidd, but I’m not an exile or a shiftless younger son

anymore. If I present a petition to the king to allow me to abdicate, the rumors will pile up like horse

dung in a winter stable. Besides, what if our liege asks me my reasons outright? I could try to lie, but I

doubt me that I’d be convincing. The long knows me cursed well.”

She frowned at the hearth while she considered.

“You’re right, aren’t you? I’ll have to think about that.” Abruptly she rose. “If anyone asks you why I

came here, tell them I wanted to tell you about Nevyn, because that’s true enough in its own way. I’ll see

you again, and soon.”

Then she was gone, out and shutting the door before Rhodry could rise from his chair. For a while he

tried to convince himself that he’d been having a strange, drunken dream, but the elven ring gleamed on

his finger to remind him of the truth, that he would have to leave his clan behind for the sake of his love

for it Besides, the dweomer had saved his life several times over in the past, and he knew, with a sudden

cold certainty, that the time had come to repay his debt.

Bred and born to rule, carefully trained to impose his will on others while following every nicety of

courtesy, Cullyn Maelwaedd was unused to feeling guilt, and he hated this constant nag of conscience.

Every time he looked at his father, it bit deep and gnawed him that at times he wished that Rhodry

were . . . not dead, no, never that, but perhaps showing some signs that he might indeed die at some

point. In a way, his dilemma was unique. Because Rhodry had refused to send Cullyn into fosterage as

custom demanded and had taken the unheard-of step of raising his son himself, Cullyn was one of the

few noble lords in Devenry who honestly loved his father. Every time he caught himself wondering if he’d

ever actually inherit Aberwyn and felt the accompanying bite of guilt, he saw the wisdom of fosterage in a

world where a son’s power depends on his father’s death.

Cullyn also was fairly certain that his father suspected him of wishing him gone. After the first few days of

his visit, Rhodry became more and more withdrawn, spending long hours alone either riding through the

demesne or shut up brooding in his private chamber. Cullyn considered simply going home, but since

he’d said that he’d stay for ten days, he was afraid that leaving ahead of schedule would seem suspicious.

On the fifth morning he came down for breakfast only to find that Rhodry had already left the dun. He

went out to the stable to question the groom, but the gwerbret hadn’t said a word about where he was

going. As he made his way through the clutter of sheds behind the broch, he noticed two serving lasses

gossiping furiously about something, an activity that would have meant nothing if they hadn’t suddenly

fallen silent at the very sight of him. He walked on past, tormenting himself by wondering if even the

wretched common-born servants knew his secret.

Later, as he was going up to his chamber in the broch, a similar thing happened, two pages, this time,

who stopped talking the moment they saw him. Cullyn grabbed one of them by the shirt collar.

“And just what are you saying that’s unfit for my ears?”

The two boys went dead white and looked as if they wanted to run, but whether or not he would ever

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Kerr, Katharine - Deverry 05 - A Time Of Exile

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