A Time of Justice

‘Here, Mother, sit at my right, will you?’ Dwaen rose to greet the dowager. ‘Cado, if you’ll oblige by sitting with my sister?’

Cadlew was so eager to oblige that it occurred to Dwaen that it was time he found his sister a husband. Although he glanced his mother’s way to see if she’d noticed the young lord’s reaction, she was staring absently out into space.

‘Oh now here, Mam, Da wouldn’t have wanted you to fill your life with misery just because he’s gone to the Otherlands.’

‘I know, but I’m just so worried.’

‘What? What about?’

‘Dwaen, Dwaen, don’t put me off ! I can’t believe that a man like Beryn is going to let this thing lie.’

‘Well now, it’d be a grave thing for him to break the gwerbret’s decree of justice, and he knows it. Besides, he’s got his own sense of honour. If he kills me, there’ll be no one left to carry on the blood feud, and I doubt me if he’d do a loathsome thing like killing a man who had no hope of vengeance.’

Slaecca merely sighed, as if in disbelief, and went back to staring across the hall.

On the morrow Dwaen and Cadlew took the gwertrae out to hunt rabbits in a stretch of wild meadow land some few miles from the dun. They had no sooner ridden into the grass when the dog raised a sleeping hare. With one sharp bark, it took off after its prey. Although the brown hare raced and dodged, leaping high and twisting off at sharp angles, the gwertrae ran so low to the ground and fast that it easily turned the hare in a big circle and drove it back to the hunters. With a whoop of laughter, Cadlew spurred his horse to meet it and bent over to spear the hare off the ground with one easy stroke. All morning they coursed back and forth until the leather sack at Cadlew’s saddle peak bulged bloody from their kills.

The chase took them far from the farmlands of the demesne to the edge of the primeval oak forest, dark and silent, which once had covered the whole southern border of the Gwaentaer plateau, but which in Dwaen’s time existed only in patchy remnants. At a stream they dismounted, watered the horses and the dog, then sat down in the grass to eat the bread and smoked meat they’d brought with them. Cadlew cut the head off one of the hares and tossed it to the gwertrae, who stretched out with its hind legs straight behind and gnawed away.

‘Oh, a thousand thanks for this splendid gift,’ Cadlew said. ‘I think I’ll name him Glas.’

‘If you like, tomorrow we can take the big hounds and ride into the forest. We could do with some venison at the dun.’

‘And when have I ever turned down a chance to hunt?’

Thinking of the morrow’s sport, Dwaen idly looked into the forest. Something was moving – a trace of motion, darting between two trees among bracken and fem. Even though the oaks themselves were just starting into full leaf, the shrubs and suchlike among them were thick enough. Puzzled, he rose for a better look. Cadlew followed his gaze, then with a shout threw himself at Dwaen’s legs and knocked him to the ground just as an arrow sped out of the cover. It whistled over them by several feet, but if Dwaen had been standing, he would have been skewered. Growling, the gwertrae sprang up and barked, lunging forward at the hidden enemy. Another arrow sang and hit it full in the chest. With a whimper Glas fell, writhed and pawed at the air, then lay still. Another arrow hit the grass and struck quivering not two feet from Dwaen’s head. He felt a cold, rigid calm: they were going to die. With neither mail nor shield, it mattered not if they lay there like tourney targets or tried to charge; it was death either way. Oh great Bel, he prayed, come to meet us on the misty road!

‘Shall we charge?’ Cadlew whispered.

‘Might as well die like men.’

Cadlew rolled free, grabbed a spear, and jumped to his feet with a warcry. As he did the same, Dwaen could almost feel the bite of the arrow bringing his Wyrd. But the enemy never loosed his bow again. When they took a couple of cautious steps forward, he saw nothing moving among the trees but a bird on a branch.

‘Well,’ Dwaen said. ‘I think me I’ve just been given a message.’

‘Beryn?’

‘Who else? I wager that if I’d been alone, I’d be dead by now, but no doubt he didn’t want to murder you with me. He’s got naught against you and your clan.’

‘If he tries to kill you again, he’ll have to kill me first, but I’d rather it was in open battle.’

‘It might come to that.’

Cadlew picked up the dead gwertrae and slung it over his saddle, but since Dwaen didn’t want his womenfolk alarmed, they asked a farmer to bury it for them rather than taking it back to the dun.

All that afternoon, even though he managed to make polite conversation with his guest and bis family, Dwaen brooded. Lord Beryn’s lands were only about ten miles to the west, close enough for him to haunt the edges of the demesne in hope of catching his enemy unaware. Yet he couldn’t imagine Beryn using a bow instead of a sword, and besides, how had the old bastard known exactly when and where he’d gone to hunt? Not that he and Cadlew had made any secret of their plan – the question was how Beryn had heard of it, a question that was answered the very same night, when he went up to bed.

Theoretically, now that he’d inherited, Dwaen should have been using his father’s formal suite on the floor just above the great hall, but since he had no desire to move his mother out of her bed, he kept to his spare, small chamber on the third floor of the broch. When he came in that night, carrying a lantern himself rather than bothering a page, he saw a lump under the blankets on the narrow bed. He threw the covers back and found a dead rat, mangled, stabbed over and over to a blood-soaked mess, and stuffed into a neck wound was the tail feather of a raven.

With an involuntary yell, Dwaen jumped back, the lantern shaking and bobbing to throw wild shadows on the walls.

‘Dwaen?’ Cadlew’s voice came muffled through the door. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Not truly. Come in, will you?’

When Cadlew saw the rat, he swore under his breath, then took the poker from the hearth and flipped the foul thing onto the floor.

‘Beryn’s got a man in this dun,’ Cadlew said.

‘Obviously, unless that pedlar who was here this afternoon was actually a spy.’

‘Who would have let him come upstairs? Here, on the morrow. I’ll send a message home and tell them that I’m staying at your side.’

‘You’ve never been more welcome.’

Dwaen gathered up his blankets and went to share Cadlew’s chamber, but he lay awake for a long time after his friend was snoring. Although he’d realized that Beryn would hate him for demanding justice, he’d never thought the lord would seek such a coward’s revenge. But he’s got no choice, he thought, because if he challenges me openly, the gwerbret will intervene. A traitor in his own dun! The thought sickened him, that one of his own men could be bribed against him. It might only be a servant, of course, but still, he was forced to realize that from now on, he could trust no one.

The round, thatched farmhouse sat behind a low earthen wall about a hundred yards from the road. Out in the dusty yard, a man was throwing a bucket of slops to a pair of skinny grey hogs. When Jill and Rhodry led their horses up to the gate, he lowered the bucket and looked them over narrow-eyed.

‘Good morrow,’ Rhodry said. ‘Would your wife happen to have any extra bread to sell to a traveller?’

‘She wouldn’t,’ he paused to spit on the ground, ‘silver dagger.’

‘Well, then, could we pay you to let us water our horses in your trough?’

‘There’s plenty of streams in the forest down the road. But here, that forest is our lord’s hunting preserve. Don’t you silver daggers go poaching in it.’

‘And who is your lord?’

‘Tieryn Dwaen of Bringerun, but he’s too good a man to have any truck with the likes of you.’

At that the farmer picked up his bucket and turned back to his hogs. As they rode off, Rhodry was swearing under his breath.

About a mile further on, the forest sprang up abruptly at the edge of cleared land, a dark, cool stand of ancient oaks, thick with underbrush along the road. In the warmth of a spring day Jill found it pleasant, riding through the dappled shade and listening to the bird-song and all the rustling, scrabbling music of the lives of wild things – the chatter of a squirrel here, the creak of branches there, the occasional scratching in the bracken that indicated some small animal was beating a retreat as the horses passed by. That she would be riding through this splendour with her Rhodry at her side seemed to her the most glorious thing in the world.

‘Shall we stop and eat soon?’ Jill said. ‘We’ve got cheese, even if that whoreson piss-pot bastard wouldn’t sell us any bread. I hear water running nearby.’

Sure enough, the road took a twist and brought them to the deep, broad Belaver, which paralleled the road. At the bank they found a grassy clearing that sported a tall stone, carved with writing. Since Rhodry knew how to read, he told Jill that it served notice that no one could hunt without permission of the tieryn at Bringerun. After they watered their horses, they ate their cheese and apples standing up, stretching after the long morning’s ride, and idly watched the river flowing past, dappled with sun like gold coins. All at once Jill felt uneasy. She walked away from the river and stood listening by the road, but she heard nothing. That was the trouble: the normal forest noise had stopped.

‘Rhodry? We’d best be on our way.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you hear how quiet it is? That means there’s men prowling round, and I’ll wager they’re the tieryn’s gamekeepers. We’d best stay on the public road if we don’t want trouble.’

They mounted and rode out, but as they let the horses amble down the road, Jill realized that she was still listening for something, hunting horns, barking dogs, some normal noise that should accompany gamekeepers on their rounds, but she heard nothing. In about a mile the bird-song picked up again.

As they rounded a bend, they met another party of riders ambling toward them. Two women led the way, a pretty lass in a rich blue dress and an older person in grey who seemed to be her serving woman from the deferential manner in which she spoke. Behind them on a pony rode a page carrying a big basket and bringing up die rear, a swordsman on a warhorse, their escort. Since he was wearing no mail, they could see the blazon, a stag leaping over a fallen tree, embroidered on the yokes of his shirt. Jill and Rhodry pulled off the road to let the lady past, a courtesy which she acknowledged with a sunny smile and a wave of her gloved hand.

‘My lady?’ Rhodry called out. ‘May I ask whom we have the honour of seeing?’

‘Lady Ylaena of Bringerun.’ The page answered for the lady as was his place. ‘Sister to Tieryn Dwaen.’

Rhodry bowed from the saddle with such a bright smile that Jill felt a stab of jealousy. She would never have pretty dresses and soft, pale skin like Ylaena’s. On the other hand, she could knock Rhodry all over a stable-yard if he ever tried to betray her, an advantage that the lady would lack in dealing with her eventual husband. Once the noble party had ridden by, they returned to the road.

‘No doubt they’re meeting that hunting party we heard,’ Rhodry remarked.

But his words caught Jill like an omen. Although she tried to talk herself out of it, she felt trouble round them like a cold wind. They’d ridden no more than half-a-mile when she surrendered.

‘Rhoddo, we’ve got to turn back. That lady’s in danger. I know it sounds daft, but I know it as well as I know the sky’s blue. If we meet them, and I’m wrong, we can make up some tale about having lost a bit of gear in the road or suchlike.’

Jill could hear her voice shaking, and it was this fear that convinced Rhodry. As they turned back, she wished that they could dismount and put on their mail, but she somehow knew that there was no time. Suddenly they heard a woman scream, and then a shout and the clash of metal on metal. With a howl of unearthly laughter, Rhodry drew his sword and kicked his horse to a gallop. Sword in hand, Jill raced after him.

As they charged up to the clearing by the river, Jill saw a welter of horses and ill-armoured men: two attacking the Stag rider, who was already bleeding as he swung his sword and yelled; two more grabbing the reins of the ladies’ horses, and one last beating the helpless page about the head. Rhodry charged straight into the mêlée and killed a man from behind, then swung on another. Jill galloped past and cut at the man struggling with the reins of Ylaena’s terrified palfrey. When she sliced him across the back, he screamed and dropped the reins.

‘Ride!’ Jill shouted at the lady.

When Jill shifted her weight in the saddle her battle-trained horse swung round to the rescue of the serving woman, whose screams echoed above Rhodry’s berserker’s laugh. Jill ducked her enemy’s clumsy blow and slashed him across the throat.

‘My apologies,’ Jill said. ‘You poor bastard.’

For the briefest of moments he stayed upright, staring at her in disbelief, then fell dead over his horse’s neck. Jill’s stomach churned; for all that she was good with the blade she carried, she hated killing. She had no need of sending another man to the Otherlands that day, however, because the rest of the bandits were already racing down the road to the north.

‘Let them go!’ Rhodry called out. ‘We can’t leave the women.’

When Jill turned back, she found him dismounted and pulling the Stag rider down from his saddle. Although the serving woman clung to her saddle peak and sobbed, Ylaena dismounted and ran to the page.

‘Get down, Larro. Let me see what that man did to you.’

Shaking too hard even to weep, the lad swung down and threw himself into her arms. Jill dismounted and joined Rhodry, kneeling beside the Stag rider. His face slashed with bloody cuts, he tried to speak, then died in Rhodry’s arms.

‘Ah horseshit.’ Rhodry laid him down gently. ‘I didn’t think they had brigands in this part of the kingdom.’

‘Not brigands,’ Ylaena said from behind them. ‘My brother would never allow such a thing, not if he had to call in every alliance he had to chase them from his lands.’

They rose, Rhodry hastily wiping his blood-stained hands on his brigga.

‘I owe you my life, silver daggers. Will you escort us back to my dun? I’ll see that you’re well-paid for it.’

‘My lady will have our protection for the honour of the thing.’ Rhodry made her a bow. ‘But we’d best hurry. Those cowards might realize that there’s only two of us and come back.’

Between them Jill and Rhodry got the dead men tied over their saddles. When they rode out, the lady, her serving woman, and the page each led one of the extra horses to leave Jill and Rhodry free in case of attack, her at the head of the line, him in the dangerous rear-guard. As they trotted down the road, Jill turned constantly in her saddle and peered into the trees, but apparently the attackers were the cowards Rhodry had called them, because their terrified procession came free of the forest without any more trouble. Out on the open road among the settled farms they were safe. With a sharp sigh of relief Jill sheathed her sword, then fell back to ride beside Ylaena.

‘I’ll take the reins of that horse, my lady. You shouldn’t have to lead it like a caravan guard.’

‘My thanks.’ Ylaena handed them over. ‘You know, I think it’s the strangest thing of all that another lass would save my life, but you have my heart-felt thanks.’

Tieryn Dwaen stood by the hearth in his great hall and shook with rage. Rhodry had never seen a man as furious as this slender, dark-haired young lord, whose right hand clenched and unclenched on his sword hilt for the entire time that it took for Ylaena to tell the tale, sitting in her brother’s chair with Lord Cadlew behind her. When she was done, the tieryn turned to the silver daggers.

‘And how can I ever repay you for this? I never dreamt they’d dare harm my womenfolk, the bastards!’

‘They, Your Grace?’ Rhodry said. ‘Who?’

‘Someone’s been trying to murder me. It’s just that I never would have thought in a thousand years that Beryn would take his vengeance out on my sister.’

Ylaena covered her face with both hands and wept, while Cadlew patted her shoulder.

‘Dwaen,’ he growled. ‘I want blood for this.’

‘So do I. Lots of it.’

‘They weren’t going to kill me.’ Ylaena struggled with her voice to steady it. ‘I heard them yelling. Don’t harm the ladies, they said. They were just going to take us somewhere.’

‘And what would they have done then?’ Cadlew snarled. ‘When you ride to war, Dwaen, me and my warband will ride with you.’

‘If it comes to war. I intend to let the gwerbret settle this by law if ever I can.’

Cadlew muttered some inaudible frustration.

In the great hall every man in the warband and every servant in the dun stood round, straining to hear. Dwaen yelled at them all to get out, then asked Cadlew to escort Ylaena up to the women’s hall. He himself took Jill and Rhodry to the table of honour and insisted on pouring them mead with his own hands.

‘My lord?’ Rhodry said. ‘I was just up in Ebonlyn, and someone tried to hire me to murder a noble-born man. I’m beginning to wonder if the man was you.’

‘Mayhap it was. Let me tell you my tale.’

While Dwaen told him of the previous attempt on his life and Beryn’s probable motive, Rhodry grew more and more baffled.

‘By the pink asses of the gods, Your Grace, why doesn’t he just challenge you to an honour duel? You could have the matter settled before the gwerbret even heard of it.’

‘I’ve spent many an hour wondering the same thing. Rats in my bed? It sounds like old tales of witchcraft and suchlike. I can’t believe Lord Beryn would stoop so low.’

Lallyc, the captain of the tieryn’s warband, trotted over and knelt at his lord’s side.

‘Your Grace? None of the men recognize those two dead ‘uns, and here we spent plenty of time with Beryn’s men before the murder.’

‘Well, I never thought Beryn would send men from his own warband.’ Dwaen gave him a black-humoured grin. ‘He might as well hire a herald to proclaim his intent as do that. But I can’t think of another man in the world who’d want me dead. Unless, captain, I’m just being vain?’

‘Not in the least, my lord,’ Lallyc said with a firm nod. ‘I’ve never known you to harm anyone. Why, you wouldn’t even cheat in a horse race. Besides, if anyone else felt injured, they’d know they could come sit by our gates and starve in safety. I can’t see you breaking the holy laws by driving them away.’

‘True enough. Well, looks like I’ve got a hire for you, silver daggers.’

When Cadlew returned, the two lords worked out what struck Rhodry as a sensible plan. If Dwaen rode to the gwerbret in Ebonlyn, he would be vulnerable out on the road, because his rank only allowed him to bring an honour guard of fifteen men into the gwerbret’s presence, fewer than Beryn kept in his warband. If Cadlew accompanied him, however, the young lord could bring ten men of his own, and since it seemed clear that Beryn had no intention of murdering Cadlew if he could help it, having him along would doubtless be the best protection Dwaen could have. They could also bring the two silver daggers in addition to the honour guard, because Jill and Rhodry qualified as witnesses.

‘I’ll take Laryn, too,’ Dwaen said. ‘But I don’t want to risk bringing Ylaena in to give evidence.’

‘Your Grace?’ Rhodry put in. ‘But will she be safe here as long as there’s a traitor in the dun?’

‘She won’t, and that’s true enough. Ah by the hells! To think that I got into this stinking mess out of regard for the laws and naught more!’

As she considered Dwaen’s peculiar story, Jill grew more and more sure that the traitor had to be a servant, not a rider, because members of the warband had no business being anywhere near the tieryn’s chambers. A servant seen near his bedroom, however, would be taken for granted. All afternoon she wandered round the dun and introduced herself to the various servitors, the head groom, the blacksmith, the pigkeeper, and finally, the cook, each of whom told her they thanked the gods daily for giving them places in the dun of a lord who was, for a change, so generous and just. Jill found it very hard to believe that any of them would ever betray their master.

Jill left the kitchen hut to find a battle brewing. A pair of kitchen maids were standing by the well, their buckets forgotten beside them while they took turns sneering at a blonde lass who had her hands set on her hips and her mouth twisted in sheer rage.

‘You’ve got a man in the village,’ said one of the mockers.

‘And what business is it of yours?’

‘None, I’m sure, but you’d best be careful, you with one bastard already.’

‘You’re naught but a slut, Vyna,’ the other mocker joined in, and she was a severe sort with squinty eyes at that. ‘I don’t see how you can carry on like that, with never a thought for the consequences.’

‘Don’t you call me a slut.’ Vyna’s voice was dangerously level.

‘I will!’ said Squinty Eyes. ‘Slut! Slut! Slut! Leaving your baby behind you!’

Scarlet with rage Vyna charged, grabbing the maid’s hair with one hand and slapping her across the mouth with the other. Shrieking, the third lass joined in, all of them pulling each other’s hair and scrabbling with their nails at each other’s faces. Jill ran forward and intervened just as the cook came waddling and yelling out of the kitchen. While the cook bellowed for peace Jill grabbed the pair of lasses and knocked them apart so hard that they cowered back by the wall. Vyna stood sobbing, her dress torn, the tears running down her face.

‘My thanks, silver dagger,’ the cook said. ‘As for you two, get on with your work. You’ve tormented the lass enough, and I’m sick to my guts of hearing it.’

Jill caught Vyna’s arm and led her to a private spot among the various huts and storage sheds. Snivelling, the lass wiped her face on her apron and stammered out thanks.

‘Most welcome. I hate seeing two against one in a fight.’

‘They’ve been on me and on me ever since I came here. Don’t they know how much it ached my heart to give up my baby? I miss him every day, but I had no choice.’

‘Where did you leave him? With your kin?’

‘I didn’t. My Mam wouldn’t take me in.’ Vyna stared down at the ground, and her voice dropped. ‘But I was lucky, I suppose. I used to work in another dun, and the lady gave me the coin to put my baby in fosterage to a farmer’s wife she knew.’

‘I see. It wasn’t Cadlew’s dun, was it?’

‘It wasn’t. What made you think so?’

‘Oh, just an idle wondering. He and the tieryn seem such close friends.’

‘They are, but they’d never notice the likes of me. Here, my thanks again, but I’ve got to get back to my work.’

She turned and ran across the ward, dodging among the huts as if to hide from Jill and the world as well.

Jill went upstairs to the women’s hall, which filled half of the second floor of the broch, a spacious sunny room with two Bardek carpets on the polished wood floor and a profusion of chairs and cushions scattered about. Ylaena and the dowager Slaecca sat together near a window, sewing on an embroidered coverlet that draped both their knees – part of Ylaena’s dowry, Jill assumed. Jill bowed to the dowager and knelt beside her chair.

‘Now you’re not to trouble your heart, my lady. Lady Ylaena can tell you that I don’t carry a sword just for the pretty scabbard, so no one’s going to harm you.’

Slaecca whispered out a thanks so faint that her daughter leaned forward and squeezed her hand for reassurance.

‘Come now, Mam, Lord Cadlew’s promised me that he’ll guard our Dwaen, too. I’ll just wager the gwerbret puts a stop to all of this as soon as he finds out.’

‘I’ll pray so,’ Slaecca said. ‘Oh by the Goddess! I don’t want things coming to a war.’