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Gwairyc realized that for this moment at least he and his master, as he always thought of Nevyn, had found a common bond of sorts in their disgust. It would be a good time to bring up a matter very much on his mind.
‘There was somewhat else I wanted to ask you,’ Gwairyc said. ‘About these bandits, my lord. I can’t defend the caravan with my bare hands.’
‘Ah. You want your sword back, do you?’ Nevyn considered, but only briefly. ‘Very well. I’ll give it to you. Just don’t go drawing it on anyone but the bandits.’
‘I won’t, I swear it.’
The return of his sword raised Gwairyc’s spirits more than anything else could have, except perhaps the chance to kill a bandit or two with it. Unfortunately to his way of thinking, though not to anyone else’s, the ride through the mountains proved hot, tedious, and uneventful – except for a strange accident.
It happened on the steepest part of the road up to the main pass. In the sticky summer heat the caravan made slow progress that day and camped early when they found a reasonably flat area off to one side of the dusty trail. Lined with some sort of shrubby tree that Gwairyc couldn’t put a name to, a muddy rivulet ran nearby, flowing out of the forest cover and heading downhill. The hot day had exhausted everyone. The stock had to be tended and fed, exhaustion or no, but no one spoke more than they absolutely had to. With his share of the work done, one of the muleteers pulled off his boots, rolled up his trousers, and trotted off to soak his aching feet downstream from their drinking water. Gwairyc had just turned Nevyn’s mule into the general herd when he heard the man scream. Without thinking he drew his sword and ran just as a second agonized shriek rang out to guide him.
In the spotty shade the muleteer was lying sprawled with one leg held high in the air. It was such an odd posture that it took Gwairyc a moment to notice the blood sheeting down the muleteer’s leg. The fellow had stepped into a wire snare and tripped it. Now the thin wire was biting ever deeper into his unprotected ankle as he flailed his arms and screamed.
‘Hold still!’ Gwairyc put all his noble-born authority into his voice. ‘You’ll be hurt worse if you don’t.’
The fellow looked his way, sobbed once, and fainted. Gwairyc trotted over and considered the wire. He had no desire to blunt his blade by trying to cut it. His inspection showed that the thin strand forming the noose had been knotted repeatedly over a much thicker wire, reinforced with rope, that formed the long portion of the snare and anchored the whole contraption to a nearby sapling. By then another muleteer and Wffyn himself had come at the run. With a cascade of foul oaths the muleteer set to work untwisting the strands whilst the merchant supported the injured man’s leg.
‘I’ve never seen such a cursed strong snare,’ Wffyn remarked. ‘What was the hunter after, I wonder? A bear?’
‘That thing would never take a bear’s weight,’ Gwairyc said. ‘A deer? Not likely, either.’
‘Huh.’ Wffyn’s face was beginning to turn pale. He looked away from the muleteer’s blood-soaked leg. ‘Makes you wonder if that trap was set to catch a man. Guarding somewhat, like, close by here.’
‘It might be.’ Gwairyc sheathed his sword. ‘I’ll get Nevyn. Our friend here should thank the gods that the old man’s nearby.’
Indeed, whether it was the gods or luck, the fellow would have lost his foot and perhaps his life as well if it weren’t for Nevyn. Still, the process of getting the embedded wire out of the wound and the whole mess washed clean and stitched up was painful enough to watch, much less experience. The poor fellow would keep coming round only to faint again the moment Nevyn touched the leg. Gwairyc busied himself with heating water in an iron pot for steeping herbs while the rest of the caravan stayed strictly elsewhere. Only Tirro stuck close to them.
‘I could help,’ Tirro said. ‘I can look for firewood if you need to brew herbs.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Go to it, but be cursed careful where you put your feet.’
‘I will, sir.’
With a little bow of his head Tirro hurried off into the underbrush. In but a little space of time he came back with a good supply of dead branches. By then Nevyn had begun to stitch the wound. Tirro glanced at the muleteer’s leg and went decidedly pale.
‘Just feed some wood into the fire,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Don’t look.’
‘I won’t, sir.’ Tirro hunkered down by the fire.
The pot of water hung from a tripod. Tirro concentrated on breaking up branches and feeding bits into the fire underneath. He was doing well until the muleteer came round from a faint and began moaning. Tirro straightened up and looked at the leg just as Nevyn started pouring warm herb water over the wound, releasing a flood of clots and bits of skin. At that the lad turned dead-white and rushed away to vomit among the bushes.
By then Gwairyc could see even worse sights without feeling sick. Instead he merely felt shamed, as if he’d sunk even lower in the world by simply knowing enough herbcraft to act like the apprentice he nominally was. Still, once the muleteer was lying on a pad of blankets with his ankle wrapped in clean bandages, and his pain eased with one of Nevyn’s herbal mixtures, Gwairyc had to admit a certain admiration for the old man’s skill. When they were sitting by their own fire and eating a delayed dinner, Gwairyc told him so.
‘I wish we had chirurgeons like you with the army,’ Gwairyc said. ‘There must be naught that you can’t cure.’
‘My thanks, but I only wish that were true, lad. There’s many a foul illness that baffles my herbs, wasting diseases of the lungs, strange fevers from Bardek, and the like.’
‘I see. I’ve never been down on the southern coast, but I’ve heard about those fevers. Doesn’t make me want to go there.’
‘Well, even in Bardek the fevers are not what you’d call common.’ Nevyn paused, glancing away in thought. ‘Strange ills can strike a man down anywhere. In fact, my master in herbcraft told me once about a very strange disease that someone contracted not far from Dun Deverry. The patient – one of the king’s own riders – had been wounded in a fight against bandits. They’d finally cornered the bandits in an apple orchard, of all places, one where the trees had gone untended for years, and –’
‘Wait a moment,’ Gwairyc interrupted. ‘There haven’t been any bandits near Dun Deverry for a cursed long time.’
‘True spoken. This incident happened when my master’s master was young, or so he said.’ Nevyn paused to count something out on his fingers. ‘It must have happened not long after the Civil Wars, now that you mention it.’
‘Ah, now that makes more sense.’
‘Anyway, this fellow was a fine swordsman, but he and the warband had never had to dismount and fight among trees before.’
‘That’s doubtless why the bandits made a stand there.’
‘Doubtless, but would you let me finish?’
‘Apologies, my lord. Go on.’
‘So he was too used to trusting his skill. He was an arrogant lad, all in all, but he had reason to be, I suppose. He rushed in and got himself severely wounded. Well, my master’s master managed to stop the bleeding, and the fellow was a strong man, so he assumed that the captain – he was the captain of the king’s personal guard, you see –’
‘Silver daggers, weren’t they?’
‘That’s right. You’ve heard about them, then?’
‘Many a time.’
‘Well and good. That’ll shorten the tale. So just when this captain should have been starting to recover, a truly strange thing happened to his wound. It turned foul and corrupted, but in a way the chirurgeons had never seen before. The flesh turned black at the edges of the wound, like a bit of parchment held too close to a candle. The blackness spread, and the stench was truly horrible. Had he been wounded on an arm or leg, they could have amputated and saved him, but it lay on his thigh too close to the body for any such thing. It must have been a sickening thing, to see the corruption spreading through the captain’s body with naught anyone could do to stop it. Finally he died, so mayhap the blackness reached the heart. My master didn’t know nor did his master. The rest of the silver daggers called it evil sorcery, and for all I know, they were right.’
Gwairyc shuddered. The tale affected him far more deeply than it should have. He’d seen many a man die in battle and others die from wounds afterwards, but none like this, from some black rot that crept along, conquering new territory on a man’s body. It seemed to him that he could almost smell it, just from hearing the description, a rank acid smell like rotting meat. Well, it was rotting meat – the thought nearly made him gag.
‘Are you all right, lad?’ Nevyn was studying his face.
‘I am, my lord. My apologies. It just touched my heart somehow, hearing about Owaen dying like that. Or – wait – was that his name?’
‘Owaen? It was indeed, and oddly enough, his device was a falcon, just like yours.’
‘That’s a horrible wyrd for a man to have!’ Gwairyc paused for a cold shudder. ‘And here he was, the survivor of all those battles and years of war.’
‘He’d survived many, indeed. You must have heard about him in a bard song or the like.’
‘I must have, truly. I –’ Gwairyc realized that he could call up no memory of having heard so much as the name. ‘Well, I don’t remember him turning up in the bard songs, but he must have. How else would I know his name?’
‘Indeed.’ Nevyn smiled, just briefly. ‘How else, truly?’
Yet for the rest of the evening, Gwairyc felt troubled, wondering how he knew so much about this Owaen. He was sure, for instance, that the Silver Daggers’ captain had originally been an Eldidd man. That fact suddenly rose in his mind along with the sound of a voice lisping at the beginning of words like gwerbret. Werrbret, they would say in Eldidd. He knew it, and yet there was no way he could have known it. Finally he managed to put the matter out of his mind, but that night he had a confused dream, flashing by in fragments, about fighting with a red wyvern on his shield.
In the morning light Gwairyc, Tirro, and a couple of the muleteers searched the area around the snare. They found only a single trace of the man or men who might have set it. Tirro suddenly stooped and reached into a pile of dead leaves to pull out some small shiny thing.
‘It’s a coin,’ he announced. ‘A Bardek coin.’
‘A what?’ Gwairyc held out one hand. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘It’s just like the ones my da’s friends bring home from Myleton.’ Tirro gave it to him. ‘They call it a sesturce.’
The coin proved to be barely big enough to cover one of Gwairyc’s fingernails, but its green tarnish showed that it contained at least some silver. Gwairyc could just make out a few foreign-looking letters. When they brought it to Nevyn, the old man rubbed it clean on his sleeve.
‘It’s from Bardek, sure enough,’ Nevyn said. ‘Do you see the device upon it? A man’s head in profile. It must one of their archons, as they call their leaders, but I’ve not the slightest idea which one.’ He handed the coin back to Tirro. ‘You’ve got sharp eyes, lad.’
‘I’m sorry about yesterday, sir, really I am.’ Tirro stared at the ground. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
This outburst seemed to make Nevyn as puzzled as Gwairyc felt. He considered the lad for a moment with his head cocked to one side.
‘Um, what?’ Nevyn said finally.
‘The way I looked after you told me not to. Isn’t that what you just meant by mentioning my sharp eyes?’
‘Naught of the sort! I was complimenting you, as a matter of fact.’
Tirro blushed scarlet, started to speak, then merely bolted, running back towards the camp before either Gwairyc or Nevyn could say a word.
‘What by all the ice in all the hells was that about?’ Gwairyc said.
‘I don’t know,’ Nevyn said, ‘but I’d guess that his father was given to making cruel remarks, and frequently to boot.’
‘Oh.’ Gwairyc shrugged the problem away. ‘Anyway, that coin is the only thing we found, other than trees and a cursed lot of rocks. The banks of the stream are low and damp, but the only tracks we saw were made by deer and then some sort of small creature, a badger, most likely.’
‘How very odd,’ Nevyn said. ‘The snare had to be fairly new, because it hadn’t rusted. Well, we can’t stay here to keep hunting. Wffyn and his men are ready to move out, and we’d best join them.’
‘Well and good, then. What about the injured fellow?’
‘They shifted the load of one of the mules to the other packs and tied him to the saddle instead. This way, if he faints, he won’t fall. He’ll have to stay behind, though, once we get to a town.’
It took the caravan most of a day to travel down from the mountains. Towards sunset it reached a prosperous-looking farm, where Wffyn stopped to barter with the farmwife for peaches and cabbages to freshen up the communal meals. After the haggling, the merchant described the accident his muleteer had suffered.
‘Do you know who might have set that snare?’ Wffyn said. ‘It was a cursed dangerous thing to do.’
The farmer and his wife exchanged a glance, but their eyes showed no feeling at all.
‘I don’t,’ the man said at last. ‘You’re right enough. It’s too close to the road for someone to be setting snares.’
‘Let me get you a sack for them cabbages.’ Without looking at any of the men, the wife turned away and hurried into the farmhouse. Wffyn raised one eyebrow but said nothing.
Once they were back on the road, Wffyn manoeuvred his horse to ride next to Gwairyc and Nevyn.
‘What did you think about those people?’ the merchant said. ‘It looked to me like they knew plenty about that snare.’
‘To me, too,’ Nevyn said. ‘I wonder what they’re after, up in the wild hills.’
At the next village, when Wffyn told his story in the local tavern, the men there responded with honest bewilderment. After some discussion, however, the local miller remembered that you could find small grey hogs up in the hills.
‘Pigs, they get loose now and then,’ the miller said. ‘Go wild, they do, breed amongst themselves. There’s a right proper herd of swine by now, I’d wager. Our local werrbret hunts them now and again, but he don’t claim them or nothing, so the pork’s free for the taking.’
Werrbret. Gwairyc was so startled by the man’s accent that he nearly gasped aloud. He covered the sound with a quick cough. ‘Hogs, eh?’ Wffyn turned to Nevyn and lowered his voice. ‘That farmer and his wife – why would they act so strange, like, if they were just hunting wild pig?’
‘Indeed. I wonder – I’ve heard rumours about slavers landing their boats in the wild places along the coast. No doubt there are ways of finding out where, if you have somewhat to sell.’
‘Gods!’ Wffyn spat on the straw-covered floor. ‘You could well be right, good sir.’
‘I’d rather be wrong, truly. Come to think of it, why would they risk maiming the merchandise? That snare was a dangerous thing.’
‘Well, if someone were wearing boots and hadn’t rolled up his brigga, either, it wouldn’t bite very deep.’
‘True spoken.’ Nevyn frowned down at his tankard. ‘Even a good thick wrap of rags would protect the leg to some degree. On the way home, tell your men to keep their boots on.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll need to tell them.’
Nevyn agreed with a smile, then turned to Gwairyc. ‘You look like somewhat’s troubling you, lad. Is it about these slavers?’
‘What? It’s not. I was just wondering why the Eldidd folk speak a fair bit different than we do, with their werrbret and all, and then the way they roll their R’s around.’
‘I’m surprised you’d notice such a thing.’
Gwairyc shrugged in feigned indifference. Someone must have told me about it, he decided. He refused to believe anything else, despite a voice from deep in his mind that persisted in whispering: you remember.
Tirro’s scalp was beginning to sprout a blond fuzz, marred by a few small circles of ringworm. Nevyn had him sit on a bale of goods in the strong morning sun and turn his head this way and that just to make sure that the spots were on the verge of disappearing. As he worked, he was also inspecting Tirro for something entirely different. He’d begun to suspect that he’d known this unfortunate little scoundrel before, during one of Tirro’s earlier lives, someone with a nature equally flawed. He would have to find some excuse for staring into Tirro’s eyes before he could be certain. At the moment Wffyn stood nearby and watched the inspection.
‘Very good,’ Nevyn announced. ‘You can burn that ghastly linen cap, lad, but keep putting salve on those spots.’
‘I will, sir,’ Tirro said. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘One more thing.’ Nevyn pounced on the white lie that suddenly occurred to him. ‘I don’t like the appearance of your left eye. Getting a trace of this particular salve in your eye can be a very bad thing. Here, tip your head up and look me right in the face.’
Tirro caught his breath with a small gulp of fear.
‘Go on,’ Wffyn snapped. ‘Do what the herbman wants.’
Tirro gulped again and caught his shaking hands between his knees. So! Nevyn thought. He’s got some reason to fear me, has he? Tirro raised his head, glanced at Nevyn, and immediately looked down again.
‘Come along, Tirro,’ Nevyn said. ‘I won’t bite.’
Once again the boy raised his head. This time he did manage to look at Nevyn for a few beats of a heart – enough. Brour! Nevyn thought. That slimy little renegade! Aloud, he said, ‘Ah, splendid! The eye looks fine. I thought I saw a swelling, but it must just have been some trick of the light. You can go now.’
Tirro jumped up and ran, heading for the herd of mules. Nevyn watched as he disappeared among them.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you.’ Wffyn stepped forward. ‘Will you be travelling on with us a-ways? A man as good with his herbs as you are, Nevyn, is welcome everywhere.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m thinking of going all the way west to Aberwyn or thereabouts.’
‘We’ll certainly be going that far and beyond, since we’re going to trade with the Westfolk.’
‘True spoken. Where are you planning on crossing the Delonderiel?’
