"Kerr, Katharine - Deverry 02 - Darkspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

‘Well, don’t take all the blame upon yourself for that. It’s been many a lifetime now, and they’ve all had a hand in tangling their own Wyrds. I take it they’re making a bigger mess of things in this life?’
‘True spoken. Brangwen - I mean Jill, curse it - is off on the roads with Rhodry.’
‘Whom, I take it, is the same soul who once was known ,as Lord Blaen of the Boar.’
‘Just that. Did I forget to tell you? My apologies, but ye gods, I grow so muddled as the years stretch out. I wonder how the elves manage to keep their memories straight, I truly do.’
‘They have minds fit to do so. Our folk don’t.’ _,
‘Sometimes I wonder how long I’ll be able to go on.’
Caer’s image looked at him sharply with a concern no less deep for being so shrewd. Nevyn looked away, up at the ancient trees, nodding gently in a world that knows no decay or change. At times he was so weary that he wished he could turn into a tree like the sorcerers in the ancient legends, who at last found peace by merging with the oaks they worshiped.
‘Now here,’ Caer said. ‘If ever you need my aid, it’s yours.’
‘My sincere thanks. I may take you up on that.’
‘Good. By the way, is there any chance you’ll come through Lughcarn before winter sets in? It’s always good to see old friends in the flesh.’
‘So it is, but maybe next spring. I have to stay in Eldidd.’
‘More dark doings afoot?’
‘There’s not, at that. I’ve been invited to a wedding.’
At that time, Eldidd province was one of the more sparsely settled parts of Deverry, and in its western reaches, towns were rare. The biggest was Dun Gwerbyn, which held some five hundred round thatched houses, a couple of inns, and three temples inside, its high stone walls. On a hill in the center of town stood the dun, or fort, of the tieryn. Another set of stone walls sheltered stables and barracks for the tieryn’s warband of a hundred men, a collection of huts and storage sheds, and the broch complex itself, a four-story round stone tower with two shorter towers attached at the sides.
On that particular morning, the open ward around the broch was a-bustle with servants, carrying supplies to the cook-house or stacks of firewood to the hearths in the great hall, or rolling big barrels of ale from the sheds to the broch. Near the iron-bound gates, other servants bowed low as they greeted the arriving wedding guests. Cullyn of Cerrmor, captain of the tieryn’s warband, assembled his men out in the ward and looked them over. For a change, they were all bathed, shaved, and presentable.
‘Well and good, lads,’ Cullyn said. ‘You don’t look bad for a pack of hounds. Now remember; every lord and lady in the tierynrhyn is going to be here today. I don’t want any of you getting stinking drunk, and I don’t want any fighting, either. This is a wedding, remember, and the lady deserves to have it be a happy one after everything she’s been through.’
They all nodded solemnly. If any of them forgot his orders, they’d regret it - and they knew it.
Cullyn led them into the great hall, an enormous round room that took up the full ground floor of the broch. Today there were freshly braided rushes on the floor; the tapestries on the walls had been shaken out and rehung. The hall was crammed with extra tables. Not only were there plenty of noble guests, but each lord had brought five men from his warband as an honor escort. Servants sidled and edged their way through the crowd with tankards of ale and baskets of bread; a bard played almost unheard; the riders diced for coppers and joked; up by the honor hearth, the noble-born ladies chattered like birds while their husbands drank. Cullyn got his men settled, repeated his order about no fighting, then worked his way through to the table of honor to kneel at the tieryn’s side.
Tieryn Lovyan was something of an anomaly in Dev-erry, a woman who ruled a large demesne in her own name. Originally her only brother had held this dun, but when he died without an heir, she’d inherited under a twist in the laws designed to keep big holdings in a clan even if a woman had to rule them. Forty-eight that year, she was still a good-looking woman, with gray-streaked raven black hair, large cornflower blue eyes, and the straight-backed posture of one quite at home with ruler-ship. That particular day, she was wearing a dress of red Bardek silk, kirtled in with the red, white, and brown plaid of the Clw Coc clan.
‘The warband is in attendance, my lady,’ Cullyn said.
‘Splendid, Captain. Have you seen Nevyn yet?’
‘I haven’t, my lady.’
‘It would be like him to stay away. He does so hate crowds and suchlike, but if you do see him, tell him to come sit with me.’
Cullyn rose, bowed, and returned to his men. From his seat, he could see the honor table, and while he sipped his ale, he studied the bride at this wedding, Lady Donilla, a truly beautiful woman with a mane of chestnut hair, clasped back like a maiden’s now for the formality of the thing. Cullyn felt sorry for her. Her first husband, Gwer-bret Rhys of Aberwyn, had recently cast her off for being barren. If Lovyan hadn’t found her a husband, she would have had to return to her brother’s dun in shame. As it was, her new man, Lord Garedd, was a decent-looking fellow some years older than she, with gray in his blond hair and thick mustache. From what the men in his warband said, he was an honorable man, soft-spoken in peace and utterly ruthless in war. He was also a widower with a pack of children and thus more than glad to take a beautiful young wife, barren or not.
‘Garedd looks honestly besotted with her, doesn’t he?’ Nevyn remarked.
With a yelp, Cullyn turned to find the old man grinning at him. For all that Nevyn’s face was as lined as an old leather sack, he had all the vigor and stamina of a young lad, and he stood there straight-backed, his hands on his hips.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said with a sly grin.
‘Here, I never saw you come in!’
‘You weren’t looking my way, that’s all. I didn’t turn myself invisible, although I’ll admit to having a bit of a jest on you.’
‘And I took the bait, sure enough. Here, the tieryn wants you to come sit with her.’
‘At the honor table? What a cursed nuisance. It’s a good thing I put on a clean shirt.’
Cullyn laughed. Usually Nevyn dressed like a farmer in shabby brown clothes, but today he’d actually put on a white shirt with Lovyan’s red lion blazon at the yokes and a pair of patched but respectable gray brigga.
‘Before you go,’ Cullyn said. ‘Have you had any . . . well, news of my Jill?’
‘You mean: have a scryed her out lately. Come with me.’
They made their way over to the second hearth, where an entire hog was roasting on a spit. For a moment Nevyn stared intently into the flames.
‘I see Jill and Rhodry looking in good spirits,’ he said at last. They’re walking through a town on a nice sunny day, going up to a shop of some sort. Wait! I know that place. It’s Otho the Silversmith’s in Dun Manannan, but he doesn’t seem to be in at the moment.’
‘I don’t suppose you can tell if she’s with child.’
‘She’s not showing the babe if she is. I can understand your concern.’
‘Well, it’s bound to happen, sooner or later. I just hope she has the wit to ride home when it does.’
‘She’s never lacked for wit.’
Although Cullyn agreed, worry ate at him. Jill was, after all, his only child.
‘I just hope they have enough coin for the winter,’ the captain remarked.
‘Well, we gave them plenty between us, if Rhodry doesn’t drink it all away, anyway.’
‘Oh, Jill won’t let him do that. My lass is as tight as an old farmwife with every cursed copper.’ He allowed himself a brief smile. ‘At least she knows the long road cursed well.’
Because the mattress was full of bedbugs, Rhodry sat on the floor of the tiny innchamber while he watched Jill frowning in concentration as she mended a rip in his only shirt. She was dressed in a pair of dirty blue brigga and a lad’s plain linen overshirt, and her golden hair was cropped short like a lad’s, too, but she was so beautiful, with her wide blue eyes, delicate features, and soft mouth, that he loved simply looking at her.
‘Ah by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!’ she snarled at last. This’ll just have to do. I hate sewing.’
‘You have my humble thanks for lowering yourself enough to mend my clothes.’
With another snarl, she threw the shirt into his face. Laughing he shook it out, once-white linen stained with sweat and rust from his mail. On the yokes were the blazons of the red lion, all that he had left of his old life when he’d been heir to the tierynrhyn of Dun Gwerbyn. He pulled the shirt on, then buckled his swordbelt over it. At the left hung his sword, a beautiful blade of the best steel with the handguard worked in the form of a dragon, and at the right, the silver dagger that branded him as a dishonored man. It was the badge of a band of mercenaries who wandered the roads either singly or in pairs and fought only for coin, not loyalty or honor. In his case, it branded him as something even stranger, which was why they’d come to Dun Manannan.
‘Do you think the silversmith will be in by now?’ he said.
‘No doubt. Otho rarely leaves his shop for any length of time.’