A Time of War

‘Cursed strange, then. Why were they riding in my lands?’

‘I have no idea, Your Grace. I do know that Jill has great hopes of getting information out of them.’

‘No doubt she’d like me to leave the matter in her hands?’

‘If his grace agrees, of course.’

‘Well, most likely I will.’ The gwerbret turned to the page. ‘Alli, run up to Jill’s chambers and ask her, and politely, mind, but ask her to come down for a word with me.’

Although the boy bowed and ran off fast, he was obviously smarting at the vertical hike ahead of him. Cadmar glanced at the chamberlain.

‘Think he’ll learn courtesy one of these fine days?’

‘I can only hope so, Your Grace,’ the old man sighed. ‘I’m doing my best to teach the wretched little snot.’

Cadmar laughed, then remembered Rhodry and turned to him with a quick wave of one hand.

‘You may go, silver dagger. No need for you to be standing round here.’

‘My thanks, Your Grace.’

Rhodry went out to the barracks, those structures built into the walls that had so puzzled Jahdo, and drew himself water at the stable well for a cold bath. Once he was shaved and reasonably clean, he went back to the great hall to keep an eye on things. He got himself some ale, dipping his own tankard to avoid giving a servant lass the chance to snub him, then found himself a seat at a table on the far side of the hall, where he could watch the noble-born from a proper distance. A few at a time, the honour-bound men in the various warbands quartered at the dun came drifting in, chivvying the lasses and settling down at one table or another to wait for the evening meal. Unlike the servants and the noble-born, most of the men had a friendly greeting for Rhodry or a jest to share. They’d seen him fight, after all, and judged his worth on that.

The hall filled up fast. For the war against the raiding party captained by Meer’s brother, Cadmar had called in two of his closest vassals, Lord Matyc and Lord Gwinardd, and as their oaths of fealty demanded, they’d brought twenty-five men apiece with them to add to Cadmar’s oath-sworn riders. One of the latter, a young brown-haired lad named Draudd, sat himself down beside Rhodry.

‘Where’s Yraen?’

‘Don’t know, but he’d better be cleaning himself up,’ Rhodry said. ‘I thought he’d be in by now. Why?’

‘Just asking, wondering if he’s up for a game of carnoic or suchlike.’ Draudd yawned profoundly. ‘He plays cursed well. Here, Rhodry, some of the men have a wager on, like, that Yraen’s noble-born.’

‘Do they now? I hope they don’t go asking him outright and hope to live to collect it. Prying into a silver dagger’s past is bad for a man’s health.’

Draudd snorted into his ale.

‘I’m not having a jest on you,’ Rhodry spoke quietly, levelly. ‘Tell them to lay off.’

Draudd looked up sharply, his good cheer gone.

‘And another thing,’ Rhodry went on. ‘Am I included in this little game?’

Draudd turned beet-red in silent confession. Rhodry grabbed him by a twist of shirt that nearly choked him and hauled him face to face.

‘Lay it off, lad. Do you understand me?’ He let Draudd go with a thrust of his wrist that sent the lad reeling. ‘Do you?’

‘I do, and I will, then.’ He hesitated, rubbing his throat with one hand, then swung himself free of the bench. ‘I’ll just go have a word with the captain, like.’

Rhodry realized that a clot of men were hovering in the door and watching. He ignored them and picked up his tankard again. When he checked a few moments later, he found them gone.

Soon after, Jill appeared at the far side of the great hall and hurried up to the gwerbret’s table, where Cadmar himself rose to greet her, insisting she take the place of honour at his right hand. Although he was too far away to hear their talk, Rhodry could guess that the gwerbret was trying to winkle information out of her – never the easiest task in the world. Rhodry suspected that she knew a great deal more than she was saying about this mysterious bard from so far away. In a few minutes the gwerbret’s other vassal in residence, Lord Gwinardd, joined the honour table, a young man, brown-haired and bland, his title newly inherited, sitting diffidently at the far end from his overlord and not saying a word.

As the afternoon drowsed on, Rhodry started keeping a watch for Lord Matyc, who would be expected to join the other noble-born men for the evening meal if not before, but he had a long wait before Matyc finally strode in. Right behind him came Yraen. Rhodry allowed himself a small smile as the two parted company, Matyc to greet his overlord, Yraen to stroll down and join Rhodry.

‘And where have you been?’ Rhodry said.

‘Keeping an eye on his lordship. What do you think? I caught him showing a bit too much interest in those prisoners for my taste, so I stood on guard for a while. When he kept hovering round, I distracted him, like, with talk of horses, and manoeuvred him into taking a look at the gwerbret’s new mare and suchlike.’

‘And how did our lordship take that?’

‘Badly.’ Yraen shrugged. ‘Let him. I don’t like the look of the man. Somewhat about him turns my gut.’

‘Mine, too. I’ll try to get a word with Jill, and as soon as I can. I wouldn’t mind having our prisoners moved to some fresh place, and that without our lordship knowing.’

Round sunset the jailor brought Jahdo and Meer a fresh loaf of bread, more water, chunks of cheese, stiff with rind but not bad tasting and plenty of it, and a couple of fresh peaches, which, he said, came by Rhodry’s direct order. Although he was glad of the food, thinking that they were dependent on the good will of the man who’d killed Meer’s brother and then captured them made Jahdo profoundly uneasy.

‘I do feel that we shouldn’t eat it,’ he said to Meer.

‘Slaves take what they can get, lad.’

‘I know that, but then it really creeps my flesh, thinking what will happen to us if Rhodry’s killed or suchlike. How will someone else treat us?’

‘Slaves live one day at a time, as well.’

While they ate, sitting in the straw, Jahdo looked up and out the barred window on the opposite wall. Outside the sky, streaked here and there with gold clouds, was darkening to a velvet blue. He could hear voices passing, harried servants, laughing men, the occasional bark of a dog or whinny of a horse. When he was done, he walked over to the window and found below it on the wall a couple of uneven stone blocks. By stepping on them and grabbing the window bars to hoist himself up, he could look out to a view of two storage sheds, the pigsty and, in the distance, the massive outer walls of the dun, all of which he described to Meer, mostly to pass the time.

‘And then round the top of the dun there’s these wooden catwalks, like we have back home, for the militia to walk round on and guard things. These are kind of broken in places, though, like they haven’t been kept up right. Maybe they don’t have a lot of wars here or suchlike.’

‘This dun seems to be the strong point of the entire area and not very likely to be attacked. I wonder what a gwerbret is? The lord of this place, obviously, but I’ve never heard the word before.’

‘Neither have I.’

Meer considered the problem for a moment, then felt for his staff, lying near him in the straw.

‘Do you need the bucket?’ Jahdo said.

‘I don’t. Help me to stand, lad.’

When Jahdo did so, Meer tapped his way to the door and felt for the little window. Once it was found, he put his face close to the bars.

‘Jailor!’ he roared. ‘Jailor! Come here!’

He kept it up until the old man appeared, cursing and complaining as he stumped down the hallway. A whiff of sour ale came with him.

‘And what’s wrong with you, you hairy cow? Disturbing an honest man at his hard-earned meal, not that I’ll be making much of a profit, feeding the likes of you, and that worm-riddled silver dagger giving me orders.’

‘I require the meaning of a word.’

The jailor stared, his mouth flopping open and silent.

‘I am Meer, bard and loremaster,’ Meer bellowed. ‘Tell me what this word, gwerbret, means. Such lore is my due.’

With a shake the jailor recovered himself.

‘Oh is it now? Since when do hairy dogs have bards?’

‘You better watch your tongue!’ Jahdo snapped.

‘Hush!’ Meer waved him away. ‘Old man, first you called me a cow, now a dog. In my homeland you would have been publicly strangled for those insults. Here, as a slave, I have no choice but to forgive you. Yet even a slave-bard is a bard still. You will answer me my question, or I’ll call down the wrath of the gods.’

‘Call away. I’ll not be telling you one wretched thing.’

As the jailor turned to go, Meer sang a high, piercing note whose harsh texture made Jahdo squirm. Louder and louder he sang, and longer and longer, until the jailor shrieked.

‘Very well! Hold your ugly tongue, bard! I’ll tell you. I should have known that hairy savages like you would be as ignorant as you are ugly. A gwerbret’s a kind of lord, see, the most powerful lord there is, except for the princes and suchlike of the blood royal. He’s got vassals what owe him service and pay him dues. And he judges criminals and suchlike, and I hope to every god that when it comes to the judging of you, he hangs you good and proper.’

This time when the old man hurried off, Meer let him go.

‘May his heart burst within him,’ Meer remarked. ‘Or better yet, may the gods plug his kidneys so that he dies in a stink of piss. Ah well. At least I’ve got my bit of new lore.’

Jahdo felt a profound relief. Obviously Meer had truly decided to live if he’d go worrying about some funny name. He got the bard settled, then climbed back to his window perch to watch the twilight fading. After a few minutes he saw a familiar figure come striding out of the main broch.

‘Someone’s coming. It be Rhodry, and he’s got Yraen and a couple of men from the squad with him.’

When he heard Rhodry’s voice in the corridor, and the jailor’s snivelling answers, Jahdo climbed down from his perch and handed the Gel da’Thae his staff. Meer rose to his feet just as they lifted the bar and opened the door. Rhodry made them a formal bow, but he was grinning all the while.

‘Feel like a stroll in the evening air?’ Rhodry said. ‘The ward’s nice and quiet at the moment, because most everyone’s still eating. I think we can get you across to the broch safely, if you hurry and if you cause me no trouble. Agreed?’

‘We don’t have any choice, do we?’ Jahdo said.

Rhodry laughed as hard as if the world were one daft jest.

‘None,’ Rhodry said. ‘So march.’

Jahdo caught Meer’s arm, and they hurried out, striding fast across the ward with the men disposed around them – not that they could hide Meer, tall as he was, of course. Jahdo, however, had trouble seeing through them, although he could just make out the many-towered broch complex, looming against the darkening sky and drawing closer and closer. They ducked suddenly into a door, which Rhodry slammed behind them, turning wherever they were as dark as pitch.

‘Curse you, Rhodry!’ Yraen snarled. ‘I’m not climbing all those stairs in the dark.’

‘Then get yourself into the great hall and grab us a candle lantern. The servants should be lighting them about now. Draudd, Maen – when Yraen returns, you’re dismissed, but say one word about this, and you’ll have me to deal with.’

‘I’ve forgotten already,’ Draudd said. ‘Even though I’m still here.’

Once Yraen came back with a punched tin lantern, they climbed the staircase by its mottled and flickering light, up and up, round and round, until Meer and Jahdo both were panting for breath. At the landing at the top, Rhodry let them pause among the heaped sacks.

‘Now mind your manners in here,’ he whispered. ‘We’re going to see Jill, and she holds your fate in her hands.’

Jahdo immediately pictured some great queen out of the ancient tales. He was not, therefore, prepared for the reality when Jill flung open the door. The chamber behind her glowed with a peculiar silver light that clung to the ceiling and sheeted down the walls as if it were water, and backlit as she was, he honestly thought her a skeleton or corpse. He screamed, making Meer grab his shoulder hard.

‘What is it?’ the bard snapped. ‘What is it?’

Jahdo tried to speak but could only stammer. When Rhodry howled with his usual crazed laughter, the boy burst into tears.

‘What are you doing to him?’ Meer bellowed with full bardic voice. ‘He’s done no harm to aught of you.’

‘It’s all right,’ Yraen broke in. ‘Jahdo, stop snivelling.’

‘Ye gods,’ Jill snarled. ‘Will you all hold your wretched tongues? Do you want half the dun running up here to see what the commotion is?’

That sensible question silenced everyone.

‘Much better,’ Jill said. ‘Come in, come in, and my apologies for frightening you, lad.’

With new courage Jahdo led Meer straight into the chamber. Now that he could see that she was a perfectly normal woman, though certainly not an ordinary one, he was expecting to find the peculiar glow just some trick of moonlight or torches. Unfortunately, it was nothing of the sort.

‘Meer, there be magic at work here,’ he whispered. ‘The light does shine all over everything, like dust or suchlike. I mean, if moonlight were dust it would look like this, and she’s got books, great big books. There must be twenty of them.’

Jill grinned at that. The Gel da’Thae was turning his huge head this way and that, listening to every sound he could register, and his nostrils flared, too, as if he were sniffing the air like a horse. Since his hand lay on Meer’s arm, Jahdo could feel him trembling. All at once Jahdo remembered hearing Rhodry and Yraen speak of this woman during the long ride back to Cengarn.

‘You be the mazrak!’ he burst out. ‘The falcon I did see following us.’

Meer clutched his staff hard between both hands and growled under his breath.

‘I have no idea what a mazrak may be,’ Jill said mildly. ‘So how could I be one?’

‘But the falcon. We did see it, and then Rhodry and Yraen did come with the squad, and they knew right where we’d be, didn’t they? They did speak of you and said your name, and I could tell they were following your orders.’

Jill glanced at Rhodry.

‘I agree with you,’ she said. ‘This child’s much too bright to be locked in a stinking dungeon.’

She was admitting he’d guessed right that indeed he was facing a real sorcerer. Jahdo clutched the talismans at his neck.

‘I understand that you’re a bard,’ Jill said to Meer. ‘So you shall have the only chair I’ve got. Rhodry, Yraen, if you’ll just stand by the door? In fact, Yraen, if you wouldn’t mind standing on the other side of it to keep the curious away, I’d be grateful. Jahdo, get your master settled, and then, I think, it’s time for some plain talk.’

Jahdo helped Meer sit, then knelt beside him on the floor, which was covered with braided rush mats and reasonably comfortable. The room itself seemed ordinary, except for the presence of books, containing only a small table, a chair, a charcoal brazier, an alcove with a narrow bed, a pair of carved storage chests. Jahdo realized that he’d been expecting sorcerers to live somewhere grand and cluttered, with demons standing round in attendance, not in an everyday sort of room like this. There was, however, no explaining away the silver light. When Jill leaned against the wall facing him and Meer, the drape of light parted, as if dodging her.

‘Well, good bard,’ she said. ‘My apologies for the rough treatment you’ve received, but your people are not so well-liked round here, thanks to the raiders.’

‘So I’ve noticed.’ Meer’s voice was stiff and cold. ‘Wait. What do you mean, raiders?’

‘A band of men, led by one of the Horsekin, have been raiding hereabouts, burning farms, killing the men and any pregnant women, enslaving the rest.’

‘What?’ Meer tried to speak, sputtered, caught his breath at last. ‘Lies! Disgusting, demon-spawned lies! No man of the Horsekin would ever harm a pregnant female, no matter whether she were kin or utter stranger, horse or Horsekin, human or hound, and he’d kill any man under his command in an instant for doing the same. Never! The gods would send down vengeance on him and strike him dead.’

‘Well, in a way they did,’ Rhodry said, rubbing his chin with one hand. ‘But Meer, I’ll swear to you it’s true. I saw one victim myself, a woman not far from giving birth, lying dead in the road from a sword-slash, and her babe butchered inside her.’

Meer turned toward the sound of the silver dagger’s voice, then hesitated, his mouth working. Jill stood utterly still, watching all of this with her blue eyes as cold and sharp as thorns, as if she could bore through the faces of the men into their very souls.

‘Do you believe me?’ Rhodry said. ‘I can bring you other witnesses, Yraen for one.’

Meer shook his head in a baffled gesture that might have meant either yes or no.

‘One thing,’ the Gel da’Thae said at last. ‘Are you sure that the raiders you fought were indeed the same band that committed these heinous sins?’

‘We are. The men they’d taken for slaves? After we rescued them, they gave evidence against the raiders, and they all swore that the man of the Gel da’Thae was the leader, ordering the murders.’

Meer grunted, his hands clasping and twining round his staff, then loosening again, over and over.

‘I’ll bring you witnesses,’ Jill said.

‘No need.’ Meer’s voice rasped in a whisper. ‘Are we prisoners of war, then, or slaves?’

‘Never slaves,’ Rhodry broke in. ‘Never would I lend my hand and sword to the enslaving of anyone, good sir, and I’ll swear that on anything you like.’

Jahdo goggled, desperate and afraid both to believe him.

‘Did Rhodry and the men treat you decently?’ Jill asked.

‘Better than prisoners of war can usually expect,’ Meer said. ‘I have no complaint to lay before you.’

‘Good.’

Jill leaned back against the wall, waiting, letting the silence grow.

‘Answer me one thing, Meer,’ Rhodry said at length, ‘if you can without dishonouring yourself, anyway. Are there going to be more of these raiding swine coming our way?’

‘How would I know?’ Meer snarled. ‘This first lot should never have been here in the first place. To send more would be infamy compounded, outrage and abomination writ large, if they’ve come to break every law of god and Gel da’Thae by killing females in foal! Who am I to say what men like that will do or not do next?’

Jill nodded, considering his outburst carefully.

‘It sounds to me, then,’ Rhodry said, ‘like this was no ordinary raid.’

Meer glowered with his lips tight-clenched.

‘It were the false gods,’ Jahdo burst out. ‘The false goddess must be making them do that.’

‘False goddess?’ Jill swung her head round fast. ‘What false goddess?’

‘Her name be Alshandra, and she’s only a demon or suchlike, but some people do worship her, just as if she were a true god from the Deathworld.’

Never before had a mere bard’s servant got such a profound reaction with a tale as Jahdo did with that blurt. Rhodry went dead-white, then swore a long string of foul curses while Jill laughed, a nervous giggle and much too high.

‘Alshandra a goddess!’ she said at last. ‘Oh by all the ice in all the hells!’

Rhodry made a sputtering sort of noise under his breath.

‘I agree,’ Jill said, grinning. ‘Well now, this may bode ill, or it may bode worse, but I’ll wager it proves interesting. My thanks, lad. That makes a great deal clear.’

‘Answer me somewhat in return,’ Meer said. ‘I take it that you know about this Alshandra creature?’

‘I do, and a goddess she’s not and never will be. You’re right a thousand times about that.’

‘What is she then? A demon?’

‘A meddling bitch,’ Rhodry snarled. ‘That’s what she is.’

‘Whist! Let me finish.’ Jill waved a hand in his direction. ‘She’s not a demon, and neither human nor Horsekin, but a very strange sort of being indeed. Let’s see, how can I explain this clearly?’ She thought for a long moment. ‘I’m not sure I can. She doesn’t live in this world, so in that respect she’s like a spirit of the sort people call demons, but she’s vastly more intelligent. She can move about much more freely than a demon, as well, and when she’s here in our world she can make herself a body of sorts. She can work magic, some truly spectacular magic, in fact, from what I’ve heard, enough so I can see how some people think her a god.’

‘She sounds even more dangerous than I thought her, then.’

‘Unfortunately, that’s very true. What’s even worse is she’s quite mad.’

‘Mad? May the gods preserve us!’

‘I wouldn’t mind their help, truly.’ Jill smiled in a wry sort of way. ‘Now here, did your brother worship this creature?’

Meer nodded, his mouth slack, then bent his head as if he were staring at the floor. His hands rubbed up and down his staff for the comfort of it.

‘The infamy!’ he snarled. ‘That my own brother’s dishonour and sin would lead me to trust strangers who are no doubt no better than he and perhaps a good bit worse! Are you truly a mazrak?’

‘I have no idea.’ Jill turned irritable. ‘If you’d deign to tell me what one is, I might be able to answer.’

‘A shapechanger, one who takes animal form.’

‘Oh. As a matter of fact, I am that.’

She spoke in such an ordinary way that Jahdo shuddered, a long convulsion of terror. Meer growled under his breath and showed fangs.

‘But which one are you? The falcon or the raven? My servant here told me of two.’

‘What?’ Jill hesitated. ‘The falcon’s the form I take. Are you sure you saw another dweomer shape, Jahdo, or were you just scared or suchlike? I wouldn’t blame you, mind. There’s no shame attached, none at all, to being frightened of such things.’

‘I do know I did see it. It were a raven, and it were huge, and I did see it the morning Meer knew his brother was dying. It was flying close over the trees, so I could see how big it were.’

‘Well, well, well, could you, then?’ Jill glanced Rhodry’s way. ‘You didn’t happen to see any birds that looked unnaturally large, did you? When you were riding to fetch Meer and Jahdo, I mean.’

Rhodry shook his head no. He’d gone white about the mouth.

‘But all those weeks ago, when you and Yraen were riding to Cengarn, you saw a raven, didn’t you?’

‘So we did,’ Rhodry said. ‘It was just when we stumbled across that farm the raiders destroyed, the one where that poor woman was lying dead and her unborn babe with her. Ye gods! I made a jest about the wretched bird, teasing Carra, like, and saying it was a sorcerer, most like.’

‘Were you really only jesting?’

Rhodry grinned, briefly.

‘Not truly. Are you telling me I was right, and a dweomermaster it was?’

‘I’m not telling you anything. But I begin to think it likely.’

‘Ah, infamy and abomination!’ Meer whispered at first, but slowly and steadily his voice grew louder, till it rumbled in bardic imprecation. ‘O Thavrae, how could you, brother who is no longer no brother of mine! May your spirit walk restless through all the long ages of ages! May the gods turn you away from their doors! May their gardens be forbidden you! May you never drink of their drink, may you never taste of their food! That you could commit such sin, such perfidy! That you could break every law of every god! A brother’s curse fall upon you! And in the end, if ever our mother should learn your evil, may her curse pierce your spirit as you writhe in the thirteen pairs of jaws of many-headed Ranadar, the Hound of Hell!’

‘So be it,’ Jill said, and her own voice boomed like a priest’s. ‘May the gods be his witness.’

The room seemed to ring for a long long moment. As he crouched beside Meer and watched the dweomer light swirling over the walls, Jahdo felt a peculiar intuition, that this moment marked a great change for more than the few individuals in this chamber, that some mighty thing, a destiny indeed, had begun to rouse itself from some age-long sleep, or that some vast night had begun to turn toward day – he could not find words, not even for himself, but he knew, he knew.

‘You look solemn, lad,’ Jill said. ‘What ails you?’

He stared up at her, then rose, laying one hand on the back of Meer’s chair.

‘I just felt – I don’t know –’ The moment was passing, the insight fading, even as he struggled to grab it and pin it down. ‘That some great thing will happen, and I be glad I’m here to see it.’

Meer swung his head round and grunted.

‘Have you gone daft?’ he snapped.

‘I have not. You were right, that’s all, when you did tell me that great things were on the move. This be all real important, bain’t it, Jill?’

‘It is, truly, or so the omens tell me. Great things or evil things, or, most like, a fair bit of both.’

Although by then the evening was growing late, by the light of candle lanterns Gwerbret Cadmar lingered at the head of the table of honour with Lord Gwinardd sitting at his right hand. Nearby a bard waited, drowsing over his harp, in case his lord should ask him to sing. Across the great hall the riders’ tables were mostly deserted, and a few servants sat yawning by the empty hearth. Jill hesitated in the doorway for some moments. She’d been hoping that she’d find his grace alone. Matyc at least was gone. Although she herself had nothing against Matyc, she trusted Rhodry’s judgement in such matters. If he said he smelt festering meat, then doubtless something had died under the stairs. On the other hand, no one had ever said a word against young Gwinardd, and she refused to keep silent and send Meer and his boy back to the dungeon for the night.

When she approached the table, Cadmar greeted her with a smile and a wave, calling for a servant to bring up another chair so that she could sit nearby without displacing Gwinardd from his honoured position. The lord rose, bowing her way, then sitting down again rather than leaving. As usual, Gwinardd looked puzzled at the honour in which his grace held this common-born old woman, even though he knew that her herbcraft had saved the gwerbret’s life the winter past. She wondered if he suspected her other skills as well.

‘Well Jill,’ Cadmar said. ‘Have you spoken with those prisoners yet?’

‘I have, Your Grace, and it’s about them, in fact, that I’ve come. Spies they’re not, as you might expect with one of them blind. That Gel da’Thae is a bard and here on a tragic errand indeed. I’d like to treat them as guests – well, guarded guests, if you take my meaning – and put them in a chamber here in the broch. Is that possible?’

‘And have I ever turned away a man who deserved my hospitality? But –’

‘I’ll explain, Your Grace,’ Jill went on. ‘When these raiders first showed up in your lands, I thought they were after the usual sort of booty. Do you remember the talk we had about that, what they wanted, I mean, after you tracked down and destroyed the raiding party?’

‘I do, not that you told me much in the way of hard fact.’ Cadmar allowed himself a smile. ‘You were starting to get a different idea, you said, but you didn’t tell me what you meant.’

‘Well, my apologies, but my idea sounds far-fetched, you see, so much so that I’m still not sure of it. I do think, though, that Meer can tell me what I need to know, that he’s got the missing piece of this puzzle, somewhere in his stock of bard lore. But if we don’t treat him well and show him some trust, he’s not going to trust me enough in return to tell me one word of what he might know.’

‘That’s quite true.’ Cadmar snapped his fingers at a serving girl. ‘Run fetch the chamberlain. Tell him that we have a guest to accommodate and him a travelling bard at that.’

The lass curtsied and hurried away. Gwinardd was staring, as shocked by this ready acquiescence as young Jahdo had been by her dweomer light.

‘My thanks.’ Jill rose, nodding his way in lieu of a bow, since she was wearing brigga and thus had no skirt to curtsey with. ‘May I have your leave, Your Grace?’

‘Of course. But where is this sudden guest, then?’

‘With Rhodry and Yraen. Look. Here he comes now, across the hall. The lad will have to stay with him, of course, not be quartered with the other servants.’

‘Of course. I’ll have the chamberlain tend to it.’

‘My thanks, Your Grace. I thought that if you received him here in the open hall, everyone would know he’s your guest now, and the threats against him and his kind would stop.’

‘No doubt, Jill. They had better.’

When the gwerbret and his vassal turned to look at Meer, Jill slipped away. Although no dweomerworker can make herself truly invisible, despite what the old tales may say, Jill could gather her aura so tightly about her and move so silently and smoothly that she could pass unnoticed unless someone happened to be looking straight at her. Wrapped in these shadows she hurried up the staircase to her chamber. Judging from what she’d heard about this mysterious raven, she had to keep a close watch on Cengarn and the countryside round about, and for that she needed to fly.

For all that Meer hated and feared mazrakir, the process by which a dweomerworker takes on animal form is really only an extension of the perfectly ordinary procedure of constructing a body of light, in which the magician makes a thought-form in human or elven shape as a vehicle for his or her consciousness out on the etheric plane. Although at first he has to imagine this form minutely every time he wishes to use it, eventually a fully-realized body, identical to the last one, will appear whenever the dweomermaster summons it, out of no greater dweomer than ‘practice makes perfect’. This happens in exactly the same way as a normal memory image, such as the memory-house a merchant uses to store information about his customers, becomes standardized after a long working with it. A shapechanger starts with the same process, substituting an animal form for the human, although, of course, the mazrak does take things a fair bit farther.