Daggerspell. Katharine Kerr
accompanied him for a few miles simply because he was expected to. The prince smiled and chattered until Gerraent wanted to murder him and leave his body in a ditch by the road. At last they reached the turning, and Gerraent sat on his horse and watched the prince’s scarlet-and-white plaid cloak disappear into the distance. Three more weeks, only three more weeks, and the prince would return from Dun Deverry to take Brangwen away. With her, Gerraent’s heart would go, breaking.
When he rode back to the dun, Gerraent found Brangwen sitting outside in the sun and sewing. He gave his horse to Brythu, his page, and sat down at her feet like a dog. Her golden hair shone in the sun like finespun thread, wisping around the soft skin of her cheeks. When she smiled at him, Gerraent felt stabbed to the heart.
“What are you sewing?” Gerraent said. “Somewhat for your dower chest?”
“It’s not, but a shirt for you. The last one I’ll ever make, but don’t worry, Ysolla does splendid needlework. I’ll wager that your wedding shirt is ever so much nicer than my poor Galrion’s.”
Gerraent rose to his feet, hesitated, then sat again, trapped in his old torment, that his beautiful sister, the one beautiful thing in his world, would turn him into something ugly and unclean, despised by the gods and men alike, if ever they knew of his secret fault. All at once she cried out. He jumped to his feet before he knew what he was doing.
“I just pricked my finger on the beastly needle,” Brangwen said, grinning at him. “Don’t look so alarmed, Gerro. But, oh, here, I’ve gotten a drop of blood on your shirt. Blast it!”
The little red smear lay in the midst of red interlaced bands of spirals.
“No one’s ever going to notice it,” Gerraent said.
“As long as it’s not a bad omen, you’re right enough. Doubtless you’ll get more gore on it than this. You do get so filthy when you hunt, Gerro.”
“I won’t wear it hunting until it starts to wear out. It’ll be my best shirt, the last one you ever sewed for me.” Gerraent caught her hand and kissed the drop of blood away.
Late that night, Gerraent went out to the dark, silent ward and paced restlessly back and forth. In the moonlight, he could see the severed head of old Samoryc glaring down at him with empty eye sockets. Once every dun and warrior’s home would have been graced with such trophies, but some years past, the priests had seen visions stating that taking heads had come to displease great Bel. Of all the lords round about, Dwen was the last to defy the change. Gerraent remembered the day when the priests came to implore him to take the trophy down. A tiny lad, then, Gerraent hid behind his mother’s skirts as Dwen refused, roaring with laughter, saying that if the gods truly wanted it down, they’d make it rot soon enough. Chanting a ritual curse, the priests left defeated.
“I’m the curse,” Gerraent said to Samoryc. “I’m the curse the gods sent to our clan.”
He sat down on the ground and wept.
The days passed slowly, long days of torment, until Gerraent fled his sister’s presence and rode to Blaen on the pretense of seeing his new betrothed. He and Blaen were more than friends; the year before, when they’d ridden to war together, they’d sworn an oath that they would fight at each other’s side until both were dead or both victorious, and they had sealed that oath with drops of their own blood.
In his blood-sworn friend’s soothing company Gerraent spent a pleasant pair of days, drinking at Blaen’s hearth, hunting out in his forest preserve, or riding aimlessly across his lands with the warband behind them. Gerraent envied Blaen for having a warband. He was determined to get one of his own; the ten horses that he’d receive in Ysolla’s dowry would be a splendid start, and soon Brangwen’s royal marriage would bring wealth to the Falcon, a lwdd, a blood price of sorts—but too small a compensation for the losing of her.
On the third day, late in the afternoon, Gerraent and Blaen rode out alone. Enjoying each others silent company, they ambled through the fields until they reached a low rise that overlooked meadowlands. Tended by a pair of boys and a dog, Blaen’s herd of white cattle with rusty-red ears grazed below.
“Let’s hope there’s no war this summer,” Blaen said.
“What? What are you doing, turning into an old woman?”
“I’m not ready to start sucking eggs yet, but I’ll tell you somewhat I’d never tell any other man. There are times when I wish I’d been born a bard, singing about wars instead of fighting them.”
Thinking it a jest, Gerraent started to laugh, then stopped at the quiet seriousness in Blaen’s eyes. All the way home, he puzzled over it, remembering Blaen’s calm courage in battle and wondering how any man would want to be a bard rather than a warrior. They returned to the dun at sunset. As he dismounted, Gerraent saw Brythu running out of the broch.
“My lord!” the boy panted out. “I just got here. Your father’s dying.”
“Take the best horse in my stable,” Blaen said. “Break him if you have to.”
When he rode out, Gerraent left the page behind so that he could make good speed. He galloped through the twilight, alternately trotted and galloped even when dark fell, though the road lay treacherous in the pale moonlight. Not for one moment did it occur to him that he might be thrown. All he could think of was his father, dying without a last sight of his son, and of Brangwen, tending the dying alone. Whenever the horse stumbled, he would let it walk to rest, then spur it on again. At last he reached the small village on the edge of his lands. He banged on the tavern door until the tavernman came hurrying down in his nightshirt with a candle lantern in his hand.
“Can you change my horse?” Gerraent said.
“Lady Brangwen had the gray brought here to wait for you.”
The gray was the fastest horse in the Falcon’s stable. Gerraent switched saddle and bridle, flung the tavernman a coin, then kicked the gray to a gallop, plunging out of the candlelight and into the night-shrouded road. At last he saw the dun rising, the palisade dark against the starry sky. He spurred one last burst of speed out of the gray and galloped through the open gates. As he dismounted, the chamberlain ran out of the broch.
“He still lives,” Draudd called out. “I’ll tend the horse.”
Gerraent ran up the spiral staircase and down the hall to his father’s chamber. Propped up on pillows, Dwen was lying in bed, his face gray, his mouth slack as he fought for every breath. Brangwen sat beside him and clutched his hand in both of hers.
“He’s home. Da,” she said. “Gerro’s here.”
As Gerraent walked over, Dwen raised his head and searched for him with rheumy eyes. Dwen tried to speak, then coughed, spitting up a slime of blood-tinged phlegm, slipping and glistening as his head fell back. He was dead. Gerraent wiped the spittle off his father’s mouth with the edge of the blanket, then closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. The chamberlain came in, glanced at the bed, then flung himself down to kneel at Gerraent’s feet—at the feet of the new Falcon, head of the clan and its only hope.
“My lord, I’d best send a page to the King straightaway. We’ve got to catch the wedding party before it leaves.”
“So we do. Get him on the way at dawn.”
It would take three days to get the message to Dun Deverry that Brangwen’s wedding would have to wait for a time of mourning. All at once, as he looked at his father’s face, Gerraent turned sick with self-loathing. He would have given anything to stop that marriage, anything but this. He threw his head back and keened, cry after wordless cry, as if he could drive his thoughts away with the sound.
In the morning, the priests of Bel came from the temple to preside over the burial. Under their direction, Brangwen and her serving maid washed the body, dressed it in Dwen’s best court clothes, and laid it on a litter. While the servants dug the grave, Gerraent groomed and saddled his father’s best horse. The procession assembled out in the ward, servants carrying the litter, the