The Spirit Stone. Katharine Kerr
expect? I’ve been flayed alive, and I’m supposed to mince around?’
‘Well, you don’t need to be mean to me.’
Gwairyc felt his temper snap like a rope pulled too tight. He grabbed her, kissed her, and threw her down on the window-seat, falling half on top of her to kiss her again. She screamed, but only feebly, a little yelp carefully calculated to stay in the chamber. This time, when she surrendered to his caresses, he gave her no chance to change her mind. He picked her up, slid off the window-seat and laid her down again right on the floor.
When they were finished, Sagraeffa lay still on the carpet for a long time and stared at him. Her face was flushed, and when he caressed her, he could feel her nipples, as hard as Bardek almonds. Gwairyc gave her one last kiss, then got up, pulling up his brigga and lacing them.
‘You’re such a brute,’ she whispered.
‘Oh am I now? Those noises you made – it didn’t sound to me like you were screaming for help.’
Gasping in rage, Sagraeffa sat up, pulling down her dress and glaring at him. Gwairyc picked up his sword belt from the floor and began buckling it on.
‘And I suppose you’re just going to leave me now,’ she said.
‘You’re the one who was worrying about your blasted husband. I don’t want to leave. I’d rather spend all night in your bed.’ He gave her a grin. ‘Admit it – you’d like to have me there.’
Sagraeffa got up, then stood glaring at him while she tried to smooth down her skirts with nervous fingers. He liked seeing her this way – dishevelled, flustered, utterly weak before his superior strength. He took her by the shoulders and gave her a kiss, which she took meekly, leaning against him.
‘Oh ye gods, what if I have a baby? Obyn will know it isn’t his.’
‘Indeed? Then maybe you’d best do something to stiffen his, um, resolve.’
With a snarl, Sagraeffa pulled away and slapped him across the face. Her soft hand barely stung on his cheek.
‘Get out of here! I hate you!’
Gwairyc dodged another slap, made her a hasty bow, and ran for the door. As he let himself out, he heard her weeping. With a shrug, he slammed the door and hurried down the corridor. He had no more time to waste on her. The worst part of this last night lay ahead of him: going back to the barracks to face his men.
The king’s riders were housed in five separate barracks. Each warband had its own standard and blazon in addition to the royal wyvern. Gwairyc’s band, the Falcons, were housed in barracks closest to the broch complex. As he hurried across the dark ward, Gwairyc was brooding about the other four troops. During the winters, when they lacked real enemies, all five of them were bitter rivals. No doubt the Falcons were in for a lot of jests about the wyrd that had fallen on their captain. When he reached the door, he paused, summoning courage. Then he flung open the door and strode in, bracing himself for jeers.
Instead, the men merely looked at him, glancing his way, then turning silently back to dice games or polishing gear as he walked the long way down the row of bunks to his own small chamber at the far end of the barracks. He slipped in, barred the door behind him, then let out his breath in a long sigh of relief.
The room sweltered from a fire his page had lit in the small hearth. Gwairyc lit a pair of candles from the coals, set them on the mantel, then spread and smashed the fire to dead ash. For a long time he leaned against the wall and watched the candle flames dance.
‘Ah ye gods! How can you do this to me?’
The gods didn’t deign to answer. With a sigh, Gwairyc unbuckled his sword belt and laid it down carefully on the bed. He had better pack up his gear, he decided, what there was of it, enough clothes and the like to fit into two pair of saddlebags and little more. At a timid knock on his door, he opened it to find a small group of his riders clustered behind red-haired Rhwn, who generally acted as his second-in-command. Rhwn was holding out a big silver pitcher and a clay cup.
‘My lord?’ Rhwn said. ‘Me and the lads bribed a kitchen lass and got you some mead. Figured you’d need it.’
‘My thanks.’ Gwairyc steadied his voice by force of will, then took the mead. ‘Do you hold this to my shame?’
‘How can we? I tell you, my lord, me and the lads are as vexed as the Lord of Hell with boils on his cock! It’s not going to be the same, riding behind some other captain.’
The men behind him all nodded their agreement.
‘Well, my thanks,’ Gwairyc said again. ‘I never knew I had such a blasted strange wyrd in store for me.’
‘No man knows his wyrd,’ Rhwn said with a shrug. ‘Here, my lord, who is that old man? He can’t truly be some old daft herbman. The King himself called him a lord.’
‘Then he’s a daft old lord who turned herbman, maybe. Ah horseshit, I’m going to find out, aren’t I?’
Rhwn nodded with a long sad sigh, then herded the other men away to leave Gwairyc his privacy. Gwairyc barred the door again and returned to stuffing his material wealth into his saddlebags. By the time he’d done, he’d drunk half the mead. He finished off the rest of the pitcher fast, drinking it down like physick, then passed out fully dressed on his bunk.
Waking brought torment, a headache like a sword cut, a stomach that roiled like a winter sea. Rolling up his blankets gave him a foretaste of the seven hells. Gwairyc had a brief thought of suicide, decided it would be acknowledging defeat in a battle not yet begun, and grimly got his gear together instead of slitting his own throat. Just as dawn was brightening the sky, he led his grey gelding, a personal gift from the king, out of the dun gates. When he mounted, the effort made the buildings around him sway and wobble. He let the horse pick a slow way out into the city streets.
Only a few townsfolk were out this early: a housewife sweeping off her steps, a servant emptying a chamber-pot into the gutter. Gwairyc found the temple of Wmm by luck as much as memory. He dismounted, wondering where exactly Nevyn might be. When he touched the locked gate, the geese charged, hissing and flapping.
‘If you didn’t belong to a priest,’ Gwairyc said, ‘I’d wring your ugly white necks.’
He led his horse around to the mews he’d noticed behind the priest’s house. Sure enough, Nevyn was just tying a saddled riding horse to a hitching rail.
‘Ah, there you are,’ the old man said. ‘I’m still loading the mule.’
The gate was just broad enough to let Gwairyc’s horse follow him into a small dusty yard behind what seemed to be a stable. Nevyn was standing beside a pair of large canvas packs, while his mule stood head-down and sulky nearby. Gwairyc made an uneasy bow to his new master. Nevyn was a tall man, slender and remarkably strong-looking with a vigour that belied his untidy shock of white hair and his wrinkled face, dotted with the brown spots of advanced old age. He was dressed in a pair of dirty, much-mended brown brigga and an old shirt without any blazon on the yokes. A tattered brown cloak hung over the horse’s saddle.
‘Well, here I am,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Do you want me to load that mule for you?’
‘In a bit. You look ill. What did you do, drink yourself blind last night?’
‘Just that.’
‘I thought you might, so I saved out a few herbs for you. Here, sit down. I’ll just fetch a bit of hot water from Affyna’s kitchen.’
Gwairyc sat down on the ground. His head was aching so badly that it was hard to think, but he wondered if he hated the old man. It seemed that he should hate someone for this indignity. What by every god did this daft old bastard want with him, anyway? Nevyn came back with a clay cup and handed it to him. A drift of sweet-smelling steam came up from a murky greenish liquid.
‘Drink all of it, lad,’ Nevyn said. ‘You’ll feel better in a bit.’
Gwairyc