Dawnspell. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ dun was only about five miles away, he’d seen the hill many a time and heard all the tales about it, too; how it was haunted, plagued by demons and spirits, who sent blue lights dancing through the night and strange howls whistling through the day. It certainly looked peculiar enough to be haunted, rising straight out of an otherwise flat meadow, like some old giant long ago turned to stone and overgrown with grass.

      ‘Now, now.’ Nevyn gave him a grin. ‘I’m real flesh and blood, not a prince of demons or suchlike.’

      Maddyn tried to return the smile and failed.

      ‘I like to be left alone, lad,’ Nevyn went on. ‘So, what better place could I find to live than a place where everyone else is afraid to go?’

      ‘Well, true enough, I suppose. But then there aren’t any spirits here after all?’

      ‘Oh, there’s lots, but they go their way and I go mine. Plenty of room for us all.’

      When Maddyn realized that the old man was serious, his hands shook so hard that he had to lay down his bowl and spoon.

      ‘I couldn’t lie to you,’ Nevyn said in a perfectly mild tone of voice. ‘You’ll have to shelter with us this winter, because you won’t be fit to ride before the snows come, but these spirits are a harmless sort. All that talk about demons is simple exaggeration. The folk around here are starved for a bit of colour in their lives.’

      ‘Are they now? Uh, here, good sir, just how long have I been here, anyway?’

      ‘Oh, a fortnight. You lay in a fever for a wretchedly long time. The wound went septic. When I found you, there were flies all over it.’

      Maddyn picked up his spoon and grimly went on eating. The sooner he got the strength to leave this spirit-plagued place, the better.

      As the wound healed, Maddyn began getting out of bed for longer and longer periods. Although Nevyn had thrown away his blood-soaked clothes, Maddyn had a spare shirt in his saddlebags, and the old man found him a pair of brigga that fitted well enough. One of the first things he did was unwrap his ballad-harp and make sure that it was unharmed. With his right arm so weak, he couldn’t tune it, but he ran his fingers over the sour, lax strings to make sure they still sounded.

      ‘I’m surprised that Lord Brynoic would risk a bard in battle,’ Nevyn remarked.

      ‘I’m not much of a bard, truly, more a gerthddyn who can fight. I know a good many songs and suchlike, but I never studied the triads and the rest of the true bard lore.’

      ‘And why not?’

      ‘Well, my father was a rider in our lord’s warband. When he was killed, I was but thirteen, and Lord Brynoic offered me a place in the troop. I took it to avenge my father’s death, and then, well, there never was a chance to study after that, since I’d given my lord my pledge and all.’

      ‘And do you regret it?’

      ‘I’ve never let myself feel regret. Only grief lies that way, good sir.’

      Once he was strong enough, Maddyn began exploring the old man’s strange home, a small complex of caves and tunnels. Besides the main living quarters, there was another stone room that the herbman had turned into a stable for his horse, Maddyn’s too, and a fine brown mule. The side of that room crumbled away, leading back to a natural cave, where a small spring welled up, then drained away down the side of the hill. Just outside the stable door was the gully that had given Brin Toraedic its name of ‘broken hill’, a long, straight cleft slicing across the summit. The first time he went outside, he found the air cold in spite of the bright sun, and the chill worked in his wound and tormented him. He hurried back inside and decided to take Nevyn’s word for it that winter was well on its way.

      Since the herbman had plenty of coin as well as these elaborate living quarters, Maddyn began to wonder if he were an eccentric nobleman who’d simply fled from the civil wars raging across the kingdom. He was far too grateful to ask such an embarrassing question, but scattered across the kingdom were plenty of the noble-born who weaselled any way they could to get out of their obligations to the various gwerbrets claiming to be King of all Deverry. Nevyn had a markedly courtly way about him, gracious at times, brusque at others, as if he were used to being obeyed without question. What’s more, he could read and write, an accomplishment rare for the simple herbman he claimed to be. Maddyn began to find the old man fascinating.

      Once every few days, Nevyn took his horse and mule and rode down to the nearby village, where he would buy fresh food and pack in a mule-load of winter supplies: hay and grain for the stock, or cheeses, sausage, dried fruit and suchlike for the pair of them. While he was gone, Maddyn would do some share of the work around the caves, then sleep off his exertion. On a grey morning with a sharp wind, Nevyn mentioned that he’d be gone longer than usual, because one of the village women needed his healing herbs. After the old man had left, Maddyn swept the stable refuse into the gully, then went back for a rest before he raked it out on to the hillside. He laid a bit more wood on the hearth, then sat down close by to drive the chill from his wound.

      For the first time since the battle, he felt too strong to sleep, and his neglected harp called him reproachfully. When he took her out of her leather bag, the lax strings sighed at him. On a harp that size, there were only thirty-six strings, but in his weakened state, tuning her seemed to take him for ever. He struck out the main note from his steel tuning bar, then worked over the strings, adjusting the tiny ivory pegs while he sang out the intervals, until sweat ran down his face. This sign of weakness only drove him on until at last the harp was in reasonable tune, but he had to rest for a few minutes before he could play it. He ran a few trills, struck a few chords, and the music seemed to give him a small bit of his strength back as it echoed through the huge stone-walled room. The very size of the place added an eerie overtone to every note he played.

      Suddenly, at his shoulder, he felt the White Lady, his agwen, she who came to every bard who had true song in him. As she gathered, he felt the familiar chill down his back, the stirring of hair at the nape of his neck. For all that he called himself a gerthddyn, her presence and the inspiration she gave him was the sign that the kingdom had lost a true bard when Maddyn had pledged for a rider. Although his voice was weak and stiff that morning, he sang for his agwen, a long ballad, bits of lyric, whatever came to his mind, and the music soothed his wound as well as a healing poultice.

      All at once, he knew that he wasn’t alone. When he looked up, expecting to see Nevyn in the doorway, no one was indeed there. When he glanced around, he saw nothing but fire-thrown shadows. Yet every time he struck a chord, he felt an audience listening to him. The hair on the back of his neck pricked like a cat’s when he remembered Nevyn’s talk of spirits. You’re daft, he told himself sharply; there’s naught here. But he had performed too many times to believe himself. He knew the intangible difference between singing to empty air and playing to an attentive hall. When he sang two verses of a ballad, he felt them, whoever they were, leaning forward to catch every word. When he stopped and set the harp down, he sensed their disappointment.

      ‘Well, here, now. You can’t be such bad sorts, if you like a good song.’

      He thought he heard someone giggle behind him, but when he turned, there was nothing there but the wall. He got up and walked slowly and cautiously around the room, looked into every corner and crack – and saw nothing. Just as he sat down again, someone else giggled – this time he heard it plainly – like a tiny child who’s just played a successful prank. Maddyn grabbed his harp only with the somewhat fuddled thought of keeping it safe, but when he felt his invisible audience crowd round him in anticipation, he was too much of a bard to turn down any listeners, even incorporeal СКАЧАТЬ