Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [186]
The night before they left for Aberwyn, Nevyn decided to seek Cullyn out and found him in his chamber in the barracks. Dressed in a new shirt blazoned with red lions, Cullyn sat on the side of his bed and polished his sword by lantern light. He greeted Nevyn hospitably and offered him the only chair.
“I just wanted a few words with you. About a somewhat delicate matter.”
“I’ll wager you mean Jill.”
“Just that. I’ll admit to being surprised that you’d let her do what’s she’s doing.”
Cullyn sighted down the sword blade, found some near-invisible fleck of rust, and began working on it with a rag.
“I think you’d be the least surprised of any man,” Cullyn said at last. “You’re the one who knows why I had to let her go.”
When he looked up, straight into Nevyn’s eyes, Nevyn had to admire him for the first time in four hundred years. All the arrogance that Gerraent had flaunted, life after life, was gone, leaving only a certain proud humility that came from facing the bitter realities of his life.
“There’s more kinds of honor than battle glory,” Nevyn said. “You deserve yours.”
With a shrug, Cullyn tossed the sword onto the bed.
“Jill’s going to do cursed well out of this, isn’t she? She’ll have a better life than any that I thought I could ever give her. Even if I had a lord’s ransom for her dowry, what kind of husband could I have found her? A craftsman of some kind, a tavern owner, maybe, and there she’d be, working hard all her life. For a silver dagger’s bastard, she’s risen pretty high.”
“So she has, truly. I’d never thought of things quite in that way.”
“Doubtless you’ve never had to. What’s that old saying? It’s better for a woman to keep her poverty than lose her virtue? I’d have slit Jill’s throat rather than let her turn into a whore, but when you ride the long road, you learn not to be too fussy about fine shades of virtue. Ye gods, I sold my own honor a thousand times over. Who am I to look down my nose at her?”
“Well, true spoken, but most men wouldn’t be so reasonable about their only daughter.”
Cullyn shrugged and picked up the sword again to run callused fingertips down the gutter of the blade.
“I’ll tell you somewhat. I haven’t told a soul this tale in nineteen years, but have you ever wondered why I ended up with the god-scorned silver dagger?”
“Often. I was afraid to ask.”
“As well you might have been.” Cullyn gave him a thin smile. “I was a rider in the Gwerbret of Cerrmor’s warband. There was a lass I fancied there, waiting on table in the great hall, Seryan, Jill’s mother. And another lad fancied her, too. We fought over her like dogs over a bone until she made it clear enough that she favored me. So this other lad—ah, may the gods blast me, but I’ve forgotten the poor bastard’s name—anyway, he wouldn’t take her at her word and kept hanging around her. So, one night I said somewhat to him about it, and he drew on me. So I drew and killed him.” Cullyn’s voice dropped, and he looked down at the sword across his knees. “Right there in the gwerbret’s barracks. His Grace was all for hanging me, but the captain stepped in, saying the other lad drew first. So His Grace kicked me out instead, and my poor Seryan insisted on riding with me when I went.” Cullyn looked up again. “So, you see, I swore then that I’d never kill another man over a woman. It doesn’t do you or her one cursed bit of good.”
Nevyn was speechless for a moment, simply because Cullyn had no idea of just how much of his Wyrd he was laying aside with that simple truth.
“You learn,” Cullyn said. “I was a stubborn young dog, but you learn.”
“Truly. I was as stubborn myself, when I was that young.”
“No doubt. You know, herbman, why we rub each other so raw? We’re too much alike.”
“Ye gods! So we are.”
At that time, Aberwyn was