• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 772 0

Although the dweomerman visited him first to tend his broken wrist, as the month wore on, he kept coming out of simple pity. Since the prince could read and write, Nevyn brought him books from the scribal library and lingered to spend an hour or two discussing them. The lad was unusually bright, with the kind of wits that might develop into wisdom if he lived long enough. The prospect for that, however, was doubtful, because under all of Glyn’s courtesy lay the real threat that if Eldidd didn’t ransom his son, Mael would hang. Since he himself had once been a third and thus superfluous prince, Nevyn doubted that Eldidd would humble himself unduly when it came to saving Mael’s life. Mael had his own doubts.

“I wish I could have killed myself before they captured me,” he remarked one afternoon.

“That would have been a shameful thing. A man who flees his Wyrd has a harsh reckoning to make in the Otherlands.”

“Would it have been any harsher than hanging like a horse thief?”

“Oh, come now, lad, your father might ransom you yet. Glyn’s not inclined to be greedy over the price, and your father would feel shamed if he just let you die.”

Mael flung himself into a chair and slouched down, his long colt’s legs stretched out in front of him, his raven-black hair a rumpled mess.

“I can bring you another book,” Nevyn went on. “The scribes have a copy of Dwvoryc’s Annals of the Dawntime. It has some splendid battles in it, or would reading about the war ache your heart?”

The prince shook his head and stared out the window at the blue sky.

“You know what the worst thing was?” he said after a moment. “Being captured by a woman. I thought I’d die of shame when I looked at her and saw she was a woman.”

“Well, not just any female, Your Highness. There’s no shame in being captured by a Moon-sworn warrior.”

“So I’ll hope, then. But truly, I’ve never seen anyone fight like her. She was laughing.” Mael paused, his mouth slack with the memory. “It truly was like seeing a goddess come over the field, the way she was laughing and cutting. One of her men called her the Goddess, and you know, I believed him.”

Nevyn felt sick at the thought of her being so bound up in battle lust.

“Good sir, you seem wise,” the prince went on. “I thought it was impious for a woman to take up arms.”

“Now, that depends on which priest you choose to listen to. But it’s an act of piety to Lady Gweniver’s Goddess. Every man she kills is a sacrifice to the Dark of the Moon.”

“Indeed? Then her Goddess must have been glutted after that fight, and her holy battle ravens, too.”

“No doubt. Now, back in the Dawntime there were other battle maidens, all sworn to the Dark Moon, though I don’t suppose the cult was ever what you’d call widespread. The Rhwmanes thought it impious, but then, all their women did was sit and spin.”

“You mean back in the Homeland, then, before the great exile.”

“Just that, long before King Bran led his people to the Western Isles. But once they were here, cut off from the Homeland, well, I suppose a childbearing woman was simply too valuable to risk in battle. I don’t truly understand it, but the cult of the Dark Moon died away. There’s somewhat about it in that book I mentioned.”

“Then I’d truly like to read it. It makes it better, knowing I wasn’t captured by the only one.”

That very same day heralds came in from Eldidd. The court was abuzz with gossip, wondering how much the foreign king was offering for his son, and if Glyn would take it. The eager ears did hear one bit of news straightaway, that Mael’s wife had been delivered of a fine, healthy son. Nevyn wondered how much the king would care about Mael now that he had still another heir, but that answer, as it turned out, was quite a bit. Nevyn heard the tale from the king, when Glyn summoned him to his private chambers that night, as he’d grown accustomed to doing, just to hear the long view that the dweomer could offer him.

“Eldidd’s promised me a cursed large amount of gold,” Glyn said. “But I don’t need coin as much as I need a quiet border. I’m planning on dragging the negotiations