Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [67]
Drawn by some impulse that Ricyn couldn’t understand, Gweniver followed Dannyn when he rode out the gates. Ricyn caught Nevyn’s eye and motioned for the old man to come along as he hurried after her. All during Dannyn’s slow ride through the crowded streets, the folk turned to stare at him, to whisper, to call him bastard, but he sat straight and proudly in the saddle. At the city gates he bowed to the guards, then kicked his horse to a gallop and raced down the open road. Ricyn let out his breath in a sigh of relief. In spite of himself, he felt a stab of pity.
“My lady?” he said to Gweniver. “Why did you follow him?”
“I wanted to see if he’d break. Pity he didn’t.”
“Ye gods, Gwen!” Nevyn snapped. “I was hoping you’d find it in your heart to forgive him.”
“Now, that’s the first stupid thing I’ve ever heard you say, good sir. Why by all the ice in all the hells should I? I allowed the king to banish him for his sake, not Dannyn’s, and our liege was blasted lucky that he got that much out of me.”
“Indeed?” the old man said with some asperity. “Hatred binds two people together even more tightly than love. You might reflect upon that.”
The three of them strolled along the north-running road, bordered with the green meadowland of the king’s personal demesne. In the cold, clear sky, white clouds piled up and scudded before the rising wind. Ricyn was just thinking that he’d like to get back to the warmth of the great hall when he saw the horse, trotting toward them down the road. It was Dannyn’s black, riderless, with the reins tied to the saddle peak. With an oath Ricyn ran over and grabbed the reins. All of its master’s gear was still tied to the saddle.
“Oh, ye gods,” Nevyn said. “Gwen, take that horse back to the dun and tell the guards how you found it. Bring them back with you. Ricco, come along. He can’t be far.”
Ricyn found out that Nevyn could run surprisingly fast for a man his age. They jogged down the road for about half a mile to a small rise with a single oak growing at its top. Someone was sitting under the tree. Swearing, Nevyn raced up the hill, and Ricyn panted after him. Dannyn was slumped over, his bloody dagger still tight in his hand. He’d cut his own throat not a mile away from the king he loved. When Ricyn turned away, he could see Dun Cerrmor rising above the town, the red-and-silver banners flapping in the wind.
“Ah, shit!” Ricyn said. “The poor bastard.”
“And is this enough vengeance for you?”
“Too much. He’s got my forgiveness, if it’ll do him any good in the Otherlands.”
Nodding a little, Nevyn turned away.
“Well and good,” he said. “Then that’s one link on this chain broken, anyway.”
“What?”
“Oh, naught, naught. Look. Here come the city guards now.”
Nevyn stayed for another year in Cerrmor, but the time came when he could no longer bear to see Gweniver ride to war or to wait with the dread that she’d never ride home. One wet spring day he left the dun and rode north to do what he could for the common folk of the kingdom. Although at first he thought of Gweniver often, he had so much else to trouble his heart that soon her memory faded. Year after year the wars raged, and plague followed in their wake. Everywhere he went, Nevyn tried to counsel lords toward peace and the ordinary folk toward their own survival, but he felt that he was doing so little good, no matter how grateful were the people he helped, that he gave in to despair. In his heart he reached the Dark Paths, where even the