Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [55]
When Rhodry left, he took his extra mount, so that he could make better speed by changing his weight from horse to horse. Even so, it would take him a long hard ride to reach Dwaen, and the return journey would be even longer with the tieryn and his men along. Jill walked down to the gates and waved him off, then returned to the inn with the cold chill of a dweomer warning down her back.
Despite the warning, the night passed with no trouble. At dawn, the lad brought Jill the rattrap. Inside, there was a big gray rat, squirming and biting at the withes, baring its long front teeth and scowling with little red eyes at its captors.
“He ate the whole bit, but he’s alive and nasty.”
“So he is. Here’s another copper, and my thanks.”
The lad hurried off to drown his prey in a water bucket. So, Jill thought, either the bitch was toying with me, or I’m dead wrong and it’s not Mallona. Yet despite her lack of evidence, she’d never been so sure of anything in her life, that a poisoner and murderess was living on Lady Davylla’s charity. In the rising light, the pale towers of the dun gleamed over the roofs of the town, impregnable and strong—except to a traitor within.
3
EVERY NIGHT, THE GIRLS and Lady Davylla gathered in the women’s hall, where Lady Taurra taught them strange lore—the virtues of different plants, the chants for different spells, the correct colors and metals to choose for talismans. Although Sevinna enjoyed learning about the various love charms and potions, at times they touched on things she found—not frightening, exactly—but unsavory. To curse a rival for your man’s affections, for instance, you were to catch a rat, keep it in a cage for three days while calling it by the rival’s name, then bury it alive while chanting the proper spells, and all at midnight in a lonely place. Sevinna had no love for stable rats, but still, it seemed a cruel thing to do to a beast. Much to her surprise, Wbridda and Babryan shared none of her scruples.
“Oh, honestly, Sevvi,” Babryan said. “I’d never really do such a thing, and I’ll wager Lady Taurra wouldn’t, either.”
“It’s just fun to hear about it,” Wbridda put in. “Well, not fun, exactly, but you know. Like ghosts. When the bard sings about someone walking through the great hall with his head in his hand, it’s splendid, but if you truly saw it? Oooh, how nasty!”
Almost as if she had picked up Sevinna’s doubts, Lady Taurra went out of her way to be friendly to her. Often she would insist Sevinna walk with her in the garden or come to her chamber alone to see some special thing. Taurra had a way of catching one’s gaze with hers and holding it while she smiled. Her eyes seemed to hint at secrets and of power, as if she had looked upon strange things and might someday share them. After a few of these looks, Sevinna came to wonder if she were misjudging the lady. After all, she had every right to be bitter and hard after the way her husband had treated her.
No matter how thrilling all this talk of lore might be, Lady Davylla never forgot that the real purpose of this visit lay in showing Sevinna off to possible husbands. Davylla had a young cousin, Comyn, who held an honorary rank of tieryn because of his position in the royal court. She was planning on putting him forward as a candidate.
“It’s not that he’s so handsome, dearest, rather a man’s man type, you know, but he’s in a very good situation with the king’s guard and can keep a wife well.”
“What does my uncle think of him?”
“Now, I don’t believe they’ve met. I shall have to remedy that.”
“You know, Davylla dearest,” Taurra broke in, “there’s a little ritual we could do to help Sevinna choose. Sometimes a lass can even see her future husband’s face in a mirror if the Goddess is gracious enough to show her. It’s just the full moon now, so we could do it.”
“Oh, how very exciting! Let’s!”
“There’s one obstacle, though,” Taurra went on. “We really