Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [87]
The crowd began to murmur, and Matyc looked Rhodry’s way with poison in his eyes. Cadmar let the talk go on for a moment or two, then yelled for silence.
“The silver dagger’s right enough,” the gwerbret said. “A trial by combat in circumstances like these would be an affront to the gods and naught more.”
“Your Grace!” Matyc howled. “Then where’s my re-dress?”
“Your Grace.” Rhodry knelt in front of the gwerbret. “I offer myself as a champion for the justice of the thing.”
The crowd started to cheer, then bit it back. Trapped in a rat cage of his own weaving, Matyc made a choking sound deep in his throat.
“Ye gods!” Cadmar snapped. “How has this stupid incident got itself so overblown? Your Holiness, I can’t countenance this.”
The priest shrugged with a little fling of his hands.
“I have no say in the matter, Your Grace. Matyc’s called for formal combat. There’s not one thing I can do to stop it now. When a man speaks in front of the gods, he speaks but once.”
Cadmar turned to Matyc.
“Will you withdraw your-request?”
“How can I, and have a scrap of honor left? Do you think I could ever hold my head up again if people thought me frightened of a silver dagger? The god will aid me, Your Grace, and then well see who’s acting for the justice of the thing.”
Otho sighed and wiped his sweaty forehead on his shirt sleeve.
“So be it,” pronounced the gwerbret. “You shall fight with the ritual arms: neither mail nor shield shall come between you, but you shall have a sword in the right hand and a dagger in the left. Lord Matyc, son of Arddyr, do you accept these terms?”
“I do, Your Grace.” To give him his due, his voice was rock-steady. “I submit to the arbitration of the gods.”
“And you, Rhodry, son of—my apologies, silver dagger. I don’t know your father’s name.”
“Devaberiel Silverhand, Your Grace.”
Whispers rippled through the great hall. Cadmar sat stunned for a moment, then lifted the sword for silence. It came promptly.
“Very well, Rhodry, son of Devaberiel Silverhand, do you submit to the arbitration of both the gods of Deverry and those of your father’s people?”
“I do, Your Grace.”
Cadmar turned to the priest.
“Your Holiness, I have called you here on a matter of justice, and justice we shall have. Will you preside?”
“I will, Your Grace, but Great Bel will do the judging, not me or any other mortal man.”
Without waiting for another word from lord or priest the assembled warbands began to file out of the great hall. Although the crowd murmured as it fell back to let them go, the riders themselves walked in dead silence. They saw the rite of combat as a seal on their warriors’ lives, an outward and visible sign that their death-dealing stood holy in the eyes of the gods. Rhodry was enough one of them to know that they were at heart grateful for the chance to witness this rare act of worship. He followed them out, walking alone, with a little space around him that seemed as impenetrable as a dun wall, judging from the way none dared approach him.
Outside the many-towered dun, in a grassy stretch of meadow, the priest of Bel paced out the long rectangle of the combat ground and cut the turf with his golden sickle to mark it. Matyc’s men ranged themselves along one side, Otho and his kin on the other, and the gwerbret’s men stood all round to prevent trouble. In shirts, brigga, and bare feet Rhodry and Matyc walked to the center of the ground and handed their weapons to the priest, who kissed each one and prayed over it as well. When Rhodry and Matyc knelt before him, he laid his hands on their heads and offered up a long prayer, asking Bel to judge the true man from the false. Bel was the High King’s god, and all his life, whether as silver dagger or great lord, Rhodry had considered himself the High King’s man with a devotion greater than any Deverry man would ever pay to one of the deities. As he knelt on a matter of justice, Rhodry felt the touch of another hand, this