The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [0]
Deadly Information
“You the silver dagger who was asking for Lord Perryn?”
“I am, and what’s it to you?” Rhodry asked.
“Naught, but I might have a bit of information for you for the right price.”
Rhodry took two silver pieces from his pouch and held them between his fingers. The peddler grinned.
“I stayed one night in a little village inn, oh, some thirty miles from here. I was trying to get my sleep when I heard someone yelling out in the stable yard. So I sticks my head out the window, and I see our Perryn arguing with this blond lass. Seems like she was leaving him, and he was yelling at her not to go.”
Rhodry handed over the first silver.
“‘I’m going to find no one,’ she says,” the peddler went on. “Seemed like a cursed strange thing to say, so it’s stuck in my mind, like.”
“So it would. Did she say where ‘nev yn’ was?”
“Not truly. But she did say to his lordship that if he tried to follow her to Cerrmor, she’d take his balls off with her silver dagger.”
With a laugh, Rhodry handed him the second coin, then dug out a third for good measure.
“My thanks, peddler.”
When Rhodry left the stable, Merryc laughed quietly under his breath. It was a good jest, to make the silver dagger pay for the false rumors that were going to mean his doom.
The boundless imagination of
KATHARINE KERR
Her novels of Deverry and the Westlands:
THE BRISTLING WOOD
THE DRAGON REVENANT
A TIME OF EXILE
A TIME OF OMENS
DAGGERSPELL
DAYS OF BLOOD AND FIRE
DARKSPELL
DAYS OF AIR AND DARKNESS
THE RED WYVERN
THE BLACK RAVEN
THE FIRE DRAGON
Available from Bantam Spectra Books
In memoriam: Raymond Earle Kerr, Jr.,
1917–87,
an officer and a gentleman
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As usual, I owe many people many thanks:
Pat LoBrutto, my editor and one of the best in the business, who keeps going to bat for me even as this project grows longer and longer.
Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen, my agents, who are friends far more than business acquaintances.
Marta Grabien, who gave me invaluable help in acquiring my computer system.
Nic and Deborah Grabien, who went beyond the call of friendship to install the new computer once acquired.
Jon Jacobsen, my best critic and supporter, who no doubt would be a silver dagger himself did he live in Deverry.
Alice Brahtin, my mother, who much to her surprise found she actually likes the peculiar things I write.
And as always, Howard Kerr, my husband.
Contents
Cover Page
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Pronunciation of Deverry Words
Prologue - Spring, 1064
Part One - Deverry and Pyrdon 833–845
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Part Two - Summer, 1064
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Appendix
Glossary
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright
A NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION
OF DEVERRY WORDS
The language spoken in Deverry is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.
Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.
A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.
O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.
W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short.
Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.
E as in pen.
I as in pin.
U as in pun.
Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.
Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.
AE as the a in mane.
AI as in aisle.
AU as the ow in how.
EO as a combination of eh and oh.
EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.
IE as in pier.
OE as the oy in boy.
UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee. Note that OI is never