A Time of Justice. Katharine Kerr
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with sweeping grey moustaches and narrow dark eyes that darted this way and that. Rhodry figured that he was about fifty winters old. He gestured to his men to wait, then strode across the great hall and knelt, with a profound grunt, at the gwerbret’s side.
‘Now what’s all this, Your Grace? I’ve been wading through rivers of evil gossip, saying that I’m trying to kill Tieryn Dwaen of Dun Ebonlyn. It’s cursed well not true.’
‘True or not, the matter’s serious enough to warrant an inquiry.’ Coryc rose to tower over him. ‘If both parties agree, we’ll convene the malover immediately. The priests are here and waiting.’
‘Indeed?’ Beryn swung his head and glared at Dwaen. ‘Listen, you little coward, I’ve got every reason in the world to kill you, but if I was going to, I’d call you out to a duel like a man – if you had the guts to face me.’
Rhodry grabbed Dwaen’s arm and forced him to sit back down.
‘Lord Beryn, I call for silence!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Tieryn Dwaen, there’ll be no duelling in my hall.’
With a dog-like growl, Beryn settled back on his heels.
‘My lord,’ Coryc went on, ‘the tieryn has reliable witnesses. We are going to hear these witnesses in proper order, in my chamber of justice, with the priests of Bel there as well. Am I understood?’
‘You are, Your Grace.’ Beryn’s voice began to shake. ‘Didn’t I accept Your Grace’s judgment on my son? Didn’t I stand in your ward and watch without lifting a finger when –’
‘Don’t vex yourself, Beryn.’ Coryc turned and made an ambiguous gesture with one hand. ‘All the witnesses present? Good. Then come along, come along. I want this grievous affair settled and done.’
The gwerbret’s chamber of justice was a big half-round of a room, hung with banners in his colours. In the curve of the wall stood two tables, one for his grace and his scribes, one for the priests and theirs. The witnesses stood on the gwerbret’s right, the accused and his supporters on his left. The rest of the hall was packed with spectators – officials, riders, servants, even a few townfolk, a quiet but jostling crowd that spilled out through the double doors into the corridor beyond. As Dwaen and Cadlew laid their deposition concerning the archer and the dead dog, the rat in the bed, Vyna’s tale and the capture of the prisoner, the crowd stopped moving and seemed to crouch on the floor, straining to hear every word. Beryn’s colour turned from sun-bitten tan to red and back again. Finally, Rhodry was called forward to tell of the attack on Lady Ylaena. He’d barely finished when Beryn broke, charging forward to stand before the gwerbret.
‘Your Grace, never would I order such a cowardly thing! How could you believe it of me, attacking a woman!’
‘His lordship forgets himself again. As of yet I believe naught, one way or another.’
Beryn started to speak, but just then two guards appeared, shoving their way through the crowd and dragging the prisoner along with them.
‘You!’ Beryn snarled. ‘You little bastard! What by every god are you doing here?’
‘My lord!’ Coryc snapped. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘I do. His name’s Petyn, and I had him flogged and kicked out of my warband not long ago. He was stealing from me.’
Although everyone in the crowd gasped, Coryc turned to look at Jill, who was smiling to herself as she stood out of the way near the wall.
‘All right, silver dagger,’ the gwerbret said. ‘It’s time for you to spill everything you know.’
‘So it is, Your Grace.’ Jill came forward and made a reasonable curtsey, seeing as she was wearing a pair of brigga. ‘Petyn, let’s start with you. There you were, publicly shamed, turned out of the warband without a copper to your name. I’ll wager you rode south. Where did you meet the man who hired you?’
Petyn shook his head in a stubborn no.
‘I know what he looks like,’ Jill went on. ‘A stout fellow, with a high voice, and he’s a merchant pretending to be a scribe. He deals in perfumes and incenses, actually. He was a friend of Lady Mallona’s brother, and he was kind enough to bring her news every now and then, until Graelyn died last year. That’s the brother’s name, Your Grace – Graelyn. But this incense seller was a rich man, and I’ll wager he offered Petyn plenty, especially since he had him round up four other lads for the hire.’
‘Here!’ Lord Beryn’s voice rose to a squeak. ‘Are you talking about Bavydd? He used to stay in my dun with us, just every now and then.’
‘So that was his name, was it? He gave a different one to the priests of Nudd here in town, but I figured it was a false one. Come on, Petyn. Are you really going to hang for a man who wouldn’t lift a finger to help you?’
‘I’ll hang no matter what I do, you little bitch! Why should I say anything? You seem to know the lot already.’
‘What is this?’ Coryc slammed one hand down on the table. ‘Jill, are you saying that this merchant is behind these murder attempts?’
‘Not exactly, Your Grace. I don’t think for a minute that he wanted to kill the tieryn. He wanted to push Beryn and Dwaen into open war and let them kill each other. Or maybe he was hoping you’d believe it was all Beryn’s fault, and you’d hang him for breaking your ban on the blood feud. Then he, Bavydd I mean, could marry the lady Mallona and take her away.’
‘I see.’ Dwaen’s voice was more a sigh. ‘Beryn, I owe you both an apology and some restitution for this.’
‘No doubt,’ the gwerbret said. ‘But that will be a separate matter. Jill, I take it you’re laying a formal charge of attempted murder, as well as adultery, against this Bavydd, a merchant of Cerrmor.’
‘I’m not, my lord. He was just a tool.’
Everyone was staring at Jill now, from the priests of Bel to the lowliest servant in the crowd. Rhodry had never heard such a crush of people keep such a silence.
‘Well, you see, Your Grace,’ Jill went on. ‘They could have run off together any time and been safe in Cerrmor, under another gwerbret’s jurisdiction, before her husband could track her down. Bavydd’s wealthy. He could pay Lord Beryn three times his wife’s marriage-price when the matter came to court, and I’ll bet his lordship would have taken the money, too, and not pressed the matter, because everyone tells me he didn’t much fancy her any more. So why this elaborate plot? Your Grace, it had to be someone who hates Tieryn Dwaen, and there’s only one person under Great Bel’s light that it could be.’
Involuntarily, the gwerbret glanced at Beryn, but Jill shook her head in a mournful no.
‘Your Grace, you’ve all been looking for a man, haven’t you? Women hate just as bitterly and as well. Your Grace, everyone tells me that Lady Mallona doted on her son, and he wasn’t just her only son, he was her only child. She must have hated Dwaen for having him hanged and brooded on it till she went mad. And then there’s the serving lass. Who else could have got Vyna a place in Dwaen’s dun, all under the cover of kindness? And who else would have known that Vyna had a child they could hold hostage? Who else would have hated the Lady Ylaena, too? The women in your dun told me that Mallona was awfully taken with Lord Cadlew, and it’s also common knowledge that he spurned her cold. Ylaena was her rival. Mallona would have enjoyed her revenge, all right, if that pack of brigands had got Ylaena alone somewhere. But how could Mallona hire the men and give them orders? Send a messenger along the roads to announce she had a hire for murderers? Invite them into her husband’s hall? That’s where Bavydd came in.’
All at once Rhodry remembered Lord Beryn and looked his way to find the lord kneeling on the floor. It seemed that Beryn had shrunk into himself, turned old and grey and somehow smaller. With a drunken gesture Beryn raised his head and keened like a man over his dead.
‘Your lordship has my sympathy,’ Jill said. ‘Truly he does. But