The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

to tally.’

      ‘Right again. But I don’t think I’ll go straight back to the great hall.’

      ‘I wouldn’t either if I were you.’ Nevyn stood up. ‘Shall we go?’

      As they were leaving the chamber, they saw Lady Degwa, trotting towards them. Her widow’s black headscarf had slipped back, and locks of her curly dark hair dangled free around her face.

      ‘There you are!’ she burst out. ‘My poor Oggo! I simply had to see you. That awful bard, that awful song!’

      When Oggyn held out his hands, she took them in hers and stared up at him. From her puffy eyes and trembling lower lip Nevyn could tell she’d been weeping. Nevyn made them both an unobserved bow.

      ‘My pardons,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ll just be getting back to the great hall.’

      He strode off, but at the staircase he paused and turned to look back. Oggyn and Degwa stood just as he’d left them, hands clasped. Oggyn had bent his head to speak to her in what seemed to be an anguished flood of words, while Degwa stared up adoringly, nodding her agreement now and again. For the first time it occurred to Nevyn that his fellow councillor actually cared for the lady as much as he did for her title. The insight made him end his eavesdropping and hurry downstairs.

      In the great hall Grodyn was waiting for him, leaning on his stick over by the hearth of honour. The winter had not been kind to the man who had formerly been the head chirurgeon in Dun Deverry. When Maryn’s forces had taken the dun the summer past, Grodyn had fled with the other servitors of the Boar clan, only to find that Lord Braemys distrusted him.

      ‘It’s been a long walk you’ve had,’ Nevyn said. ‘All the way here from Cantrae.’

      ‘I’m surprised I lived through it, good councillor,’ Grodyn said. ‘Especially after I ruined my knee in that fall. It gladdens my heart that you’d take an interest in my plight.’

      ‘Ah, I take it you don’t remember me.’

      Grodyn blinked, stared at him, then swore under his breath. ‘The herbman,’ he said, ‘that old herbman who came to the dun – ye gods, how many years ago was it?’

      ‘I don’t remember either, but a good long while.’

      ‘I take it you were a spy?’

      ‘I wasn’t, oddly enough. I merely decided that I’d find no place in Dun Deverry, so I moved on to Pyrdon, where the prince’s father took me into his service. Here, let’s sit down.’

      At Nevyn’s order, a page placed two chairs in the curve of the wall, where they could talk without being easily overheard. Grodyn sat down with a long sigh and propped his stick against the wall near at hand.

      ‘Did you ever get to plead your cause to the prince?’ Nevyn said.

      ‘I did, and a well-spoken man he is,’ Grodyn said. ‘But alas, he couldn’t help me. When I fled the dun, you see, I was forced to leave some books behind, and I was hoping to reclaim them. He knew naught about them.’

      ‘I may well have them. Any books came to me as my share of the looting – not that anyone else wanted them. Did yours discuss Bardekian physic and medicinals?’

      ‘They did. With those in hand, I might be able to find a place in some great lord’s dun. Without them, well, why should they believe a shabby beggar like me when I tell them I’m a chirurgeon?’

      ‘True spoken. You shall have them back.’ Nevyn hesitated, considering. ‘Or even – what would you think about staying here and taking the prince’s service?’

      ‘Would he have me?’

      ‘If I recommended you.’

      Grodyn leaned back and looked out over the great hall. ‘I served the Boar clan for years,’ he said at length.

      ‘Not as I remember it. You served the king’s clan when I first met you, and I’m willing to wager high that you hated the Boars then and hated them even more later.’

      ‘You have sharp eyes.’ Grodyn smiled thinly. ‘Very well. If the prince can forgive me my former service, I’ll be glad to have done with all this cursed travelling.’

      ‘I’ll speak to him in the morning. There’s someone else here, by the by, who might well remember you: Caudyr, your young apprentice who got himself run out by the Boars.’

      ‘Ye gods! Did he end up in the prince’s service too?’

      ‘He did. He’s the chirurgeon for the prince’s bodyguard, the silver daggers.’

      ‘Ai.’ Grodyn shook his head. ‘How the world changes, eh?’

      ‘It does, it does.’ Nevyn rose and held out a hand. ‘The stairs to my chambers are a bit steep, but come with me. You can wait down at the foot.’

      ‘My thanks.’

      As they were making their slow way across the ward, Nevyn saw Lilli walking alone and hailed her. ‘There’s my apprentice,’ he said to Grodyn. ‘We’ll just send her up instead.’

      Grodyn clasped his stick with both hands and leaned on it while he stared open-mouthed at Lilli. ‘Your apprentice?’ he whispered. ‘Ye gods! That’s Lady Lillorigga of the Boar! Apprenticed to a chirurgeon?’

      ‘She’s a daughter of the Rams of Hendyr now, and I’m not exactly a chirurgeon.’

      Smiling, Lilli trotted over, dropped them a curtsey, then suddenly stared at Grodyn in turn.

      ‘It is me,’ the chirurgeon said. ‘I fear me your cousin Braemys refused me shelter in Dun Cantrae last autumn, and wintering on the roads has left me changed.’

      ‘No doubt it would,’ Lilli said. ‘It saddens my heart to think of Braemys being so miserly. That’s not like him.’

      ‘Wasn’t miserliness.’ Grodyn’s voice turned sour. ‘He accused me of being a poisoner.’

      Lilli considered him narrow-eyed.

      ‘It’s doubtless a long tale,’ Nevyn broke in. ‘Lilli, up in my chamber are three books of Bardekian medical lore. Would you bring them down? They belong to Grodyn here.’

      ‘I shall, my lord.’

      Lilli curtsied again, then trotted off on her errand. Just then Branoic popped out of the back door to the great hall, looked around, made a sketchy bow Nevyn’s way, and took out running after her – a good thing, since the books were heavy. Nevyn turned back to Grodyn.

      ‘Tell me somewhat,’ Nevyn said. ‘This business of poisons. Is Lady Merodda mixed up in this?’

      ‘She was, truly,’ Grodyn said. ‘I heard, by the by, that your prince had her hanged. I have to admit that the news didn’t ache my heart. Braemys accused me of supplying her with poisons. I did naught of the sort, I assure you.’

      ‘Oh, I believe you. Here, why don’t you shelter in the dun tonight? The prince is a generous man and won’t begrudge you bread and board whether or not you take his service in the morning. I’d like to hear what you know about Lady Merodda.’

      After he left the great hall, Maddyn considered going back to the barracks, then decided to climb up to the outer wall and make his way along the catwalk for some privacy. By then the sun was just setting, and a soft twilight was gathering over the dun. To the east a few stars gleamed against the darkening sky. With the firelight and lantern light flickering at the windows, the central broch looked for those few moments almost inviting. At the top of the wall Maddyn squeezed himself into a crenel and looked out over the hillside below. Near the bottom of the hill little fires bloomed in the encampment where the assembled warbands sheltered behind the outermost wall. For all its size, Dun Deverry could never have quartered the entire army.

      Maddyn’s blue sprite materialized in mid-air, bringing a trace