The Black Raven

‘So it is,’ Dallandra said. ‘Would you like that sword? I’m sure she’d rather you had it than anyone else.’

‘Most like she would.’ He picked up the blade again and sheathed it before he went on. ‘But I own too many things already for a silver dagger. Here, I know. I’ll give it to Dar for a wedding gift – a bit late, but then, he’s cursed lucky he’s getting anything from me at all.’

Dallandra laughed.

‘So he is,’ she said, ‘and what about the silver dagger?’

Rhodry laid down the sword and picked up the dagger. When he slid it free of its sheath, the silver blade flared with a strange bluish light. Rhodry laughed and held it up while the dagger seemed to burn like an etheric torch.

‘What in the name of the gods?’ Dallandra took a quick step back.

‘It’s a dwarven dweomer working.’ Rhodry sheathed the blade again and put it down on the table. ‘It gives warning when anyone with elven blood touches it. It would do the same for you. The Mountain Folk consider us all thieves, you see.’

‘It would scare a thief away, all right, seeing the blade burn like that! Huh, it’s odd. I’ve always heard that the dwarven race shuns dweomer.’

‘That’s true. Ah, who knows?’ Rhodry shrugged and considered the dagger for a long moment. ‘That should have been buried with Jill.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

‘Not that it matters to her any more, I’d wager.’ He looked up, his eyes bleak. ‘I could take it, or wait! Jahdo shall have it, because when we captured him and Meer, he lost a knife that his grandfather had given him, and it’s irked him ever since.’

‘It’s rather too grand for him, isn’t it? What if the other boys or one of the servants steals it from him?’

‘He can keep it up here.’ Rhodry picked up the sheathed dagger and gestured at a heap of saddlebags and bundles stacked in the curve of the wall. ‘Along with the goods Meer left him.’

‘I suppose, but I don’t understand. If it’s important enough that it should have been buried with her, why are you going to just give it away?’

‘Because what I’m really doing is throwing it onto the river of Wyrd.’ All at once he laughed with a toss of his head. ‘I lost my silver dagger in Bardek once, you see. But it came back to me, twenty years later, and when it did, it brought change with it. I’ve been thinking, just now and again, about the things you told me, Dalla, last summer, about the way that a man might get reborn – or a woman, since we’re talking about Jill. And I wonder if she’s meant to have this dagger back. If so, it’ll find its way, when the time comes.’

Rhodry laughed again, his high berserk chortle. There were times when Dallandra wondered how she could share her bed with a madman like him. As if he heard her thought, he wiped his daft grin away and looked at her solemnly.

‘But you have the last word, on this dagger,’ Rhodry said. ‘Give it elsewhere if you’d like.’

‘No, do give it to Jahdo. You may be right about it finding Jill again. I’ll keep this book, because I doubt if anyone else here could understand it.’

There remained the bone plaque.

‘Shall I give this to Carra?’ Dallandra said. ‘For a wedding gift?’

‘Why?’ Rhodry smiled briefly. ‘I doubt if it would mean one thing to her. She’s so wretchedly young.’

Dallandra had to agree, but later that day, when she joined the dun’s womenfolk in their private hall, she had a surprise coming. As usual Carra – or Princess Carramaena of the Westlands, to give her full title – sat near the fire with her infant daughter sleeping in her lap. Instead of being swaddled in tight wrappings, little Elessi wore only nappies and a loose tunic while she slept. At Carra’s feet lay Lightning, her dog, though the animal looked more than half a wolf. Across the room at an uncovered window the gwerbret’s lady, Labanna, and her serving woman, Lady Ocradda, sat wrapped in cloaks at a big table frame. They wore fingerless gloves to embroider upon a bed hanging, stretched out tight between them.

Dallandra sat down opposite Carra and little Elessi. For a few moments they chatted about the child, but when conversation lagged, Dallandra thought of the bone plaque, which she had carried with her, tucked into the coin pouch she wore hidden under her tunic.

‘What do you think of this?’ Dallandra brought it out and handed it over. ‘Don’t let Elessi touch it. It’s a good thousand years old.’

Carra took the plaque in both hands and stared at it with a fierce concentration.

‘That old?’ she whispered. ‘How amazing! It shows a Horsekin, doesn’t it? Who drew this?’

‘One of your husband’s ancestors. Well, and mine too.’ Dallandra paused for a smile. ‘A limner, an elven limner from one of the Seven Cities.’

‘Fascinating!’ Carra let out her breath in a soft sigh and went on studying the picture. ‘To hold somewhat this old – ye gods, I can’t find words to tell you how it makes me feel.’

The other women left their embroidery and came over to see. When Carra proffered it to Labanna, the gwerbret’s lady drew back.

‘I’d be afraid to touch it,’ Labanna said, smiling. ‘For fear I’d drop it or suchlike.’

‘It’s . . .’ Ocradda hesitated, ‘very interesting. Awfully faded though, what a pity.’

With polite smiles they returned to their work. Carra turned the bit of bone over and studied the back. ‘No maker’s mark or suchlike. I was rather hoping.’

‘I never thought to look for one,’ Dallandra said. ‘But you’re right, that would have been important.’

‘I love things like this.’ Carra laid the plaque in her palm and held it out to Dallandra. ‘You’d best take it back before I turn thief.’

‘Well, now, here! You should have it since you love it.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t. It’s too valuable.’

‘My dear Carramaena! You’re a princess now, and you should have a few treasures in your possession.’ Dallandra handed over the silk. ‘Here’s the wrap for it.’

‘My thanks and a thousand more!’ Carra took the bit of fabric from her. ‘This is so wonderful, Dalla! When you hold it, you feel like you hold the past itself. As if this was a bit of Time, turned frozen or suchlike like ice. Well, that’s a clumsy way of speaking, but do you understand?’

‘I certainly do. I’d no idea that things of the past mattered so much to you.’

‘Well, they do. Does that make me sound silly?’

‘What? Of course not!’

‘Well, my thanks, but my sisters used to tease me and suchlike, saying I was such an odd duck! I always wanted to know the history of things, you see, and I drove our chamberlain half-mad, when I was a child, asking where did this come from and how old is that.’ Carra paused to look at Dallandra’s face, as if searching for scorn. ‘I do think that’s one reason I fell in love with Dar. He never told me he was a prince, but he did talk of the Seven Cities and the kingdom that had fallen to demons, all those ages ago. I’d never heard such wonderful stories, not even when a travelling bard came our way.’

‘Well, it’s a sweet sort of sadness,’ Dallandra said, ‘thinking of all that vanished splendour and brave heroes fighting to the very end.’

‘Oh, that too. But best of all it explained things. About the Westfolk, I mean, why you always come and go on the border and live with your horse herds instead of in towns and duns. I’d always wondered about that. When Dar talked of the old days, it was like clouds rolling back, and you could see a strange new sky.’

Carra seemed about to say more, but Elessi woke with a complaint, wailing and throwing her arms into the air. Carra wrinkled her nose.

‘Oh what a stink! I know what you need, my beloved poppet. Dalla, please hold this picture for me while I change her?’

Dallandra took the bone plaque and laid it on her knee while Carra took the baby to the far side of the room, where a table stood with a chamber pot ready and a pile of rags for nappies. As she listened to Carra croon and chat to the baby, Dallandra felt ashamed of herself. Have I ever really looked at Carra before? she wondered. She had seen what everyone else had seen in her: a young lass, besotted with love – pretty little Carra, with her heart-shaped face and blonde hair, her enormous blue eyes that stared up at her husband in limpid devotion. None of us ever thought she had a brain in her head, Dalla thought. More fool us!

‘I’ve got a legacy to deliver to you,’ Rhodry said.

‘A what?’ Jahdo said. ‘And who would be leaving a lowly lad such as me a thing?’

‘Jill, of course. Here. This is to take the place of your grandfather’s knife, the one I made you lose.’