‘I take your ugly meaning, but never would Tieryn Elyc stoop so low, you –’ He caught himself just in time. ‘My apologies, captain. You’re not a Cerrmor man, and you can think whatever you like.’
‘Oh, I was a Cerrmor man once, and I knew Elyc, you see, and thought well enough of him. I just wondered, like, what being elevated to a high place all of a sudden had done to him. One day he was just a lord with a smallish demesne; the next, practically a king. Some men can take that, some can’t.’
‘True spoken, but Elyc’s still got his feet on the ground. It’s a good thing, too.’ Budyc’s face turned wan. ‘Like I say, who knows how long the people can live on hope?’
It was well into the next morning before their strange caravan set out for the south. Although the stream was just deep enough to float heavy cargo, the current couldn’t push it very fast and so for the first stage of the journey the bargemen had their mules harnessed and pulling hard. Even so, the pace was dangerously slow. As the silver daggers let their horses amble along at their own pace, the line spread out into a ragged excuse for order along the streambank. Out of sheer impatience, Branoic thought he just might go mad before they reached Cerrmor.
‘Ye gods, you look like you’ve bitten into a Bardek citron!’Aethan said. ‘What’s making you so sour?’
‘What’s it to you? Go bugger a mule!’
‘Br-bran, he’s right,’ Maryn stammered. ‘Somewhat’s aching your heart.’
Since he couldn’t bring himself to insult the young king, Branoic merely shrugged, wishing that he did indeed know what was bothering him so badly. Maryn thought for a minute, his eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to pick words.
‘Leave it and him be, lad.’ Aethan forestalled him. ‘I don’t take any offence. Branno, look – it’s this cursed foul journey, never knowing if there’s an ambuscade behind every bush or suchlike. I feel like I’ve got brigga full of burrs myself.’
‘Well, my apologies. You were right enough about me being sour. I wish we could travel faster.’
‘We will, we will. If I understand rightly, this stream widens into a proper river a few miles from here.’
Although Aethan was right about the stream widening, it was nearly sunset before they reached water that was significantly faster-flowing. That night Caradoc posted a double ring of guards round the camp, and in the morning when they rode out, he sent point-men far ahead of them on both sides of the stream and rotated squads of ten men apiece on rear-guard and in the van. Over the next three days, as they inched their way south, going from stream to stream and from sheltering stand of trees to concealing thicket, caution became routine. With every prudent delay, even if it was only a brief wait to change point-men, Branoic’s bad temper swelled like the black clouds of a summer storm.
That Owaen decided to harass him helped not at all. Maybe the lieutenant just needed something to pass the time, but it seemed to Branoic that every time he turned round Owaen was there to point out that his gear wasn’t properly polished or his horse well enough groomed, that he slouched too much in the saddle or else sat too straight, that he looked sour as weasel-piss or told too many stupid jokes. Since he was determined to win himself a silver dagger, Branoic gritted his teeth and said nothing to anyone. The last thing he wanted was to be known as a whiner. On the fourth night, when they were setting up camp in a bend of the river, Branoic went over to one of the barges to draw provisions and came across Owaen talking to Maddyn. Since Owaen’s back was to him, and a lot of men were bustling around, the lieutenant never heard Branoic come up behind him.
‘I’m not badgering him, curse you! He’s just not measuring up,’ Owaen snapped. ‘What’s our little Branno been doing, running snivelling to you and saying I’ve been persecuting him or suchlike?’
Branoic grabbed him by the shoulder, hauled him round, and punched him under the chin as hard as he could, all in one smooth motion. Owaen quite literally left his feet and flipped back to fall like a half-empty sack of grain into the grass. Swearing under his breath Maddyn ran over and knelt down beside him just as the captain came rushing up and half-a-dozen silver daggers crowded round to see the show. Branoic stood there rubbing his smarting knuckles and wanting to die or perhaps turn to air and drift away. He was sure that he was going to be flogged at best and turned out of the troop to starve at worst. When he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder he spun round to find Nevyn, and much to his utter surprise, the old man was smiling – just a little, and in a wry sort of way, but smiling nonetheless.
‘Arrogant little bastard, isn’t he?’ Nevyn remarked. ‘But you need to learn to control that temper, lad.’
‘Usually I can. There’s just somewhat about Owaen …’
‘I know. Oh, believe me, I know. Ah, here comes the captain. Let’s see what he has to say about this.’
Caradoc wasn’t smiling in the least.
‘Curse you, Bran! Haven’t you got a lick of sense inside that ox’s skull of yours? You could have killed him, slugging him like that! Broken his blasted neck! You had every right to challenge him, or come to me or suchlike, but to just –’
‘Captain.’ Nevyn held a hand up flat for silence and arranged a portentous expression on his face. ‘Please, hold a moment! There are peculiar forces playing upon us, dark things beyond your understanding. I strongly suspect that our enemies have been trying to undermine us with strange magicks. Branoic is more susceptible to such evils than most men.’
‘By the Lord of Hell’s crusted balls!’ Caradoc went a little pale. ‘Can you do somewhat about that?’
‘I can, if you’ll turn the lad over to me.’
‘Of course. And I’ll talk to Owaen – don’t trouble your heart about that.’
Nevyn tightened his grip on Branoic’s shoulder and hurried him off before anyone could say a word more.
‘My thanks, Nevyn, for getting me out of that. You know, I’ve felt so odd and grim lately that I could almost believe I was ensorcelled, at that.’
‘You’d best believe it, because it’s probably true.’
Branoic swore, a brief bark of a vile oath.
‘I’ll admit that I was fancying things up a bit, like, for the captain’s benefit,’ Nevyn went on. ‘But it’s more than likely that our enemies are working on us with every foul sorcery at their command. If we start fighting among ourselves their job will be much much easier. Watch yourself very carefully, lad, from now on. If you find yourself getting into another black mood, come and tell me immediately.’
‘I will, sir. I promise with all my heart.’
Yet, as he walked back to camp Branoic found that his spirits had lifted, just as if their enemies had stopped attacking now that their scheme had been discovered.
Since Caradoc was taking Owaen in hand, it fell to Maddyn to ride herd on Branoic, not that he minded the job, especially since the lad seemed to have put his sulk behind him. On the morrow morning Maddyn picked him, along with Aethan and six other men, to ride in his point-squad. The country here was mostly flat and some of the richest earth in all Deverry, thick black loam, well-watered by the network of streams and small rivers that was currently carrying the royal iron down to Cerrmor. Before the civil wars, this area, the Yvro basin, as it is called now, had been covered with small freeholds, all marked out with hedges for want of stone to build fences; now they rode a long time between living farmsteads, and here and there they saw the black skeleton of a burnt-out house standing lonely on the horizon. Once the squad left the main body of the troop and Owaen with it, Branoic became his usual cheerful self, whistling and chattering as they rode along a shade-dappled lane.
‘I hope the prince will be all right without us there, Maddo.’
‘Well, there’s some seventy other silver daggers