About halfway through the trip, they stayed with Tieryn Braur of Belglaedd, who greeted Dovyn warmly and made sure his men had shelter in the barracks instead of the stables. At dinner that night, the four Bear riders were given decent seats at a table near the fire and all the meat and mead they wanted, though Cinvan drank little. Up at the table of honour, the young lord was talking with his host and a pretty young woman who seemed to be the tieryn’s daughter. From their long distance away, Garedd watched them with a sentimental smile.
‘I think our Dovyn’s picked out the lady of this new demesne.’
‘Huh?’ Cinvan said. ‘Who?’
‘The daughter, you dolt! Look.’
Obligingly Cinvan looked. Dovyn and the lass were smiling at each other’s every word.
‘Now, that warms a man’s heart.’ Garedd paused to belch. ‘What do you wager he had no chance of winning her before, but now he’ll have land to offer.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘I am, but so what? It’s just like somewhat in a bard’s tale. He’ll win the land and all for her sake.’
Cinvan ignored him and had another swallow of mead.
Since the men of the Bear were direct personal vassals of the princes of Aberwyn, Dovyn and his escort sheltered in the royal dun itself, a vast many-towered broch in the middle of Aberwyn. At meals, the Bearsmen sat at one side of an enormous great hall that had room enough to seat two hundred and watched their lord, far away at the other near a hearth made of fine pale stone, all carved with the princely dragons of the rhan. During the day, they had leave to wander round the town, which with its twenty thousand inhabitants was the biggest place Cinvan had ever seen. Every morning he and Garedd walked down to the harbour, where the Prince’s four war galleys rode at anchor and merchant ships came and went. In the afternoon they would go to one of the taverns that the prince’s men recommended and pick up a couple of cheap whores, or sometimes only one to spare the extra cost. As Garedd remarked one day, life in Aberwyn was a cursed sight more amusing than playing Carnoic in Melaudd’s hall or badgering a kitchen maid into taking a tumble with them out in the hayloft.
Unfortunately, every earthly paradise comes to an end sooner or later. On their last day in Aberwyn, Cinvan and Garedd went down to their favourite tavern to say a sentimental farewell to the lasses there. As they were sitting over a couple of tankards, a stout grey-haired fellow in red and white checked brigga came into the room. Uneasily he threw his fur-lined cloak back from his shoulders and looked with disdain at the chipped tables, straw-strewn floor, and blowzy wenches.
‘Now what’s he doing in here?’ Garedd said.
‘Looking for us. See? Here he comes.’
The merchant strode over to their table with a friendly if somewhat fixed smile.
‘My name’s Namydd. I see you ride for the Bear clan.’
‘Well, so we do,’ Garedd said, and he was the one who went on talking to the merchant while Cinvan sat and glowered. ‘And what can we do for you, good sir?’
Namydd brushed off the wooden bench with the side of his hand, then sat down and ordered ale all round. When the wench brought it, he inspected the rim of his tankard and wiped it on his sleeve before he drank.
‘Now, I’ve heard an interesting piece of news about your lord Dovyn. Some of my connections in the prince’s court tell me he’s filed a claim to land around the Four Lakes.’
‘He has. What’s it to you?’
‘A matter of great profit and one to your lord as well. I’m a merchant, you see, and I’d be willing to pay him for the rights to have a trading depot in his village.’
‘Well, he doesn’t have a village yet, good sir. But he’ll probably need the coin.’
‘Most lords in his position do. Now I’d like to approach him about this, but I wanted to have a word with one or two of his men first. Tell me, is your lord the approachable sort?’
‘He is. As decent a young man as you could ask for.’
‘Splendid! How soon will he be making his move on the land?’
‘Oh, some time in the summer. As far as I understand these things, anyway, they’ve got all sorts of legal matters to tend to first. Why don’t you ride to Cernmeton later in the winter? Doubtless he can tell you more then.’
‘I will, I will.’
Namydd smiled all round, but Cinvan kept on scowling. Although he couldn’t say why, he was sure this merchant had some game of his own afoot, and one that might not be to his lordship’s advantage.
For some weeks the elves drifted south, heading for the warmer sea coast and the winter camps. Although Aderyn slept in Halaberiel’s tent, he rode with Nananna and Dallandra, ate with them at meals, and spent most evenings, too, at the Wise One’s side. Starting at first principles, they compared their two systems of magic a piece at a time – or to be exact, Aderyn had a system of magic, while Nananna had a body of lore. Her dweomer was all of the greatest power, mind, and in line with the true principles of the universe, but there was no doubt that it was a thing of pieces and fragments. For instance, she knew nothing about astrology and only scraps of information about the levels of the universe beyond the astral. When it came to walking the secret paths, her lore was all jumbled, based only on the raw experience of her teacher and herself. He finally realized, in fact, that Nananna’s teacher had discovered the technique very late in her life and almost by accident. One evening, using every bit of tact he possessed, he asked Nananna if she realized that the fabric of her magic was a bit frayed. Rather than being offended, she laughed with an earthy good humour.
‘Frayed, young Aderyn? Shredded and full of holes, more like, I’d say. It’s because of the Great Burning, of course. We lost all our books then, and along with them such niceties as tracts on the motions of the stars and long tables of ritual correspondences.’
‘Burning? Did someone just burn all the magical books?’
‘A bit more than the books. Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?’ She paused for a long moment, and grief bit deep into her face. ‘Maybe my broken dweomer suits us, because the People, young Aderyn, are naught but a remnant themselves. Long, long ago we lived in cities, the seven cities of the far mountains, ruled over by a council of seven kings. There were paved streets and big houses, beautiful temples and libraries filled with books that everyone was allowed to read, or so I’ve been told – I’ve never seen such things myself, mind. Old as I am; it was before my time, a good eight hundred years ago now when the Hordes came. They were demons, some say, ugly squat hairy creatures with fangs and big noses. I suspect they were real flesh and blood, myself. Be that as it may, they came by the hundreds of thousands, fleeing south from the northern forests for some reason of their own, and as they came they burned and looted and killed. They destroyed the cities in a few short years, and all that’s left of the People is this remnant, wandering the grasslands. We’re the children of those who managed to get away in time, you see, and our families were all country people, farmers, most of them, or we never would have survived at all. Two women learned in magic managed to escape the burning of the cities and reach the grasslands, where the other refugees took them in, but they didn’t bring any books and so on with them. They were lucky to escape with their heads still on their shoulders, and they didn’t have time to pack properly, you might say, before they left.’
‘Two? That’s all?’
‘That’s all, out of all the