Bristling Wood by Katharine Kerr

unreliable to have a myth in his clan’s quarterings.” Caradoc ran one finger down the silvery blade of Otho’s ax. “But talk about elves all you want, just so long as you keep working your witchcraft on metals. When we’re all as rich as lords and the most famous free troop in all of Deverry, you’re going to make us swords out of that warlock’s metal of yours.”
    “Hah! You’d have to be a king to afford that, my friend. You’ll be blasted lucky if you ever get rich enough to have so much as a dagger out of it.”
    After Maddyn and Aethan had their horses settled and fed in the stables, one of the men, Stevyc by name, came to help them carry their gear into the broch. When he picked up the big leather bag that held Maddyn’s harp, he broke into a grin.
    “Which one of you is the bard?”
    “I am,” Maddyn said. “But not much of one, a gerthddyn, truly, if that. I can sing, but I don’t have a true bard’s lore.”
    “And who gives a pig’s fart who some lord’s great-great-great-grandam was? This is a bit of splendid luck.” Stevyc turned, calling out to Caradoc. “Here, Captain, we’ve got a bard of our own.”
    “And next we’ll be eating off of silver plates, like the great lords we are.” Caradoc came strolling over. “But a bard would have come in handy this winter, with the pack of you causing trouble because you had naught better to do. Well and good, then, Maddyn. If you sing well enough, you’ll be free of kitchen work and stable duty, but I’ll expect you to make up songs about our battles just like you would for a lord.”
    “I’ll do my best, Captain, to sing as well as we deserve.”
    “ Better than we deserve, Maddyn lad, or you’ll sound like a cat in heat.”
    After a rough dinner of venison and turnips, Maddyn was given his chance to sing, sitting on a rickety, half-rotted table in what had once been the lodge’s great hall. He’d only done one ballad when he realized that his place in the troop was assured. The men listened with the deep fascination of the utterly bored, hardly noticing or caring when he got a bit off-key or stumbled over a line. After a winter with naught but dice games and the blacksmith’s daughter for entertainment, they cheered him as if he were the best bard at the king’s court. They made him sing until he was hoarse, that night, and let him stop only reluctantly then. Only Maddyn and Otho knew, of course, that the hall was filled with Wildfolk, listening as intently as the men.
    That night, Maddyn lay awake for a long while and listened to the familiar sound of other men snoring close by in the darkness of a barracks. He was back in a warband, back in his old life so firmly that he wondered if he’d dreamt those enchanted months in Brin Toraedic. The winter behind him seemed like a lost paradise, when he’d had good company and a woman of his own, when he’d had a glimpse of a wider, freer world of peace and dweomer—a little glimpse only; then the door had been slammed in his face. He was back in the war, a dishonored rider whose one goal in life was to earn the respect of other dishonored men. At least Belyan was going to have his baby back in Cantrae, a small life who would outlive him and who would be better off as a farmer than his father would be as a warrior. Thinking about the babe, he could fall asleep at last, smiling to himself.
     
    On the day that Maddyn left Brin Toraedic, Nevyn spent a good many hours shutting up the caves for the summer and loading herbs and medicines into the canvas mule packs. He had a journey of over nine hundred miles ahead of him, with stops along the way that were crucial to the success of his long-range plans. If he were to succeed in making a dweomer king to bring peace to the country, he would need help from powerful friends, particularly among the priesthoods. He would also need to find a man of royal blood worthy of his plans. And that, or so he told himself, might well be the most difficult