The Ballad of Sir Dinadan (11 page)

While the men talked, the woman who had brought the wine crept away to the other side of the store and got down by a bucket of water and began to scrub the floor. Pretending to look at the merchandise spread out on tables, Dinadan left the others and strolled over beside her. She glanced up once, furtively, and Dinadan saw to his surprise that she was not as old as he had thought. She could not have been much more than twenty-five years old, too young to have been the stolen baby's mother. But, thought Dinadan, the tradesman had just said he had no servants.

"I beg your pardon, my lady," Dinadan said in a low voice. The woman looked up fearfully. "I am sorry to disturb you, but perhaps you could help me."

The woman's eyes flickered toward the merchant, then returned to Dinadan. "Yes, your worship?" she whispered.

Dinadan knelt beside her, behind a large barrel of flour. "We are here to look for that fellow's missing son Mabon. Are you ... are you Modron's daughter?"

"His wife, your worship," the woman whispered. Dinadan stared at her, pity and puzzlement on his face. "His third wife," the woman explained. "His first two wives, God help them, are dead."

Dinadan bit back a trenchant comment on the previous wives' good fortune and said only, "And the missing boy, Mabon?"

"He was the first wife's. They
say
she died right after the boy was took."

Dinadan caught the woman's inflection. "What do you mean, 'they
say
'? Do you doubt it?"

The woman looked again at her husband, and her eyes were bright with hatred. "I never seen her grave, nor nobody hereabouts has. If she died like he said, where'd he lay her, then?"

Dinadan was not sure what she was implying. "Do you think he killed her? Or that she ran away? Then by all the gods, why did you take her place? Why did you marry that creature?"

The woman's face hardened, and she said very softly, "I was alone in the world. My parents were old and poor, and when they died I had nothing. I am not a pretty woman, and he is a rich man. How else was I to keep myself warm and fed? And now there are the children."

"Your children? Those two little ones?"

The woman nodded. "They're all he has left now. All his older children run off as soon as they was old enough, but does he think about that when he pulls out his belt to beat them? No." She returned to her scrubbing with fury, as if the floor were her enemy. Dinadan watched her for a moment, a sense of helpless anger filling his breast.

"Will your husband beat the boy for breaking that cup?" he asked suddenly. The woman looked up, her eyes glinting with tears, and she nodded curtly. Dinadan reached into the pouch at his belt and drew out two golden coins. "I cannot change your husband, my lady. He is as he has made himself. But give these to your son and tell him that Sir Dinadan sends his regards."

The woman's eyes widened, and she quickly secreted the coins in the folds of her dress. "Thank you, your worship," she said faintly. "And sir? I remember hearing that his first wife came from the east and had people there. Near Chester. Her name was Rhiannon, same as mine. You should look there."

Dinadan nodded silently, rose, and walked back to where the others stood. Culloch was finishing off the third cup of wine while Bedivere and Sir Kai still talked with the merchant. For his part, Modron seemed to have realized that these knights were not going to buy anything, and he was growing each moment more recalcitrant. Dinadan stooped and picked up the cracked mug from the floor, where it still lay. "What do you want for this, my man?" he asked abruptly.

"For that?" Modron asked, bewildered. "But it's—"

Dinadan flipped a silver coin to him. "Is that enough?" The merchant nodded, for a moment speechless, and Dinadan turned to the others, "Come on. We're wasting time here." Then he turned on his heel and walked out, followed by the others. Culloch came last. Dinadan carefully put the cup in his pack, then pointed his horse east toward Chester.

After a few minutes, Sir Kai rode up beside him. "You paid that worm twenty times what that cup was worth, even if it wasn't cracked," Sir Kai commented. It was not a question.

Dinadan shrugged. "And for all that, it wasn't half what that little boy will pay."

Sir Kai nodded. "Likely." He smiled suddenly. "And you thought that maybe since you paid for the cup, Modron wouldn't beat the boy so hard." Sir Kai chuckled.

"Maybe." Dinadan changed the subject. "We're going to Chester, Sir Kai. That's where the boy Mabon's mother was from. Her name was Rhiannon. Maybe we can find someone there who can help us."

They rode together wordlessly for a few seconds. "You can drop the title, lad. Just call me Kai," the great knight said suddenly. Then they were silent again.

They camped that night in a clearing in the woods. Dinadan lay down after dinner, feeling exhausted, but sleep did not come to him. After lying awake for almost an hour, the moon rose over the edge of the trees and washed the clearing with its pale light—not bright enough to make the world lighter, only enough to make the shadows blacker. Dinadan sat up, his mind returning to Rhiannon and her children back at the shop, and he knew he would not sleep this night. Taking up his rebec, he slipped into the woods and walked a furlong into the shadows, where he would not disturb his companions' rest.

Dinadan began to play. He did not sing; there were no words for the song that he felt this time. He played slow, mournful notes, making up the tune as he went along, hardly caring which note followed which, so long as each note was played in purity, with as rich a tone as his hand and instrument could produce. He tried to form each note into the shape of an unloved wife's grief, the sort of grief that has no end in sight before death, no revenge but the private revenge of secret hatred.

There was a rustling at his feet, and Dinadan looked down to see two rabbits, ears cocked, sitting not two feet away, listening. He nodded absently at them but continued playing. In a moment, there was another motion, and Dinadan saw the large unblinking eyes of a deer behind a nearby deadfall. He paused and looked up. The deer retreated into the darkness, the rabbits hopped away, and a faint rustling came from every side. He looked about but saw nothing.

Taking up his rebec again, he resumed his song, and within seconds the rabbits and the deer had returned, along with a fox, a badger, several hedgehogs, and a sleek otter. Birds alit in the branches above his head, without any sound but the faintest ruffling of wings. The air was thick, and Dinadan felt light-headed, but he continued his song, now playing not only for Rhiannon but also for his woodland audience.

More animals appeared, and then, from behind Dinadan came a gentle piping sound, like the wind whistling through chinks in a wall, but the piping kept time with Dinadan's song. Slowly, the piping grew clearer and closer, and then, to Dinadan's wonder, began to play in counterpoint to his own melody. Amazed, but too full of music to be afraid, Dinadan continued playing, picking up the tempo and playing furiously, playing—as he realized later—beyond his own ability. The piping kept time, joining the melody for brief moments, then branching away in wild harmonies. More animals gathered. Dinadan was dimly aware that a great brown bear had joined the crowd, sitting on the forest floor with rabbits and squirrels gathered fearlessly around its heavy paws.

Dinadan did not know how long he played, but at last there came a time when he knew the song was ending, and he slowed down to play the last refrain. The piping slowed with him and ended at the same moment, and then there was silence. This time the animals did not retreat, and Dinadan wondered briefly if he ought to be afraid, but he hardly cared. "Who are you?" he said softly, not turning around.

"I am Sylvanus," answered a clear, musical voice. "And I am your servant, dear Dinadan."

"You know me?" Dinadan asked.

"Not until this moment," the voice replied, "but now I know you as well as you know yourself. You called me with your music. Few mortals are given such magic."

Dinadan swallowed. "Then you ... are not a mortal?"

"No." A shadow moved at the corner of his eye and Dinadan turned his head to see the outline of a small horned figure, human in shape except for goat-like legs. The animals had all turned their attention away from Dinadan and were watching this shape, this Sylvanus. "Tell me," the little figure asked. "Did you play from your own grief or of the grief of another."

"I was thinking of ... of a woman I met, who is married to a beast."

"It is very strange," Sylvanus said conversationally, "but it always seems to me that the sort of men that are called 'beasts' are not very beastly at all, but are rather the most human."

Dinadan smiled slowly, then turned to the assembled animals. "You are right. I beg your pardon, all of you. I shall be more careful in the future how I speak of you."

"Oh, I wasn't complaining," Sylvanus said mildly. "After all, when bear cubs misbehave, their mothers call them 'boys' or 'girls.' Is that not so, ma'am?" The brown bear nodded slowly in reply.

"She understood you? You speak to the animals?" Dinadan asked, amazed.

"Of course," Sylvanus replied. "Is there something you wished to ask them?"

"Oh, no. I was just surprised."

"Are you sure? Have you no questions?"

Dinadan stopped, thinking. Sylvanus appeared to be prompting him. "No, nothing. Unless ... unless they could tell me about a small baby—a human baby, I mean—that was stolen about fifteen years ago and may have been carried through these woods."

Sylvanus hesitated. "That will be difficult. Few of these creatures gathered here were alive then, and even among those who were, the notion of keeping count of years would be foreign. But my lady bruin here may know something."

Dinadan heard no words, not even any sounds, pass between the shadow and the bear, but the bear's countenance grew very intent and her eyes stayed fixed on Sylvanus's form. After several minutes, the shadow spoke. "I do not know if this will help or not. She says that there has been no stolen baby in these woods as long as she has lived, which I judge to be at least twenty years. She does remember, though, that many years ago a young woman, hardly old enough to be a mother, brought her baby through here. Was the child a boy?"

"Yes," Dinadan replied, suddenly convinced he had his answer. This was Modron's first wife. No wonder the merchant had spoken of her so harshly. She had run away with her child.

"She says that the woman had just borne the child and was very weak, too weak to be traveling alone, but she came this way, traveling only at night for two nights."

"Where did she go?"

"That is hard to explain. The landmarks that the wood creatures know are not the ones that you would recognize, or even see, since they are as much about smells and feelings as they are about sight. Wait a moment."

There was another long silence, and then a fox stepped forward, placed one paw on Dinadan's knee and looked deeply into his eyes.

"Tomorrow," Sylvanus said, "follow Renard here. He will show you."

"Thank you," Dinadan said, with wonder, both to the shadow and to the fox. The fox nodded and then slipped noiselessly away. The other animals also began to scatter, and Dinadan looked up quickly at the outline of his friend. "Sylvanus?"

"Yes?" the piper's voice was faint.

"Will we play together again?"

"Surely," came the reply. "Surely." And then Sylvanus was gone, and Dinadan's heart was full as he walked slowly back to the camp.

The next morning, Dinadan said nothing to the others, but he made certain that he was the first one to break camp so that the others would have to follow him. He saw no fox, but he pushed ahead, and a few minutes after starting he was rewarded with a glimpse of a tawny hide in the underbrush. Without hesitation, Dinadan left the path and headed into the brush.

"Hey, Dinadan!" Bedivere called. "Where are you going?"

"Follow me!" Dinadan called back, though he was not at all sure that they would. If Culloch, for instance, had led them into these thickets, Dinadan would have promptly parted company with him and kept himself to the path. But Dinadan heard them crashing into the bushes behind him. "Quickly," he said to the fox, hoping that somehow it would understand. Dinadan didn't want the others to catch up and ask him questions that he had no intention of answering.

It was a rough ride, but the fox seemed to understand what Dinadan wanted. It went slowly enough that he never lost track of it, even as he had to crash heavily through thickets that the fox slipped through with ease. At the same time, though, it went fast enough that Bedivere and Kai and Culloch never quite caught up. Dinadan's skin was scratched and bleeding, and his clothes were torn, and he was just beginning to doubt he could go on much farther when the fox stopped in a hollow under an ancient elm tree and looked up at Dinadan.

Without being sure why, Dinadan knew that this was the place to which the fox had been leading him. He dismounted, and the fox walked over to him and placed one paw on Dinadan's leg, just as he had done the night before. "Thank you, Renard," Dinadan said in a whisper.

In a blink, the fox was gone. Dinadan stood beneath the great tree, alone but for the wind and the thick layer of leaves. Then he saw it, a human skull at the base of the tree trunk, worn and weather-stained, but definitely human. Dinadan had just stooped to examine it when the others arrived, their horses lathered and panting.

"About time you stopped," Culloch said, gasping with exertion. "What were you thinking, riding off into the bush like that, when there was a perfectly good path?"

"What do you have, lad?" Kai asked curtly. Dinadan gestured at the skull, and Kai dismounted and joined him. "Let's take a look," Kai said. He knelt and began digging in the loam at the tree's base. In a moment, he had unearthed another bone, then a strip of embroidered cloth, faded but still clearly an intricate piece of work. Wordlessly, Kai handed the material to Bedivere, who had dismounted beside them.

Bedivere examined it for a moment, then said, "A woman's dress, I would say, and not of the latest fashion. But then, that much is obvious."