A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [111]
“You scummy bastards!”
Danry laughed, tossing his head back and giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder.
“We’ll do our best not to disturb his lordship or trample his kitchen garden. Now here, spring’s a long way away. I have faith you’ll be mustering with us when the time comes. It might be dangerous if you didn’t. You know I’d never lift my hand against you or your dun and kin, but well, as for the others …” He let the words trail significantly away.
“Neutrals have found themselves stripped and sieged before, huh? You’re right enough. You tell our friends that I’ll protect my lands to my last breath, whether they claim to have a king on their side or not.”
“They wouldn’t expect any less from you. I warn you, though, when we win this fight, you can’t expect much honor or standing in the new kingdom.”
“I’ll take my chances on that. I’d rather die a beggar than break my sworn oath.” Pertyc smiled faintly. “And the word, my friend, isn’t ‘when’ you win. It’s ‘if.’”
Danry turned red, a hectic flush of rage across his cheeks. Pertyc held his gaze until Danry forced out a wry smile.
“Let us give the gods their due,” Danry said. “Who knows where a man’s Wyrd will lead him? Very well. ‘If it is.”
Pertyc walked outside with Danry to the ward, where his horse was standing saddled and ready at the gates. Danry mounted, said a pleasant and normal farewell, then trotted off down the road to the north. As Pertyc watched the dust disappearing, he felt danger like a cold ache in his stomach. The dolts, he thought, and maybe I’m the biggest dolt of all! He turned and looked over his dun, a small, squat broch standing inside a timber-laced wall without ramparts or barbicans. Although his demesne was continually short on coin, he decided it would be wise to spend what he had on fortifications, even if he could only afford to build some earthworks and ditches. Whatever else it may have lacked, his dun had the best watchtower in the kingdom for the Cannobaen light, where every night a beacon burned to warn passing ships of submerged rocks just off the coast. If the rebellion swept a siege his way, it occurred to Pertyc, he could perhaps parlay keeping the light into a reason for keeping his neutrality. Perhaps. The dread in his stomach turned to burning ice.
Later that same day, he was drinking in his great hall when a page came with the news that there was a silver dagger at the gates. Since he had only ten men in his warband, he had Maer shown in straightaway.
“I’ll take you on, silver dagger. I don’t know when we’ll see action, but another man might come in handy. Your keep, and if there’s fighting, a silver piece a week.”
“My thanks, my lord. Winter’s coming on, and the roof over my head’s going to be welcome.”
“Good. Uh, Maer? If you shave that mustache off, it’ll grow in thicker the next time, you know.”
Maer drew himself up to full height.
“Is his lordship suggesting or ordering?”
“Merely suggesting. No offense intended.”
Pertyc turned him over to his captain, then went up to the women’s hall, a comfortable sunny room that covered half the second story of the tower. It was the domain of his lordship’s old nurse, Maudda, all stooped back and long white hair these days, but still doing her best to serve the clan by tending Pertyc’s four-year-old daughter, Beclya. Pertyc felt very bad about keeping the old woman working, but there was, quite simply, no one else who could handle the lass. As headstrong as her mother, he thought, then winced at the very mental mention of his absent wife. He found them sitting in a patch of sun by the window, Beclya in a chair, Maudda standing behind, keeping up a running flow of chatter as she combed the lass’s hair, but as soon as Pertyc stepped in, Beclya twisted free and rushed to her father.
“Da, Da, I want to go riding. Please, Da, please?”
“In a bit, my sweet.”
“Now!” She tossed back her head and howled in rage.
“Stop that! You’re upsetting poor Maudda.”
With a visible wrench of will she fell silent, turning to look at her