A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [12]
This grave marks Aberwyn’s grief.
A wild wolf in the battle-strife,
Rhodry laughed when he took your life.
And that was the first death of Rhodry Maelwaedd and the vindication of the old hermit who, years and years before, had told him he would die twice over.
Keeping to country lanes and open lands, buying food from farmers and shunning the duns of the noble-born, Rhodry, Salamander, and Jill traveled west and south for ten days until they reached the large stream or small river known as Y Brog, marking what most human beings considered the Eldidd border, since only elves lived beyond it. During Rhodry’s rule, the Westfolk, as Eldidd people called the elves, had started becoming a little friendlier than they’d been in times past. Every now and then a trading party would show up in the border towns of Cannobaen or Cernmeton to offer their beautiful horses in return for ironwork and glasswares; even more rarely, an embassy would appear in Aberwyn itself with tokens of friendship and alliance for the gwerbret. Yet they were still strange and alien, still frightening to most people. It was one of Rhodry’s regrets that he’d never been able to make his subjects welcome the Westfolk in the rhan. Since he’d always raised his sons to like and admire them, he could at least hope that they would continue to be welcome in the dun.
“I suppose I’ll get word now and then of how things fare in Aberwyn,” he remarked one evening. “Especially if Calonderiel goes to pay his respects to the new gwerbret.”
“Of course he’s going.” Salamander was kneeling by their campfire and feeding in sticks. “That was part of the scheme. He’ll be waiting to have a chat with us, and then he’ll head east. What’s wrong? Worried about your holdings? Well, your former or late lamented holdings, I should say.”
“It’s strange, truly. I can’t stop thinking about Aberwyn. I keep drafting mental orders, you see, about the way things should be run, and every now and then I actually find myself turning round to call a page or suchlike to carry a command for me.”
“You’ll get over it in time. Think of rulership as a fever. It’ll pass off as your health returns.”
“Well and good, then. Maybe I need some strengthening herb water or suchlike.”
They shared a grin. Although they were only half brothers, they looked a good bit alike in everything but coloring. Salamander’s hair was as ash-blond pale as Rhodry’s was dark, but they had the strong jut of their jaw and the deep set of their eyes in common, as well as a certain sharpness about the ears that marked them as half-breeds.
“Where’s Jill, anyway?” Salamander stopped fussing with the fire and came to sit down beside him.
“I don’t know. Off meditating or whatever it is you sorcerers do, I suppose.”
“Do I hear a sour note marring your dulcet tones? A touch of pique, a nettlement, if indeed such a word exists, a certain jealousy or resentment of our demanding craft, or mayhap a …”
“Will you hold your tongue, you chattering bastard?”
“Ah, I was right. I did.”
At that moment Jill appeared on the other side of the fire. They were camped near a little copse, and in the uncertain light it seemed she materialized right out of the trees like one of the Wildfolk.
“You two look as startled as a pair of caught burglars. Talking about me?”
“Your ears were burning, were they?” Salamander said with a grin. “Actually, we were just wondering where you were, and lo, our question is answered, our difficulty solved. Come sit down.”
Smiling, but only a little, Jill did so.
“We should be at the ruined dun on the morrow,” she remarked. “That’s where the others are meeting us. Do you remember it, Rhodry? The place where Lord Corbyn’s men tried to trap you during that rebellion.”
“Ye gods, that was years and years ago, but remember it I do, and that dun will always be dear to my heart, because it was there that I first saw you.”
“You chatter like your wretched brother,