A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [151]
“Hold your tongue, Tieryn Danry! I say we ride back straightaway.”
“Let Danry finish.” Much to everyone’s surprise—even his own, perhaps—Leomyr was the defender. “He knows war, my lord, in his heart and blood and bone.”
There was a moment’s silence; then Mainoic made a grudging nod and let Danry speak.
“He only wants us, my lords. He doesn’t want to harm one soul in that city and turn Abernaudd against him. He wants to break us and the rebellion, and then offer his ever so majestic pardons to everyone else in Eldidd, so there’ll never be a rebellion here again. If we go rushing back to Abernaudd, he’ll be waiting on ground of his choosing with well-rested men.”
The arguments broke out like a summer storm, thundering, violent, and over very fast.
“True enough, Falcon,” Mainoic said at last. “What shall we do, then? Find a good position and wait for him to come after us? Our men could starve before he decides to move.”
“I know that, Your Grace. I say we march for Aberwyn. Let Aeryc sit on his behind in ‘Naudd and wait for us. By the time he moves, we’ll be entrenched in a walled town with fortifications that seal the harbor off from the countryside. We can send ships out for provisions if we need to, or use ships to get men in and out safely. Then we can try to rally the countryside.”
Everyone turned to look at Gatryc. He shrugged and turned both hands palm upward.
“Leomyr was right,” Aberwyn’s lord remarked. “The Falcon lives and breathes war. My lords, allow me to offer you the hospitality of my dun.”
There was laughter, but it was only a grim kind of mutter. Even so, as they dispersed to give orders and turn the line of march, there was still hope. The men and horses were fresh, and even if they rode by a long route to throw Aeryc off, Aberwyn was only some hundred miles away while the Deverry king was stuck holding Abernaudd. Unfortunately for the rebellion, Abernaudd, guarded only by some fifty aging or ill culls from the rebel army and a reluctant and whining citizen watch, surrendered that very afternoon.
When the town militia threw open the gates of Abernaudd, Aeryc suspected a trick, but a carefully chosen detachment occupied the city with no trouble. Leading the rest of the army, Aeryc rode through unmanned gates and down silent streets where the few townsfolk he saw were huddled behind upper windows. Finally, near the gwerbret’s dun, he saw one old woman standing openly on the street corner. As he started to pass by, she grabbed her rags of a skirt and dropped him a perfect curtsy. Aeryc threw up his hand and halted the march. While the army milled around and sorted itself out, he bowed gravely from the saddle to the wrinkled old crone.
“Good morrow. And what makes you curtsy to the king?”
“Simple manners, my liege. Whether or not everyone else in this cursed town’s forgotten their courtesy or not, and truly, so they must have, to shut a door in the face of a king. Always curtsy to a king, my mam told me, and so I do.”
“Indeed? And what’s your name, pray tell?”
“Oh, they call me Daft Mab, and it’s true enough, my liege. Are you going to burn the place down? I do like a good fire, I do.”
“Well, you’ll have to watch your fires in a hearth, Mab. Tell anyone who asks you that the king says there’s mercy for all, as long as they took no hand in the actual plotting of the rebellion. I’ll put out a proclamation soon enough.”
“Then I’ll tell them first, my liege. You look like a good king, truly.” Daft Mab considered, her head tilted to one side. “Oh, that you do, and polite to your mother, no doubt.”
“I try my best to be. Good day, Mab.”
When Aeryc rode up to the dun, which stood on the highest of Abernaudd’s many hills, he found a squad of his men waiting at the gates. The place was deserted, they told him, stripped bare of every man, horse, and most of the food. Not even the servants were left behind, though they might be mingling with the townsfolk.
“I don’t care about the cursed servants,” Aeryc said to the reporting captain. “Well and good,