A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [152]
Aeryc turned his horse over to his page and went into the great hall with Gwenyn, the captain of his personal guard. Aeryc was honestly surprised at how small and shabby it was, not much better than the hall of a tieryn down in Deverry. The tapestries were old-fashioned, the furniture was worn, and there wasn’t room to seat more than two hundred men.
“Well, my liege,” Gwenyn remarked. “The only thing the false king is going to do in this dun is hang. It’s magnificent enough for that.”
One of the men did find a pair of fine maps, treasure enough since neither the king nor any of his captains had ever been in Eldidd before. Aeryc sat on the edge of the table of honor and spread them out himself. While he and his staff ate a hasty meal of cheese and bread, washed down with a forgotten barrel of Mainoic’s ale, they studied the long curve of the Eldidd coast, marked with all the villages and demesnes of the various noble lords. Far to the west stood Cannobaen, where his one loyal vassal was holed up like the badger of his device. Aeryc pointed to the spot with the tip of his dagger.
“One way or the other, we eventually want to sweep by the Maelwaedd’s dun,” Aeryc said. “I have every intention of rewarding him for his loyalty, so it’ll be best to let him join his men up with the army. Our spies say he has only ten or eleven riders, but it’s the honor of the thing that matters to a rustic lord like the Maelwaedd.”
“No doubt, my liege,” Gwenyn said. “Ye gods, there’s not a cursed lot out there on the western border, is there?”
“Forest and fog, or so I hear. I’m in no hurry to march to Cannobaen. There’s no real need. First we’ll wait here in the trap and see if our rebels take the bait.”
Just after sunset, however, a pair of scouts rode in with the news that the rebel army seemed to be swinging toward Aberwyn. Aeryc woke his staff and gave orders to have the men ready to march well before dawn.
Danry, of course, had sent out scouts of his own, and that night, when the rebel army halted, he made sure that guards ringed the camp round on a double watch as well. After a quick and futile conference with the demoralized king, Danry went back to his own fire and found his impatient son waiting up for him.
“Da, I don’t want to sit in Aberwyn all winter! Aren’t we going to get to fight?”
“Eventually. Once the countryside’s roused, and a relief army’s marching our way, we’ll sally from Aberwyn.”
Cunvelyn’s disappointment was almost comical.
“Waiting’s a part of war, lad. Whether you like it or not, you’re a real soldier already.”
At that point, the rebel army had forded the Aver Dilbrae some twenty miles upstream from Abernaudd and camped on its western banks. If they headed southwest on a reasonably direct line, they were only about forty-five miles from Aberwyn. Since even in good summer weather, twenty miles was a solid day’s march to an army of those days, and here in the short damp days of midwinter they were lucky to do twelve, Danry considered that they were safely out of the king’s reach. He quite simply had no way of knowing that the king’s crack cavalry, rigorously trained and drilled, riding the best horses with extra mounts at their disposal, backed by an elaborate supply system that was, ironically enough, one of Nevyn’s legacies to the kingship, could in emergencies cover twice that distance.
Yvmur himself unknowingly made the situation a bit worse on the morrow by insisting that the army swing a few miles out of its way in the direction of another holding, Dun Graebyr, to pick up the twenty men he’d left on fort guard. Since Aeryc would be marching after the main army, Yvmur reasoned, he wouldn’t be attacking the dun, and they might as well have the men and the fresh horses. Although Danry wanted to scream at the man that they had to make all possible speed, he was painfully aware that he was no cadvridoc, only a councillor of sorts, and very much on sufferance. So he held his tongue