A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [43]
About halfway through the trip, they stayed with Tieryn Braur of Belglaedd, who greeted Dovyn warmly and made sure his men had shelter in the barracks instead of the stables. At dinner that night, the four Bear riders were given decent seats at a table near the fire and all the meat and mead they wanted, though Cinvan drank little. Up at the table of honor, the young lord was talking with his host and a pretty young woman who seemed to be the tieryn’s daughter. From their long distance away, Garedd watched them with a sentimental smile.
“I think our Dovyn’s picked out the lady of this new demesne.”
“Huh?” Cinvan said. “Who?”
“The daughter, you dolt! Look.”
Obligingly Cinvan looked. Dovyn and the lass were smiling at each other’s every word.
“Now, that warms a man’s heart.” Garedd paused to belch. “What do you wager he had no chance of winning her before? But now he’ll have land to offer.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am, but so what? It’s just like somewhat in a bard’s tale. He’ll win the land and all for her sake.”
Cinvan ignored him and had another swallow of mead.
Since the men of the Bear were direct personal vassals of the princes of Aberwyn, Dovyn and his escort sheltered in the royal dun itself, a vast many-towered broch in the middle of Aberwyn. At meals, the Bearsmen sat at one side of an enormous great hall that had room enough to seat two hundred and watched their lord, far away at the other side near a hearth made of fine pale stone, all carved with the princely dragons of the rhan. During the day, they had leave to wander round the town, which with its twenty-thousand inhabitants was the biggest place Cinvan had ever seen. Every morning he and Garedd walked down to the harbor, where the prince’s four war galleys rode at anchor and merchant ships came and went. In the afternoon they would go to one of the taverns that the prince’s men recommended and pick up a couple of cheap whores, or sometimes only one to spare the extra cost. As Garedd remarked one day, life in Aberwyn was a cursed sight more amusing than playing Carnoic in Melaudd’s hall or badgering a kitchen maid into taking a tumble with them out in the hayloft.
Unfortunately, every earthly paradise comes to an end sooner or later. On their last day in Aberwyn, Cinvan and Garedd went down to their favorite tavern to say a sentimental farewell to the lasses there. As they were sitting over a couple of tankards, a stout gray-haired fellow in red-and-white-checked brigga came into the room. Uneasily he threw his fur-lined cloak back from his shoulders and looked with disdain at the chipped tables, straw-strewn floor, and blowsy wenches.
“Now, what’s he doing in here?” Garedd said.
“Looking for us. See? Here he comes.”
The merchant strode over to their table with a friendly, if somewhat fixed smile.
“My name’s Namydd. I see you ride for the Bear clan.”
“Well, so we do,” Garedd said, and he was the one who went on talking to the merchant while Cinvan sat and glowered. “And what can we do for you, good sir?”
Namydd brushed off the wooden bench with the side of his hand, then sat down and ordered ale all round. When the wench brought it, he inspected the rim of his tankard and wiped it on his sleeve before he drank.
“Now, I’ve heard an interesting piece of news about your Lord Dovyn. Some of my connections in the prince’s court tell me he’s filed a claim to land around the Four Lakes.”
“He has. What’s it to you?”
“A matter of great profit and one to your lord as well. I’m a merchant, you see, and I’d be willing to pay him for the rights to have a trading depot in his village.”
“Well, he doesn’t