A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [54]
“I’ll make a decision about young Dovyn tonight,” Addryc said. “The chirurgeon tells me you’d better rest for a while, and I want you there to testify as the victim of this outrage.”
“Well and good, Your Highness, but what about the land?”
The prince turned to Halaberiel, who merely shrugged.
“If naught else,” Addryc ventured, “my decree about the sacred burial ground will stand in all perpetuity.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel turned to Aderyn. “I’ll consider the matter later.”
Addryc nodded in defeat. For a few moments he hovered there uneasily, then took his leave with a gracious bow and a few muttered words about letting Aderyn rest. Once the chirurgeon was gone, too, the other elves got up and moved closer to Aderyn’s bedside, all twenty of them in a disorderly circle.
“I say we ride out of here and go burn Melaudd’s dun,” Calonderiel said. “That blow was intended for the banadar.”
There was a muttered chorus of agreement.
“Oh, hold your tongue, Cal!” Halaberiel snapped. “Since when do we visit the son’s crime on the mother? And there’s more than one woman in that dun.”
“Well, true, but it would have been satisfying, somehow, to see his tents go up in flames.”
“We should just move to the west and let them have the rotten land,” Jezryaladar put in. “Who wants a cursed thing to do with men like this?”
“What?” Albaral snarled. “And let the horse turds win?”
Eight or nine men began talking and arguing at once. Halaberiel shouted them into silence.
“Now listen, I’m minded two ways. It depends on what Addryc does to atone for Dovyn’s crime. If he offers me fair justice, well, then, I say we take the compromise. We’re not doing this just for ourselves. The People need the merchants and their iron and grain, and we have to be able to guard that death-ground. There’s a lot more of the Round-ears than there are of us. They can afford a wretched war a lot better than we can.”
Calonderiel started to speak, then thought better of it. Everyone else nodded in agreement as Halaberiel went on.
“But what we do next depends on what happens with young Dovyn. If I decide to take the compromise, think of it this way: if we control the Gwynaver, we control one of their main routes north. If they want to ride up our river, we can say no and have their prince behind us.”
“That river turns west a ways up north,” Calonderiel expanded the thought. “If we can block a main route west, so much the better.”
“Good, Cal. Now that’s thinking.” He glanced at Aderyn. “You’re dead pale, Councillor.”
“I need to sleep. Take the lads away, will you, but please, by the gods of both our peoples, keep them out of trouble.”
Close to sunset, Aderyn woke from the pain of his wound. He found strong wine in a flagon by his bed, drank some to ease the ache, then lay quiet for a while, watching the late golden sun cast long shadows across the Bardek rugs on the polished floor. He was just considering getting up and trying to light some candles when there was a timid knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Much to his surprise, Cinvan the Bearsman hurried into the room and knelt beside the bed in sincere humility. As he looked down into Cinvan’s hard young face, Aderyn was remembering looking up at this same soul in another body—Tanyc as a seemingly giant young man, and him a small boy of seven. It was a shock to run across Tanyc’s soul at all, and even more of one to find him reborn so soon.
“And what can I do for you, lad?” Aderyn said.
“Well, I don’t truly know. I shouldn’t be here at all, I suppose. Am I tiring you? I can just go away.”
“If you’re troubled enough to come here, then I’ll certainly listen. I take it the news of what happened in the chamber of justice has gotten itself spread around.”
“Just that, but I’ll wager you don’t know the half of it yet. Garedd said I shouldn’t be bothering you like this. Garedd’s somewhat of a friend of mine, you see, and he usually does the thinking for the pair of us, but