A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [133]
“Now, now, my lady, do get up,” Dallandra said. “The honor is mine to be allowed to be of service to you. It was naught but a few cheap tricks, but I doubt me very much that they’ll return to trouble you.”
“Most likely not, but I can’t call them cowards for it.”
All that evening the lady and her women waited upon Dallandra as if she were the queen herself, but none of them presumed to make conversation with her. As soon as she could, Dallandra went up to the chamber that they’d readied for her. Although she tried to scry, the whistle stayed hidden and Rhodry with it, giving her a few bitter thoughts on the limits of the dweomer that had so impressed the lady and her household.
In the meadows behind Lord Comerr’s dun, the allies had camped their hastily pulled together army of two hundred thirty-six men. For that first day after Erddyr’s dawn arrival, the men rested while the lords conferred over the various scraps of news that scouts and messengers brought them. Rhodry spent the day in rueful amusement, mocking himself for how badly he wanted to be included in those conferences. He was used to command, and even more, he knew that he was good at it, better, certainly, than the overly cautious Comerr and the entirely too daring Erddyr. Yet there was nothing for him to do but sit around and remind himself that he was a silver dagger and nothing more. He was also more than a little worried about Yraen, who’d made his first kills by blind luck. The lad himself seemed dazed, saying little to anyone. Finally, when they received their scant rations for the evening meal, Rhodry led him away from the other men for a talk.
“Now listen, you know enough about war to know that you’re not ready to lead charges or suchlike. Every rider goes through a time when he’s just learning how to handle himself, like, and there’s no shame in an untried man staying on the edge of things. Everyone seems to have figured out that this is your first ride.”
“Oh, true spoken,” Yraen said. “But is there going to be any edge to stay on? It sounds cursed desperate to me. That last scout said that Adry’s scraped up almost three hundred men.”
“You’ve got a point. Unfortunately. Well, there’s still one thing you can do, and that’s think before you go charging right into the thick of things. More men have been saved by a good look round them than by the best sword work in the world.”
On the morrow, when the army saddled up and rode out, Lord Erddyr told Yraen to ride just behind the noble-born as a way of honoring the lad for saving his life and allowed Rhodry to join him there. They were heading back east in the hopes of making their stand on ground of their own choosing. Logic foretold that Adry would be riding for Comerr’s dun, but the scouts who circled ahead of the main body brought back no news of him. Finally, toward noon, scouts came back to report that they’d found Adry’s camp of the night before, but that the tracks of his army led south, away from Comerr’s dun and toward Tewdyr’s. The noble lords held a quick conference surrounded by their anxious warbands.
“Now why by the hells would he circle when he’s got the numbers on his side?” Erddyr said.
“A couple of reasons,” Comerr said. “Maybe to draw us into a trap for one. But I wonder—he’s heading back to Tewdyr’s dun, is he? Here, you don’t suppose Tewdyr rode away from the war, and Adry’s after him?”
“He’d never withdraw now. He’s too cursed furious with me for that. He—oh, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! What if the old miser’s making a strike on my dun?”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” Comerr snarled. “I say we ride back for a look.”
When the warband rode on, they left the wagon train behind to follow as best it could at its own slow pace. Lord Erddyr rode in a cold grim silence that told everyone he feared for his lady’s life. For two hours they kept up a cavalry pace, walking and trotting with the emphasis on the trot, and they left the road and went as straight as an arrow, plowing through field and meadow, climbing