A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [142]
It took two days for the army to return to Comerr’s dun, simply because the lord’s life hung by a thread. Being jolted in a cart tired him so badly that every now and then the line of march was forced to stop and let him rest. At last, close to sunset on the second day, they rode into the great iron-bound gates, where Comerr’s young wife waited weeping to receive her husband. Dallandra helped the lady settle Comerr in his own bed and tend his wounds, then went down to the great hall for a meal. Crowded into one side of the great hall, the men were sitting on the floor or standing as they ate. At the table of honor, Lord Erddyr dined done. When Dallandra went for a word with him, the lord insisted that she join him.
“What do you think of Comerr’s chances now?” Erddyr said.
“They’re good. He’s lived through the worst, and there’s no sign of either gangrene or lockjaw.”
With a sigh of relief, Erddyr handed Dallandra a slice of bread and poured her ale with his own hands. Sharing a wooden trencher, they ate roast pork and bread in silence. Finally the lord leaned back in his chair.
“Well, naught for it but to wait for the gwerbret’s answer to that message of mine. I wonder if Nomyr sent a request for intervention himself?” He held up a greasy hand and ticked the names off on his fingers. “Adry’s dead, Tewdyr and his heir are dead, Oldadd’s dead, Paedyn’s dead, and Degedd’s dead. Ah horseshit, I’m not sure I give a pig’s fart about this war anymore, but I’ll beg you, good herbwoman, don’t tell another man I ever said such a dishonorable thing.”
In two days the messengers returned with the news that the gwerbret was riding to settle the matter with his entire warband of five hundred men. Erddyr was to select twenty-five men for an honor guard and ride to neutral ground; Nomyr would do the same or be declared a traitor. Although Dallandra would have liked to have ridden to hear the settlement, her first obligation was to the wounded. Although a good half of the casualties had died during the long journey back to the dun, she still had some twenty men who needed more care than the servants could give them. Late that evening, when she was tending them in the barracks, the messenger sought her out; he’d been given a note for her at the gwerbret’s dun.
“Can you read, good dame, or should I fetch the scribe?”
“I can read a bit. Let me try.”
Although written Deverrian was difficult for her, the note was brief.
“Ah, it’s from Timryc the chirurgeon! He’s riding our way as fast as ever he can, and he’s bringing supplies with him.”
She was so relieved that she wept, just a brief scatter of tears while the messenger nodded in sympathy, glancing round at the men whose luck had been worse than his own. She could never tell him or any other human being that her heart was troubled more by revulsion than sympathy for all this gouged and shattered flesh, cut meat exposing splintered bone.
Close to midnight, Dallandra went for a walk out in the ward. By then the gibbous moon was already slouching past zenith. Most of the men were asleep, but she could see through the windows a few servants still working in the firelit great hall. Although she’d come out for a breath of air, the ward stank of dungheaps and stable sweepings, a pigsty and a henhouse. Mud from the spring thaw lay everywhere, slimy and half-alive with sprouting weeds and fungi.
For a moment she wanted to scream and run, to find a road back to Evandar’s country no matter who might need her here in the world