A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [151]
For all that Rhodry kept saying his wounds were mere scratches, his face was so pale by the time the chirurgeon was done tending them that Yraen begged him to go lie down somewhere. The gwerbret, however, had other ideas.
“I think me you’d best ride out, silver dagger. I hate being this inhospitable to a man who’s done me no wrong, but once news of this thing gets round…”
“I understand, Your Grace,” Rhodry croaked.
“Don’t try to talk, man.” Drwmyc turned to Yraen. “Do you both have decent horses?”
“We do, Your Grace. Rhodry lost his in the war, but Lord Erddyr replaced it.”
“Good. Then saddle up and go.” He turned, looking down at the corpse. “I’m going to have this thing burned. If the common folk see or hear of it, the gods only know what they’ll do, and I doubt me if you two will be safe here.”
“Your Grace, that’s cursed unjust! Rhodry’s the victim, not the criminal.”
“Hold your tongue!” Rhodry managed to speak with some force. “Listen to his grace. He’s right.”
Yraen found their horses, saddled them and loaded up their gear, then brought them round to the rear of the pavilion where Rhodry was waiting for him, still under guard, but this time, Yraen supposed, the men were there to keep him away from others, as if he carried some kind of plague of the supernatural that the populace might catch. Yraen felt the injustice of it eating at him, but since he had no desire to molder in the gwerbret’s dungeon keep, he kept his mouth shut.
At least they could travel unmolested; he doubted if Gwar’s three friends would bother to follow them, and with old Badger Snout dead, Rhodry was probably safe enough from creatures of that sort, whatever they might be. Yet, as he thought about it, Yraen no longer knew what might or might not be probable. His entire view of the universe had just gotten itself shattered like a clay cup hitting a stone floor. The calm and literate air of his father’s court, where bards and philosophers alike were always welcome, seemed farther away and stranger than the Otherlands. As they rode out of the dun, he found he had nothing to say. He could only wonder why he’d ever left the Holy City.
Already the sun hung low, catching a few mares’ tails high in the sky and turning them gold, a promise of rain coming in a day or two. A few miles from the dun, they crested a rise and saw down below them an unmarked crossroads, one way heading roughly east and west, the other running off to the north. A rider was waiting in the cross, a tall blond man on a white horse with rusty-red ears.
“Evandar, no doubt,” Rhodry whispered. “And me too hoarse to talk!” He tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a rusty cracking sound that made Yraen feel cold all over.
“Just be quiet, then! I’ll try to bargain with him.”
As they walked their horses down, Evandar waited, sitting easy in his saddle and smiling in greeting, yet as soon as they drew close, his eyes narrowed.
“What happened to your neck?” he snapped at Rhodry.
“This thing tried to strangle him,” Yraen broke in. “A fiend from the hells with a badger head, like, and claws. Rhodry killed it with the bronze knife that the old herb-woman gave him.”
“Good, good.” Evandar was still looking at Rhodry. “It came for that whistle, you know. Why don’t you let me have it back? They won’t come bothering you anymore.”
“Who are you, anyway?” Yraen said with as much authority as he could summon. “We want some answers.”
“Do you now?” Evandar paused to smile. “Well, I spoke to Dallandra, and she did mention that, but I’ve none to give you. That whistle, however, is mine by right of a treaty sealed in my own country, and I do wish to have it back. You wouldn’t want me riding to the gwerbret and accusing you of theft, would you now?”
Rhodry made a painful gurgling noise that made Evandar frown.
“You’ve been hurt badly, haven’t you? That aches my heart, that