A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [165]
“Hold your tongue! There’s a lady present.”
Snorting inarticulately under his breath a man came stumping into the room. He was only about five feet tall, but built as thickly and strongly as a miniature blacksmith, though his walk was stiff and slow. Since his hair and long beard were snow-white, it might have been mere age that was stiffening him, but from Rhodry’s talk of the night before Carra suspected that his heavy leather jerkin hid sewn jewels. He was also wearing a short sword at one hip and a long knife at the other.
“Don’t you yell at me, you misbegotten silver dagger,” Otho said, but levelly enough. “The day I take orders from a cursed elf is the day I curl my toes to heaven and gasp my last. I…”
He saw Carra and stopped, his mouth slacking, his eyes misting with tears.
“My lady,” he whispered. “Oh! My lady.”
He knelt before her and grabbed her hand to kiss it like a courtier. Carra sat stunned while Rhodry and Yraen goggled. All at once Otho blushed scarlet, jumped to his feet, and made a noisy show of blowing his nose on a bit of old rag.
“Uh, well now,” Otho snapped. “Don’t know what came over me, like, lass. My apologies. Thought you were someone else, just for a minute there. Humph. Well. Forgive me, will you? Just going outside.”
He rushed out before anyone could say a word, leaving all of them stunned and silent for a good couple of minutes. Finally Yraen sighed with an explosive puff of breath.
“All right, Rhodry lad. Dweomer it is, and Wyrd, too, for all I know about it. I’m not arguing with you anymore.”
After Rhodry settled up with the innkeep, they rode out, heading straight north on the hard-packed dirt road that would, or so the villagers promised, eventually lead them to Cengarn and Gwerbret Cadmar. The road here ran through farms, stretching pale gold with the ripening crop of winter wheat, but to the north, like a smudge of storm clouds, hung a dark line of hills and forests. All morning the line swelled, and the land rose steadily toward it, till by the time they stopped to rest the horses and eat their midday meal, they could see waves and billows of land and trees at the horizon.
“How are you faring, lass?” Otho asked as he helped her dismount. “Our Rhodry tells me you’re with child.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly fine. You don’t need to hover over me, you know. I’m not very far along at all.”
“If you say so. I just wish we had a woman of the People with us, someone who knew about these female matters.”
“I’m doing splendidly.”
Yet, when Carra sat down in a soft patch of grass, she was surprised at how good it felt to be out of the saddle and still. She’d learned to ride at three, clinging to her brother’s pony, spent half her life riding, but now she found herself tired after a morning in the saddle. She decided that she hated being pregnant, married or not. Thunder and Lightning flopped down on either side of her with vast canine sighs. When Nedd hurried off to fetch her water and food, Otho sat down as if on guard.
“If I’m truly a queen now,” she said, “the dogs must be my men at arms, and Nedd my equerry. Do you want to be my high councillor, Otho? I wonder if I’ll get any serving women; maybe we should have taken some of his holiness’s cats along for that.”
Otho frowned in thought, pretending to take the game seriously.
“Well, Your Grace,” he said at last. “I’d rather be your chief craftsman, in charge of building your great hall, like.”
“Truly, the one we’ve got now is rather drafty.” She waved one arm round at the scenery. “Let me see, who’ll be councillor. Well, it can’t be Rhodry, because he’s daft. I know—I need a sorcerer! An aged sorcerer like in the tales. Aren’t there tales like that? About marvelous dweomermasters who turn up just when you need them?”
Otho turned a little pale. She could have sworn that he was terrified, but she couldn’t imagine why. Suddenly troubled herself, she looked up at the sky.
“Do you see that bird circling up there?” She pointed to a distant black shape. “Is it a raven?”
“Looks like it. Why?”
“I’ve