A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [18]
“I wouldn’t let myself feel shamed if I were you, Captain. Rather the opposite.”
Caradoc shrugged away the implied praise.
“So of course Lord Tidvulc had to kick me out of the warband. I got the feeling he didn’t want to, but it was his first-born son and all. The trouble is, his lordship was no young man when I left, all those years ago, and I’ll wager anything you please that his son’s the lord now.”
“And no doubt he’ll be less than pleased to see you? Hum, I see your point, but you know, he may be dead himself by now. There’s been plenty of fighting down Cerrmor way.”
“True spoken.” The captain looked a good bit more cheerful. “Let’s pray so, huh? Naught I can do about it now, anyway.”
For five days the silver daggers rode wet and slept that way, too, as they picked their way across Pyrdon, keeping to the country lanes and wild trails and avoiding the main-traveled roads. Although the mercenaries grumbled in the steady stream of foul oaths typical of men at arms, they stayed healthy enough, but Nevyn began to feel the damp badly. At times he needed help to stand in the mornings, and he could hear his joints pop and complain every time he mounted his horse. Even his dweomer-induced vitality had its natural limits. Just when he was thinking of dosing himself with some of his own herbs, the storm blew itself out, only to have the weather turn hot and muggy. The midges and flies came out in force and hovered above the line of march as thick as smoke. Finally, though, just on the next day, they reached the river that marked the Pyrdon border, and, at its joining with the Aver Trebyc, the only truly large town in the west.
At that time Dun Trebyc was a far different place from the center of learning and bookcraft that it is today. Although it was nominally in Cantrae-held territory, and its lord sent some small tribute to reinforce the fiction, in truth it was a free city and scrupulously neutral, a town where spies from both sides mingled to the profit of both or neither, depending on how many were lying at any given time. Since it was also a place Where everyone went armed, and mercenaries were common, no one remarked on the silver daggers when they rode through the gates late on a steamy-hot afternoon. After the slop-muddy road, the streets were welcome, even though they were paved only with logs instead of cobbles, and the prospect of a night in an inn more welcome still.
“I only hope we can find a place to ourselves,” Caradoc remarked to Nevyn. “Last thing we need is a brawl on our hands, and when you mix two free troops in the same tavern, brawls are about what you get.”
Much to Nevyn’s relief, and doubtless the captain’s, too, they were indeed lucky enough to find an inn over by the east gate that had just been vacated by another pack of mercenaries. Although the men had to sleep four and five to each small room, everyone had a place to spread their blankets and a roof over their heads. As befitted his supposed station as a wealthy merchant, Nevyn had a tiny chamber with a proper bed all to himself. Branoic carried his gear up for him, and Maryn insisted on coming along with a bucket of charcoal for the brazier.
“Nobody’s going to believe a pr-prince would c-carry c-coals,” the lad said. “Ye gods, I’ll be g-glad when