A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [185]
“Um, indeed?” Cadmar looked up automatically and saw the bird, hovering on the wind some distance off, too far for his human vision to judge its size. “What’s that? A trained falcon or suchlike?”
“Just so, Your Grace. Jill always did have a way with animals. No doubt she’s riding off somewhere with its lure. Or somewhat like that, anyway.”
“Whatever she thinks fit. Well, then, let’s ride. My lords, to the west!”
All that morning the hawk led them onward. At times she circled directly overhead, but only for brief moments, as if Jill were ensuring that she had Rhodry’s attention. Most of the time it kept so far off that only elven eyes could spot it, but always, in loops and lazy wind drifts, it moved steadily west and down, as the hills round Cengarn fell toward the high plains. Gradually the terrain opened up to rolling hills, scattered with trees at the crests and thick with underbrush in the shallow valleys between. It was good country for bandits, Rhodry thought. They could hide their camps and their loot in among the scrubby brush, keep guards posted on the open crests, and send scouts along them, too, when they wanted to make a raid. He was blasted glad, he decided, that the gwerbret and his men had dweomer on their side in this little game of hide and seek.
As they rode, he had a chance to study the two lords riding just ahead with the gwerbret Gwinardd of Brin Coc was no more than nineteen, come to the lordship just last year, or so the dun gossip said, on the death of his father from a fever. Brown-haired and bland, he seemed neither bright nor stupid, an ordinary sort of fellow who was obviously devoted to the gwerbret. Matyc of Dun Mawrvelin was another sort entirely. There might well have been some elven blood in his clan’s veins, because his hair was a moonlight-pale blond, and his eyes a steel-gray, but he had none of that race’s openness or humor. His face, in fact, reminded Rhodry of a mask carved from wood. All day long, he rarely frowned and never smiled, merely seemed to watch and listen to everything around him from some great distance away. Even when the gwerbret spoke directly to him, he answered briefly—always polite, to be sure—merely thrifty to a fault with his words.
Once, when the lords had drifted a fair bit ahead, Rhodry had a chance at a word with Yraen.
“What do you think of Matyc?”
“Not much.”
“Keep your eye on him, will you? There’s just somewhat about him that makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“Just how loyal he is to our grace.”
Yraen’s eyes widened with questions, but since the lords ahead had paused to let their men catch up with them, he couldn’t ask them.
There were still some four hours left in the day when the warbands reached the crest of a hill fringed with tall beeches. Rhodry saw the hawk circle round once, then dip lazily down to disappear into a scrubby stand of hazels in the valley below.
“My lord?” he called out. “Jill seems to want us to stop here. There’s water for a camp. Shall I ride on down and see if she’s there?”
“Do that, silver dagger. We’ll wait here for your signal.”
Rhodry dismounted, tossed his reins up to Yraen, then strode on downhill on foot. Sure enough, he found Jill, in human form, kneeling by the streamside and drinking out of cupped hands. Though she was barefoot, she was wearing a thin tunic in the Bardek style over a pair of brigga. An empty sack lay beside her on the ground. It seemed to him that she was as light and fragile as the linen cloth.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m not.” Shaking her hands dry she stood up. “But I’ll beg a blanket from you for tonight, truly. The falcon can’t carry much, you see.”
“No doubt.” In spite of all the years that he’d lived around dweomer, Rhodry shuddered, just at how casually she took her transformations. “Ah, well, I take it we’re following the right road and all.”
“Just so. The raiders aren’t all that far. I thought the army could camp along this stream and rest their horses, then mount a raid. They’ve got guards on