A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [187]
Later that evening Rhodry finally had a chance to speak with Dar alone. Dar may have been a prince, but he was also one of the Westfolk, and he went out to check on his horses himself rather than leaving the task to one of his men. Rhodry saw him go and followed him out to the herd, tethered down the valley.
“It’s good to see you again,” Dar spoke in Elvish. “We’ve all missed you, in the years since you left us.”
“And I’ve missed the People as well. Are things well with your father?”
“Oh, yes, very well indeed. He’s still traveling with Calonderiel’s alar, but I left it a while back. I can’t say why. I just wanted to ride on my own for a while, I suppose, and go from alar to alar, but Cal insisted on giving me this escort.”
“Did he say why? It’s not like the People, to give someone an honor guard just as—well, just as an honor.”
In the dim starlight he could see the prince grinning.
“That’s what I thought, too. But Cal said a dweomerwoman had come to him in a dream and told him to do it, so he did.”
“Dallandra?”
“That was her name, all right.”
Rhodry shuddered like a wet dog. Great things are moving, indeed! he thought to himself. Dar looked away, a different kind of smile hovering round his mouth.
“What do you think of my Carramaena?”
“Oh, she’s lovely, and a good sensible lass.”
Dar’s grin deepened. He looked down and began scuffing the grass with the toe of his boot.
“But well, I hate to say this,” Rhodry went on. “But haven’t you let yourself and her in for grief? I mean, you’re young as the People reckon age, and you’ll live ten times her years.”
“I don’t want to hear it!” Dar looked up with a snarl. “Everyone says that, and I don’t care! We’ll have what joy we can, then, and that’s all there is to that!”
“My apologies for—”
“Oh, you’re right, I suppose. But ye gods, from the moment I saw her—she was so lovely, standing there in the market, and she needed me so badly, with that wretched brother of hers, and I just, well, I tried to talk myself out of it, but I just kept riding back to see how she fared, to see if she was well, and—” He shrugged profoundly. “And you know what, Rhodry? She’s the first grown lass I’ve ever met who was younger than me. There was just something fascinating about that.”
Rhodry swore under his breath, but not for Dar’s love affair. The young prince had spoken the truth, that out among the elves, young people were becoming the rarity. How long would it be, he wondered, before the People were gone, and forever?
“Well, you two will have a fine daughter, anyway,” Rhodry said at last.
“A daughter? How by the Dark Sun do you know?”
“Call it the second sight, lad, and let it go at that. We’d best get back.”
Some hours before dawn the gwerbret’s captain moved through the camp, waking the men with whispers. In the fumbling dark they armed themselves and saddled their horses, then rode out while it was still too dark to move at more than a slow walk. Not more than a few hundred yards from camp, Rhodry saw Jill, standing by the side of the road and waiting for them. He pulled out of line and went over to her, with Yraen tagging behind.
“That horse can carry both of us, can’t he?” she said. “It’s not like I’m wearing mail or suchlike.”
“Ye gods, you don’t weigh much more than a child these days, or so it seems. Are you coming with us?”
“As a guide. Let me mount, and then let’s go ride with the noble-born.”
Rhodry got down, settled her in the saddle proper, then swung up behind her. As they were catching up to the army, he reminded Yraen to watch Lord Matyc in the coming battle—if they were all going to be riding together when the charge came, it might be just possible for Yraen to keep him in sight. Jill led them downhill and across the grassy plain by a roundabout way, keeping to what cover there was.
Whether it was dweomer or only shrewd tracking, Rhodry would never know, but it seemed to him that they reached the bandit camp remarkably soon and ended up in a remarkably good position, too, on a wooded rise behind the enemy’s