Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [114]
“And how will they know if we—oh, by every god and his wife, what a dolt I am! Of course they’ll know.”
“You know, silver dagger,” Aderyn went on. “I’d take it most kindly if you stuck close to Lord Rhodry when things come to battle. If the rebels are going to succeed, they have to kill him before they’ve caused so much damage that Gwerbret Rhys is forced to intervene. No doubt that’s why they’re not attacking Sligyn’s army. They can’t risk killing the noble-born unless Rhodry’s there as a possible prize.”
“Just that,” Cullyn said. “Here, I thought you said you didn’t understand matters of war. Sounds to me like you were being modest.”
“Oh, I’m just repeating what Nevyn told me.”
Rhodry and Cullyn nodded thoughtfully at this meaningless remark.
“Aderyn, I don’t understand,” Jill broke in. “You say that no one told you?”
“Oh!” The old man chuckled under his breath. “My apologies, child. I have a friend named Nevyn. His father gave him the name as some kind of bitter jest, if I remember rightly.”
Since Otho the smith was very much on her mind, Jill suddenly remembered his riddle, that someday no one would tell her what craft to follow. If he were a friend of Aderyn’s, this “no one” had to be a dweomerman, too. While the men went on talking of the coming war, Jill slipped away and ran out of the dun. By the stream that ran behind it she sat down and watched the water sparkling with Wildfolk, who raised themselves up like waves to greet her. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. The dweomer seemed to have swooped out of the sky like a falcon, and it had her in its claws.
The waiting got on everyone’s nerves as the hot summer day dragged on. With nothing but stream water to drink and meager, stale provisions from Dregydd’s stores to eat, the warband was in a sullen mood, while the merchant and his muleteers crept around in numb panic. Every-where Rhodry walked he heard the men talking of dweomer, and he could no longer cheerily dismiss their fears. Finally he went down to the gates, newly barricaded with big logs, and found Cullyn there, leaning meditatively against the barricade on folded arms and watching the ravens wheel over the dead horses out in the meadow. Rhodry joined him.
“At least old Dregydd had shovels with him. Enemies or not, it would have ached my heart to leave those men unburied.”
“That’s most honorable of you, my lord.”
“Ah, it’s but my duty. I’ve been thinking about what old Aderyn asked you, about sticking close to me in the scraps, I mean. They’re going to be riding to mob me, sure enough, and I’d never ask a man to put himself in that kind of danger. Ride where you will on the field.”
“Then I’ll ride next to you.”
When Rhodry swung around to look at him, Cullyn gave him an easy smile.
“My Wyrd will come when it comes,” Cullyn said. “It gripes my heart to think of a decent man like you being killed for a handful of coin. What are these lords, silver daggers?”
“Well, my thanks. Truly, my thanks. I’m honored that a man like you would think so highly of me.”
“A man like me, my lord?” Cullyn touched the hilt of his silver dagger, as if to remind Rhodry of his shame.
“Ah, by the hells, what do I care what you did twenty years ago or whenever it was? You’ve ridden through more rough scraps than a lord like me ever even hears about.”
“Well, maybe, my lord, but I—”
In the ward behind them, yells exploded, jeers and curses and ill-natured taunts from the warband. Over it all, like the shriek of a raven, floated Jill’s voice, shrill with rage.
“Oh, ye gods!” Cullyn turned on his heel and ran.
Rhodry was right behind him. As they came round the side of the broch, they saw half the warband gathered round Jill, who yelled foul insults back as fast as they yelled them at her. Caenrydd came running from the other direction and elbowed himself into the mob, pulling or slapping his men away impartially, like a hunter slapping the dogs off the kill.
“Now, what’s all this, you young swine?” Caenrydd snarled. “I’ll put stripes on your backs if you’ve been