Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [131]
“And that’s what he’s after, curse him and his balls both,” Sligyn broke in. “He’ll hammer at us until someone kills the cadvridoc, and then he’ll place his suit.”
“If I may speak, my lords?” Cullyn said. “Then there’s only one thing to do—kill Corbyn before he has a chance to sue for anything.”
“Blasted right!” Sligyn snarled. “When you see a dog foaming at the mouth, you don’t call the stinking kennel-man. You cut its head off.”
They drew close together to lay their plan. In the next battle, the lords would ride as a unit, with Rhodry safely in the middle and Cullyn and Sligyn at the head. Their best men would be round them to hold off the enemy while they coursed the field and found Corbyn.
“And I wager we’ll find him at the rear,” Edar said. “I’m going to tell my men to fight for blood, when it comes to facing Corbyn’s allies. No more of this dancing all around us while they parry. It’s time they saw what kind of a man they’ve allied themselves with.”
Sligyn stood up with a grim little laugh.
“I’m going to go talk to my captain. I suggest the rest of you do the same.”
When the lords dispersed, Rhodry kept Cullyn at his side and had his manservant bring both of them mead in wooden cups. For a while Rhodry stayed silent, downing the mead in big gulps as he stared at the fire.
“Lord cadvridoc?” Cullyn said at length. “It’s no dishonor to have a bodyguard when someone’s trying to murder you.”
“Ah, it’s not that that aches my heart.” Rhodry paused for another gulp of mead. “I was thinking of Caenrydd. Amyr told me that Caenno ordered him forward and took the rear by himself. He knew what that meant.”
“So he did. He pledged to die for you, and he kept his word.”
“But by the hells!” Rhodry turned to him, and there were tears glistening in the lad’s eyes. “Don’t you see that’s the worst of it? Here, I’ve never ridden at the head of a warband before. Oh, I’ve always been Lord Rhodry, but no more than my father’s captain, or Rhys’s extra man. In all the battles I ever rode, no one was dying for my wretched sake. I expected to die someday for someone else’s.”
“I’ve never met another noble-born man who troubled his heart about such things.”
“Then curse them all! By the hells, why did my uncle have to go and get himself killed? I don’t want his demesne.”
“I’ve no doubt his lordship will feel a good bit differently about that in the morning.”
“Oh, no doubt.” Rhodry stared moodily into his cup. “I’d be cursed and twice cursed before I’d let Rhys have it, anyway.”
“Here, I’ve got no right to be asking you this, but is your brother as bad a man as all that?”
“Not in the least, about anything but me. Oh, he’s just, generous, and brave—everything a stinking noble-born man is supposed to be, except when it comes to the matter of my affairs. Cursed if I know why he’s always hated me so much.”
Cullyn heard as much hurt as anger in the lad’s voice.
“Well, my lord, my elder brother was much the same to me. He’d give me a good cuff whenever he could get away with it, and it didn’t sweeten his temper to have Mam take my side all the time.”
“By the hells.” Rhodry looked up with an oddly embarrassed smile. “Of course you had a clan, didn’t you? Here I’ve been thinking of you as somewhat like the wind and the rain, always there, wandering the kingdom.”
“Nothing of the sort.” Cullyn had a cautious sip of mead. “My father was a shipwright down in Cerrmor, and a drunken bastard he was, too. I had to dodge him as much as I dodged my brother’s fists, truly. And when he finally did us all a favor and drank himself to death, the priests of Bel got my mother a place in the gwerbret’s kitchen. I grew up in the dun.”
“And is that where you learned to fight?”
“It is. The captain of the warband took pity on the greasy scullery lad who was always playing with sticks and calling them swords.” Cullyn washed away his rising feeling of shame with the mead.