Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [142]
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“We’re going to have to let the men spend a day in camp,” Sligyn said. “All there is to it, eh? Yesterday’s scrap tore the heart out of this army.”
“You’re right enough,” Rhodry said. “But it aches my heart to just sit here when Corbyn’s so close, and we’ve got Jill.”
“The morrow will see the end to it,” Peredyr broke in. “Corbyn can’t move any more than we can. His losses were worse than ours.”
In the cool, gray dawn, the noble-born were having a council of war over their breakfast. Aderyn had told them that Corbyn’s dispirited troops were camped some five miles to the north, just an easy ride away, but Rhodry knew that Sligyn was right.
When the council broke up, Rhodry had the grim job of composing a letter to go home with Lord Daumyr’s body. His men, and all the others, were already buried out on the field where they’d fallen. When he took the letter over to Daumyr’s manservant, who would accompany the body, he found the men from Daumyr’s warband waiting for him. Their captain, Maer, knelt before him.
“A boon, lord cadvridoc,” Maer said. “By rights, we should go home with our lord. Let us stay. We want vengeance, my lord.”
Rhodry hesitated, debating. Technically these men now rode for Daumyr’s nine-year-old son, who should have been consulted over such a breach of custom.
“Please, my lord,” Maer went on. “Dweomer killed our lord, and we want to help the dweomer put an end to Corbyn. I know you’re thinking about our lord’s lad, but what son wouldn’t want his father avenged?”
“True spoken. Granted, then. Ride with me and my men, and you’ll be riding straight for Corbyn.”
The men spontaneously cheered him.
After he saw Daumyr’s body with its spare honor guard of two wounded men on its way, Rhodry headed for his tent to look in on Cullyn. On the way, he met Nevyn, whose arms were full of medical supplies.
“I’m just going to change the dressings on Cullyn’s wounds,” Nevyn said. “You’ll have to wait if you want a word with him. Here, lad. I don’t want you telling him what Jill’s up to. He’s too weak to hear it.”
“Well and good, then. By the gods, I hadn’t truly thought of what he might think about all this.”
“Indeed? His lordship might spend a moment or two thinking every now and then.”
“But here, what’s Cullyn going to say when he asks for her on the day of the battle and finds her gone?”
“Oh, he’s taken care of that himself. The man’s as stubborn as a bear, I swear it. When he woke this morning, he was as grateful as ever a man could be to see her, and in the next breath he’s ordering her to go straight back to Cannobaen so she wouldn’t be in danger.”
“Well, that’s honorable of him. After all, he loves his daughter.”
“So he does.” And Nevyn, oddly enough, looked troubled. “Oh, truly, so he does.”
Rhodry followed Nevyn over to the tent in the hopes that Jill would take the chance to get herself some breakfast, and indeed, she came out a few minutes after Nevyn went in. They went first to the supply wagons, where Rhodry drew rations for her, then walked away from camp to an open spot in the sunny meadow. When they sat down together, Rhodry was thinking that he’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Jill. Every now and then, she smiled at him in a way that gave him hope.
“You know, Jill,” Rhodry said at last, “you truly are a falcon, and my heart’s just like a little bird, caught in your claws.”
“Oh, here, my lord, you hardly know me.”
“And how long does it take a falcon to stoop and capture?”
Jill stared at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. Rhodry smiled and moved a little closer.
“Well, come now. You must know how beautiful you are. I’ll wager that all along the long road men sighed when you wandered on your way.”
“If they did, they wouldn’t have dared tell me about it. Da made sure of that. Besides, if I’ve had men sighing over me, which I doubt from the bottom of my heart, you’ve had a few lasses do the same over you. What about the soapmaker’s daughter?