Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [87]
At dinner that night, Cullyn and Jill ate in silence, enjoying each other’s company without a need for words. Every now and then, Jill would look into the fire at the hearth and smile, her eyes moving as if she saw things there. Over the years, Cullyn had grown used to this particular habit of hers, just as he was used to her seeing things in the clouds and the running streams. Although it griped his soul to admit it, he was sure that his daughter had what the country folk called the second sight. That evening, she gave him a further bit of evidence.
“You know, Da, we should ride with Dregydd when he leaves town.”
“Indeed? Then what a pity that he never asked us to.”
“Oh, he will.”
Cullyn was about to make some exasperated remark when Dregydd came into the tavern. He paused at the door and looked around at the unaccustomed squalor. A man in his thirties with pepper-and-salt hair, Dregydd was as lean and taut as a warrior from his hard-riding life. When Cullyn hailed him, he smiled in relief and hurried over.
“I’m sincerely glad I finally found you. I’ve been thinking, silver dagger. In about a week, I’ll be riding west. If you’ll wait in town to guard the caravan, I’ll pay for your lodgings.”
Jill smiled smugly out at nothing.
“Sounds like you’re expecting trouble,” Cullyn said to Dregydd.
“Well, not truly expecting it, like. It’s just that you’d best be ready for trouble when you trade with the Westfolk.”
“The who?”
Dregydd gave him an odd smile, as if he were nursing an important secret.
“A tribe who lives far to the west. They’re not ordinary Eldidd men, not by the hells they aren’t, but they raise the best horses in the kingdom, and they’re always willing to trade for iron goods. Now, I’ve never had any trouble with the Westfolk themselves, mind, but sometimes the muleteers get a little, well, strange, way out there on the edge of nowhere. I’d like to have you along.”
“I’m on, then. A hire’s a hire.”
“Splendid! After we’ve done our trading, we’ll be coming back through Cannobaen. That’s this little border town on the seacoast. You might find better work for your sword there, too. I hear there’s some kind of trouble brewing around Cannobaen.”
“Well and good, then. Send one of your lads over to tell me the night before we leave.”
After Dregydd left, Jill avoided looking her father in the eye.
“And just how did you know that he was coming?”
“I don’t know. I just did.”
Cullyn let the subject drop. My daughter, he thought, but by the gods of our people, sometimes I wonder if I know her at all.
As it often did, the summer fog lay thick and cold over Dun Cannobaen. From the lighthouse, the great bronze bell boomed slow notes. Inside the broch, servants scurried round lighting peat fires in the hearths. Laydy Lovyan, by now dowager of Aberwyn and, by a twist of the laws, tieryn of the area round Cannobaen in her own right, put on a cloak, made from the gray, red, and white plaid of her demesne, when she went down to the great hall. By the servants’ hearth, her warband of fifty men lounged close to the fire. At the hearth of honor knelt the suppliant come for Lovyan’s justice. The local soapmaker, Ysgerryn was a skinny fellow with gray hair who smelled faintly of tallow, for all that he’d put on a clean shirt and striped brigga for this important visit.
“Speak up, good sir,” Lovyan said. “I’m always willing to oversee any matter of justice, no matter how slight. For what do you seek redress?”
“Ah, well, Your Grace, it’s about my daughter.