Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [110]
“The gall!” Marclew snarled. “Taking my son on the road by a sneaking piss-proud bastard’s trick, and then mocking me for a miser!” He threw the parchment back at the scribe, who caught it and ducked back out of reach. “What was that bit again, the whoreson?”
The scribe cleared his throat and smoothed out the message.
“I know his lordship values his coin, hugging it tight the way most men prefer to hug a wench, but doubtless his own son means enough to him that he will part with some of his treasures. We have set his price at twenty Deverry silvers, ten silvers each for his men, five for the silver dagger, and for the servants, one.”
“The gall!” Marclew howled. “Do they truly expect me to pay ransom for a stinking silver dagger? They’re doing it to mock me, and cursed if I will.”
With a growl Marclew went back to his pacing. The chamberlain turned Jill’s way and beckoned, inviting her to come plead with the lord, but Jill shook her head no and stalked out of the great hall. One of the serving lasses followed and caught her by the arm.
“What are you doing? Why won’t you plead?”
“Because I’ve got the coin to ransom Rhodry myself. In all my years on the long road, I’ve never been treated so shabbily by a lord, and cursed if I’ll stand for it anymore. If I were a bard, I’d make a satire about Marclew.”
“Oh, plenty of bards already have, but it hasn’t done any good.”
Jill went down to the stables, where she’d been sleeping in an empty stall next to her horse. A groom helped her saddle up and told her how to get to Ynryc’s dun, about a day and a half’s ride away.
“Now, be careful, lass,” he said. “There’s going to be as many warbands in the hills as fleas on a hound.”
“I will. Can you spare me some oats for my horse, or will your tightfisted lord beat you for it?”
“He’ll never know. You want to take good care of a horse like that one, you do.”
As if he knew he was being praised, Sunrise tossed his head and made his silvery mane ripple over his golden neck. Rhodry had given her this Western Hunter, back when he’d been a lord himself and able to bestow valuable gifts on those around him, and unlike Marclew, he’d been as generous as a lord should be.
Jill rode out without extending Marclew the courtesy of a farewell and galloped the first mile or so, just to put the dun far behind her. When she reached the broad, grassy banks of the River Lit, she slowed to a walk to let Sunrise cool down. Suddenly her gray gnome appeared on her saddle peak and perched there precariously.
“We’re going to get Rhodry and then get back on the long road,” she told him. “Marclew is a swine.”
Grinning, the gnome nodded agreement.
“I hope he’s being treated well. Did you go take a look at him?”
The gnome nodded a vigorous yes to both questions.
“You know, little brother, there’s one thing I don’t understand. Here’s Rhodry with his elven blood, but he can’t see you.”
The gnome picked his long blue teeth while he considered, then shrugged and disappeared. Apparently, he didn’t understand it, either.
The road wound through low hills, sometimes leaving the river when the water ran through a deep canyon, then rejoining it in the valleys. To either side stretched mile after mile of scrubby pastureland, rolling through the hills. Here and there Jill saw herds of white cattle with rusty-red ears, tended by a cowherd with a pair of big gray-and-white hounds. Late in the day Jill had just come round a large bend in the river road when she saw ravens off to the right. Out of the tall grass they suddenly broke to fly and circle, only to settle to their feeding again.
Jill assumed that the corpse was a dead calf, born too weak to live, or even maybe a cow who’d gotten ill and died before the cowherd found her, but all at once the gray gnome reappeared. He grabbed a rein with bony fingers, shook it hard, then pointed at the ravens.
“Do you want me to take a look?”
He nodded