Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [124]
On the flatter land she could keep up a gallop-trot pace, and she changed horses twice more. The city was a good fifty miles from the patrol station, a distance that only a speeded courier like herself could hope to cover in one day. By her third change the sun was low in the sky, and the lord who was giving her the fresh horse remarked that the gwerbret’s courier was welcome to shelter the night. Jill considered, but one of her dweomer-warnings cut through her like a knife. She had to go on, and as fast as possible.
“My thanks, my lord, but my message is truly urgent.”
“No doubt you know best, then, silver dagger.”
When she left, she rode out at a full gallop, and the dweomer-cold rode with her. Someone knew where she was, and that someone was following her to work her harm. After her broken night she came close to falling asleep in the saddle every time she let the horse walk or pause for a rest, but she kept rousing herself and kicking her mount to a trot to keep them both lively. Whenever she passed anyone on the road, she would yell at them to clear off in the gwerbret’s name. With startled shouts they would move aside and let her by.
At last she crested a low hill and saw below her the gwerbret’s city of Dun Hiraedd, spreading on either side of a river and surrounded with high stone walls. The river was glittering so brightly in the sunset that Jill could barely look at it with her exhausted eyes. Sunset. The town gates would be closing for the night. She kicked a burst of speed out of her horse and charged, dashing up to the gates just as they were swinging shut.
“A message for the gwerbret!” she yelled. “From the Cwm Pecl pass!”
The gates held open. As a guard ran out to meet her, she swung down and presented the token with a flourish.
“Well and good, silver dagger,” the guard said. “I’ll take you up to the dun straightaway.”
When the gates swung shut behind them, Jill felt a relief so strong that she knew it had to be dweomer-in-spired. Here, for a little while, she’d be safe.
The city guard led her through a maze of cobbled streets and close-packed roundhouses. Windows shone with lantern light; people were hurrying home after a day’s trade; here and there a scent of cooking drifted from a house and made Jill’s stomach growl. At the far side of town stood a low artificial hill, ringed with stone walls. There were more gates, more guards, but the token brought them into the ward of Blaen’s enormous dun, where a triple broch towered over sheds and stables. After a page took Jill’s horse, the city guard led her inside the great hall.
The room gleamed with firelight and candles. Jill stood blinking by the door while the guard went to speak to the gwerbret. Down at one hearth servants were putting out the evening meal for a warband of a hundred men at long tables. Near the honor hearth, the gwerbret dined alone. When she looked at the elegant stonework, the fine tapes-tries, the silver goblets and candelabra on the tables, Jill felt like cursing out the entire patrol. Why hadn’t the dolts sent a message to the gwerbret’s captain, instead of making her barge in like this on a great lord at his dinner? A dirty silver dagger like her should have been waiting outside in the ward.
Blaen himself was hardly reassuring. When the guard spoke to him, he rose, tossing his head arrogantly and standing with a proud set to his shoulders. He was far younger than she’d expected, about two-and-twenty, and he reminded her strikingly of Rhodry, with dark-blue