Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [158]
He looked up from his brooding to find Sarcyn watching him.
“What do you want?” Alastyr snapped.
“I only wanted to butcher the rabbit for you, master. It’s my place to wait on you.”
Alastyr handed him the knife, then washed his bloody hands in a bucket of water. Nearby Camdel sat crouched in the straw.
“If we do make a run for it,” Alastyr said, “Camdel has to die. He’ll only slow us down.”
Whimpering, the lordling shrank back. Sarcyn looked up with the knife in his hand, and his eyes were murderous with rage.
“I won’t let you kill him.”
“Indeed? And who are you to let me do or not do anything?”
Alastyr sent a wave of hatred down the link between his aura and Sarcyn’s, following it up with a twist of rage. With a gasp Sarcyn dropped the knife as the emotions translated themselves into pure physical pain. Writhing, he fell to his knees, his face twisted as he tried to keep the pain from showing there. With a snarl Alastyr released him, shaking on the floor.
“Now hold your tongue until you’re spoken to,” he snapped. “I have to think.”
He paced over to the window and stared out blindly, feeling his fear clutch and pulse within him. Once he glanced back to see Sarcyn and Camdel clasped in each other’s arms. Fools! he thought. Maybe I’ll kill them both!
When the time came for the evening meal, Jill ate in Nevyn’s chamber with the old man and Rhodry. Although she had no appetite, Rhodry packed away roast beef and fried onions like the true warrior he was, eating cheerfully before a battle because he knew he might never get another meal. And what am I, then? she thought. A coward, sure enough. As much as she hated the word, she had to admit that she was terrified at the thought of dark dweomer wanting to capture her for reasons of its own. Finally she couldn’t stand to watch them eat any longer and went to the window.
Looking out on the golden sunshine of a summer evening reminded her that the real, solid world was still there, untouched by dweomer, yet she knew that she would never see that world in the same way again. A question haunted her, almost as frightening as the dark dweomer itself: How do I know so much about all of this? Although she’d been caught up in events that would have baffled most people, she’d known so many things instinctively: that the jewel could shapechange, that the apprentice had the dark dweomer and could use it to see if she was speaking the truth, that she could reach Nevyn through the fire. Reluctantly, slowly, fighting all the way, she was being forced to realize that she had not only a dweomer-talent, but a strong one.
Clenching her hands on the sill, she leaned out of the window and reassured herself by watching the ordinary bustle of servants in the ward below. Then she saw Bocc, lurking by the main gate of the dun and peering around him. He must want to talk with me, she thought. And why had she gone to the window at just the proper moment to see him?
“Is somewhat wrong, child?” Nevyn said. “You’ve gone a bit pale.”
“Oh, it’s naught, but Bocc’s at the gates, and I think we’d best speak with him.”
Nevyn insisted on sending a servant to bring Bocc up to their chamber rather than going down to the ward. The poor man was so nervous at being inside the gwerbret’s broch that he couldn’t bear to sit down. He paced restlessly back and forth, clutching the tankard of ale that Jill poured him.
“Here, good herbman,” he said, “are you truly sure we won’t be overheard?”
“I swear it. I’ll lie to the gwerbret’s face if I have to protect you.”
“Well and good, then.” He had a gulp of ale. “I think we’ve found the men who tried to poison