Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [17]
“Allow me, Your Grace.” Rhodry took a cautious sip, thought about it for a moment, tried another, waited, then finally handed the ale back. “If His Grace would oblige, he’d best not have so much as a drink of water from the well without me or his captain trying it first.”
“Ye gods, I think I’d rather die than have another man poisoned in my stead.”
“His Grace is honorable, but we’ve sworn to die protecting you in battle, so why not at table, too?”
Dwaen forced out a sickly smile. He felt like a badger in a trap, waiting for the hunter to appear and spear him through the wickerwork. Rhodry, fortunately, proved good company, whether talking about his life on the long road or passing along bits of gossip about the noble-born. Dwaen began to wonder about this silver dagger, a courtly man by every phrase he used or graceful bow he made, but a dishonored outcast all the same. Jill puzzled him just as much. It was extremely odd to think of a woman charging right into the fight on the road, odder the more because as the women settled themselves at table, Jill was talking with his mother about some typical female matter. While he waited for Rhodry to sample the meat and bread on his plate, he overheard a bit of it: one of the kitchen lasses apparently had a bastard out in fosterage, and Jill and Slaecca were predictably (to his mind at least) distressed for the lass.
“How awful to leave your baby behind!” Slaecca said. “Jill, later you might ask Cook for me just where Vyna was in service before. The poor lass.”
“My lady, I already did, and it’s rather interesting. Cook seems to know an awful lot about the countryside round here.”
Just then, Rhodry handed the tieryn his plate back.
“Well, my mouth’s not burning yet, Your Grace.”
“Good. I’m wretchedly hungry.”
At the end of the meal, Slaecca spoke to one of the serving lasses, who trotted off only to return in a few minutes with another servant, a blond woman, heavy breasted yet lithe. If she’s the one with the bastard, Dwaen thought, it’s no wonder.
“Now here,” the dowager was saying. “How old is your baby?”
“Just a year, my lady.”
“Well, it would be hard for you to tend both your work and him, but when he’s two years old, you may fetch him and bring him to live with you. Let me think on it: mayhap we can find him fosterage closer to us, so you can visit him more often.”
The lass broke out sobbing and stammered her thanks through a flood of tears. Dwaen noticed Jill watching with an odd expression, a crafty sort of curiosity, as the lass rose with an awkward curtsy and fled the great hall. Yet she assumed a small sentimental smile when she noticed the tieryn leaning forward to speak.
“Now here, Mam, that was kind of you.”
“Well, the poor child!” Slaecca said. “She looks naught but sixteen, and it was probably some handsome lout of a rider, pressing her with compliments and little gifts from the day she entered service.”
“And the compliments stopped,” Jill remarked, “as soon as her belly began to swell.”
Dwaen had no doubt of that. In a few minutes, the women rose to go upstairs and leave the men to their drinking. Dwaen and Rhodry settled in over flagons of mead and seriously discussed the possible identity of the traitor in the dun.
“It has to be someone good with a bow,” Dwaen said.
“Well, more like he’s just running messages out. If this Lord Beryn hates you so much, he’s probably salting men round the countryside.”
One at a time, the tieryn considered the men in his warband and his noble-born servitors, even though the very wondering ached his heart. That one of his own men, someone who’d pledged his life to him in return for his shelter, would turn against him was worse than a physical blow. Although he wanted to believe the traitor a servant, there he was at a decided disadvantage, because he barely knew one servant from another.
“We’ll have to question your chamberlain, Your Grace,” Rhodry said at last. “Can he be trusted?”
“By the gods, I always thought so! Brocyl served my father for twenty long years.”
“Then there’s no reason for him to turn against