Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [24]
“Why did they put that rat in your bed, Your Grace? To make you squirm, to drag it out and make you wonder when they’ll finally kill you.” Rhodry glanced at Jill. “Think I should go berate the chamberlain?”
“It won’t do any good, and spreading the news around might do harm. You could go down to the great hall and find out how easy it is for someone to get into the broch.”
Rhodry did just that, but he came back with the discouraging news that it was remarkably easy, even at night, for any well-dressed man who was generous with his small coins. Merchants and travelers did it all the time, mostly to gawk at the dun and maybe to get a glimpse of the gwerbret or his wife. At times, even, after a particularly lavish feast, the gwerbret summoned the town poor into the ward to be given the leftovers. Jill and Rhodry both agreed that the only way they were going to keep strangers away from the tieryn was to raise a general alarm and have the gwerbret put the dun on full alert, a plan that Dwaen outright forbade, much to Cadlew’s annoyance and Jill’s relief. Rousing the dun would give her whole game away.
Since it would be several days before Lord Beryn would arrive at court to answer the formal charges, Rhodry resigned himself to keeping a close watch over the tieryn and hoping for the best. As the tedious time crawled by, he grew annoyed with Jill for leaving the whole job to him. It seemed that the only time he ever saw her was at meals; she was always off talking to the servants, gossiping with the women in the dun, or wandering around town where, for all he knew, she might well be in danger. By the end of the third day, he was ready to shake her. They finally got a few minutes alone after dinner.
“Just where were you this afternoon?” Rhodry snapped.
“Talking with the head of the merchant guild. It took me all day to bribe my way in to see him.”
“What did you want to do that for?”
“And then I went to the temple of Nudd to talk to the priests. Every merchant who comes through town stops to pray there.”
“So what? What do merchants have to do with anything?”
“Lots, my sweet love. I think me you’re going to be surprised.”
“I don’t want to be surprised, blast you. I want to know right now what you’re up to.”
“All right. Here come his grace and Lord Cadlew now. Let’s see if they’ll ask the gwerbret a favor for me. I want to speak to our prisoner again.”
Since his own curiosity was running high, Dwaen was willing to do just that, and Coryc himself was more than willing to grant Jill’s boon for the same reason. With four of the gwerbret’s men along for a guard, they all trooped out to the gaol, a long, squarish stone shed, half of which served as a general dungeon for beggars, drunkards, and suspected thieves, and half as private cells for more unusual men. Inside one of these tiny rooms was their prisoner, sitting on a heap of fetid straw. When a guard opened the door, he rose, setting defiant hands on his hips.
“If you persist in refusing information,” Gwerbret Coryc said, “I’ll have you hanged.”
Stubbled and dirty, the prisoner ducked his head in a submissive nod. Several days of bad food and living with the results of same had erased his contemptuous confidence.
“This shouldn’t take long, Your Grace.” Jill stepped forward. “Would you have the guard see if he’s been flogged recently?”
Although the prisoner fought and squirmed, a pair of guards pinned him and pulled his shirt up with little trouble. In the torchlight, they could all see the fresh pink scars, about ten of them, crisscrossing his back.
“Very well,” Jill said. “Now, lad, I’ve got just one question for you. Who’s Lady Mallona’s lover?”
Although for a brief moment Rhodry thought she’d gone daft, the prisoner yelped like a kicked dog, and ail the color left his face.
“So.” Jill favored him with a smile. “I thought she had one, truly. Was it you? You’re good-looking when you’re clean.”
“It wasn’t, by every god of my people. I wouldn’t have