Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [32]
“It’s a cursed good thing Tieryn Dwaen isn’t here right now,” Coryc remarked to no one in particular.
All three of the captured men were staring at Rhodry.
“Oh, I recognize you well enough.” Rhodry turned to the gwerbret. “These are the lads, all right, who killed Dwaen’s rider, the one who was escorting Ylaena and her servingwoman.”
“Very well, Silver Dagger. They’ll pay for that, too. My Lord Beryn? Let’s get our three rats on their horses and get back to your dun.”
Before they rode out, Beryn found a torch in the lodge and lit it at the hearth, then had one of the gwerbret’s men put out the fire. Everyone followed the bobbing point of light from the torch at the head of the line as they picked their way back through the forest and across the meadow. By the time they reached the dun, it was close to midnight.
Beryn’s great hall, such as it was, was crammed with men, sitting on straw, standing and leaning against the wall, while frantic servants rushed back and forth with ale and bread. The noble-born found what stools and benches as they could and moved them round the battered-planks-over-trestles that served Beryn as a table of honor. Beryn sat slouched in the only chair, one foot braced against the table, and drank steadily, looking across the room with eyes so dark it was doubtful that he was seeing the farther wall.
“Now, here,” Coryc said at last. “It’ll be futile to take tired men on tired horses out on the south road tomorrow. I want to see your lady brought to justice as much as you do, but by the hells, we don’t even know if she went straight south. If she keeps her wits about her, she’ll ride a roundabout road to throw us off the track.”
Beryn grunted and stared into his tankard of ale.
“Wits are the one thing she’s never lacked,” Dwaen put in. “I wonder if we’ll ever get her back.”
“I’ll send messengers to Cerrmor tomorrow,” Coryc said. “The gwerbret there will relay them to the city council, and out of courtesy to him, they’ll find her.”
“If she’s even going to Cerrmor,” Jill muttered.
The noble-born ignored her and went on squabbling for some time, until Dwaen found his common sense.
“Now here, Your Grace, we’ve got a pair of silver daggers, and they’re famous for tracking men who need to be tracked. Why not a woman?”
“True spoken.” Coryc turned to Rhodry. “I’ll put a bounty on her. There’ll be fifty silver pieces for you if you bring her back to my justice.”
“His Grace is most generous,” Rhodry said, “but there’s somewhat about being a bounty hunter that rubs me wrong.”
“Don’t be a dolt, Rhodry,” Jill snapped. “That’s enough coin to buy you a remount if you lose your horse in a scrap someday.”
“True enough. Well and good, Your Grace, we’ll take your hire—if, of course, Tieryn Dwaen will release me.”
“Gladly. I don’t suppose my life’s in danger anymore.”
Beryn got up, the tankard in his hand.
“Not from me. That rotten young cub of mine was too much like his mother, anyway.”
Beryn hurled the tankard against the wall, then ran from the room. They heard the door slam behind him.
“The poor old bastard,” Cadlew remarked with a sigh. “I’m blasted glad now I never screwed his wife.”
“You’re the very soul of honor,” Dwaen said. “But you should be glad for more reasons than one. If she’d got tired of you, she might have served you some cursed strange mead.” All the men laughed in a small spasm of nerves.
Noble-born and commoners alike, the men found themselves what places they could to sleep that night. A little hunting out in the ward brought Rhodry and Jill a storage shed, festooned with the few remaining strings of last year’s onions, with enough room near the door for them to spread out their blankets. Exhausted as he was, Rhodry sat awake, watching the dapples of candlelight on the rough walls.
“What’s wrong?” Jill said.
“I just keep thinking of poor old Bavydd. He wasn’t a pretty sight.”
“He wasn’t, but well, we