Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [127]
They slipped away from the gathering crowd and into a side tunnel, which traveled only some ten yards before dead-ending into a wooden door, carved with a vertical design of chained links, much like the one on the stone roadside shelter. Garin opened it and ushered Rhodry into sunlight.
“I asked the lads we first met what was available, you see. Welcome to one of the envoys’ quarters.”
Although the stone-faced room was small, it had a high ceiling and a big window that opened directly onto a view of the grassy basin, far, far below. A pair of wooden shutters hung to either side in case of rain. For decoration, there were panels of steel, engraved and chased in various patterns and pictures, that ran from floor to ceiling at intervals down the walls.
“Alshandra and her followers are going to have a hard time troubling anyone here,” Rhodry said with a grin.
“Just so.” Garin was looking with some satisfaction at a steel plate engraved with stags’ heads. “Lin Serr is full of this sort of thing. It’s been popular, like, for hundreds of years now. That and thin ropes of wrought iron, twisted into a sort of filigree. We like our baubles to last, we do.”
The bedstead, in fact, was just that sort of ironwork, forming a pattern of iron vines and flowers ail down the side. The bed itself was low but long enough, no doubt designed with one of these mysterious “envoys” in mind. A low round table and a wood chest, both carved in a pattern of spirals, stood against the other wall. Rhodry dropped his pack on top of the chest.
“I’ll have water and suchlike sent in,” Garin said. “And Mic and I will be back in a bit to dine with you. I need to do some asking and see where you’ll be allowed to go and suchlike. But don’t worry. We’re not going to leave you here to rot all alone.”
With a brief smile Garin left, leaving the door partway open behind him, a little sign, no doubt, that Rhodry was no prisoner whether or not he was welcome. Rhodry shut it, then went to the window to look out. The late-afternoon sun was beginning to creep down behind the cliffs, and the long shadow of the old watchtower lay on the grass like a spear. On the cliffs themselves he could see just how beautifully worked the triangular bays were, no doubt housing rooms like the one in which he sat, while directly in front he could look down and pick out the launderers, gathering up their wash and packing it into big baskets. Out beyond them and under a clear blue sky the green lawns spread, a good mile or more to the tongue of land forming the en-trance ramp. In the golden light of an afternoon’s peace it all struck him as inexpressively beautiful.
“Lin Serr,” he whispered aloud, and to his surprise, his eyes filled with tears.
Then he looked down, straight down for two hundred feet to hard ground. He grabbed the windowsill with both hands and gulped for breath as the world seemed to jerk to one side and back again.
“You coward,” he said aloud.
Rhodry made himself sit on the window ledge and turn to look out and down. Even though his shirt stuck to his back with cold sweat, he made himself stay until the sun had gone, leaving the basin filled with night. From outside the city he heard the huge gong, echoing in long strokes, and then, more clearly, the answer of a gong inside. He decided that it would do as a signal and released himself from his watch.
Rhodry was just rummaging in the carved wood chest for candles when Garin and Mic returned, bringing with them two servants carrying trays of food, pitchers of water, and other necessities for a guest. Once the food was laid out and the other things stowed, the servants left, shutting the door behind them.
“Sorry about the delay,” Garin said. “The council was more concerned about what to do with Otho, and I had to shout to get their attention and all that. Well, let’s sit down, lads, and pitch in. I’m hungry.”
So were Rhodry and Mic, and for some time no one spoke. The food was mostly mushrooms, stewed in various sauces with various vegetables and scooped up with