Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [136]
As Jill watched, he crossed the main entry cavern of the city, turned down a short tunnel, and knocked on a door. She recognized it as opening onto the room in which she’d previously scried Rhodry out, but the moment the door opened the vision vanished into a blur of gray like smoke. Even though she called upon the various elemental lords that presided over scrying, her vision simply refused to penetrate the smudge.
Muttering several truly foul oaths, Jill turned from the window and began pacing back and forth across the room. Someone had thrown a dweomer shield over Rhodry, then, but whether that someone was friend or foe, she had no way of knowing. Yet she felt no fear, sensed no danger, either, and knew that she would if Rhodry were in some mortal jeopardy. There was nothing left for her but to hope that at various times Garin or Otho would move far enough away from Rhodry for her to trace their party as they traveled.
She wandered to the window, stood looking out at the scudding clouds while she debated flying one last patrol round the dun. Scrying in the etheric double during a storm would be impossible.
“Jill?” The voice rang outside her door. “Wise One, may I disturb you?”
“Of course, my prince. Come in.”
Daralanteriel flung the door back and strode in, one hand clutched on his sword hilt.
“What’s so wrong, Your Highness?” Jill said.
The prince seemed to catch himself on the edge of some fault. He took a deep breath, letting his hand drop from the weapon.
“My apologies, but it’s about that huge lout of a Round-ear.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Yraen. Every time I turn round he’s right there.”
“Well, Your Highness, I asked him to stand guard—”
“Oh, I know, but I’ve got twenty men of my own, don’t I?”
“When you ride out to hunt, they ride with you.”
“I could leave some of them behind to guard my own wife, if that’s what you mean.”
Jill thought she understood—his pride was wounded.
“Your Highness, never would I impugn your ability to keep Carra safe. It’s just that human treachery is best spotted by human eyes. Yraen’s a shrewd and suspicious man who’s been in some rather ugly situations in his day. He knows the worst side of his own kind quite well.”
Dar considered, chewing on his lower lip, By elven standards he was little more than a boy, much as Carra by human ones was still in many ways a girl, and he looked it that evening, with his hands shoved in his pockets and his dark hair uncombed and tousled.
“It’s because of Lord Matyc,” Jill went on. “Consider how close he was to the gwerbret, how well entrenched here at the dun. If Rhodry hadn’t spotted him, he could have worked untold harm.”
“Ah.” Dar looked up with a brief smile. “Well, that’s true spoken. Wise One, my apologies. I hate to argue with such as you, but it griped my soul, always seeing the man there. But you’re right.” His voice colored with learned con’ tempt. “He is a silver dagger.”
“Just so, but a decent man and a fine watchdog withal.”
“If the Wise One says so. My thanks for hearing me out.”
“You’re most welcome.”
Dar lingered, studying the floor.
“Is there somewhat else, Your Highness?”
“Oh, not truly. I was just wondering, we were all wondering, truly, if you’d seen anything yet. Enemies, I mean. The waiting’s starting to stretch everyone’s nerves like bow-strings.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t. I assure you that you’ll know as soon as I do.”
Prince or not, Dar had to be content with that. Over the next few days, whenever she walked about the dun, Jill could see the truth of his words. Servants squabbled and swore, while the men in the warbands shoved each other and got into fistfights; Carra and the serving women seemed always on the edge of tears, while Lady Labanna was very, very cheerful, except in repose, when she looked deathly ill. Once, even, late on an afternoon when everyone was