Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [150]
“Follow me,” was all she said.
Rhodry did so, down the long corridor, round a corner, up a narrow flight of stairs and out onto a landing. Opposite them stood an oak door, bound in iron and carved with birds and twining bands of interlace in a loose and wandering style that Rhodry had never seen before.
“In there,” the woman said.
She turned and shuffled off down the stairs, leaving him alone with his guttering candle end for light. Hospitable lot, Rhodry thought to himself. He pushed the door open and found himself in a chamber some twenty feet on a side, with its own hearth at one end and a big window, overlooking the lake, on the other. He set the candle holder down on a little table and looked round—luxury indeed, a bed with embroidered hangings, big carved chests, a round table with two cushioned chairs. His pack and bedroll lay by the hearth. All at once he realized that he wasn’t alone. Angmar was sitting in the window seat, so quietly that he’d never noticed her at first.
“This chamber,” she said. “Does it suit you better?”
“It’s yours, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Then it suits me better than any chamber I’ve seen in years and years.”
She smiled but sat unmoving, watching him as he crossed the room and sat beside her. When he glanced out, he could see far across the lake to the hills, black against a starry sky.
“I’ll have to leave here as soon as ever I can,” Rhodry said. “Whether I want to go or no.”
“I do know that.”
“Well and good, then.”
When he put his arms round her, she turned toward him and reached up, kissing him openmouthed before he could kiss her. With one hand he untied the thong, and her hair spilled round her shoulders and over his fingers, soft as silk thread.
5
CARCER
An evil figure to the extreme, unless it fall into the House of Salt. Under that crystal presidency it does bode most well for the burying of treasures gained by some unseemly means and the concealing of secrets best left hidden from the light of day.
The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster
ONE OF THE SEVEN worst setbacks in war, Meer would later call it: a surprise attack. When the siege began, it came faster than Jill had ever imagined. On a sunny morning she’d just returned from flying and settled into her tower room when she saw a messenger come riding in the gates. Hurriedly she dressed and rushed down to the great hall, coming in to find the gwerbret conferring at the table of honor with all of his servitors, who clustered grim-faced over a letter spread out on the table. Next to the chamberlain the scribe hovered, looking pale, as if he’d just read some hateful thing—which in fact he had. Lord Tren had replied at last, a message that came perilously close to demanding rather than asking that Cadmar turn his dead brother’s holdings over to him.
“I shall ride to Cengarn soon but on my own terms,” Jill read out the ending. “Let us hope this matter has a quick settlement.”
“No courtesies, no title, naught,” the equerry sputtered. “The gall of the man!”
“Worse than gall,” the chamberlain said. “I think me that this sounds dangerous.”
“I agree,” Jill said. “Your Grace, do you think that the time’s come for alerting the countryside and your lords and suchlike?”
“I do indeed.” He turned to the equerry. “My lord, see to it.” And to the chamberlain. “How well provisioned is the dun?”
“It could be better, Your Grace. The harvest’s still coming in.”
“But here, Your Grace,” the equerry broke in. “Even with his brother’s men joined to his own, Lord Tren could never siege Cengarn.”
“I’m well mindful of that, my lord. But what if he joined up with these other enemies of ours? Some new thing’s made him arrogant, hasn’t it?”
The equerry swore under his breath in agreement. All at once Jill saw what she should have seen weeks ago, or so she remonstrated with herself, a thing that seemed blindingly obvious now that, at last, she had seen it.
“I’ve been a dolt and a lackwit,” she said, surprised at how quiet her voice sounded. “Your Grace,