Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [154]
Someone knocked—pounded, really—on the door.
“My lady, my lady? Be you there?”
“I am, Jahdo. Come in.”
All tousled hair and huge eyes the boy burst into the room.
“Oh, my lady, I do be sorry for the disturbing of you, but his grace did send me to fetch you. All the pages, they be busy as busy, rushing here and there on messages and suchlike.”
“No doubt.” Jill got up, grimacing a little at her exhaustion. “Excited, are you?”
“I am, my lady, but oh, I be scared. Meer does keep telling me about how horrid sieges be, one of the seven great disasters for a city, he did say.”
“What are the other six?”
“Well, now, I don’t truly know them all. He didn’t say, like, though I do think that one other be plague. My apologies.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t even really know why I asked. I think I’m scared, too.”
At that Jahdo turned more than a little pale. Jill caught his hand and let him lead her to the stairs.
Down in the great hall the gwerbret was pacing, leaning hard on his stick, back and forth by the dragon hearth. Behind him trailed his worried servitors. Jill was glad to see that Lord Gwinardd stood among them in the company of several lords that she didn’t know by name. Apparently Cadmar’s loyal vassals were riding in to join their lord. When she glanced at the far side of the hall, she found it crammed with men, eating and drinking in a grim silence.
“Your grace summoned me?” Jill made Cadmar a bow.
“I hear from Yraen that you have news for us.”
“I do, Your Grace. May I sit?”
“Of course.” Cadmar looked round him, startled as a man coming out of a faint. “Well all sit. Ye gods. Don’t know what’s wrong with me, trotting back and forth like an old ram who sees a young one in his pasture.”
When Jahdo pulled out a chair for her, Jill sat gratefully. She could only hope that the noble-born would let her tell her news and leave fast. But as the plans and the arguing dragged on, so did the evening, hot and seemingly endless.
Daralanteriel and his men had indeed traveled a good score of miles through rough country that day, hunting the gray deer. Although he’d wanted to push hard and return to Cengarn, their horses were exhausted from the chase, and unlike their elven masters, they couldn’t see with only starlight to guide them. He may have been a prince, but he was always mindful that in the current situation of the Westlands, his men were his equals in everything but name. When they shouted him down, he listened and eventually agreed to make camp, especially once they’d found a perfect spot, a sizable clearing with grazing for the stock and a nearby stream. Since the night was so hot, and light a luxury to those with elven sight, they dispensed with lighting a fire.
Although the rest of the men jested and laughed, pleased with the chance to spend a night in open country, Dar felt his bad mood settle round him like a wet wool cloak. He kept to himself, brooding at the edge of the clearing. The wheel of stars was turning toward midnight when, a few at a time, the men stretched out on the grass to sleep. Dar’s lieutenant, Jennantar, came and found him where he’d been sitting, on a dead log off among the trees.
“We’d best post a guard,” Dar said.
“Why? Jill’s been scrying and suchlike for weeks now and never seen a trace of an enemy.”
“Oh, I know, but I’ve got the strangest feeling round my heart. I don’t like this. We should have gone back.”
“My prince, we couldn’t get back,”
“Well, then,