Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [39]
“And if the entire province were threatened, the High King would march, wouldn’t he?”
“Of course, but it would take months to mobilize and get an army out here.” All at once the implications of all these questions sank in. “Jill! What are you saying? Do you really think we’re in that kind of danger?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. But all my life I’ve expected the worst and planned for it, and you know what? I’ve never been disappointed yet.”
Rhodry tried to laugh, then gave it up as a bad job.
“I honestly don’t think we’ve seen the last of this trouble,” Jill went on. “But how big the danger is? Well, I have no idea. As soon as I find out anything, I’ll tell you and the gwerbret both.”
“Fair enough, and speaking of his grace, I’d best find him and tell him I’ve brought his men back.”
“Just so. And give him my thanks, will you?” She turned another page in the book. “I’ll come down the great hall in a bit.”
The great hall of Gwerbret Cadmar occupied the entire ground floor of the main broch. On one side, by a back door, stood enough trestle tables and backless benches for a war-band of well over a hundred men; at the hearth, near the table of honor itself, furnished with actual chairs were five tables more for guests and servitors. On the floor lay a carpet of fresh braided rushes. The walls and the enormous hearth were made of a pale tan stone, all beautifully worked and carved, while huge panels of interlacement edged the windows and were set into the walls alternately with roundels of spirals and fantastic animals. An entire stone dragon em-braced the honor hearth, its head resting on its paws, which were planted on the floor, its winged back forming the mantel, and its long tail curling down the other side. Even the riders’ hearth on the far side of the hall was heavily decorated with interlacing and dragons’ heads. When Rhodry walked in, he found the hall mostly empty, except for a couple of servant lasses over by the warband’s hearth, and a page, polishing tankards up at the table of honor. When Rhodry hailed the page, the boy ignored him.
“You, Allonry! I know your father’s a great lord, but you’re here to run errands for anyone who asks.”
Scowling, the lad slouched over, a willowy lad of about ten summers, red-haired and freckled.
“Where’s his grace?” Rhodry said.
“Out in the stables with the equerry.”
“Will he be there long?”
“I wouldn’t know. Go ask him yourself, silver dagger.”
Rhodry restrained himself with difficulty from slapping the boy across the face. Although he himself had served as a page in a gwerbret’s dun, he couldn’t remember having been this arrogant. He’d been terrified, mostly, of making a wrong step and disgracing himself, but young Allonry seemed to have no such worries.
“I will, then,” Rhodry said. “But I wouldn’t strut like this around Lord Matyc and his ilk, if I were you.”
The boy ducked his head and looked away. Rhodry turned to go, but the gwerbret himself made the point moot by coming in, trailed by the equerry and the chamberlain. Even though he limped badly on a twisted right leg, Gwerbret Cadmar was an imposing man, standing well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders, broad in the hands. His slate-gray hair and mustaches bristled; his face was weather-beaten and dark; his eyes gleamed a startling blue under heavy brows. As he made his way over to the table of honor, the page bowed, and Rhodry knelt.
“Get up, silver dagger, no need to stand on ceremony.” The gwerbret favored him with