Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [50]
Jill felt the wave of fear from Dallandra’s mind like a cold wind.
“My thanks. And if I need you badly before then, I’ll send the Wildfolk as messengers.”
“Do, please.”
The linnet began to fly lower, dropping down toward the countryside and heading straight for the water veil rising up from the stream in the valley. Jill was just ready to shout a warning, because the currents of elemental force above moving water would tear an etheric form apart, when she remembered that not only was Dallandra very much in the physical, but that she was also a master of the strange dweomer of hidden roads. The linnet swooped, skittered, fluttering along the water veil, then suddenly spiraled up to disappear through one of the mysterious gates that led into the country where she lived with her beloved.
Ye gods, Jill thought to herself, how she puts up with Evandar for two days together is beyond me! There’s all his riddling and wild talk, and besides, he’s neither human nor elven, not truly incarnate at all—it’s too perverse for the likes of me! Then she had to laugh at herself, that in the midst of all these strange events and mighty dweomers, she could still worry over a friend’s choice of men. She soared back to Cengarn, reaching the dun just as the first dawn touched the eastern sky.
When Jahdo woke and found himself in their new chamber, high up in the main tower of the broch, he lay still for a long time and wished that he were dreaming, that he’d wake to find himself home, but the big wedge shape of a chamber stayed stubbornly real in the gray light of early dawn. Home or not, their new lodging was certainly better than the dungeon keep. Across the room, Meer lay snoring in a proper bed, surrounded by embroidered hangings, while Jahdo had a trundle bed with good blankets all to himself. In one corner of the room stood a bronze charcoal brazier in case some night turned chilly. Under the window lay a wooden chest, covered at the moment with bags and sacks. The night before, Rhodry had hunted round the dun and found most of their captured gear, although much to Jahdo’s sorrow, his grandfather’s knife had never turned up. Most likely it lay on the riverbank by the forest where Rhodry had made him drop it, back in what seemed like another life.
Since he was hungry, he got up, pulling on his trousers, and padded across the floor barefooted to find the chamber pot at the far end of the chamber. When he was done, he went to the window and began rummaging as quietly as he could in the sacks to see if there was any food left in them. All at once the entire pile shifted and slid, thumping onto the floor. Meer woke with a snort and a curse.
“My apologies,” Jahdo said. “I was trying to be quiet. I just did drop some sacks and stuff.”
Meer snorted again and yawned, rubbing the sides of his face with both hands.
“It be dawn out and light in here,” Jahdo said. “Down in the ward there’s servants walking round and stuff. I was just wondering if we had any food in these sacks.”
“A good wondering, that. Hand me my clothes, and I’ll get out of bed.”
Down in the corner of one sack Jahdo did find a few slices of dried apple, and there was a flagon of fresh water and a wooden cup in the chamber, as well, so they had a bit of a meal to tide them over. When the sun was brightening on the dun wall, a servant unbarred the door to their chamber and came in with a loaf of bread, some fried bacon, and a pitcher of milk, brought specifically because Meer had asked for it the night before. The lass looked at Meer in such terror that she probably would have thrown the food onto the floor and run if Jill hadn’t been standing right behind her.
“Jahdo, come take these things, will you?” the mazrak said. “I thought I’d come in for a bit of a chat.”
Jahdo could think of nothing more likely to spoil one’s breakfast than a conversation with a sorcerer, but he smiled politely and did as he was told. Jill perched on the recently cleared chest at the window while Jahdo served Meer his food