Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [56]
“Anyway,” Jill said. “I’m as sure as I’ll probably ever be that Alshandra sent Meer’s brother and his warband here to kill Carra and the child.”
“Whatever for?”
Jill hesitated.
“Well,” she said at last. “You actually do know already. I’ve told you, here and there, all sorts of things that I never should have let slip, bits of secrets about the dweomer, I mean. I’ve been tired, Rhoddo, worried sick and truly sick with this wretched shaking fever, and for all that I haven’t seen you in so many years, I trust you more than any man on this earth, you know.”
Rhodry was surprised at how pleased he was to hear her say so. Rather than admit it, he grinned.
“I don’t recall hearing any secret knowledge of ancient dweomer. No arcane spells nor exotic wizardry seem to have lodged in my soul.”
“As long as you think of it like that, then you won’t remember. Good.”
Rhodry had the distinct feeling he’d been outmaneuvered. Jill rose, plucking odd bits of straw from her clothes.
“I’ve got work in hand, scrying and suchlike,” she said. “Ask me more later—if you dare.”
Jill hurried off, leaving him irritable behind her. Just what did she mean, if you dare? And all this cursed talk of secrets! And yet he knew deep in his memory what she meant, or rather he knew he would know if only he let himself know, if only he pieced together the odd scattered hints that indeed he did remember, whether he wanted to do so or not.
Once Jill had mentioned that Alshandra had a daughter who’d been somehow lost to her. And he was sure that Carra’s unborn child was a daughter. Why, he’d been sure enough to tell the child’s father that a daughter it was, weeks ago now when they’d been hunting the raiders together. There could be no logical connection between those two daughters. Of course not. It’s not like the soul of one could be born again as the other. Could it? Why was he wondering if souls could put on new bodies, the way he put on a shirt? And why, he wondered most of all, did that wondering frighten him?
With a toss of his head like a spooked horse, he rose, gathering up his tack. He refused to let himself answer those questions, and all because they brought him to the edge of an insight he refused to face. He strode into the stables, hoping for some company, but no one was there but the horses and the stable cat, sunning herself in the straw in front of the tack-room window. He hung his gear on the pegs allotted to it, then strode out again, heading for the great hall and a tankard of ale. About halfway across the ward, though, he heard boys’ voices, yelling, taunting, and giggling behind one of the storage sheds. When Rhodry hurried over, he found Jahdo, red-faced with fury, in the center of a circle of pages and scullery lads. Young Allonry seemed to be the chief tormentor. He was waggling a dangerous-looking stick in Jahdo’s direction and so wildly Rhodry angled round to come up behind the page.
“Slave born, slave born,” the lordling was chanting. “Jahdo is a bondman, Jahdo is a bondman.”
“I was born freer than you are,” Jahdo snarled. “We don’t have any stinking old lords where I come from.”
Alli swung the stick right for Jahdo’s head. Rhodry caught his wrist just in time and so hard that the page squealed.
“Drop it,” Rhodry said.
Alli dropped it because he had no choice, sniveling with pain as he was. When Rhodry let him go, the page danced back out of his reach.
“I’m going to tell the chamberlain on you!”
“No doubt you are. Honor doesn’t seem to be one of your strong points, lad. Go on—run to your wet nurse, then.”
All the other boys howled with laughter. Flushing scarlet, Alli stood his ground for a moment, looking back and forth at his erstwhile allies. When all they did was look right back at him, he turned and ran for the broch complex. With a last round of giggles the other boys straggled away, some to their work in the kitchen hut, some to the great hall. Jahdo watched them go.
“My thanks, Rhodry,” he said at last. “Are you