Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [83]
“He mostly enjoyed having a view. For me it comes in handy.”
Meer shuddered and growled, just softly under his breath.
A charcoal brazier stood near the stone portion of the wail. When Jill snapped her fingers in its direction, pale flames sprang up and lighted the sticks and coals. Jahdo yelped.
“Haven’t you ever seen that before?” she said.
The boy shook his head no.
“It’s the elemental spirits of fire who do the actual lighting,” she said, smiling. “I just show them what I want lit. Now, how did you hurt your hands, and why is Rhodry being so secretive about it?”
While Jahdo told her, Jill kept working, pouring water from a pitcher into a metal pot, stirring in herbs and suchlike, but Rhodry knew her well enough to see that she was paying strict attention to the boy’s tale. When Lord Matyc’s name was mentioned, Meer interrupted and took over, repeating the conversation they’d had up on the wall. Jill poured the steaming, mint-scented herbwater into a pottery bowl and made Jahdo put his hands into it, even when the lad yelped and whined.
“All sorts of molds and dusts collect in root cellars,” she said. “I know it stings, but we’ve got to get those cuts clean. Meer, I wonder if you’re thinking the same thing I am, that the disgruntled man Matyc was talking about was actually himself.”
“The thought did cross my mind. Just a feeling, like. Huh. But what was he doing, then? Sounding me out to see if I felt like coming over to his side?”
“Actually,” Rhodry broke in, “he was trying to kill you.”
Meer swore in his own language.
“He needed to distract you so he could push you over the edge,” Rhodry went on. “I’ll wager every coin I have that he’s the one who pulled your stick away, too. But our Matyc’s not a man of much imagination. I doubt me if he could invent an interesting long story, like, so he had to tell you his own. Didn’t matter, since he was planning on murdering you.”
“A good guess, and mine as well,” Jill said. “Jahdo, I suspect that Alli was only following orders when he shoved you into the cellar.”
“I saw Matyc giving the lad a coin last night,” Rhodry put in.
“But the pages do tease me all die time.” Jahdo looked up, his eyes brimming tears.
“True spoken,” Rhodry said. “But why did they choose this particular morning, and it so early and all, to play a prank that they must have known was dangerous, stealing the guide of a blind man away? What if someone put them up to it, knowing that they were the noble-born sons of powerful men and beyond hard questioning in the death of a stranger? And what if that someone lured Meer up to a rain-slick wall and tripped him? Easily enough done, easily enough indeed.”
“I agree,” Jill said. “If you’d been the usual sort of lad, Jahdo, you would have stood there yelling and banging on the door for a long, long time. They weren’t counting on you being so clever, to think of a faster way out.” She glanced at Rhodry. “But we don’t have any evidence for any of this. Naught that would sway the gwerbret’s mind in full malover, anyway.”
“Do you think you’ll ever find aught that’ll convince his grace?”
Jill shrugged to say she didn’t know, but Rhodry could see the hopeless look in her eyes. Convincing die gwerbret that one of his sworn lords was a traitor would take the word of a priest, no doubt, or maybe a templeful of them. His grace wouldn’t be listening to a silver dagger and a common–born boy.
“Why?” Meer snapped. “Why kill me?”
“I don’t know,” Jill said. “But I wonder if our lordship worships those false gods you’ve told me about, and if he thinks you might recognize him for the traitor he is.”
“Hum.” Meer considered this for some moments. “Could be. Again, we’ll not be having an easy time finding out for certain.”
“And in the meantime, who knows what Matyc will be doing,” Rhodry said. “I think me I’d best keep him from working harm.”
“Rhoddo!” Jill turned to him with a snarl. “This is a matter for the laws, not for murdering.”
“And did I say I was so much as thinking of murdering the man?