Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [97]
In the common room Rhodry was sitting on his bedroll on the floor with his back against the wall and his long legs stretched out in front of him. At the table Otho brooded over his geomancy figure while the innkeep consulted the painted cowhide.
“So,” Rhodry called out. “You thought that message important, did you?”
“You knew I would. I’m glad you finally remembered this.” She waved the tablets vaguely in his direction. “We need to talk in private.”
They went down to his tiny chamber. With a snap of her fingers Jill summoned Wildfolk of Aethyr to spread their silvery light. Rhodry tossed his bedroll down in a corner and sat upon it again, but though tall for a woman she was still short enough to be comfortable sitting on the bed. She opened the tablets and laid her hand upon the message, letting the wax warm.
“You’re certain of this?” she said.
“As sure as sure. He looked right up at me, coughed out her name, and died.”
“Well, and grim news that is. I’ve had a singularly unpleasant thought, and this one’s got naught to do with dweomer. If you’re right about Matyc being a traitor, and it certainly looks like you are, who’s to say that his brother isn’t one, too?”
It was Rhodry’s turn for the surprised whistle under his breath.
“I was asking the Lady Labanna about Lord Tren— that’s Matyc’s brother, you see—earlier. She tells me that their entire clan tends toward brooding, them being all alone up there on their ancestral lands. Their nearest neighbor’s some fifteen miles away.”
“A bit far for a casual ride over of an afternoon, truly. Huh, sounds like they’re the most northerly dun in the entire kingdom.”
“They are. The most northerly one that claims allegiance to the High King, anyway. But Matyc’s dun and his brother’s manse would have been good places for some of these prophets that Meer tells me about to fetch up.”
“I suppose so.” Rhodry paused for a long moment, thinking something through. “I don’t understand this business of new gods. What good would worshiping someone do you, if it weren’t a god of your own people and your ancestral lands? I mean, you’d need to propitiate a foreign god, but worship it?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I suspect that Alshandra’s become a goddess that men can see and touch, no doubt the first one ever in their lives. And from what Meer says, she performs mighty dweomers in front of her worshipers and promises things to them.”
“Promises? What sort of things?”
Jill smiled thinly.
“New land and new slaves, Rhoddo. Us, in short. The lands and people of Deverry.”
Rhodry swore in a mix of several languages.
“Just so,” Jill said. “Now, Alshandra has no idea of the extent of the kingdom. I doubt me if she even knows the High King exists, much less how large an army he can command in times of need. But then, neither do her followers, do they? If she raises enough of them in holy war, things are going to go very badly for those of us on the border, before the king marches west to put a stop to it.”
“Badly indeed. Now here, Cadmar’s going to need every sword he can find. This is no time for me to run off hunting some beast.”
“Very clever, Rhoddo, but you’re not slipping out of this noose as easy as all that.”
When he made a sour face at her, Jill laughed. Under her hand the wax moved as it turned soft enough for her to efface the writing. She rubbed it smooth with the heel of her hand.
“Besides, you’ve got your own affairs to consider,” she went on. “Lady Labanna and her women have begun asking me pointed questions about you, with your fine manners and courtly ways. It’s been a long time since you rode away from Aberwyn, but not so long that someone might not recognize you, some noblewoman who was but a lass then but has a long memory. Alliances get sealed by marriages all the time, and they take women long ways from their homes.”
Rhodry winced, remembering, no doubt, his own lady, who’d been less than happy with the disposition her