Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [176]
“My heart isn't overflowing with joy, either, but I'll not have you murder her and end up on a gallows. We need you, the princess and I. Didn't you swear an oath to protect her?”
Caught. Rhodry sighed, ran both hands through his hair, and scowled at her.
“Oh, very well,” he said. “I may long for my Lady Death, but I'd just as soon not swing her way on a rope.”
“So I thought. Now, why don't you go back to the camp? You must be famished.”
“I am at that. What about you?”
“I'll be over in a bit. I have one more errand to run on Citadel.”
The town guards had locked Raena in the hut that did Cerr Cawnen for a jail. At Dallandra's suggestion, they hung iron chains from the walls—not on her body—to imprison her further by keeping “the spirits” away, as she phrased it for Admi. She had no idea, of course, that at that moment Shaetano was running for his life with Evandar close behind.
“She'll have a proper trial,” Admi said. “For Verro's sake if naught else. Eh, the poor lad!”
“You know, Chief Speaker,” Dallandra said, “I was wondering if someone ought to sit with Verrarc tonight.”
“That's been attended to. Dera—Jahdo's mother—did come fetch him. No doubt she'll not leave him whilst he still might do himself harm.”
“Good. Did anyone bind Raena's wrist?”
“Dera did insist on that, never fear.” Admi shook his head in amazement. “After all the grief the bitch has brought us all! But that be our Dera's heart, eh? A better woman I've never known.”
When Admi left, Dallandra lingered behind. The stone hut held two cells, one on either side of a short corridor. Unlike such buildings in Deverry, it smelled clean. The doors were slabs of wood, each with a small barred opening toward the top. Dallandra held up her lantern and looked into Raena's cell to find the prisoner sitting in a proper chair. At the light Raena looked up, scowled at her, then stood to face her.
“And have you come to mock and revile me?” Raena said.
“Not in the least,” Dallandra said. “I came to talk with you about Alshandra's child.”
“So! You do admit that the baby be hers?”
“I do but I don't. The soul of that child once was Alshandra's daughter, truly. But the child herself belongs to her mother in this world. She's been born to a new Wyrd. Even if Alshandra still lived, she'd have no further claim on Elessario's soul.”
“She does live, you blaspheming bitch! And on the morrow, when they slay me, I shall have my proof of that, for she will come to me and guide me home.”
“No one's going to kill you. Admi said that the punishment would be exile.”
Raena tossed her head and considered Dallandra with narrow eyes. “I think me you speak true,” Raena said at last. “Well, then, I shall go to my goddess when she wills and not before.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am. It would have been a splendid thing, to be free of this stinking world once and for all. When she calls me, I will dwell with her forever in her green fields and drink from her rivers of life.”
“That's not true. Those lands were never hers. She lied to you. I wish I could make you see—”
Raena snarled, pulled back her lips to show her teeth, and growled under her breath. And her eyes—they seemed to burn with a rage that reminded Dallandra of a trapped animal. At that moment Dallandra knew that indeed, Raena stood beyond any rational thought.
“Very well,” Dallandra said. “We shall meet again, no doubt, so I'll warn you this. I'll never let you kill that child. Try all you want, raise mighty armies, but if I have to, I'll take her so far away you'll never find her. I'll carry her across the worlds to a land beyond your Lord Havoc's journeying.”
Raena snarled with a toss of her head that sent her long hair dancing. Dallandra turned on her heel and strode out into the cool spring rain.
Rhodry spent the rainy night in the elven camp, sharing a canvas lean-to with Dallandra. He woke at first light, a sullen line of silver in the east. Although the rain had stopped, the dark clouds lingered. He walked down to the lake's edge and stood looking across to Citadel,