Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [97]
“Ah well, then, some extra labor on your walls—”
“My lord, forgive me for interrupting. I see I haven't expressed myself very well. Every farmer who's my vassal is going to get a sack of this grain the same way I did, as a gift.”
Yvaedd stared, then his eyelids fluttered, and he bowed.
“My apologies, Your Grace. The high king sent me here because he wished to know more about the Northlands. I see that I have much to learn. I promise you that you'll find me a willing pupil.”
Cadmar smiled with a little twist to his mouth. Yvaedd bowed again, rather randomly, to those standing near the gwerbret. Dallandra was suddenly aware of how clean Yvaedd was, and how clean all his men were, too, with their white shirts, heavy with embroidery, their fine grey brigga, and well-polished gear. What had they done? Carried clean clothes with them all this way for the day when they'd meet the gwerbret, or stopped to wash clothes at some river on their way? It had to be one or the other. She noticed them looking around at Cadmar's dun with faint smiles or a wrinkled nose for the pigsties by the far wall. As much as she hated the place herself, their sneers annoyed her.
“Well, now,” Cadmar said briskly. “Please forgive my discourtesy, Lord Yvaedd. Come in and take the hospitality of my hall.”
The very next morning messengers rode out to announce the king's boon. The heralds left as well, but they headed back south to the duns of Lord Gwinardd, Cadmar's vassal, and Gwerbret Drwmyc, his ally, to take them a royal command to come testify in Cengarn. Apparently Lord Yvaedd wanted to hear the recent war discussed in some detail and from more mouths than the gwerbret's.
“I don't understand,” Dallandra told Rhodry. “Doesn't he believe what Cadmar says?”
“He'll have to pretend to if naught else,” Rhodry said, grinning, “or he'll end up facing me on the combat ground.”
“What?”
“Well, if Cadmar's honor should be insulted, he can't fight to defend it, not at his age and with that twisted leg and all. I've already won a trial by combat, and I'm a silver dagger, so I'd be the man to represent him.”
“Yvaedd wouldn't like that much.”
“True spoken. So His Lordship's being circumspect. Strange reports have reached the king, says he, about strange things.”
“Huh, I'll just wager they have.”
“Our Lordship wants to hear every detail. He brought a scribe, too, to write everything down nice and proper.”
“I see.” All at once she smiled. “You know, I think I'll see if I can call a witness myself. Evandar would be an interesting man for Lord Yvaedd to meet.”
Later that afternoon, when she had a quiet moment to herself, Dallandra sat up in her tower room and let her thoughts reach out to Evandar, but she felt no answering touch of mind on mind.
In the gwerbret's chamber of justice Lord Yvaedd was holding a council of sorts, though he kept to the polite fiction that Gwerbret Cadmar was presiding while he himself merely listened and advised. Under the banners of his rhan the gwerbret sat at an enormous oak table with the golden ceremonial sword of his rank laid crosswise in front of him and a priest of Bel at his right hand. At his left were Prince Daralanteriel and Lord Gwinardd. Although Drwmyc had sent word that he would arrive after his dues and taxes had come in, Yvaedd had been unwilling to wait so long to open his inquiry. Yvaedd himself was seated off to one side, with his scribe at a table behind him. The scribe kept making notes on untidy bits of pale scraped parchment, the trimmings from sheets cut for book pages and proclamations.
Rhodry himself sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the table with Cadmar's captain and Gwinnard's. Why a lowly silver dagger had been summoned puzzled him, and as the council proceeded, no one spoke to him. Sunlight streamed into the room, lazy flies circled; staying awake turned into a major battle. Once, in fact, Cadmar's captain let out a long hard snore, but Rhodry