Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [161]
Kieri ran to the downstream side in time to see the boy, encumbered by his heavy cloak, surface and go down again. “Rope!” Kieri yelled; one of the Halverics was already coming with a coil. “IOLIN!” Kieri shouted at the boy. “Rope!” The boy’s face rose again, white and strained; Kieri threw the coil, and it landed near—the boy reached for it, but missed, and thrashed for it as the wind blew it toward shore, out of his reach. Then he floated into one of the pilings for the next landing stage downstream and grabbed on. “Get him!” Kieri yelled into the wind. “Down there—”
Two or three men came from a tavern near that landing, looked where Kieri pointed, and saw the boy. One dropped a rope to him; the others hauled a light skiff down the bank and pushed it out. As Kieri watched, they dragged the boy into the boat and got it back to shore, where they hauled him up the bank and then along it.
Kieri turned to find himself ringed by King’s Squires, and the king of Pargun, Elis, and the Knight-Commander surrounded by Halverics, protecting them from the Pargunese guards, behind whom huddled the Pargunese lords, all but Elis with swords drawn. He wanted to knock all those heads together, but knew that as the natural irritation after a disaster narrowly averted.
“We are not here to fight,” he said. “Put up those swords, and let us get this prince of Pargun somewhere warm, before he freezes or catches a river fever.” No one moved for a moment but the three men pushing the sopping prince along the path. “Now,” he said, putting more bite in his voice. One by one they looked at him, at one another. “We are going to that inn,” he said, pointing, “where there is a warm fire, a hot meal, and dry clothes for this lad—” The dripping prince, now shivering, wet, and blue, had reached the top of the steps. “And warm dry beds,” Kieri said. “For later.”
The Knight-Commander obeyed first, took off his cloak, and put it around the shivering boy. “Come on, then,” he said. The Pargunese king shoved his own sword back, and offered Elis his hand. The Halverics backed away; the Pargunese sheathed their swords raggedly and the Halverics in perfect order.
“Squires,” Kieri said, and they finally sheathed theirs. “Come on now,” he said, as if to a skittish colt or timid puppy. “It’s far too cold to stand out here.” Turning his back on them, he led them up and into the inn.
The innkeeper and his staff asked no questions but found clean, warm fishermen’s clothes for the boy and wrapped him in a blanket in the inglenook. A long table had been laid, with not quite enough places—at Kieri’s nod, the man quickly laid more. The room smelled of fresh bread just baked, roast meats, and spices. The men looked at one another, still clustered in their own kind. It was so like the way the elves and men had been—were still too often, if he was honest. Kieri ignored that for the time being, and let the servants bring them trays laden with hot sib and the herbal drink preferred in Pargun.
“Elis?” he said to her, as she stood near the Knight-Commander. The mark on her face showed bright red against her pale skin. Her father was face to face with one of the Pargunese lords.
“I am all right,” she said. “I should have expected that. I did, from my father’s advisors, but not from Iolin; we were friends as late as … as when I came.”
“And will be friends again, if you let him,” Kieri said. “He is very young; he will be ashamed. Remember your duty; you are a princess of Pargun.”
She nodded abruptly and looked over at the inglenook. The boy was not shivering anymore and had some color in his face; he looked utterly miserable.
“Your dinner, my lords,” the innkeeper said; conversation stopped as two servants carried in a platter with a haunch of venison flanked by two suckling pigs, and another with a whole fish an armspan long. Behind came more servants with more platters: redroots, onions in cream sauce, cabbage sliced fine