The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [140]
“Well, good morrow, my lord,” Nevyn said. “I’ve sent a page off to fetch Prince Maryn.”
“Good.” Nantyn peered at him for a moment. “Ah, that’s right. You’re that cursed sorcerer. Well, I’ve come on an important matter.”
Nevyn seated the lord at the honor table and sent a servant for mead. Since Nevyn had heard the gossip about Nantyn, that he’d beaten at least one wife to death for no particular reason, he was predisposed to detest him, and small talk was difficult. Fortunately Maryn came trotting down the stairs soon after. Nantyn rose, made a sort of bend at the knees coupled with a bob of his head that would have to do for a kneel, and got right to the point.
“Braemys is scouring the countryside for bandits,” Nantyn said. “Enlisting them, I mean, not hanging them like he should be doing. There’s a cursed lot of desperate men out there, my liege, and he’s offered them all a place in his warband.”
“Ah horseshit!” Maryn matched his way of speaking to his hearer. “There’s more than one way to raise an army, eh?”
“Just so.” Nantyn sat back down without being asked and picked up his goblet again. “I figured you’d better know it now.”
“You have my sincere thanks.” Maryn sat and motioned to the servant. “Mead for me and the councillor, lad. I’m surprised you’d ride all this way to tell me.”
“So am I, Your Highness.” Nantyn laughed, a sound more like another man’s death rattle. “But winter gives a man time to think. I’m sick as I can be of the cursed pissproud Boars. Suppose they win. Once they take all the good land south of them, they’ll be coming after my land and anyone else’s they can get their trotters on. I want my grandson to inherit, not some stinking Boarling.”
Nevyn opened his dweomer sight and studied the lord. Nantyn’s aura was a ghastly sort of blood-red, not surprising, considering the sort of life he’d led. Nevyn could tell, though, that he was undeniably sincere in his loyalty to the new king. He was also telling the absolute truth as he saw it about Braemys’s recruiting tactics. The last lord I ever would have expected to hold loyal! Nevyn thought to himself.
It was the best omen he’d had in a long time. If men like Nantyn were sick of fighting, then the astral tides had turned for certain, washing the kingdom toward peace. If only the wretched priests would see it, too! Yet as the conversation went on, Nantyn solved that ongoing problem for him as well.
“I was hoping to send for all my vassals soon,” Maryn said at one point, “to celebrate my assuming the kingship.”
“Huh!” Nantyn snorted. “That won’t happen, my liege, till you’ve defeated Braemys.”
“Truly? Why?”
“I forget you don’t know the priests here in Dun Deverry. They’ve made themselves rich out of these wars. They’re not going to declare for one candidate till they know beyond doubting he’s won.” Nantyn paused for a swallow of mead. “Greedy bastards, but they’re not stupid. Bring them Braemys’s head on a pike, and they’ll seat you as high king quick enough.”
“I should have seen that long ago,” Nevyn muttered.
Nantyn shrugged, reached across the table for the flagon, and poured himself more mead.
“Well and good, then,” Maryn said. “Come the summer, and we’ll do just that.”
Nantyn laughed and saluted him with his goblet. With muttered excuses Nevyn left Nantyn to the prince and fled the great hall.
Long shadows lay across the ward. When Nevyn glanced up at the sky he saw a streak of mackerel clouds coming in from the north, signalling a rainstorm, he supposed, since it was far too early for snow. As he was walking over to the side broch that held his chamber, he saw Princess Bellyra and something of a retinue—Maddyn, two pages, and Otho—all standing with