The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [105]
On the morrow they rode out of Bobyr, the village in which they’d been staying, and headed northeast. Some two hours after noon, they came to a wide meadow and the army camp, a sprawl of tents thirty feet off the road, with the horses grazing beyond them. Although most of the men were sitting on the ground, most of them dicing, there were guards spaced at regular intervals around the encampment.
“Let’s hope Rhodry isn’t off beyond the horses,” Merryc muttered.
In a moment they had worse things to worry about than where Rhodry might be. As they walked their horses slowly along, stopping now and then to stare in feigned amazement, they heard someone yell in the camp. A mounted squad of ten galloped out from behind the tents, split into two, and surrounded them before they could think of running. Trying to escape, in any case, would have been a mistake. The leader of the squad, a gray-haired man in the plaid brigga of the noble-born, guided his horse up to them.
“No need for trouble, lads,” he said. “I just want to know who you are, and who you ride for.”
“My name’s Gwin, and this is Merryc, my lord, and we don’t ride for any noble lord. We work for the merchant guild down in Lyn Ebon, mostly as caravan guards, but they sent us up here with letters and suchlike for the new guild in Dun Pyr.”
“Got some proof of that, lad? There’s a war on, and for all I know, you’re spies.”
Gwin reached into his shirt and pulled off a thin chain with a stolen seal ring of the guild in question. The lord examined it, grunted in approval, and handed it back.
“My apologies, then. Ride on, but be careful on the road. Most like, you won’t meet any trouble, but it pays a man to keep his eyes open.”
“It does, my lord, and my thanks.”
When the lord waved his arm, the squad parted and let them through, directly by a man who had to be Rhodry from his description. Luck and twice luck, Gwin thought, but he let nothing show on his face but a careful indifference as he casually glanced the silver dagger’s way. With the same indifference, Rhodry looked back, then turned his horse and followed the squad back to camp. Neither Gwin nor Merryc spoke until they had gone another mile or so; then Merryc laughed, a dark chuckle under his breath.
“Well and good, then. I won’t need to be ordering the Wildfolk about from now on.”
“Have the others seen him yet?”
“They haven’t. I talked to Briddyn through the fire last night, and they’re still too far south. They won’t need to do their own scrying, anyway, unless somewhat happens to me.”
“It won’t. That’s why I’m along.”
“Arrogant, aren’t you?” Merryc turned in the saddle and smiled at him. “But I won’t deny that you’re the best swordsman in the Brotherhood. Let’s hope you can best Rhodry if things come to that.”
“Let’s hope they don’t. Remember, they want him alive.”
During the first days after the army rode out, while the dun waited tensely for news, Jill spent a fair amount of time with Perryn, usually out in the woods. The cure, if such it was, of sun and open air was doing him far more good than bed rest. Soon the dark circles were gone, and he could spend a whole day awake. Yet no matter how much time she spent with him, she never felt that she was getting to know him, because he was as guarded and private as one of the wild animals he loved so much. After that first day he never mentioned his longing for Kerun’s priesthood again. When she tried to talk about his kin or the life of the dun, he always drifted into saying some daft thing that put an end to the conversation. Although he seemed to be glad of her company, at times