The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [137]
“I don’t have time to take my dress off. Just pull it up, and now. Please?”
As soon as they were finished, she gave him one last kiss and a sincere confession that she wished she could stay all night, then hurried back to her jealous man. By then, Perryn was so exhausted that he was glad she was gone. He fell onto his blankets and stared up into a strange light-shot darkness that revolved slowly around him. When he tried to close his eyes, the feeling of motion persisted, so strong that he wanted to vomit; he opened his eyes in a hurry. He could feel cold sweat running down his back and chest, and his trembling lips felt bloodless and cold. Although he wanted to get up and go ask for help in the tavern, he knew that he could never climb down the ladder without breaking his neck. He could only lie there, gripping the straw under him, and pray that he wasn’t dying.
Panic hit him like waves slapping a pier in a storm. He found himself remembering the dweomerman who’d taken Jill away, the fellow taunting him, then adding one last insult: you’ve got to stop stealing women and horses, or it’ll kill you. At the time, Perryn had assumed the fellow meant that some outraged husband would murder him or suchlike, but now he realized the truth. Something was wrong, very gravely wrong, and he didn’t know what it was. Did the dweomerman know? Would he help if he did? Not likely, from the hate-filled things the fellow had thrown into his face. In a confused babble, his thoughts went round and round until at last he slept, tumbling into a darkness without dreams.
About two hours before noon on the morrow, Jill finally got her first view of Dun Deverry when the barge tied up at the riverside piers about a half mile to the north. For a long while she stared at the massive walls that curved around the city, rising high above them on its seven hills. Even from their distance she could just pick out the roofs of the king’s palace. Floating high above the towers and snapping in the wind were tiny flecks of yellow that had to be the cloth-of-gold banners of the Wyvern throne.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Salamander said. “Let’s get those horses unloaded and get on our way. Just wait until you see the gates.”
The gates were easily twelve feet high and twenty broad, and they were carved all over with panels of key patterns set round with bands of interlace. The iron banding was stamped as well with rows of interwoven spirals and rosettes. Since the walls were a good twenty feet thick, they walked through a sort of a tunnel and found yet another set of gates at the other end, just as elaborately decorated as the first. Beyond them was a wide public space, planted with oak trees around a central fountain, where a marble wyvern rose from the spray. From this park the narrow streets unwound, spiraling through the houses and up the hills, or twisting down through shops and taverns toward the lake to the west. Everywhere Jill looked she saw people hurrying about on some business or another, or here and there the splendidly dressed riders of the king’s own guard.
Salamander led her to the inn he had in mind, a three-story broch rising in the midst of a grassy garden. She looked at the roof, covered with fine slate, and noticed that the windows glinted with glass.
“We can’t stay here! It’ll cost a fortune!”
“Jill, my miserly turtledove.” The gerthddyn shook his head in mock sadness. “If so, I shall earn a fortune in the tavern room to pay for it. I cannot stand cheap inns. They stink, and the mattresses are crawling with bugs. If I wanted to sleep on a floor, I would have been born a hound.”
“Well, but there’s plenty of decent inns that cost less.”
“Why cavil over a few silvers? Besides, someone is meeting us here.”
As they led their horses up to the gates, a burly young man strolled out. He glanced with some appreciation at Salamander’s beautifully woven cloak and gold-trimmed horse gear, then bowed.
“Is this silver dagger with you, sir?”
“He is. My bodyguard. Have you