The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [146]
“We shall do our best to protect His Grace’s investment.” Then he flicked his long fingers and made the pouch disappear, seemingly into nothingness.
By then it was just sunset, and long shadows filled the curving streets. When they reached the wooden wharves to the south of the city, the sky had turned a velvet blue-gray with twilight. Over the grassy riverbanks bold swallows swooped and twisted. Riding low in the water some little way from the masses of barges and skiffs was the royal galley, about forty feet long and sleek as a ferret. There were red shields painted with the royal gold wyvern at every oarlock, and the men who lounged at the oars were wearing white shirts embroidered with the wyvern badge and long lines of interlace.
“The king’s elite?” Salamander raised an eyebrow.
“The same,” Blaen said. “I can’t tell you, though, if our liege is doing this for Rhodry’s sake or mine.”
“Surely the king doesn’t want to see Eldidd at war?” Salamander said. “Because if Rhodry doesn’t return, war is what we’ll have. Each clan will be accusing the others of murdering the rightful heir and claiming the rhan for themselves.”
“I’m sure our liege knows that as well as you do.” Yet Blaen sounded oddly stiff, a bit frightened, perhaps. “I’m not privy to all his thoughts, gerthddyn.”
At the sight of Blaen, the galley’s captain hopped to the pier and hurried over with a bow. While the servants loaded the gear aboard, Jill turned away and watched the smooth-flowing river. Desperately she tried to scry Rhodry out, but her untrained mind could show her nothing. All at once she felt another fear and involuntarily yelped aloud.
“What is it?” Salamander said.
“Perryn. He’s close by. I know it.”
She spun around, half expecting to see him in the crowd behind them, but there was no one there but curious passersby and a few longshoremen. Yet up in the velvet sky it seemed to her that she saw a long tendril of mist, reaching down toward her. Salamander saw it, too. When he threw up one hand and muttered a few words, the tendril vanished.
“He’s in town, all right. Madoc will be taking care of that, Jill. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Still, can’t we get on that wretched boat and get out of here?”
“This very minute. There’s the captain signaling us aboard.”
Perryn paused just inside the south gate of the city. Just a moment ago he’d felt Jill’s nearness; now the trail had suddenly gone cold. His dapple gray stamped impatiently and tossed its head. When they’d ridden into the vast city earlier that afternoon, the gray had nearly panicked. It had taken all of Perryn’s horse empathy to calm it, and even so, it was still restless.
“Here, you! Are you going in or out? It’s time to close the gates.”
Perryn turned to see two city guards hurrying toward him, one of them carrying a torch. The cavernous gateway was already quite dark.
“Oh, er, ah, well … in, I think.”
“Then don’t just think—move, man!”
As Perryn obediently began to lead his horses toward the inner gate, the guard carrying the torch raised it high to shine the light full on his face.
“Your name wouldn’t be Lord Perryn of Alobry, would it, now?”
“It is at that. Why?”
The torch bearer whistled sharply, three loud notes. The other guard grabbed Perryn’s shoulder with his left hand and slammed his fist hard into his stomach, so quickly that Perryn had no time to dodge. He doubled over, retching, as two more guards ran up and grabbed his horses’ reins from his helpless fingers.
“Good work! You’ve got the weasel Lord Madoc wanted, right enough.”
“Talks like a simpleton, his lordship told me, and he must be one, too, to answer to his name like that.”
Although the world still danced around him, Perryn forced himself to raise his head and look in time to see a guard rummaging through