The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [164]
“Oh, er, ah, I wouldn’t worry about that. I can’t swim.”
“Good. Now, when you get to Aberwyn, you be honest with my uncle, and he’ll see what he can do about saving your neck.”
“I suppose I should thank you, but somehow I can’t find it in my heart.”
Much to his surprise, Madoc laughed at that with genuine good humor, then took his leave.
The trip downriver was fast and smooth, the galley reaching Cerrmor just as Jill and Salamander were leaving it. While they were handing him over to the gwerbret’s men, Perryn felt her presence, then lost the track almost immediately. He was hustled up to Gwerbret Ladoic’s dun, where he spent a miserable night in a tiny cell turned cold and damp by the thick Cerrmor fog. In the morning, two of the gwerbret’s riders came for him, tied his hands behind his back, and marched him lockstep down to the harbor while his every joint ached and complained. Down at the end of a long pier was a big Bardek merchantman, lateen-rigged and riding low in the water. Waiting at the gangplank was one of the biggest men Perryn had ever seen.
Close to seven feet tall, he had enormously muscled arms and shoulders, and his skin was so dark that it seemed pitch-black with bluish highlights. His presence, too, was as formidable as Madoc had called him; in fact, the cold, calm look in his eyes reminded Perryn of the equerry.
“This is the royal prisoner?” His voice was so dark and deep that it seemed to rumble across the pier like a rolled barrel.
“He is, Master Elaeno,” said one of the guards. “Not much to look at, is he?”
“Well, if Lord Madoc wants to buy a passage to Aberwyn for a stoat, I shan’t argue. Let’s have him aboard.”
Elaeno grabbed Perryn’s shirt with one massive hand and lifted him a few feet off the ground.
“You give me any trouble, and I’ll have you flogged. Understand?”
Perryn squeaked out an answer that passed for “I do.” Elaeno lifted him right up over the side and dumped him onto the deck, then signaled to a pair of sailors as dark and huge as he was.
“Put him down in the hold, but see that he’s properly fed and gets clean water on the trip.”
Although it was decent of the ship’s master to be concerned about feeding his prisoner, it was also a waste of time. As soon as the ship left the harbor and hit the open sea, Perryn’s stomach decided to turn itself inside out. As the seasickness washed over him in rhythmic waves, he lay on his straw pallet, moaned, and wished he were dead. Every now and then one of the sailors would come see how he fared, but for the entire thirty-hour journey, the answer was always the same. He would look at them with rheumy eyes and beg them to hang him and have done with it. When the ship finally made port in Aberwyn, they had to carry him off.
Lying on the pier was like reaching paradise. Perryn clung to the rough, dirty wood with both arms and considered kissing it as the nippy sea air cleared his head of the last of the nausea. By the time men came down from the gwerbret’s dun with a cart, Perryn felt almost cheerful. Even being shut in another cell couldn’t spoil his good humor. The straw may have been dirty, but it covered a floor of real dirt on solid land.
Yet his good mood evaporated when he realized that he was cold and getting colder. The day was gray with high fog, and a brisk wind blew in the barred window. He had no blanket, not even a cloak. Although he huddled into a corner and spread some straw over his legs, he was shivering uncontrollably in a few minutes. By the time he heard someone coming to his door, about half an hour later, he was sneezing as well. The door swung back to reveal an old man, tall, white-haired, and dressed in plain gray brigga and a shirt embroidered with red lions at the yokes. Just as the fellow started to speak, Perryn had a fit of cramps, or so he thought of it. He felt as if a number of invisible cats had leapt upon him and were clawing at him, so deeply and painfully that he yelped and squirmed.
“Stop that!” the old man said. “All of you—stop that right now!”
When Perryn obediently went still, the pains stopped,