The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [97]
“Huh. Well, we can’t be sending you back now. You’d only get lost trying to follow Perro’s wretched deer trails. You’d best come camp with me. You can keep your eye on Perryn’s wound, and everyone will know you’re under my protection.”
When Jill shifted her gear over to the tieryn’s campfire, she found Perryn there, slumped against his saddle. Although he was pale with exhaustion, he looked up and smiled at her.
“I thought you’d find a way to come along,” he said.
“Why, my lord?”
“Oh, er, ah, just rather thought you were that sort of lass. I hope Rhodry’s worthy of you.”
“I hold him so, my lord.”
Nodding absently, he stared into the fire. She was struck by how sad he looked, a perpetual melancholy that was beginning to wear lines in a face too young to have them, rather as if he were in exile from some far country rather than among his kin. A puzzle, that one, she thought to herself.
On the morrow, Jill saw yet another puzzling thing about the lord. Since she was riding right behind him, she could watch how he managed his leading. When they came to a spot where two trails joined or one petered out, he would wave the army to a halt, then ride a few steps ahead to sit on his horse and stare blankly around him, his head tilted as if sniffing the wind. For a moment he would look profoundly uncomfortable, then suddenly smile and lead the men on with perfect confidence. She was also impressed with his riding. Most of the time he left the reins wrapped around the saddle peak and guided the horse with his knees, while he swayed in a perfect balance in spite of having one arm in a sling. On horseback he looked much more graceful, as if his peculiar proportions had been designed to make him and a horse fit together in an artistic whole.
About two hours before sunset, Perryn found the army a large meadow in which to camp and announced that they were a scant six miles from Graemyn’s dun. After the horses were tended, Jill put a clean bandage on Perryn’s wound, which was oozing blood and lymph, and tied up his sling again. Although he pleaded that he was too weary to eat, she badgered him into downing some cheese.
“We’ll reach the dun tomorrow,” he remarked. “I can rest then, after the battle, I mean.”
“Now listen, my lord. You can’t fight. Trying to swing a sword would open that wound up again.”
“Oh, don’t trouble your heart about that. I’ll just trot around the edge of things. See what I can see.”
It was such a daft remark that Jill couldn’t answer.
“Oh, er, ah, well, I heard my uncle talking with the other lords, and they’re thinking of riding right into battle.” He looked sincerely distressed. “There’s bound to be wounded horses, and maybe I can get them to safety.”
“Oh. I keep forgetting how valuable horses are up here.”
He nodded, staring into the fire, as if he were working out some elaborate line of thought. It was some minutes before he spoke again.
“I cursed well hope that Nedd and Rhodry are still alive.”
Although she knew that they were, she had no way of telling him.
“So do I,” she said instead. “You seem to honor your cousin highly, my lord.”
“I don’t, because he’s not truly honorable. But I love him. We were pages together in Benoic’s dun. I think I would have gone mad if it weren’t for Nedd.”
“Was the tieryn as harsh as all that?”
“He wasn’t, not truly. It was me, you see. I just … well, oh, ah, er.”
As she waited for him to finish, Jill wondered if Nedd’s efforts to keep him sane had all gone for naught. Finally he got up and went to his blankets without another word.
“You’re certain it will be today?” Graemyn said.
“As certain as the sun is shining,” Rhodry said. “Your Grace, I know it sounds daft, but I swear to you that the relief army’s close by. We’d best be ready to arm and sally. If they don’t come, then Your Grace will know I’m daft, and we can all surrender and be done with it.”
For a long moment Graemyn considered him with an expression that wavered between doubt and awe. Perched on Rhodry’s shoulder, the gray gnome squirmed