The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [108]
“There,” Nevyn remarked casually. “You can hand him over to me now. I’ll take Amyr and Praedd, if you don’t mind, to get him to the chamber of justice. Bring Tevylla and the child along after us, will you?”
“I will, my lord. No doubt Tewa’s found the lass by now.”
She had, indeed, and she was waiting for them outside with the terrified child clasped in her arms. Since Rhodda was getting too heavy for her nursemaid to carry for long, Cullyn took her and let her sob against his shoulder as they walked slowly back to the broch. Although he asked her a question or two, all she could say, between sobs, was that the bad man had a long long arm and that his mind pinched. Nevyn explained things more clearly in the chamber of justice.
“Merryc did to her what he did to Bryc back last autumn. He caught her by her mind, because he realized that the Wildfolk would do her bidding. He could use her to use them, you see—or perhaps you don’t see, but that’s what happened anyway. That’s why I padlocked the door. The Wildfolk can lift a bar from its staples, but they can’t pick a lock.”
“Ah.” Tieryn Lovyan had an odd expression, as if she were wishing she could allow herself the luxury of hysterics. “Well, whatever you say I’ll believe, Nevyn. Oh dear Goddess, I had so hoped Rhodda would be a … well, um, never mind that now. What shall we do with this creature?”
Merryc was kneeling on the floor between a scowling Amyr and a Praedd who looked frankly murderous, with budding bruises on his face that made Nevyn’s talk of Wildfolk all the more believable. During the old man’s explanation Merryc had never even glanced up once, but now he slowly raised his head and looked at the tieryn.
“Are you going to beg for mercy?” she said.
“I won’t, but no more will I deny what the old man says.”
“Very well. I’ve sent for a priest of Bel, and we’ll have your hearing as soon as he comes. Nevyn, does the child need to stay for this?”
“She doesn’t, nor does Mistress Tevylla. Cullyn?”
Cullyn gave him a nod of agreement and carried the child out of the chamber of justice. As they were going down the long hall to the staircase, Tevylla turned to him.
“My thanks, captain.”
“Most welcome, but here, call me by my name, will you? You’re not part of the warband.”
“Well, so I’m not.” She gave him a smile that was the more charming for being shy. “Till the morrow, then.”
After he saw them safely inside, Cullyn wandered out into the ward, filled with the long shadows of Aberwyn’s many towered dun as the winter’s day came to its early end. As he walked out to the barracks, everyone he passed acknowledged him with some gesture of respect, a nod from the noble-born, a bow or a curtsey from the servants, a muttered “sir” and a staightening of their posture from the members of both warbands, the one that had served Gwerbret Rhys as well as the one Lovyan had brought with her. It struck him that evening that if someone had refused the gesture he would have been insulted, him of all people, a man who had ridden the long road as an outcast for all those years. He had grown solidly used to having a respected place in life, accustomed to knowing that wherever he went as Lovyan’s captain, he would have not only a bed to sleep in and a place at table but a certain acknowledgment that he was an important man in the derynrhyn. Yet that evening it also struck him, and for the first time, that something was missing in his new life. A woman of my own, he thought; by the hells, that would be good to have again. When he thought of Jill’s mother, dead for so many years now, he could barely remember her face.
A stout man, shaved bald and wearing a heavy winter cloak over the linen tunic of his calling, the priest of Bel arrived soon after Cullyn had taken Tevylla and Rhodda away.