The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [186]
For about an hour the three of them hunted round the dun, but they never found a trace of him or his bedroll. Finally Jill thought to check the postern gate, and sure enough, it was standing open, unlatched from the inside and never shut again. A quick check by an equerry and a head groom showed that a horse was missing, too.
“Well, that’s torn it,” Nevyn said in some disgust. “He was free to go, of course, but he might have given me a few more days to study him.”
“Good riddance, say I,” Jill muttered under her breath.
“You know,” Cullyn said. “I never did know what charges had been laid against him.”
“Well, he was a horse thief. At one time I thought him a spy from the dark dweomer.” Jill answered him to spare Nevyn the lie. “But I was wrong. He’s just a man of no importance.” All at once she smiled. “Truly, now, of no importance at all.”
“News, all sorts of news,” Blaen said abruptly. “Things are moving fast, cousin, now that you’re home.”
“Good,” Rhodry said. “The sooner this matter’s settled, the better for Aberwyn.”
Ceredyc, Sibyr, Nevyn, Calonderiel, Aderyn, Cullyn, a couple of minor lords that Rhodry didn’t recognize—all the men at the table of honor nodded gravely. After much too heavy a breakfast for Rhodry’s liking, they were all sitting in Sibyr’s sun-streaked great hall and drinking ale while they discussed the troubled situation in the rhan of Aberwyn.
“It’s time for you to ride home, and this message is as good a reason as any.” Blaen held up the thin roll of parchment that had arrived some hours earlier. “Four days from now Lord Talidd’s holding a tourney, and every single one of the would-be rebels will be there. In this letter Lord Edar says he’d be honored to shelter me and mine if I should choose to attend, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were glad to see you, too.”
Rhodry tossed back his head and laughed.
“Never have I been more pleased with an invitation, cousin. Good old Edar! Let’s see, his dun’s about sixty miles from here, if I remember rightly. Three days ride—perfect.”
“You’d best not take all of these men, though,” Sibyr put in, leaning forward. “You want to prevent a war, not start one.”
“Just so.” Rhodry nodded his way. “Just twenty-five apiece for me and Blaen, the escort we’re entitled to under the holy laws, and Calonderiel, too, and Gwin, and a few other retainers. The rest can go on to Aberwyn and wait for us there.”
“Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Blaen said. “One last question. Do you want to go openly or try to keep things quiet?”
“Quiet, I’d say. For all I know, our would-be rebels have spies all over Eldidd, but if they don’t, I wouldn’t mind giving them the surprise of their ugly little lives.”
Whether or not the rebels had spies, Lord Peredyr and Lord Sligyn, two of Rhodry’s most loyal vassals, certainly did, though they were hardly the professional sort who pop up during long wars. Peredyr’s head groom had a brother who worked a free farm near Belglaedd, and Sligyn had blood kin himself in that part of the rhan. Through the fast-flowing channel of gossip, both lords learned about Talidd’s tourney at the same time and decided to attend, just to scrape Talidd’s conscience raw if nothing else. In a rather clumsy attempt to pretend that they weren’t acting together, they also decided to arrive at separate times, Peredyr first and quite deliberately, while Sligyn would pretend that he’d been visiting his kin and just happened to hear of the tourney.
Since his sister’s husband’s dun was some miles from Belglaedd, it was an hour or so after noon when Sligyn and his escort of five men arrived. As they rode up to the dun, which was set on a low artificial hill, they found Peredyr waiting for them outside the gates.
“Ye gods, it’s disgusting!” Peredyr burst out without even a good morrow first. “Wait till you see Gwarryc, prancing around as if he were gwerbret already, with the flatterers there to lick his hands.”
“Oh, is he now? Listen, man, I promised you I’d hold my tongue, and I’ll do my best, but—”
“And if we get cut down here, there’s two fewer loyal men to