The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [27]
“So you’re alive, are you? Good.”
“I’ve remembered my real name.” Dry mouth or not, he felt his news so urgently it was like an ache. “It’s Rhodry.”
“Well, by the gods and all their little piglets! Good, good for you. Here. Drink first; then we’ll talk.”
Taliaesyn drank as much as he could hold, waited a few moments, then found he could drink some more. Zandar hunkered down next to him and watched with a commercial sort of compassion.
“There was some kind of poison on that blade,” the trader said. “The village herbwoman was sure of that, but it couldn’t have been very strong.”
“I don’t think it was poison. How about a simple drug, to knock me out and make me easy prey?”
“If so, it failed badly. The man you had in your hands is dead.”
All at once Rhodry went cold all over, remembering that he was a slave.
“And will I die for that?”
“No. He attacked you, and the village headman is a friend of mine. What we all want to know is why he attacked you.” Zandar gave him a grim smile. “Or let me guess: you can’t remember if you have any enemies who want you dead.”
“I can’t, master. I’m sorry. I wish I could.”
“Of course you do. Well, the headman’s going to have the other thief executed, and that will be an end to that. Think you can ride today?”
“Oh yes. I feel fine. That’s why I think it was a drug, not a poison.”
“Oh.” Zandar considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, let’s get out of this place and on the road, then. Maybe that will throw these mysterious enemies off your trail. I paid too much for you to have you slaughtered in front of me.” Yet he paused for a moment, mouthing syllables. “Rhodry, huh?” He said the name strangely, with no puff of breath and barely any trill on the rh. “Tell the others, will you? At least it’s shorter.”
Some five days later, the Great Krysello and his beautiful barbarian maidservant found themselves a suite of chambers in one of the most expensive inns in Myleton. Since the innkeep had plenty of experience with traveling showmen, he demanded payment in advance, but once Salamander gave him a generous handful of silver coins, he turned servile, showing them up to the suite personally, bowing often, and muttering words that Jill interpreted as being “Hope my humble quarters are suitable” and other such pleasantries. The innkeep’s boy carried up their traveling gear and laid it down on top of a low chest, then retired with an awestruck look for the pale hair and eyes of his guests, rarities enough in Bardek to be a show in themselves. Although Salamander announced that he was pleased, especially with the piles of cushions and the purple divan, Jill found the squareness of the room uncomfortable, and the echoing tile floor and stark white walls amplified every sound they made. Near the ceiling ran a painted dado of fruit and flowers, so realistically done that she would have sworn you could have plucked them off the wall. When her gnome appeared, it sniffed round the corners like a dog.
“Now Jill, listen,” Salamander said. “When we go to the marketplace today, you’ll have to peace-bind that sword with a thong or suchlike, or the archon’s men will confiscate it.”
“What? The bloody gall! What kind of a place is this, anyway? What if some thief attacks us?”
“They don’t have that kind of thief here, thanks to those very same archon’s men. If you get your pocket picked, you see, you lodge a complaint, and the archon’s men hunt down the thief for you and arrest him.”
“Sounds like a waste of public funds to me, when I’m quite capable of slitting the dishonest bastard’s throat for him.”
“I fear me you’re going to find Bardek a great trial, and doubtless Bardek will find you one in return.”
“Let them. Do you think Rhodry’s here in Myleton?”
“I only wish life would smile upon