The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [5]
“This time? She’s been reborn, then, has she?”
“She has. Jill, Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter.”
Elaeno gaped.
“The same lass that’s off with that lackwit Salamander,” Nevyn said. “On her way to Bardek after Rhodry. The very same one indeed.”
The storm blew itself out finally after two long days of rain. Everyone was glad to get free of the enforced leisure of drowsy hours spent huddled near the hearths in the great hall, and the ward was a-bustle that morning when Cullyn went out just to be going out, walking in the fresh and rain-washed air. He was strolling across the ward, aiming for the main gates merely to have a goal, but about halfway there he paused, struck by some odd observation that for a moment he couldn’t identify. Someone he’d passed, back by the washhouse, was somehow out of place. He turned back and saw a young man he vaguely recognized, Bryc by name, one of the undergrooms, but he was carrying a load of firewood, and his walk was wrong, not the shuffle or scramble of a servant, but the confident stride of a warrior. Cullyn hesitated only a moment before following him. Sure enough, Bryc carried the anomalous firewood right past first the washhouse, then the cookhouse as well. There was no other building where that firewood might belong between him and the outer walls.
Cullyn stayed with him until the lad passed the armory, then ducked into it, ran down to the door at the far end, and opened it a crack to look out. His hunch paid off. Bryc was indeed looking back to see if anyone was following him, but he never noticed that the armory door was ever so slightly open. When he angled round a shed toward the broch complex, Cullyn slipped out and followed at a good distance, keeping close to the shadows of the various buildings. The lad never glanced back again until he reached the low brick wall that separated the gwerbret’s formal garden from the workaday rest of the ward. Cullyn hid in a doorway as Bryc unceremoniously dumped his load of firewood, looked cautiously around him, then leapt over the wall. As Cullyn went after, Bryc hurried across the lawn, where, some distance away, little Rhodda, Rhodry’s illegitimate daughter and only heir, played with a leather ball, while her nursemaid, Tevylla, sat and sewed on a small stone bench. There was absolutely no reason for Bryc to be in the garden at all.
With an oath, Cullyn drew his sword and broke into a run. He leapt the wall just as the fellow made a grab at the child. Screaming, Tevylla jumped up and hurled her sewing scissors at his head—a miss, but he had to duck and lost a precious moment. As he charged across the lawn, Cullyn saw that Bryc had a dagger and that he was swinging down.
“Run, lass!”
Rhodda twisted away and dodged as Bryc spun around, saw Cullyn coming, and turned to flee. Tevylla grabbed the leather ball and threw it under his feet. Down he went just as the captain reached them. He grabbed Bryc by the shirt, hauled him up, and broke his wrist with the flat of his sword. The dagger spun down to the grass. He kicked it far out of his prisoner’s reach.
“Thanks be to the gods!” Tevylla snatched it up. “Cullyn, I’m so glad you were right there.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You seemed to be handling things pretty well on your own.”
Tevylla shot him a weary sort of smile, then tucked the dagger into her kirtle and scooped Rhodda up. The child herself was oddly calm, only a bit pale as she stared at her rescuer for a moment, then turned in her nurse’s arms to look at the whimpering Bryc.
“Get him,” she said to no one in particular. “He’s nasty.”
The lad screamed, twisted in the captain’s grasp, then threw himself this way and that in sincere pain while he screamed over and over again. When Cullyn, utterly startled, let him go, he fell to the ground full-length and writhed and screamed the more.
“Stop it!” It was Nevyn, racing across the lawn. “Stop it right now, all of you! Rhodda, you wretched little beast!”
Sobbing and gasping for breath, Bryc flopped onto his stomach and hid his face in folded arms.