The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [70]
“What was Perryn?” He was looking at Salamander. “Some sort of sorcerer like you?”
“A sort of sorcerer, true enough, but not one like me, not in the least, my thanks! Come sit down, brother. We’ve got many a grave and grievous thing to discuss, not the least of which is who you truly are.”
For a brief moment Jill was angry, feeling more than a little slighted and dismissed. All at once she realized that for months, she’d been rehearsing this scene in her mind, wallowing in guilt and planning out various ways of begging Rhodry to forgive her, only to find that of course he forgave her, that all she needed to do was tell the simple truth for him to close the matter once and for all. There would be no tantrum of recrimination, no orgy of forgiveness. She was profoundly relieved, and in that sense of relief she found her first real hope that someday he would be cured. No matter how hard he’d tried, Baruma had failed to crush the honor at the core of his victim’s soul.
As they all sat down at the low table, and Salamander poured a round of wine while he thought over what to say, she realized something more: that, indeed, they had far more important things to discuss than what she might have done with another man back in Deverry or, for that matter, what Rhodry might have done here in Bardek with his lovely owner. She felt a cold ripple of dweomer-warning down her back. Finding Rhodry had so filled her mind and heart that she simply hadn’t let herself see the danger. Here they were, hundreds of miles from home in a foreign land and faced with enemies who were both utterly corrupt and utterly ruthless. She doubted very much if those enemies were simply going to stand by and wave farewell while they took Rhodry home again. The same thought seemed to have occurred to Salamander.
“I hate to interrupt the touching reunion and all, but the sad and tedious fact remains that we’re enmeshed in the worst toil, snare, danger, predicament, and so on and so forth, that any of us—and the Dark Sun herself knows we all have a penchant and taste for terrible trouble—have ever faced before. Sweet sentiment must hold its tongue—”
“And blather,” Jill muttered.
“And blather, truly, will have to wait as well. Here, younger brother. We have the same father, but not the same mother. Do you remember yours?”
“I don’t, not a scrap about our clan or my home—naught. What are we? A pair of bastards sired by some powerful man?”
“Well.” Salamander paused to rub his chin. “In a manner of speaking, though among our father’s clan no one cares about some tedious ceremony when it comes to claiming a child.”
“Ah. He’s the elf, then, not my mother.”
“Oh ye gods! You’ve ferreted out a goodly lot of secrets, haven’t you now? Scandal, indeed! Well, he is, at that, and a splendid bard among the Elcyion Lacar. The thing is, young brother of mine, no one but he, your mother, and the three of us know that he’s your real father. There are most urgent and pressing reasons for keeping this particular secret, too.”
“Her husband’s still alive?”
“He’s not, but dead, and you’re now his legal heir. His only heir, most likely.” He glanced at Jill. “I doubt me if Rhys is still alive. He was most cruelly injured in that fall.”
At the mention of Rhys’s name, Rhodry frowned a little.
“Do you remember him, my love?” Jill said.
“I don’t, but the name sounds familiar somehow. Is he another brother?”
“He is, your mother’s son by the man everyone thinks is your father.”
“By the hells!” Rhodry laughed, one sharp bark. “What is this? I feel like I’ve wandered into one of those hedgerow mazes the High King has in his gardens … or here, have I been to the royal palace? I seem to remember a good bit about it.”
“You should, because you were there quite often,” Salamander said. “Your mother’s husband, the man whose property you stand to inherit? He was Tingyr, Gwerbret Aberwyn. Remember what a gwerbret is?”
Aberwyn nearly lost her last heir right there and then. Rhodry choked on a mouthful of wine, nearly spat it out across the table, swallowed