The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [78]
“Hold your tongues!” There was an impressive snap of command in Gwarryc’s voice. “Naught’s going to happen for months, anyway. Whether Rhodry’s alive or dead, the King’s decree said he had a year and a day to come claim his inheritance, and until then, the Council can’t even begin meeting.”
“And he had his gall, truly, the King I mean, interfering with the Council.” Darryl’s eyes turned dark. “Hundreds of years that treaty goes back, saying the King had better keep his greedy paws off the doings of the Council. Huh, it’s galling all round, how many laws get bent for the wretched Maelwaedds. The High King always favors them.”
Although Talidd couldn’t think of another such incident more recent than ninety-odd years previous, he held his tongue. Once Darryl got to brooding on his clan’s ancient wrongs, there was no reasoning with him. That night, as they drank silently together, Talidd felt an ugly truth pushing itself into his reluctant mind. When he’d gone scurrying around, testing feeling against the Maelwaedds just because he was so furious over the apportioning of Dun Bruddlyn, he’d raised a lot more dust than he’d intended, enough, perhaps, to choke them all.
He found himself watching Alyan, too, with his polished manners, easy way with a jest, and complete lack of airs, and wondered why the man rubbed him so raw. The Bardekian had commanded regiments back in his own country, but he knew that he was a hired drillmaster now and naught more, existing, as so many exiles had before him, on the charity of a noble lord who had some use for him. Even when it came to training pikemen, Talidd had to admit that Darryl was hardly the first desperate lord who’d swelled his ranks with spearmen when there weren’t enough riders to carry his cause. When the emergencies passed, the spearmen always seemed to disband and the noble-born to revert to the traditional and honorable way of carrying out their feuds, face-to-face on horseback.
Yet, despite all these reasonable thoughts, deep in his heart Talidd despised Alyan. That night something else occurred to him. Maybe Alyan would have heard about Rhodry’s death through some kind of ordinary channel since they were both in Bardek at the time. But how had he known, so far away and so late in the sailing season, that Rhodry’s brother Rhys had died without an heir? Yet, Talidd’s honor stopped him from following the thought down. As Darryl said, he was the one who’d flushed this stag, and he’d sworn to his friends that he’d support them in their chase after it, and that, as far as he was concerned, was an end to it.
As regent of Aberwyn, as well as ruler of her own large demesne, Tieryn Lovyan had more to worry about than just her missing son. It seemed to Tevylla, whenever she saw her lady for a few minutes here and there, that the streaks of gray in the tieryn’s hair were getting larger and the wrinkles round her eyes deepening. Yet, harried as she was, Lovyan always had a pleasant word for the nursemaid when she saw her, and she always managed to look in on her granddaughter for some minutes every day. In fact, her brief times with Rhodda seemed to refresh the tieryn, who was not above hiking her skirts, sitting down right on the floor, and playing blocks or dolls with the child until a frantic servitor or page came rushing in with some new crisis.
Since back home in Dun Gwerbyn Rhodda had spent several hours a day with her beloved Granna, the child naturally resented the new order of things. After Lovyan had been dragged away from one of their times together, Rhodda would howl and rage for nearly an hour no matter what Tevylla did to calm her. She was beginning to wonder if something were wrong with the child—not that she was simple or half-witted, far from it. Even though she was only three, she spoke beautifully and knew as many words as an ordinary child of six or seven; in fact, she seemed to have a greedy appetite for words and was always badgering the bards and the scribes by asking what such and such a term meant and how she should use it.