The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [60]
“I take it you found what you needed,” the tieryn said.
“I did, Your Grace.” Neb set the basket on the table. “If you’d like to see—”
“No need, lad. I trust you to know your craft.”
“My thanks, Your Grace.” Neb bowed to him. “I’ll put the purchases with my blankets and suchlike out in the barracks. Er, if I may ask, did the gwerbret—”
“He did not.” Cadryc pitched his voice low. “Infuriating young cub! Here, I daren’t say more. He and his councillor will be back down in a moment, no doubt. They’re off discussing the matter twixt themselves.”
Neb started to speak, but his voice choked on utterly unexpected tears. Cadryc laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Thinking about your kin, are you? Well, lad, I’ve not given up hope of avenging them yet. Gerran can tell you what happened—” Cadryc glanced around, “—in private, like.”
A page told Neb that the tieryn’s men had gone to their quarters. When Neb joined them there, most were sound asleep on their bunks or kneeling on the floor dicing for coppers. Gerran himself was sitting in the only chair in the room with his feet up on the nearest bunk. He waved vaguely in Neb’s direction.
“Back, are you?” Gerran said.
“I am. Here, his grace told me to ask you about this afternoon.”
“Not much to tell. Gwerbret Ridvar has no intention of going to the king.”
“Did he say why?”
“He didn’t. He did come up with another plan, but it won’t work. Then we had a surprise of sorts. The gerthddyn thinks he might know why the Horsekin are raiding, to keep us from finding a fortress or suchlike further west.”
“That makes sense.”
“It does. I just wish the gwerbret could see it.”
“Me, too. Well, the noble-born are supposed to be stubborn, after all, and Ridvar’s so young.”
“True spoken. Another thing, too—his family inherited the rhan through a female line, so they’ve always been touchy.”
“I heard that they were related to the gwerbretion of Dun Trebyc.”
“Just so. Mirro and I learned the clan’s history backwards and forwards when we were pages here. Back when the Horsekin sieged the town, the gwerbret was named Cadmar. Both his sons died long before he did, but one of his daughters had a son. So the son—that was Gwerbret Tanry—inherited. His son was Daen, who was the father of our Ridvar. But Ridvar only inherited the rhan because his elder brother died of a fever.”
“Ah.” Neb repeated this important information to himself several times to ensure he remembered it. “My thanks. I can see how that might still irk our young lord.”
“Truly.” Gerran paused to swing his feet off the bunk and sit up straight. “I wonder how long we’ll stay here. Not very, I’d wager.”
The captain would have won that wager had anyone taken him up on it. The next morning, immediately after breakfast, the tieryn told his men to pack up and ready their horses.
“We’re going home,” Cadryc said. “I see no reason to stay here one cursed day longer. I’ll just go pay my courtesies to the gwerbret, and we’ll be off. Let’s hope that blasted gerthddyn can come up with somewhat to change his grace’s mind.”
Gerran’s mouth twisted, as if he thought the hope a waste of effort. Yet Neb found himself remembering the odd things Salamander had said to him and the way he could drop his daft and silly ways the way another man would drop a cloak.
“Well, I don’t know, Your Grace,” Neb said, “but I suspect that there’s more to our gerthddyn than we might think.”
“Then I’ll hope you’re right.” Cadryc smiled briefly. “Now let’s get moving, lads.”
Packing up his purchases to travel unbroken took Neb a fair bit of time. When he hurried outside, he found a page holding the reins of his horse, and out in the ward the tieryn and his men were already assembled. Neb thanked the page