The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [58]
"Ye-es." He still sounded doubtful, "I know the village, a handful of huts by the bridge, that's all...As you say, hardly a likely place to hunt a High King's heir. But an inn? Isn't that in itself a risk? With men -- Gorlan's, too, since it's a time of truce -- coming and going from the road?"
"So, no one will question your messengers or mine. My man Ralf will stay there to guard the boy, and he'll need to stay abreast of news, and get messages to you from time to time, and to me."
"Yes. Yes, I see. And when you take the child there, what's your story?"
"No one will think twice about a travelling harper plying his trade on a journey. And Moravik has put a story round that will explain the sudden appearance of Ralf and the baby and his nurse. The story, if anyone questions it, will be that the girl, Branwen, is Moravik's niece, who bore a child to her master over in Britain. Her mistress cast her from the house, and she had no other place to go, but the man gave her money for the passage to her aunt's house in Brittany, and paid the travelling singer and his man to escort her. And the singer's man, meanwhile, will decide to leave his master and stay with the girl."
"And the singer himself? How long will you stay there?"
"Only as long as a travelling singer might, then I'll move on and be forgotten. By the time anyone even thinks to look farther for Uther's child, how can they find him? No one knows the girl, and the baby is only a baby. Every house in the country has one or more to show."
He nodded, chewing it over this way and that, and asked a few more questions. Finally he admitted: "It will serve, I suppose. What do you want me to do?"
"You have watchers in the kingdoms that march with yours?"
He laughed shortly. "Spies? Who hasn't?"
"Then you'll hear quickly enough if there's any hint of trouble from Gorlan or anyone else. And if you can arrange for some quick and secret contact with Ralf, should it be necessary -- ?"
"Easy. Trust me. Anything I can do, short of war with Gorlan..." He gave his deep chuckle again. "Eh, Merlin, it's good to see you. How long can you stay?"
"I'll take the boy north tomorrow, and with your permission will go unescorted. I'll come back as soon as I see all is safe. But I'll not come here again. You might be expected to receive a travelling singer once, but not actually to encourage him."
"No, by God!"
I grinned. "If this weather holds, Hoel, could the ship stay for me for a few days?"
"For as long as you like. Where do you plan to go?"
"Massilia first, then overland to Rome. After that, eastwards."
He looked surprised. "You? Well, here's a start! I'd always thought of you being as fixed as your own misty hills. What put that into your head?"
"I don't know. Where do ideas come from? I have to lose myself for a few years, till the child needs me, and this seemed to be the way. Besides, there was something I heard." I did not tell him that it had only been the wind in the bowstrings. "I've had a mind lately to see some of the lands I learned about as a boy."
We talked on then for a while. I promised to send letters back with news from the eastern capitals, and, as far as I could, I gave him points of call to which he would send his own tidings and Ralf's about Arthur.
The fire died down and he roared for a servant. When the man had been and gone --
"You'll have to go and sing in the hall soon," said Hoel. "So if we've got all clear, we'll leave it at that, shall we?" He leaned back in his chair. One of the hounds got to its feet and pushed against his knee, asking for a caress. Over the sleek