The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [103]
Nevyn laughed while Caradoc stood grinning, his hands shoved in his brigga pockets.
“And speaking of the Lady Lillorigga,” Caradoc went on. “The prince wants to talk with her as soon as she’s rested. He’d like you to escort her.”
“I will, of course. Huh. That’ll give our terriers another nice juicy rat. Freshly killed.”
That night, in front of his pavilion Maryn held a council of war. Off to one side he had the servants lay a small fire and tend it to provide light without too much heat, while he sat in a chair with Oggyn and Nevyn standing behind him and the gwerbretion and Caradoc as well sitting on the ground in front of him. At the prince’s request, Nevyn summarized what Lilli had told them earlier.
“So there’s a bolthole, sure enough,” Nevyn finished up. “But it doesn’t open anywhere as convenient as the king’s bedchambers. It’s a long walk from that side ward she described to the main gates, and between the main gates and us lie two rings of open ground as well.”
“It would be better, then,” Maryn said, “if we took the next ring uphill before we used the bolthole. I doubt if they’ll fight hard for it. It just encloses empty land.”
“That’s a good point, Your Highness,” Caradoc put in. “I’ve been doing some thinking. This dun was built as much for show as for defense. Why, by the hells! It would take ten thousand men to man these walls all proper, like.”
Maryn nodded a grim agreement. The noble-born sat quietly for a moment, digesting the news; then Tieryn Gauryc rose to speak.
“My prince? I’m wondering if perhaps we should just hold our siege and let hunger do the fighting.”
“A good point, my lord,” Maryn said, “but starving them out means starving half the countryside with them. How are we going to provision this army all winter long? Not without stripping every farm for miles around. I have no intention of ruling a kingdom of ghosts.”
“Ghosts don’t provision great courts, either,” Oggyn added. “If I may be so bold as to speak, my prince?”
“By all means.”
“My thanks, Your Highness. By my reckoning, we’ve confiscated all we can from the farms without stripping their seed corn or starving the men who’ll plant it. If there’s no winter wheat to ripen in the spring, what will the army be eating then?”
For the first time since he’d met him, Nevyn felt that Oggyn was an excellent fellow. The noble-born began to talk among themselves, but in a few brief words of what seemed to be agreement.
“And another thing, my liege,” Oggyn went on. “From what the men of the Ram tell me, the majority of the regent’s provisions and stores lie in the next to the last ring. If we capture those, then the situation of the royal compound becomes even more precarious.”
“An excellent point,” Nevyn said. “I recommend it to Your Highness.”
Oggyn smiled and bowed in his direction.
“Now here!” Gwerbret Daeryc scrambled up. “Are we all cooks and chamberlains, to stand around discussing bins of grain and jugs of milk?”
“Of course not, Your Grace!” Peddyc rose and stepped forward to calm his overlord down. “What truly counts, my prince and liege, is the honor of the thing.”
“Indeed, Tieryn Peddyc?” Maryn said. “And what may that be?”
“That we’re warriors born and bred, not gatekeepers!” Daeryc interrupted.
“That’s true, Your Grace.” Peddyc smiled with a rueful twist of his mouth. “And since there’s a way into the dun, I say we take it—”
“—and flush the bastards out of cover!” Daeryc broke in.
Maryn tossed back his head and laughed.
“It seems to me, then, that the chamberlain and the warrior agree.” Maryn looked round at the semicircle of lords. “What do you say, men?”
“Attack! Red Wyvern! Red Wyvern!”
Their cheers rang out like brass bells on the evening wind.
“They’re up to something!” Burcan snarled. “Listen to that!”
From a great distance the sound of cheering drifted to the dun on the night wind. The sound turned Merodda omen-cold.
“They are at that,” she said.
“Rhodi, are you well?” Burcan caught her arm. “You sound like you’re going to faint.”
“My