The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [47]
Merodda curtsied, then fled the chamber. As she hurried down the staircase, she was smiling to herself.
When she returned to her suite, Merodda called out for Brour, but there was no answer. She glanced into his sleeping room, found him gone, and considered sending a page to look for him. She was too tired to bother with scrying, she decided, and went down to the great hall instead, to watch from a distance the great lords at their mead and meat. Like the other women, she could only guess at the things they argued over so urgently.
That evening, watching the firelight play over their sweaty faces, she heard with a touch of dweomer the sound of ravens, screeching over a battle-feast. Fear sank long claws into her throat, and she knew with a dreadful certainty that the time would never come when that fear would leave her.
About two hours before dawn, Lilli met her tutor one last time in the deserted root cellar. Although he was wearing a wool travelling cloak, Brour carried only his book.
“You won’t get very far without food and suchlike,” Lilli said.
“Oh, that’s all waiting in the tunnel. I’ve been hiding things there, a bit at a time. Your mother spent most of the day with the queen.”
Sure enough, when they shoved back the door Lilli saw a big pack on a wooden frame leaning against the wall. Brour lit a candle lantern by snapping his fingers over it, then shoved the door back but not closed.
“You won’t get this open by yourself,” he remarked. “We’ll risk the odd chance of someone finding it.”
Brour rummaged in his pocket and handed her two candles for her journey back. He took off the cloak, rolled it, and tied it to the frame. The book went into a leather sack and then into the pack. With a grunt of effort he swung the pack onto his back.
“I came to Dun Deverry as a peddlar, and I’ll leave the same way. No doubt the king of Eldidd can use my services, so west I’ll go.”
The very way he stressed the word “west” made her wonder if he were lying to her.
“West, is it?” she said.
“It is.” Yet he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Ah well, bring that lantern, Lilli, and let’s be off.”
Since carrying the pack took most of Brour’s breath, they said little on the long trudge through the dust and slimy puddles to the door out. At the bottom of the steps Brour divested himself of the pack, then shoved open the door. Sunlight flowed down the stairs of the cellar. He heaved the pack out, then scrambled after. Lilli followed him out for the breath of fresh air. Here in the daylight she could see the ruins clearly—broken walls and burnt timbers such as decorated many a dead lord’s dun. Black ravens flew through, shrieking as they dodged round a stump of broch.
“Come with me, Lilli,” Brour said. “I fear for your life, I truly do.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re sure, lass? Ye gods, the whole city stinks of ruin! I swear to you, you’d be safe with me. I’d not lift a hand against you, but treat you like a daughter.”
“I know you would. It’s not that.” Lilli hesitated, wondering why she did trust him so much—not that it mattered. “But my place is here. I’m a woman of the Boar clan. I can’t just run away. What would Bevva think of me?”
Brour sighed, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand while he considered.
“Ah well,” he said at last. “Mayhap you know best. It won’t be safe out on the roads, anyway. My small dweomers will protect me well enough, but if some lord’s warband took a fancy to your pretty face, I couldn’t stop them. Now remember, give me a good long start, then tell your uncle about the bolthole. You’ll rise high in his favor.”
“I will, then. And my thanks.”
Brour smiled, a twitch of his child’s pouty mouth, and swung the pack onto his back. With one quick wave he set off, threading his way through the tumbled stone of the ruins. Lilli climbed onto a hunk of wall and looked around her, studying the terrain.