The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [123]
Yet before he climbed down, he paused to look off to the south, where Voran’s messengers were riding hard for Cengarn. May they get there safely! He could only hope that Great Bel had heard his thought.
Gerran’s shoulder hurt so badly that he slept little that night. Without the weight of his mail pressing upon it, the bruised flesh had swelled and turned sensitive to every movement. He woke before dawn, squirmed in his blankets in a futile attempt to get comfortable, then admitted defeat and got up. He pulled on his boots—he’d slept in his clothes—then picked his way through the sleeping warbands and climbed up to the catwalks at the top of the outer wall. He made his way round to the area just beside the broken gates and found Prince Voran there ahead of him. In the east a pale arc of silver announced the rising sun.
“Ye gods, Lord Gerran,” Voran said, smiling, “don’t you ever sleep?”
“Oh, now and then, Your Highness. Did somewhat wake you?”
“Just my thoughts.” With a sigh Voran turned and leaned back against a merlon. “You know, Gerran, you strike me as a man who doesn’t repeat what other men tell him.”
“I do my best not to, Your Highness.”
“Do you know why I was appointed justiciar?”
“Most likely because you were the best man for the honor.”
“My thanks, not that I’d call it an honor. I suppose the king knew that I could do whatever the post demands. But in truth, it’s a sort of exile, not that anyone ever mentioned that word.”
“What?” Gerran was startled enough to forget the courtesies of rank. “I can’t imagine you doing some shameful thing.”
“My thanks again. I certainly did naught that shames me in my own eyes. Perhaps the opposite.” Voran rubbed his chin with one hand while he considered the problem. “I apparently made a great many enemies at court, and here I didn’t even realize it, just by refusing to ignore certain things and by speaking openly of other things. Every granary has its rats, as the old saying has it. The granaries in Dun Deverry are huge, and rats abound.”
“Rats of the same kind as Lord Oth?”
“Indeed, though they’d scorn a prize as small as a handful of coins from a woman’s dowry. There are mice as well, the kind that wait under the table in the hopes of falling scraps. They don’t have the guts to leap up and steal. They just flatter and beg instead.”
“Ye gods!” Gerran struggled to find words. “He sent you away to please a pack of courtiers? That’s vile.”
“I had a few thoughts that way myself. The kingdom’s changing. In my better moments it gladdens my heart that I’m out of Dun Deverry.” Voran glanced up at the sky. “Dawn’s here. I’d best go down.”
With a nod the prince began making his careful way along the catwalks. Gerran watched him as he climbed down the ladder to the ward. Sent away by the high king! Gerran thought, I’m cursed glad now I swore to Prince Dar. In the rising light Voran strode around the side of the temple, calling to his men to wake. Gerran lingered till the sun had come clear of the horizon, then went down to join his own squad.
Even with the priests buried, the smell of their evil deaths seemed to hang in the air inside the walls. As the morning wore on, the men spoke but little. Vantalaber and his archers, joined by Deverry men, kept a constant watch from the top of the walls. Near noon they finally spotted a cloud of dust coming down the road toward the temple.
“Coming from the south,” Vantalaber reported. “It’s too soon for anyone to reach us from Cengarn, Your Highness, so the cursed Horsekin must have circled round for some reason.”
“Unless it’s a second group of raiders entirely,” Voran said. “Gerran, have your men and Mirryn’s arm and man the walls. I doubt if these bastards have scaling ladders, but you never know, and we’d best be ready to push them back if they do. Caenvyr, put ten of our best right behind those wagons to guard the gates. Ridvar’s men should wait mounted just behind them.”
Gerran followed orders and for good measure told Mirryn to have his men saddle and ready their horses, just in case of a sally. He rejoined the Westfolk archers