The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [87]
Neb turned half-away and blushed scarlet. Salamander realized that he’d scored a sharper hit than he’d intended. He waited, but Neb said nothing. “As well as all that,” Salamander went on, “wouldn’t you miss her?”
“I’d get over it.” Neb spoke so softly that it was hard to hear him. “I’m a man. Love is for women.”
“Ah, so now you’re the hardened and hardhearted warrior type, eh?” Salamander rolled his eyes heavenward.
“Oh, hold your tongue!” Neb raised his voice, but it shook with barely-suppressed tears. “Very well, I would miss her. A lot. That’s why I didn’t just leave the Westlands this spring.”
“And are you still thinking of leaving now?”
“I’m not. I won’t go anywhere. Let’s go back to the gwerbret’s blasted dun.”
“Will you promise me you won’t try to bolt again?”
Neb hesitated for so long that Salamander began to fear he’d lost him, but finally Neb nodded his agreement. “I promise,” Neb said finally. “You’re right about being a witness at the malover.”
“You know, if things trouble you, you can always talk them out with me.”
“My thanks.” Neb looked down at the ground, then kicked a pebble so hard that it sailed for some yards across the cropped grass. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”
From his seat at the honor table, Gerran kept a watch for Neb. He finally saw him when the scribe, his arms full of blankets and saddlebags, followed Salamander and Lord Oth into the great hall. Oth conferred with one of the pages and sent him and Neb both up the staircase, doubtless to find Neb a chamber. This time, Gerran noticed, Salamander sat down at one of the riders’ tables rather than ranking himself among the lords. Oth hurried over to the table of honor to stand beside the gwerbret. Gerran rose and greeted him with a bow, which Oth returned.
“I hear you’ve brought coin from Tieryn Cadryc,” Oth said.
“I have,” Gerran said. “It’s the last scot from the Red Wolf.”
“Well and good, then. It will gladden my heart to see that matter tidied away.”
Gerran had been carrying the money in a small pouch tucked inside his shirt. He took it out and handed it to Oth, who clasped it tight in one bony hand.
“No need to count it, I’m sure,” Oth said.
With Branna’s odd warning very much in his mind, it occurred to Gerran how easy it would be for a servitor to pocket one of the coins, then claim a mistake had been made in order to extort another from the person paying a debt.
“No need, but it would be best if you did,” Gerran said, as blandly as possible. “Tieryn Cadryc asked me to make sure it got counted in front of his grace. He was afraid he might have made a mistake in the amount.” Gerran glanced at the gwerbret, then at the prince. “He thinks highly of you both, Your Highness and Your Grace, and he wants this done right.” He looked at Oth and smiled. “It would ache his heart if the prince and the gwerbret thought him miserly.”
Ridvar and Daralanteriel nodded their agreement. Oth smiled, but his eyes had narrowed in some odd fit of feeling. He had trouble looking Gerran in the face and bowed again to cover his reluctance. What’s this? Gerran thought. Shame, mayhap? Fear? It’s not, but rage!
Oth opened the pouch and spread the coins out on the table. “All in order, my lords,” he announced with a brittle sort of cheer. “I’ll just take this up to the treasury.”
Gerran sat down next to Mirryn and watched Oth scoop up the coins and transfer them back to the pouch. The old man bowed to the gwerbret, then hurried away.
Although he kept watch for the chamberlain, Gerran saw no sign of him all that afternoon. At dinner, Lord Oth did appear, but he headed up a table of servitors far from the table of honor. Salamander and Neb took places with the men of Mirryn’s escort on the far side of the great hall. When the food was about to be served, Lady Drwmigga came to the honor table to sit at her lord’s left