The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [127]
‘You’re right.’ She turned to smile at him. ‘Do you want the shutters open or closed?’
‘Open, I think. It’s such a warm night. Now, come lie down. I mean, please?’
With a laugh, Branna joined him, and for the rest of that night, she never thought about the silver dragon, not once.
The dwarven contingent had reached Cengarn on the day before Gwerbret Ridvar was planning to leave it. After a single night’s rest, therefore, they set out again for the Red Wolf dun, though they found the trip less than gruelling. Travelling with an army of Deverry men turned out to be a much slower business than travelling with Mountain Folk alone. What was normally two days’ journey to the Red Wolf dun took three full and a bit over.
Kov, in his role as dwarven envoy, used the time to get to know as many lords and captains as he could, although he spent most of it with Gwerbret Ridvar and Prince Voran. The prince, a younger son of a younger son of the royal house, was an ordinary looking fellow at first acquaintance, with his brownish hair, thinning a bit on top, large ears, and a generous mouth that made his grin border on the froggy despite the attempt of his full moustache to hide it. But the intelligence gleaming in his grey eyes impressed Kov. When someone spoke to him, the prince would listen intently, his eyes shrewd and focused as he weighed the words being offered him.
Ridvar, on the other hand—Ridvar had inherited the rhan because both his father and his older brother had died in battle. He was a good-looking lad, dark-haired and hazel-eyed, but an arrogant child, in Kov’s opinion, though he did his best to keep the opinion to himself.
‘Just how old is he?’ Kov asked Blethry one noontide.
‘Not quite fifteen,’ Blethry said. ‘But a married man withal, and one who’s fought and fought well in a couple of scraps against the raiders.’
‘Very admirable of him, truly.’
Blethry raised an eyebrow. Kov smiled blandly back. In a moment Blethry changed the subject.
As the army travelled south, it gathered men and lords along the way, both those who owed fealty directly to Ridvar and those vassals of his tierynau who happened to live along the route. The gwerbret’s allies sent messengers, announcing that they were raising men and marching with all possible speed for the Red Wolf dun. Yet despite all the musters, by the time the army reached Cadryc’s, it numbered just over twelve hundred human men. Cadryc had a hundred waiting to add to the total. Without the dwarven sappers and miners, the chance of victory would have been slim indeed.
The dwarves set up their camp in the meadow behind the dun along with the majority of the army. Cadryc’s lady and his elderly chamberlain put forth a superhuman effort and managed to house the noble lords in the dun itself. Kov and Brel found themselves classed with the nobility. Lord Veddyn, the chamberlain, offered them a small chamber near the roof that gave every sign of having been hastily vacated by someone else.
‘By the stone gods!’ Brel muttered. ‘I’d rather sleep in the meadow than turn someone out of their bed.’
‘Indeed, my lord,’ Kov said to Veddyn. ‘We have a comfortable tent in one of our wagons. Why don’t you return this chamber to its owner? We’ll camp in the meadow.’
‘Ah, your wagons.’ Veddyn’s rheumy old eyes briefly gleamed. ‘I’ve heard they contain many an interesting thing.’
Kov smiled and said nothing. Ye gods! he was thinking. What do they think we’re carrying? Gems and gold and such? Considering the reputation of the Mountain Folk, he supposed, they might indeed have been thinking just that.
When, therefore, Kov saw Lady Branna studying the mysterious carts, Kov assumed that she too was wondering about the rune-marked crates, but her reason turned out to be atypical.
‘This new kind of wheel—it’s awfully clever,’ she said.
It took him a moment to realize that her comment was sincere. ‘It is that. You’ll be seeing more of them, I’ll wager. Every cartwright in Cengarn took a good