"Kerr, Katharine - Westlands 02 - A Time Of War v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

‘Just so. Now hush.’
"There are some of them in the dun right now, Jahdo.’ Jill smiled, attempting to be kind. ‘You’ll see them sooner or later. I’ve made it my affair to gather as much information as I can, you see, about both the Rhiddaer and the Gel da’Thae - not that it’s been much of a harvest.’
‘Indeed? But what about your name?’
‘Just a nickname my father gave me, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find it goes back to some ancestor of mine who was a bondwoman. Jahdo, from what I’ve been able to learn, while your people may have adopted the Deverry language, your names spring from the old tongues of your ancestors, not from ours, because people cling to their names and pass them down. And not all your ancestors escaped Deverry entirely. Many years ago, when we were having some horrible wars, a lot of bondfolk found themselves without masters. Some claimed their land as freedmen and stayed where they were, others went to other provinces to settle down and farm there.’
‘No one made them go back?’ Jahdo asked.
‘They were too valuable where they were. The noble-born learned an interesting lesson, back in those days of civil war. If there weren’t any farmers to give them food in taxes, they’d have to farm themselves if they were going to eat, and well, now, they wouldn’t have been very noble, then, would they?’
Jahdo laughed.
‘Now we come to my case,’ Jill went on. ‘I was as aminheddic as a lass can be. Do you know that word? You look puzzled.’
‘I don’t, my apologies.’
‘Well, a binheddic man is a man with a pedigree, a man who knows who his ancestors were, a noble-born man. When you don’t know and care a fair bit less, then you’re aminheddic, lacking a family tree, common-born.’
‘Oh. And that matters?’
‘It matters a great deal, here in Deverry. Never forget that. Your life might depend on it, remembering that the noble-born see themselves as a good bit more valuable, like, than the aminheddic. But anyway, I’ve got a bondwoman’s name, sure enough, and so I’m guessing that somewhere back in my family there were freedmen.’
‘And that doesn’t ache your heart?’ Meer said with some surprise.
‘Not at all, good bard, not at all. All souls are the same to me, noble or common, human or otherwise. I was given the dweomer to serve them all.’
Meer sucked his fangs as he thought this over.
‘I have never heard of a sorcerer who used her tricks to serve anyone or anything but herself.’
‘Then I’ll wager you never heard of a sorcerer who had anything more than tricks at her disposal.’
Meer seemed to be about to speak, then sat back. Out of sheer nerves Jahdo giggled, which earned him a cuff on the shoulder.
‘My apologies, Meer. I wasn’t mocking you or anything.’
‘Good. Don’t.’
‘Meer, bard, loremaster,’ Jill said, ‘I truly believe that we must be allies, not enemies, in this time of danger. Pooling what I know with what you know will be of great profit to both our peoples.’
‘You believe so, do you?’ Meer paused for a sip of milk. ‘Strange stuff, this cow’s milk you people drink. It’s so thick and oily.’
Jill smiled at the evasion, then merely waited, letting Meer drink his cup of milk as the silence grew thicker in the room. All of a sudden Jahdo wasn’t hungry any more, though he couldn’t say why. He laid his half-eaten piece of bread down on the wooden trencher. From outside and down below came noises, horses’ hooves clopping on stone, people laughing and talking, the rumbling bump of a barrel being rolled, but they all seemed to be sounding from a great distance away. In the chamber the silence seemed so thick that Fie felt he’d touch it if he reached out a hand. Meer handed Jahdo the cup, then wiped all round his mouth with the back of his hand in case he’d spilled a drop or two. Jill merely waited, her hands folded in her lap.
‘Ah well,’ Meer said at last. ‘I do happen to know why Thavrae led his men east to your country.’
Jill smiled again.
‘Thavrae?’ she said. ‘That’s your brother, isn’t it?’
Meer growled.
‘My apologies,’ Jill said and quickly, "The man who used to be your brother.’
Meer grunted, satisfied.
‘I’d very much like to know that,’ Jill went on. ‘If you could bring yourself to tell me.’
‘I might, mazrak, but in return, I’ll want a promise out of you, that you’ll do everything you can to make sure young Jahdo here returns to his homeland before he’s much older. What happens to me now is of little moment, but I made his mother a promise.’
Jahdo felt his eyes fill with tears, which he wiped away as unobtrusively as he could.
‘Done, then.’ Jill reached out a hand and touched Meer’s arm. ‘You have my sworn word.’
They clasped hands for a brief moment.
‘And you have mine that this is the truth, as much as I know of it,’ Meer said. ‘When the man who once was my brother fled our city with his band of soldiers, because by our laws he’d be strangled for heresy should he stay within the city bounds, the high priestess came to my mother, and my mother in turn sent for me. The priestess swore that the god Evandar the Far Archer, he who serves the goddess Rinbala, had appeared to her while she did vigil in the temple and had delivered unto her tidings of great import. The man my mother had birthed before me was fleeing east on his false goddess’s bidding, to fetch some valuable thing for the demoness. The Alshandra creature had charged him with the returning of this precious object to her. As to what it is or was, none of us knew, except that she claimed it was hers and that it had been stolen from her.’
‘Evandar?’ Jahdo broke in. ‘He’s the one who did tell us which road to take!’
‘So he did,’ Meer said. ‘Now don’t interrupt.’
Jill sat watching them with an expression of stunned surprise.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘And we know that Thavrae failed.’
‘Just so, mazrak, just so. I think it likely that this pus-and-pride-swollen false goddess will send others after the thing, don’t you? I was present when some of these heretic prophets were put to the torture in our public square. All claimed their demoness was implacable and unyielding. She is a goddess of war, they cried, not of mercy, and she will revenge us upon you for this torment. Those were their exact words. You may trust that, being as I’m a bard and trained to remember such things.’
‘So you are, though it’s an ill-omened thing you’ve remembered this time, I must say.’ Jill paused, thinking for a long moment. ‘I think I’d best have a word with the gwerbret.’
‘He’s likely to see more raiders on his lands, truly.’
Jill nodded, distracted. Jahdo suddenly wondered if she knew what Thavrae had been sent to fetch, simply because she looked so troubled.
‘Meer, you have my profound thanks for this information. I can only hope you’ll tell me more if I should need to ask more. I promise you, I swear to you on my honour, that if you do so, you’ll be helping your own people, not betraying them in any way at all.’
‘Listen, mazrak. Fair words mean little between those who have just met.’
"True enough, bard.’ Jill seemed more amused than insulted. ‘As time goes on, I hope we come to know each other better.’ She rose, nodding at Jahdo. ‘I’ll speak to Rhodry and the gwerbret on your behalf. I see no reason for you two to stay penned up like hogs.’
‘Well, neither do I. It’s not like we could escape without any food and stuff.’
‘Just so.’
Jill walked across the room, opened the door, then turned back for one last look Jahdo’s way. He felt that she was appraising him the way a man might judge a horse at a market fair, and for a good long time that morning, he was afraid, just from remembering her cold stare.
‘Someone’s meddled with that lad’s mind,’ Jill said.