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

‘Good morrow, my lord. Do you need me for somewhat?’
‘I don’t, silver dagger. Just passing by.’
Matyc was forced to turn and stroll away. Rhodry sat down again, but at a different angle, so that he could keep an eye on the various approaches to their position.
‘Anyway,’ Jill said. ‘I’m as sure as I’ll probably ever be that Alshandra sent Meer’s brother and his warband here to kill Carra and the child.’
‘Whatever for?’
Jill hesitated.
‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘You actually do know already. I’ve told you, here and there, all sorts of things that I never should have let slip, bits of secrets about the dweomer, I mean. I’ve been tired, Rhoddo, worried sick and truly sick with this wretched shaking fever, and for all that I haven’t seen you in so many years, I trust you more than any man on this earth, you know.’
Rhodry was surprised at how pleased he was to hear her say so. Rather than admit it, he grinned.
‘I don’t recall hearing any secret knowledge of ancient dweomer. No arcane spells nor exotic wizardry seem to have lodged in my soul ‘
‘As long as you think of it like that, then you won’t remember. Good.’
Rhodry had the distinct feeling he’d been outmanoeuvred. Jill rose, plucking odd bits of straw from her clothes.
‘I’ve got work in hand, scrying and suchlike,’ she said. ‘Ask me more later - if you dare.’
Jill hurried off, leaving him irritable behind her. Just what did she mean, if you dare? And all this cursed talk of secrets! And yet he knew deep in his memory what she meant, or rather, he knew he would know if only he let himself know, if only he pieced together the odd scattered hints that indeed he did remember, whether he wanted to do so or not.
Once Jill had mentioned that Alshandra had a daughter who’d been somehow lost to her. And he was sure that Carra’s unborn child was a daughter. Why, he’d been sure enough to tell the child’s father that a daughter it was, weeks ago now when they’d been hunting the raiders together. There could be no logical connection between those two daughters. Of course not. It’s not like the soul of one could be born again as the other. Could it? Why was he wondering if souls could put on new bodies, the way he put on a shirt? And why, he wondered most of all, did that wondering frighten him?
With a toss of his head like a spooked horse, he rose, gathering up his tack. He refused to let himself answer those questions, and all because they brought him to the edge of an insight he refused to face. He strode into the stables, hoping for some company, but no one was there but the horses and the stable cat, sunning herself in the straw in front of the tack room window. He hung his gear on the pegs allotted to it, then strode out again, heading for the great hall and a tankard of ale. About halfway across the ward, though, he heard boys’ voices, yelling, taunting and giggling behind one ot the storage sheds.
When Rhodry hurried over, he found Jahdo, red-faced with fury, in the centre of a circle of pages and scullery lads. Young Allonry seemed to be the chief tormentor. He was waggling a dangerous-looking stick in Jahdo’s direction and so wildly that Rhodry angled round to come up behind the page.
‘Slave-born, slave-born,’ the lordling was chanting. ‘Jahdo is a bondsman, Jahdo is a bondsman.’
‘I was born freer than you are,’ Jahdo snarled. ‘We don’t have any stinking old lords where I come from.’
Alli swung the stick right for Jahdo’s head. Rhodry caught his wrist just in time and so hard that the page squealed.
‘Drop it,’ Rhodry said.
Alli dropped it because he had no choice, snivelling with pain as he was. When Rhodry let him go, the page danced back out of his reach.
‘I’m going to tell the chamberlain on you!’
‘No doubt you are. Honour doesn’t seem to be one of your strong points, lad. Go on - run to your wet nurse, then.’
All the other boys howled with laughter. Flushing scarlet, Alli stood his ground for a moment, looking back and forth at his erstwhile allies. When all they did was look right back at him, he turned and ran for the broch complex. With a last round of giggles the other boys straggled away, some to their work in the kitchen hut, some to the great hall. Jahdo watched them go.
‘My thanks, Rhodry,’ he said at last. ‘Are you going to get in trouble for this?’
‘I doubt it, lad. Our Allonry may be noble-born, but he’s a cowardly little get, all in all. I’d watch your back around him, though, if I were you. You’re smaller than him.’
Jahdo grinned. Rhodry was frankly disappointed that the boy had proved himself so clumsy; he had mettle, did young Jahdo, in his solid little way.
‘How badly has the pack been hounding you?’
‘Not very, truly. No one did cause me grief at all till Alli started in on me just now. Cae and Bran were even kind of nice to me, this morning, like.’
‘Well, I suspect that if you just keep on taking Alli’s insults like a man, then Cae and Bran will be nice to you again.’
‘Probably so. This be a strange place, Cengarn. I guess the old tales about the Slavers be true. You do all really be cruel and fierce, bain’t?’
Rhodry was honestly shocked.
‘Well, here, I suppose we’d seem such to you, but -’
‘At least you don’t take heads any more. Or do you? I haven’t seen any hanging on walls and stuff like the tales talk about.’
‘Of course we don’t!’ Rhodry stopped, nagged by a memory of a time he’d seen a lord run the head of a particular enemy onto a pike. ‘Well, only if we’re truly provoked.’
‘You’ve never cut off anyone’s head and tied it to your saddle, have you?’
‘Never. I can give you my word on that, lad. Ych! And I never will, either.’
Jahdo sighed in a relief so profound that it was comic. Rhodry was about to make a jest when he glanced round to see Matyc standing between two sheds and watching them. And just how long have you been there, you bastard? Rhodry thought. Lord Matyc was beginning to gripe his soul, and badly.
‘Rhodry,’ Jahdo was saying. ‘Cae did tell me that there’s a princess in the dun. Be that true?’
‘It is. Would you like to be presented to her?’
‘I would. I never did see one, you know. I mean, my father would think I’m being silly, wanting to see her just ‘cause she be a princess, but I do.’
‘Well, she’s a pretty young woman, but ordinary enough, not like a two-headed calf or suchlike. Here, let’s go into the broch and see if we can find her, and then you’d best get back to Meer. He shouldn’t be left alone.’
‘He was going to nap for a bit, you see, and so he did say I might go outside if I wanted.’
If Carra had been up in the women’s hall, forbidden to all men except for the very eldest, Jahdo would have had to go without meeting his real princess, but as it was, they found her sitting down in the great hall with the gwerbret’s wife, Labanna, and her two serving women. With their sewing in their laps, all four of the ladies had made themselves comfortable in curved three-legged chairs near the table of honour. At Carra’.s feet lay a big grey dog with a roach of black hair down his back, or perhaps, judging by his yellow eyes and the feral look in them, he was as much wolf as dog. Although Labanna and her women were the matronly sort, stout and grey-haired, Carra was more beautiful than merely pretty. Her wavy blonde hair, cut abnormally short for a woman, due to some odd circumstances, framed a delicate face and set off large blue eyes. That particular day she was wearing a dress of fine blue linen, heavily embroidered with alternating bands of interlace and flowers around the neck and down the sleeves, and kirtled rather high to allow for her early pregnancy. Round her neck hung a pendant of reddish gold, ornamented with roses in bas-relief. Jahdo frankly goggled at her.
‘Oh, she be lovely,’ he whispered. ‘And never have I seen such a fancy dress.’
The Rhiddaer, Rhodry supposed, had to be a fairly rough place, then. As he led the boy over, he wondered what Jahdo would make of the finery round the High King’s court in Dun Deverry. At their approach the dog rose to a crouch and growled.
‘Lightning, whist!’ Carra snapped her fingers. ‘Come round here. That’s a good lad.’
Reluctantly the dog slunk to the side of her chair and lay down with a small whine. Rhodry knelt in front of Carra and Lady Labanna and motioned to Jahdo to do the same.
‘My ladies,’ Rhodry said. ‘May I present Jahdo to you? He’s never seen a princess before, he says, and would like to meet one.’
Carra laughed softly, and Labanna smiled.