Part 18 (2/2)

Jahdo stopped running, too breathless to do anything but pant as Lord Matyc guided Meer round to the safe direction and led him down to the stairs. Rhodry strolled up and watched the pair with narrow eyes.

'How come you weren't with Meer?'

'The other boys,' Jahdo panted, 'did shut me in the cellar.'

'Oh did they now? Did you recognize Alli's voice?'

Jahdo nodded yes.

The silver dagger walked over to the wall, just underneath the dangerous part of the broken catwalk, and picked up Meer's staff.

'He must have dropped this. Careless of him.'

'Not like him at all,' Jahdo said, gulping air. 'He knows he needs it.'

Jahdo took the staff and trotted over to meet Meer, who was just gaining the solid ground of the ward.

'Here we are, Meer.'

'Jahdo, is that you? Good, good.' He grabbed the staff in both hands and raised it to his lips to kiss it.

'How did you go and lose it?'

'I was very foolish. I could have sworn that some creature yanked it out of my hand, but I must have merely let it slip. I grow old, Jahdo lad, old. A lax grip is one of the thirteen signs of approaching age.

Where's Matyc?'

'Just behind you.'

'Ah.' Meer turned and made a bow. 'Your lords.h.i.+p, I shall consider what you told me very carefully indeed.'

'My thanks, good bard.' But rather than pleased, Matyc looked as sour as a Bardek citron.

His lords.h.i.+p trotted off one way as Jahdo led Meer another, but Rhodry came along with the pair of them. He waited until Matyc was out of earshot before speaking.

'Meer, it's Rhodry. What was all that about?'

'I'm not sure, silver dagger. He fed me some strange story about a man who hated the gwerbret because of old judgments that his grace had handed down in malover. Said he was sure that this fellow was planning treachery of some sort. Now, what I want to know is this: why was our Matyc telling me such a peculiar thing, and with all this secrecy and privacy abounding, too? He insisted that he had to speak to me as soon as soon, but there's naught that I can do about some ancient court ruling.'

'Of course there isn't. Why didn't you take Jahdo with you?'

'Well, I thought of it, but the lad slept so soundly I hated to wake him. One of his lords.h.i.+p's men came into the chamber, you see, to fetch me, and so I thought I was safe enough.'

'How could I have slept through all that?' Jahdo burst out. 'Him coming in, and you getting up, and the door opening and stuff.'

'I wondered, lad, I wondered, but sleep you did.'

'Stranger and stranger,' Rhodry said. 'I think me we'd best go find Jill.'

'Jill?' Meer rumbled. 'What does the mazrak have to do with this?'

Rhodry never answered. Jahdo noticed the silver dagger staring up at the broch, and when he looked in the same direction, he saw a leather curtain fall back over one of the windows above, just as if someone had been watching them.

Rhodry found a maidservant who told him that Jill was attending upon the princess in the women's hall.

He sent the la.s.s in with an urgent request while he, Meer and Jahdo waited outside on the landing by the spiral staircase. Meer glowered, clasping his staff tight, while Jahdo examined his bruised and bleeding hands.

'We'll have to have Jill take a look at those cuts,' he remarked.

'I certainly will.' Jill came out at that moment. 'Jahdo, what happened?'

'Nah nah nah!' Rhodry hissed. 'He'll tell you when we've got a bit more privacy.'

'Then come up to my chamber. I'll make up some herbwater, and he can give those hands a good soak.'

They all went down and crossed over to the side broch, then panted up the winding stairs to the very top floor, where Jill ushered them into her quarters. Jahdo helped Meer sit on a carved chest near the door, then at her order took the one chair by the rickety round table. Rhodry perched on the windowsill, but he kept himself from looking out and down.

'Nevyn always used to lodge on the top floor of brochs, too,' he remarked. 'What is it about you dweomermasters and heights?'

'He mostly enjoyed having a view. For me it comes in handy.'

Meer shuddered and growled, just softly under his breath.

A charcoal brazier stood near the stone portion of the wall. When Jill snapped her fingers in its direction, pale flames sprang up and lighted the sticks and coals. Jahdo yelped.

'Haven't you ever seen that before?' she said.

The boy shook his head no.

'It's the elemental spirits of fire who do the actual lighting,' she said, smiling. 'I just show them what I want lit. Now, how did you hurt your hands, and why is Rhodry being so secretive about it?'

While Jahdo told her, Jill kept working, pouring water from a pitcher into a metal pot, stirring in herbs and suchlike, but Rhodry knew her well enough to see that she was paying strict attention to the boy's tale. When Lord Matyc's name was mentioned, Meer interrupted and took over, repeating the conversation they'd had up on the wall. Jill poured the steaming, mint-scented herbwater into a pottery bowl and made Jahdo put his hands into it, even when the lad yelped and whined.

'All sorts of moulds and dusts collect in root cellars,' she said. 'I know it stings, but we've got to get those cuts clean. Meer, I wonder if you're thinking the same thing I am, that the disgruntled man Matyc was talking about was actually himself.'

'The thought did cross my mind. Just a feeling, like. Huh. But what was he doing, then? Sounding me out to see if I felt like coming over to his side?'

'Actually,' Rhodry broke in, 'he was trying to kill you.'

Meer swore in his own language.

'He needed to distract you so he could push you over the edge,' Rhodry went on. 'I'll wager every coin I have that he's the one who pulled your stick away, too. But our Matyc's not a man of much imagination. I doubt me if he could invent an interesting long story, like, so he had to tell you his own.

Didn't matter, since he was planning on murdering you.'

'A good guess, and mine as well,' Jill said. 'Jahdo, I suspect that Alli was only following orders when he shoved you into the cellar.'

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