Part 21 (1/2)

'I've written a letter to your lord's brother.' Cadmar held out a hand, and the chamberlain put a silver message tube into it. 'Will you deliver it for me?'

'I will, Your Grace. After all, he's our lord now, isn't he?' The captain glanced the chamberlain's way 'He will inherit, won't he?'

The chamberlain groaned and ran both hands through his thinning hair.

'That's up to the priests. But by all rights the lands of a lord who loses a trial by combat are forfeit, to be rea.s.signed by his overlord.'

'Well, then,' Cadmar broke in. 'I'll just see to it that the brother -'

'Your Grace!' The chamberlain tugged on his sleeve, 'By tradition though not law the lands go to the temple.'

The captain threw up his hands with a jingle of mail.

'This legal wrangling's beyond the likes of me,' he said. 'Your Grace, we've got to ride out of your city before sunset.'

'Then go now, and with my blessing.' Cadmar handed him the message. 'And for the love of every G.o.d, get this to Lord Tren straightaway, and tell him what you've heard here, too.'

The captain slipped the tube under his mail and into his s.h.i.+rt, settling it against his belt, then hurried back to the waiting troop. Yelling orders, he mounted. When a page tossed him the lead rope of a particularly fine grey gelding, Jill noticed an ominous blanket-wrapped bundle slung over its saddle. In utter silence Matyc's men gathered round their captain and the body of their dead lord. Together they turned their horses and began filing out of the gates. Shaking his head from side to side, Cadmar watched them go.

'Your Grace?' Jill said.

The lord and his councillors yelped or swore in surprise.

'Ye G.o.ds, Jill, I didn't even see you walk up,' Cadmar said with a grin. 'You didn't just pop out of thin air, did you now?'

'Your Grace was much distracted, that's all. How much trouble is there going to be over Matyc's death?'

'I don't know. It depends in large part on whether or not Lord Tren inherits his brother's holdings, I suppose. If he does, no doubt we can smooth things over. If the priests demand the land and taxes for themselves, well, now, I don't know what to predict.'

'I see. I've settled the silver dagger down in town, anyway. I figured he'd best be out of your dun.'

'I suppose so.' Cadmar glanced at the chamberlain, who nodded a yes. 'But it gripes my soul to turn him out. By rights I should be honouring him at my table, just as the G.o.ds honoured him on the combat ground.'

The chamberlain groaned in some distress.

'I'm not going to do it,' Cadmar snapped. 'Don't trouble your heart. Here, everybody, let's go inside and sit down. I hate hovering round like this in doorways!'

At the table of honour Labanna stood waiting, one hand resting on the back of her husband's empty chair. Behind her, the sewing women hovered in the shadows at the foot of the spiral staircase. Cadmar raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction.

'I've just told the servants that there won't be a feast after all,' she said. 'It wouldn't be appropriate.'

'Of course not, my dear, and my thanks. I'd forgotten about that.' Cadmar sat down and reached back to pat her hand. 'You're welcome to join us.'

'My thanks, my lord, but I'd best be about my business. There's much to settle and settle down.'

He nodded, smiling wryly, and she hurried upstairs, sweeping her women with her. Servants rushed over with tankards of ale for the men, though Jill waved hers away. The servitors sat down at Cadmar's right, but Jill chose to stand.

'Your Grace,' she said. 'Answer me honestly. Is it a burden upon you to have me, Carra, and all the trouble we've brought with us here in your dun?'

'Where else would you go?'

'I don't know, Your Grace, but -'

'I refuse to send anyone away from the safety of my walls when they might meet with danger on the roads. It would ache my heart as well as shame it if the slightest evil befell the prince and his lady.'

'Not half as much as it would ache mine. Well, I need to give the matter some thought. This whole thing happened so suddenly.'

'So it did, but here, Matyc brought it upon himself. You heard him, there in the malover, insisting on his right to combat.'

'True spoken, but will his kin see it that way?'

Cadmar shrugged to show his ignorance.

'If I may speak boldly, Your Grace,' Jill went on. 'You need that alliance, and badly. I would most humbly and with all deference to the G.o.ds ask you this. In a war which would be of more use to you in keeping your people safe, the temple or Lord Tren?'

'Your Grace?' the equerry broke in. 'The only person whose presence should influence the matter at all is the silver dagger. If he stays in town . . .'

'Better yet, my lord,' Jill glanced at him, 'I'm sending him away. ! have a crucial errand that needs running, you see. Once he's healed, he'll be leaving Ccngarn.'

The equerry bobbed his head in her direction, the best bow he could muster seeing as he was sitting down. Cad mar considered, running the palm of his hand round and round the tankard's lip.

'Do as you think best about the silver dagger,' he said at last. 'But may the G.o.ds forgive me for slighting the winner of that combat!'

'I think me they will, Your Grace.'

'As for the other matter, I'll have to see how things develop. Lord Tren's warband won't do us much good if the G.o.ds are turned against us by the priests.'

Jill held her tongue with difficulty.

'But it'll be some days before Tren even answers my message,' Cadmar went on. 'I don't suppose you've seen any more raiders corning our way?'

'Not yet, Your Grace. As you say, we'll have to see how things develop. May I have leave to go? I need to find Yraen and have him take Rhodry's gear down to him.'

'Of course. As I say, do as you think fit.'

'I will, then, Your Grace. Consider the matter decided.'

As she made that near-casual remark Jill felt a peculiar sensation, as if she were suddenly being watched. She felt that from some great distance eyes had turned her way, powerful eyes with strong dweomer behind them. Although she managed to smile pleasantly and take a civil leave of the gwerbret, she hurried up to her tower room to be alone rather than sending a page for Yraen.

Her chamber swarmed with Wildfolk, darting this way and that in the air or on the floor, cl.u.s.tering on the furniture, huddling together in the curve of the wall. When she walked in, her grey gnome leapt into her arms.

'Oho, you felt it too, did you? Someone's found Cengarn, I think. The question is, are they looking for Carra or for me?' She thought back, remembered that she'd felt the sensation at the exact moment when a possible course of action had been decided into reality. 'Or, come to think of it, is it Rhodry they find so interesting?'

With the gnome riding on her shoulder, she went to the window and looked out. She could see over the dun wall to the town, but the market hill blocked her further view. Why would some enemy be searching for Rhodry? Unless, of course, they knew that he'd been guarding Carra and thought he still was. She turned her head to catch the gnome's attention.

'Go fetch Dallandra for me, will you? All you have to do is find her, and she'll know what it means.'

The gnome grinned, revealing an uneven mouthful of pointed teeth, then disappeared. She could only hope that it had understood, and that Dallandra would come promptly - as the physical world measured Time.

As she often did in these situations, Jill found herself thinking about her master in the dweomer, dead these many years now, and wondering what he would have done. She particularly wished that she had his influence with the priesthood of Bel. If she'd been Nevyn, she could have gone to the temple and perhaps worked them round over the matter of the late Lord Matyc's lands, but they would never listen to a woman, especially not to one they barely knew. That particular matter lay in the laps of the G.o.ds, she supposed, such as they were. It occurred to her that the priests stood to lose a great deal if Alshandra's forces conquered Ccngarn and overthrew their G.o.d. That grim possibility, at least, might give her some sort of weapon.