Katharine Kerr - A Time of Justice

‘Well, there. If Beryn does manage to dispose of me, Cadlew will inherit through Ylaena, and Beryn will regret the day he ever made an enemy out of my friend.’

‘I believe it, Your Grace. From what I’ve seen of Lord Cadlew, he’d get you a splendid revenge, but I’d just as soon he didn’t have to. I’ve been thinking about the precautions we should take once we reach the gwerbret’s dun. I haven’t forgotten that fellow in Caenmetyn who tried to hire me to kill you.’

‘For all we know, Beryn’s planning on attacking us on the road. If he’s got one of his men watching the dun from a distance, he’ll know when we’re riding out and lay another ambush in the forest. That reminds me – where’s Jill?’

‘Up in the women’s hall, Your Grace. She told me earlier that the local gossip was truly interesting, whatever she means by that.’

Like Dwaen, Jill had been wondering if Beryn was going to try another ambush, but the combined warbands, followed by a six pack of horses laden with gifts of food for the gwerbret’s hall, reached Caenmetyn without incident. Although Gwerbret Coryc’s provincial demesne was a poor one by gwerbretal standards, his dun walls rose imposingly enough round a huge central broch surrounded by four squat half-brochs and a cobbled ward. While Dwaen, with Cadlew and Rhodry along for witnesses, went to the great hall to lay his formal complaint, Jill helped the servants haul all their gear up to the tieryn’s chambers in the main tower. While they worked, she made friends with one of the menservants and got him to introduce her to the various servitors, particularly to the head groom, a stocky fellow, mostly bald, named Riderrc.

It was easy for her to use her horse, a beautiful golden gelding of the breed known as Western Hunter, to get a friendly conversation going. While they discussed Sunrise in particular and horses in general, she asked casual questions about the various important officials in the dun, particularly the chamberlain, the most important of all.

‘He’s a decent enough lord, I suppose.’ Riderrc sucked his teeth in a meditative way. ‘Fussy about every blasted detail, but no one bribes him for a favour, I tell you.’

‘Amazing! Many a chamberlain’s got rich selling access to his gwerbret.’

‘Our Tallyc would choke rather than take lying silver.’

‘Interesting. Well, I’d best be getting back upstairs.’

But Jill went to the kitchen hut, which was as big as a small house. In the thick smoke two cooks were frantically yelling at a squad of kitchen maids while the chamberlain himself supervised the carving of a whole hog, and serving lasses and pages dashed around filling baskets with bread and bowls with stewed cabbage. In that madhouse a would-be poisoner could slip all manner of things into the food and drink, but on the other hand, it would be near-impossible to ensure that only Dwaen and his retinue ate the tainted servings. Jill hoped, at least, that the murderer would draw the line at poisoning the gwerbret, his entire household, and several hundred riders just to finish off one man. For a few minutes she hesitated, wondering if she should tell Rhodry where she was going, then realized that she wouldn’t be able to get him alone to tell him privately. With a glance at the lowering sun, she trotted off to the main gates, pausing only to identify herself to the guards so they’d let her back in, and headed out into the town.

It took her some time to find the thieves’ tavern again, curiously uncrowded for the dinner hour. She got herself a tankard of dark ale and stood chatting with the tavernman while she jingled a couple of coppers in one closed hand.

‘Do you remember the night that me and my man were in here? We were sitting right over there, and this fellow in a long grey cloak came in.’

‘Remember it I do. I thought he was a strange one to be coming into a place like this.’

‘Just so. You don’t happen to know who he is, do you?’

‘I don’t, but he must have been a master craftsman, all right. There was fine wool in that cloak of his.’

‘Or maybe a scribe or suchlike? He had soft hands, and he smelled like temple incense.’

‘So he did.’ The tavernman spat into the straw to help his concentration. ‘Never seen him before or since, so he can’t live here in town. I’ve lived in Caenmetyn all my fifty years, I have, and I know everyone in it.’

When Jill returned to the gwerbret’s palace, she snagged a page and sent him up to the women’s hall with a message. Before they’d left Dwaen’s dun, she’d asked Ylaena to write her a note to the gwerbret’s lady, Ganydda, giving Jill a formal introduction. The lad returned quickly enough and escorted her up to the reception chamber, littered with a profusion of heavy furniture and silver oddments. At each long window hung a curtain of Bardek brocade in the gwerbretal colours of green, silver, and yellow. Ganydda, a slender woman with greying hair, startled-looking blue eyes, and prominent teeth, greeted her kindly and had a serving lass bring a cushion so that Jill could sit near her feet.

‘The lady Ylaena speaks highly of you, Jill.’

‘My thanks, my lady, though doubtless she flatters me unduly.’

‘How well spoken you are! You must forgive an old woman’s curiosity, but whatever possessed a pretty lass like you to ride off with a silver dagger? He’s awfully handsome, of course, but honestly, my dear! It must have been quite a scandal.’

‘Not truly a scandal, my lady, because you see, my father was a silver dagger, too. I had no position or anything to lose.’

‘Really? How fascinating! You must tell me all about it.’

Although Jill normally parried such questions, that night she chattered about true love in general and Rhodry in particular until she could see she’d won the lady’s confidence – although she avoided telling her why Rhodry was riding the long road. At that point she worked the conversation round to Tieryn Dwaen’s current troubles.

‘My heart absolutely goes out to Slaecca, losing her husband to that drunken little – well, in a drunken little brawl,’ Ganydda said. ‘And now to have her son threatened is really too much to bear. I pray that things won’t come to open war.’

‘It must be sad for Lord Beryn’s wife, too, the poor lady, seeing her husband put himself in danger after losing her only son.’

‘Well, perhaps it would distress her.’ Ice formed in Ganydda’s voice. ‘One must always think the best thoughts one can about people, mustn’t one? But then there’s no doubt that Mallona’s had a hard enough life. My dear Jill, wait until you see Beryn puffing and snorting at my husband’s court, and he’s a good bit older than her, you know.’

‘Truly? Lady Slaecca never mentioned that.’

‘She’s so charitable, isn’t she? But he is, and I’ve often wondered why she only had that one pregnancy, if you take my meaning.’

Jill smiled and arched one eyebrow.

‘Oh dear, what if worst comes to worst?’ Ganydda went on with a certain relish. ‘I wonder what poor dear Mallona will do. I can’t see her fitting into the temple life, I just simply can’t.’

‘Doesn’t she have a brother to go back to, my lady? The lady Ylaena mentioned one.’

‘Um, well, a brother of a sort. Let me see, what did happen to him? He was the youngest son of a poor clan, you see, and so he ended up living just like a commoner, and his mother was so upset. He received a small inheritance from an uncle, and he became a merchant – can you imagine it – some said he was actually running a brothel down in Cerrmor, but I never believed it for a minute – people will say the nastiest things sometimes.’

‘But what about all her other brothers, then?’