A Time of War. Katharine Kerr

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ morning light he could pick out, far across the valley, three grey hills surrounded by what seemed to be stone walls, being as they were too smooth and circular to be cliffs. Spread across the hills were the tiny shapes of white-washed houses, all of them round, and some larger stone buildings. Over it all hung a faint haze – the smoke of cooking fires, most likely – out of which, at the top of the highest hill, rose a cluster of round stone towers with flat roofs, just like the ones mentioned in the old tales, as dark and grim and ugly as chunks of iron. When Jahdo described this view, Meer sighed, but he said nothing.

      ‘It be not far.’ Jahdo swallowed heavily. ‘We should get there before noon.’

      ‘To find out our fate at last. I can only pray that some kind and decent master buys you, lad. What happens to me is of no moment, for I am a broken man with no house or clan, but you have a life ahead of you.’

      ‘Not much of one.’

      Meer stayed silent. Over the past three days, as the squad rode for Cengarn, Jahdo had run out of tears for his lost family, his lost freedom. He felt numb, as if he’d been so ill with a fever for so long that life had receded to some far distance.

      ‘Come on, lads!’ Rhodry called out. ‘Almost home.’

      In a clatter and jingle of tack and hooves the squad jogged off downhill. When they came onto the flat, Jahdo got his first omen of what their welcome might be like. Just by the road they saw a young girl, her blonde hair hanging in one long pigtail down her back. She was wearing a dirty brown dress, cinched in at her waist with a length of old rope, and carrying a wooden crook, apparently to help her herd the cows. At the sound of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of tack, she turned toward the road and watched as the men rode by. When Rhodry made her a gallant bow from his saddle, she laughed and waved, until she got a look at Meer. At that she turned and ran screaming for the farmstead.

      ‘Stop!’ Rhodry called out. ‘We won’t let him hurt you.’

      When the other men laughed, Jahdo remembered how he hated them. Although the girl stopped screaming, she kept running, darting inside the earth work wall. They could hear a gate slam, and dogs began barking hysterically – an entire pack, from the sound of it.

      ‘Better trot, men,’ Rhodry said, grinning. ‘Let’s get out of here before they set the dogs on us.’

      Since they passed the farmstead with no more trouble than the din of angry hounds, Rhodry called the squad to a walk. Apparently he was in no hurry to reach the city, for all that he’d called it home earlier, not on such a lovely day, perhaps, with songbirds warbling and the sun glinting on the stream. As they rode closer, Jahdo found himself thinking of the city as a storm cloud, floating nearer and nearer, rising high and dark on the horizon at first, then looming to fill the view. He couldn’t decide whether he wished that they’d reach the city and get it over with or that Time would slow and they’d never quite arrive.

      At length, though, they came to the West Gate, where a sheer rise of cliff, hacked smooth with tools and reinforced at the base with stone blocks, guarded a winding path up to the town. By tipping his head back Jahdo could just see the tops of the towers, rising over a dark grey wall at the brow of the highest hill. The gate itself stood partly open, a massive thing of oak beams bound with iron strips and chains. In the shadows inside he could just make out a huge winch. Armed guards stepped forward and hailed the squad.

      ‘So, silver dagger,’ one of them said to Rhodry. ‘You had a good hunt, I see.’

      ‘Well, we’ve netted what Jill wanted, sure enough. Tell me somewhat. Are there a lot of people out and about in the streets today?’

      ‘More than a few, it being so warm and all. Why?’

      ‘I don’t want the prisoners stoned and injured.’

      Jahdo felt briefly sick.

      ‘True enough,’ the guard said. ‘You’d best dismount, I’d say, and put them in the middle of you.’ He jerked a thumb at Meer. ‘The rumours have spread about that fellow you killed, and his kind’s not exactly well-loved round here.’

      Meer grunted, just once, but it was close to a sob.

      ‘Don’t worry, good bard,’ Rhodry said. ‘We’ll get you through in one piece. Yraen, we’ll wait here. You go fetch Otho the dwarf. I’ll wager he and his kin have ways through this city that are out of the common sight.’

      Although he grumbled, Yraen dismounted and puffed off uphill to follow orders. A few at a time the entire squad dismounted as well, leading their horses through the gates. Opposite the huge winch was a small wooden guardhouse, and everyone drifted over in front of it to stand round gossiping with the guards about things that had happened during their absence. Meer stood stiff and straight, his hands clasped tight round his staff, his lips trembling. When Jahdo laid a hand on his arm to comfort him, Meer shook it off. Rhodry noticed the gesture.

      ‘I won’t let anything happen to the pair of you,’ Rhodry said. ‘That’s why we’re waiting here.’

      ‘It’s not that what does ache his heart. The Gel da’Thae you did kill was his brother.’

      The moment he spoke Jahdo rued it. Even though he was visibly trying to choke back the noise, Meer keened, just briefly before he forced silence. Rhodry winced and swore.

      ‘Well, my apologies.’ And oddly enough, he sounded perfectly sincere. ‘But Meer, your brother was doing his cursed best to kill me.’

      ‘No doubt.’ Meer let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘You are a warrior as he was a warrior. Your kind lives and dies by a different code than we ordinary men.’

      Jahdo noticed the squad looking at Meer with a trace of new respect. Rhodry seemed to be trying to find something further to say, but Yraen came bustling back with three men in tow, two of them armed and mailed, the third elderly with a long white beard, but all of them the shortest, stockiest people that Jahdo had ever seen. The shortest of all, though obviously a grown man, was just his height, though twice his breadth. Jahdo frankly stared until one of the axemen glanced his way with a scowl, frightening him into looking elsewhere.

      ‘My thanks for coming,’ Rhodry said. ‘What do you think, Otho? Can we pass by one of your roads?’

      ‘Up to Jorn, here.’ Otho waved in the direction of the taller axeman. ‘By the by, silver dagger, young Yraen had the cursed gall to remind me about that little matter of the coin. I’m waiting for somewhat to sell at a good price, and then I’ll bring it to you, so stop your badgering.’ He turned, looking Meer up and down. ‘Ah, he’s blind! I couldn’t imagine what you were thinking of, asking us to take a spy up this way, but if he can’t see, then the secret’s safe enough.’

      Meer bared his fangs but said nothing.

      ‘Can’t bring the horses through.’ Jorn stepped forward. ‘What about having Yraen and the squad take ’em up to the dun?’ His voice turned contemptuous. ‘You don’t need twelve men to guard a blind man and a boy.’

      ‘Ah, but they’re wily, wily.’ Rhodry was grinning. ‘Yraen, the rest of you – I’ll see you back in the great hall.’

      Collecting the horses, including Baki and Gidro, the squad moved off, leading the stock up the steep hill. As he watched, Jahdo realized that he was sorry to see them go. Even though he hated each one for helping capture him, they were at least familiar, СКАЧАТЬ