The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage by Katharine Kerr Page B

while he considered.
    “You’re right,” he said at last. “It’s perfectly clear, now that you’ve explained it. I don’t know why, but I just can’t seem to grasp things like omens.”
    “You don’t need to. You have me.”
    They shared a smile. In the hearth the fire showered sparks as a log burned through and fell. Burcan rose, then strode over to take wood from the basket and lay it upon the flames. For a moment he stood watching it burn.
    “Any idea of who this enemy might be?” he said.
    “Not yet. You’re right about the envy. There are a lot of clans with reason to hate us. I just hadn’t realized how deep the hatred must run.”
    “I’ll think about it. A wyvern, was it? Someone with a touch of royal blood themselves, maybe.”
    “There! You’re beginning to puzzle this out.”
    “Am I? Maybe so. Don’t know if I like it, though. That so-called scribe of yours—are you sure we can trust him?”
    “I don’t know. He came to me for the coin, and if someone offered him more, I can’t swear he wouldn’t change his loyalties.”
    “Thought so. I don’t like the man.”
    “Why?”
    “He comes from the south coast, doesn’t he?”
    “Not truly. He’s from the northern lands, though he did live for some years in Cerrmor.”
    “Still! How do you know he isn’t a Cerrmor spy?”
    “I have ways to tell when someone’s lying, as you know perfectly well. There’s somewhat else, isn’t there?”
    Burcan scowled at the floor.
    “I don’t like the way he treats you,” he said at last.
    “What? He’s always courteous.”
    Burcan raised his head and looked at her. His eyes searched her face, probing for some secret. Merodda stood with a little laugh.
    “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of poor Brour.”
    “I don’t like the way he’s always in your company.”
    When Burcan rose to join her, she laid one hand flat on his chest and looked up, smiling at him. In a moment he laid his hand over hers.
    “My dear brother,” she said. “He’s little and ugly. You’ve got no reason to vex yourself on his account.”
    “Good. And the moment you think he might turn disloyal, tell me. I’ll have the matter taken care of.”
    Travelling with Gwerbret Daeryc’s entourage, his attendant lords and their joined warbands, plus their servants and retainers, was no speedy thing, especially with carts along and a herd of extra horses. Rather than jounce around in a cart with the maidservants, Bevyan wore a pair of her son’s old brigga under her dresses and rode her palfrey, as did Sarra. In the long line of march they travelled just behind the noble lords, although at times Peddyc would drop back and ride beside Bevyan for a few miles. It was pleasant, riding in the spring weather through the ripening winter wheat and the apple trees, heavy with blossoms, so pleasant that Bevyan found herself remembering the first days of her marriage, when she and Peddyc would ride together around his lands, alone except for a page trailing at a discreet distance. They had brought such a shock, those days, when she realized that she’d been married to a man that she would learn to love.
    Now of course her lord, his hair streaked with grey, rode grim and silent, and behind them came what of an army he and his overlord could muster.
    Along the way the entourage planned to shelter at the duns of various lords who owed men to either the tieryn or the gwerbret, but they found their plans changed for them. Their first night, when they came to the dun of a certain lord Daryl, they found it empty. Not a chicken pecked out in the ward, not a servant stood in the broch. While Daeryc and the men waited out in the ward, Bevyan followed Peddyc through rooms stripped bare.
    “They even took the furniture,” Bevyan said. “Even the bedsteads. It’ll be a long hard haul of it they’ll have, getting those all the way to Cerrmor.”
    Peddyc nodded, glancing around what had once been the lord and lady’s bedchamber. All at