Song of the Pendragon (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 3) by Woodbury Sarah

Author:Woodbury, Sarah [Woodbury, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Morgan-Stanwood Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Rhiann

“Didn’t this entrance have a guard on it?” Siawn said as Berwyn closed the door behind them and dropped the bar.

“Of course,” Berwyn said. “That hasn’t changed from your father’s day. I told him that he was wanted in the keep and that I would stand watch until he returned.”

“And he didn’t think that unusual?” Rhun said.

Berwyn shrugged. “Sure it was unusual, but everything’s been strange these last weeks, and it wasn’t so odd as to invite more than a passing comment.” He indicated the keep with his head. “You know the way, right?”

“Oh, yes,” Siawn said. “Thank you for helping us. If I get caught sooner than I’d like, I won’t mention you.”

Berwyn held out his hand again and Siawn clasped it. “Remember my wedding. I’ll expect you.”

Rhun shook his hand too and then they followed Siawn away from the gate, making their way around the darkened huts. They were just like the ones Rhiann had grown up seeing: rounded walls and thatched roofs with a hole in the center to let out the smoke from the fire and let in a bit of light during the day. Most of the doors were made of leather, attached to the walls by several thongs, although some were blocked merely by a blanket hung from the top of the doorway. The lords of Caer Dathyl owned slaves from the looks, many of them. Her father had never held with that, although whether his refusal was out of a Christian-inspired moral imperative (unlikely) or because he feared to find his throat slit in the night, Rhiann couldn’t decide.

It wasn’t yet midnight but the villagers were long asleep. Taliesin chose not to light his staff, but enough campfires smoldered around the huts such that the companions didn’t have trouble seeing the direction they had to take. They passed the first dozen huts without encountering anyone, and then the next fifty without being accosted, just a nod and a wave to one man, stumbling back to his hut from the latrine.

“If you act like you know what you’re doing, it’s rare that someone questions you,” Taliesin said.

Siawn kept his head down, despite Taliesin’s reassurance that nobody would recognize him unless they looked right at him. Rhiann wondered if a person had to believe to make Taliesin’s disguises work. Siawn clearly didn’t trust him yet, despite everything he’d seen him do.

They left the village’s huts and entered the working center of the fort. This area was better lit, with torches in sconces around the perimeter of the wall. During the day, it would be a hive of activity, with a blacksmith’s forge, craft halls, a wool shed, and the long, low stables, not far from the fort’s main gateway. And, of course, the keep. It towered over the plateau on which it stood, three stories high, and higher again to the ramparts on the top. It wasn’t so dissimilar to Aberffraw where Rhiann had grown up, except Aberffraw was built in wood, not stone, and was not so large a place.

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