The Harp of Kings (Warrior Bards) by Juliet Marillier

Author:Juliet Marillier [Marillier, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-09-02T18:30:00+00:00

23

DAU

I’m not long back in the barn when the men who rode out last night return. Or rather, some of them return; there have been more losses. Illann’s all right, and so are the rest of the grooms and stable hands who went with them, but the party has brought home not only the bodies of those killed in the earlier attack, but also those of two of their comrades. Whatever it was Rodan intended them to do, it hasn’t gone to plan.

We have a lot of exhausted and injured horses to tend to. I get to work, and I hear bits and pieces about what happened, but not enough to make any real sense of it. Some of these horses went out with that first group of men, the ones who were nearly all killed. The animals have wounds like claw marks, only far worse than anything an eagle might inflict. The flesh around those marks is swollen and red, and I don’t like our chances of getting the wounds to heal. I clean up the mare I’ve been given to look after, make sure she drinks, apply a lotion the stable master gives me. I can’t talk to the animal, but I try to convey a message with my hands. Be calm. You are safe now. Easy, friend.

I tend to another horse, and another. My thoughts go often to Liobhan. What was she thinking, heading off like that with what happened last night still hanging over her? Why couldn’t she wait for Archu’s approval? What if she wanders about in that forest all day and still doesn’t find her brother? And why in the name of the gods couldn’t she explain what it was all about?

Then Illann’s beside me, looking drained and old. “Finish what you’re doing, then come over to the practice room,” he murmurs. “Make sure you’re not seen going in.”

Archu’s back. No prizes for guessing why he’s broken the rules of the mission and called the two of us in. The first question he asks me is the obvious one, so I tell him as much as I can, starting with the prince assaulting Liobhan, then giving a quick explanation of this morning’s hearing, and ending with Liobhan going off to find Brocc. I don’t tell him that she jumped over the wall or that I helped her. I tell them Brocc was following a lead on the Harp of Kings. Archu hears me out, keeping up a steady rhythm on the bodhran to mask our voices. Because I’m speaking in a murmur, he uses the tips of his fingers, not the beater.

“I’ve already been informed about the episode between Ciara and the prince,” he says when I’m finished. “It would seem the regent has let her off lightly, though a public apology will test her. It will be awkward if she’s not back by suppertime, since that’s when Cathra wants it. If this household hadn’t just lost a number of good men, I’d say it’s fortunate the other problem has come up to distract folk from our difficulty.

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