They rode into Caer Donn late in the evening, and Dom Carlo turned, just inside the gates of the city, to Orain.
“Take the men and the birds to a good inn,” he said, “and command all my faithful people the best dinner money can buy; they have had a hard journey and paid dearly for their following of the exiles. You know where I must be going.”
“Aye, I know,” said Orain, and Carlo smiled faintly and gripped his hand. He said, “A day will come-”
“All the Gods grant it,” said Orain, and Carlo rode away through the streets of the city.
If she had never seen Nevarsin, Romilly might have thought Caer Donn a big city. High on the side of the mountain above the town, a castle rose, and Orain said as they rode, “The home of Aldaran of Aldaran. The Aldarans are Hastur-kin from old days, but they have no part in lowland strife. Yet blood-ties are strong.”
“Is the king there?” asked Romilly, and Orain smiled and drew a deep breath of relief. “Aye, we are back in country where that beast Rakhal is not admired, and Carolin is still true king of these lands,” he said. “And the birds we’ve brought will be in the hands of the lung’s leroni in a few days. Pity you’ve not the training of a laranzu, lad, you have the touch. You’ve done Carolin’s men a service, believe me, and the king will not be ungrateful when he comes to his throne.”
He looked down the streets. “Now, if memory fails me not, I recall an inn near the city wall, where our birds may be housed and our beasts fed, and that good meal Carlo commanded may be found,” he said, “Let’s go and find it.”
As they rode through the narrow street, Caryl pushed close to his side.
“Lord Orain, you – the vai dom pledged me I should be sent back to my father under a truce-flag. Will he honor that pledge? My father-” his voice broke, “My father must be wild with fear for me.”
“Good enough!” Alaric said harshly, “Let him feel some o’what I feel, with my son and his mother dead – at your father’s hands-”
Caryl stared at him with his eyes wide. Finally he said, “I did not recognize you, Master Alaric; now I recall you. You wrong my father, sir; he did not kill your son, he died of the bald fever; my own brother died that same summer, and the lung’s healer-women tended them both as carefully. It was sad that your son died away from his father and mother, but on my honor, Alaric, my father had no hand in your son’s death.”
“And what of my poor wife, who flung herself from the window to death when she heard her son had died far away from her-”
“I did not know that,” Caryl said, and there were tears in his eyes, “My own mother was beside herself with grief; when my brother died. I was afraid to be out of my mother’s sight for fear she would do herself some harm in her grief. I am sorry – oh, I am sorry, Master Alaric,” he said, and flung his arms around the man, “If my father had known this, I am sure he would not pursue you, nor blame you for your quarrel with him!”
Alaric swallowed; he stood without moving in the boy’s embrace and said, “God grant my own son would have defended me like to that. I canna’ fault you for your loyalty to your father, my boy. I’ll help Lord Orain see ye get back safe to him.”
Orain heaved a great sigh of relief. He said, “Well not send you into danger in the lowlands without an army behind you, Alaric; ye’ll stay here with the army. But here in this city is a hostel of the Sisterhood of the Sword; my cousin is one of the swordswomen, and we can hire two or three of these women to go south to Thendara and take the lad safe there. I’ll speak to Dom Carlo about it, Caryl, and perhaps you can leave day after tomorrow. And perhaps a message-bird could be sent to your father at Hali, to tell him you are well and safe, and to be escorted safe back to him.”