“Oh, no, Romilly,” Caryl exclaimed, “You must come in and meet Father, he will be eager to reward you…”
I can just imagine, Romilly thought; but Janni had been right. There was no real reason for Lyondri Hastur to violate his pledged word and imprison a nameless and unknown Swordswoman against whom he had no personal grudge. She dismounted, saw her horse led away, and followed Caryl into the Great House.
Inside, some kind of soft-voiced functionary – so elegantly clothed, so smooth, that calling him a servant seemed unlikely to Romilly – told Caryl that his father was awaiting him in the music room, and Caryl darted through a doorway, leaving Romilly to follow at leisure.
So this is the Hastur-lord, the cruel beast of whom Orain spoke. I must not think that, like Caryl himself he must have laran, he could read it in my mind.
A tall, slightly-built man rose from the depths of an armchair, where he had been holding a small harp on his knee; set it down, bending forward, then turned to Caryl and took both his hands.
“Well, Carolin, you are back?” He drew the boy against him and kissed his cheek; it seemed that he had to stoop down a long way to do it. “Are you well, my son? You look healthy enough; at least the Sisterhood has not starved you.”
“Oh, no,” said Caryl, “They fed me well, and they were quite kind to me; when we passed through a town, one of them even bought me cakes and sweets, and one of them lent me a hawk so I could catch fresh birds if I wanted them for my supper. This is the one with the hawk,” he added, loosing his father’s hands and grabbing Romilly to draw her forth. “She is my friend. Her name is Romilly.”
And so at last Romilly was face to face with the Hastur-lord; a slight man, with composed features which, it seemed, never relaxed for a second. His jaw was set in tight lines; his eyes, grey under pale lashes, seemed hooded like a hawk’s.
“I am grateful to you for being good to my son,” said Lyondri Hastur. His voice was composed, neutral, indifferent. “At Nevarsin I thought him beyond the reach of the war, but Carolin’s men, I have no doubt, thought having him as hostage was a fine idea.”
“It wasn’t Romilly’s idea, father,” said Caryl, and Romilly knew that he had thought about, and rejected, telling his father that Orain had been angry about it; it was no time to bring Orain’s name up at all. And Romilly knew, too, from the almost-imperceptible added clenching of the Hastur-lord’s jaw, that he heard perfectly well what his son had not said, and it seemed that a shadow of his voice, faraway and eerie, said almost aloud in Romilly’s mind, Another score against Orain, who was my sworn man before he was Carolin’s. I should keep this woman hostage; she may know something of Orain’s whereabouts, and where Orain is, Carolin cannot be far.
But by now the boy could read the unspoken thought, and he looked up at his father in real horror. He said in a whisper, “You pledged your word. The word of a Hastur,” and she could almost see his shining image of his father crack and topple before his eyes. Lyondri Hastur looked from his son to the woman. He said, in a sharp dry voice, “Swordswoman, know you where Orain rides at this moment?”
She knew that with his harsh eyes on her she could not lie, he would have the truth from her in moments. With a flood of relief she knew that she need not lie to him at all. She said, “I saw Orain last in Caer Bonn, when he brought Caryl -Dom Carolin – to the hostel of the Sisterhood. And that was more than a tenday ago. I suppose by now he is with the Army.” And, though she tried, she could not keep from her mind the picture of the army passing at the end of the street, the banner of the Hasturs, blue and silver, and Orain riding at the side of the unseen king. Lyondri would not consider him king but usurper….