Page 87 of Tears of the Wolf
Cenric shook his head, indicating he would explain later. He looked back to the raider. “Tell me where you got this.”
“Kyrna!” the raider stammered. “We stopped in Kyrna on our way here and I won it in a dice game.”
Cenric’s fist clenched around the ring. “Who? Give me a name.”
“I don’t remember.” The raider shook his head quickly, then seemed to realize his life was depending on this. “I think he was with Ielda’s crew. They’re planning to winter in Kyrna.”
Ielda. Cenric didn’t know the name, but he looked to Hróarr.
His cousin nodded carefully, watching Cenric. Hróarr switched into Hyldish, probably so the raider wouldn’tunderstand. “He’s a new warlord or wants to be. Recently started doing mercenary work last year.”
“This ring has the name of Brynn’s first husband,” Cenric said in Hyldish.
Hróarr frowned at that. “His name wouldn’t happen to be a common one, would it?”
Cenric shook his head. “His shire was raided in the spring.”
“I see.” Hróarr knew what Cenric did—that only a full-time mercenary who didn’t have to worry about spring planting could have done it.
“They killed her son.” Cenric looked back to the raider.
The raiders who’d murdered Brynn’s son had taken the gold and silver in the estate. That was the way raids worked. They had probably taken this ring, too, and headed back to Valdar. Somehow it had ended up with what appeared to be a random farmer.
Morgi had delivered a sign straight into Cenric’s hands—quite literally.
Brynn said she didn’t dare ask for justice, but she had to want it. Who wouldn’t? The desire for justice gnawed at Cenric and Osbeorn hadn’t even been his son.
Hróarr exhaled a long breath out his nose, almost like he was giving himself time to think. “Kyrna is only a day’s sail from here.”
Kyrna was a southern town in Valdar, but it was still in the far northern sea. That would mean another two days away from Brynn, not including the time they might need to spend searching Kyrna.
Cenric tried to think. What was the right course? He looked over to Anders, standing with his shield slung across his back. “I need you to take a message to my wife, Lady Brynn.” Cenric pointed to Leofric, the village headman. “Your people will take him to my estate on this ship I’ve just gifted you.”
Leofric scowled, but he seemed to know better than to argue.
Anders shuffled his feet, but also did not argue. “What should we tell the lady, lord?”
“Tell her I will be home in another three days from now.” Cenric looked briefly to Hróarr. “I have business to attend in Kyrna. Business about Osbeorn.”
Anders frowned at that. “Osbeorn?”
“She’ll know.” Cenric didn’t want to say any more than that through a messenger. They had no scribe or monk in this town, so it wasn’t as if he had the tools to write her a letter. Cenric would tell Brynn the rest in person.
Brynn
“Lady, riders!” Gannon panted, rushing into the paddock.
“How many?” Brynn set down the leg of the donkey she had been healing. It seemed the little animal had stepped on something sharp and gotten infected. She’d spent the better part of the past hour draining the infection and then usingkato heal the wound. She might have to drain the wound again if it healed incorrectly, but it was a start.
The animal’s owner was a stern woman of middle years who bowed her thanks to Brynn.
“At least twenty!” Gannon gasped.
“Armed?” Brynn washed her hands in the bucket of water she had been using before drying them on her apron. She slipped under the paddock fence.
“Oh, yes!”
Of course they were. And once again, they were arriving while her husband was away. How convenient. “Which direction?”
