A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [122]
“Good morrow, my lord. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Oh, I just wanted a word with you.”
Nevyn smiled, waiting pleasantly. Pertyc glanced round the room, filled with the rich mingled smell of a hundred herbs and roots and barks, bitter and sweet, dry and sharp all diffusing together in the sunlit air.
“I was reading my ancestor’s book last night, you see, and I came across a most curious passage about the dweomer. It was in the book of Qualities. Have you read that, by any chance?”
“I have, but it was a very long time ago.”
“No doubt. Let me refresh your memory about this one bit, then. The most noble prince was discussing whether dweomer exists, you see, and he remarks that he once knew a dweomerman.”
“Oh, did he now? I think I begin to recall the passage.”
“No doubt. It would be a great honor to have one’s name recorded in a book for men to remember down the long years.”
Nevyn considered him with a small frown, then suddenly laughed.
“His lordship has quick wits. He’s most worthy of his noble ancestor’s name.”
“By the hells! You mean I’ve guessed right?”
“About what? You don’t really think that I’m the selfsame man that knew Prince Mael, do you?”
“Er, well, it did seem too fantastical to be true …”
“Indeed.” The old man considered for a moment, as if he were debating something in his mind. “Here, if you promise to keep this to yourself, I’ll tell you the truth. The name of Nevyn is a kind of honorary title, passed down from master to apprentice just like a lord passes his title to a son. When one Nevyn grows old and dies, then a new one appears.”
Pertyc felt as embarrassed as a page caught in some lapse of etiquette. Nevyn grinned at him in an oddly sly way, as if the old man had just done something that pleased him mightily.
“And did you come to ask me that, my lord, and naught more? His lordship seems troubled. Is it all because of the dweomer?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, good sir. I have much on my mind these days.”
“No doubt. So must every lord in Eldidd.”
If it weren’t for Danry, Pertyc would have told the entire tale to the dweomerman there and then, but his oath-sworn friend was up to his neck in treason.
“Eldidd is always full of troubles.” Pertyc chose his words carefully. “Few of them come to much.”
“Those few that do can be deadly.”
“True-spoken. That’s why our Mael listed prudence among his noble qualities. It pays to be ready for trouble, even if none comes.”
Nevyn’s eyes seemed to cut through to his soul, as sharp as a sword thrust.
“I’m well aware that you and your son have a tenuous claim to the Eldidd throne.”
“I have no claim at all in any true or holy sense of that word.”
“Qualities such as the true and the holy are held in general disrespect in most parts of the kingdom. That’s a quote from your ancestor’s book. It seems he was farsighted enough to deserve the name of Seer.”
Pertyc rose, pacing restlessly over to the hearth.
“Let me guess what you’re too honorable to tell me,” Nevyn went on. “Every friend you have is in this rebellious muck too deep to get out again, and so you’re being torn to pieces between your loyalty to them and your loyalty to the king.”
“How—ah, ye gods, dweomer indeed!”
“Naught of the sort. Mere logic. Let me ask only one thing: are you going to fight for the king or try to stay neutral?”
“Neutral, if only the gods will allow. And let me ask you the same. Are you a king’s man or neutral in this scrap?”
“I belong to the people of this kingdom, lad, not king nor lord nor usurper. And that’s all the answer you’re going to get from me.”
• • •
The great guildhall of Aberwyn was hot. Every one of the long rank of windows held diamond-paned glass—an enormous luxury but a stifling one as the sun poured through onto the packed crowd. A hundred men sat solemnly on long benches down on the blue and gray slate floor, while up on the dais stood a row of carved chairs filled with the guild officers, all in their ceremonial cloaks of brightly colored checked wool. At one end of this impressive line, the guild’s chief scribe snored shamelessly.