A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [173]
“Acting strange? How?”
“Oh, keeping to himself a fair bit, when he was always the soul of good company before. He used to go for long rides out in the snow, and I think me that’s when his humors started to wither, out in the cold and wind and all. That’s what the herbwoman in town calls it, withering humors. And every now and then one of the other lads would find him talking to himself. Just talking to the empty air as if there was someone there.”
Aderyn felt the savage sort of annoyance that comes from seeing your worst fear confirmed.
“Well, my lord, I ride with the Westfolk these days, but our camp is only a couple of days from here. I need to ride back and fetch my medicinals and suchlike, but I’ll be back as soon as ever I can. Now, listen carefully. I know what I’m going to say will sound strange, but please, my lord, if you value your man’s life, do as I say. While I’m gone, set a guard over Meddry. Never let him be alone for a minute. He’s more than ill; he’s being troubled by an evil spirit, but one of the lesser sorts that walk abroad on Samaen. She must have fastened herself onto him then. It’s the spirit that’s drying up his humors. If there’s people around him—or so I hope, anyway—the spirit will be puzzled at first and leave him alone for a few days.”
Lord Gorddyn’s eyes went as a wide as a child’s, but he nodded a stunned agreement. Out in these isolated settlements, people took talk of spirits seriously.
When they left, they rode out fast, and Aderyn pushed everyone along as they traveled back to the camp. There he loaded up his medicinals, took a couple of fresh riding horses, and rushed back again. Although Aderyn wanted Loddlaen to come with him to study this interesting medical case, the boy—well, a young man by then, really—insisted on staying home, and as usual, Aderyn refused to cross his will. Aderyn was, of course, as worried about the spirit as he was about Meddry, no matter what he’d said to Lord Gorddyn. As he rode, he was planning how to approach her, and how he’d invoke the Lords of the Wildlands to help him catch her, but in the end, and for all his speed, he was too late. He rode up to Lord Gorddyn’s gates just in time for Meddry’s burying, out in the sacred grove of oaks behind the dun.
“Ah, ye gods, what happened?” Aderyn burst out. “I truly thought he had a couple of weeks left, my lord.”
“Good herbman, I’ve failed him badly, I’m afraid. Here, after this sad thing, we’ll talk. Go on into the dun and have the stable lads take your horses and suchlike.”
Later that afternoon, over mead Lord Gorddyn told Aderyn the tale. After the dweomermaster left them, they’d followed his orders exactly. The men in the warband took turns sitting with the lad and making sure that he was never alone for a minute during the day. At night they carried him to his bed in the barracks, where he slept surrounded by other men. Since he was so deathly ill no one even considered the possibility that he might get up and slip out on his own.
“But that’s just what he did, good sir.” Lord Gorddyn looked sick to his stomach. “Two nights ago, it was. All that day he’d been begging the men to go away, and he was raving, too, saying ‘I’ve got to see her’ over and over. They thought maybe he meant his mother, but she’s been dead these two years.” Suddenly he shuddered. “Maybe he did mean his mam, because truly, he’s seeing her in the Other-lands tonight, isn’t he? But anyway, they wouldn’t leave him. So when night came, they put him to bed in his bunk and brought him some broth and suchlike, but still they didn’t leave him alone. They took turns, like, eating dinner in the great hall so he always had company. Sometime in the dead of night, when everyone was sound out, he must have escaped. It’s cold these fall nights, Aderyn. Winter’s coming early this year, I swear it, to judge from the frosts we’ve been having. But be that as it may, Meddry got the strength from some god or other to get out of the barracks and walk all the way out of the dun. He didn’t get much farther, though. We found him not