A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [175]
During all this time Rhodry found himself drawn to Jill in spite of all his best efforts to leave her alone. He had never wanted to lose her, had always planned, from the moment he first met her, to spend his entire life in her company, and now that he’d found her again—or so he thought of it—all that old devotion came back in the same way as a fire, banked with sod for the night, flares up when a servant knocks the lumps of earth aside and lets the fresh air in. He found himself courting her as if she were a young lass, turning up at her side whenever she went walking, bringing her flowers, angling to sit next to her at every communal meal. Although she was mostly cold to him, every now and then she warmed, when they were talking about something they’d done or someone they’d known, all those years ago in his other life on a silver dagger’s long road.
One morning, when Rhodry went looking for Jill in his usual way, he found her sitting on the streambank near Aderyn’s tent. Apparently she’d just bathed, because she was combing her wet hair while Salamander sat with her and talked. When Rhodry joined them, his brother turned to him.
“I’m going to leave today and go look for our father. Obviously Cal’s messengers haven’t caught up with him yet, and I can just see us all wandering back and forth across the grasslands for years and years, passing close by but never meeting, endlessly wondering where the other one is—that sort of thing.”
“I was beginning to worry myself, and you have my thanks, but maybe I should just go with you. I’m the one who wants to see him, after all.”
“Aderyn says your place is here,” Jill broke in. “He doesn’t want you wandering all over the grasslands just yet.”
“Very well, but why not?”
“He didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, I’d like to know—”
“Hold up, brother of mine.” Salamander intervened. “Among the People we have a custom. What a Wise One—a dweomermaster, that is—says, we do. That’s one reason why I’ve never aspired to that exalted title myself. Some small dweomer I have, but the wisdom to lead my people—well, I’d just as soon not put myself to the test.”
“Which shows,” Jill said. “That you have a little bit of wisdom at least.” She rose, still holding the bone comb. “I’m going back to camp.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Rhodry started to get up, but she scowled and waved him back down.
“Would you stop following me everywhere?”
“Oh, here, my love—”
“Never call me that again.”
There was the crack of command in her voice, so cold, so harsh that he sat down and said nothing, merely watched her walk away while Salamander pretended to look elsewhere.
“Ah well,” Salamander said at last. “I’m going to take a packhorse with me. Going to come help me load up?”
“Of course. Let’s go get the parting over with, shall we?”
“Ah, you’re beginning to think like an elf, sure enough.”
On the morrow, Rhodry went riding by himself out to the edge of the wild plains, very much like a green sea indeed, with the grass bowing and sighing like waves under the touch of the wind. For a long time he sat on his horse in the hot spring sun, watched the grass ripple, and thought of very little. All at once he realized that he could no longer remember his name. He swore, slapped his thigh hard with the reins, shook his head and swore again, but the name stayed stubbornly hidden until in frustration he started back toward camp.
“Rhodry Maelwaedd,” he said aloud, then laughed. “Or it isn’t truly Maelwaedd—never truly was—and I suppose that’s one reason I couldn’t remember. But Rhodry ap Devaberiel still sounds passing strange to me. What do you think? Which one should I use?”
The horse snorted and tossed its head as if to say it didn’t care either way.
When he rode back to camp he found Calonderiel waiting