A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [192]
“I can’t. I’ve told you that before often enough. We don’t belong together.”
“I just don’t understand.”
“That’s true. You don’t.” She got up and paced to the opening of the tent, stood there listening to the sounds of the camp. “And you can’t understand, truly, so for the love of every god, let it drop!”
For a brief moment Rhodry wanted to strangle her; then he wanted to weep; then he sighed and knelt down to feed a twig or two into the tiny fire.
“And where will you go, then?” he said.
“Bardek.”
“Bardek?”
“Just that.” She came back and knelt by the fire. “I’ve just time to get back to Aberwyn and find a ship, I think, before the sailing season’s over.”
“And why do you want to go to Bardek, or is that beyond my poor and pitiful understanding, too?”
“You’re still a sulky bastard when you want to be, aren’t you? Listen, you’ve already nearly drowned in trouble for wanting one woman you couldn’t have. Why do you—”
“Oh, hold your tongue! That’s a nasty weapon to use!”
“But a true-speaking, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m going to find out about the rose ring. Or try to, anyway.”
Automatically he glanced down at the silver stripe on the third finger of his right hand.
“Well, to be more accurate, about those letters inside it.” Jill went on. “Give it over for a minute, will you?”
“I don’t know what makes you think it’s an island word when it’s written in Elvish. Here.”
“I never said I thought it was Bardekian.” She held it up, angling the band a little to catch the light from the fire. “Do you remember when you were a captive in the islands? At that rich woman’s house—I don’t remember her name, but I do remember what you told me about her litter boys. Remember them, with the odd yellow eyes, and you were sure they saw the Wildfolk?”
“By all the gods, so I was! I wondered if they had elven blood in their veins.”
“I still do. Look, I’ve been talking with your father about the old days. After the Burning the People fled every which way. We know they had boats. Rinbaladelan—and it was a seaport, mind—held out for a year, time enough to pack up treasures for an exile. Your ancestors—the folk who fled east—were country people; they didn’t have the time or the inclination to rescue books and scrolls as they ran. But Rinbaladelan was an ancient city of learning and every grace, or so the story runs, and you can carry books a cursed sight easier in a boat than in a saddlebag.”
“And after all this time, do you think any of those books still exist?”
“Not unless someone copied them a couple of times over twixt now and then, no—not in the jungles of the southern islands with all the damp and mildews. But if—what if, just what if some of the People reached a haven there, and survived to build a city, and what if they’ve kept the old lore alive?”
Rhodry sat back on his heels and considered the flames. It seemed that he saw towers of gold rise among them, and the glitter of mighty palaces.
“Jill, let me go with you.”
“Ye gods, you’re as stubborn as a terrier with a dead rat in its mouth! I won’t, and that’s that. Your place is here. I don’t even know why, but it is.”
“Oh, is it now? And I suppose I’m just supposed to sit here and wait for you to come back! Cursed if I will!”
“You might be cursed if you don’t.” Oddly enough, she grinned at him. “If you’re going to keep company with sorcerers, you’d better watch what you say. But truly, I doubt if it matters. Run where you will, Rhodry ap Devaberiel, but the dweomer will catch you when it wants you.”
He tried to think of some clever retort. There was none. She held the ring up to the fire again, and the silver sent a long wink of light into the shadows.
“It’s got to be a name,” she said at last.
“What?”
“The lettering, you dolt! If it was an ordinary word, someone would be able to translate it. Between them your father and brother took it to every sage in two kingdoms. Someone would have recognized it. But a name—well, anyone can call themselves what they like, particularly if they’re neither elf nor human, can’t they now?” She frowned at the writing, then