A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [28]
“From what I’ve heard, the Eldidd men have some kind of trade with them—iron goods for horses.”
“Iron goods? The idiot Blue-eyes give the People iron?” Ufel rose and paced a few steps away from the fire. “Trouble and twice trouble over that, then!”
“What? I don’t understand. The Westfolk seem to want the iron and …”
“I can’t explain. For a Blue-eye you’re a good man, but telling you would be breaking geis.”
“Never would I ask you to do such a thing. I’ll say no more about it.”
On the morrow, Aderyn rose before dawn and slipped away before the village was truly awake to spare everyone a sad farewell. He followed an ancient trail that wound through the barren pine-stubbled mountains without seeing a soul, either good or bad, until he rejoined the road. Even though the fields were plowed and ready for the fall planting, and orchards stood along the road, the houses were few and far between, and villages rare, unlike in Deverry. As he came closer to the river El, the real spine of the country, the houses grew thicker, clustering in proper villages. Finally, after six days on the road, he reached Elrydd, a proper town where he found an inn, not a cheap place, but it was clean, with fresh straw on the tavern-room floor.
Aderyn paid over a few of his precious coins for the lodging, then stowed his gear in a wedge-shaped chamber on the upper story. The innkeep, Wenlyn, served a generous dinner of thick beef stew and fresh bread, topped off with apple slices in honey. He also knew of the Westfolk.
“A strange tongue they speak. Break your jaw, it would. A jolly sort of folk, good with a jest, but when they come through here, they don’t stay at my inn. Don’t trust ’em, I don’t. They steal, I’m cursed sure of it, and lie all the time. Can’t trust people who won’t stay put in proper villages. Why are they always riding on if they don’t have somewhat to hide, eh?” Wenlyn paused to refill Aderyn’s tankard. “And they’ve got no honor around women. Why, there’s a lass in our very own town who’s got a bastard by one of them.”
“Now here, plenty of Eldidd men sire bastards, too. Don’t judge the whole herd by one horse.”
“Easy enough to say, good sir, and doubtless wise. But there’s just somewhat about these lads. The lasses go for them like cats do for catmint, I swear it. Makes a man nervous, it does, wondering what the lasses see in a bunch of foreigners. Huh. Women have got no sense, and that’s all there is to that.”
Aderyn smiled in bare politeness while Wenlyn sucked his teeth and sighed for the folly of lasses.
“Tell me, good sir,” Aderyn said at last. “If I ride straight west on the king’s road, will I eventually meet up with some of these folk?”
“Oh, no doubt, but what do you want to do that for? If you do, be cursed careful of your mule and horse. They might take a fancy to them, like. But as to where, let’s think—never been there myself—but Cernmeton, that region, that’s where our merchants go to trade.”
“My thanks. I’ll be leaving on the morrow, then. I’ve just got a fancy to take a look at these folk.”
Wenlyn stared at him as if he were daft, then left Aderyn to finish his meal in peace. As he sopped up the last of his stew with a bit of bread, Aderyn was wondering at himself. He felt something calling him west, and he knew he’d better hurry.
Out on the grasslands the seasons change more slowly than they do in the mountains. At about the time when Aderyn was seeing omens of autumn up in the Eldidd hills, far to the west the golden sunlight still lay hazy on the endless-seeming expanse of green. When the alar rode past a small copse of alders clustered around a spring, the trees stood motionless and dusty in the windless heat, as if summer would linger there forever. Dallandra turned in her saddle and looked at Nananna, riding beside her on a golden gelding with a white mane and tail. The elder elven woman seemed exhausted, her face as pale as parchment under her crown of white braids, her wrinkled lids drooping over her violet eyes.
“Do you want