A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [32]
“No,” Nananna said. “I know this is only making your task harder, Banadar, but I’d prefer that you speak to the Round-ears as little as possible.”
Halaberiel shot her a troubled glance, then nodded his agreement.
“Take Cal with you, will you?” Dallandra broke in. “I want him out of my sight.”
“Oh, now now.” Halaberiel gave her an infuriatingly paternal smile. “He’s a decent boy, really, if you’d only give him a chance.”
When Dallandra crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, Halaberiel hastily looked away and made the sign against the evil eye with his fingers. Although the evil eye was only a myth, most dweomerfolk found it a useful one.
“Very well, Cal will ride with me,” Halaberiel said. “Now, about this Round-ear we’re fetching, can you give me a sign to look for, O Wise One?”
“Come to my tent after dark. I’ll give you a riddle to ask him, too, just to make sure you’ve cut the horse out of the herd of cows.”
“Good.” Halaberiel rose, bobbing his head at her. “Shall I escort you to your tent?”
“No, but thank you. I think I’ll take a bit of sun.”
Nananna waited until the banadar was out of earshot before she spoke.
“And why are you breaking poor Cal’s heart?”
“I don’t love him.”
“Very well, then, but there’s nothing wrong with your finding a nice young man to keep you warm in the winter.”
Dallandra wrinkled her nose and shuddered. Nananna laughed, patting Dallandra gently on the arm with one frail hand.
“Whatever you want, child. But a cold heart may find it hard to work magic as it grows older and more chill.”
“Oh, maybe so, but I hate it when they hang around me, yapping like dogs around a bitch in heat! Sometimes I wish I’d been born ugly.”
“It might have been easier, but the Goddess of the Clouds gave you beauty, and doubtless for some reason of her own. I wouldn’t argue with her now that you have it.”
That night was the first in what promised to be a long series of feasts. Each alar made up a huge quantity of a single dish and set it out in front of their tents—Dallandra stewed up a vast pot of dried vegetables heavily spiced with Bardek curries—and the People drifted from one alar to another, sampling each dish, stopping to talk with old friends, then moving on to the next. Dallandra took a wooden bowl and trotted back and forth from alar to alar to fetch a selection of favorite treats for Nananna, who sat regally on a pile of cushions by a campfire and received visitors while she ate. By the end of the alardan she would have seen everyone at the meeting and dispensed wise advice, too, for most of their problems. Someday this role of wise woman would be Dallandra’s, but she was filled with the dread that she was too young, not ready, nowhere near Nananna’s equal. Her worst fear was that she would somehow betray her people’s trust in her.
Slowly the night darkened; a full moon rose bloated on the far empty horizon. Here and there, music broke out in the camp, as harpers and flute players took out their instruments and started the traditional songs. Singing, or at least humming along under their breath, the People drifted back and forth through the light from a hundred campfires. Just as the moon was rising high in the sky, the Round-ear merchant came to pay his respects to Nananna. Since she was supposed to be polishing her knowledge of the Eldidd tongue, Dallandra moved close to listen as Namydd of Aberwyn and his son, Daen, made Nananna low bows in the Round-ear fashion and sat down at her feet. The merchant was a portly sort, graying and paunchy, and his thin wisps of hair made his round ears painfully obvious. Daen, however, was nice-looking for one of his kind, with a thick shock of blond hair to cover what Dallandra thought of as his deformity.
“I’m most grateful you’d speak with me, O Wise One,” Namydd said in his barbarous-sounding speech. “I’ve brought you a little gift, just as a token of my respect.”
Daen promptly