A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [143]
She looked up to the moon, waning now, only a bulbous wedge of light in the sky and soon to disappear into the darkness. Yet, in turn again, it would shine forth and grow till it rode full and high in the sky—a visible symbol of the waxing and waning of the Light, the sinking and rising of birth and death. Once Dallandra would have found comfort in meditating on such a symbol; that night in the stinking damp ward she was simply too weary, too sick at heart for it to seem anything but a sterile exercise.
“Evandar, I wish you’d come to me.”
Although she only breathed a whisper, she’d surprised herself by speaking aloud at all. There were times when she could summon him by trained and concentrated thought, but that night when she tried she could only feel that he was far out of reach, off perhaps on business of his own rather than hovering near her in the country he called the Gatelands. Perhaps his brother had broken their truce? Remembering the fox warrior, wondering if some peculiar combat was being joined, made her shudder with a sick loathing.
“Evandar!”
No thought, no breath of his presence came to her, yet she was sure that she would know if he was dead or somehow being kept from her against his will.
“Evandar!”
She could hear her voice, the wail of a lost child. Yet she felt nothing but a vast lack, an emptiness where his presence might have been. She had no choice, then, but to face her melancholy alone.
In the vain hope of finding cleaner air, she started for the gates, only to find someone there ahead of her, climbing down the ladder from the ramparts. When he turned round, she could see with her elven sight that it was Rhodry, yawning as he came off watch. In the shadow of the dun she paused, hiding out of a weary reluctance to speak with anyone, but being a man of the People as he was, he spotted her and strolled over.
“You’re up late,” he remarked.
“I just finished with the wounded. By the gods of both our peoples, I hope that chirurgeon gets himself here soon.”
“Shouldn’t take him long. Shall I escort you to your luxurious chambers? I trust our lord found you a clean place to sleep, anyway.”
“He did, though splendid it’s not. One of the storage sheds.” All at once she yawned. “I’m more tired than I thought.”
Silently they walked round the dun and made their way behind the kitchen hut to the ramshackle thatched shed that was serving her as a bedchamber. Since like cats the People can’t see in pitch-darkness, she had a tin candle-lantern, perched on an ale barrel far away from the heap of straw where she’d spread her blankets. When she lit the candle with a snap of her fingers, Rhodry flinched.
“You never truly get used to seeing that,” he said, but he was grinning at her. “May I talk with you a little while? I’d like to ask you a few questions and all that, but I can see you’re weary, so send me right away if you want.”
She hesitated, but not only did he deserve answers, she quite simply didn’t want to be alone.
“Not that tired. Bar the door, will you?”
She sat down on her blankets amid a scatter of her gear, and watched him as he sat by the barrel a few feet away. In the shadow-dancing candlelight she was struck by how good-looking he was, especially for a man who was half-human; somehow, in all the danger and hard work of the past few days, she simply hadn’t noticed. In her dark mood the streak of gray in his hair and the web of lines round his eyes made him seem only more attractive. Here was a man who knew defeat and suffering