A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [155]
Dallandra smiled, glancing away to hide her stab of relief that no one but her knew just how strange her lover was, and how unnatural a love they shared.
“Well, you know, maybe I should come in and talk awhile. Jill, the time’s coming near for the child to be born. I can feel it, deep in my heart. If I’m to succeed, then I’ve got to make my move soon.”
“When you need me, we’ll go back to Deverry together.” She hesitated, looking across the far valley. “And we’ll pray that this rotten fever’s gone for good.”
Yet even as she spoke, Dallandra saw a shadow cross her face, not some trick of the physical light, but a dweomer warning, as if the dark bird of Death were blessing her with a flick of its wing.
future
How then, you Jay, will I know when the omens are fulfilled? When all the twined strands of Time weave their final knot, you will know. If you do not know, then you have such a measly knack for magic that you should never have studied it in the first place.
The Pseudo-Iamblicbus Scroll
1.
The Queen of Golds
Arcodd,
Summer 1116
“Those brigga don’t fool me none. I know a pretty lass when I see one.”
The girl looked up from her bowl of stew to find the man leaning, elbows splayed and his dirty face all drunken smile, onto the table directly across from her. Around them the tavern fell abruptly silent as the customers, all men except for one old woman sucking a pint of bitter in a corner, turned to watch. Most grinned.
“What’s your name, wench?” His breath stank of bad teeth.
In the uncertain firelight the tavern room seemed to shrink to a frieze of leering faces and the pounding of her heart.
“I said, what’s your name, slut?”
He was leaning closer, red hair and beard, greasy, dabbed with food, the stinking mouth twisting into a grin as he reached for her with broad and dirty fingers. She wanted to scream but her throat had turned stone-dry and solid.
“Er, ah, well, I wouldn’t touch her, truly I wouldn’t.”
The man jerked up and swirled round to face the speaker, who had come up so quietly that no one had noticed. He was old, with a pronounced stoop, his hair whitish though touched with red in places, and he had the most amazing pair of bags she’d ever seen under anyone’s eyes, but her would-be molester shrank back from him as though he’d been a young warrior.
“Ah, now, Your Holiness, just a bit of fun.”
“Not for her—no fun at all, I’d say. She’s quite pale, you see. Er, ah, well, I’d leave if I were you.”
At that she noticed the two enormous dogs, half wolf from the look of them, that stood by the priest’s side with their lips drawn back over large and perfect fangs. When they growled, the man yelped and ran out the tavern door to the accompaniment of jeers and catcalls. The priest turned to look at the other customers with an infinite sadness in his blue eyes.
“Er, well, you’re no better. If I hadn’t come in…”
The laughter stopped, and the men began to study the ground or the tables or the wall, looking at anything but his sad and patient face. With a sigh the priest sat down, smoothing his long gray tunic under him, the dogs settling at his feet.
“After you finish that stew, lass, you’d best come with me. You’ve picked the worst tavern in all Arcodd for your dinner.”
“So it seems, Your Holiness.” She was surprised that she could speak at all. “You have my humble and undying thanks. May I stand you a tankard?”
“Not so early in the afternoon, my thanks. I’ll have a drop of ale of an evening, but truly, these days, it doesn’t sit so well in my stomach.” He sighed again. “Er, well, um, what is your name?”
She debated, then decided that lying to a priest and a rescuer was beyond her. Besides, her ruse was torn already.
“Carramaena, but call me Carra. Everyone does—did—people who know me, I mean. I’ve been trying to pass for a lad and calling myself Gwyl, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Um, well, it isn’t, truly. Gwyl? The dark one?” He smiled in a burst of surprising charm. “Doesn