A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [156]
“You don’t seem foolish in the least.”
“Ah, that’s because you don’t know me very well. You probably never will, seeing as you must be going somewhere in a great hurry if you’d ride with only a lie for company.” He paused, frowning at the far wall. “Have to do somewhat about that, you traveling alone, I mean. Are you going to eat that stew?”
“I’m not. I’m not hungry anymore, and I’ve already picked one roach out of it. Will the dogs want it?”
“Mayhap, but it’ll make them sick. Come with me.”
When he got up and headed for the door, Carra grabbed her cloak from the bench and hurried after, her head as high as she could hold it as she passed the men by the fire. Outside, drowsy in the hot spring sun, her horse stood tied to the hitching rail in front of the round tavern. A purebred Western Hunter, he was a pale buckskin gelding.
“It was the horse that made me go in,” Perryn said. “I wondered who’d have a horse like that, you see. You shouldn’t just leave him tied up like that in this part of the world. Um, well, he could get stolen.”
“Oh, he’ll kick the demons out of anyone but me who comes near him. I’m the only person who could ever touch him, much less ride him. That’s why he’s mine.”
“Ah. Your father give him to you?”
“My elder brother.” Try as she might to hide it, bitterness crept into her voice and tightened it down. “He’s the head of our clan now.”
“Ah. Then you are noble-born. I, er, um, rather thought so.”
She felt her cheeks burn with a blush.
“Truly, you’re not much of a liar, Carra. Well, fetch your horse and come along. Do you like dogs?”
“I do. Why?”
“I’ve got a pair to give you at home. If they like you, and I truly do think they will, they’ll take care of you on the road.” He sighed in a profound melancholy. “I’ve got such a lot of them. Cats, too. We always had cats, my wife and I. She’s dead now, you see. Died over the winter.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So am I. Well, I’ll be joining her soon, I hope, if Kerun wills it. He should. I really am getting on in years. No use in outstaying your welcome, is there?”
Since Carra was only sixteen, she had no idea of what to say to his melancholy and busied herself with untying her horse. He stood staring blank-eyed up the street, as if he were talking to his god in his mind, while the dogs wagged quietly beside him.
The priest’s house lay just beyond the village. He pushed open a gate in an earthen wall and led her into a muddy farmyard, where chickens scratched in front of a big thatched roundhouse. Cats and puppies lolled in every patch of shade: under the pair of apple trees, under a watering trough, under a battered old wagon. With a cheerful halloo a stout, red-faced woman of about forty came out the front door.
“There you are, Da. Brought a visitor? You’re just in time for your dinner.”
“Good, and my thanks, Braema.” The priest glanced at Carra. “My youngest daughter. She’s the only… well, er, ah, only truly human one of the lot.”
At that Braema laughed in gut-shaking amusement. Carra dutifully smiled, suspecting some hoary family joke.
“There’s lots of sliced ham and some lovely greens, lass, so come right in. Oh, wait—your horse.” She turned in the door and bellowed. “Nedd, come out here, will you? Got a guest, and her horse needs water and some shade.”
In a moment or so a young man slipped out of the door behind her and stood blinking in the sun. As slender and lithe as a young cat, he was just about five feet tall, a good head shorter than Carra, with hair as coppery red as a sunset, and a pinched face dominated by two enormous green eyes. When he yawned, his intensely pink tongue curled up like a cat’s.
“Braema’s lad, my grandson,” Perryn said with a long sigh. “And, um, well, fairly typical of the lot. Of my offspring, I mean.”
With a duck of his head Nedd glided over and took the buckskin’s reins. Carra reached out to stop him, but the gelding lowered his head and allowed the boy to rub his ears without his usual rolling eye and threat of teeth.
“His name