A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [47]
“Oh, I’ll heal, little one,” he said to her. “But you ease my heart, you truly do, with your concern.”
When she smiled, an honest soft smile instead of her usual malicious grin, for the briefest of moments he thought he saw true feeling in her empty eyes. Then she yawned, showing her needle-sharp teeth, and lay down on her stomach in the grass to listen while he finished tuning the harp and started practicing a few runs and trills. Since he was quiet and alone, Maddyn lost all track of time that morning; he stopped playing only when his stomach protested loudly enough to make itself heard over the music. By then he could see the sun over the high walls around him.
“Ye gods, it must be nearly noon!”
At the alarm in his voice the Wildfolk vanished. He gathered up the harp and went back inside, wondering if he could find his way to the great hall, but as he stood uncertainly at the foot of a staircase, Branoic came pounding down.
“There you are, you slimy little bastard! Where have you been? The whole cursed troop’s hunting for you, and part of Tieryn Elyc’s guard as well.”
“What? What do they want me for? What have I done?”
“Naught, you stupid dolt! We were afraid you’d drowned yourself or suchlike out of grief.”
“Oh, by the Lord of Hell’s black balls! Have I been that bad off?”
“You have, at that.”
Branoic was studying his face with a fierce intensity, as if he were trying to read every clue that might be there, no matter how small, to Maddyn’s heart.
“Ah well,” Maddyn said. “I wouldn’t do anything that foolish, not when the king needs every man he can get. I’ll swear it to you if you like.”
“Your word’ll be enough for me.”
“Done then. You have it.”
As they were walking out to the ward, Maddyn was wondering how much more grief lay ahead of him in the long wars. Branoic, Caradoc, even sullen Owaen in his own arrogant way—they all meant far too much to him for comfort’s sake. A prudent man would have hardened his heart and sworn that he’d never let himself feel this kind of grief again, but then, Maddyn decided, he’d never been a prudent man, and he was too old to change his ways. Better to lose a friend than never find one, he told himself, truly, much better all round.
In the bright sun they paused for a moment while Branoic yelled at a Cerrmor man to tell everyone he’d found the wretched fool of a bard at last, and Maddyn happened to look up to one of the high towers. When he saw the young queen, leaning out the window and laughing and waving to him, his black hiraedd lifted a little more. At least she’s happy, he told himself, and by every god, we’ll all fight to keep her that way!
Some days after the wedding, Nevyn remembered the lead curse-talisman that he’d found back in Pyrdon and been carrying ever since. Although he hated keeping it, he was quite simply afraid to destroy it, just in case melting or shattering it should work some harm to Maryn by an induced sympathy. Logically, the act of magic that had created the curse should have had no true power, because it fell somewhere between outright superstition and the lowest rank of dark dweomer, yet whenever he held the lead tablet in his hands, he could sense a malevolent power oozing from it like a bad smell. Three times he tried to perform banishings and exorcisms; three times it stayed stubbornly the same. He tried meditating about it and scrying over it, all to no result. Whoever had charged it with evil had worked a spell beyond his powers to remove.
The question was, then, what to do with it. His first thought was simply to bury the thing deep in some out-of-the-way spot in the dun, but since it had been meant to be buried, he would possibly be increasing its power by doing so. If he left it hidden in his chambers, someone might stumble across it or even be actively seeking it. The enemy who had worked the spell