A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [54]
“If he’s that good, he doesn’t need to split his take with anyone.” Keeta came forward and joined the circle. “Maybe we should try monkeys.”
“Smelly things. And they bite,” Orima broke in. “And they leave messes all over. It’s all that fruit they eat. I wouldn’t want them in my troupe.”
“If you ever get your own troupe,” Marka snapped. “You can decide then.”
“Marka!” Hamil and Keeta snapped in unison. Hamil went on alone. “You apologize to your stepmother.”
“For what?”
Hamil got up, raising one broad hand.
“I’m sorry, Rimi.”
Orima simpered and sneered; everyone else in the circle looked awkwardly away; Hamil sat down again.
“I’m going to practice some more.”
As Marka turned on her heel and strode off, she was wondering if she could murder Orima and get away with it. The thought was so strong that it terrified her.
“It is her, O Puissant Princess of Powers Perilous,” Salamander said. “Would the Great Krysello be mistaken over a matter of such grave import? Of course not. I saw her, I tell you: my own beloved Alaena, reborn and come back to me.”
“I have my doubts,” Jill said. “There hasn’t really been enough time, you know, since her last life.”
Salamander turned sulky and devoted himself to pouring more wine. They were sitting in the best inn chamber that Luvilae had to offer—a palace by Jill’s standards though close to a hovel by his—a small room with a chipped tile floor, scattered with cushions for want of furniture. Jill took one of the flat wine cups from him and considered the problem.
“I don’t mean to stir up painful memories.” She made her voice as gentle as she could. “But how long has Alaena been gone?”
“Thirty years. Well, almost. Well, maybe a score and eight.”
“How old is this lass, anyway?”
“Uh, well, sixteen or so.”
“That’s not much time as the Lords of Wyrd reckon time. It’s possible, of course—just not likely.”
“I know, I know, but I keep thinking, ye gods, our marriage lasted but such a little while! She would have wanted to come back as soon as she could.”
“For your sake I suppose?”
He winced.
“Not for me,” he said at last. “But because she loved life so much.”
Jill wondered if she could ever be objective in this situation. Since she herself seemed to be destined to lose every man that she allowed herself to love, she refused to let her own bitterness spoil his chance to be happy. He sat frowning into his goblet until the, for him, bizarre silence got on her nerves.
“Does her family live here in town?”
“Um?” He looked up, startled. “My apologies. What did you say?”
“Your heart is really troubled, isn’t it?”
“I’ll admit to that. I was just remembering when Alaena died.”
He got up and paced over to the one small window, leaned against the sill, and stared fixedly out at the courtyard below. Old grief turned his unnaturally handsome face slack. Jill waited for the tale and his usual flood of words. It never came.
“Does her family live here in town?” she repeated.
“It doesn’t. I did a bit of asking round in the market before I came back here. She is—of all things—an acrobat. One of a troupe of acrobats just come from Main Island.” As he turned back a glossy smile smoothed and masked his face. “Fancy that! I’ve heard of strange and solemn twists and turns of wild and wandering Wyrd before, but this—”
“Hold your tongue, will you? I suppose there’s no harm in getting to know her a bit. But for the sake of all the gods, will you try to remember this? That even if by some bizarre chance this is the soul you knew as Alaena, she isn’t the same person anymore. You have no idea what this child is like. None.”
“True enough, much as it aches my eager heart.”
There were times when Salamander could irritate Jill beyond belief, and this was one of them. For all that his half-elven blood kept him looking young, he was fifty-some years older than she, but although he’d started studying their mutual craft of the dweomer long before she’d been born, she’d so far overtaken him that she was, in a very real though unspoken way, the master now to his journeyman.