A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [66]
“Surpass me, more like. You’ve got the fluid natural talent that I never had.”
“Oh, please, tease me not and mock me neither.”
“Naught of the sort. I’ve had to work blasted hard for everything I’ve accomplished, while it comes easy to you. I suppose—no, I know—that’s why I get so sour with you.”
“Oh.” He considered the wooden bird with a frown. “Well, that does put a different complexion on things truly. Jill, you have my apologies. I try to control my frivolous nature, but it’s just somewhat I was born with, I fear me.”
“It’s somewhat that could be overcome,”
He shrugged and went back to reining a small burl that resembled a wing,
“Ebañy, I just don’t understand you,”
“I don’t understand myself.”
“Would you please not put me off?”
He looked up, abruptly solemn, yet she couldn’t tell if he were sincere or merely arranging the expression she wanted to see.
“Dweomer means everything to you, doesn’t it?”-he said.
“It does. More than meat and drink, more than life.”
“More than love.”
“Unquestionably, considering,”
“Alas, my poor brother! I don’t suppose he’ll ever understand why you chose the dweomer over him. No more do I suppose that you particularly care if he does or not.”
“That’s not fair.”
He winced at the bite in her voice,
“Look.” Jill tried another tack. “I know the basic exercises and suchlike can be tedious. Why, when I was learning all the proper calls and salutes for the elemental kings and lords, I thought I’d go out of my mind from sheer boredom. But it’s been more than worth it. Now I can travel where I will in their worlds and see the marvels there. But you know about that. You’ve had a taste of it yourself. I simply can’t understand how you wouldn’t want more.”
“I don’t have your devotion to the art,”
“Oh, horseshit!”
“Ah, the silver dagger’s daughter still!” He looked up from his work with a grin, then let it fade. “But horseshit it’s not, my friend, my dear and treasured companion. Jill, when you want somewhat, you’re so single-minded that it takes my breath away. The rest of the world’s not like that.”
“I’m not talking about the rest of the world.”
“Oh, very well, then. I’m not like that.”
Jill hesitated, struggling to understand.
“Well,” he went on. “You had your own doubts about taking up the art, didn’t you?”
“True spoken. But that’s when I didn’t know what it offered. You do know. I honestly don’t see how you could get so far and then give it up.”
“Ah. It’s because you do the work out of love, while I have only duty and grim obligation as my whip and spur.”
“You honestly and truly don’t love the dweomer work?”
“I should have thought that such would be obvious after all these years.”
She knew him well enough to know that he was skirting the edge of a lie.
“Well here, consider this.” Salamander spoke quickly, before she could pin him down. “Wasn’t your father the greatest swordsman in all Deverry? Didn’t he gain great glory for himself wherever he rode—the silver dagger, the lowly outcast of a silver dagger, who put the best fighting men in the kingdom to shame? But did he relish that life? Did he revel in his glory and his position? Far from it!”
“Well, true spoken. What are you driving at?”
“Only that a man may have great skill and talent and not give a pig’s fart about the life they lead him to.”
“And do you feel that way about the dweomer?”
“Not exactly, literally, precisely, or even in substance. A mere example only.”
But at that exact moment his thumb slipped on the knife, and he sliced his hand. With a yelp he tossed both bird and blade onto the wagon bed and started cursing himself and his clumsiness. Blood welled and ran.
“You’d better let me bind that for you,” Jill said. “I hope that wretched knife was clean.”
“Doesn’t matter. The cut’s deep enough to wash itself out.”
It was, too, though mercifully not deep enough to cause permanent harm. Later Jill was to remember that accident and its unconscious confession only to curse herself for not