A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [97]
“Well, at least you decided to wait for me, eh? I think I’ll have a bit of a meal of my own, and then we’ll go home.”
Rhodry unsaddled the horse he’d brought with him, let him roll, and tethered him out to rest while he ate griddle bread and cheese from his saddlebags and watched the river flow through its grassy banks. He’d just finished eating when he happened to glance upstream and saw something that brought him to his feet with an oath. About a quarter of a mile away stood a thicket of hazels: absolutely nothing unusual in that, no, except that he’d seen no such thing when he first rode up. For a moment he debated the question, but in the end, he was sure as sure that he’d looked that way and seen nothing but the long green swell of grass stretching out to the horizon. Again, he debated; then curiosity got the better of him, and he strode off for a look.
When he got close, the thicket certainly seemed ordinary enough, a wild tangle of stunted trees and shoots, but someone was sitting among them on what seemed to be a rather anomalous oak stump, and while the day was breezy, the hazels stood unmoving. In the warm sun he felt his blood run cold. Hand on the hilt of his silver dagger, he stopped walking and peered in among the shadows. The seated figure rose and hobbled to meet him, an old, old woman, all bent-backed and dressed in drab browns, leaning on a stick, her white hair escaping in wisps from her black head scarf. She paused a few feet away and looked up at him with rheumy eyes.
“Good morrow, silver dagger.” She spoke in Deverrian. “You’re a long, long way from the lands of men.”
“And so are you, good dame.”
“I’ve come looking for my daughter. They’ve stolen her, you see. I’ve looked and I’ve looked, but I can’t find her anywhere in my own country. They’ve stolen her away, my baby, my only daughter, and now they’re going to bury her alive. Oh, they’re weaving her a winding sheet, they are, and they’ll bury her alive.”
“What? Who will?”
She merely looked up at him with a little smile, too calculated, somehow, to be daft. The wind lifted his hair; the hazels never shivered nor swayed. With his heart pounding like a wild thing, Rhodry began to back away.
“Where are you going, silver dagger?” Her voice was all soft and wheedling. “I’ve got a hire for you.”
She strode after, suddenly younger, swelling up tall and strong, and now she was wearing a green hunting tunic and a pair of doeskin boots, and her hair was the color of honey, and her eyes like beaten gold. Rhodry yelped, staggering along backward, afraid to turn his back on her to run. Out of sheer warrior’s instinct and nothing more he drew his sword. The moment that the bright steel flashed in the sunlight she howled in rage and disappeared, flickering out like a blown candle.
Rhodry broke into a cold sweat. For a moment he merely stood beside the river and shook; then he turned and shamelessly ran for the horses. With clumsy shaking hands he saddled his gray, grabbed the lead rope of the bay gelding, then mounted and rode out at a fast trot. All the long way back to camp he wished for a good road and a gallop. And yet, when he saw the camp and, in particular, the other men in the warband, his fear seemed not only shameful but foolish, and he told no one what had happened. In fact, the more he thought about the incident, the more unreal it seemed, until finally he convinced himself that he’d fallen asleep in the warm sun and dreamt the whole thing.
Two days later, on the last afternoon of the alardan, Oldana died. Rhodry was walking among the tents when he heard Enabrilia start keening. The high-pitched shriek cut through the noise of the camp like a knife and sobbed on and on. One at a time, other voices joined in, wailing and gasping. Rhodry turned and ran for Oldana’s tent, shoved his way through the sobbing