Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [116]
“It’s Nevyn! Here, sit down at our fire, good sir. This is Arcadd and Yvyr. Lads, this is the best herbman who ever rode the kingdom.”
Sandyr’s two comrades greeted Nevyn with small smiles and nods of their heads.
“I was cursed glad when I saw you in the train,” Sandyr said. “I’d rather have you along than our lord’s chirurgeon any day.”
“Oh, he’s a good man. He just doesn’t know teeth the way I do.”
“Maybe so.” Sandyr rubbed his jaw at the memory of that long-gone abscess. “But let’s hope that none of us need your cures after a scrap.”
“Or here,” Arcadd said with a twisted grin. “I don’t suppose you have any herbs to protect a man against dweomer.”
All three laughed uneasily.
“Well, now, there aren’t any herbs like that,” Nevyn said. “I take it you all believe the rumors going around.”
“Doesn’t every man in the army?” Sandyr went on. “But it’s not just wild talk. A couple of us have ridden to Corbyn’s dun with messages and suchlike. I’ve talked to men who saw this Loddlaen do things.”
“Do things?”
“I saw this myself,” Yvyr broke in, and his broad face was pale. “Back in the spring, it was, when our lord was trying to talk Corbyn out of rebelling. Lord Sligyn sends me to Bruddlyn with messages. And Corbyn treated me well enough, giving me dinner with his men. So there were these big logs laid in fresh on the honor hearth, and Loddlaen comes down with Corbyn. I swear it, good sir, I saw Loddlaen snap his fingers, like, and flames sprang up all over the logs, and they were big logs, no kindling or suchlike.”
“And then one of Lord Oledd’s men went to Bruddlyn, too,” Sandyr took up the tale. “He walks in and Corbyn says, well, Loddlaen told me you were coming. The men in his warband swear he knows everything that goes on for miles and miles.”
“It makes you wonder what else he can do,” Arcadd said. “Here, Nevyn, if you know herbcraft, you must know bones and muscles and suchlike. Do you think a dweomerman could turn someone into a frog?”
“I don’t,” Nevyn said firmly. “That’s naught but a silly bard’s fancy. Now, here, think. All those tales say that the frogs are just ordinary frogs, right? Well, if someone did get turned into a frog, it would have to be a huge one. You can’t just go shrinking a man’s flesh down to nothing, but the tales never say a thing about frogs big enough to ride.”
All three laughed and relaxed at the jest.
“Well and good, then,” Sandyr said. “I pledged I’d die for my lord, and I don’t give the fart of a two-copper pig if it’s dweomer or a sword that kills me, but cursed if I liked the idea of hopping around in a marsh the rest of my days.”
“The lasses you’d have,” Arcadd said mournfully. “All green and warty.”
Nevyn joined in the general laughter. Jests were the best weapon these men had against the fear preying upon them.
Toward midnight, when the camp was asleep except for the night watch, Nevyn sat over the dying coals of his fire to contact Aderyn. After their long years of friendship, all he had to do was think of Aderyn briefly before he saw the image of Aderyn’s face building up and floating just above the red glow.
“There you are,” Nevyn thought to him. “Are you in a position to talk?”
“I am,” Aderyn thought in return. “The camp’s asleep. I was just going to contact you, truly. Corbyn’s army is still camped where, I saw it last.”
“No doubt they’re going to wait till we’re out of the dun, and then make a try at killing Rhodry. Is Loddlaen still with them?”
“He is. Ah, ye gods, my heart’s half torn apart. What a dolt I was to train the lad!”
Nevyn bit back the all-too-human temptation to say, “I told you so.” Aderyn’s image smiled sourly, as if he knew perfectly well that Nevyn was thinking it.
“But I did,” Aderyn went on.