Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [61]
“Would you care for a bit of mulled ale, my lord?”
“I would. These old bones are feeling the damp.”
Otho allowed himself a smile at the jest. They had, after all, known each other for some two hundred years. Nevyn pulled the only chair in the room up to the fire and held out his hands to the heat while Otho bustled around, filling a metal flagon with ale from the barrel by the wall, adding a stick of Bardek cinnamon, then popping on a lid to keep the ashes out when he stood the flagon in the coals.
“I was hoping you’d ride my way,” Otho said. “I might have a bit of news for you. That lass of yours, the one you’ve been vexing yourself over for so long, is it time for her to be reborn again?”
“She’s been born, actually. Here, have you seen her?”
“I may have, I may not. I don’t have the second sight, my lord, or the dweomer neither, as well you know. But a passing strange little lass rode my way this summer. Her name was Jill, and oh, she’d been born some thirteen summers ago, I’d say. Her father’s a silver dagger, you see, and he has his daughter riding with him. It’s truly strange to see a human being treat his child so well, but that’s neither here nor there. His name’s Cullyn of Cerrmor. Ever heard of him?”
“The man they say is the best swordsman in Deverry?”
“The very one, and he is, too. His mark is the striking falcon.”
“Oh, by the gods! It could be. It just could be.”
Otho got a clot of rags and gingerly took the flagon from the fire, then poured the steaming ale into a pair of tankards. Thirteen would mark the right number of years since I saw that vision, Nevyn thought, and it would be like Gerraent to end up with that dagger in his belt. If she were wandering with a silver dagger, it was no wonder he’d never found her in all his long years of trying. Suddenly he felt weary. For all that Cullyn of Cerrmor had great glory, it would be a hard job to track him down. Otho handed him a tankard.
“When they left here, they rode north. Cullyn took a hire with a merchant who was taking a caravan of our … ah, well, special imports into Deverry.”
“Special imports indeed. Here, Otho, when are you going to mend your ways?”
“It’s your people, not mine, who make such a stinking fuss over excises and the King’s tax.”
Although Nevyn was tempted to ride after the pair, by that time of year it would already be snowing up north, and for all he knew, Cullyn would be riding elsewhere. Nevyn decided to carry out his original plan of returning to his home in western Eldidd for winter. After all, he reminded himself, this Jill might not even be his Brangwen reborn. She wasn’t the only soul in the kingdom marked for the dweomer, and the falcon device might well be a simple coincidence. Besides, he also had Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd of Aberwyn to consider. He was as much a part of Nevyn’s Wyrd as Brangwen was, being as Lord Blaen had died so needlessly that night thanks to Prince Galrion’s fault.
Although Nevyn had been planning on riding straight to Aberwyn, he took the precaution of scrying Rhodry out first and so saved himself a wasted trip. When he called up Rhodry’s image in the burning coals of a fire, he saw the lad out riding in the forest preserve of the gwerbrets of Aberwyn—a stretch of virgin forest near the little town of Belglaedd. Nevyn assumed that he would have no chance to meet the young lord, simply because the preserve was closed to all but gwerbretal guests, but even so, he went to Belglaedd on the off chance that Rhodry might ride into town for some reason. There, as he later came to realize, the Lords of Wyrd took a hand in the matter.
The people of Belglaedd and the outlying farmers both knew and honored Nevyn, because he was the only source of medical care that most of them had.