Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [95]
Just past noon, a tribe of Westfolk rode in from the grasslands in a long procession of mounted riders driving a herd of horses ahead of them. The group turned out to be an entire clan, men, women, and a few children, all dressed exactly alike, except that the women wore their long hair severely braided, like Deverry women of the Dawntime. Instead of wagons, they dragged their possessions along behind them on wooden travois. A couple of hundred yards from Dregydd’s camp, they pulled up and pitched their own. Fascinated, Jill watched the organized swarm of activity as everyone in the clan lent a hand to raise round leather tents, unpack their belongings, and tether out the horses. In less than an hour, the camp stood as if it had always been there, a gaudy, noisy affair of brightly painted tents, running children and dogs, and swarms of Wildfolk.
“Now we wait some more,” Dregydd said. “They’ll come when they’re ready.”
Sure enough, a few at a time the Westfolk strolled over to see what Dregydd had brought them. Singly or in pairs, they walked through the rows of cooking pots and knives, swords, woodsmen’s axes, shovels, and arrow points. Occasionally they would squat down and pick something up to examine it, then lay it down again, and all without a word. As she grew used to them, Jill found herself thinking them beautiful. They were graceful and lithe, with a self-possessed dignity that reminded her of wild deer. She was surprised to find that the muleteers, and even Cullyn, looked on them with scorn. That entire afternoon, the men stayed down by the river and played dice with their backs to the proceedings. Only Jill sat with Dregydd in the grass and watched his customers.
When the sun was getting low in the sky, a young man came over with a leather meadskin.
“Good morrow,” he said. “We’re pleased with the trinkets you’re offering us.”
“That gladdens my heart, Jennantar,” Dregydd said. “So we’ll trade on the morrow?”
“We will.” Jennantar handed him the skin. “For your men, to sweeten their hearts a bit.”
Seeing that he knew the men despised his people embarrassed Jill profoundly, but he merely smiled in a wry sort of way as Dregydd hurried over to the muleteers. When Jennantar sat down beside her, the gray gnome appeared in her lap and leaned back with a contented smile.
“Here,” Jennantar said sharply. “Do you see the Wildfolk?”
“You mean you do?”
“All our people know them. We call them by a name that means the little brothers.”
When she looked into his smoky gray cat-slit eyes, Jill could feel the kinship there, for all that the Wildfolk were ugly and deformed, and these beings men called Westfolk were beautiful.
“You know,” Jennantar said, “there’s a man of your people who rides with us. I think he’d like to meet you.”
Without another word Jennantar got up and walked away, leaving Jill wondering if she’d insulted him.
It was getting on toward sunset when an old man came from the Westfolk’s camp. Since his eyes and ears were normal, even though he dressed like one of the Westfolk, Jill assumed that he must be the man whom Jennantar had mentioned. He was not very tall, with heavy shoulders and arms, though the rest of him was slender, and he had enormous brown eyes and white hair that swept up from his forehead in two peaks like an owl’s horns. When he hunkered down next to Dregydd, his posture was somehow birdlike, too, especially the way his hands hung loosely between his thighs. It turned out that Dregydd knew him; he introduced him round as Aderyn, a name that made Jill giggle, because it meant bird.
“I’ve come to ask a favor, Dregydd,” Aderyn said. “I need to travel to Cannobaen, and I’d rather ride with a caravan than on my own.”
“You’re most welcome, but what is this? Are you suddenly feeling longing for the folk you left behind?”
“Not truly.” Aderyn smiled at the jest. “This is an unpleasant little matter of justice, I’m afraid. One of our people murdered a man, and now he’s a fugitive. We’ve got to fetch him back.”
“Unpleasant indeed. He should be