Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [143]
He sounded so matter-of-fact that she giggled in near hysteria.
“Try to be calm or you’ll lose the vision,” he thought to her, and sharply. “Think of it like a sword fight, child. You know how to concentrate your will.”
She realized that she did, now that he’d pointed it out. It was much the same as the cold, deadly concentration she summoned when she watched an opponent move.
“I was scrying you earlier and saw that fellow poison himself,” Nevyn went on. “No wonder you’re so troubled. Now, listen, we seem to have more than one kind of enemy, but oddly enough, we can turn that to our advantage. Do you realize what they want?”
“The opal I’m carrying, or at least, I think I have the opal. The arrogant little bastard keeps changing shape on me.”
He chuckled with such humor that she felt her fear vanish.
“It’s the opal, sure enough, and I’ll admit the spirits who tend it can be irritating at times. The thing is a talisman of the noble virtues, you see, and they take the virtue of pride a bit too seriously. But, here, has the shade of the dead man been troubling you?”
“I don’t know. Someone was. I called to you because thoughts kept appearing in my mind, and I felt someone stalking me.”
“Then it’s not him. Don’t worry. I’ll set a seal over you. Go to sleep and rest, child. I’m almost to Dun Hiraedd.”
His image vanished. Although Jill did indeed lie down, she kept the candles burning and her silver dagger beside her on the pillow. She was sure that she would never sleep, but suddenly she woke to a room full of sunlight. Outside in the corridor she heard a page whistling, and that simple human sound seemed the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. She got up and went to look out the window. Sunlight poured down on the men who strolled about, laughing and talking. It seemed impossible to believe in dweomer-battles now, impossible that she would have summoned her will and spoken to Nevyn through the fire. With a shudder she left the window and hurried to get dressed. She wanted other people around her.
Once she was down in the great hall, the memory of her fear slunk to the edge of her mind. At their tables the warband were eating breakfast and joking with one another, while servants hurried back and forth. Blaen himself was in a sunny mood, chatting with Jill as if he’d quite forgotten about poisoned strangers in his city. The high officials of his court, the chamberlain, the bard, the councillors, and the scribes, came and went, stopping to bid their lord a good morning and bowing gravely to Jill. Blaen broke up a load of sweet nut bread and handed Jill a chunk with a courtly gesture. She was pleased to see that his grace was drinking ale, not mead, with his breakfast.
“Ah, it’s going to be good to see my cousin again,” the gwerbret said. “We had a lot of good times when we were lads. We were pages together in Dun Cantrae, you see, and the old gwerbret there was rather a stiff-necked sort, so we were always pulling one prank or another.” He paused, looking up as a page hurried over. “What is it, lad?”
“There’s the strangest old man outside, Your Grace. He says he’s got to see you straightaway on a matter of the greatest urgency, but he looks like a beggar and he says his name is nobody.”
“Nevyn, thanks be to every god!” Jill burst out.
“You know this fellow?” Blaen said with some surprise.
“I do, Your Grace, and for Rhodry’s sake as well as mine, I’ll beg you to speak to him.”
“Done, then. Bring him in, lad, and remember to always be courteous to someone old, shabby or not.”
As the page hurried away, Jill shuddered, feeling that the sunny, bustling hall had suddenly turned unreal. As if he’d picked up her mood, Blaen rose, watching the doorway with a small frown as Nevyn strode in, his tattered brown cloak thrown back from his shoulders and swirling behind him. He knelt to the gwerbret with an ease that many a young courtier would have envied.
“Forgive me for demanding your attention, Your Grace,” Nevyn said. “But the matter’s very urgent indeed.”
“Any man