Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [68]
In the fifth spring, when apple blossoms were coming out in deserted orchards, some chance thought made him remember Gweniver, and once he’d thought of her, his curiosity got the better of him. That night he knelt by his campfire and focused his mind on the flames. Vividly he saw Gweniver and Ricyn, walking across the ward in Dun Cerrmor. They looked so unchanged that he thought he was only having a particularly vivid memory, but when she turned her head, he saw a fresh scar sliced through the blue tattoo. He ended the vision, but once he’d seen her, he couldn’t forget her again. In the morning, with a sigh for the follies of men, he took the road to Cerrmor.
On a day when the soft breeze and the smell of fresh-growing grass mocked the kingdom’s sufferings, Nevyn rode through the gates of the city. As he was dismounting to lead his horse and pack mule through the busy streets, he heard someone hail him and turned to find Gweniver and Ricyn, leading horses as they hurried over.
“Nevyn!” she sang out. “It gladdens my heart to see you.”
“And mine to see you, and Ricco here, too. I’m flattered that you remember me.”
“What? Oh, now, here, how could we ever forget you? Ricco and I were just going out for a ride, but let us stand you a tankard of ale instead.”
At Gweniver’s insistence they went to the best inn in Cerrmor, an elegant place with polished wood floors and whitewashed walls. She also insisted on buying them the best ale with that easy warrior’s generosity that cares little for coin a man might not live to spend. Once they were settled, Nevyn studied her while she told him the latest news of the war. Although she was hardened, as if her entire body were a weapon, her movements were firm yet graceful in a way that lay beyond the categories of male or female. As for Ricyn, he was as sunny and bland as ever, shy as he drank his ale and watched her.
Every now and then, when their eyes met, they smiled at each other, an exchange that was as full of tension as it was of love, as if their hearts were goblets filled to the brim, the liquid trembling but never spilling over to release. The link between them was so strong that it was visible to Nevyn’s dweomer-touched sight as a web of pale light in their auras, formed from their normal sexual energy transmuted to a magical bond. He had no doubt that power flowed between them, too, that somehow they would always know where the other was in the worst press of battle, that thoughts passed between them so instinctively that they were unaware of it. Seeing her dweomer-talent so ill-used made him heartsick.
“Now, here, good Nevyn,” she said at last. “You’ve got to come up to the dun. Did the dweomer bring you back to us?”
“Not truly. Why? Is somewhat wrong?”
“Somewhat like that.” Ricyn glanced around and lowered his voice. “It’s our liege, you see. He’s been having these black moods, and no one can bring him out of them.”
“He broods on things,” Gweniver put in, also in a whisper. “And he says things like he can’t be the true king after all and other utter nonsense. The queen’s half-afraid he’s going mad.”
They both looked at him in expectant faith that he would solve everything. He felt so helpless that their trust came close to making him weep.
“What’s so wrong?” Gweniver said.
“Ah, well, I’m just so cursed weary these days, seeing the land in turmoil, and there’s naught I can do to stop the suffering.”
“Well, by the gods! It’s not yours to stop. Don’t vex yourself so deeply. Don’t you remember what you told the king when he was so heartsick over Dannyn’s death? You said it was only vanity that makes a man think he can turn aside someone else’s Wyrd.”
“Vanity? Well, so it is.”
In her unthinking way she’d given him the very word he needed to hear. A vanity much like Glyn’s, he thought. In my heart I’m still the prince, thinking that the kingdom still revolves around me