Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [84]
“I take it that your tales pay well these days,” Nevyn said.
“They do. I know that you’re always chastising my humble self for my admittedly vulgar, crude, extravagant, and frivolous tastes, but I see no harm in it.”
“There’s not. It’s just that there isn’t any good in it, either. Well, it’s none of my affair. I’m not your master.”
“Just so, though truly, I would have been honored beyond my deserving to have been your apprentice.”
“That’s true enough,” Elaeno broke in. “The bit about ‘beyond your deserving,’ that is.”
Salamander merely grinned. He enjoyed bantering with the enormous Bardekian, though he doubted if Elaeno liked the game as much as he did.
“I know my talents are modest,” Salamander said. “Here, if I had the power of the Master of the Aethyr, I’d be as dedicated as he. Alas, the gods saw fit to give me only a brief taste of the dweomer before they snatched that honey-sweet cup from my lips.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Nevyn said. “Valandario told me that you could easily make more progress—if only you’d work for it.”
Salamander winced. He hadn’t realized that his mistress in the craft had told the old man so much.
“But that’s neither here nor there right now,” Nevyn went on. “What I want to know is why you’re in Deverry.”
“The real question is: Why not be in Deverry? I love to wander among my mother’s folk. There’s always somewhat to see along your roads, and I’m also far, far away from my esteemed father, who is always and in the most perfect prose berating me for some fault or another, both real and imagined.”
“Mostly the former, I’d say,” Elaeno muttered.
“Oh, no doubt. But if I can be of any service to either you or the Master of the Aethyr, you have but to ask.”
“Good,” Nevyn said. “Because you can. For a change, your wandering ways might come in handy. I have every reason to believe that there are several dark dweomermen abroad in the kingdom. I don’t want you trying to tangle with them, mind. They’re far too powerful for that. But they’re also supporting themselves by smuggling drugs and poisons. I want to know where the goods are sold. If we can choke off this foul trade, it will hurt our enemies badly. After all, they have to eat like other men—more or less like other men, anyway. I want you to be constantly alert for signs of this impious trade. A gerthddyn’s welcome anywhere. You just might overhear an interesting thing or two.”
“So I might. I’ll gladly poke my long Elvish nose into the matter for you.”
“Don’t poke it so far that it gets cut off,” Elaeno said. “Remember, these men are dangerous.”
“Well and good, then. I shall be all caution, wiles, snares, and deceits.”
About ten miles east of Dun Deverry lived a woman named Anghariad, who’d been pensioned off on a little plot of land after many years of service in the king’s court. None of her neighbors were sure of what she’d actually done there, because she was the closemouthed sort, but the common guess was that she’d been a midwife and herbwoman, because she knew her herbs well. Often the folk of the village would trade chickens and produce for her doctoring rather than make the long trudge into the city for an apothecary. Yet when they visited, they usually crossed their fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft, because there was something strange about the old woman with her glittering dark eyes and hollow cheeks.
Apparently the noble-born hadn’t forgotten the woman who once served them, either. It was a common sight to see a pair of fine horses with fancy trappings tied up by her cottage, or even a noble lady herself, talking urgently with Anghariad out in her herb garden. The villagers wondered what the noble-born could possibly have to say to the old woman. If they’d known, they would have been appalled. To the farmers, whose every child was a precious pair of hands to work on the land, the