Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [184]
“Most welcome. You’re a hard man to argue with. Not an easy man to love, either.”
For a long moment, they merely looked at each other in the fading light. Evandar sighed, turning away, clasping his arms round his knees in such a human gesture that Rhodry was oddly touched. Evandar wasn’t the first man who’d been devoted to him, though he was perhaps the first to admit it. Rhodry found himself remembering Amyr again, and other men who’d ridden in his warband, and Gwin as well, his personal bodyguard, all those years ago when he’d been a noble lord and taken the devotion of other men for granted. Perhaps, he realized, he was remembering Gwin most of all.
“You look sad,” Evandar remarked.
“I am. I was thinking of a man who died in my service. A long time ago, now.”
“Did it ache your heart when he died?”
Rhodry hesitated, wondering if he dared admit the truth.
“It does now, remembering him.”
“Even though it’s been a long time?”
“Just so.”
“But it didn’t then?”
“Of course it did! Why are you asking me all this?”
Evandar considered for a moment. “I just wanted to make sure I understood it a-right.”
“Understand what?”
“Grief. It’s a very strange thing to me.”
“I’ll wager, my friend, that there’s a cursed lot of things you don’t understand.”
“So Dalla always says. I thought I was the master of riddles, but I think me that I’m the barest apprentice, compared to this thing you call the world.”
“Indeed? Well, one of my noble ancestors wrote a book, and in it he said that it was a grand thing to know you’re ignorant, because only then can a man open his heart and learn.”
“But your heart’s as closed as a stone.”
“And what’s it to you?” Rhodry could hear himself snarling. “Why don’t you go ask Dalla these cursed stupid questions?”
“I told you already. Dalla could never bring me sorrow. Even if I were never to see her again, I’d have joy, remembering her. But you’re the one who can answer me the riddle of grief. Please, Rori? Tell me about this fellow, the one who makes you feel sad, remembering him.”
At that moment, Evandar looked so much like a child, eager to hear some tale, that Rhodry gave in.
“There was a man I met once in the worst of circumstances,” he said. “His name was Gwin, and he started out as my enemy, but in the end, he proved to be my friend, the truest friend I ever had, really. That was when I was lord of Aberwyn, and so I could give him a position in life, after he’d had none. He would have died for me, but thanks be to every god in the sky, he never had to. One winter he took ill, though. It was a wasting disease. The chirurgeon said he had stones in his stomach, and in the end, they killed him. But at least he died his own death, not one meant for me.”
“Do you miss him still?”
“Nah, nah, nah, it was too long ago for that.”
“Then why—”
“Will you hold your tongue? Or better yet—go away.”
“Shan’t. Didn’t I give you the dweomer ring? You should gift me in return. It’s only fair.”
“Well, it could well be, but why do you want to hear this wretched tale? It’s not much of a gift.”
“It is to me. I’ll wager it holds the answer to this riddle.”
Rhodry sighed in sheer exasperation. Evandar smiled, a flash of charm like sun breaking through clouds.
“Please, Rori?”
“Oh, very well. My heart’s still troubled because he loved me, and in my own way, I loved him as well, but I never said it, not once, not even when he was dying in my arms.”
“So he never knew?”
“Just that.”
“So you feel that you lied to him?”
“I do, blast you! And I lied twice, because I knew he was going, but I promised him we’d ride together in the spring, when he was well.” He felt his voice break. “But I think he knew the truth of that. He smiled at me, you see, and died.”
“That is sad. That I do understand.”
“Splendid! Now will you go away?”
“Shan’t.”
“Oh, ye gods! What more do you want from me?”
Evandar considered, frowning.
“I want to know what Dalla feels like,” he said at last, “when she sleeps all night in your arms.”
Rhodry could find not a single word to say.
“She tells me that she loves you no more than