Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [149]
“Be that true? She will know the truth of it, you see.”
“I swear it on my silver dagger.”
When Angmar passed the information on, Avain looked up with the most beautiful smile that Rhodry had ever seen on a child’s face, joyful, relieved, and loving all at once, though her dragon’s eyes never blinked the whole long while she looked at him. Angmar ran her hand through her daughter’s hair, smiling herself while she straightened out the tangles. Avain leaned into the touch of her hand like a dog. When Angmar spoke to her briefly, the lass nodded and returned to her basin of water, perfectly happy, apparently, even when her mother rose to go.
“Again we will ask her for some news of Enj,” Angmar said. “Let us be going down now.”
Angmar escorted him to the manse by a path that stayed put and ordinary, but she stopped outside the door.
“I won’t come in,” she said. “I’ll be seeing about my daughter’s food, and I’ll go up and help her with the eating of it. Cutting meat she cannot do. But one last thing. Before I did find you upon the lakeshore, I met Envoy Garin, and he did complain to me about the chamber in which you sleep.”
“Oh, here, no need to worry about that! It’s perfectly fine for a man like me.”
“Some of my servants care not for those with elven blood. I’ll have it tended to and a better chamber given.”
Without another word she walked off, heading for one of the side buildings. Rhodry went inside the manse and found Garin, Mic, and Otho sitting in the great hall at a table by the main door to catch the air and sunlight. When he joined them, the elderly servant brought him a tankard of ale, then glided away again. All the other tables in die vast room stayed empty.
“The silence here is beginning to gripe my soul,” Rhodry said. “I’m used to a bit of life in a hall, I am.”
“Me, too,” Garin said. “It was different last time I was here. The boatmen ate with us, and there were always people coming and going. I seem to remember a bard, too, or at least a singer with a harp, if he wasn’t a proper bard.”
“Was Angmar lady here then?”
“She was, but her husband was still alive, of course. Hum.” Garin considered for a moment. “Most likely being a widow has broken the poor woman’s little heart. A sad thing it was. He was drowned in a storm, and here her daughter was just born by a fortnight.”
“Living in this cursed wind would drive me draft,” Otho said. “Worse for a woman, I should think, all this whining and wailing air.”
“Er, about her husband?” Mic put in. “You say he was drowned? Did they recover his body?”
“They did, and he’s buried over in die hills with his ancestors,” Garin answered. ‘Why?”
“I was just thinking about that beast we saw.”
“Ych!” Otho snapped. “Don’t be disgusting!”
“For a change, your uncle and I agree about somewhat,” Rhodry said, softening the remark with a grin. “Her husband was one of the Mountain People, then?”
“Well, he looked like one of us. A tall man, for us, but not unduly so.” Garin paused, stroking his beard. “He said he was of dwarven blood, and truly, I never saw a thing to counter him.”
“You sound doubtful anyway.”
“True, true.” Garin glanced round. “This isn’t the place to be discussing it, though.”
“Of course. My apologies.”
All that day, and on into the evening, Rhodry stayed on guard, watching and listening for the woman in white, but he never saw her. At the evening meal Angmar ate as silently and as sparingly as before, then left before the men were done—to tend her daughter, Rhodry supposed. After the meal was cleared away, Garin brought out dice, and the three dwarves settled in to one of their tournaments. Wondering whether the prize would go for squabbling or dicing, Rhodry watched for a while, then made his good nights, took a candle end, and went upstairs.
He found his old chamber empty, remembered that Angmar had promised him a better one, and stood in the corridor, wondering whom to ask where his gear and bedroll might be. Drawn, perhaps, by the candlelight, an elderly dwarven woman, her gray hair tied back in a thong, came shuffling along, carrying a punched