Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [159]
“Well, if the winter comes late this year, the growing season will be a few weeks longer,”
“If How can we know that it will be?”
Jill merely looked at him and smiled.
“Well, then.” Gavry swallowed heavily. He seemed a bit pale. “We might have two turnings of the moon, then. But I hope that my lord Cadmar’s allies will have ridden before then to lift the siege. I worry about keeping up people’s spirits, and panic in the streets, if it seems our enemies work magic against us.”
“Just so, but I don’t intend to let things come to that.”
Although she spoke confidently for the sake of his morale and the dun’s, Jill was suffering her own doubts. While she might well have bested the raven mazrak in some sort of battle, there remained Alshandra. Jill had never seen this strange and powerful being, merely heard reports of her, garbled ones from Rhodry, careful and technical ones from Dallandra, but secondhand information, all of it. Jill did know for a certainty that her ignorance of the dweomer of the roads put her at a decided disadvantage when it came to dealing with Alshandra and her followers. Could her army establish some line of supply with a territory far away, thus allowing them to outlast the town’s provisions? What if it was possible for Alshandra to lead part of her army to Evandar’s country and then march them back to dump them into the middle of town? Jill simply didn’t know what her enemy had the power to do or not.
Lord Gavry spent the rest of that first day of the siege in drawing up a plan for allotting food and water. Jill spent it constructing magical defenses. The first thing she did was find the arms master and get a couple of old iron pot helms that were too dented and rusty to be much good in a battle. The blacksmith supplied a small puddle ingot, once a knife blade that had got snapped; he’d melted it down but never got round to using it again. These Jill took up to the women’s hall
She found Carra alone, sitting in a chair by the window with sewing lying unfinished in her lap. Since the lass’s dress hung loose and unkirtled, Jill noticed that her pregnancy was beginning to show. Although Carra looked pale, she greeted Jill calmly, even steadily.
“What have you got there, Jill?” she said, managing a smile. “Am I to arm and ride to battle? I wish I could, frankly. It’d be better than sitting round here.”
“I can sympathize with that, but I’m afraid you’ve got the harder task of just waiting. I’ve brought these old helms because they’re iron and no reason more. You see, the being that’s trying to harm you can’t stand its presence. I want you to keep these two helms on either side of your bed, and here, take this little lump. Keep it tucked into your kirtle at all times. I see you’ve got a table dagger, too. Good. Carry that with you always, whether it’s time for a meal or not. Sleep with it, too.”
“Very well.” Carra took the ingot, which just fit into the palm of her hand. “If somewhat happens, should I throw this or suchlike?”
“Never that. Keep it with you always. Just hold it up, just like you’re showing it to me. That should do the trick.”
Although Carra looked profoundly puzzled, Jill had no time to explain, and indeed, she understood little of the theory behind the iron herself, except for a few vague remarks that Nevyn had once made about lodestones. In fact, beings who exist on the etheric plane but can take on physical form, thanks to the weaving of astral substance, exist in a magnetic field and in a state of magnetic flux, which iron will first absorb, becoming magnetized itself, then disrupt to painful effect. Jill only knew, at that historical point in the development of dweomer knowledge, that beings such as Alshandra and Evandar couldn’t abide the touch or close presence of iron. The effect, she hoped, would work without Carra having to know the cause. It occurred to Jill as well that with all the armor and weaponry the Horde outside the gates was carrying, Alshandra couldn’t possibly