Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [104]
“She's gone to hunt,” Rhodry said. “And the harness gets in her way.”
“Tell me somewhat, Rori. Be it a splendid thing to fly?”
“It is, once you get used to it, like. At first—well, I have to confess that I was sore afraid, looking down from so far, and then the way she rocked on the air under her wings was enough to lose a man his stomach. But after a bit, I grew to love the freedom of it.” Rhodry paused, smiling. “Would you like to come with us on the morrow?”
“I would, but I'd best not. I have Gidro and Bahkti under my care. Mayhap one day though she'd take me just a little way, just so I'll ken what flying means.”
“I think that could be arranged, truly.”
“Oh, that would be splendid! To fly above the earth—” Jahdo could think of no word for it. “But often do I wonder why she does obey you, since no longer do you have that dweomer ring.”
“I'm surprised myself, truly.”
“And she be so strong, so dangerous. Why would such as she stay with us?”
“I think we must amuse her, for now anyway. We're like the minstrels the high king keeps at his court. No doubt one day she'll get tired of bothering about us and fly off.” Rhodry looked away, suddenly melancholy. “I hope she stays with us a good long time.”
“So do I.”
As they walked into the camp together, Jahdo began to sing, and Rhodry joined him, improvising harmony in his clear tenor. Jahdo was so intent on their song that he forgot to look where he was going. All at once he felt his foot kick a stone and trip him. He flailed, nearly fell, then caught himself with a laugh.
“Ye gods, lad!” Rhodry said. “Pick up your feet!”
“I do try.” Jahdo tried to look humble but failed. “Ah, Rori, tonight I cannot care if I be clumsy or no. We're going home!”
That night Niffa dreamt that a caravan came through the gates of the city. When she woke, she pulled on her pair of dresses, grabbed a chunk of bread and some cheese, then rushed out of the house. She ate while she walked down the twisting streets of Citadel. At the lakeshore, a scatter of little leather coracles sat drawn up, waiting for any citizen who needed one. For a moment she stood finishing the last of her bread and watching mist tendrils wreathe upon the water. Not since Demet died had she gone across to the town, and she hesitated now, her grief a thong that seemed to bind her hands. What if she should meet his mother or some other of his kin, who all looked so much like him?
“Oh come now!” she told herself. “T'would be a wrong thing to hide on Citadel all your born days!”
Yet it was a moment more before she could make herself choose a coracle. She hiked her skirts up, shoved the boat out into the shallow water, then scrambled aboard. While she paddled across, she concentrated on the town looming out of the mists on its crannogs and pilings, and she took care to land her little boat far away from the weavers' compound as well.
Cerr Cawnen sported two sets of gates in its high stone wall, a grand pair looking south and a smaller set facing east. Although logically Jahdo should return by the east gate, her dream had shown her the southern pair, Niffa realized—something of a puzzlement, and perhaps a disappointment as well, if the dream failed to prove a true one. Well, I'm across now, she told herself. We'll just wait and see. As she made her way through the jumble of wood piers, houses, stairways, shops, and rickety bridges, the various towns-women she knew stuck their heads out of windows to hail her or came out to stand in their doorways and wave.
“Niffa, 'tis so good to see you, lass! How do you fare, my friend? Ah, it warms my heart to see you out and about!”
The greetings were so cheerful, so sincere, that she suddenly realized that indeed, she had missed them too, shut up with only her grief for a companion. Laughing and smiling, she waved back,