Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [125]
“They remember me, they do remember me!”
He sat on a straw mattress and let the ferrets clamber over him. Smiling, Niffa turned away and went to help her mother lay out dinner.
In the big room the fire was crackling in the hearth, and light danced over the walls. Dera had hung a pot of water from the hook over the hearth; she stood at the table cutting up chunks of salt pork and the flabby last of the winter's carrots. Niffa opened the big standing crock and scooped pounded grains of parched wheat into a bowl. When the water boiled she would slide the grain into the pot for a meal half stew and half porridge. Kiel and Lael sat down at the table, each with a tankard of ale.
“I do suppose we'll have a powerful large crowd in here tonight,” Lael remarked.
“Most like, Da,” Kiel said.
And once the crowd came, when would she get a private word with her mother? Niffa realized that she could no longer put off the truth.
“Mam?” she said. “There be a need on me to tell you somewhat.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kiel put down his tankard and turn on the bench to listen. With a vague smile Dera looked up from her chopping. Niffa saw no way but blurting.
“The time be upon me to leave you,” Niffa said, “to follow the witchroad. Werda did tell me this, and ye gods, we all know how strange a child I was, and the dreams I do have and suchlike.”
Dera let the knife slip from her fingers and fall onto the table. She looked as if she were about to speak, but she stayed silent, her eyes brimming tears.
“Ah, Mam! I do hate to tell you this!” Niffa felt her own her lips trembling. “But Werda did say that there's a need on me to follow my destiny, and—”
“I care not what Werda told you!” Dera's voice was shaking badly.
“But she speaks true. My heart does shout the same truth. And the woman with silver hair, Dallandra her name be, the gods do mean her for my teacher.”
“What? How can you say such things! Have you not but met her? And how do you know she has the lore? Mayhap she be some charlatan—”
“She's not. I did meet her months before this, Mam, in my dreams, my true dreams. Dallandra, she be a master of the witchroad.”
“Oh what drivel you speak! I'll not hear it in my house!”
“Mam, she speaks the simple truth.” Jahdo was standing in the doorway with Tek-Tek snuggled in his arms. “This year past have I seen things that never did I know existed, and some of them Dallandra did work, spells and suchlike. In the Slavers' country they do call it dweomer.”
Dera spun round to glare at him.
“Soon I'll tell you my tales,” Jahdo went on, “and then know you'll what I do. I did go a long long way away, and truly, the whole world be a wider place than any of us did ever dream.”
Dera turned her back on all of them, her shoulders shaking under her thin dresses. Niffa could keep her composure no longer. She rushed to her mother, threw her arms around her, and wept. Dimly she was aware of Lael getting up and walking over. He laid one gentle hand on Niffa's shoulder and the other on Dera's.
“No man or woman either can argue with their Wyrd,” Lael said. “Here, here, Dera my love, in our heart of hearts we always did know this day would come.”
With that Niffa could choke back her tears. She let her mother go and stepped back, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, while Lael put an arm around Dera's shoulders and led her out into the twilit alleyway. She could hear his soft voice murmuring, but she couldn't make out the words. Kiel sat at the table as if he'd been carved out of the same wood,