The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [48]
“Good idea,” he answered her in Elvish as well. “I’ll talk with Dar. You’re right. We’re all going more than a little mad, shut up like this.”
With that he bowed and wandered off, muttering about finding hot water to wash in. While Dallandra waited for a servant to bring her bread, the man whom Rhodry had nearly killed came hurrying over, a narrow-eyed blond fellow with a freshly split lip and bruises on his neck just the size of Rhodry’s fingers. When he bowed to her, she could see him trembling.
“I owe you my life,” he blurted. “My thanks, my lady.”
“Well, most welcome you are. I’m just glad Rhodry listened to me.”
“Listened?” He laid a hand over the bruises. “We all figured you cast a spell. Naught else could reach him, we figured, when he has one of his fits.”
Dallandra started to tell him otherwise, then decided that long explanations of how Rhodry’s mind worked would lie beyond him.
“You seem to bear him no ill will,” she said instead.
“Of course I don’t. He’s one of the god-touched.” The rider shrugged, hands out as if he were holding some truth before him. “That trial by combat he fought—remember? It showed all of us how much the gods favor him. So it’s all my own fault, what happened last night. I was drunk, I don’t remember what I said, but it’s no matter. You don’t prod one of the god-touched.”
“I see. Well, I’m glad you came to no real harm. But you know, you’d best apologize to the prince for the things you called his men.”
“You’re right. I’ll do it the moment he comes down.”
By the noontide the squabble had smoothed itself over, and as far as Dallandra knew, the gwerbret never heard of it. She hoped the spring would come early that year. The sooner they were all out of the stone tents once and for all, the better.
For several nights Niffa tried to return to the meadow under the purple moon and talk with the woman who called herself Dallandra. Her dreams, however, like ill-trained horses, wandered where the road looked easiest and avoided the city that once had appeared so faithfully. Finally, Niffa realized that mere hope would always fail her. She began trying to picture the purple moon and Dallandra as she was falling asleep, and this technique brought success. One night when the winds howled round Citadel and shut out the world, Niffa fell straight asleep and found herself walking across the meadow toward the great warding stars, burning red and gold. Dallandra sat waiting next to them.
“It’s good to see you,” the sorceress said. “I was afraid you’d decided not to return.”
“Oh, no such thing. It were the dreams that turned stubborn when I did try to force them. Tonight I let the moon rise in my mind, like, and it brought me here.”
“Very good indeed! Now, I need to talk with you about somewhat important, but it won’t make much sense at first. Tell me—you see the Wildfolk, don’t you? The little creatures in the air, or in fires and running water?”
“I do, truly. How were you guessing that?”
“Jahdo told me you always watched things that no one else could see.”
“Ah.” Niffa smiled, remembering. “He did tease me over that until at times I did feel like giving him a good clout. There be not much that our Jahdo does miss.”
“He’s a sharp lad. Well, there are other spirits in the world, bigger ones, much more like men and women, and very much more powerful indeed. They appear here and there and look just like ordinary people until of all a sudden they do somewhat strange or just disappear.”
“Be those gods?”
“They’re not, but a race called the Guardians.” Dallandra hesitated and seemed to be considering what to say next. “One of them has made a bargain with Raena. He’s teaching her magicks, and she’s—well, how to say—well, she’s doing him little favors in return.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” All at once Dallandra laughed. “Not completely. But this creature can appear as a fox or a man. He calls himself Lord Havoc.”
“That be an ill—omened name!”
“He’s an ill-omened creature. I’m