The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [60]
“I do think me she’ll live,” Gwira went on, “be I able to keep her chest clear.”
“My thanks to every god!”
“Ah, but no easy hopes, lad! There be a need on us for caution. This be no light chill, cast off with a few sneezes. It will take many a day of physicking to get her well.”
“Do whatever you can, and I’ll reward you twice.”
“Hush, lad! The matter may be out of my hands. I do think you’d best send Harl for Werda again. The evil spirits, they did carry her off, or so I’d think. Werda, she will ken the truth of that.”
Later that evening Verrarc was allowed to see Raena, tucked up in bed with a mound of pillows under her. He pulled up a chair and caught her hand between both of his, kissed her fingers, and held her hand just for the comfort of her living touch. She sighed and turned her head to smile at him.
“What befell you?” Verrarc said. “Where did you go?”
“None of your affair.” Her voice was the barest whisper.
“Well, ye gods, worry’s half-eaten my soul! There be a want on me to know where you went.”
She turned her head away and closed her eyes. Verrarc laid her hand gently down on the blankets, then sat back in his chair and considered her. Now that she was safe, he could realize just how furious he was. Evil spirits! he thought. Not by half! Did she have another man somewhere? He was sick to his guts of her disappearing on him. When she’s well, he told himself, then will I have the truth of this! If she’ll not tell me, then I’ll—Well, and just what would you do? he asked himself. Throw her out? Lose her forever?
He sobbed once, then choked back tears. The shame of the thing, he knew, was eating him far more than his fear of losing her.
Evandar returned to his own true country to find that Winter had won the battle with his artificial spring yet once again. In his absence the snow had stayed gone, but a freezing wind had brought ice to replace it. He swore aloud in rage and stood on the hill to survey the damage. Every tree glistened in the cold sun, each branch and twig hung sheathed in silver ice. The reeds along the riverbank glittered as sharp as spearpoints. When he walked down the hill, the grass crunched and crackled under his feet. He looked back to see his footsteps, black marks in a silver carpet.
Near the riverbank his people huddled in the tattered pavilion. Men and women alike had wrapped themselves in cloaks and cloths and every bit of stuff that might warm them. When Evandar strode up, Menw rose and ran to meet him.
“The ice, my lord,” Menw said. “It cuts and stings.”
His people moaned and stretched out pale hands. When he’d been making the illusions of bodies they wore, Evandar had modelled them upon the elves, tall and slender with pale skin, though some of the folk had chosen richly dark skins like those that humans wore in Bardek. He’d given them the illusions of clothing, too, long dresses for the women, tunics for the men, but now everyone had wrapped themselves in their heavy cloaks; they clung together against the cold.
“My lord!” they cried out. “Bring back the spring!”
“And if I do, how long will it endure?” Evandar said.
Everyone began talking at once while he listened, aware only of their pain, not of the meaning of the words, with his rage troubling his mind. What could he do? No matter how often he restored the spring, the moment he left, this wretched winter would sneak in behind him and take over again. Yet how could he stay on guard? Rhodry, Dallandra, all his schemes in the physical world—they demanded him as well. He snarled aloud like a wolf. Menw jumped back.
“Have we offended you, my lord?”
“Nah nah nah, and my apologies. I don’t know what to do, that’s all.”
Everyone gasped, staring at him. Never before had they seen him thwarted like this. And what will happen to them once I’m gone? he thought.
Apparently the winter had laid ice all through the Lands, because he suddenly heard distant horns. With Menw right behind him Evandar ran out of the pavilion. The rest of his folk hurried after and stood blinking in the ice-bright