The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [135]
“But isn’t she common-born?”
“She is, but details like that have been arranged away before. I’ll have to think on it.”
Several hours later, it occurred to Blaen that he implicitly believed what Madoc had told him. I’ve seen dweomer before, he reminded himself, but still he shuddered. What had Madoc been reading in the cloudy sky?
Thanks to the rain, the bargemen had hung canvas across the bow of the barge, an imperfect shelter but better than none at all. Jill wrapped her cloak around her tightly and watched Salamander staring at the foaming water rushing by. Every now and then his mouth would frame a silent word or two. By then, her sight was nearly back to normal. The water was merely water; Salamander no longer changed color to reflect what he was feeling. There was only a certain vividness to colors, a certain urgency to patterns of line and shape, to remind her of the splendors she had seen when she’d been bathed in forbidden power. With a grudging self-mockery, she had to admit that in a way she was sorry to lose that dangerous beauty. Finally Salamander turned to her to whisper.
“I’ve just been talking with Lord Madoc. He wanted to know where I’d last scried Rhodry out so he could tell Blaen. Not that it’ll do much good, truly. A speeded courier still couldn’t catch up with him.”
“True enough, but the courier could tell the gwerbret in Cerrmor to watch out for him.”
“If he stays in Cerrmor.”
Jill raised her hands in a gesture of frustration. She was wishing that she hadn’t taught Rhodry the ways of the long road so well. For days now he’d slipped through the net of riders looking for him like a fox through a hedgerow.
“Well, we’ll be in Dun Deverry tomorrow,” Salamander said. “And we can talk with Blaen directly.”
“Good. You know, in spite of everything, I’m really looking forward to seeing the king’s city. I’ve wandered over this kingdom since I was eight years old, but I’ve never been there. There aren’t any hires for silver daggers in the king’s own lands.”
All at once the gray gnome popped into being, not a foot away from her. When she held out her hands to it, it hesitated, screwing up its face at her.
“Oh, here, little one! What have I done to make you so angry with me?”
It held out for only a moment longer, then threw itself into her arms. She hugged it tight.
“I’m so glad you’ve forgiven me. I’ve missed you.”
Smiling, it reached up to pat her cheek.
“We’ll be back with Rhodry soon, with any luck. Have you visited him? Is he well?”
It nodded yes to both questions, snuggling against her like a cat.
“I wish I knew where he was going.”
The gnome looked up and pointed at her.
“He’s following me?”
Again it nodded yes, but so indifferently that she wasn’t sure if it had truly understood. Salamander had been watching all of this closely.
“Interesting and twice interesting,” he pronounced. “But I wonder what it means.”
Although the leech advised Perryn to stay in Leryn for at least five days to recover from the beating, he left town as soon as he could possibly ride. Once he’d tuned his mind to Jill, her presence ached him like another wound, drawing him after her. Yet his longing was tempered with fear, of the strange fellow with the moonbeam pale hair who had taken her away. As he thought things over, he wondered if he had somehow dreamt that terrifying scene where he’d seen clouds of colored light and glowing swords. Every time he tried to convince himself that he’d been dreaming, he came up against the inescapable fact that Jill was gone. He simply refused to admit that she ever would have left him of her own free will; there had to be another man involved, and him a powerful one. Although most people in the kingdom dismissed tales of dweomer, Perryn had always instinctively believed they were true, that indeed there was a thing called dweomer and that with it men could work marvels. Now, to his very cold comfort, he’d been proven right. His