The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [57]
“I have perfect faith in Your Holiness’s judgment.”
“My thanks. You may, however, count on the northern temples for any aid we can render you. Ah, at times I feel so weary! We’re talking of a plan that will take many years, but who better to start a plan than old men who have the wisdom to pick the young men to finish it?”
“Just so. I take it none of the priesthood in the Holy City will be consulted?”
Olaedd smiled, answering the question the only way such things can be answered: by silence.
Late in the autumn, when the trees stood stark beside the road and the morning sky smelled of snow, Nevyn returned to Brin Toraedic. Since the caves were musty and damp from being shut up so long, he lit fires and sent the air elementals sweeping through the chambers to cleanse the fetid air, then took his mule and went down to the village to buy food. When he rode in, everyone ran over to greet him. They all knew what his real work was and were proud to have something that no other village did, or at least, none that they knew of: their own local sorcerer. While he packed up some cheese, a ham, and barley for porridge, Nevyn also heard the summer’s worth of gossip, much of which concerned Belyan, big with a bastard child and not telling a soul who the father was. When Nevyn took his stock over to the blacksmith’s to be reshod, the smith’s wife, Ygraena, invited him in for a drop of ale.
“Have you seen our Belyan yet?” she remarked, ever so casually.
“I knew about the child before I left. I’ll be going out to the farm to buy dried apples, so I’ll see how she fares then.”
“I’ve no doubt she’ll have an easy time of it. I’ll admit to being ever so envious of the way she has hers, just like a cat.” She hesitated, her eyes as shrewd as ever Olaedd’s were. “Here, good Nevyn, some people are saying that she got this child from one of your spirits.”
When he laughed so hard that he choked on his ale, Ygraena looked bitterly disappointed: such a lovely theory, and all exploded.
“I assure you that the lad was real flesh and blood, and hot enough blood at that, judging from what’s happened to Bell. If she’s keeping her own counsel about it, well, she always was a close-mouthed lass.”
Belyan had the baby just four days later. Nevyn was sweeping out his caves when the oldest lad came running to tell him that Mam was starting to have the new baby. By the time he packed a few herbs and rode down, Ygraena’s prediction had come true: Bell’s new son was already born, and an easy time he had coming, too. While the midwife washed the babe and got Belyan comfortable, Nevyn and Bannyc sat by the fire.
“And how do you feel about this new cub in the litter?” Nevyn said.
“Well, I wish she would have married some lad if she wanted a babe that bad, but Bell was always too headstrong for me to handle. He’s healthy, the midwife says, and so he’s welcome enough. You can always use another pair of hands around a farm.”
With a deep heave of a sigh, Bannyc went out to tend his goats. Nevyn stretched his feet out to the warmth of the fire and thought of Maddyn. Quickly enough his image grew in the fire, a tiny figure at first, then swelling until Nevyn could comfortably see the entire scene around him. Maddyn was sitting in a dirty tavern room with about a dozen other men, all of them drinking hard and laughing. At their belts each had a dagger with an identical pommel decorated with three silver balls. When one of the men idly drew his to gouge a splinter out of the table, Nevyn could see that it was some peculiar metal, a kind of silver, he thought, but the vision was not sharp or detailed enough for him to be sure. What did seem obvious was that Maddyn had found himself a place in a mercenary troop. Nevyn’s first thought was pity; then it occurred to him that such a troop, one with no fixed loyalties, might be very useful for the work he had ahead. He made a mental