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By Root 1086 0

she supposed, Rhodry could relearn most of what he needed to know, such as the names of the important men in his rhan and a working knowledge of common law. But something valuable beyond words would still be missing, the extravagant capacity for life and feeling that had always made him as attractive as a roaring fire on an icy night. Although she would still love him, his subjects were going to find him curiously changed and perhaps disappointing. He’s going to need me at his elbow all the time, she thought, and with the thought she felt as though a cold hand clenched her heart. If she were going to continue her dweomer studies, she would need time to herself—hours upon hours of time, and all of it alone. If. She had to continue. She knew it better than she’d ever known anything, that if she stopped studying the dweomer now, her soul would shrivel into something dead and ugly within her just from her own bitterness at being forced to lay her studies aside. She loved the dweomer as much as Rhodry, or was it more? That simple little word seemed to burn in her mind. Until that moment she’d never thought that she could love anything more than Rhodry, her wonderful handsome Rhodry who needed her so badly now. I’ll never leave him, she thought, never! And yet she knew that she could never leave the dweomer behind, either, not now, not after she had at last found her heart’s true craft.

Although Nevyn was dreading the official visit to the archon’s palace, His Excellency, whose name was Gurtha, entertained them so lavishly that it was obvious, without a direct word being said, that he felt they’d done all Bardek a favor by firing Tondalo’s villa. By the time they could make their escape from the feasting, drinking, and music, the waxing moon was hanging low in the sky. Although Nevyn normally slept no more than a few hours a night, he fell into bed as soon as he got to his chamber and stayed there until the noon sun came glaring in through the cracks round the shutters.

It was Jill, in fact, who woke him with a timid tap at his door. When he called out a drowsy “Come in,” she did just that, carrying a tray with a plate of warm soft flatbread and a wooden tankard.

“Ale! They’ve got ale here, Nevyn. It’s not very good, but it’s ale.”

“Splendid! Hand it over, and my humble thanks.”

The ale was weak and oddly sweet both, but as Jill said, at least it was brewed from barley rather than grapes. He sipped it slowly, making it last, while he nibbled at the bread. After Jill threw open the shutters to let in the warm spring air and sunlight, she sat down cross-legged on a pile of cushions.

“I’ve been putting some hard thought into what’s wrong with Rhodry,” she said. “He’s told me things that you and Salamander might not know.”

“Ah, I thought he would.”

“But it doesn’t match up with what you and Salamander have told me. Salamander, in particular, thought he’d never recover, but here he’s actually gotten back a good many memories all on his own.”

“What?” Nevyn felt his first real hope. “Tell me everything he said—Rhodry, I mean. Certainly not Salamander; we don’t have a whole fortnight to waste.”

“Well, first of all, there was his name. Baruma gave him a false name, but Rhodry remembered his own in a dream—a drugged dream, actually, he said, because the Hawks tried to poison him. And then, when Salamander and I finally caught up with him, Salamander tried ensorceling him and telling him that he’d remember who I was when the sun came up the next morning, and by the gods, he did. And then just a few days ago, after he killed Baruma, he remembered Aberwyn and Rhys and what his mother looks like—or used to look like, I should say, because the way he described her Lovyan sounded about thirty years old.”

“Splendid! Oh, truly splendid! This drugged dream? Did he tell you about it?”

“It was somewhat about dancing in a ring with three other people around a fire that turned into a dragon.”

“Red or black dragon?”

“Red. Docs it matter?”

“It does, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that the beast wasn’t black. White would have been best,