The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [169]
“No need for an apology.” She held up one hand flat for silence. “Haven’t we both always known that my heart belongs to Evandar?”
He smiled, relaxing.
“Just so,” he said at length. “More bread?”
“I’ll have some, and my thanks.”
Out among the elves in the Westlands, winter was a thing of rain and dark skies, not snow. When the summer days became noticeably shorter, the People began driving their herds south. By the time winter had set in they were camped at the edge of the Southern Sea, where there were ravines to shelter their encampments from the wind and enough grass in the cliff-top meadows to feed their stock until spring. Riding his gold stallion Evandar went from one to the other and asked for Devaberiel Silverhand, the bard. Eventually he found him, camped with his alar far to the west of Deverry, on a day when long rains had given over to a pale sun and a damp wind.
Evandar left his horse outside the camp and made himself invisible, then walked through the circular leather tents. Their owners stood around and talked, while children and dogs chased each other, laughing and barking, from the sheer joy of being outside at last. Devaberiel was sitting in front of his leather tent on a cut log for a chair and enjoying the sunshine, it seemed. He was a tall man, Devaberiel, with moonbeam-pale hair and long elven ears, but anyone who knew Rhodry as well as Evandar did could see the resemblance between them.
When Evandar stepped back into visibility, Devaberiel leapt to his feet with a yelp, but when he spoke, his voice held steady.
“That’s a rude way to introduce yourself,” the bard said. “Although truly, I think me we’ve met before.”
“So we have, a very long time ago, when you’d just finished your apprenticeship. I gave you a gift.”
“The rose ring.” Devaberiel turned away and spat as if the words festered in his mouth. “I’ll never forget the cursed thing.”
“What? Now whose manners need mending? That’s a fine way to treat a gift from a Guardian.”
“I don’t care. You’ve lost me two of my sons with your poisoned trinket. Isn’t that reason enough for an old man’s rage, that he’s lost two of his sons and him in need of them to cheer his last days?”
“Oh come now, you don’t look a day over three hundred!”
Devaberiel crossed his arms over his chest and glared.
“My dear bard,” Evandar went on. “I meant no harm when I gave you that dweomer-token.”
“But harm it’s brought and grief as well. Your blasted rose ring drove Rhodry far away, back into the lands of men. Come to think of it, it was your Alshandra who chased him there!”
“Imph, well, I can’t deny it, though she’s no longer my wife, I assure you. But what of the other boy?”
“When he was seeking out his brother to give him the ring, Ebañy travelled to Bardek, and there he fell in love with the woman who keeps him there still, or so I heard a long while back.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t deny that, either. But here, can’t we lay old griefs aside and—”
“No! We most emphatically cannot. What do you want with me, anyway?”
“I need lore, and I’ve been told you know the lore I need. It’s about the Great Burning.”
“Well, I have that lore, yes. I’ve collected more of it than any other bard alive, I’ll wager. But I’ll not be giving you one blasted scrap of it.”
“But it’s for the good of your people—”
“My people are a dying race, and soon I shall die with them, alone with my grief for my missing sons.” Devaberiel turned away with a sweeping gesture and laid one hand over his eyes. “I wish to see no more.”
Evandar felt like shaking him, but instead he considered what Dallandra would do in this circumstance. In Deverry, bards often performed for gifts—a jewel from a rich lord, or coins, or even a mere meal if they were down on their luck.
“Here, good bard,” Evandar said. “What if I give you a gift in return for your knowledge? What would please you?”
“Surely that’s perfectly clear by now.”
“Rhodry has a Wyrd that I can’t change, but Ebañy—now, him I can