The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [178]
“Is there any salt left?” Mic said.
“A sprinkling,” Lon said. “Here’s hoping you can barter for some. I wouldn’t mind having some butter again, either.”
“There’s not a lot of grain, either,” Lonna put in. “We’d best find some way to trade, or we’ll starve.”
“You know,” Mic said, “I have to admit that sometimes I agree with Uncle Otho’s opinion of this island. If its dweomer is so blasted mighty, why can’t it feed us as well, like you hear about in the old tales? With a magic cauldron or suchlike.”
Lonna drew herself up to full height and glared at him.
“Don’t you go questioning your betters, young Mic,” she said. “Now get that porridge up to little Avain.”
With a bowl of porridge and a pitcher of fresh water on a tray, Mic left the manse and walked round to the square tower. The sun lay warm on his back; the wind that sighed eternally across Haen Marn felt balmy as well. The stand of trees behind the manse were putting out pale green buds along branch and twig. Yet when he went inside the tower, it smelled of damp stone and ancient cold.
With a careful eye on his tray, Mic hurried up the spiralling iron staircase past a landing piled with empty sacks and firewood, then paused halfway up the next turn.
“Avain!” he called out. “I’ve come with your breakfast.”
From above he heard her giggle in answer. He climbed on and came up into a proper room, sunny and bright from big windows, though the walls were more of the dark stone. By the largest window stood a table and a half-round chair. Avain herself was perched dangerously on the windowsill and gazing out. She was plump in a soft and puffy way, with a big round face nodding over a round body, and a tangled mass of yellow hair curling round her face and spilling down her back. No one, not even her mother, could coax her into allowing her hair to be braided, just as no one could coax her into living in the manse instead of her tower, not even in the worst of winter, when this room had felt as cold as the snows outside.
“You’d best get out of the window now,” Mic said. “And come eat your porridge.”
“Avain will fly.” She spread her arms like wings and laughed. “Avain will fly away.”
“Oh? And where will you get porridge, then?” Mic set the tray down on the table. “If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it all up myself.”
Avain giggled and climbed down to the safety of the floor. She sat on her chair and picked up her wooden spoon.
“Be careful now,” Mic said. “The porridge is still very hot in the middle.”
“Avain likes hot.”
And that was certainly true, he thought. He’d seen her eat things hot enough to burn a man’s mouth, much less a lass’s. She gulped down a few spoonsful, then looked up at him. Her eyes were the strangest thing about her, dark green, slit by vertical yellow pupils like those of a cat, and nearly lidless. She lacked eyebrows, too, though she had a sharp brow ridge to mark where they should have been.
“Is the porridge good?” Mic said.
“It is.” She returned to gobbling.
“I’ve got news for you. Do you remember that your mother was going to have a new baby?”
Avain nodded and held her free hand out in front of her stomach, no doubt to indicate her mother’s size.
“Well, last night she had two babies.” Mic held up two fingers. “You have two new sisters.”
Avain laid her spoon down, then held up two fingers in imitation of his gesture.
“Babies,” she said. “Avain wants to see the babies.”
“I’m afraid they’re too little to come visit you yet.”
She stared uncomprehendingly. Mic held up his hands to indicate a tiny size.
“The babies are too small,” he said. “They are very small. They have to stay in bed.”
She smiled and nodded, started to pick up her spoon, then hesitated, her head tilted to one side.
“Avain wants to see the babies.”
“Well, can you see them in your silver basin?” Mic pointed to the big silver bowl that also sat