The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [8]
“Safe,” she whispered.
“What?” Rhodry said. “Do you feel danger coming our way?”
“My apologies. It’s the way everyone looks at me. I’m not used to being hated and feared.”
“Oh well, now, they don’t do that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why would they?”
“All the dweomer they’ve seen lately. Etheric battles, shapechangers, the way Alshandra would appear in the sky like a goddess—too many strange things, too many things they never should have seen. The Guardians live by their own laws, not those of the dweomer.”
Rhodry considered.
“True enough,” he said at last. “We’ve all seen more than we can explain away.”
Her chambers lay at the very top of a side tower; her door shared a landing with heaps of bundled arrows and piles of stones, ammunition stored against another siege like the one so recently lifted. The chamber itself was a slice of the round floor plan set off from the storage area by wickerwork partitions. Straw covered the plank floor, and wooden shutters hung closed over the single window.
Rhodry perched on the wide windowsill and let her have the only chair. Before she sat down she heaped chunks and sticks of charcoal into a brass brazier, then snapped her fingers to summon the Wildfolk of Fire. When the charcoal glowed, she held her hands over the warmth.
“Aren’t you cold there in the drafts?” Dallandra said.
“Not so I notice.”
She was always amazed at how little cold and other discomforts, even pain itself, bothered him; his dangerous life had turned his entire body into a weapon, hard as forged steel. Matters of magic, however, lay beyond his strength.
“These cursed dreams!” he snapped. “I don’t mind admitting that I’m half-afraid to sleep at night. You wouldn’t have a talisman, would you, to drive them away?”
“Nothing so simple. Tell me about them.”
“I’ve been thinking a good bit about it. They have a sameness to them. I’ll be walking somewhere I know well, this dun, say, or the town, or even Aberwyn. And all of a sudden, the air around me will turn thick, like, and a bluish color, like looking into deep water, and there the bitch will be, stark naked and taunting me. She keeps saying she’ll have my head on a pike one fine day and other little pleasantries.”
Dallandra swore at hearing her worst fear confirmed.
“You think it’s dweomer, don’t you?” He was grinning the twisted smile.
“I do. Whatever you do, don’t go chasing after her. She’s trying to draw your soul out of your body, you see.”
“And what then?”
“I don’t know. If she were a master of the dark dweomer, she’d be able to kill you, but she’s nothing of the sort. A poor little beginner, more like, who knows a few tricks and naught more.”
“A few tricks? Ye gods! She can turn herself into a blasted bird and fly, she can visit men in their dreams, and you call that tricks?”
“I do, because I’ve seen just enough of her to know that she doesn’t understand how she does it. Her power is all Alshandra’s doing, or it was. Now it’s Evandar’s wretched brother who’s causing all the trouble.”
Rhodry laughed, a high-pitched chortle that made her wince.
“Tricks,” he said again. “Well, if that’s all they are, you wouldn’t happen to have a few you could teach me, would you?”
“I don’t, but I’ve got a few of my own. I’ll scribe wards around you every night before you go to sleep.”
“Not so easy with me sleeping out in the barracks.”
“What? Is that where the chamberlain’s put you? After all you did this summer in the gwerbret’s service?”
“A silver dagger’s welcome is a short one and his honor shorter still.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’ll speak with the chamberlain for you.” Dallandra hesitated, glancing around. “Here, if you don’t mind a bit of gossip, there’s room enough in this chamber for both of us.”
“And why would a silver dagger mind gossip?” His smile had changed to something open and soft. “It’s your woman’s honor that’s at stake. But if there’s no one up here to know—”
“No one wants to live next to a sorcerer. Which has its uses. No one’s going to argue with