The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [155]
“If you could find out,” Branna said, “it would be a grand thing. Do you remember Salamander telling us that our dweomer was the hope of the border?”
“I do, truly. That’s one reason I was flogging myself to be as powerful as I could.”
“If you could find the root of pestilence, wouldn’t that be powerful, too? I mean, what finally stopped the Horsekin, back when they destroyed the Westfolk cities, was the plague. What if they used a plague against us?”
“True spoken.” Neb looked away, his eyes wide with remembered horror. “We’d better have shields in store against that kind of weapon. I doubt me if this particular bout came from them. How could it? But it was brutal enough as it was.”
“Oh, it was that, sure enough, judging from everything you’ve told me. It’s no wonder you want to study healing.”
“And so I do.” Neb was silent for a moment, looking away, his face slack with old grief. “Well,” he said briskly. “I know my wyrd, and truly, it’s such a relief, as if I’ve been ill myself. I envied you so much, you know, since you always knew yours.”
“What?” Branna wondered whether to laugh or snarl at him. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you’d gotten so far ahead of me.”
“Here, what is this? Did you think we were running a race or suchlike?”
He had the decency to blush.
“All I know, my dearest darling,” Branna said with some asperity, “is that I’ve set my feet on the dweomer road. I have no idea where it’s leading me.”
“Um, well, my apologies.”
Neb got out of bed and began clearing away the remains of their meal like a page. You should be embarrassed, Branna thought. Still, as she considered the past few months, she realized that she might have shared her doubts with him. Both of us were putting on a good show for the other, she thought. Just like a pair of gerthddynion!
Branna saw the actual gerthddyn in the dun later that evening, when she went with Neb to visit Gerran. While Neb discussed his patient with Solla, Branna sat on the windowsill, the only available seat in the crowded room, and watched the candle smoke drift past her and out to the warm night. They had been there some time when Salamander nudged the door open with his foot and walked in with an armload of Westfolk tunics, old ones, judging from the faded embroideries.
“What are you going to do with those?” Branna asked him in Elvish.
“Give them to Canna and her children.” Salamander nodded at the huddle of womenfolk sitting on the floor. “They can’t go on wearing those bloodstained clothes. She can cut these down for dresses and the like.”
“I’d wondered about that, the poor woman!”
Salamander handed over the clothing, spoke briefly with Canna, then gestured to Branna and left. She followed him out to the corridor, dark except for the wedge of candlelight through the open door.
“I take it that you and Neb have talked?” Salamander said in Deverrian.
“We have, truly. His decision seems like a sound one to me. But you know what’s odd? Now that he’s not trying to be Nevyn, he’s a lot more like my memories of Nevyn.”
“No doubt! Have you ever tried to squeeze a handful of water?”
“Of course not. It’ll run right through your fingers—oh! That’s your point, isn’t it?”
“It is. The more Neb forced the issue, the more he failed.”
“Well, I think he sees that now. I hope so.”
“Good.” Salamander reached into his shirt and pulled out a silver message tube. “I need to go give this to the gwerbret. Just as I suspected, Grallezar extracted a great deal of information