The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [98]
“I’ll share the news when I return, fear not!”
Kov puffed up the stairs and met the messenger, who turned out to be his cousin Jorn. The Haen Marn party had been put up in the foreign envoy’s quarters.
“Because of the giant,” Jorn told him. “By Gonn’s hairy cock, I’ve seen some tall Deverry men, but this one’s the biggest yet! Anyway, Enj’s sister wouldn’t let us keep him outside, so we compromised. ”
“Good, good. I take it the island’s found its way home, then.”
“Enj will tell you all about it. He thinks Westfolk dweomer brought it back.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s right.”
Jorn stared at him in stunned disbelief. Kov smiled and continued up the stairs.
At the top of the cliff, they crossed the broad landing and walked through Lin Serr’s steel-clad doors to the circular entrance hall. A small crowd had gathered on the mosaic floor. Enj and a couple of guards from the upper plateau hovered over a frail elderly man in a carrying chair. Nearby, a man named Mic that Kov faintly remembered from many years past stood with his arm around Vron. Vron, Kov remembered more clearly, a man always in mourning for his son, killed by Horsekin—or so everyone had believed. Now Vron was grinning as if his face would split from having that son restored to him.
The red-haired giant, wrapped in a plaid blanket, towered above them all, including the most beautiful girl Kov had ever seen, or so he thought her at that moment. She was tall for a Mountain Woman, just his own height, slender, with raven-dark hair, dark blue eyes, and high cheekbones. Much to Kov’s annoyance, the red-haired giant was resting one huge hand on her shoulder in a proprietary gesture.
“There’s Kov!” Enj called out. “Kov, this is my half sister Berwynna. Wynni, this is another cousin of ours.”
“But a distant one,” Kov said hastily. He wanted to avoid any chance of her thinking of him as too close a relative to marry or suchlike.
“I’m beginning to wonder,” Berwynna said, “if we’re related to everybody in Lin Serr.”
“Not quite.” Vron kept grinning at everyone and everything. “I hope my son here’s been a decent uncle to you?”
“He has, most certainly, Grandfather.”
Berwynna turned slightly to look up at her giant. She spoke quickly in a language that Kov didn’t know, though its cadences sounded much like Deverrian to him. He could catch names here and there, though, and assumed that she was translating the conversation for him.
“Cousin Kov,” she said in the Mountain tongue, “this is my betrothed, Lord Douglas of Alban.”
“Ah.” Betrothed? Kov decided that he disliked the man. “Please tell him how pleased I am to meet him, then. Um, and where’s Alban?”
“A very long way away,” Berwynna said. “It’s rather hard to explain. ”
“I’ll tell you later,” Enj said. “Mic, no doubt you’ll want to go down to the deep city to see your mother.”
“I certainly do!” Mic was grinning almost as hard as Vron. “This is a grand day indeed! Here, Wynni, come with us, although—” He hesitated, then turned to Douglas and spoke in the same strange language that Berwynna had used earlier.
Douglas glowered and spit out a few words in answer. Berwynna joined in, and for a few moments the three of them argued. Finally Douglas shrugged and wiped the scowl off his face.
“Wynni won’t go without him,” Mic said to Kov, “and really, I do understand why. It’s not like my mother’s her grandmother, after all.”
Berwynna stood on tiptoe to reach up and kiss Douglas on his dirty cheek. Kov managed a thin smile at this display of loyalty.
“Kov,” Enj said, “would you get Otho settled in a guest chamber? ” He gestured at the elderly man in the chair, who had dozed off. “He’s not very well.”
As much as Kov had been hoping to speak with Berwynna, he had too much respect for the aged to refuse. “Of course,” he said, “and then I’d best get back to Aethel’s caravan.” He glanced at Vron. “Cerr Cawnen’s very interested in hiring someone from