The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [11]
Still, something seemed to have gotten into his eyes, dust from the camp, maybe, or smoke. Although he managed to stop himself from sobbing aloud, the traitor tears spilled and ran.
Toward noon Berwynna finally overcame her weariness enough to leave the refuge of the tent she shared with Uncle Mic. She emptied their chamber pot into the latrine ditch at the edge of the encampment, rinsed it downstream, then returned it to the tent. For a few moments she stood just outside the entrance and looked around her. Talking among themselves, the strangely long-eared Westfolk passed by. Many of them looked her way, smiled, or ducked their heads in acknowledgment, but she could understand none of their words, leaving her no choice but to smile in return, then stay where she was.
Eventually someone she recognized came up to her, Ebañy the gerthddyn. When he hailed her in Deverrian, she could have wept for the relief of hearing something she could understand.
“Good morrow, Uncle Ebañy,” Berwynna. “May I call you that?”
“By all means, though most people in Deverry call me Salamander.”
“I do like the fancy of calling you Uncle Salamander.”
“Then please do so.” He made her a bow. “My full name is Ebañy Salamonderiel tran Devaberiel, but I’m your uncle, sure enough.”
“My father’s brother. Right?”
“Right again, though we had different mothers. But can I turn myself into a dragon? Alas, I cannot.”
“Mayhap that be just as well. No doubt one dragon be more than enough for a family.”
“You have my heartfelt agreement on that. I can, however, turn myself into a magpie.” The beginnings of a smile twitched at his mouth.
“Be you teasing me?” Berwynna crossed her arms over her chest.
“Not in the least.”
“Ah, then you be like Laz and the raven. A mazrak.”
“Just so.” Yet he looked disappointed, as if perhaps he’d expected her to be shocked or amazed.
“That be a wonderful thing, truly,” Berwynna went on. “Better than being stuck, like, in one shape or another, such as that sorcerer did to my da. Or be it so that a man can get himself trapped in some other form, all by himself, I do mean?”
“He can, indeed, and frankly, I worry about Laz. Sidro’s mentioned that he often flies for days at a time.”
“I ken not the truth of that, but I did see him fly every day, twice at times, when we were traveling.”
“That’s far too often. Huh, I should have a word with him about it, a warning, like.”
“Think you he’ll listen?”
“Alas, I do not. Now, speaking of dragons, did you know that you have a stepmother and a stepsister of that scaly tribe?”
“I didn’t! Ye gods, here I did think that dragons be only the fancies of priests and storytellers, and now I do find that my own clan be full of them.”
“Priests?”
“Father Colm, the priest we did know back in Alban, did tell me once an old tale, that a dragon did eat a bishop—that be somewhat like a head priest, you see—but she did eat a bishop some miles to the south of where we did dwell. But I believed him not.”
“I have the horrid feeling that this Colm might have been right.” With a slight frown Salamander considered something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. “Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.”
“Ordinary” was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fit Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same