The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [133]
Framed by the open door, a young woman, her raven-dark hair pinned up on her head, her slender frame draped in a blue-and-gray plaid, stood on the steps of the manse. For a brief moment Kov thought she was Berwynna, but when she walked down the path toward them, the difference in her carriage and manner showed him his mistake. Unlike Wynni’s confident stride, her walk was graceful, her smile shy instead of boyish. Her twin, he thought, Mara.
“There’s a good girl,” Mara called out, also in Dwarvish. “Avain, will you come into the manse?”
“Avain go to her tower,” Avain said. “Avain saw the dragon, Mara.”
“I know, and I’m so glad you did. Can you find your tower door?”
“Avain knows her tower, Mara.”
She skipped off, a lumbering gait that reminded Kov of a dragon waddling on the ground, and disappeared around the corner of the manse. Mara smiled with a brief shake of her head.
“I’ll go up in a bit,” she remarked, “to make sure she’s safe and well. I gather, good sir, that you’re a friend of my father’s.”
“I am that, my lady.”
Kov bowed to her, and she curtsied in return with a shy bob of her head.
“My name is Kov,” he said. “In Lin Serr, I serve as one of their envoys.”
“Then it gladdens my heart to meet you.” She paused, looking across the lake. “I’d hoped to meet him as well.”
“I don’t know why he stayed on the shore, but I think he feels too shamed to land here.”
“That’s so sad!” Her voice carried genuine grief. “No one here holds aught to his shame.”
“Mayhap your mother will be able to tell him so. I don’t mean to intrude upon you. I’ll camp across the water with the dragon, but I fear me I have to beg you for some food. Your father rescued me from captivity, you see, and I came away with naught but these clothes.”
“No need to beg,” she said. “Come in and take the hospitality of our hall. Haen Marn welcomes everyone who finds it. A man from Lin Serr is always particularly welcome.”
“My humble thanks.”
Kov followed Mara into the manse and sat down with her at the long table. An aged servant bustled in, carrying plates. As well as bread, she brought fish, pot-roasted with wild mushrooms in the coals of the big hearth. The scent made Kov swallow hard to keep from drooling.
“My thanks,” he said to the servant woman. “You’re very kind.”
“Humph! You stink of wyrm, young man!”
Before he could answer, she took herself off again. Mara hid a soft laugh behind one hand.
“My apologies,” Kov said. “I cut a very poor figure at the moment.”
“It’s of no matter,” Mara said. “Do eat before your meal grows cold.”
After so many days of near-starving, Kov made himself eat slowly and sparingly. He had no desire to become sick in front of this beautiful woman. She asked him polite questions, mostly centering on how he knew her father, and why her father had brought him to the isle. As he talked, she listened, resting her delicate chin on one graceful hand, with deep attention.
“Truly, Kov,” she said when he’d finished. “You’ve suffered so much! War with the Horsekin last summer, then taken by the Dwrgwn this! What splendid tales you have to tell, though I’ll wager that you’d just as soon have led a less interesting life.”
“My thanks, my lady,” Kov said. “And you’re quite right about my longing for a little less excitement.”
Distantly Kov heard the sound of the gong, approaching across the lake. He rose from his seat with a half-bow.
“It’s doubtless time for me to leave you,” he said, “but a thousand thanks for your hospitality.”
Mara walked with him down to the