The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [52]
No one spoke. Only a few of the apprentices so much as moved in their chairs or glanced around. Hwilli felt as if a north wind had swept into the refectory and laid a coating of dirty gray frost over everything in it.
When they finished eating, Hwilli helped Nalla fold her clothing and place it into two leather sacks for the travel ahead. Her few other possessions—combs, a silver brooch, a pair of blue ribands—Nalla tucked into a small pouch that she’d carry on her belt. Neither of them spoke until they’d finished.
“Hwilli, this is horrible,” Nalla said. “The prince believes he’ll lose the war, doesn’t he?”
Hwilli tried to speak, but tears clogged her voice.
“You see it, too,” Nalla continued. “And your family—ai! they live outside the walls.”
The tears spilled and ran. Nalla threw her arms around Hwilli and held her, just for a moment, before drawing back. Hwilli tried to speak, then hurried to the door before she wept again.
“I’ll pray I see you in the spring,” Nalla called after her.
Hwilli ran down the corridor and took refuge in her chamber. The last of the sunlight gleamed through the window, a distant gold. She flung herself onto her bed and fought down her tears. This is no time for weeping, she told herself. We all have to be strong. Perhaps if she pleaded with Master Jantalaber, he could convince the prince to allow her mother to come into the relative safety of the fortress. Perhaps.
“Beloved?” Rhodorix opened the door and stepped into the chamber. “Have your heard the news?”
“That the healers are leaving?” Hwilli sat up and turned on the bed to sit facing him.
“Not just the healers.” He paused to shut the door. “The prince is sending all the farm folk with them. The Vale of Roses isn’t a safe haven anymore, the captain told me. Tomorrow our warband’s going to strip every bit of food they don’t need for the journey south.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” How like a man of the People, even Master Jantalaber, to forget to tell me! What does he care about the slaves outside?
Rhodorix sat down next to her and caught her hand between both of his. “Do your bloodkin still live out there?” he said.
“Only my mother. She’ll be safe, then, for a little while. Well, if she doesn’t starve at the gates of Rinbaladelan, anyway.”
“The prince won’t let his people starve.”
“Our prince wouldn’t, true. I know naught about the prince of Rinbaladelan.”
Rhodorix started to speak, sighed instead, and drew her into his arms. His lovemaking gave her more comfort than any words could have done.
In a gray dawn turned cold by a drizzle of rain, the healers led out their expedition from the fortress. Hwilli walked with them down to the valley, where the farm folk waited for them in a mob of weeping humans, bleating goats, and lowing cattle. The farmers pushed wheelbarrows and handcarts, laden with pitifully small bundles of household goods. Hwilli worked her way through until she found her mother, Gertha, a big-boned woman who wore her long gray hair bound back into a single braid. In one hand she held the halter ropes of two milk goats, who were complaining softly and rubbing up against their human’s hips.
“Mama!” Hwilli threw an arm around her shoulders. “I’ve brought you a cloak and some extra food.”
“Well, thank you.” Gertha’s smile displayed the few brown cracked teeth left to her. “I was thinking I was going to have a cold walk of it.”
Hwilli laid the cloth-wrapped bundle of bread at her mother’s feet, shoved a curious goat away with one foot, then took off her cloak and placed it around her mother’s shoulders. She pinned it at the neck with a bronze pin. She’d considered giving her the golden bird brooch, but she knew that someone would only steal it along the way if she did. Gertha stroked the cloak with her free hand.
“Very