The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [66]
“This doesn’t look good,” the healer said into the white crystal. “I’m sorry, lad, but the bone was smashed, not broken cleanly. The muscles aren’t adhering properly, and the long bone has healed just ever so slightly off center.”
“I see.” Gerontos said emotionlessly. “Well, my thanks, anyway, for everything you’ve done for me.” He glanced Rhodorix’s way. “Will you help me get back to our chamber?”
“Of course.” Rhodorix made his voice as cheerful as he could manage. “Looks like you’re marked for an archer now.”
Gerontos shrugged. From his mask of an expression, it was impossible to tell what he might be thinking.
“Hwilli?” Jantalaber said. “You may go back with them, if you’d like. You should tell your man your good news.”
“What’s this?” Rhodorix turned to her, but her smile told him before she could speak. “You’re with child?”
“Yes, I am.” She was holding her head high, on the edge of defiance even in her happiness. “Are you glad of it?”
“Very glad!” Rhodorix held out his hand to her.
She took it and smiled at him sideways, abruptly shy. He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead in deference to the presence of her master. A man needs to know that something of him will live after him, Rhodorix thought, but that’s a bit gloomy to be telling her.
Some days later, the last of the Mountain axemen arrived at Garangbeltangim. They’d taken advantage of the slight warming and temporary thaw to leave the northern city and head south to join up with their kinfolk. Wrapped in his scarlet cloak, Prince Ranadar met them out in the snowy courtyard. Rhodorix and Andariel stood nearby, ready to find the men somewhere to sleep and eat in the overcrowded fortress.
“We would have stayed to the end in Tanbalapalim,” their avro, Tarl, told the prince. “But Prince Salamondar told us it would be a waste of our lives. Go guard your women, he said. Live and remember us.”
The hardened warleader leaned on the haft of his ax and wept. As if to drown the sound of his grief, the bronze gongs on the priests’ tower began to clang and clatter out the passing hour.
The winter snows melted early that year. When Hwilli looked up to the high peaks, she saw them still white and gleaming, but down near Garangbeltangim only dirty streaks and heaps of snow lay in spots with deep shade. Everywhere else, brown mud lay over the land like filthy blankets.
“The winter wheat will be sprouting soon,” Hwilli told Jantalaber. “And the farm folk won’t be returning to keep the deer and wild goats away from it.”
“Very true,” the master said. “I’ll have a word with our prince tonight.”
Ranadar listened to the word, apparently, because he ordered a contingent of those guardsmen who had no horses to patrol the wheat fields. They grumbled, but they went down to the village. Hwilli went with them that first day to tell them how to repair the huts. They needed rebuilding every spring, as did the fences that marked out the fields. Master Jantalaber was waiting for her at the gates when she returned.
“Do you think they’ll be able to do the work?” he asked her.
“I doubt it, not without someone to tell them how,” Hwilli said. “Will I have to teach them?”
“No. I’ve already spoken to Paraberiel. I don’t want you down there, the only woman in a village full of soldiers. Par comes from a farm family, too, you know. I’m sending him down on the morrow.”
“Thank you! I can’t tell you how grateful—”
“Most welcome, I’m sure. Now, the two terraces just below us are a different matter. If you could lend your knowledge there? The mounted men will be sowing hay for their horses.”
“I’ll be glad to do that, yes. I’m starting to think that Rhodorix is right. The horses are the only safety we’ll have as things go on.”
Jantalaber looked away, suddenly weary. “If things go on,” he said. “Ah well, the gods will send us what they will, and there’s naught we can do about that.”
Once the last of the snow had melted, and the days were noticeably warmer though the nights still froze, Hwilli took to spending her mornings down on the terraces with Rhodorix and his men. They