The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [19]
‘So, then.’ Olnadd helped himself to a raisin cake. ‘What brings you to us?’
‘A rather curious business,’ Nevyn said. ‘I want to see the king. I’ve made him a talisman, you see, a little gift for the blood royal.’
‘Little gift?’ Affyna said. ‘If you’ve made it, it must positively reek of dweomer. Well, I suppose reek isn’t quite the word I mean.’
‘It will do, truly.’ Nevyn grinned at her. ‘The question now is, how do I get an audience with our liege to give it to him?’
‘That will take a bit of doing,’ Olnadd said. ‘I don’t suppose we should pry, but I can’t say I’d mind having a look at the thing.’
‘I shouldn’t admit this, but I wouldn’t mind showing it off. It’s taken me a cursed lot of hard work.’ Nevyn reached into his shirt, pulled out the slender chain he wore around his neck, and unfastened a small leather pouch. He slid out its contents, wrapped in layers of silk.
‘Close those shutters, will you?’
Olnadd got up and did so. One ray of light came through the crack and fell across the table in a line of gold. Nevyn drew a circle deosil around the bundle with his hand, visualized four tiny pentagrams at its cardinal points, and cleared the space around the talisman of all influences—not that evil or impure forces would be lying about the priest’s breakfast table, but Nevyn didn’t care to have the stone pick up traces of local gossip. He unwrapped the five pieces of silk: the first, mottled with olive, citrine, russet and black; the second, purple; the third, Wmm’s own orange; the fourth an emerald green, and the last pale lavender.
In the centre of the silks lay an opal, as big as a walnut, but so perfectly round, so smoothly polished, that it seemed to breathe and glow with a life of its own. Affyna sighed sharply, and Olnadd muttered a few words of prayer under his breath.
‘It’s commemorated through Bran and the great Gwindyc, you see,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ve linked it up through the Kings of the Wildlands to the golden root of dominion. Not a word of this to anyone, mind.’
‘And is there anyone else in Dun Deverry who’d know what I was talking about if I told them?’
‘Not half likely, is it?’ Nevyn glanced at Affyna.
She smiled again. ‘Any woman who marries a priest learns to hold her tongue.’
One piece at a time, smoothing out wrinkles, Nevyn wrapped the opal back up in its silken shrouds. He returned it to the pouch, then wiped the dweomer circle away from the table. Olnadd got up and opened the shutters to let in the spring air.
‘And what kind of man is our king?’ Nevyn said. ‘I knew his grandfather, you see, but I haven’t been at court in a cursed long time.’
Olnadd considered, rubbing his chin.
‘Hard to say. Now, he used to be the wild sort, Casyl, when he was the Marked Prince, but wedding the sovereignty changes a man. He’s held the kingship only a year now, but he seems to be steadying down.’
‘Seems to be?’
‘Well, he’s a splendid warrior. Very useful just now.’ Olnadd considered again, picking up his cup and twisting it between his long fingers. ‘But the emotional sort. Given to quick judgments and—well—gestures. Things fit for bard songs, a lot of talk about honour—you know the sort.’
‘How easy is it for a subject to see his highness? I’ve brought a good bit of coin to bribe servants.’
‘You’ll need it, but I can smooth your way and save some of your silver. The scribes all come to the temple, of course, for worship. The head scribe’s an interesting sort. Truly, he should have come to us for the priesthood, but he has a taste for power. Coin will be out of place for our Petyc. We’ll go down to the bookseller’s and see what we can find.’
‘A bookseller? Ye gods, Dun Deverry’s turning into a grand city indeed.’
‘It is, at that. We might find a rare volume, even, but if not, there