The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [36]
Most of the village lasses struck him as dirty and bedraggled, but one evening a finer prize came to the bait of Nevyn’s herbs. She was young but full into womanhood, with high breasts set off by a tight kirtle, and she wore her long chestnut hair pulled back from her heart-shaped face. Unlike those of the usual village lasses, her face and her hands looked well-washed. While Nevyn dispensed advice and sold herbs, she lingered at the edge of the crowd. Gwairyc caught her eye and smiled at her. He was hoping for a smile in return or at least a blush, but she looked straight past him.
Maybe she’s near-sighted, he thought. When her turn came to consult the herbman, Gwairyc stood right behind him and smiled again. Again, he might as well have been made of glass for all the response he got. After she bought her herbs, he took a step in her direction, but she held her head high and walked off fast.
‘Well, well,’ Nevyn said. ‘I take it she wasn’t interested.’
‘I should have known you’d notice. She wasn’t, at that.’
‘You’re just a herbman now, lad. The lasses won’t be fawning on you like they did with one of the king’s own captains.’
Gwairyc opened his mouth to say something foul, then shut it again rather than give the old man the satisfaction of having riled him. Nevyn laughed anyway and turned away to begin packing up the unsold herbs.
Some ten mornings after, they stopped at a farm. Behind an earthen wall stood a round, thatched house, a tumbledown barn, a pig sty, and a chicken house. The pigs lay in stinking mud, but the chickens were out scratching and squawking in the dirt yard. When Nevyn shoved open the gate, a pair of scruffy black dogs rushed out of the barn, but they barked and wagged in friendly greeting. Right behind them came a stout woman in a torn brown dress. A leather thong tied back her greasy black hair. Her thick fingers and her hands were as calloused and scarred as a blacksmith’s. When she opened her mouth to talk, Gwairyc saw that she was missing half her teeth.
‘Oh Nevyn, Nevyn,’ she stammered out. ‘Oh ye gods, this is an answer to my prayers, I swear it!’
‘Here, Ligga, what’s so wrong?’
‘Our lad’s sick, cursed sick. I’ve been praying and praying to the Goddess to help us.’
‘Well, maybe She made me decide to stop by. Gwarro, unload the mule’s packs. Take those horses to the barn.’
Gwairyc tied the horses up in the stinking cow-barn, then carried the canvas packs inside the house. He found himself in a big half-round room, set off from the rest of the house by a filthy wickerwork partition. Under a smoke hole lay a pair of blackened hearthstones where a low fire burned. A little girl, wearing a clean if stained brown dress, was standing by the hearth and stirring soup in an iron kettle perched over the fire on an iron tripod. She gave Gwairyc a terrified glance and pointed at the far side of the room.
Gwairyc shoved aside the much-mended grey blanket that served as a door and carried in the packs. He found Nevyn and Ligga standing by a big square bed. A little boy lay on coarse dirty blankets. Snot and tears mingled on his fever-red face. Gwairyc could smell him and Ligga both, a reek of sweat, dirt from the animals, and in the boy’s case, excrement.
Nevyn gestured at Gwairyc to put the packs down, then sat on the edge of the bed next to the lad, who promptly turned his head away.
‘Come along, Anno. It’s old Nevyn. I want to make you feel better.’
Anno shook his head in a stubborn no.
‘Your mouth hurts, Mam says. Let me have a look.’
Anno whimpered and flopped over to bury his face in the blankets.
‘Anno, listen,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m going to look at your mouth whether you want me to or not. You’re very sick,