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By Root 783 0

studied the apprentice as much as the patient. Once, over three hundred years before, Nevyn had been a prince of the royal house, as arrogant as Gwairyc—if not more so, he reminded himself. Yet studying herbcraft with his teacher in the dweomer had opened his eyes and his heart. Once he’d seen how the ordinary people of the kingdom lived, and in particular the bondfolk who were at that time little better than slaves, he’d wanted nothing more than to end every moment of suffering that he could. He’d been hoping that this similar exposure to the ills and suffering of the common folk would open Gwairyc’s heart as well, but he saw on his apprentice’s face only the flickers of disgust and annoyance that would, occasionally, break through a mask of utter indifference. You weren’t a warrior, he told himself. You never had to temper your soul like iron.

Only once did Gwairyc take any interest in a patient. In a village called Bruddlyn, they met the local lord, a certain Corbyn, who brought them to his dun to treat his small son, also named Corbyn, for spotted fever. Fortunately, the boy’s mother had kept him in a dimly lit room, away from the sunlight that might have blinded him. Nevyn brewed one type of herbwater to lower the fever and a second as a soak for compresses to ease his itching skin.

‘Our lordship didn’t have much coin,’ Nevyn told Gwairyc afterwards, ‘but he did give us a silver cup that belonged to his own father. It has the name ‘corbyn’ inscribed on the bottom, but still, we should be able to sell it somewhere, for the silver if naught else.’

‘I take it the lad’s going to recover,’ Gwairyc said.

‘He is.’

‘Good.’ Gwairyc smiled in sincere pleasure at the news. ‘He’s the only son of that clan, the only one yet, anyway, and I’m glad they won’t lose their heir. But here, do these lords always name their first-born Corbyn?’

‘So it seems. Why?’

‘There’s somewhat odd about Eldidd, foreign-like.’ Gwairyc frowned at nothing in particular. ‘And that’s another thing that I just can’t…’ He let his voice trail away.

Nevyn waited for him to go on, but in a moment Gwairyc merely said that he’d saddle the horses and walked away.

Eldidd may be strange, Nevyn thought, but I begin to think Gwarro matches it! And what am I going to do with the lad, then? His first course of treatment for the illness in Gwairyc’s soul was failing, and badly. With a sinking feeling around his heart, he realized that he didn’t have a second.

It wasn’t until they’d almost reached their destination that Nevyn saw Gwairyc respond to the sufferings of a commonborn soul, and even then, the circumstances were decidedly unusual. He received his first omen of that future event, and a hint of just how complex the days ahead might be, when he contacted Aderyn again.

‘Here’s a question for you,’ Nevyn said. ‘How will I be able to find you once we get to the grasslands? The trading grounds are quite large, as I remember them anyway.’

‘They stretch a good hundred miles, yes, north to south.’ Floating over the campfire, Aderyn’s image smiled at him. ‘I’ve arranged an escort for you and your merchant.’

‘Splendid! Where do I find this escort?’

‘In Drwloc. The fellow’s a bard, Devaberiel by name, and he’s going there to fetch a little son of his.’

‘What’s an elven woman doing living in Pyrdon?’

‘She’s not elven, though I suspect there’s elven blood in her clan—somewhere. She looks human, and her kin certainly act that way.’ Aderyn’s image scowled into the flames. ‘Her brother’s done naught but berate her since the day she had to tie her kirtle high. A bastard in his clan! Oh, the shame of it! To hear him rant, you’d think he was the high king himself.’

‘I see. The child’s better off with his father’s people, then. We’re not far from Pyrdon. How soon will this bard get there?’

‘Around the next full moon. We—my alar, that is—are on our way to the border now.’

‘Good. Well, my thanks. This will make things a fair bit easier. Huh, I’ve not seen Dun Drw since King Maryn was young.’

‘The place must hold plenty of memories for you.’

‘Doesn’t everywhere?’