The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [52]
‘All right, you dogs!’ Gwairyc snarled. ‘Now you’re a fair bit uglier than this poor lass is. Get out of my sight!’
The two who could still walk grabbed the vomit-covered lad by the arms and hauled him up and away. Their more cowardly but wiser friend was hovering nearby. With his help they broke into a shambling trot and disappeared in the crowd. It had all happened so fast that little Evan seemed barely troubled. He did pop his thumb in his mouth, then twisted in his nursemaid’s arms to watch her assailants run away. Morwen herself was staring wide-eyed at Gwairyc.
‘My thanks,’ Morwen said in her thick, moist voice. ‘But you needn’t have troubled yourself. I’m used to this sort of thing.’
‘Mayhap so,’ Gwairyc said. ‘But it griped my soul, somehow, seeing you mocked.’
‘You’re the first man I’ve ever met who felt that way.’ Morwen seemed less pleased than thoughtful. ‘I do appreciate it, good sir. Don’t think that it didn’t gladden my heart to see them bleed.’
Gwairyc laughed, briefly. After a nod in Nevyn’s direction, Morwen turned and walked off, carrying Evan. This time, no one bothered her.
‘Very good,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m glad to see you have a bit of pity for someone beneath you in rank.’
Gwairyc shrugged, then began examining his bruised knuckles. Nevyn merely waited. At last Gwairyc looked up and spoke. ‘I’m not sure I’d call it pity,’ he said. ‘Everyone says that a harelip means a person’s been cursed by the gods.’
‘Everyone?’ Nevyn raised an eyebrow. ‘And cursed in the womb, before the poor baby even sees the light of the sun?’
‘It happens in the womb?’
‘It does.’
‘Well, then, that’s a bit different, isn’t it?’ Gwairyc turned to look off in the direction that Morwen had taken. ‘Seeing her mobbed like that, it just somehow griped my soul.’
‘Unfair odds, if naught else.’
‘That’s it, truly.’ Gwairyc turned to him and smiled. ‘That’s what touched my heart, then, the unfair odds.’
Nevyn was profoundly disappointed. He’d hoped that Gwairyc was feeling some compassion at last.
That evening, after a long afternoon selling herbs and sundries, Nevyn learned a great deal more about Morwen and Evan from the innkeep’s wife. After a dinner of boiled beef and bread, Wffyn went off to bed. As mere apprentices, Tirro and Gwairyc would sleep on the straw-strewn floor. They spread their blankets out in the curve of the wall at a good distance from one another, then lay down and were soon snoring. The innwife dipped Nevyn a tankard of dark ale, then took a cupful for herself and sat down opposite him at table. She was a thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, skinny woman, wearing a greasy pair of green dresses. A little woad-blue scarf, stained with sweat, bunched around her wattled neck.
‘Well, since you asked about Morwen’s sister, good sir,’ she began, ‘it was ever so great a scandal, but they always say that great beauty is better than a dowry any day, and they’re right enough when it comes to Varynna—that’s Morwen’s sister, Varynna. As beautiful as the moon in the summer sky, or so the lads all call her. Well!’ She paused for a sip of ale, then dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘And that Westfolk man of hers could see it as easy as anyone. So there she is, big with child, and her not married, so oh, she’s had her comeuppance, all right!’
‘Comeuppance for what?’ Nevyn said.
‘The airs she gave herself, good sir, ever so high and mighty she was until her belly started to swell. Now, there are some as say that Varynna was but following in her mother’s footsteps, like, because Varynna doesn’t look much like her sister and brother, if you take my meaning.’ She paused for a wink. ‘And that name! Not a usual sort of name, is it?’
‘It’s not, truly.’ Nevyn managed a polite smile.
‘A bit of the Westfolk, eh? So, anyway, Varynna did nurse the little lad, but for everything else, she handed him over to her sister, and I doubt if she’s touched the lad since he was weaned. Goes to show how wretched a mother she is, giving her lad to a witch lass to raise!