The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [66]
‘And I’m Gwairyc, Nevyn’s apprentice.’
‘So I thought. Here, I’ll help you with your horses. You’ll be sharing my father’s tent, or so he told me, so let’s unload your gear first.’
‘Very well,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Do you live with your father?’
‘I don’t. I’ve got a small tent of my own.’ Loddlaen smiled, but his eyes seemed to flare with terror. ‘I’m somewhat of a solitary soul.’
As they led the horses across to the Westfolk camp, Gwairyc could look Loddlaen over. He had a thin face and large eyes like his father’s, and during the moments when he was silent, his eyes grew haunted, always open a little too wide, always darting back and forth as if he expected trouble to spring out of the grass. Gwairyc had seen similar expressions before, usually in the eyes of old men who’d lost kin and home to the wars and the reiving of the Cerrgonney rebels. They had looked upon events that no man should ever have seen—their daughters raped, their sons killed, their homes burnt—and they would never forget those sights. Gwairyc assumed that Loddlaen had lived through some great tragedy himself.
The Westfolk stitched their circular shelters together out of deerskins rather than proper canvas. Loddlaen showed him into one of the largest tents. Inside, Gwairyc could clearly see the wood frame under the skins, an ingenious arrangement of crossed sticks that would fold in key places when the time came to travel. Loddlaen helped him pile his gear and Nevyn’s near the door, then escorted him out to the horse herd. Although Gwairyc had often seen Western Hunters, as Deverry men called the Westfolk horses, he’d never come across an entire herd before.
For some moments he stood gazing upon them in utter awe. The smallest of them stood at least eighteen hands high and had deep chests and strong legs. They moved with grace, like ripples on water, long manes and tails flowing, heads held high as they surveyed the shabby-looking pair of mounts and the mule that were being turned into their ranks. They had delicate heads with slender muzzles and large eyes, deep set and dark, that watched the men with some intelligence. And the colours of their coats—silver, dun, rich blood bay, pure glossy black, and of course, the gleaming golden tan that Deverry lords coveted more than real gold—it took Gwairyc’s breath away.
‘They are beautiful, aren’t they?’ Loddlaen said.
‘Truly beautiful,’ Gwairyc said. ‘I can see why old Wffyn’s come all this way to get them.’
‘Indeed. And these are only the geldings and a pair of old bell mares. We never bring the breeding stock to the trading ground.’
‘That’s wise of you. Any Deverry lord would sell his bloodkin for a golden stud and a couple of golden mares.’
Loddlaen laughed, a sharp almost painful bark. ‘True spoken,’ he said. ‘We won’t need to hobble your stock. They’re doubtless glad to be among their own kind, and we’ve got mounted herdsman keeping watch, too.’
In Aderyn’s tent, Nevyn was waiting for them. The old man gave Loddlaen a pleasant smile and held out his hand, which Loddlaen shook as weakly and briefly as possible.
‘Dev’s taken Morwen into his own tent,’ Nevyn remarked. ‘There really isn’t anywhere else for her, I gather, but he wanted to make sure that everyone realized she was a nursemaid and naught more.’
‘Why would anyone have thought otherwise?’ Gwairyc said. ‘Ugly little mutt as she is.’
(Continued)
‘Ye gods!’ Nevyn rolled his eyes in disgust. ‘She’s a human being, lad, not just a face.’
Gwairyc turned to Loddlaen to ask his opinion on the matter, only to find him gone. ‘By the hells!’ Gwairyc said. ‘That lad can move fast and quietly when wants to.’
‘Indeed.’ Nevyn looked abruptly troubled.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Tell me somewhat. What do you think of Loddlaen?’
‘All I can offer you is a first impression.’
‘That’s what I want to hear.’
‘Well and good, then. Somehow he makes me pity him, but I’d never let him into any warband I captained.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’d get himself killed in the first scrap we fought. You can see that in a man’s eyes, when he’s had enough of life but