The Spirit Stone. Katharine Kerr
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it, where some mark or wound from a particularly violent death carries over to the victim’s next life. The victim’s flood of ancient emotion marks the budding etheric double of the child in the womb, which in turn influences the physical body. Yet since such repercussions rarely last more than a single lifetime, Morwen’s scarred lip indicated that this incarnation was her first since Branoic’s horrible death all those years past.
And she’s so scrawny, Nevyn thought. No doubt she’d had a difficult time eating as a baby and a small child. Most children with harelips did. Once she’d grown older, most likely her kinsfolk had begrudged her food. Nevyn realized that he wouldn’t need some complicated scheme to take Morwen away from her family. Most likely her brother would be glad to see her go if Nevyn could convince her to leave.
On the morrow Nevyn left his stock of medicinals in Wffyn’s care and went with Gwairyc to Morwen’s brother’s farm, which lay not far beyond the town wall. It was a prosperous-looking place, three round houses joined together in a cluster, all of them white-washed and roofed in new thatch. They sat on a square of green grass, protected by an earthen wall from the cows and horses grazing in a large pasture out back. Beyond the pasture lay wheat fields.
By the front door Morwen was sitting on a little bench in the sun while she watched Evan playing with a leather ball. When Nevyn hailed her, she got up and walked over to the gate. Two big black and tan hounds accompanied her, tails wagging.
‘Good morrow, good sirs,’ she said in her moist lisp. ‘What brings you to me?’
‘I was wondering if you’d seen any sign of Devaberiel yet,’ Nevyn said. ‘He might arrive today, you see.’
‘I’ve not.’ She looked away, fighting tears for a long few moments. ‘Ah well,’ she said at last, ‘I’d invite you in to wait, but my brother takes it ill when I have guests. He’s always afraid I might offer them a bit of his ale or bread.’
‘Ye gods,’ Gwairyc said. ‘From the look of your farm there’s no call for him to be so miserly.’
‘There’s not, and he’s not, except when it comes to me.’
‘I see.’ Nevyn had long since got out of the habit of making small talk, but now he badly wanted to linger. ‘Do you have many guests?’
‘Me?’ Morwen paused for a short bark of a laugh. ‘Hardly, good sir.’
‘What? No friends or suchlike?’
‘There was only one lass in our entire village who ever dared befriend a maimed creature like me, and she –’ Morwen paused for a quick intake of breath that might have been a sigh or a choked back sob. ‘She died but two years ago. Lanmara, her name was.’
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