The Silver Mage. Katharine Kerr
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be a Belgae woman,’ Rhodorix said.
‘Indeed,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Unless she’s from Germania.’
Neither the woman or the healer took any notice of their talk. She wore a long tunic, belted at the waist like the healer’s, pinned at one shoulder with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. Around her neck hung a cluster of what Rhodorix took to be charms on leather thongs. One of the Belgae wise women, he assumed – he’d heard about them back home in Gallia. Eventually she turned to him and spoke. He understood nothing. All he could do was shake his head and spread his hands to show confusion. Her eyes widened in surprise.
The healer came over to him, made a questioning sort of face, and pointed to his ear.
‘I’m not deaf.’ Rhodorix made a guess at the meaning. He pointed to his own ear and smiled, nodding. ‘I can hear you.’
The healer seemed to understand. He in turn nodded his agreement, then spoke to the woman. They left the chamber together.
‘What was all that?’ Gerontos said.
‘I don’t know for certain,’ Rhodorix said. ‘But I’d guess they were expecting us to understand her talk. They were certainly surprised about somewhat.’ He paused to sip from the cup. ‘This wine is very good.’ He pointed at a servant, then at his brother.
The fellow filled a second cup and brought it over. With Rhodorix’s help, Gerontos raised himself up enough to take a few sips. He sighed and lay back down.
‘Enough for now,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Go eat. I have to sleep.’
The servants took themselves away. Rhodorix got up and returned to the table, but even though he ate, he was considering suicide. He could go outside to the courtyard, find a corner where no one would see him, and fall upon his sword. Or, if the guards would let him, he could climb one of the high towers and step off into death on the stones below. Death seemed the only honourable act left to him after his failure of the day, yet at the same time, how could he abandon his brother here among these strange folk?
If only Galerinos were still with them, he could ask the young druid to cast omens or deliver some kind of opinion based on the holy laws, but Gallo was far away – safe, or so he hoped. He finished his wine, downed what Gerontos had left, then poured himself more. Lacking a holy man, he sought his answers in drink. After the fourth cupful, the room began dancing around him. Rhodorix lay down on the carpeted floor and slept.
‘I don’t understand,’ Nallatanadario said. ‘If they don’t belong to your people, who are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hwilli said. ‘But they certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.’
The two apprentice healers, one human, one elven, were sitting in Hwilli’s tiny chamber, Hwilli cross-legged on her bed, Nalla on a high stool beside Hwilli’s slant-top lectern. On the walls, frescoes of rose gardens gave the small chamber illusory depth. Distant birds flew in the painted skies. While they discussed the two strangers, resting in a chamber just down the corridor, Nalla kept combing her silvery-pale hair. It tumbled in waves about her slender shoulders and down her back, so different from Hwilli’s own fine, limp hair that would have hung in ugly tendrils, or so Hwilli felt, had she worn hers free like Nalla did.
‘Could Master Jantalaber tell you anything more?’ Nalla said.
‘He thought perhaps they belonged to some northern tribe. With the Meradan on the move like this, their lands might have been attacked, too, and their tribe might have fled south.’ Hwilli shrugged uneasily. ‘If that’s true, there must be thousands of Meradan out there. It makes my flesh crawl, thinking that.’
‘Mine too.’ Nalla looked down at the carved bone comb in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight around it. ‘I wonder sometimes what’s going to happen to us. I truly do.’
Hwilli turned and looked out of the small window, set into the frescoes at the chamber’s end, that looked out to the actual sky. She could just see the tops of the fortress’s towers, gleaming in moonlight. We’ll be safe here, she thought. Won’t we? Nalla shuddered, as if she were wondering the same. She resumed combing her hair, then paused, and with a quick frown shoved the comb into the pouch hanging from her belt.
‘Anyway,’ Hwilli said, ‘the master’s going to ask the Guardians for help. He thinks the crystals Evandar gave him might allow us to talk to the men, since they transfer thoughts and images. But he doesn’t know how they could actually translate our speech.’
‘No one’s ever sure how Evandar does anything.’
‘That’s very true. And Evandar might not help with this, either. So I suppose there’s nothing we can do but wait and see.’
‘That’s the Guardians for you.’ Nalla slid off the stool and walked to the door. ‘Are you coming to the refectory? The men will be waiting on table tonight in the great hall, so it’ll be just us women.’
‘Good. I don’t want to sit in the hall with the prince and his warriors.’ Hwilli got up to join her. ‘All they talk about is the war.’
‘What else is there to talk about?’
‘You have a point, unfortunately. The master did say he was going to consult with the prince about the strangers. He was thinking that the prince might want send out a squadron to find the tribe they came from and see if they’d join the People.’
‘Ah, to be allies, you mean.’ Nalla frowned, considering something. ‘I wonder where Evandar found them, though. They could have been up on the Roof of the World, for all we know.’
‘Quite so. I’ll wager that the prince realizes that. I doubt if he’ll want to risk losing any of his men on a scouting expedition. The Guardians never seem to grasp the idea of distance.’
‘That, alas, is very true. Or the idea of time, either.’ Nalla abruptly shuddered with a little shake of her head.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, maybe an omen, maybe not. There’s so much to be frightened of, these days.’
‘Well, that’s true.’
Yet Hwilli assumed that some long wisp of the cloud that covered future events had touched her. Nalla’s marked for the dweomer, Hwilli thought, while I’m only here to learn herbs and the like. Master Jantalaber had made it clear to her from the beginning, that only the People could use dweomer, never the humble village folk that they treated like children at best and slaves at worst. As she and Nalla walked down the long corridor to the special dining area set aside for the healers in the fortress, Hwilli fought her endless battle between gratitude and envy.
Once they were sitting in the refectory with food spread on the table in front of them, gratitude won a temporary victory. Hwilli reminded herself, as she generally did, that she’d been lucky to be chosen to study with a master healer, to live here in the fortress and have plenty to eat. She’d been born and raised in huts that always smelled of the manure and mud that filled in the chinks in the walls. Her parents had worked so hard that their backs were permanently bent and aching. Her father had died, feverish and half-starved, long before he’d grown old. Her own life, even though brief compared to the spans allotted to the People, would be comfortable and respected because of her knowledge. But so brief, she thought. Still so brief.
Envy rose like bile in her throat. While the other women ate, chatting and laughing, she crumbled a bit of bread between her fingers and watched them. Despite their cat-like eyes and furled ears, they were beautiful, young and beautiful, and they would still be lovely hundreds of years on, when she’d been dead and forgotten for those same hundreds of years.
‘Hwilli!’ Nalla said. ‘Try some of this roast partridge.’ She leaned over and placed a choice slice onto Hwilli’s plate. ‘It’s awfully good.’
‘My thanks.’ Hwilli managed to smile. ‘I was just thinking.’