Authors: Katharine Kerr
“I don’t know.” Dallandra considered the question seriously. “It’s an interesting point in a way.”
Aderyn almost swore at her, too, but he restrained himself.
“It’s not the noise that’s bothering you,” she said at last. “You know it and I know it.”
He had the most unmagical feeling that he was blushing. For a brief moment she looked terrified of her own words, then forced herself to go on.
“Look, the more we work together, the more the forces will draw us together. We have to face up to that sooner or later.”
“Of course, but then—well, I mean I’m sorry, I truly am, but—it would hardly be a good idea for us to—I mean …” Aderyn’s words failed him in a celibate’s fluster.
For a long time she stared at the floorcloth of the tent, and she seemed as miserably shy as he felt. Finally she looked up with the air of a woman facing execution.
“Well, I know you love me. I have to be honest—I don’t love you yet, but I know I will soon, just from working with you, and I like you well enough already. We might as well just start sharing our blankets.”
When Aderyn tried to speak, the only sound that came to him was a small strangled mutter. He felt his face burn.
“Ado! What’s so wrong?”
“Naught’s wrong. I mean, it’s naught against you.”
When she tried to lay her hand on his arm, he flinched back.
“I don’t understand.” Dallandra looked deeply hurt. “Was I wrong? I thought you wanted me. Don’t you love me?”
“Of course I do! Oh, by the hells—I’m making a stinking botch of everything.”
Like a panicked horse, Aderyn could only think of getting on his feet and running. Without another word, he left the tent, dodged through the camp, and raced down to the beach. He ran along the hard sand at the water’s edge until he was out of breath, then flung himself down on the soft, sun-warmed beach closer in. So much for having great power in the dweomer, he told himself. You stupid lackwit dolt! He found an ancient fragment of driftwood and began shredding it, pulling the rotting splinters to fiber. He had only the faintest idea of how a man went about making love to a woman—what was she going to think of him—how could he sully someone as beautiful as she—what if he did it all wrong and hurt her somehow?
The wind-ruffled silence, the warm sun, the beauty of the dancing light on the ocean all combined to help calm his racing mind and let him think. Slowly, logically, he reminded himself that she was doubtless right. If they were going to generate such an intensity of polarized power between them, the only thing to do with it was to let it run its natural course and find its proper outlet—an outlet that was as pure and holy as any other part of his life. The dweomer had never expected him to live like a celibate priest of Bel. He honestly loved her, didn’t he? And she was honestly offering. Then he remembered how he’d left her: sitting there openmouthed, probably thinking he was daft or worse, probably mocking him. He dropped his face in his hands and wept in frustrated panic. When he finally got himself under control, he looked up to find her standing there watching him.
“I had to come after you. Please, tell me what I’ve done to offend you.”
“Naught, naught. It’s all my fault.”
Her lips slightly parted, Dallandra searched his face
with her storm-dark gray eyes, then sat down next to him. Without thinking he held out his hand; she took it, her fingers warm and soft on his.
“I truly do love you,” Aderyn said. “But I wanted to tell you in some fine way.”
“I should have let you tell me. I’m sorry, too. I’ve had lots of men fall in love with me, but I’ve never wanted anything to do with any of them. I’m frightened, Ado. I just wanted it over and done with.”
“Well, I’m frightened, too. I’ve never been with a woman before.”
Dallandra smiled, as shy as a young lass, her fingers tightening on his.
“Well, then we’ll just have to learn together. Oh, by those hells of yours, Ado, here we’ve studied all this strange lore and met spirits from every level of the world and scried into the future and all the rest of it. Surely we can figure out how to do what most people learn when they’re still children!”
Aderyn laughed, and laughing, he could kiss her, her mouth warm, delicate, and shy under his. When she slipped her arms around his neck, he felt a deep warmth rising to fight with his fears. He was content with her kisses, the solid warmth of her body in his arms, and the occasional shy caress. Every now and then she would look at him and smile with such affection in her eyes that he felt like weeping: someday she would love him, the woman he’d considered unreachable.
“Shall I move my gear to your tent tonight?” he said.
She had one last moment of doubt; he could see it in her sudden stillness.
“Or we could let things run their course. Dalla, I love you enough to wait.”
“It’s not that.” Her voice was shaky and uncertain. “I’m just afraid I’d be using you.”
“Using me?”
“Because of the Guardians. I feel sometimes that I could drift into their sea. I want an anchor, Ado. I need an anchor, but I—”
“Then let me help you. I said I would, and I meant it.”
With a laugh she flung herself into his arms and clung to
him. Years later he would remember this moment and tell himself, bitterly, that he’d been warned.
Yet he could never blame himself—indeed, who could blame him?—for ignoring the warning when he was so happy, when every day of his new life became as warm and golden and sweet as a piece of sun-ripened fruit, no matter how hard winter roared and blustered round the camp. That afternoon he carried his gear over to Dallandra’s tent and found that among the People this simple act meant a wedding. In the evening there was a feast and music; when Aderyn and Dallandra slipped away from the celebration, they found that their tent had been moved a good half mile from camp to give them absolute privacy, with everything they owned heaped up inside.
While she lit a fire for warmth as well as light, Aderyn laced the tent flap. Now that they were alone, he could think of nothing to say and busied himself with arranging the tent bag and saddle packs neatly round the tent. He moved them this way and that, stacked them several different ways, as if it truly mattered, while she sat on the pile of blankets and watched him. Finally, when he could no longer pretend that he had anything worthwhile to do, he came and sat beside her, but he looked only at the floorcloth.
“Well, uh, I don’t know,” he said. “Shall I tell you how much I love you?”
He heard her laugh, then a little rustling sound, and looked up to find her untying and unbraiding her hair. Her slender face seemed almost lost in that pale thick spill of silver waving down to her waist. When he risked running a gentle hand through it she smiled at him.
“We’ve laced the tent flap,” she said. “No one will dare bother us now.”
Smiling, Aderyn bent his head down and kissed her. This time she turned into his arms with a shy desire that sparked his own.
From that day on, everyone treated him as though he’d always lived among the People and always been Dallandra’s man, just as she became his woman, so naturally, so easily, that he felt as if his heart would break from the joy of it, the
first truly human joy he’d ever known in life, that of being part of a pair and no longer lonely. Even Calonderiel accepted the situation, although, just after the shortest day of the year, Cal did leave the banadar’s warband and ride away to join another alar. Aderyn felt guilty over that and said as much to Halaberiel.
“Don’t worry about it,” the banadar said. “He’ll reconsider when his broken heart heals. At his age, it’ll probably heal quickly, too.”
Halaberiel was right enough. When the winter camps were breaking up in the first of the warm weather, Cal came riding back, greeted everyone, including Aderyn, as a long-lost brother, and stowed his gear in its former place in the banadar’s tent without a word needing to be said by anyone. As the alarli moved north, heading for the Lake of the Leaping Trout, other warriors came to join them, swordsmen and archers, men and women both, until an army rode into the death-ground to camp and wait for news from Eldidd. Since the dweomer sent Aderyn no warnings of danger, he doubted if there was going to be war, but Halaberiel spent long restless nights, pacing back and forth by the lakeshore, until at last a merchant caravan rode in with Namydd at its head to announce that there would be nothing but peace.
Even though Melaudd’s elder son, Tieryn Waldyn now, had cried revenge and spent the winter riding all over the princedom trying to raise men to seek it, he’d failed ignominiously. Prince Addryc refused his aid, of course, on the grounds that the Bear’s had violated his decree of sanctity for the elven burial ground. None of the other lords wanted either to displease the prince or to face the longbows of the Westfolk, and Waldyn’s potential allies found an absolute army of reasons to avoid doing so, especially once the news from Cannobaen spread north, that a band of Westfolk had fallen upon the west-lying settlements without warning and wiped them out.
“So Waldyn can mutter over his ale all he wants,” Namydd finished up. “But he’s not getting any vengeance this summer, leastaways. Besides, Banadar, there’s trouble along the Deverry border now. The king of Eldidd’s collected the rights and dues from the mountain passes for as long as anyone can remember, but the Deverry gwerbret in
Morlyn’s started claiming them. There’ll be blood over this, there will.”
“Splendid,” Halaberiel said. “They won’t be encroaching upon our lands if they’re fighting among themselves. May their gods of war lead them in a long, long dance.”
The People spent just over a month at the Lake of the Leaping Trout, digging stones from the hills and using them to make a rough boundary line, rather than a wall, around the sacred territories. No one, it seemed, remembered how to make the mortar that had once held together the fabled cities of the far west, but as Halaberiel remarked, they’d be riding back often enough to keep the boundary in repair even without a proper wall. All during the construction Aderyn continued his teaching, since several of the dweomerworkers had followed them, and it was there, too, that Nevyn found him for his promised visit. Not only had the old man brought books of lore—three whole volumes of precious writings, including
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
—but he also had a mule pack filled with rolls of parchment, big blocks of dried ink, and special slate trays for grinding the ink into water. Pens, of course, they could cut from any bank of water reeds.
“How did you get the coin for all of this?” Aderyn said, marveling at the ink. Each block was stamped with the pelicans of the god Wmm. “Or did the temple just give it to you?”
“The ink was a gift, truly, but I bought the rest. Lord Maroic’s son paid me handsomely for saving his new lady’s life.” Nevyn’s face turned suddenly blank. “Ado, I’ve got news of a sort for you. Come walk with me.”
When they left the tent, Dallandra hardly seemed to notice, so lost in the books was she. In the long sun of a hot spring afternoon they walked along the lake, where tiny ripples of water eased up onto clear white sand.
“Somewhat’s wrong, isn’t it?” Aderyn said.
“It is. There was fever, bad fever, in Blaeddbyr last winter. Your father and mother are both dead. So is Lord Maroic and most of the elderly and all of the babies in the village, for that matter.”
Aderyn felt his head jerk up of its own will. He wanted to weep and keen, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Nevyn laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“It aches my heart, too, Ado. I felt it would be better to tell you myself rather than merely pass the news on through the fire.”
Aderyn nodded his agreement, wondering at himself and at the grief that seemed to have torn out his tongue. They’re not truly dead, he told himself. They’ve just gone on. They’ll be born again. You know that.
“It was a terrible thing, that fever.” Nevyn’s voice was soft and distant, as if he were talking to himself alone. “But at least it was quick. I think Lyssa might have pulled through if it weren’t that Gweran had already died. I don’t think she truly wanted to live without him.”
He nodded again, still unable to speak.
“There’s no fault or shame in tears, lad. They’ve gone on to new life, but who knows if ever you’ll see them again?”
At that, finally, he could weep, tossing his head back and sobbing aloud like one of the People. Nevyn patted him on the shoulder repeatedly until at last he fell quiet again, spent.
“I’ll miss them,” Aderyn said. “Especially Mam. Ye gods, Nevyn, I feel so lost! Except for you, I really don’t have any people but the People now, if you take my meaning.”
“I do, and you’re right enough. But that’s your Wyrd, lad. I’d never presume to guess why, but it’s your Wyrd, and you’ve taken it up well. I honor you for it.”
Since in his grief the noisy camp seemed too much to bear, Aderyn led Nevyn on a long, silent walk halfway round the lake. Having his old teacher there was a comfort more healing than any herbs. When the sun was getting low they started back, and Aderyn made an effort to wrench his mind away from his loss.
“And what do you think of my Dallandra?”
Nevyn grinned, looking suddenly much younger.
“I’m tempted to make some smart remark about your having luck beyond your deserving, to find a beautiful woman like this, but truly, her looks are the least of it, aren’t they? She’s a woman of great power, Ado, very great power indeed.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t take it lightly.” Nevyn stopped walking and fixed
him with one of his icy stares. “Do you understand me, Aderyn? At the moment she’s in love with you and in love with playing at being your wife, but she’s a woman of very great power.”
“Truly, I’m aware of that every single day we’re together. And there’s another thing, too. Don’t you think I realize that she’s bound to live hundreds of years longer than I will? No matter how much I love her, I’m only an incident in her life.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“Forgive me, I forgot that you wouldn’t know. The People live for a long, long time indeed. About five hundred years, they tell me, out on the plains, though when they lived in cities, six or seven hundred was the rule.”