A Time of Exile. Katharine Kerr

aren’t you glad to have four men all ready to die for you?’

      ‘Not if they dice over me first like a piece of Eldidd ironware.’

      ‘I didn’t mean it like that!’

      ‘Horse turds.’

      When Dallandra started to walk away, he grabbed her arm again, bobbing his head and ducking before her like a bird drinking from a stream.

      ‘Please, wait! At least tell me this: is there someone you love more than me? If you do then I’ll ride off with a broken heart, but I’ll ride.’

      ‘Since I don’t love you at all it wouldn’t be hard to find someone I loved more, but actually, I haven’t even looked. Why don’t you believe me, you cloud-brain? I don’t love you. I don’t love anyone. I don’t want to get myself a man. Plain truth. No more to say. There you are.’

      Rage flared in his eyes.

      ‘I don’t believe it. Come on, tell me: what can I do to make you love me?’

      She was about to swear at him, then had a better idea.

      ‘I’ll never love any man who isn’t my match in magic.’

      ‘What a rotten thing to say! What man’s ever going to match you? That’s a woman’s art.’

      ‘It doesn’t have to be.’ Dallandra gave him a small smile. ‘A man could learn it, too – if he had the guts, and most of you don’t.’

      This time, when Dallandra shook free and walked on, Cal stayed behind, savagely kicking at a tuft of grass with the toe of his boot. She hurried on to the lakeshore, where Nananna and Halaberiel were sitting in the long grass in the shade of a willow tree, their heads together and talking urgently.

      ‘I’ve asked the banadar to do us a small favour,’ Nananna said. ‘Concerning yesterday’s vision.’

      ‘Of course I’ll go look for this man, Wise One. I’ll take my escort with me, too.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s see – The last of the Round-ear merchants is still here. I could ask him if he’s seen anything of a stranger.’

      ‘No,’ Nananna said. ‘I know this is only making your task harder, Banadar, but I’d prefer that you speak to the Round-ears as little as possible.’

      Halaberiel shot her a troubled glance, then nodded his agreement.

      ‘Take Cal with you, will you?’ Dallandra broke in. ‘I want him out of my sight.’

      ‘Oh, now, now.’ Halaberiel gave her an infuriatingly paternal smile. ‘He’s a decent boy, really, if you’d only give him a chance.’

      When Dallandra crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, Halaberiel hastily looked away and made the sign against the evil eye with his fingers. Although the evil eye was only a myth, most dweomerfolk found it a useful one.

      ‘Very well, Cal will ride with me,’ Halaberiel said. ‘Now, about this Round-ear we’re fetching, can you give me a sign to look for, O Wise One?’

      ‘Come to my tent after dark. I’ll give you a riddle to ask him, too, just to make sure you’ve cut the horse out of the herd of cows.’

      ‘Good.’ Halaberiel rose, bobbing his head at her. ‘Shall I escort you to your tent?’

      ‘No, but thank you. I think I’ll take a bit of sun.’

      Nananna waited until the banadar was out of ear-shot before she spoke.

      ‘And why are you breaking poor Cal’s heart?’

      ‘I don’t love him.’

      ‘Very well, then, but there’s nothing wrong with you finding a nice young man to keep you warm in the winter.’

      Dallandra wrinkled her nose and shuddered. Nananna laughed, patting Dallandra gently on the arm with one frail hand.

      ‘Whatever you want, child. But a cold heart may find it hard to work magic as it grows older and more chill.’

      ‘Oh, maybe so, but I hate it when they hang around me, yapping like dogs around a bitch in heat! Sometimes I wish I’d been born ugly.’

      ‘It might have been easier, but the Goddess of the Clouds gave you beauty, and doubtless for some reason of her own. I wouldn’t argue with Her now that you have it.’

      That night was the first in what promised to be a long series of feasts. Each alar made up a huge quantity of a single dish and set it out in front of their tents – Dallandra stewed up a vast pot of dried vegetables heavily spiced with Bardek curries – and the People drifted from one alar to another, sampling each dish, stopping to talk with old friends, then moving on to the next. Dallandra took a wooden bowl and trotted back and forth from alar to alar to fetch a selection of favourite treats for Nananna, who sat regally on a pile of cushions by a campfire and received visitors while she ate. By the end of the alardan she would have seen everyone at the meeting and dispensed wise advice, too, for most of their problems. Someday this role of wise woman would be Dallandra’s, but she was filled with the dread that she was too young, not ready, nowhere near Nananna’s equal. Her worst fear was that she would somehow betray her people’s trust in her.

      Slowly the night darkened; a full moon rose bloated on the far empty horizon. Here and there, music broke out in the camp, as harpers and flute-players took out their instruments and started the traditional songs. Singing, or at least humming along under their breaths, the People drifted back and forth through the light from a hundred campfires. Just as the moon was rising high in the sky, the Round-ear merchant came to pay his respects to Nananna. Since she was supposed to be polishing her knowledge of the Eldidd tongue, Dallandra moved close to listen as Namydd of Aberwyn and his son, Daen, made Nananna low bows in the Round-ear fashion and sat down at her feet. The merchant was a portly sort, greying and paunchy, and his thin wisps of hair made his round ears painfully obvious. Daen, however, was nice-looking for one of his kind, with a thick shock of blond hair to cover what Dallandra thought of as his deformed ears.

      ‘I’m most grateful you’d speak with me, O Wise One,’ Namydd said in his barbarous-sounding speech. ‘I’ve brought you a little gift, just as a token of my respect.’

      Daen promptly handed over a cloth-wrapped parcel, which his father presented to Nananna with as much of a bow as he could manage sitting down. With a small regal smile, Nananna unwrapped it, then held up two beautiful steel skinning knives with carved bone handles.

      ‘How lovely! My thanks, good merchant. Here, Dallandra, you may choose which one you want.’

      Eagerly Dallandra took the knives and studied them in the firelight. One knife was decorated purely with interlacements and spirals; the other had a picture of a running horse in the clumsy Eldidd style. She chose the abstract one and handed the other back to Nananna.

      ‘My thanks, good merchants,’ Dallandra said. ‘This is a truly fine thing.’

      ‘Not half as fine as you deserve,’ Daen broke in.

      Dallandra realized that he was staring at her with a besotted smile. Oh no, not him too! she thought. She rose, made a polite bob, then hurried to the tent on the excuse of putting the new knives away.

      By the time the moon was at her zenith, Nananna was tired. Dallandra shooed the last visitors away, then escorted Nananna to their tent and helped her to settle in to bed. In the soft glow of the magical light, Nananna seemed as frail as a tiny child as she lay wrapped in her dark blue blanket, but her violet eyes were still full of life, sparkling like a lass’s.

      ‘I do love an alardan,’ Nananna said. ‘You can go watch the dancing if you’d like, child.’

      ‘Are you sure you won’t need me for anything?’

      ‘Not while I sleep, no. Oh – I forgot all about Halaberiel. Here, go find him and tell him I’ll speak to him in the morning.’

      Shortly