A Time of Omens. Katharine Kerr

are times when the safest place to hide something is out in plain sight.’ The smile faded, and he looked suddenly very weary. ‘I’ll pray that this is one of those times.’

      ‘Well and good, then, sir. So will I.’

      ‘My thanks. Oh, by the way, lad, I have a favour to ask of you and Maddo – and Aethan too, of course. Can Maryn share your fire and generally camp with you?’

      ‘Of course! Ye gods, we’ll all be honoured beyond dreaming, good councillor.’

      ‘No doubt, but please, do your best to treat him the way you’d treat any other man. He won’t take offence – he knows that his life depends on it.’

      Branoic nodded his agreement, but mentally he was half-giddy with pride – not because the True King of all Deverry would be dining with him that night, but because Nevyn had somehow assumed that Maddyn and he formed a unit, a pair you could take for granted. Me and Maddyn, he thought, it sounds right. Then he blushed, wondering why his heart was pounding so hard, the same way it did when he saw some pretty lass he fancied.

      Although he of course never explained them to Branoic or indeed any of the silver daggers, Nevyn had several tricks at his disposal to hide the prince. For one thing, he simply withdrew all the glamours that the elemental spirits had been casting over the boy, so that when he changed into the scruffy brigga and much-mended shirt that Caradoc had ready for him, all his supernatural air of power and magnetism vanished along with the fine clothes. For another, with Maryn’s complete cooperation he ensorcelled the prince and suggested to his subconscious mind that he had difficulty in speaking – though in nothing else. He also suggested that on a simple cue the difficulty would vanish. Once he removed the ensorcelment, the suggestion took effect, and the prince who’d always held forth like the hero of an ancient epic now stammered as he struggled to find the right words to express a simple, routine thought. All of the silver daggers swore in amazement and said that they wouldn’t recognize him themselves if they didn’t know better, but they, of course, thought that the prince was merely acting a part.

      Which in a way he always was, or, what was perhaps worse, the prince always lived his part in the strange epic that they were composing not with their words, but with their lives. At times, when he remembered the happy, charming little lad that Maryn once had been, Nevyn felt like a murderer. Over the years he had trained the prince so well that he’d stripped away all trace of the lad’s individuality, pruned and sheared him as ruthlessly as a gardener in the king’s palace shapes an ornamental hedge or splays a climbing rose over its trellis in order to torture it into an unnatural form. It was hard to tell at times whether Maryn was larger than life or smaller, a grand hero out of the Dawntime or a picture of a hero such as a Bardek illuminator would draw, all ink lines and thin colours.

      Either way, the kingdom needed him, not some all-too-human and complex man who would use the kingship rather than the kingship using him. Nevyn could only hope that in some future life either he himself or the Lords of Wyrd would make it up to Prince Maryn for slicing his personality away like the peel of an apple.

      First, of course, they had to get the lad and his councillor safely to Cerrmor before he could be any kind of king. Nevyn figured out a way to hide himself, too. Since there had to be some reason for an old man to be travelling with a mercenary troop, he decided to pass himself off as a jewel merchant who’d paid the troop a fee for allowing him to ride in the safety of their numbers. He knew enough about precious stones to bring this ruse off, and since Casyl had given him what few royal jewels there were to take to the Cerrmor princess, he could use them as his stock-in-trade. The real danger now lay in their desperate need to keep up these ruses. Since working dweomer leaves obvious tracks on the etheric and astral planes for those who know how to look for them, Nevyn could use no dweomer at all until the prince was safely in Cerrmor territory – not one single spell, not even lighting a fire or scrying someone out. He’d also asked the Kings of the Elements to keep their people away from him and the prince, which meant that he was deprived of any danger-warning that the Wildfolk might give him, too. After two hundred years of living wrapped round by dweomer, he felt naked, just as in one of those hideous dreams where you find yourself being presented to the High King only to realize that your skirts or brigga have somehow been left behind at home:

      In the morning they had a more mundane problem to worry about, or at least, Nevyn profoundly hoped that it was mundane. They woke to a slate-grey sky and a western wind that smelt of spring rain, and just after noon the storm broke. Although the rain held steady, the wind dropped in a few hours. Nevyn agreed with the captain that they’d better keep riding as long as the roads were passable. What troubled him was wondering if the storm were a natural phenomenon or if some dark dweomerman had called it up. There was nothing he could do to find out without giving their ruse away, and much less could he fight back with dweomer.

      That evening, when he shared a cold dinner with Caradoc, he had to force his eyes away from the campfire lest he start seeing the Wildfolk in it. Since the captain was wrapped in a black hiraedd of his own, they had an unpleasant meal of it until Nevyn decided to ease Caradoc’s mood since there was naught more he could do for the prince.

      ‘What troubles your heart, captain? It must be a grave thing indeed.’

      ‘Do I look as glum as that?’

      ‘You do, truly.’

      Caradoc sighed, hesitated, then shrugged.

      ‘Well, good councillor – I mean, good merchant – I’ve just been wondering what kind of welcome I’m in for down in Cerrmor.’

      ‘Well, the king’s pardoned you already – for all and sundry and in advance.’

      ‘But I’d never hold him to it if it was going to cause him trouble, and it might. There’s a powerful lord who just might take umbrage at that kind of pardon, and I don’t want him stirring things up behind the prince’s back, like.’

      ‘Oh.’

      They sat in silence for a moment more.

      ‘Ah horseshit!’ Caradoc said abruptly. ‘What happened was this. I wasn’t welcome at home for a number of reasons that I’ll keep to myself, if you don’t mind and all, and my father found me a place in the warband of a man named Lord Tidvulc. Ever hear of him?’

      ‘I haven’t, truly.’

      ‘Well, he was decent enough in his way, but his eldest son was a slimy little tub of eel-snot, not that you could tell his lordship that, of course. And so our young lordling – gods, I’ve almost forgotten his name – let me see, I think it was Gwaryn or Gwarc or suchlike – anyway, this little pusboil went and got a bondwoman with child. I guess he was enough of a hound to not mind the fleas. And then he had the stinking gall to try to kill her to keep the news from getting out! I happened to be passing by her hut, and luckily there were a couple of the lads with me for witnesses, because we heard the poor bitch screaming and sobbing as his noble lordling tried to strangle her. So I grabbed him and broke both his arms.’ Caradoc looked shame-struck rueful. ‘Don’t know what came over me all of a sudden. She was only a bondwoman, but it rubbed me wrong, like.’

      ‘I wouldn’t let myself feel shamed if I were you, captain. Rather the opposite.’

      Caradoc shrugged away the implied praise.

      ‘So of course Lord Tidvulc had to kick me out of the warband. I got the feeling he didn’t want to, but it was his first-born son and all. The trouble is, his lordship was no young man when I left, all those years ago, and I’ll wager anything you please that his son’s the lord now.’

      ‘And no doubt he’ll be less than pleased to see you? Hmm, I see your point, but you know, he may be dead himself by now. There’s been plenty of fighting down Cerrmor way.’

      ‘True spoken.’ The captain looked a good bit more cheerful. ‘Let’s pray so, huh? Naught I can do about it now, anyway.’

      For five days the silver daggers rode wet and slept that way, too, as they picked their way across Pyrdon, keeping to the country lanes and wild trails and avoiding the main-travelled roads.