A Time of Omens. Katharine Kerr

lad,’ Nevyn said, and he felt defeated before he truly began his little lecture. ‘It’s your safety I’m worried about. Slipping off into town with only those two bumbling idiots for guards was a very bad idea.’

      ‘Well, true enough, and I’m sorry.’

      ‘You don’t look sorry in the least. After this, if you simply can’t live without a lass, have your friends bring you one. For enough silver that sort of lass is always willing to take a little walk.’

      ‘No doubt my learned c-c-councillor would know.’

      Nevyn restrained the impulse to give the one True King of all Deverry a good slap across the chops. Very dimly he could remember being both that young and that smug about his first lass – some two hundred years earlier or about that, anyway. Such anniversaries had rather lost their importance for him. All at once Maryn let his grin fade and sat down in the one rickety chair to stare at the floor.

      ‘Somewhat wrong?’

      ‘Not tr-tr-truly. I was just thinking. Both you and Father were telling me that I’d have to marry Glyn’s daughter.’

      ‘So we were, and so you do,’

      ‘How old is she?’

      ‘Thirteen.’

      ‘Well, at least she’s old enough.’ He looked up with a worried frown. ‘Is she p-p-p-pretty?’

      ‘I have no idea.’

      ‘I suppose I’ll have to many her even if she’s got twenty wens and a besom sq-sq-squint.’

      ‘Exactly right, your highness. She represents the sovereignty of the kingdom.’

      Maryn groaned and went back to studying the floor.

      ‘Well, I hope she is pr-p-pretty,’ the prince said at last. ‘Now that I know what …’ And then he did blush, looking at that moment some ten years old. ‘I’d best get to b-b-bed.’

      ‘So you had. If I were you, I’d pretend to be asleep and snoring when Maddyn comes storming in. Our bard didn’t seem to find the evening’s sport amusing.’

      In the morning, over breakfast, Maddyn assembled the silver daggers who’d been at the Tupping Ram to piece out what had happened. He knew that it would be a good bit better for the miscreants if he settled this matter before Caradoc or Owaen took it in hand. As this less than pleasant meal progressed, he noticed that Branoic sat at the end of the table as far from him as possible, ate nothing, and spoke only when the others tormented him into doing so. Although Maddyn started out furious, by the time Branoic, stammering as much as the prince and twice as red, repeated the whore’s remark about coring apples, he was laughing as hard as all the other men there.

      ‘Oh well and good, then,’ Maddyn said at last. ‘No one was killed, and so that’s an end to it. Cheer up, Branno. I can’t lie and say that I’d never have done such if I’d been you.’

      Everyone smirked and nodded agreement. Looking a bit less miserable Branoic grabbed a slab of bread and busied himself in buttering it. Although everyone went on eating, Maddyn could tell that something was still bothering a couple of the men.

      ‘Out with it, Stevyc.’

      ‘Well, by the hells, Maddo, I was just wondering.’ He glanced at Branoic. ‘Did you ever find out what they meant? About coring apples I mean?’

      ‘I didn’t. Everything happened too fast.’

      When Stevyc swore in honest regret, everyone howled and hooted. There was the true end to the matter, Maddyn assumed, and he pitched into his breakfast. Yet as he was leaving the tavern room afterwards his little blue sprite appeared, and with her were two grey gnomes, dancing up and down with their normally slack mouths twisted into frowns. Her mindless blue eyes peered up at him in something like worry.

      ‘What’s all this?’ Maddyn whispered. ‘You’re not even supposed to be here. You’d best run away before Nevyn sees you. Whist!’

      Yet they stayed with him, the sprite riding on his shoulder, the gnomes clinging to his brigga leg like frightened children. He considered for a moment, then went upstairs to Nevyn’s chamber with the Wildfolk hurrying after. He found the old man sitting on the windowsill of his chamber and staring idly out across the spring countryside. Although Maddyn hesitated, wondering if he were interrupting some meditation, Nevyn turned to him and started to smile – until he saw the Wildfolk.

      ‘What? You shouldn’t be here!’

      All three of them began to jump up and down and point up at the ceiling, their little faces twisted in an agony of concentration.

      ‘Ye gods!’ Nevyn sounded truly alarmed. ‘Someone’s watching us?’

      They shook their heads in a no, then frowned again and began pinching and shoving each other.

      ‘Someone saw last night, when the men were fighting.’

      They all nodded, then disappeared. Even though Maddyn had no idea of what was happening, he went cold with fear just from the look on Nevyn’s face – an icy kind of horror mingled with rage.

      ‘This is serious, Maddo lad, truly serious. When did they come to you?’

      ‘Just now. I came straight up here.’

      ‘Good, good. You did exactly the right thing.’ Nevyn began to pace back and forth across the chamber. ‘Ye gods, I don’t know what to do!’

      Maddyn’s chill of unease deepened. For so long he had so blindly trusted Nevyn to solve every problem that hearing the old man admit helplessness was as bad as a death sentence.

      ‘We’ve got to get out of Dun Trebyc,’ the dweomerman said finally. ‘But we’ve got to do so in the right way. We need to keep up our ruse of being a perfectly ordinary troop of mercenaries.’

      ‘Well, if we were, we wouldn’t be leaving without a proper hire. No single jewel merchant’s rich enough to engage a whole band of mercenaries. If he was, he’d have bodyguards.’

      ‘Just so. We’d best find a better excuse than me. I – who’s that? Come in!’

      The footsteps they’d heard turned out to belong to Caradoc, who came in with a bob of a bow for the old man.

      ‘We’ve got to get out of here today, Nevyn. Been lucky so far, but I’ll wager the town warden and his men are going to be coming around soon, asking questions about that brawl last night.’

      ‘I had the same thought myself. Hum. I think I know where I can find us a hire. Since I’m a merchant now, I’d best go pay my respects to my new god, hadn’t I? I’ll be down at the temple of Nwdd if you need me.’

      When the old man returned, not more than an hour later, he brought two merchants with him and prosperous ones from the look of the fine wool in their checked brigga and cloaks. Stout men in their thirties, the pair stood uncertainly near the door of the inn chamber as Nevyn introduced them round as Budyc and Wffyn.

      ‘We might have a hire for you, captain.’ Budyc stroked his dark moustaches with a nervous hand. ‘The jewel merchant here swears you’re reliable.’

      ‘More than most, anyway,’ Caradoc said. ‘And every one of my lads can fight like a fiend from hell. I’ll swear it on Gamyl’s altar if you want.’

      The merchants exchanged speculative glances.

      ‘They’ll have to do,’ Wffyn said. ‘This time of year, it’s a stroke of luck to find a free troop that isn’t pledged to a lord already.’

      Budyc shrugged in nervous agreement.

      ‘Very well, captain. Name your price.’

      ‘A silver piece a man on contract, then one a week, two if we see fighting, and you pay full wages for every man killed.’

      Again