Katharine Kerr: A Time of War

Free at last Ambo shook his sable length and chittered, pausing to rub himself on Jahdo’s arm, all affection now that his work day was over. He backed up for a running start, then leapt and pranced, jigging round Jahdo’s ankles. When the boy could finally catch him, he dumped Ambo into the common pen, where the ferret began rummaging round in the straw on some weaselly concern. Dera came in with clean water in a big pottery dish and a wooden bowl of scraps of jerky. She set them down inside the common pen, then laid down some fine chopped meat for Tek-tek.

‘Food for you later,’ she announced to Jahdo.

‘Is Gwira still here, Mam?’

‘She is. Why? Don’t you feel well?’

‘Naught like that. I just did wonder.’

‘Well, then, don’t stand in the straw like a lump! Come out and see for yourself.’

Jahdo followed her out to find his elder brother home, sitting at the far end of the big table and sharing a tankard of beer with Lael. The eldest of the three and almost a man, really, Kiel was a handsome boy, with yellow hair like their mother’s, and almost as tall as their father, but slender, with unusually long and delicate fingers as well. At the nearer end of the table, the herbwoman stood, picking over the herbs Jahdo had brought back.

‘Be those herbs good?’ he asked.

‘Perfectly fine, indeed,’ Gwira said.

The herbwoman stayed to dinner that night, sitting down at the end of the table next to Dera and across from Niffa, where they could all gossip over their sauced pork and bread about possible husbands, while Lael mostly listened, voicing only the occasional concerned opinion about one suitor or another. Kiel and Jahdo pretended indifference, but at the same time, they said not one word to each other, either, lest they miss something. As the second oldest person in Cerr Cawnen, Gwira knew a good bit about most everyone.

‘Well now, with your pretty face,’ the old woman said at last, ‘you might nock an arrow for high-flying game, young Niffa. Councilman Verrarc’s been known to stop by here for a word or two on occasion.’

‘He does come to see Mam, and I’d not be marrying him if he were the last man left alive under the moon.’

Although Niffa spoke quietly, cold steel rang in her voice.

‘I doubt me if he’d marry a ratter, love,’ Dera broke in. ‘So don’t you worry.’

‘Beauty’s bettered a lass’s fortune before this.’ Gwira paused to hack a bit of gristle with her table dagger. ‘Why do you hold him in disdain, lass?’

‘He’s like reaching into a pond and touching a big old slimy newt. I hate him.’

Dera and Lael both raised an eyebrow at this outburst. Niffa buried her nose in her cup of watered ale.

‘Well, there was that scandal,’ Gwira said. ‘Him and that Raena woman, the chief speaker’s wife from over in Penli.’

‘That near cost us the alliance, it did,’ Lael said. ‘A lot of us might not vote for the young cub again, I tell you, after that botch.’

‘Worse for her, it were,’ Gwira broke in. ‘Her husband did put her aside, didn’t he? Who knows what happened to the poor woman after that?’

‘If the young cub did want her as much as all that,’ Lael growled, ‘he might have married her decently when he had the chance.’

‘I hear Raena did go back to her people in the north in shame.’ Dera turned thoughtful. ‘But I don’t know. It takes two to twist a rope, I always say, and there was somewhat about that woman I never did like. I doubt me if she were but an innocent little chick to Verro’s fox, like.’

‘Um, well, mayhap.’ Gwira pursed her lips. ‘Our Niffa might not be able to do better when it come to coin and calling, but there’s no doubt about it, she can do much better when it come to character. I’ll be putting some thought into this, over the next few days, like.’

‘Think of Demet,’ Niffa mumbled. ‘The weaver’s second son.’

Everyone laughed, relaxing. Gwira nodded slowly.

‘Not a bad choice he’d be. Good steady man, his father, and prosperous, too.’

Jahdo laid his spoon down in his bowl. All this talk of Councilman Verrarc had made him feel sick to his stomach, and cold all over, as well. He should tell Gwira how he felt, he knew, should tell her about – about what? There was some incident he wanted to tell her, just because she was old and wiser than anyone else in town. Something about some event out in the meadow. Hadn’t something scary happened? Yet he couldn’t quite remember what it was, and the moment passed beyond returning.

Yet, not two days later, the boy recovered a brief glimmering of the memory, though not enough to save him. Early on that particular morning, Dera sent Jahdo over to town to claim some eggs and meat that one of the townsfolk owed them.

‘Your Da be across, too, love,’ she said. ‘See if you can find him when you’re done.’

Jahdo had rowed about halfway across the lake, his back turned to his destination, of course, when he saw the ceremonial barge pushing off from Citadel and heading his way. With a few quick strokes he moved off its course and rested at his oars while the squat barge slipped past, painted all silver and red, riding low in the water. In the middle stood a false mast to display the yellow and green banners of Cerr Cawnen, which hung lazily in the warm summer air. At the bow clustered a group of men in rich clothing, embroidered linen shirts belted over knee-length trousers, the common style in this part of the world, with short cloaks thrown back from their shoulders. Jewels and gold winked in the rising sun.

As the barge slid past, Jahdo saw Councilman Verrarc standing at the rail. His heart thudded once as the councilman looked his way. Since only some fifteen feet separated them, Jahdo could clearly see that Verrarc had noticed him, that the councilman frowned, too, and turned to keep him in view for a minute or two after the barge went past. Again Jahdo felt his mouth turn parched, and the sensation made him remember his meadow fear and the image of a woman, wrapped in black and hissing as she spoke. Yet all the boy knew was that in some obscure way Verrarc’s image had sparked the memory. With a cold shudder he forced the recollection away and rowed on to town.

The family who owed them for the ratting, the Widow Suka and her son, had slaughtered a goat just the day before. Some hundred feet from the lake’s edge, her house perched on a crannog piled up so many hundreds of years before that the construction had turned into a real island, with trees and topsoil of its own, a little garden, and a pen for goats, which, every day in summer, the widow’s son rowed over to the mainland for the grazing. While she nestled eggs safely in the straw in Jahdo’s basket and wrapped chunks of goat up in cabbage leaves, Jahdo strolled to the edge of the crannog and looked over to shore.

Down by the gates in the wall a crowd of people stood round, all staring toward the gate itself. Jahdo could just pick out the tall form of Councilman Verrarc toward the front of the mob.

‘Now what’s that?’ Suka said. ‘Looks like a merchant caravan’s coming in.’

‘It does, truly. Ooh, I wonder where they’ve been?’

‘If you want to go see, lad, I’ll keep the food here and cool for you.’

Leaving the boat behind, Jahdo made his way to shore on foot, hopping from log to log. He arrived at the edge of the crowd just as the gates swung wide and a line of men and mules began to file through. Since he was the shortest person in the crowd, Jahdo couldn’t see a thing. For a few minutes he trotted this way and that, hoping to find a way to squeeze through to the front, decided that he might as well give it up, then heard muttering and oaths from the front of the crowd. The press began to surge backwards, men swearing and stepping back fast though without turning to look where they were going. Jahdo tried to run, nearly fell, nearly panicked, and cried out.