Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

On a day wet with autumn rain, Nevyn went up to the tower to see Mael, who was, as usual, working on his commentaries. As such projects will, this one had grown far beyond the simple introduction to Ristolyn’s thought that Mael had originally planned.

“This aside is going to end up a cursed chapter!” Mael stuck his pen into the inkwell so hard that the reed nearly broke.

“So many of your asides do, but good chapters, withal.”

“It’s this question of what constitutes the greatest good, you see. For all its brilliance, Ristolyn’s argument doesn’t quite satisfy me. His categories are a bit limited.”

“You philosophers are always so good at multiplying categories.”

“Philosopher? Ye gods, I wouldn’t call myself that.”

“Indeed? What else are you?”

Mael’s face went slack in openmouthed amazement. When Nevyn laughed, he sheepishly joined in.

“Naught else, truly,” Mael said. “For twenty years I’ve thought myself a warrior, chafing at the bit like a warhorse and lusting for the freedom to fight once again. I’ve been deluding myself for at least ten of them. Here, I wonder if I even could ride to war now. I can see myself, sitting there on horseback, wondering what Ristolyn meant by the word end’ while someone knocked me right off mine.”

“You don’t look displeased.”

Mael wandered over to the window, where the rain slashed down as silver-gray as his hair.

“The view from here is a different one than I ever had before. You don’t see things as clearly in the dust of a battlefield.” Mael leaned his cheek against the cool glass and looked down. “Do you know what the cursed strangest thing of all is? If I didn’t worry so much about Gavra and the children, I’d be happy here.”

Nevyn felt a dweomer-touched slap of knowledge. It was time for Mael to be released. Because he had accepted, he could go free.

“Tell me somewhat. If you were free to do so, would you marry Gavra?”

“Of course. Why shouldn’t I? I’ve no place at a royal court anymore. I could legitimatize our children, too—if I were free to do so. Truly, I am a philosopher. I’ll even debate the hopeless and the impossible.”

When he left Mael’s chamber, Nevyn was considering the weather. Since it rarely snowed along the seacoast, travel was a possibility, though an unpleasant one, all winter. He went straight to his chamber and contacted Primilla through the fire.

Gavra’s shop occupied the front half of a house just across the street from her brother’s tavern. Every morning, when she came out to set to work, she would look around at the shelves stacked with herbs, the barrels, the jars, the dried crocodile hanging under the eaves. My house, she would think, and my shop. I own it all, just me. It was a rare woman in Cerrmor who owned property in her own name rather than in that of a husband or brother—in fact, it had taken Nevyn’s personal intervention to allow her to do so. With winter coming, bringing her plenty of customers with fevers and congested lungs, chilblains and aching bones, her business was prospering. She also had another pressing matter to contend with: Ebrua’s betrothal. Although she herself had let love rule her, she was determined to make a solid, conventional, arranged match for her daughter.

Fortunately, the lad that Ebrua herself favored was a decent lad of sixteen, Arddyn, the younger son of a prosperous family who dealt in tanned hides. After she discussed the formal betrothal with the lad’s father, she went up to the dun to consult with Mael. In a way the trip was foolish; he’d never met Arddyn’s family and had seen his daughter only from a great distance. But Mael listened gravely, turning his brilliant mind to the problem with such intensity that she knew he wanted to pretend, as she did, that they had some kind of normal life together.

“It sounds like a good match for people like us,” Mael said at last.

“Oh, listen to you, my royal love. People like us, indeed!”

“My lady forgets that I’m naught but a humble philosopher. Here, when I finish my book, the priests at the temple will have fifty copies written out by the scribes, and I’ll get a half of a silver coin apiece. That, my love, is my sole fortune in the world, so let us hope that Arddyn’s clan won’t be greedy about the dowry.”

“I think they’ll take her interest in my shop, and maybe a bit of silver.”

“Blasted good thing. It’s an unlucky lass who has a philosopher for a father.”

As Gavra was leaving the dun, she met Nevyn, who companionably slipped his arm through hers and escorted her down to the shop. Since the children were making the evening meal in the kitchen, they could talk in private. Nevyn laid a couple of big logs in the hearth and lit them with a snap of his fingers.

“Chilly today,” he remarked. “I’ve got somewhat truly important to tell you. I think I have a very good chance of getting Mael released.”

Gavra caught her breath with a gasp.

“Don’t tell him yet,” the old man went on. “I don’t want to raise his hopes only to dash them, but you need to know. You’ll have much to settle before you leave.”

“Leave? Oh, here, is Mael going to want me to go with him?”

“Now, if you ever doubted that for a minute, then that’s the first stupid thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

Suddenly Gavra had to sit down. She perched on a stool near the fire and wove her shaking hands together.

“I’m afraid there’s no choice but to send him back to Eldidd,” Nevyn said. “Do you want to go?”

She looked at the shelves, at the room, at everything she’d worked for so long to have. She’d be leaving her married daughter behind, too, and what was Dumoryc going to say when she introduced a stranger as his father?

“I suppose I do.”

Nevyn raised one bushy eyebrow.

“Well, ye gods,” she went on. “Eldidd? It’s a long way from here. But what would Mael do without me? He’d starve. Or do I flatter myself unduly?”

“Not in the least, and you know it blasted well.” The old man paused for a grin. “It’s likely that you’ll end up living on the western border of Eldidd, and there’s not a decent herbwoman out there for miles, or so I’ve been told.”

“Truly? What do the folk do for their ills?”

“Rely on what lore’s been passed down in their clans, most like, some of it good, some of it murderous. You know the sort of thing. ‘My gram always used foxglove tea for warts.’ They’ll do it even though old gram left a trail of corpses behind her. There’s a real need for a woman like you.”

Gavra hesitated on the edge of a retort, but she knew he’d found the best lure of all.

“I see. But it’ll be so much hard work, building up a new practice, educating people …”

“Hah! If you had a life of leisure, what would you do?”

“Go mad, most like. Oh, very well, Nevyn, you win.”

“Imph. I wasn’t aware we were fighting a duel.”

Gavra laughed, then went on thinking aloud.

“Well, let’s see. If I build up a new practice for Dumoryc, I can leave Ebrua this one—and the shop! It would be a splendid dowry. We could write the marriage contract exactly as we wanted it if I did that. She’ll never have to worry about her in-laws turning her out in shame just to snag her dowry.”

“Just so.”

“Eldidd begins to sound interesting.” She looked up with a smile. “And, of course, I love my man, too. I’ll simply have to go with him.”

For a variety of reasons Nevyn decided to secure Mael’s release in the spring. For one thing, the kings of the Wild-folk warned him that the winter would be full of bad storms. The most pressing reason, however, lay with Mael himself, who would refuse to leave his imprisonment until he saw his book properly copied, a task that would take months. While the scribes down at the temple of Wmm worked on the book, Nevyn worked on the king, whose honor was the councillor’s biggest ally.