exhausted.
‘My apologies, but I’ve got to stop now.’
A sigh sounded in regret. Someone touched his hair with a gentle stroke, like a pat on a dog; someone plucked at his sleeve with skinny-feeling fingers. The fire blazed up in the hearth; a draught of preternaturally cold air swirled around him. Maddyn shuddered and stood up, but little hands grabbed his brigga-leg. The harp-strings sounded in a random run down as someone tried them out. The very shadows came alive, eddying and swirling in every corner. Fingers were touching his face, stroking his arm, pinching his clothes, pulling his hair, while the harp-strings rang and strummed in an ugly belling.
‘Stop that, all of you!’ Nevyn yelled from the door. ‘That’s a wretched discourteous way to treat our guest!’
The little fingers disappeared. The fire fell low, as if in embarrassment. Maddyn felt like weeping in relief as the herbman strode in, carrying a pair of saddlebags.
‘Truly, it was a nasty way to behave,’ Nevyn went on, addressing the seemingly empty air. ‘If you do that again, then Maddyn won’t ever play his harp for you.’
The room went empty of presences. Nevyn tossed the saddlebags down on the table and gave Maddyn a grin. With shaking hands, Maddyn set his harp down and wiped the sweat from his face on his sleeve.
‘I should have warned you about that. They love music. My apologies, lad.’
Maddyn tried to speak, failed, and sat down heavily on the bench. Behind him, a harp-string twanged. Nevyn scowled at the air beside it.
‘I said stop it!’
A little puff of wind swept away.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me a few questions, Maddyn lad?’
‘To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to.’
The old man laughed under his breath.
‘Well, I’ll answer anyway, questions or no. Those were what men call the Wildfolk. They’re like ill-trained children or puppies, all curiosity, no sense or manners. Unfortunately, they can hurt us mortal folk without even meaning to do so.’
‘I gathered that, sure enough.’ As he looked at his benefactor, Maddyn realized a truth he’d been avoiding for days now. ‘Sir, you must have dweomer.’
‘I do. How does that strike you?’
‘Like a blow. I never thought there was any such thing outside my own ballads and tales.’
‘Most men would consider me a bard’s fancy, truly, but my craft is real enough.’
Maddyn stared, wondering how Nevyn could look so cursed ordinary, until the old man turned away with a good-humoured laugh and began rummaging in his saddlebags.
‘I brought you a bit of roast meat for your supper, lad. You need it to make back the blood you lost, and the villager I visited had some to spare to pay for my herbs.’
‘My thanks. Uh, when do you think I’ll be well enough to ride out?’
‘Oho! The spirits have you on the run, do they?’
‘Well, not to be ungrateful or suchlike, good sir’ Maddyn felt himself blush ‘but I … uh … well …’
Nevyn laughed again.
‘No need to be ashamed, lad. Now as to the wound, it’ll be a good while yet before you’re fit. You rode right up to the gates of the Otherlands, and it always takes a man a long time to ride back again.’
From that day on, the Wildfolk grew bolder around Maddyn, the way that hounds will slink out from under the table when they realize that their master’s guest is fond of dogs. Every time Maddyn picked up his harp, he was aware of their presence – a liveliness in the room, a small scuffle of half-heard noise, a light touch on his arm or hair, a breath of wind as something flew by. Whenever they pinched or mobbed him, he would simply threaten to stop singing, a threat that always made them behave themselves. Once, when he was struggling to light a fire with damp tinder, he felt them gather beside him. As he struck a spark from his steel, the Wildfolk blew it into a proper flame. When he thanked them automatically, he realized that he was beginning to take spirits for granted. As for Nevyn himself, although Maddyn studied the old man for traces of strange powers and stranger lore, he never saw any, except, of course, that spirits obeyed him.
Maddyn also spent a lot of time thinking over his future. Since he was a member of an outlawed warband, he would hang if Tieryn Devyr ever got his hands on him. His one chance of an honourable life was slim indeed. If he rode down to Cantrae without the tieryn catching him, and then threw himself upon the gwerbret’s mercy, he might be pardoned simply because he was something of a bard and thus under special protection in the laws. Unfortunately, the pardon was unlikely, because it would depend on his liege’s whim, and Gwerbret Tibryn of the Boar was a harsh man. His clan, the Boars of the North, was related to the southern Boars of Muir, who had wheedled the gwerbretrhyn out of the King in Dun Deverry some fifty years before. Between them, the conjoint Boar clans ruled a vast stretch of the northern kingdom and were said to be the real power behind a puppet king in the Holy City. It was unlikely that Tibryn would bother to show mercy to a half-trained bard when that mercy would make one of his loyal tieryns grumble. Maddyn decided that since he and the spirits had worked out their accommodation, he would leave the gwerbret’s mercy alone and stay in Brin Toraedic until spring.
The next time that Nevyn rode to the village, Maddyn decided to ride a-ways with him to exercise both himself and his horse. The day was clear and cold, with the smell of snow in the air and a rimy frost lying on the brown stubbled fields. When he realized that it was nearly Samaen, Maddyn was shocked at the swift flowing of time outside the hill, which seemed to have a different flow of its own. Finally they came to the village, a handful of round, thatched houses scattered among white birches along the banks of a stream.
‘I’d best wait for you by the road,’ Maddyn said. ‘One of the tieryn’s men might ride into the village for some reason.’
‘I don’t want you sitting out in this cold. I’ll take you over to a farm near here. These people are friends of mine, and they’ll shelter you without awkward questions.’
They followed a lane across brown pastureland until they came to the farmstead, a scatter of round buildings inside a circular, packed-earth wall. At the back of the big house was a cow-barn, storage sheds, and a pen for grey and white goats. In the muddy yard, chickens pecked round the front door of the house. Shooing the hens away, a stout man with greying hair came out to greet them.
‘Morrow, my lord. What can I do for you this morning?’
‘Oh, just keep a friend of mine warm, good Bannyc. He’s been very ill, as I’m sure his white face is telling you, and he needs to rest while I’m in the village.’
‘We can spare him room at the hearth. Ye gods, lad, you’re pale as the hoar frost, truly.’
Bannyc ushered Maddyn into the wedge-shaped main room, which served as kitchen and hall both. In front of a big hearth, where logs blazed in a most welcome way, stood two tables and three high-backed benches, a prosperous amount of furniture for those parts. Clean straw covered the floor, and the walls were freshly whitewashed. From the ceiling hung strings of onions and garlic, nets of drying turnips and apples, and a couple of enormous hams. On the
