He suddenly smiled. ‘Oh very well, I’m truly worried if I can forget things like that. I’ll do my best to stop, but I make no promises.’
Richt and his gift reminded Dallandra that she had an extremely unpleasant task ahead of her, telling her fellow dweomermaster in Cerr Cawnen about the fate of the caravan. As she went to her tent for privacy, she wondered if Niffa might already know, since Niffa had lost a great-nephew in that attack. The plight of bloodkin had a way of reaching a dweomermaster’s mind. Indeed, as soon as Dallandra contacted her, she could feel Niffa’s grief, as strong as a drench of sudden rain.
‘My heart aches for your loss,’ Dallandra said.
‘My thanks,’ Niffa said. ‘Jahdo’s the one who’s suffering the more, alas. Aethel was always his favourite grandchild.’
Dallandra let a wordless sympathy flood out from her mind. Niffa’s image, floating in a shaft of dusty sunlight, displayed tears in her dark eyes. Her pale silver hair hung dishevelled around her face, a sign of mourning.
‘The men who’ve survived this long are likely to live,’ Dallandra said. ‘I just tended them and spoke with Richt. They won’t be able to get back on the road for some while, though.’
‘My thanks for the telling. With my mind so troubled, it’s been a hard task to focus upon their images and read such things from them.’
‘No doubt! Here, I’ll let you go now. I’ll contact you again to let you know how they’re faring.’
Niffa managed a faint smile, then broke the link between them.
Just as Dallandra got up to leave, Sidro brought her the baby to nurse. They sat together, discussing the changeling children, until little Dari fell asleep. Dallandra settled the baby in the leather sling-cradle hanging in the curve of the tent wall. Westfolk infants sleep more or less upright, settled on beds of fresh-pulled grass, rather than wearing swaddling bands as we Deverry folk wrap our babies.
‘I was just going to talk with Valandario,’ Dallandra said. ‘Do you think you could watch the baby for me?’
‘Gladly, Wise One,’ Sidro said. ‘I’ll take her with me to my tent, if that pleases you.’
‘It does, and my thanks. Ah, here’s Val now! I thought she might have heard me thinking about her.’
Val had, indeed. After Sidro left them, they spoke in Elvish. Valandario exclaimed over the pendant when Dallandra handed it to her, rubbed it between her fingers, and pronounced the dweomer upon it safe enough to wear.
‘Someone’s turned it into a talisman to attract good health, is all.’ Val handed it back. ‘Huh, and the dwarves claim they don’t believe in dweomer!’
‘Probably one of the women did the enchanting.’
‘I suppose so.’ Valandario settled herself on a leather cushion. ‘I’ve been thinking about the dragon book, and I don’t understand how Evandar could have written it. He couldn’t read and write, could he?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘What? The subject never came up in all those hundreds of years?’
‘There’s something you don’t understand. Hundreds of years passed in this world, yes. For me it was only a couple of long summers with barely a winter in between. That first time when I went to Evandar’s country, I thought I’d spent perhaps a fortnight away.’
Valandario pursed her lips as if she were clamping them shut.
‘Don’t you believe me?’ Dallandra went on.
‘Of course I do.’ Val stayed silent for a moment more, then let the words burst out. ‘But how could you love a man who’d trick you that way? He trapped you in his little world, and by the Star Goddesses themselves, the grief he caused in this one!’
‘Tricked me?’ Dallandra found that words had deserted her. She sat down opposite Val, who apparently mistook her silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ Val said. ‘A thousand apologies.’
‘No, no, no need.’ Dallandra managed to find a few words. ‘I’d never – I don’t think I ever thought of it – of him – that way before.’
‘As what? A trickster? He had to be the consummate trickster, the absolute king of them all, from everything I know about him. This book – it’s another of his tricks, isn’t it? Like the rose ring and the black crystal. I hope it’s the last of the bad lot.’
‘Well, so do I.’
The silence hung there, icy in the pale silver light. Abruptly Val flung one hand in the air. The dweomer light above them changed to a warmer gold.
‘About the book,’ Val said. ‘So Evandar could have written it.’
‘Yes, perhaps he might have.’ Dallandra let out her breath in a long sigh. ‘Though it seems like it would have taken a long time, just from its size, I mean, and he had so little patience.’
Valandario quirked an eyebrow. Dallandra kept silent.
‘What about the archives in the Southern Isles?’ Val went on. ‘Could it be a copy of something there?’
‘I had hopes that way, but no,’ Dallandra said. ‘Meranaldar was a librarian there, you know, and he knew every single volume that survived the Great Burning. Before he left last autumn, I asked him about the book that Ebañy saw in the crystal. He didn’t recognize it, and yes, he remembered all the covers of the books, too.’
‘He would.’ Valandario grinned at her. ‘But boring or not, he was a useful sort of man to know. You were already wondering, last summer, if the book contained dragon lore, too.’
‘So I was. He told me that the only dragon lore they had was the occasional comment or passage in books about other things.’
‘Didn’t you say that Jill had books from the Southern Isles?’
‘Yes, and when she died, Evandar reclaimed them. Meranaldar told me that he brought them back to the archive. I’ve got her other books, and the only dragon lore in them is what she wrote in the margins.’
‘So much for that, then. Now, what about Laz’s book, his copy of the Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll? It has such a similar cover. Sidro told me that he bought it already bound but with blank pages up in Taenbalapan. Do you suppose the dragon book came from there, too?’
‘A very good point.’ Dallandra rose and began to pace back and forth in the tent. ‘I wonder if Evandar saw the other one there and acquired it somehow.’
‘Stole it, you mean.’ Valandario got up and joined her.
Dallandra swirled around to face her and set her hands on her hips. Val’s expression revealed only a studied neutrality. She’s right, Dallandra thought. He really was an awful thief. She wasn’t quite ready to admit it aloud.
‘Anyway, to return to the book.’ Val’s expression changed to narrow-eyed disgust. ‘I suppose we’d better
