Dragonspell: The Southern Sea. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ skullcap, looked him over with a small, not unfriendly smile.

      ‘So, Taliaesyn,’ he said. ‘Our Brindemo here says you come from Pyrdon.’

      ‘So I’ve been told, master.’

      One of Arriano’s bushy eyebrows shot up.

      ‘Talk to me in Deverrian. Oh, what … ah, I know. Describe this room.’

      As Taliaesyn, somewhat puzzled, obligingly gave him a catalogue of the furniture and colours in the room, Arriano listened with his head cocked to one side. Then he cut the list short with a wave of his hand.

      ‘Pyrdon? Hah! You come from Eldidd, lad. I’d wager good coin on it – the Eldidd sea-coast, at that.’ He turned to Brindemo and spoke in Bardekian. ‘They have a very distinctive way of speaking there. As you might have expected, Baruma was lying like a scorpion.’

      ‘May the feet of the gods crush him!’ Brindemo felt sweat run down his back. ‘I don’t suppose you recognize this supposed slave?’

      ‘Not as to give you his real name, no. From the way he moves and all, I’d say he was a member of their aristocracy.’

      ‘What? I was thinking of him as a knife-fighter or boxer or some other performer like that.’

      ‘You forget, my dear old friend, that in Deverry, the aristocrats are all warriors. They start training for it when they’re little children.’

      Brindemo groaned, a long rattle that gave him no relief. Taliaesyn was listening with an understandable intensity.

      ‘One of the noble-born?’ the slave said at last. ‘Here, this Baruma fellow said I was a merchant’s son.’

      ‘Baruma lies as easily as the rain falls,’ Arriano said. ‘If I were you, Brindemo, I’d stop babbling about zotars and get rid of this man as fast as you can – but to a decent master, mind. If his kin come storming through here with blood in their barbarian hearts …’

      ‘I know, I know.’ Brindemo could barely speak out of sheer frustrated greed. ‘But twenty-five zotars! Ai!’

      ‘Will all the gold in the world sew your head back onto your shoulders if …’

      ‘Oh shut up! Of course you’re right. Baruma wanted me to sell him to the mines or the galleys, but that’s completely out of the question if the man’s an aristocrat.’

      ‘I should think so! May Baruma’s sphincter loosen and his manhood plug itself!’

      ‘And may diseased monkeys feed some day upon his heart! Very well, then. I’ll sell him as soon as I can find the right sort of buyer. If you hear of someone, let me know – for a commission, of course.’

      ‘Of course.’ Arriano held out his hand. ‘More wine, Taliaesyn.’

      Even though Taliaesyn served the wine exactly as he’d been taught with all the proper courtesies, the harsh, brooding look in his eyes made Brindemo profoundly uneasy. I’d best get him out of here soon for my own sake, he thought, but ai! twenty-five zotars!

      Taliaesyn had been given a cubicle of his own to sleep in, because Brindemo was afraid to have him gossiping with the other slaves. If Baruma came back, neither the slave nor the slave merchant wanted him to know that they’d been trying to unravel his secret. Although the cubicle had room for nothing more than a straw pallet on the floor, and a tiny niche in the wall for an oil-lamp, it was private. After he’d been locked in for the night, Taliaesyn sat on the pallet for a long while, considering what Arriano had told him. Even though the lamp was out of oil, he could see perfectly well in the moonlight that streamed in the uncurtained window. It occurred to him, then, that it was peculiar that he could see in the dark. Before he’d been taking it for granted.

      A few at a time, Wildfolk came to join him, a gaggle of gnomes, mostly, all speckled and mottled in blue and grey and purple, quite different from the ones in Deverry, or at least, so he remembered. At the moment, he was disinclined to trust anything he ‘remembered’ about himself. Who knew if it were real or some lie of Baruma’s? He did, however, have a clear memory picture of solidly coloured gnomes, in particular a certain grey one who was some sort of friend. Apparently he’d been able to see these little creatures for some time.

      The ability to befriend spirits was so out of character for what he knew of Deverry aristocrats that he considered this strange fact for a good long time. Although he remembered little about himself, his general knowledge of the world seemed to be intact, and he was certain that your average warrior-lord did not go around talking to Wildfolk. Yet here was a particularly bold gnome, a dirty-green and greyish-purple with an amazing number of warts running down its spine, who was climbing into his lap and patting his hand with one little clawed paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

      ‘Well, good eve, little brother.’

      The gnome grinned to reveal bright purple fangs, then settled into his lap like a cat. As he idly stroked it, scratching it behind the ears every now and then, Taliaesyn felt something pricking at his mind like a buried splinter trying to force its way out of a finger. The Wildfolk, the very phrase, ‘little brother’, both meant something profound, something that would give him an important key to who he was if only he could find the lock. It was a secret, a very deep, buried secret, hidden even from Baruma, perhaps.

      ‘I wish you lads could talk. Do you know who I am?’

      The pack all shook their heads in a collective yes.

      ‘Do you know my name, then?’

      This time the answer was no.

      ‘But you somehow recognize me?’

      Another yes. He wondered if he’d ever been an introspective man – probably not, if he reminded people of a warrior-lord or a knife-fighter. The bits of truth he was finding made less sense than all the lies. One of the noble-born, or an athlete, but either way, he saw the Wildfolk, and they considered him a friend. Again came that twitch at his mind. One of their friends or one of their kin? The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled as he said it aloud.

      ‘Or one of their kin. I should know what that means, curse it all to the third hell!’

      But he couldn’t remember. All at once he was furious, furious with his mind, with Baruma, with the twisted fate that had stripped him of himself and dropped him here, a piece of human trash in Brindemo’s market. He slammed his fist into the wall, and the pain and the rage mingled to force a brief moment of clarity out of his maimed consciousness. The Westfolk. The Elcyion Lacar, the elves. They saw the Wildfolk; they called them little brothers. He’d known the elves once – hadn’t he? Hadn’t he ridden to war with some of them for allies? Once, a very long time ago.

      ‘Or one of their kin,’ he whispered like an exhalation of breath.

      He went cold all over in the warm night. It was a hard thing, after all, for a man to realize that he wasn’t completely human.

      Taliaesyn stayed at the market for two more days of drowsy boredom. Although he did his best to probe his mind, he found the work hard going, confirming his own thought that he’d never been a man who paid much attention to his mind. He did, however, remember one small thing, the matter of the piece of jewellery. Although he couldn’t remember exactly what it was, Taliaesyn was sure that Baruma had stolen СКАЧАТЬ