The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ them for the night?’

      ‘A good day’s ride east. Most of the duns near the city have been razed and gone for years.’

      ‘That’s what I was afraid of. Very well. I’ll have the scribe compose the messages today, and we’ll get the men on the road tomorrow at dawn.’

      They walked inside together and climbed the staircase, but when Elyssa went to the women’s hall, Lilli returned to her chamber. She laid the little brooch upon her table beside the book and for a moment gloated over the task ahead of her. She too needed a distraction from her worrying over Branoic and the prince both. It did occur to her to wonder if Nevyn would approve this independent foray into dweomerwork, but since he wasn’t there to ask, she went ahead with the job.

      Nevyn’s dweomer book devoted a page to the process of charging a talisman, and Lilli had seen Nevyn work its opposite twice now as well. She would need to cleanse the brooch first of any and all evil influences it might have been exposed to over the years. That very evening, by candlelight she drew a magic circle around her table and chair to mark it as her place of working. The brooch she laid in the centre of the round table. Next, she sat down and meditated upon the Light to clear her own mind of troubled thoughts. That done, she rose and stood as she’d seen Nevyn stand, one hand in the air.

      ‘Lords of Light,’ she called out. ‘May my work be true.’

      In her mind she visualized the Light, streaming across the starry sky. She imagined light pouring down like water to drench her, light swirling round her upraised arm, light gathering at her fingertips. With a snap she brought her arm down and washed the little brooch in a beam of silver light.

      ‘Begone!’

      To her altered sight the brooch gleamed, as bright as molten silver from the jeweller’s ladle. The light flickered, then vanished. She broke the magic circle with a ceremonious stamp of her foot.

      ‘And any spirits trapped by this ceremony, go free!’

      The chamber once again was an ordinary room, lit only by dim candlelight. She stamped again to earth herself with the feel of solid things, then let out her breath in a long sigh. She was trembling and sweaty, she realized. When she took a step, she nearly stumbled; she had to catch the back of the chair to steady herself, an effort that left her gasping for breath. There will be plenty of time, she told herself. You’ll simply have to work slowly, in stages. She wrapped the newly-purified brooch up in a bit of cloth to protect it, then went to bed.

      Over the next few days Lilli worked on the talisman, stopping often to rest. The work was making her so tired, in fact, that she thought of leaving it undone, but she couldn’t bear to disappoint Elyssa. She saw the servingwoman often, generally in the great hall, where Elyssa would always stop to chat and let her know how the princess fared. Finally, on the morning that she finished the talisman, Elyssa told her the news they’d both been dreading.

      ‘When the princess woke this morning,’ Elyssa said, ‘she wasn’t herself. She wept so piteously that it wrung my heart.’

      ‘Ah ye gods! It aches my heart just to hear of it,’ Lilli said. ‘Her brooch is finished, by the by. Come up to my chamber with me, and I’ll give it to you.’

      Wrapped in cloth, the brooch lay on Lilli’s table by the window. Lilli took it out and handed to Elyssa.

      ‘Well, this is a pretty thing!’ Elyssa said, smiling. ‘Did you have Otho polish it, too?’

      ‘I didn’t.’

      ‘But see how it glitters in the sun! I don’t remember it being so lovely.’

      Lilli knew then that her working had succeeded. Elyssa took the brooch and hurried off to the women’s hall to give it to the princess. Lilli sat down to her studies, but her mind kept wandering to Bellyra’s plight and the brooch. Finally, when the morning was well advanced, Elyssa returned to the chamber.

      ‘How does she fare?’ Lilli blurted.

      ‘A bit better, though the sadness still grips her,’ Elyssa said. ‘The brooch did please her, though. She pinned it to her dress and swore she’d wear it always.’

      ‘That gladdens my heart!’ Lilli tapped the book with her fingers. ‘It says in here that sometimes talismans work slowly. Maybe it will help in a few days.’

      ‘I’ll pray so.’ Elyssa sighed, glancing out the window with exhausted eyes. ‘Anything for a little hope.’

      ‘Should we send off another messenger? Nevyn will want to know that she’s –’ Lilli could not bring herself to use the word mad, ‘– unwell.’

      ‘That’s true.’ Elyssa considered this for a moment. ‘But even if he does know, what can he do? He won’t be leaving the prince’s side.’

      ‘He can’t, truly. I suppose we’ll just have to wait till the men ride home again.’

      ‘Just so.’ Elyssa looked up, studying the sky as if it could report the prince’s progress. ‘Now, the messengers we sent off about the new baby? They should be reaching Maryn soon. He’ll send them back to us with news.’

      ‘And then I can write Nevyn a letter to go back with them. Well and good, then. Do you want me to come visit her highness?’

      ‘In a few days. This – this illness always seems to affect her the worst at the very beginning. In about an eightnight she settles down, like.’

      After Elyssa left, Lilli spent some time trying to think of other ways she might help Bellyra. She failed, except for the one obvious course of action: end her love affair with the prince. That, she felt, would be a harder thing for her to work than the mightiest dweomer in the world.

      The princess’s messengers caught up with the army just at sunset, as it was making camp in a grassy meadow beside a stream. In the midst of the purposeful confusion Nevyn was standing with the prince, waiting for the servants to finish setting up their tents. A sentry led up the two men, all dusty from the road.

      ‘Messages, your highness. From your lady.’

      The messengers knelt to the prince. Maryn grabbed the silver tube and shook out the tightly rolled letter inside. He glanced at it, laughed, then began to read it aloud.

      ‘To my husband, greetings. I was delivered of yet another wretched son, who now awaits your choosing of a name. I had my heart so set upon a daughter that I neglected to think of any suitable for a lad. At the moment my women are calling him Dumpling which, while plebian, will serve until the end of your campaigning.’

      At that point Maryn began reading to himself, a rare trick in those days and one he had learned from Nevyn. From his smile, Nevyn could guess that the message was unfit for public ears. At last Maryn looked up and turned to the messengers. ‘You must be hungry,’ the prince said. ‘My apologies for forgetting you. Here, sentry! Get these men fed, and then spread the news of the new prince among the noble-born.’

      Soon enough, Maryn’s vassals began appearing in twos and threes to congratulate him on the new prince’s birth, but none of them lingered. The smell of cooking in the camp drew them quickly back to their own fires. When Gwerbret Daeryc arrived, though, Maryn bade him stay a while. The servants brought out a wooden stool, and he sat down by the fire with the prince and Nevyn.

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