Bristling Wood by Katharine Kerr Read Free Book Online Page B

in the presence of a pretty woman. Every now and then, Belyan hesitantly looked his way, as if she were trying to think of something to say.
    “Well, my lord,” she said at last. “Will you, be staying long with our Nevyn?’
    “I don’t truly know, but here, what makes you, call me lord? I’m as common-born as you are.”
    “Well—but a friend of Nevyn’s.”
    At that Maddyn realized that she knew perfectly well that the old man was dweomer.
    “Now here, what do you think I am?” Maddyn had the uneasy feeling that it was very dangerous to pretend to dweomer you didn’t have, “I’m only a rider without a warband. Nevyn was good enough to save my life when he found me wounded, that’s all. But here, don’t tell anyone about me, will you? I’m an outlawed man.”
    “I’ll forget your name the minute you ride on.”
    ‘My humble thanks, and my apologies. I don’t even deserve to be drinking your ale.”
    “Oh, hold, your tongue! What do I care about these rotten wars?”
    When, he looked at her, he found her angry, her mouth set hard in a bitter twist.
    “I don’t care the fart of a two-copper piglet,” she went on. “All it’s ever brought to me and mine is trouble. They take our horses and raise our taxes and ride through our grain, and all in the name of glory and the one true king, or so they call him, when everyone with wits in his head knows there’s two kings now, and why should I care, truly, as long as they don’t both come here a-bothering us. If you’re one man who won’t die in this war, then, I say good for you.”
    “Ye gods. Well, truly, I never thought of it that way before.”
    “No doubt, since you were a rider once.”
    “Here, I’m not exactly a deserter or suchlike.”
    She merely shrugged and went back to her sewing. Maddyn wondered why a woman her age, twenty-two or so, was living in her father’s house. Had she lost a betrothed in the wars? The question was answered for him in a moment when two small lads, about six and four, came running into the room and calling her Mam. They were fighting over a copper they’d found in the road and come to her to settle it. Belyan gave them each a kiss and told hem they’d have to give the copper to their gran, then sent them back outside.
    “So you’re married, are you?” Maddyn said.
    “I was once. Their father drowned in the river two winters ago. He was setting a fish trap, but the ice turned out to be too thin.”
    “That aches my heart, truly. So you came back to your father?”
    “I did. Da needed a woman around the house, and he’s good to my lads. That’s what matters to me.”
    “Then it gladdens my heart to hear that you’re happy.”
    “Happy?” She thought for a moment. “Oh, I don’t think much of things like happiness, just as long as the lads are well.”
    Maddyn could feel her loneliness, lying just under her faint, mocking smile. His body began to wonder about her, a flicker of sexual warmth, another sign that life was coming back to him. She looked at him steadily, her dark eyes patient, self-contained, almost unreadable.
    “And what will you do now?” she said. “Ride on before the snows come?”
    “Nevyn doesn’t think I’ll be fit by then, but sooner or later I have to go. It’ll mean my life if I stay. They hang outlawed men.”
    “So they do.”
    Belyan considered him for a moment more, then got up briskly, as if she’d come to some decision, and strode out of the room through a blanket-hung door in one of the wickerwork walls. He was just finishing his tankard when she returned, carrying a shirt, which she tossed into his lap when she sat back down.
    “That was my husband’s,” she said. “It’s too small for Da, and it’ll rot before the lads grow to fit it Take it. You need a shirt that doesn’t have foxes embroidered all over it.”
    “Ye gods! I forgot about that. No wonder you thought I was a deserter, then. Well, my humble thanks.”
    He smoothed it out, studying with