‘Indeed? Well, I’ve never wanted a fortune. It’s a pity you had to drink yourself sick.’
‘Can you blame me?’
Nevyn caught his gaze and looked at him, merely looked, but all at once Gwairyc turned cold. He felt that the old man was looking through his soul, seeing old secrets, old faults, old crimes that he couldn’t even remember committing.
‘Listen, lad.’ Nevyn’s voice stayed free of any feeling. ‘What I’m doing with you is for your benefit. I know you won’t believe me at first. Hate me if it makes you feel better. Just do as I say, and remember that I’m doing this for your benefit.’
The gaze from ice-blue eyes bored holes through his very soul.
‘I will,’ Gwairyc said, ‘but it’s for the king’s sake, not yours.’
‘Not your own?’
Gwairyc tried to answer, found no words, then handed back the empty cup, the only gesture he could think to make.
‘Well, that was unfair of me.’ Nevyn turned away and released him. ‘Just remember what I told you. Now. I’ve bought you a new shirt and a cloak. Pack those fine ones away. You might be doing this for the king’s sake, but you won’t wear his blazon again for a good long while.’
The shirt turned out to be plain rough linen, and the cloak the coarse brown of farmers’ clothing. Once Gwairyc had changed, he loaded the mule while Nevyn went inside to say farewell to the priest of the temple. By the time they left the mews, the townsfolk had started their day, bustling along the streets or standing gossiping in front of one house or another. When Gwairyc started to mount up, Nevyn caught his arm.
‘We’re walking to the gates. Too crowded to ride.’
‘The common folk can just get out of our way.’
‘Common folk? Those are proud words from a herbman’s servant.’
Gwairyc had to bite his lip to keep from swearing at him.
Once they were clear of the city walls, they mounted and, with Gwairyc leading the mule, took the west-running road. Nevyn set a slow pace, letting his horse amble along in the hot summer morning. On either side of the road, the rich green fields of Casyl’s personal demesne rolled off to the horizon. Gwairyc felt sick to his heart: soon the army would ride north without him. All the bitter splendour of battle – his one real love, his whole life – had been stolen from him by an old herbman’s whim. He began to have thoughts of murdering Nevyn and leaving his body somewhere beside the road. But what then? he told himself, You could never go back to court. For the sake of the king he worshipped, he was going to have to play this bitter game out to the end.
Gwairyc urged his horse up beside Nevyn’s. ‘May I ask where we’re going?’
‘West. I never have any particular place in mind when I travel. There are sick folk all over the kingdom.’
‘I suppose there must be, truly.’
‘But we’ll spend part of the summer in the old forest. It still covers plenty of ground once you get off to the west.’
‘The forest, my lord?’
‘Just that. I have wild herbs to gather, you see.’
Gwairyc couldn’t stop himself from groaning aloud. Off in the forest, all alone with this cursed old man, not even a pretty wench to use for a bit of comfort!
‘What are you doing?’ Nevyn said. ‘Cursing the very day you were born.’
‘Somewhat like that.’
Nevyn laughed and said nothing more.
That first day they headed south, skirting Loc Gwerconydd, then turned west. Gwairyc soon learned that travelling with Nevyn meant meandering from village to village at a comfortable walking pace for the horses. In each village the inhabitants clustered round to buy Nevyn’s herbs and ask his advice on their various aches and pains. Much of the time Gwairyc himself had little to do but tend the horses and the mule. He began to wonder if he’d die of boredom before his seven years were up. As they usually did when he was bored, his thoughts turned to women.
Most of the village lasses struck him as dirty and bedraggled, but one evening a finer prize came to the bait of Nevyn’s herbs. She was young but full into womanhood, with high breasts set off by a tight kirtle, and she wore her long chestnut hair pulled back from her heart-shaped face. Unlike those of the usual village lasses, her face and her hands looked well-washed. While Nevyn dispensed advice and sold herbs, she lingered at the edge of the crowd. Gwairyc caught her eye and smiled at her. He was hoping for a smile in return or at least a blush, but she looked straight past him.
Maybe she’s near-sighted, he thought. When her turn came to consult the herbman, Gwairyc stood right behind him and smiled again. Again, he might as well have been made of glass for all the response he got. After she bought her herbs, he took a step in her direction, but she held her head high and walked off fast.
‘Well, well,’ Nevyn said. ‘I take it she wasn’t interested.’
‘I should have known you’d notice. She wasn’t, at that.’
‘You’re just a herbman now, lad. The lasses won’t be fawning on you like they did with one of the king’s own captains.’
Gwairyc opened his mouth to say something foul, then shut it again rather than give the old man the satisfaction of having riled him. Nevyn laughed anyway and turned away to begin packing up the unsold herbs.
Some ten mornings after, they stopped at a farm. Behind an earthen wall stood a round, thatched house, a tumbledown barn, a pig sty, and a chicken house. The pigs lay in stinking mud, but the chickens were out scratching and squawking in the dirt yard. When Nevyn shoved open the gate, a pair of scruffy black dogs rushed out of the barn, but they barked and wagged in friendly greeting. Right behind them came a stout woman in a torn brown dress. A leather thong tied back her greasy black hair. Her thick fingers and her hands were as calloused and scarred as a blacksmith’s. When she opened her mouth to talk, Gwairyc saw that she was missing half her teeth.
‘Oh Nevyn, Nevyn,’ she stammered out. ‘Oh ye gods, this is an answer to my prayers, I swear it!’
‘Here, Ligga, what’s so wrong?’
‘Our lad’s sick, cursed sick. I’ve been praying and praying to the Goddess to help us.’
‘Well, maybe She made me decide to stop by. Gwarro, unload the mule’s packs. Take those horses to the barn.’
Gwairyc tied the horses up in the stinking cow-barn, then carried the canvas packs inside the house. He found himself in a big half-round room, set off from the rest of the house by a filthy wickerwork partition. Under a smoke hole lay a pair of blackened hearthstones where a low fire burned. A little girl, wearing a clean if stained brown dress, was standing by the hearth and stirring soup in an iron kettle perched over the fire on an iron tripod. She gave Gwairyc a terrified glance and pointed at the far side of the room.
Gwairyc shoved aside the much-mended grey blanket that served as a door and carried in the packs. He found Nevyn and Ligga standing by a big square bed. A little boy lay on coarse dirty blankets. Snot and tears mingled on his fever-red face. Gwairyc could smell him and Ligga both, a reek of sweat, dirt from the animals, and in the boy’s case, excrement.
Nevyn gestured at Gwairyc to put the packs down, then sat on the edge of the bed next to the lad, who promptly turned his head away.
‘Come along, Anno. It’s old Nevyn. I want to make you feel better.’
Anno shook his head in a stubborn no.
‘Your mouth hurts, Mam says. Let me have a look.’
Anno whimpered and flopped over to bury his face in the blankets.