“Macco! Da’s coming! Who’s going to tell him?”
“Oh, by the hells!” Macyn ran for the door. “Wait here.”
Jill tried to stay inside, but she grew painfully aware that the men sitting at one table were pitying her. Their expressions made her remember the night when Mama died so vividly that she ran out the door. Just down the street Macyn stood talking to her father with a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Da was staring at the ground, his face set and grim, saying not a word.
Cullyn of Cerrmor stood well over six feet tall, warrior-straight and heavy-shouldered, with blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Down his left cheek ran an old scar, which made him look frightening even when he smiled. His plain linen shirt was filthy from the road, and so were his brigga, the loose woolen trousers that all Deverry men wore. On his heavy belt hung his one splendor—and his shame—the silver dagger in a tattered leather sheath. The silver pommel with its three little knobs gleamed, as if warning people against its owner. When Macyn finished talking, Cullyn laid his hand on his sword hilt. Macyn took the horse’s reins, and they walked up to the tavern.
Jill ran to Cullyn and threw herself into his arms. He picked her up, holding her tightly. He smelled of sweat and horses, the comforting familiar scent of her beloved da.
“My poor little lass!” Cullyn said. “By the hells, what a rotten father you’ve got!”
Jill wept too hard to speak. Cullyn carried her into the tavern and sat down with her in his lap at a table near the door. The men at the far table set down their tankards and looked at him with cold, hard eyes.
“You know what, Da?” Jill sniveled. “The last thing Mama said was your name.”
Cullyn tossed his head back and keened, a long, low howl of mourning. Hovering nearby, Macyn risked patting his shoulder.
“Here, lad,” Macyn said. “Here, now.”
Cullyn kept keening, one long moan after another, even though Macyn kept patting his shoulder and saying “here now” in a helpless voice. The other men walked over, and Jill hated their tight little smiles, as if they were taunting her da for his grief. All at once, Cullyn realized that they were there. He slipped Jill off his lap, and as he stood up, his sword leapt into his hand as if by dweomer.
“And why shouldn’t I mourn her? She was as decent a woman as the Queen herself, no matter what you pack of dogs thought of her. Is there anyone in this stinking village who wants to say otherwise to my face?”
The clot of men faded back, one cautious step at a time.
“None of you are even fit to be killed to pour blood on her grave. Admit it.”
All the men muttered, “We aren’t, truly.” Cullyn took one step forward, the sword glittering in the sunlight from the door.
“Well and good. Go on, scum—get back to your drinking.”
Instead, shoving each other to be the first out the door, the men fled the tavern. Cullyn sheathed the sword with a slap of the metal into leather. Macyn wiped sweat off his face.
“Well, Macco. You and the village can think as low of me as you want, but my Seryan deserved better than a dishonored piss-poor excuse for a man like me.”
“Er, ah, well,” Macyn said.
“And now you’re all I’ve got left of her.” Cullyn turned to Jill. “We’ve got a strange road ahead of us, my sweet, but we’ll manage.”
“What? Da, are you going to take me with you?”
“Cursed right. And today.”
“Now, here,” Macyn broke in. “Hadn’t you best wait and think this over? You’re not yourself right now, and—”
“By all the ice in all the hells!” Cullyn spun around, his hand on his sword hilt. “I’m as much myself as I need to be!”
“Ah, well.” Macyn stepped back. “So you are.”
“Get your clothes, Jill. Well go see your mother’s grave, and then well be on our way. I never want to see this stinking village again.”
Pleased and terrified all at the same time, Jill ran to the chamber and began bundling the few things she owned into a blanket. She could hear Macyn trying to talk to Cullyn and Cullyn snarling right back at him. She risked calling out softly to the Wildfolk. The gray gnome materialized in midair and floated to the straw-strewn floor.
“Da’s taking me away. Do you want to come? If you do, you’d better follow us or get on his horse.”
When the gnome vanished, Jill wondered if she’d ever see him again.
“Jill!” Cullyn yelled. “Stop talking to yourself and get out here!”
Jill grabbed her bundle and ran out of the tavern. Cullyn shoved her things into the bedroll tied behind his saddle, then lifted her up on top of it. When he mounted, Jill slipped her arms around his waist and rested her face against his broad back. His shirt was stained all over in a pattern of blurry rings, rust marks made by his sweating inside his chain mail. His shirts always looked like that.
“Well,” Macyn said. “Farewell, Jill.”
“Farewell.” All at once she wanted to cry. “And my thanks for being so good to me.”
Macyn waved, somewhat teary-eyed. Jill turned on her uneasy perch to wave back as the horse started off.
On the downhill side of the village stood the holy oaks, sacred to Bel, god of the sun and the king of all the gods. Scattered among them were the village burials. Although Seryan had no stone to mark her grave as the richer people did, Jill knew that she would never forget where it lay. As soon as she led her father there, Cullyn began to keen, throwing himself down full-length on it, as if he were trying to hold his beloved through the earth. Jill trembled until at last he fell silent and sat up.
“I brought your mama a present this trip,” Cullyn said. “And by the gods, she’s going to have it.”
Cullyn pulled his silver dagger and cut out a piece of sod, then dug a shallow hole. He took a bracelet out of his shirt and held it up for Jill to see: a thin rod of bronze, twisted round and round to look like rope. He put it into the hole, smoothed the dirt down, and put the chunk of sod back.
“Farewell, my love,” he whispered. “For all my wandering, I never loved a woman but you, and I pray to every god you believed me when I told you that.” He stood up and wiped the dagger blade clean on the side of his brigga. “That’s all the mourning you’ll ever see me do, Jill, but remember how I loved your mother.”
“I will, Da. Promise.”
All afternoon, they rode down the east-running road, a narrow dirt track through sharp-peaked hills and pine forests. Every now and then they passed fields where the grain stood green and young. The farmers would turn to stare at the strange sight of a warrior with a child behind his saddle. Jill was soon stiff and sore on her uncomfortable perch, but Cullyn rode so wrapped in a dark brooding that she was afraid to speak to him.
Just at twilight, they crossed a shallow river and reached the walled town of Averby. Cullyn dismounted and led the horse along narrow twisting streets while Jill clung to the saddle and looked round wide-eyed. She had never seen so many houses in her life—easily two hundred of them. On the far side they reached a shabby inn with a big stable out in back, where the innkeep greeted Cullyn by name and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. Jill was too tired to eat dinner. Cullyn carried her upstairs to a dusty wedge-shaped chamber and made her a bed out of his cloak on a straw mattress. She fell asleep before he’d