Teldys watched me struggling with the letter each evening and finally leaned toward me across the table.
“To your mother, is it?” And when I nodded, he added, “Sometimes these explanations are best made in person. There are those four horses Rhodri’s been training for Prince Cador. You go with them and make it all right with your mother. She’s at Ide, is she not? That’s not far out of the way.”
I was very grateful, for I would never have asked for such a favor. And so I went off with Firkin and Yayin to lead the horses. Yayin also had a personal problem this visit would solve: a chance to see his father, who had suffered a bad sword wound.
We delivered the horses and agreed to meet up on the road back to Deva the next day: Firkin went with Yayin.
MOTHER HAD TAKEN a second husband, a nice-enough man, a combmaker who was so skilled that people sent for combs of his making from as far away as Londinium.
His two-roomed cottage, close up against the walls of the old fort, was snug if certainly not what my mother had had when my father was alive. Odran had made every effort to improve the place and had even managed to have water from the old Legion aqueduct piped to a cistern just outside the door, so Mother did not have far to go to fetch the household water.
I was both disappointed and gratified that my mother didn’t immediately recognize me. It was my younger sister, Lavinia, who shrieked in welcome and rushed into my arms to weep all over my chest.
“Galwyn, Galwyn, it is you!” Vinny exclaimed over and over. “Mother, it is truly Galwyn! Don’t you know your own son?”
Mother blinked rapidly at me and it was not the first time that I thought my mother did not see well beyond the tip of her nose.
“Well, you certainly took your time making your way here,” she said, folding her hands across her waist as if she did not wish me to see that she was plumper now. “Your uncle was terribly upset. At first he thought you had drowned at Burtigala and no one had bothered to tell him.”
“But didn’t my message reach you?” I asked, though I did not think she had grieved for me.
It was Lavinia who sniffed again. “Gill the carter brought it but it didn’t arrive until weeks after you gave it to him. But we were so relieved, weren’t we, Mother? Did you get ours about Flora’s marriage?”
“I got that one only eight days ago.”
Mother sniffed. “I paid good coin to be sure it reached you in time.”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but it didn’t. I came as soon as I could. We had to deliver some horses to Prince Cador.”
“Prince Cador, is it?” She sniffed again. “And Lord Artos. No wonder my sister’s husband wasn’t good enough for the likes of you.”
“Oh, Mother, you just won’t admit that Uncle Gralior is a mean, nasty man,” Vinny said, shooting me a glance of encouragement. “Even when your own sister tells you the truth.”
Mother made a sound that was so close to Spadix’s snort of disgust that I had to cough suddenly.
“Oh, you must be thirsty,” Vinny said anxiously.
“Come, we’ve small beer and a fine soup that Lavinia has made us,” Odran said, gesturing for me to settle myself on the bench. “You can stop long enough for that, can’t you?”
“I’ve only a few hours to spare,” I said, which was not the truth; but Mother was scarcely welcoming.
“A few hours!” my mother said scoffingly. “And it’s years since we’ve seen you.”
“That’s because Uncle Gralior would never give him enough time to visit us, Mother,” Lavinia said with pointed sweetness. “I’ll just slip around and tell Flora that you’re here. She worried about you, too, Galwyn.”
I loosened the girth of the pony I was riding, wishing that it could have been one of the Libyans, to prove to my mother that I was in far better service now than with that wretched uncle of mine.
Flora, well married and with a child under her apron, wept with joy at seeing me and dragged forward her husband, the local butcher, who had supplied the meat for the stew we then ate. When I realized how eager my sisters were to know all about my recent adventures, I was quite willing to talk. And when I noticed that both Odran and Melwas, Flora’s husband, were listening as avidly, I relaxed and began to enjoy myself.