“Good, good,” said the old woman, in her shaky voice, “I thought of them out in the cold, but I could not get up to let them in. Come here and let me look at you, then, lad.” And as Romilly went and stood by the box-bed, she hitched herself up a little further, peering with her face wrinkled up at Romilly’s face. “How come ye out in such weather, boy?”
“I am travelling to Nevarsin, mestra,” said Romilly.
“All alone? In such a storm?”
“I set out three days ago when the weather was fine.”
“Are ye from south of the Kadarin? Red hair – ye have a look of the Hali’imyn about ye,” the old woman said. She was wrapped in several layers of ragged shawls, and three or four threadbare blankets, not much better than horse-blankets, were piled on her bed. She looked gaunt, emaciated, exhausted.
The old woman let out her breath in a trembling sigh. She said, “I hoped he would be back from Nevarsin early this day, but no doubt the snow is worse to the North- well, with you to mend the fire, I will not freeze here alone in the storm. My old bones cannot stand the cold the way I could before, and before he left he built up the fire to last three days, saying he would surely be back before then.”
“Can I do anything else for you, mestra?”
“If you can cook a pot of porridge, ye can have a share of it,” said the old woman, indicating an empty pot, bowl and spoon at her side, “But get out of your wet things first, lad.”
Romilly drew breath; the old woman apparently accepted her as a farm boy. She took off cloak and boots, hanging the cloak near the warmth of the fire to dry; there was a barrel of water near the fire, and she took the empty porridge-pot, rinsed it, and, as the old woman directed her, found a half-empty sack of coarse meal, more ground nuts than grain, and salt, and hung the mixture in the kettle from the long hook over the fireplace. The old woman beckoned her back, then.
“Where are you off to at this bitter time of the year, my lad?”
At that offhand “my lad” Romilly felt a bursting sigh of relief; at least the old woman had accepted her for what she seemed to be, a young boy and not a girl at the edge of being a woman. Then it occurred to her that the deception of an old woman, half-blind, was not so great a matter after all, and people with younger eyes and quicker wits might see through her more easily. And then she realized that the old woman in the box-bed was still peering out at her through those wrinkled eyelids, waiting for her answer.
“I am travelling to Nevarsin,” she said at last, “My brother is there.”
“In the monastery? Why, you are far off your road for that, youngster – you should have taken the left-hand fork at the bottom of the mountain. But too late now, you must stay till the storm is over, and when Rory is back he will set you on your proper path.”
“I thank you, mestra.”
“What is your name, lad?”
“Rom-” Romilly hesitated, swallowing back her name, realizing she had not thought of this for a moment. She pondered saying “Ruyven,” but then she might not remember to answer to that but would look about for her brother. She swallowed, pretended to have choked for a moment on the smoke of the fire, and said “Rumal.”
“And why are you going to Nevarsin all on your own? Are you to become a monk, or being sent there to be taught by the brothers, as they do with the sons of the gentry? You have a look of gentry about you, at that, as if you’d been born in a Great House – and your hands are finer than a stable-boy’s.”
Romilly almost laughed, thinking of the time when Gwennis, scowling at her calloused hands, worn by reins and claws, had said, reproving, “You will have the hands of a stable-boy if you do not take care!” But once again the old woman was waiting for an answer, and she thought swiftly of Nelda’s son Loran – everyone at Falconsward knew him to be the MacAran’s nedestro son, though Luciella liked to pretend she did not know, and refused to admit the boy existed. She said, “I was brought up in a Great House; but my mother was too proud to bring me under my father’s eye, since I was festival-got; so she said I could make more of myself in a city, and I hope to find work in Nevarsin – I was apprentice to the hawk-master.” And that, at least, was true; she was more Davin’s apprentice than that worthless Ker.