Arvel swallowed a draught. Sourness burned its way down his gullet. “You’re shrewd, Ynis,” he mumbled. “Yes, we’re done with each other, Lena Grancy and I.”
The wench looked long at him. “I never thought her a fool,” she said.
Despite his misery, Arvel preened a trifle. He was, after all, quite young, and various women had assured him he was handsometall, wide-shouldered, lithe, with straight features, slightly freckle-dusted, framed by fiery hair that curled past his earrings. As a scion of a noble family, albeit of the lowest rank, he was entitled to bear a sword and generally did, along with his knife; both were of the finest steel and their handles silver-chased. Otherwise, though, he perforce went shabby these days. The saffron of his shirt was faded and its lace frayed, his hose were darned, the leather of jerkin and shoes showed wear, the cloak he had folded beside him was of a cut no longer modish.
“Well,” he said, after a more reasonable gulp of wine than his first, “she wanted to make a
14
The Unicorn Trade
potter of me. A potter! Told me I must scuttle my dream, settle down, learn a” he snorted “an honest trade”
“And cease being a parasite,” Ynis finished sharply.
Arvel jerked where he sat, flushed, and rapped in answer: “I’ve never taken more than is my right.”
“Aye, your allowance. Which is meager, for the bastard son of a house that the war ruined. What use your courtliness any more, Arvel Tarabine, or your horsemanship, swordsmanship, woodsmanship ? “
“I guide”
“Indeed. You garner an argent here and there, taking out parties of fat merchants and rich foreigners who like to pretend they’re born to the chase. If they stand you drink afterward, you’ll brag of what you did in the war, and sing ‘em a song or two. And always you babble about Sir Falcovan and that expedition he’s getting up. Is this how you’ll spend the rest of your years, till you’re too old and sodden for it and slump into beggary? No, your Lona is not a fool. You are, who wouldn’t listen to her.”
He stiffened. “You get above yourself.”
Ynis eased and smiled. “I get motherly, I do.” She was plump, not uncomely but beginning to fade, a widow who had three children to nurture and, maybe, a dream or two of her own. “You’re a good fellow, mauger your folly, and besides, I like your girl. Go back, make amends”
“Hej, pige!” bawled a Norrener from across
FAIRY GOLD
15
the taproom, so loudly that a mouse fled along a rafter. “Mer vin!”
Ynis sighed, rose, and went to serve him. She had been about to quench the rage that her words had refuelled in Arvel. Now it flamed up afresh. He could not endure to sit still. He tossed off his drink, surged from the bench, and went out the door, banging it shut behind him.
To Lona came Jans Orliand, chronicler at the Scholarium of Seilles and friend of her late father. This was not as strange as it might seem, for Jans was of humble birth himself and had married a cousin of the potter. Afterward he prospered modestly through his talents, without turning aloof from old acquaintances, until the hard times struck him too.
Lona had just put a fresh charge of charcoal under her kiln and pumped it akindle with the bellows. She was returning to her wheel when his gaunt form shadowed the entrance. She kept the shed open while she worked, even in winter, lest heat and fumes overcome her; and this was an amiable summer day. Nevertheless she had a healthy smell about her, of the sweat that dampened her smock. A smudge went across her snub nose. A kerchief covered most of her gold-brown hair.
“Joy to you,” Jans hailed. He paused, to squint nearsightedly at her small, sturdy frame and into her green-brown eyes, until he said: “Me-thinks you’ve need of the reality, not the mere ritual.”
“Is it that plain to see?” she wondered. “Well
16
The Unicorn Trade
whoops!” In an expansive gesture, he had almost thrown a sleeve of his robe around one of the completed vessels that lined her shelves. She stopped him before he sent it acrash to the floor. “Here, sit down, do.” She offered him a stool. “How may I please you, good sir?”