Ravenheart by David Gemmell Page B

glittering in his hand. He saw the scene again and shivered. It was not the knife that frightened him or even the prospect of death. It was that he had been helpless, his arms pinned. He would have been slaughtered like a feast bull.
    The strange thing was that he had never hated Taybard. He did not much like Luss Campion or Kammel Bard, but Taybard, he had always felt, was essentially good-hearted. He had once, so Banny had told Kaelin one day, stepped in to save Banny from taking a beating. He had also been heavily involved in the rescue of little Jassie Wirrall when she had fallen into the weir and almost drowned. Taybard had hurled himself into the rushing torrent, grabbing the child and holding her head above the water until Galliott had thrown a rope and dragged them both to the bank.
    He found it hard to understand the youth’s hatred of him. Yes, Taybard was Varlish, but only nominally. Everyone knew there was clan blood in his line.
    Kaelin walked on, keeping a wary eye out for Taybard and his companions in case they had decided to waylay him farther from town.
    Up ahead was a cluster of dwellings used by the families of timber yard workers. Several women were hanging clothes out to dry on rope lines strung across the open ground. The houses had been built more than a hundred years before, the outer shells constructed of gray granite slabs, the sloping roofs of black slate. Freezing in winter, cold in summer, they stood colorless and drab against the bright green wooded hills. One of the younger women saw Kaelin and called out. He glanced up to see Chara Ward moving toward him.
    Kaelin paused, his mood lifting. Chara was tall for a girl,and she walked in a way that caused Kaelin’s pulse to race and his mind to focus on thoughts that were entirely inappropriate. She was dressed in a pale blue blouse and a flowing gray skirt that hugged her body as she walked. As she neared him, she smiled, her hand moving up to sweep back the long blond wisps of hair that had fallen clear of her bright blue headband. The lifting of the hand caused the blouse to press against her body. Kaelin could not keep his eyes from the plump, perfect outline of her breasts. Guiltily he looked away. As she came closer, Chara saw the blood on Kaelin’s face.
    “What happened to you?” she asked, suddenly concerned.
    “A scrap. Nothing serious,” he answered.
    “Who did that to you?”
    “It is not important.” He shuffled from foot to foot as she came closer, her hand reaching out to touch his face.
    “It is very swollen. You should come inside and let me bathe the cut.”
    “It is nothing, Chara. You look beautiful today,” he said, catching hold of her hand and kissing the fingers.
    She smiled, and a faint blush touched her cheeks. “You shouldn’t do that,” she whispered. “Mother is watching.”
    Kaelin recalled that Chara’s mother had recently been sick with yellow blight, a fever that caused the skin to pale. Yellow blight was rarely fatal, but sufferers lost great amounts of weight and were liable to bouts of weakness that might last for months. “Is she better now?” he asked.
    “She is still a little weak, but she is improving. Thank you for asking. Will you come in and sit with us for a while?”
    “I would like to,” he told her, “but I must be getting home. I have medicine for Banny and his mother.”
    “I heard about the attack,” said Chara. “It was shameful. I sometimes think Morain has a streak of wickedness in her. Will Shula be all right?”
    “I don’t know. She is very ill.”
    For a few moments they stood together in comfortable silence. Then Chara spoke again.
    “Will you be attending the feast come Sacrifice Day?”
    “I thought that I might,” he said.
    “Would you like to walk there together?” she asked.
    “You know that I would. But it might be best if we did not.”
    “I don’t care what people say, Kaelin.”
    “It is not about what they
say
.”
    “I’m not frightened of