Tamlyn by James Moloney Page A

thelast name he’d have told him to use was Miston Dessar. Besides, if Coyle already knew Tamlyn was in Haywode, then he wouldn’t send a lone grey-haired man who carried no weapon; he would send a small army.
    There was something else, too: the sense I’d felt the day before that I already knew this man. The shape of his body, the features of his face, even the gentle way he spoke to me with eyes that never wavered — all these things reminded me too much of Arnou Dessar for his name to be a lie.
    Silence lay awkwardly between us while my mind threw up these ideas. The stranger — for I still couldn’t think of him by the name he’d given me — filled the void.
    â€˜The man I am looking for also knew my cousin, Arnou, who is now dead I’m sad to say.’ He spoke gently, but at the same time he was inspecting me for every flicker of hesitation. I’d already given myself away. ‘I can tell by your honest face, young lady, that you know who I am talking about,’ he said. ‘I have come to find Tamlyn, the son of Coyle Strongbow, Wyrdborn guardian of King Chatiny. Will you take me to him?’
    When I couldn’t answer immediately, torn between fear of Coyle’s tricks and my instinct to trust this man, he added, ‘I haven’t come to harm Tamlyn, although he may not agree when he hears the news from Vonne.’
    Unpleasant news, he had said earlier. The first spider of dread crawled across my skin. Whatever his message, Tamlyn would have to hear it.
    â€˜He’s working in the fields,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you to him.’
    Haywode sits in the crook of a small river, more a stream really, with willows along the bank below the village, where the water floods in the spring. The village is on higher ground so it stays dry. To the open side, away from the stream, lie fields stretching to the woods in the distance. I could see Tamlyn, with three others, just short of the trees in a field they were stripping of the corn stalks left after harvest.
    If I was leading this man to the man I loved, then I had accepted his story, I realised, and that meant his name really was Miston Dessar.
    â€˜I met your cousin, too,’ I said. ‘He was good at heart and very brave.’
    â€˜Brave, indeed,’ said Miston, who eyed me with special interest now. ‘Forgive me, I have not asked your name.’
    I told him, knowing it would mean nothing to him. Lady Ezeldi had not heard my name, thanks to Tamlyn’s caution.
    â€˜Well then, Silvermay, I’m fortunate that it was you who welcomed me to Haywode. I had a feeling theinnkeeper was going to slit my throat last night when I asked him the questions I asked you.’
    I couldn’t help smiling and, seeing this, he tried to put me more at ease. ‘What I’ve told you is true. I’m no assassin. Like Arnou, I am a scholar.’
    Coyle had stolen the identity of a man he knew, I realised. How much easier it must have made his impersonation. ‘You know Coyle Strongbow, don’t you, and he knows you?’
    â€˜Yes, but it’s not an acquaintance that gives me pleasure,’ he replied.
    Tamlyn saw us coming and left his companions to meet us. I knew he had recognised the man at my side when he stopped suddenly.
    â€˜I should speak with Tamlyn alone,’ Miston said to me, but he was forgetting that Tamlyn had the ears of a Wyrdborn.
    â€˜Silvermay has been with me through all that’s happened, and all that will happen, most likely,’ he called. ‘What I know, she should know.’
    Miston bowed graciously and invited me to continue at his side. He offered his hand to Tamlyn, who took it in a show of friendship that put my last fears to rest. And yet now that he had reached the end of his journey, Miston showed the first reluctance I’d seen inhim. Bad news is never easy to deliver, any more than it is easy to receive, I suppose.
    â€˜I