Lord of the Isles by David Drake Page A

couldn’t even be sure of which day this was the middle of.
    Garric tried to say, “What day is this?” His voice croaked, “Aagh!”

    The hermit reached an arm like an oak root beneath Garric’s shoulders and lifted him to a half-sitting position. “Here,” he said, holding a herdsman’s wooden bottle to Garric’s lips with the other hand. “Wet your mouth with this. It’s ale.”
    He turned and called toward the kitchen, “Bring a bowl of the broth and a small spoon. Now!”
    Lora popped from the kitchen like a squirrel from its nest. “What?” she said. “Nobody gives orders to me in my own house! Certainly not some filthy outcast who lives in a cave!”
    â€œI’ll get it,” murmured Reise, who’d just entered by the courtyard door. The squealing hinges were probably what had awakened Garric. Lora moved only enough to let him pass in the doorway; husband and wife didn’t exchange glances even when they were in brushing contact.
    Because the ale was in a bottle, Garric could drink without spilling as he would have done from a mug. He sluiced the first sip through the phlegm which coated his cheeks and tongue, then spat it onto the floor before swallowing down the rest of the ale.
    The rushes covering the room’s puncheon floor needed replacement anyway. He’d intended to cut more fresh in the marshes but decided at the last moment to spend the morning reading and chatting with his friend Cashel.
    â€œI was the private maid to the Countess Tera herself,” Lora said to an audience which didn’t really include anyone in the room. “The men said I was more beautiful than any of the fine ladies!”
    Garric didn’t doubt that was true. His mother was a small woman with delicate features. Even today her skin was smooth and had the lustrous creamy sheen of old ivory.
    â€œI beg your pardon,” the hermit said. He sounded as though he meant the words, though he didn’t turn his attention from Garric. “I misspoke.”
    â€œThere’s something coming from the sea,” Tenoctris said. She’d stood so quietly by the sea-facing window that Garric hadn’t noticed her until she spoke. He looked around, but
there was no one further in the common room.
    â€œWhat’s coming?” Lora said, her voice rising slightly and growing harder with each syllable. “Are more of those beasts coming, is that what you mean?”
    Tenoctris lifted the latch, a wooden bar made sturdy to withstand eastern gales like the one that had recently punished the hamlet, and opened the door. The salt breeze stirred smoke and hinted memories of the wood she’d burned during her incantations. She walked seaward, out of Garric’s line of vision from the bed.
    Reise reappeared with a steaming wooden bowl and a horn spoon that ordinarily measured spices into a stew. Nonnus must have doubted whether Garric could handle mouthfuls of normal size.
    â€œI think I’m all right, Mother,” Garric said. He did feel remarkably healthy now that his system had settled from the first shock of waking. Remarkable, because he’d gotten a good look at his leg as he levered the reptile’s slavering jaws away from it with the bowtip. ‘He’d seen through the hole made by paired upper and lower fangs. It occurred to Garric that whatever Tenoctris meant about “balancing the humors” was surely part of the reason he could move.
    Garric used the hermit’s arm as a brace while he levered himself into a kneeling position with his hands. His bandaged right leg felt tight and ached as though it were cooking in a slow oven, but the knee bent normally and pain didn’t stab up the thigh muscles.
    â€œGarric, what are you doing?” his mother said. “You shouldn’t be getting up yet, your leg’s like raw bacon!” She turned to her husband and said, “Reise! Make your