Page 4 of Oath of the Wolf
Cenric didn’t see them as bribes.From their conversations, he saw them as gifts from an old friend.Brynn knew better.Kings did not havefriends,especially among those who owed them favors.
Olfirth and Cenric were still talking, their words interrupting Brynn’s anxious thoughts.
“This is a momentous day for many reasons,” Cenric was saying.“Much to celebrate.”
“I hope so,” Olfirth grumbled back.“Lady Brynn.”He bowed slightly to her.“I hear you were hard at work around my farm this morning.”
“My wife works too hard.”Cenric shook his head in mock disappointment.“It’s her one flaw.”
“I could not heal everyone,” Brynn admitted softly.“Some things are beyond my skill.”
A kind of somber agreement came over Olfirth.“Such is the way of things.”
Brynn had gotten their group to come early today so that she could spent a few hours before the wedding healing Olfirth’s people.They’d arrived to some twenty or so people from across his lands.There were doubtless more who could have benefitted from a sorceress’s power, but those were the ones who had been willing to be seen.
Even among those who had been brave enough to make the journey to Olfirth’s hall, not everyone was a candidate for her power.Brynn could heal injuries and help sicknesses, but she could not cure everything.
One woman had come to them saying she was barren.The woman was close to Brynn’s age and had looked at her with such desperation, such vulnerability.
Brynn had tried, but there was nothing wrong with the woman’s body as far as she could tell.Some things were beyond a sorceress’s power.Brynn’s power came from life force, from the raw energy of living things, but true mastery over life and death eluded her.
There had also been a young boy who’d lost his hand in an accident with a plough.He had to be in his mid-teens.Brynn had to also sadly tell him that regrowing limbs was beyond her.
In both cases, the barren woman and the maimed boy had nodded numbly, as if they were used to disappointment.As if there was a cauterized scar where hope had once been.
Brynn took another sip of her mead.The drink was thick and golden and seemed to coat her tongue, hinting at the honey used to make it.The mead was strong, blunting the edge of her inner fears and regrets.
Cenric turned to Olfirth as if a thought had occurred to him.“I like your palisade.”
“Poles buried a few feet under the ground,” Olfirth replied.“We used oak.Harder to work with, but durable and harder to burn.”
“Do you have any workmen who could show us how you did it?”
Olfirth seemed to consider that.Brynn wasn’t sure whether he was debating the wisdom of helping his rival or perhaps thinking who would be the best to do as Cenric asked.After a moment, Olfirth said, “Most the work was directed by my man Henswin.I can send him and his boys to you after midsummer.Perhaps lend them for a few weeks.”
Cenric nodded his agreement.“I’d send men to you to cover their work.”
Olfirth seemed pleased by that and offered his hand.Cenric shook it.This was a casual agreement and would probably be reworked in the coming weeks, but it was a start.
Brynn squeezed Cenric’s other hand under the table.She had talked to him about this.He needed to accept help and give help to Olfirth—that was how friendships were made.He was taking her advice seriously.
Cenric squeezed back, and it was all she needed.
Behind them, cheers rose.The music stopped.
“Ah.”Olfirth set down his drink.“It must be time to escort the couple to their marriage bed.”
Brynn glanced over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see Rowan and Evred through the press of cheering bodies around them.“Will you attend them?”Brynn asked, looking back to Olfirth.
The old man grumbled something under his breath.“Damned boy has asked me to stand in for his father.”
“Oh?”
Olfirth made a dismissive gesture.“His parents died of a fever when he was young.My house girls caught him trying to steal eggs to feed his sister.”Olfirth gestured to a figure across the room.“The girl with the flute.”
Brynn searched in that direction.The girl with the flute had stepped down and had joined the wedding party, grinning from ear to ear.She was likely in her teens, wearing a daisy crown matching the one Evred wore.
“I took that boy in when he was starving, gave him his battle gear, once he earned it.How does he repay me?”Olfirth made a snorting sound.“Forcing me to walk hundreds of paces in the dark, just to escort him and his new bride from the wedding I hosted to the house I let him build on my land, from my trees.”
