Page 41 of Silverbow
“An error,” she repeated. “How often do scribemasters err, Master Lorry?”
He mopped his brow again. “Scribes must be meticulous to earn the rank of master, ma’am, but mistakes can be made. Or perhaps the child changed.”
Her eyebrows climbed again. “Changed? From brown eyes to green?”
“It’s not uncommon for blue eyes to darken. Green eyes are rather rare in the realm, ma’am. I cannot say I have ever seen a first recording where the eyes are green. Perhaps they were a lighter brown that changed to green, perhaps they were a darker green Scribemaster Velolin mistook as brown. I cannot say.”
“Did you know Scribemaster Namoran?” She asked.
“I did, ma’am.”
“Well?”
“I would say so, yes, ma’am.”
“What kind of man was he?” She asked. Lorry seemed puzzled by the question, so she would have to spell it out for him. “Was he a king’s man?”
“Of course, ma’am,” he said quickly, tripping over the words in his eagerness. “Of course.”
“Did he have children?”
The man looked flummoxed. “No, ma’am.”
She tapped a finger again on the scroll. “Thank you, Lorry, that is all.”
With a squeak, he bobbed his head and backed anxiously from the room.
“Brown eyes to green, bah.”
Louissa would bet all the gold in Pavia the men who toured as part of that Testing wouldn’t be able to guess a babe’s age within a year. The daughter ofRyerson House had been switched. Louissa just did not know why or with whom, or why a giftless girl in a no name house interested the Master of Coin. “Whatareyou up to, Peytar?
twelve
Enya
Greenridge Forest thinned as the land flattened to gentle rolling hills, and Enya angled to the south. When she at last left the towering trunks behind and she could see to the next rise and roll of the land, she stopped jumping at every rustling, but she found new things to loathe in the grassland.
There was a constant uneasiness she couldn’t shake. She suddenly felt very much like a field mouse scurrying across the open where any cat might see. The tall grasses could hide gopher and fox holes for Arawelo to stumble in. As if that were not enough, little black gnats swarmed the mare’s ears, making her incessantly toss her head and Enya bat at her own face. Worse still were the farms she had to skirt wide - wider she learned after one set dogs on her.
Without the dense canopy, she hated the sun that beat at her during the day and the very stars that winked overhead at night. She cursed the spring rains the second night under the eerily open sky when thunder boomed, and a cold wind blew from the north. Arawelo nickered, sensing the impending storm. Enya leaned forward to scratch behind her ear.
“It’s alright, Welo,” she croaked. “It’s alright.”
A blanket roll, towel, three changes of clothes.As the list that came so easily to her now drifted through her thoughts, Enya did not know if she was trying toconvince the mare or herself. The wind warned this would not be a gentle rain, and the land offered little in the way of shelter.Bandages, a salve, a needle and thread.
A lonely farm stood off to the east. She steeled herself, daring to approach it. As she neared and took in the peeling whitewash and thatch in desperate need of repair, she wondered if that had been wise. The barn leaned precariously to one side, but it looked as if it had been standing for many years and it would likely stand another night. When she circled around and rode up the path toward the front door, a gaunt faced old man emerged carrying a quarterstaff. His wife stood behind him in the doorframe, wringing her apron between her hands.
“Ho there, Goodman,” she called, trying to make her voice light. She eyed the quarterstaff warily. “I-I find myself caught out in this storm.”
“Mighty far from the road,” he growled distrustfully. “What’s a lady doing all the way out here?”
“I’m afraid I got lost in Greenridge Forest,” she said nervously, casting a look around. “I’m trying to find my way back to the Queen’s Road.”
“It’s that way.” He jabbed a gnarled finger toward the south.
“Yes, well.” Enya took in the way the shutters hung askance and decided the storm didn’t seem so bad. “Thank you, I…I will be on my way then.”
“We want no trouble with what you’re running from,” the man said.
