The old man followed Andevai’s dark gaze with his own. “Eh, maestra. This is no fitting room for a woman. Get you back to the supper room, now. We’ve men’s songs to sing.”
I skittered back, chased by their hearty laughter and Andevai’s glower, although what it portended I could not guess. Was he angry at me? Irritated at them? Frustrated at being stuck in a common inn for the night? Or was that annoyed arrogance just a quality inherent in his nature?
Hard to say, and, anyway, I was not about to ignore the words of an elder. As the fiddler’s bow pulled a tune from the strings and the drums answered in a counter-rhythm, I kicked the brick away and pulled the door to the supper room shut. At the table, I ladled more soup into my bowl.
“So, Maester Godwik,” I demanded as a song broke into full flower beyond the closed door. “What transpired in the villages to make you young bucks eager to leave?”
13
Godwik’s tale wound down many tributaries. He and his thirty-five compatriots were reduced to twenty-seven after battles with vicious saber-toothed cats, foaming rapids, a marauding troo, gusting winds, and a party of belligerent young bucks from a territory whose boundaries they had violated. But, at last, they reached the great wall of ice that marked the southernmost reach of the glaciers on the troll’s continent. Here, alas, Kehinde assaulted him with so many detailed questions about the color, texture, weight, height, volume, and consistency of ice that he never got to the sleigh of eru. Brennan and I by unspoken agreement rose to take a turn around the room. The other diners had quitted their tables some time ago, retiring, presumably, to their upstairs sleeping chambers for the night. We paused beside the door into the common room, where raucous laughter greeted the end of a rousing song.
“Let’s go in,” said Brennan.
“They said they were singing men’s songs.”
He had what my father would have called “a hearty laugh.” “I know this manner of old men. They were just seeing if they could intimidate you.”
“How do you know they’re old? You never went into the common room to see them.”
“They’ve been playing the songs old men play.”
He was easy to confide in. “Let me ask you, then. One of those old men—I’m sure he was nothing more than a humble farmer—ordered my… ah… my companion to sit down on the bench and drink with him. And he did!”