The old man watched Molly wolf down her big bacon roll, and slid his half-eaten one on its plate across the table to her.
“Go on. You need this more than I do.”
She didn’t need telling twice. It was delicious, but more importantly it was fuel. She sat hunched and sweating from the effort of eating fast, waiting for the food to transform from a rock in her stomach to energy.
“I’m Bryn Prym.” He took off his hat and held out a hand. His fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed.
She wiped her greasy hand on her jeans and shook his. “Molly Matthews.”
“Well met.” His smile crinkled his pale grey eyes and showed his youthful pink cheeks off to their best advantage with his silver hair and beard. “Yours is a good name for a bard. Like a song title.”
She felt better already. Not a lot, but enough to lift her away from the sick faint that had been swirling horribly close.
“What was that strange song you performed?”
“Jabberwocky. I used to teach it to my students.”
His breath caught. “You’re a teacher? A bard and a teacher! At such a young age!”
She smiled and gave a little shrug.
He stood and bowed to her. “My day is blessed by meeting you, Molly Matthews. Teaching is an honourable profession.”
Not anymore in her world, but she didn’t say so. She didn’t want to dent his happiness, or to open up her origin.
“I remember the teachers in my old school with great respect and affection,” he said, sliding back on to his bench. “When I was a boy, the youngest among them were around the age I am now, which I guess is about twice your age.”
“What was your school called?” She had a feeling she was going to recognise its name.
His smile wavered, and the happy sparkle left his eyes. “Deracoom.”
She’d thought so. “You’re a druid.”
He glanced left and right. For a moment he reminded her of a lonely child in a class, dreading the next wave of hurtful banter heading his way.
She felt guilty, as if she’d endangered him recklessly. No one was close enough to have overheard her words. Still, she lowered her voice. “I’m sorry.”
Again, he glanced left and right before he spoke. “Deracoom is gone. Our school, our beloved home, was destroyed by demons in the war. Along with most of the friends I’ve known and cherished all my life.”
She didn’t think he noticed her involuntary shudder when he mentioned demons.
He stared down at the table. “Only those who were travelling away from home survived. No more than a handful of us.”
She covered his hand with hers. “I’m sorry.”
He covered her hand with his other one and gave it a warm squeeze, while smiling the saddest smile she’d ever seen.
“Thank you.” He glanced around once more, then straightened his back and put the firmness back into his voice, although he still spoke quietly. “People don’t want to know druids anymore. We’re history. Unpopular history. Nowadays, I’m a mapmaker.”
“Okay.”
“How do you know of Deracoom?”
Now there was a question. The first potentially awkward one she’d faced. “I read about it.”
He frowned quickly. “Read about it? Not heard about it? Read?”
This was going to get complicated. “Yes.”
“How? I mean, where did you read of it?”
Yep. Complicated. “In a book.”
He held her hand and stared into her eyes while he took it in.
She had an idea of the inner turmoil he must be experiencing. Druids didn’t reproduce their knowledge in writing. Ancient druids in her world hadn’t, and she assumed from his reaction now that modern ones in his world didn’t either.
The knowledge that someone had written a book about Bryn’s beloved school must have been tilting his universe.
She squeezed his hand. “The book only mentions Deracoom in passing. It gives no details beyond its name and approximate location.”
His shoulders sagged with relief.
She gave him a smile she hoped would make him feel better.
“I would like to see such a book,” he murmured.
“You can. I have it in my bag.”
“Not here.” He regarded her haversack on the table as if it contained a dangerous animal.
The midday sun was directly overhead, boiling her eyes and baking her brain. She extracted her hand gently from his and put up her hood.
“Forgive my observation,” he said, “but I think you are unwell. It’s more than mere hunger. Yes?”
It would be pointless to deny it. If she looked half as shit as she felt, she must look very shit. “Yes.” It was more a sigh than anything.
In a heartbeat, he was all business. “You can share my roof. Only for tonight if you wish, or for as long as you desire. At least until you recover.”
That was the thing with ME. It was a lifelong condition. There was no recovering. But how to say that to the kindly old man?
“Please say yes. You don’t even have to walk. My donkey is waiting behind the tavern. I’ll buy you clothes to stop people staring, and a hat to protect you from the sun, and if you can ride Windy we’ll be home in no time.”
Her lips twitched. “Windy?”
He chuckled. “I bought him. I didn’t name him. Will you accept my hospitality?”
All she wanted was to curl up somewhere and sleep forever. “Thank you. You’re very kind. I will.”