Gerro! Gerro, Gerro, please stop, please.
Gerraent let her lead him away, leaning on her as if she were the warrior and he the lass. She took him back to the hall and shoved him into a chair by the hearth. He saw the priests come back, saw them fussing around Brangwen and talking in low voices. She came over to him with a tankard of ale in her hand. Reflexively Gerraent took it, sipped from it, then nearly threw it in her face. It reeked of medicinal herbs.
Drink it, Brangwen snapped. Drink it down, Gerro. Youve got to sleep.
For her sake Gerraent choked the bitter stuff down. She took the empty tankard from his hands just as he fell asleep in his chair, drowning, or so he felt, in the warm sunlight. When he woke, he was lying on his bed with a torch burning in an iron sconce on the wall. Blaen was sitting on the floor and watching him.
Ah, ye gods, Gerraent said. How long did I sleep?
Its just past sunset. We all rode in an hour or so ago. My mother and your betrothed wanted to be with Gwennie.
Blaen got up and poured water from the clay pitcher on the windowsill. Gerraent drank greedily to wash the bitter aftertaste of the drug out of his mouth.
How long will you set the period of mourning? Blaen said.
For my sake Id say a year, but that would be cruel to our sisters, wouldnt it? I can go on mourning after theyre both married.
Say to the turning of the fall, then?
Gerraent nodded in agreement, thinking that Gwennie would be his for one more summer. Then he remembered why he would have the summer. Keening, he threw the clay cup against the wall so hard that it shattered. Blaen sat down beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
Here, here, hes gone, Blaen said. Theres naught more to do or say.
Gerraent rested his head against Blaens chest and wept. I love him like a brother, he thought. Ill thank all the gods that Gwennies not marrying him.
Prince Galrions first week back at court was one long frustration, with never a chance to speak to his father except in full, formal court. He knew that he was holding back, too, letting slip a chance here and there, because his heart worried like a terrier with a rat at the question of marrying Brangwen or letting Blaen have her. Finally, he decided to enlist the aid of the one ally he could always trust: his mother. On an afternoon so warm and balmy that it reminded him Beltane was close at hand, Galrion left the city and rode out to find the Queens hawking party down by Loc Gwerconydd, the vast lake where three rivers came together west of Dun Deverry.
The Queen and her attendants were having their noon meal at the southern shore. In their bright dresses, the serving women and maidservants looked like flowers scattered through the grass. Queen Ylaena sat in their midst; a young page, dressed in white, stood behind her with the Queens favorite little merlin on his wrist. Off to one side menservants tended the horses and other hawks. When Galrion dismounted, the Queen waved him over with an impatient flick of her hand.
Ive hardly seen you since you rode home, Ylaena said. Are you well?
By all means. What makes you think Im not?
Youve been brooding over somewhat. I can always tell. The Queen turned to her women. Go down to the lakeshore or suchlike, all of you. Leave us.
The women sprang up like birds taking flight and ran off, laughing and calling to one another. The page followed more slowly, chirruping to the hawk to keep it calm. Ylaena watched them go with a small satisfied nod. For all that she had four grown sons, she was a beautiful woman still, with large, dark eyes, a slender face, and only a few streaks of gray in her chestnut hair. She reached into the basket beside her, brought out a piece of sweet bread, and handed it to Galrion.
The women sprang up like birds taking flight and ran off, laughing and calling to one another. The page followed more slowly, chirruping to the hawk to keep it calm. Ylaena watched them go with a small satisfied nod. For all that she had four grown sons, she was a beautiful woman still, with large, dark eyes, a slender face, and only a few streaks of gray in her chestnut hair. She reached into the basket beside her, brought out a piece of sweet bread, and handed it to Galrion.
My thanks. Tell me somewhat, Mother. When you first came to court, did the other women envy your beauty?
Of course. Are you thinking about your betrothed?
Just that. Im beginning to think you were right to doubt my choice.
Nows a fine time for that, when youve already pledged your vow to the poor child.
What son ever listens to his mother until its too late?
Ylaena gave him an indulgent smile. Galrion nibbled on the sweet bread and considered strategies.
You know, Ylaena said. Theres not a lass alive who wouldnt want to be known as the most beautiful woman in all Deverry, but its a harsh Wyrd in its own way. Your little Gwennie never had the education I had, either. Shes such a trusting little soul.
Just that. I spoke with Lady Rodda of the Boar about the matter, too, when I went with Gerraent for his betrothal. Lord Blaen of the Boar is much enamoured of the lass.
Indeed? And does that mean trouble coming?
It doesnt, but only because Blaen is an honorable man. Its odd, truly. Most lords care naught about their wives one way or another, just so long as they bear sons.
Great beauty can act on the roughest lord like dweomer. Ylaena smiled briefly. Or on a prince.
Galrion winced at her unfortunate choice of imagery.
What are you scheming? Ylaena went on. Leaving Gwennie to Blaen and finding another wife?
Well, somewhat like that. Theres one small difficulty to that plan. I still love her, in my way.
Love may be a luxury that a prince cant afford. I dont remember Blaen well from his few visits to court. Is he like his father?
As different as mead from mud.
Then thats one blessing. Im sure that if his father hadnt been killed in that hunting accident, hed be plotting against the king right now.
Ylaena glanced away, sincerely troubled. The Deverry kingship was a risky thing. The lords and tieryns remembered well that in the old days of the Dawntime, kings were elected from among their fellow nobles, and families held the throne only as long as their heirs held the respect of the lords. Under the pressures of colonizing the new kingdom, that custom had died away hundreds of years before, but it was far from unknown for the nobility to organize a rebellion against an unpopular king in order to replace him with a better one.
Lady Rodda assures me that Blaen will hold loyal, Galrion said.
Indeed? Well, I respect her opinion. You truly dont want to give Brangwen up, do you?
I dont know. Galrion tossed the remains of the bread into the grass. I truly dont know.
Heres somewhat else you might think about. Your eldest brother has always been far too fond of the lasses as it is.
All at once Galrion found himself standing, his hand on his sword hilt.
Id kill him if he laid one hand on my Gwennie. My apologies, Mother, but Id kill him.
Her face pale, Ylaena rose and caught his arm. Galrion let go of the hilt and calmed himself.
Think about this marriage carefully, Ylaena said, her voice shaking. I beg youthink carefully.
I will. And my apologies.
Her talk with the prince seemed to have spoiled the Queens pleasure in her hawking, because she called her servants to her and announced that they were returning to the city.
At that time, Dun Deverry was confined to a low rise about a mile from the marshy shores of Loc Gwerconydd. Ringed with stone walls, it lay on both sides of a rushing river, which was spanned by two stone bridges as well as two defensible arches in the city walls. Clustered inside were round stone houses, scattered along randomly curving streets, that sheltered about twenty thousand people. At either end of the city rose two small hills. The southern one bore the great temple of Bel, the palace of the high priest of the kingdom, and an oak grove. The northern hill held the royal compound, which had stood there in one form or another for six hundred years.
Galrions clan, the Wyvern, had been living on the royal hill for only forty-eight years. Galrions grandfather, Adoryc the First, had ended a long period of anarchy by finally winning a war among the great clans over the kingship. Although the Wyvern was descended from a member of King Brans original warband and thus was entitled to be called a great clan, Adoryc the First had forged an alliance among the lesser clans, the merchants, and anyone else whod support his claim to the throne. Although hed been scorned for stooping so low, hed also taken the victory.
As the Queens party rode through the streets, the townsfolk bowed and cheered her. No matter what they might have thought of her husband in private, they honestly loved Ylaena, whod endowed many a temple to give aid to the poor and who spoke up often for a poor man to make the King show him mercy. For all his thick-headedness, the King did know what a treasure he had in his wife. She was the only person whose advice he would take and trustat least, when it suited him to do so. Galrions main hope lay in getting her to advise the King to let his third son leave court for the dweomer. Soon, he knew, he would have to tell his mother the truth.
A stone wall with iron-bound gates ringed the bottom of the royal hill. Beyond was a grassy parkland, where white, red-eared cattle grazed along with the royal horses. Near the crest stood a second ring of walls, sheltering a village within the citythe royal compound, the huts for servants, sheds, stables, barracks, and the like. In the middle of this clutter and bustle rose the great broch of the Wyvern clan.
The main building was a six-story tower; around it clustered three two-story half towers like chicks nestling around a hen. In case of fighting, the broch would become a slaughterhouse for the baffled enemy, because the only way into the half towers lay through the main one. Besides the King and his family, the broch complex housed all the noble-born retainers of the court in a virtual rabbit warren of corridors and small wedge-shaped chambers, where constant intrigues and scheming over power and the Kings favor were a way of life not only for the retainers, but for the various princes and their wives. Getting out of that broch had always been the consummate goal of Galrions life.