A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [36]
“Bellyra! Come along, I know you’re out here. The cook told me where you’d be.”
With a sour thought for Nerra’s treachery, Bellyra tucked her book into her kirtle and began to climb down. As the tree began to shake he crossed the bridge.
“There you are,” he said with a low laugh. “You’re getting a bit old to climb trees like a lad, aren’t you?”
“Just the opposite, my lord. The older you get the easier it is, because your legs are longer.”
“Ah. I see. Well, you know, you’d best take care, Your Highness, because you’re the only heir Cerrmor has.”
“Oh, come now. No one’s going to let me rule in the female line.”
“The point, Your Highness, is to keep you safe so you can marry the one true king when he reaches Cerrmor.”
“And when, my lord, will that be? When the moon turns into a boat and sails down from the sky with him on it?”
Elyc let out his breath in a little puff and ran both hands through his hair. With something of a sense of shock, Bellyra realized that he was close to tears.
“My apologies, my lord. Oh, here, don’t cry. I truly am sorry.”
Elyc looked up, his eyes murderous—then he laughed.
“I feel as weepy as a wench, true enough, Your Highness. You have sharp eyes for one so young.”
“It comes from living here, actually. You’d have them, too, if you had to grow up in the palace.”
“No doubt. But listen, lass, for lass you are though a royal one, it doesn’t do to tread on men’s hopes when hope is all they have. Remember that.”
“Indeed? Well, how do you think I feel, knowing I’ll probably get smothered before I’m fifteen and even betrothed, much less married to anyone?”
Elyc winced, and for a moment she was afraid that he truly would cry this time.
“Your Highness,” he said at last. “Cerrmor can still field an army of over three thousand loyal men….”
“And Cantrae’s got close to seven thousand. I heard you telling Lord Tammael that.”
“You little sneak! What were you doing, creeping around the great hall when we thought you were in bed?”
“Just that. It’s my hall, isn’t it, since I’m the heir and all, and so I’ll sneak around in it if I want to.”
All at once he laughed in genuine good cheer.
“You know, Your Highness, at times you truly do have the royal spirit. But listen to me. Once the true king comes, a good thousand of those Cantrae men are ours again. Their lords have gone over to Dun Deverry out of fear and naught else, and they have a hundred years’ worth of reasons to hate the Boars and their false king. Give them hope, and they’ll flock to our banner.”
“Well and good, my lord.” She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to act regally at moments like these, not slang her cadvridoc like a fishwife. “Truly, we have great faith in your understanding of matters military.”
Although it seemed to her that Elyc was suppressing a smile, he did make her a passable bow.
“Now, good regent, did you want me for some reason?”
“Not truly. I was just worried, wondering where you’d got to.” He paused to glance round at the towering rise of stone. “You’re probably safe enough out here.”
“Unless an assassin comes creeping under the walls.”
“Oh, indeed? Has the bard been amusing you with lurid tales?”
“He hasn’t. Look, see where the stream comes out from under the wall over there? Well, that water comes from the dairy room, where they store the cheeses and suchlike. The running water keeps them cool in summer. But it gets into the dairy room through this underground tunnel that leads all the way outside the dun walls to that big stream that goes through the market district down to the river. The tunnel was built in 769 by Glyn the First when the sorcerer was here, the one who posed as a gardener to gain the king’s confidence and…”
“Sorcerer? Don’t prattle about some wretched sorcerer!” He was close to shouting. “I never knew about any cursed tunnel. Ye gods, Your Highness, this is a serious matter!”
“Well, so I thought. That