A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [40]
“Ah, I see. Well, by all accounts my grandfather was an amazing man, but I doubt me very much if he was a sorcerer. For a man to rise from gardener to councillor is very, very rare, Your Highness, and I imagine it must have looked like sorcery to some.”
“Oh.” Bellyra was bitterly disappointed. “No doubt you’re right, good sir, but I had so hoped he was a real sorcerer! But still, it’s rather splendid to get to meet his grandson after reading about him and all. I take it your family became merchants with the inheritance he left?”
“In a way, truly. I used to deal in herbals and medicinals, but the times are grave enough for me to lay aside my old trade and do what I can for the true king.”
“Well, iron is the best medicinal for the army, sure enough. Do you really believe the true king will ever come?”
“I do, and with all my heart, Your Highness, I believe it will be very soon.”
“I hope so. We can’t go on like this much longer. I’m going to have to marry him, you know. I hope he won’t be too ugly, or old like Tieryn Elyc, but it doesn’t truly matter. Cook says that all cats are gray in the dark.”
“I take it you and your mother will have no objections to such a match.”
“My poor mother! The only thing she ever objects to anymore is her wine jug running empty. And as for me, well, if he really is the one true king of all Deverry, I’d be awfully stupid to turn him down, wouldn’t I? I don’t want to molder here the rest of my life.”
“Your Highness has a very direct and refreshing way of expressing herself, and I think, if I may speak so boldly, that you’re going to make an excellent queen.”
“My thanks, good sir. You’re the only one who seems to think so.” With a sigh she rested her chin on one hand and looked away out to the floor of the hall, where the men were drinking and laughing over their perennial dice games. “But then, we’ve got a lot in common. You’re named ‘no one,’ and I was never properly born.”
“What, Your Highness?”
“I was born on Samaen—just after sunset, the worst time of all. The midwife sat on my mother’s legs to try to stop me coming so soon, and when that didn’t work she tried to shove me back in, but my mother hurt so bad that she made her stop shoving. So the midwife ran screaming out of the chamber and my mother’s serving women had to deliver me. They had all sorts of priests in and everything to bless me straightaway so the Wildfolk or the dead spirits couldn’t get me. I don’t remember any of that, of course. They told me when I was older.”
“That’s an amazing tale! But you know, children are born on Samaen every now and then. Most of them are quite ordinary, too.”
“I’ve always felt quite ordinary, actually.” She pinched her wrist. “Rather solid, don’t you think?”
“It looks that way to me, Your Highness.”
By then the pages and serving lasses were bringing round baskets of bread and plates of cold meats and cheeses along with goblets of mead for the noble-born and ale for their men, including, of course, the mercenaries who belonged to Elyc’s foster brother. Bellyra took a slice of ham and nibbled on it while she considered the regent and the captain, who were discussing old times with a deliberate intensity, as if they were trying to keep the present moment far away. Every now and then one of them would hit the other on the shoulder or arm, which she took as meaning they truly loved each other. Nevyn coughed politely to regain her attention.
“Have there been many omens of the coming of