Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [100]
“My apologies.”
“And you have mine from the bottom of my heart.” Rhodry took the offered hand.
But the handshake was as brief as they could make it, and Rhodry stomped out of the hall. Rhys and Lovyan sat down and waited while a servant refilled the gwerbret’s tankard and scuttled away again.
“My apologies to you, Mother. That was an ill way for me to treat your hospitality, but ye gods, the rotten young cub made me furious.”
“What he said was uncalled for and cruel.”
Rhys studied the tabletop and rubbed at a bit of rough wood with his thumb. Finally he looked up with a brittle smile.
“Well? Aren’t you going to tell me that it’s time I put my wife aside?”
“I know she pleases you, and never would I wish that bitter Wyrd on any woman. I take it your councillors have been pressing the issue again.”
“They have. That’s another reason I rode to Cannobaen, to ask your advice. I know Aberwyn needs heirs, but it aches my heart to think of Donilla living shamed on her brother’s charity.”
With a sigh, Lovyan considered. Rhys had been married for ten years; he was now twenty-eight and his wife twenty-six; if Donilla was going to conceive, surely she would have done so by now.
“If you do put her aside,” Lovyn said at last, “I’ll make provision for her. At the very least, she can come to me as part of my retinue, but I might be able to do better than that.”
“My thanks. Truly, Mother, my thanks.” He rose abruptly. “If you’ll excuse me? I need a bit of air.”
Yet Lovyan knew that he was close to tears. For a long while she sat at the table alone and brooded on those women’s matters that lay at the heart of the kingdom.
On the morrow, Rhys and his men rode out early, much to Lovyan’s relief. His stubbornness over the rebellion puzzled her; it was, after all, to the gwerbret’s advantage to intervene before things came to open war, both to assert his authority and to issue a warning that rebellions would not be tolerated in his rhan. Later, while speaking with Rhodry and Sligyn in her reception chamber, she found an answer to the puzzle that nearly broke her heart.
“High-handed of him, eh?” Sligyn said. “Never known His Grace to be so unreasonable.”
“Indeed?” Rhodry favoured them with a cold, tight smile. “All my life, Rhys could always hold one thing over my head, and that was that he’d get the gwerbretrhyn and I’d have naught but his charity. And then Uncle Gwaryc has to go and get himself killed, and lo and behold, I’ve got a rhan after all. Of course it aches the bastard’s heart.”
“Here!” Sligyn snapped. “Don’t call your brother that. Your lady mother had more honor than to put horns on your father’s head.”
“My apologies to you, Mother. Let me refer to the esteemed gwerbret as a piss-poor drunken excuse for a noble lord then.”
“Rhodry!” Lovyan and Sligyn said together.
“Well, by the gods!” Rhodry got to his feet. “How do you expect me to be courteous to a man who wants me dead?”
Suddenly Lovyan turned cold.
“Can’t you see it?” Rhodry was shaking with rage. “He’s letting the war go on in the hopes of seeing me killed. I’ll wager Corbyn and Nowec see it, too. They kill me off, then sue for peace, and Rhys ever so honorably makes them give restitution to his poor mother. Then when you die, the rebels have what they want, direct fealty to Rhys, and he has what he wants, my lands.” Rhodry leaned over her chair. “Well, Mother? Aren’t I right?”
“Hold your tongue!” Sligyn rose and hauled him back. “You’re right enough, but don’t go throwing it into your lady mother’s face!”
Rhodry strode to the window and looked out, gripping the sill with both hands. Lovyan felt as if Rhys and Rhodry physically had her by the arms and were ripping her apart. Sligyn watched her with concern.
“Don’t you brood, Your Grace, we’ll keep your young cub alive. He knows how to swing that sword he wears, and he’ll have plenty of loyal men around him.”
Lovyan nodded mutely. Sligyn hesitated, then sighed.
“My lady? We’d best leave you.”
It seemed to take them forever to get out of