Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [180]
“What are you doing here?” Cullyn snapped. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near the barracks.”
“Oh, I know, and I hate it. Da, I miss you. We hardly get a chance to talk these days.”
When Cullyn sat up, rubbing his face and yawning, Jill sat down next to him. In her new dresses she looked so much like her mother that he wanted to weep.
“Well, my sweet, I miss you, too, but you’re a fine lady now.”
“Oh, horseshit! Lovyan can heap honors on me all she wants, but I’ll always be common-born and a bastard.”
She spoke so bitterly that even Cullyn could catch this subtle point.
“Rhodry will never marry you, truly. And you’d best keep that in mind, when you’re giggling and flirting with him.”
Jill went pale and still, clutching a handful of blanket.
“I’ve seen the pair of you looking at each other like hounds at a joint of meat. Stay away from him. He’s an honorable man, but you wouldn’t be the first beautiful woman that made a man desert his honor.”
Jill nodded, her mouth working in honest pain. Cullyn felt torn in pieces. He was sincerely sorry for her, that she’d never have the man she loved, and at the same time, he wanted to slap her just because she loved another man.
“Come along.” Cullyn stood up. “You’re not a barracks brat anymore, and you can’t be hanging around here.”
Cullyn strode out, leaving Jill to follow. Yet her words haunted him that evening, that she loved him, that she missed him. He wondered how he would feel if she married some man the tieryn picked out for her, and she went off to live with her new husband. He would probably never see her but once or twice a year. He even had the thought of simply leaving Rhodry’s service and going back on the long road, where he would neither know nor care where Jill was sleeping, but as he sat in the captain’s place at the head table of the warband, he knew that he could never give up his newfound position. For the first time in his life, he had something to lose.
Later, after the warbands drifted back to the barracks and the noble lords up to their chambers, Rhodry brought over a game of Carnoic, the finest set Cullyn had ever seen. The playing pieces were flat polished stones, white and black. The thin ebony board was inlaid with mother-of-pearl to mark the starting stations and the track, sixteen interwoven triangles, so that even in firelight it was easy to follow.
“I’ll wager you beat me soundly,” Rhodry said.
Cullyn did, too, for the first three games, sweeping Rhodry’s men off the board as fast as the young lord put them on. Swearing under his breath, Rhodry began pondering every move he made and gave Cullyn a harder run for it, but still he lost the next three. By then, only one drowsy servant remained in the hall to refill their tankards. Rhodry sent the man to bed, stopped drinking, and finally after four more games, ran Cullyn to a draw.
“I won’t press my luck anymore tonight,” Rhodry said.
“It wasn’t luck. You’re learning.”
Cullyn felt the simple comfort of it as overwhelming. Here they were, two men who’d given themselves up for dead, safe at home by a fire, with plenty of ale and each other’s company. While Rhodry put the game back in its lacquered box, Cullyn got up and fetched more ale. They drank silently at first, and slowly, making the moment last as the fire died down and shadows filled the hall. Cullyn suddenly realized that he was happy, a word that had never had much meaning for him before. Or he would be happy, if it weren’t for Jill, whom he loved too much but loved truly enough to want her to be happy, too. Maybe it was the ale, maybe it was the late hour, but he suddenly thought of the clear and simple way to solve the whole tangled mess. If he could do it. If he could bear to do it.
All unconsciously, Rhodry gave him the opening he needed, the chance to think about what had seemed so unthinkable before.
“I wish Rhys