Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [184]
“You little dolt!” Nevyn hissed.
“I just couldn’t sleep. Just taking a bit of air.”
“Hah! Come along, lad.”
Nevyn marched Rhodry back to his chamber, which was some ways away on the floor above the women’s quarters, and shoved him through the door. Rhodry sank into a chair and looked up bleary eyed. His lips were swollen.
“How by every god did you know I was in Jill’s bed?”
“How do you think I knew, dolt?”
Rhodry squeaked and flinched back.
“I’m not going to blast you with dweomer-fires or suchlike,” Neyvn said with some asperity. “Tempted though I may be. All I want you to do is think. You won’t be able to keep this midnight trysting a secret forever. As the saying goes, fine dresses can’t hide a big belly. What will Cullyn do then, pray tell?”
“Naught. We’ve had words about it, and he let me know that Jill’s mine as long as I treat her as well as a great lord’s mistress deserves.”
Nevyn felt like a man who’s drawn his sword with a flourish only to find it broken off at the hilt.
“Truly, I couldn’t believe my ears either.” Rhodry did look sincerely amazed. “But he did say it. I swear to you that I’ll always treat her well. Ah, ye gods, Nevyn, can’t you understand how much I love her? You must have been young once. Didn’t you ever love a woman this much?”
Nevyn was caught speechless by the irony of the thing—so he had, the same one. Unceremoniously Nevyn kicked the heir to the tierynrhyn out of his chamber and barred the door behind him. He sat down in the chair and ran his fingers idly over the rough wood of the table edge. Jill’s gnome appeared, all smiles and bows.
“I’m sorry, my friend. You’ll have to put up with this, just like I will.”
The gnome hissed and disappeared. Nevyn was just as heartsick. She was gone from him in this life as she’d gone in so many others, he was sure of it. All the amusements and crises of a great court would fill her mind and her time until her latent dweomer talents faded away. He could see it all: although Rhodry’s wife would have to accept his mistress, she would come to hate Jill when the various vassals paid their court to Jill, not to her. The fight would come to the surface when Jill had a couple of Rhodry’s bastards and was trying to get them settled in good positions. No doubt Rhodry would favor Jill’s children, too, making his wife hate her more than ever. None of this would leave any place for the dweomer.
Nevyn’s first impulse was to leave the dun that very night and ride far away, but Jill would need him. For all the pain of seeing his vow go unfulfilled for yet another long stretch of years, he would stay, simply because she needed him. For a moment Nevyn felt so odd that he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Then he realized that for the first time in a hundred years, he was weeping.
When the tenth day passed with no word from Rhys, Lovyan was furious enough to dispense with formalities and send a message to him. Although she carefully phrased the letter in humble and courtly terms, at root she told him the entire tierynrhyn would be in upheaval until he cursed well did something about it. When the scribe read it to her impatient vassals, they cheered.
“You have my sympathy, my lords,” Lovyan said to them. “We’ll see if a mother’s words can prod the gwerbret to action.”
Lovyan left them to discuss her letter and went up to the women’s hall. As a child she had played there at her mother’s side, and the familiar room was still a comfortable refuge, even though she was the lord of the dun now, not its lady. When she came in, she found Dannyan trying to help Jill with her sewing.
“Shall I fetch Her Grace some wine?” Jill said.
“Anything to get out of the needlework?” Lovyan said with a smile. “You may lay aside if you wish, Jill, but truly, I don’t want anything at the moment.”
Jill threw her practice piece into the workbasket with such fury that Lovyan and Dannyan both laughed at her.
“Here, Dann,” Lovyan said. “It’s truly