Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [20]
Rhegor smiled as if he doubted it. He picked a couple of big logs off the woodpile in the corner and laid them on the small stone hearth. When he waved his hand over the logs, flames sprang up and flared along the bark. The prince let out his breath with a little hiss.
“You’ll have to get over your infatuation with these tricks,” Rhegor said. “The true dweomer lies deeper than that.”
“So you’ve said, but I can’t lie and say I’ve already gotten over it.”
“True enough. You’re a good lad in your way, Galrion.”
As supple as a cat, Rhegor stretched his back, regarding the prince with shrewd eyes. Rhegor looked like an old peasant, short, barrel-chested, dressed in a dirty pair of brown brigga and a patched plain shirt with a bit of rope round his waist for want of a proper belt. His gray hair hung cropped and untidy; his gray mustache always needed a trim. At times, when he wasn’t watching his thoughts, Prince Galrion wondered why he was so impressed with this man that he’d follow his orders blindly. It’s the dweomer, he told himself. Who needs wealth when you’ve got the dweomer?
“Have you been thinking about this betrothed of yours?” Rhegor said.
“I have. I’ll do what you told me.”
“You should be doing it because you understand the reasons, not just following my commands like a hunting dog.”
“Of course. But you’re sure? I can bring her with me?”
“If she’ll come. Marry her first, then bring her along.” Rhegor glanced around the skew-walled hut. “It’s not a palace, but we’ll build her a better home by winter.”
“But what if she doesn’t want to come?”
“If she chooses freely, then release her.” Rhegor paused for effect. “Freely, mind you.”
“But if she—if we—have a child?”
“What of it?” Rhegor caught his sulky glance and stared him down. “A vow is a vow, lad, and you swore one to her. If this were the usual arranged marriage, it would be different, but you sought her and won her. A man who can’t keep his word is of no use to the dweomer, none.”
“Very well then. I’ll ride to Brangwen before I go and lay the matter before my father.”
“Good. She deserves the news first.”
Wrapped in his cloak of scarlet-and-white plaid, Galrion mounted his black horse and rode off through the unbroken forest of ancient oaks. In a little while, he would return as a poverty-stricken exile to study the dweomer—if he could fight himself free of his old life.
Galrion was the third of the four sons of Adoryc, High King of all Deverry. With two healthy heirs ahead of him, and one behind in reserve, he was a disposable young man, encouraged all his life to spoil himself with his beloved horses and hunting, so that he’d present no coveting threat to his eldest brother’s claim on the throne. He saw no reason why he shouldn’t ride away from court, out of the way for good and no longer a drain on the royal treasury. Yet he doubted if his father would see things so simply. Adoryc the Second, the ruler of a recent and unstable dynasty, seldom saw anything simply.
And there was the matter of Brangwen, the lord’s daughter whom Galrion had won over many another suitor. Only a few months ago, he’d loved her so much that the wait of their betrothal time seemed an unjust torment. Now he saw her as a potential nuisance. Rhegor admitted that Galrion would make slower progress with his studies if he had a wife and children than if he were alone. There were duties a man had to fulfill if he were married, Rhegor always said, but after twenty-two years of having every one of his royal whims satisfied, Galrion was in no mood to hear talk of duty. He was used to having exactly what he wanted, and he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted dweomer power. He hungered after it and thirsted for it.
Or, as he thought about it during his damp ride through the forest, wanting the dweomer was a lust, a burning inside him. Once he’d thought he lusted for Brangwen, but now a new lust had driven that passion out. To delve into secret lore, to learn and master the secret ways of the universe,