Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [29]
“Just that. I spoke with Lady Rodda of the Boar about the matter, too, when I went with Gerraent for his betrothal. Lord Blaen of the Boar is much enamoured of the lass.”
“Indeed? And does that mean trouble coming?”
“It doesn’t, but only because Blaen is an honorable man. It’s odd, truly. Most lords care naught about their wives one way or another, just so long as they bear sons.”
“Great beauty can act on the roughest lord like dweomer.” Ylaena smiled briefly. “Or on a prince.”
Galrion winced at her unfortunate choice of imagery.
“What are you scheming?” Ylaena went on. “Leaving Gwennie to Blaen and finding another wife?”
“Well, somewhat like that. There’s one small difficulty to that plan. I still love her, in my way.”
“Love may be a luxury that a prince can’t afford. I don’t remember Blaen well from his few visits to court. Is he like his father?”
“As different as mead from mud.”
“Then that’s one blessing. I’m sure that if his father hadn’t been killed in that hunting accident, he’d be plotting against the king right now.”
Ylaena glanced away, sincerely troubled. The Deverry kingship was a risky thing. The lords and tieryns remembered well that in the old days of the Dawntime, kings were elected from among their fellow nobles, and families held the throne only as long as their heirs held the respect of the lords. Under the pressures of colonizing the new kingdom, that custom had died away hundreds of years before, but it was far from unknown for the nobility to organize a rebellion against an unpopular king in order to replace him with a better one.
“Lady Rodda assures me that Blaen will hold loyal,” Galrion said.
“Indeed? Well, I respect her opinion. You truly don’t want to give Brangwen up, do you?”
“I don’t know.” Galrion tossed the remains of the bread into the grass. “I truly don’t know.”
“Here’s somewhat else you might think about. Your eldest brother has always been far too fond of the lasses as it is.”
All at once Galrion found himself standing, his hand on his sword hilt.
“I’d kill him if he laid one hand on my Gwennie. My apologies, Mother, but I’d kill him.”
Her face pale, Ylaena rose and caught his arm. Galrion let go of the hilt and calmed himself.
“Think about this marriage carefully,” Ylaena said, her voice shaking. “I beg you—think carefully.”
“I will. And my apologies.”
Her talk with the prince seemed to have spoiled the Queen’s pleasure in her hawking, because she called her servants to her and announced that they were returning to the city.
At that time, Dun Deverry was confined to a low rise about a mile from the marshy shores of Loc Gwerconydd. Ringed with stone walls, it lay on both sides of a rushing river, which was spanned by two stone bridges as well as two defensible arches in the city walls. Clustered inside were round stone houses, scattered along randomly curving streets, that sheltered about twenty thousand people. At either end of the city rose two small hills. The southern one bore the great temple of Bel, the palace of the high priest of the kingdom, and an oak grove. The northern hill held the royal compound, which had stood there in one form or another for six hundred years.
Galrion’s clan, the Wyvern, had been living on the royal hill for only forty-eight years. Galrion’s grandfather, Adoryc the First, had ended a long period of anarchy by finally winning a war among the great clans over the kingship. Although the Wyvern was descended from a member of King Bran’s original warband and thus was entitled to be called a great clan, Adoryc the First had forged an alliance among the lesser clans, the merchants, and anyone else who’d support his claim to the throne. Although he’d been scorned for stooping so low, he’d also taken the victory.
As the Queen’s party rode through the streets, the townsfolk bowed and cheered her. No matter what they might have thought of her husband in private, they honestly loved Ylaena, who’d endowed many a temple to give aid to the poor and who spoke up often for a poor man to make the King show him mercy.