Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [56]
“I never thought you’d lie to me! What do you think I am? An infant that can’t bear grief without some pretty tale to sweeten it?”
“It’s not a lie. And soon, when your training allows, you’ll do and see things that will prove the truth of it. Until then, believe me blind.”
Nevyn hesitated on the edge of trust.
“And in a while,” the master went on, “she’ll die to that other world and be born again to this one. I can’t know if ever your paths will cross again. That’s for the Great Ones, the Lords of Wyrd, to decide, not you and me. Do you still doubt my sworn word?”
“Never could I doubt that.”
“Then that’s what you have.” Rhegor gave a long weary sigh. “And since men believe the bitter easier than the sweet, I’ll tell you somewhat else. If you do meet again, whether in this life or the next, then you have a great debt to make up to her. You failed her, lad. I’m half minded to turn you out, but that would only mean I’m failing you. You’re going to make this up to her, and the burden won’t be an easy one. Maybe it sounds pretty, saying you’ll meet again, but think about what you owe her. You little fool, you should have recognized her! You thought of her as a jewel or a fine horse, the best woman to ever come your way, better like a prize. Ye gods, under that god-cursed beauty lay a woman to match you in the dweomer. Why do you think I hung around the Falcon keep? How could she ever leave to study the dweomer except through the right man? Would her father have ever so nicely let her go off on her own to study her birthright? Why do you think you fell in love with her the moment you saw her? You knew, you dolt, or you should have known—you were a pair, calling to one another!” Rhegor slammed his hand down on the table. “But now she’s gone.”
Nevyn turned cold, a sick ripple of shame.
“And someday soon she’ll have to start all over again,” Rhegor went on remorselessly. “A little baby, blind, unknowing, years before she can even speak and hold a wretched spoon to feed herself. She’ll have to grow up all over again, while the kingdom needs every dweomermaster it can get! You dolt! By then, who knows where you’ll be? You fool!”
Nevyn broke, falling onto the table to weep on his folded arms. Hastily Rhegor got up, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Oh, here, I’m sorry, lad. There’ll be time to talk when you’re done mourning. You don’t need vinegar poured on your wounds. Here, here, forgive me.”
Yet it was a long hour before Nevyn could stop weeping.
In the morning, Nevyn and Rhegor took Brangwen into the woods to bury her. As he helped dig her grave, Nevyn felt a deathly calm. He lifted her up for the last time and laid her in, then put all the courting presents in with her. Other lives or no, he wanted her to have grave goods, like the princess she should have been. Working together, they filled in the grave and built a cairn over it to keep the wild animals from digging her up. Around them the forest stretched silent and lonely, far from her ancestors. When the last stone lay on the cairn, Rhegor lifted his arms to the sun.
“It is over,” Rhegor called out. “Let her rest.”
Nevyn fell on his knees at the foot of the cairn.
“Brangwen, my love, forgive me! If we ever meet again, I swear I’ll put this right. I swear to you—I’ll never rest until I set this right.”
“Hold your tongue! You don’t know what you’re offering.”
“I don’t care—I’ll swear it anyway. I’ll never rest until I put this right!”
From the clear sky came a clap of thunder, then another, then another—three mighty hollow knocks, rolling and booming over the forest. His face white, Rhegor stepped back.
“The Great Ones have accepted your sacrifice.”
After the thunder, the silence rang unbearably loud. Nevyn rose, shaking like a man with a fever. Rhegor shrugged and picked up his shovel.
“Well, there you go, lad. A vow’s a vow.”
• • •
When the forest was turning gold and scarlet, and the winds whipped down from the north, Gwerbret Madoc rode their way. Nevyn came back from gathering