Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [63]
“My thanks,” Rhodry said when he was finished. “It’s a marvel, you turning up like this. Do you remember meeting me on the Cantrae road all those years ago?”
“I do, truly.”
“Its eerie. I was just trying to be courteous. I never dreamt you’d save my life someday. I must have cursed good luck.”
“So you must. So you must.”
When Rhodry fell asleep, Nevyn went down to the great hall for his dinner. The men in the young lord’s warband insisted on treating Nevyn like a hero. They brought him his food like pages and crowded round to thank him while he ate. One of them, a beefy lad named Praedd, even insisted on bringing Nevyn a goblet of mead.
“Here, good sir. If you ever need our aid for anything, me and the lads will ride out of our way to give it.”
“My thanks. I take it you men honor Lord Rhodry highly.”
“We do. He’s young yet, but he’s got more honor than any lord in Eldidd.”
“Well and good, then. And what of Lord Rhys, the heir?”
Praedd hesitated, glancing this way and that, and he dropped his voice when he answered.
“Don’t spread this around, like, but there’s plenty of men in Aberwyn who wish Lord Rhodry had been born first, not second.”
Praedd bowed and hurried away before he could say anything else indiscreet. As Nevyn thought over what he’d said, he felt a cold dweomer-warning ripple down his back. There was trouble coming in Aberwyn. Suddenly he had a brief flash of vision, saw swords flashing in the summer sun as Rhodry led a wedge of men into a hard-fought battle. When the vision faded, Nevyn felt sick at heart. Was there going to be a rebellion to put Rhodry in the gwerbretal chair when Tingyr died? Perhaps. Dweomer-warnings were always vague, leaving the recipient to puzzle out their meaning. Yet he could guess that, once again, he would have important work to do in Aberwyn when the time came.
The guess turned to a certainty late on the next afternoon. Nevyn was up in Rhodry’s chamber when a manservant rushed in with the news that Rhodry’s mother, Lady Lovyan of Aberwyn, had arrived with a small retinue. In a few minutes, the wife of the most powerful man in Eldidd swept into the room. She threw her travel-stained plaid cloak to the waiting servant and ran to Rhodry’s bedside. A solid woman in her early forties, Lovyan had an imposing beauty, her raven-dark hair just streaked with gray, her cornflower blue eyes as large and perfect as her son’s.
“My poor little lad,” she said, laying a hand on his forehead. “Thanks be to the Goddess, you’re not fevered anymore.”
“The Goddess sent a good herbman. Mother, you didn’t need to ride all this way just for me.”
“Don’t babble nonsense.” Lovyan turned to Nevyn. “My thanks, good sir. I’ll see you’re well paid for all of this.”
“It was my honor, my lady. I’m just thankful that I was close at hand.”
Nevyn left them alone, but later he returned to find Rhodry asleep and Lovyan sitting by his bedside. When Nevyn bowed to her, she came over to talk where they wouldn’t waken him.
“I’ve spoken to the servants, good Nevyn. They told me that they feared for his life until you came.”
“I won’t lie to you, my lady. He was very ill indeed. That’s why I thought you should be notified.”
Lovyan nodded, her mouth slack with worry. In the fading light, she looked intensely familiar. Nevyn allowed himself to slip into the dweomer sight and saw her clearly—Rodda, bound to Blaen again as mother to son. At that moment, she recognized him as well, and her eyes grew puzzled even as she smiled.
“Now, here, do you ever ride to Aberwyn? I must have seen you before, but surely I’d remember a man with such an unusual name.”
“Oh, my lady, you may have seen me when you rode by in the street or suchlike. I’d never be presented to a woman of your rank.”
Nevyn felt like laughing in