Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [98]
Rhodry had the horrible feeling that he was blushing.
“The midwife tells me that your Olwen is about three months along,” Lovyan continued. “She’ll be having the baby around the Festival of the Sun. Since it’s her first, it’ll doubtless be a bit late.”
“I wouldn’t know, I’m sure.”
“About such women’s matters?” Lovyan raised one eyebrow. “It’s time you realized that upon these ‘women’s matters’ rests the strength of every clan in the kingdom. If your uncle had had a bastard son, I wouldn’t be tieryn. You might think about that.”
Rhodry flung himself into a chair and refused to look at her. With a sigh, Lovyan sat down nearby.
“The real trouble is you were never raised to rule,” Lovyan said. “No one ever thought you had the remotest chance of inheriting anything, so your father got you the best warrior’s training he could and left it at that. You simply have to marry soon, and she’s going to have to be exactly the right sort of woman, too.” She hesitated, assessing him. “I suppose it would ache your heart to marry a plain lass, or one older than you.”
“It would!”
“Now, do try to be sensible. I—here, what’s all that clatter outside?”
Rhodry realized that for some minutes he’d been hearing noise out in the ward. Giving thanks to the gods for the interruption, he went to look out the window. Servants scuttled around, greeting a troop of men on horseback. Rhodry could see the dragon device on their shields, and the blue, silver, and green plaid of the rider at their head.
“Ah, by a pig’s cock!” Rhodry said. “It’s Rhys.”
“If you could please watch your tongue around your brother, I’d be most grateful.”
When they came down to the great hall, they found Rhys standing by the honor hearth. At the head of the table, the plaid of Aberwyn lay over the chair to announce that the gwerbret’s presence superceded that of the tieryn. Rhys was just Rhodry’s height, but stocky where Rhodry was slender. He had the raven-dark hair and cornflower blue eyes of the Maelwaedds, but his face was coarse rather than fine—the jaw a little too square, the lips a little too full, the eyes a little too small for the breadth of cheek. When Lovyan curtsied to him, Rhys bowed with an affectionate smile. Rhodry’s bow he ignored.
“Good morrow, Your Grace,” Lovyan said. “What brings you to me?”
“Naught that I care to discuss in your open hall.”
“I see. Then let us retire upstairs.”
When Rhodry started to follow, Rhys turned to him.
“See that my men are well taken care of,” he snarled.
Since it was a direct order from the gwerbret himself, Rhodry gritted his teeth and followed it. You bastard, he thought, I have to ride this war you’re discussing ever so privately with Mother.
The cluttered reception chamber looked even smaller with Rhys in it. Refusing a chair, he paced back and forth, stopping occasionally to glance out the window. Lovyan took the opportunity to collect her thoughts. This was bound to be a touchy interview, straining the delicate balance of power they’d worked out between them. Since as gwerbret Rhys was her overlord, she was bound by law to follow his orders, but since she was his mother, he was bound by custom to follow her advice and pay her every possible respect. For the past year, they’d done an uneasy dance to this difficult bit of counterpoint.
“Why do I hear rumors of rebellion out here?” Rhys said finally.
“So they’ve reached Aberwyn?”
“Of course.” He trotted out the old proverb with a certain point. “Everything comes under the nose of the gwerbret of Aberwyn sooner or later.”
“And have you heard that Sligyn believes the rumors?”
“Sligyn isn’t given to fancies. Does he have proof? Letters, things he’s personally overheard?”
“Naught—yet. I can send for him if his grace would like to speak with him.”
“Do you want to make a formal deposition to my court? I doubt if the case would stand if all you have is Sligyn’s gossip.”
“Doubtless not, especially if your grace has already decided that the information is gossip.”
“Oh, here, Mother!