Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [97]
For the rest of that summer the Eldidd border stayed quiet, and by autumn it appeared that while Cwnol would be fighting for a long time, he had great chance of success. When Glyn sent the rebel messages, they went addressed to Cwnol, king of Pyrdon. As a final gesture Glyn betrothed Prince Cobryn’s six-year-old daughter to Cwnol’s seven-year-old son, a mark of royal honor that Cwnol repaid by increasing his raids into Eldidd. Yet even though the matter ended so well for the Cerrmor side, Nevyn was heartsick. As the endless war dragged on, the kingdom was torn into pieces.
On a day wet with autumn rain, Nevyn went up to the tower to see Mael, who was, as usual, working on his commentaries. As such projects will, this one had grown far beyond the simple introduction to Ristolyn’s thought that Mael had originally planned.
“This aside is going to end up a cursed chapter!” Mael stuck his pen into the inkwell so hard that the reed nearly broke.
“So many of your asides do, but good chapters, withal.”
“It’s this question of what constitutes the greatest good, you see. For all its brilliance, Ristolyn’s argument doesn’t quite satisfy me. His categories are a bit limited.”
“You philosophers are always so good at multiplying categories.”
“Philosopher? Ye gods, I wouldn’t call myself that.”
“Indeed? What else are you?”
Mael’s face went slack in openmouthed amazement. When Nevyn laughed, he sheepishly joined in.
“Naught else, truly,” Mael said. “For twenty years I’ve thought myself a warrior, chafing at the bit like a warhorse and lusting for the freedom to fight once again. I’ve been deluding myself for at least ten of them. Here, I wonder if I even could ride to war now. I can see myself, sitting there on horseback, wondering what Ristolyn meant by the word end’ while someone knocked me right off mine.”
“You don’t look displeased.”
Mael wandered over to the window, where the rain slashed down as silver-gray as his hair.
“The view from here is a different one than I ever had before. You don’t see things as clearly in the dust of a battlefield.” Mael leaned his cheek against the cool glass and looked down. “Do you know what the cursed strangest thing of all is? If I didn’t worry so much about Gavra and the children, I’d be happy here.”
Nevyn felt a dweomer-touched slap of knowledge. It was time for Mael to be released. Because he had accepted, he could go free.
“Tell me somewhat. If you were free to do so, would you marry Gavra?”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I? I’ve no place at a royal court anymore. I could legitimatize our children, too—if I were free to do so. Truly, I am a philosopher. I’ll even debate the hopeless and the impossible.”
When he left Mael’s chamber, Nevyn was considering the weather. Since it rarely snowed along the seacoast, travel was a possibility, though an unpleasant one, all winter. He went straight to his chamber and contacted Primilla through the fire.
Gavra’s shop occupied the front half of a house just across the street from her brother’s tavern. Every morning, when she came out to set to work, she would look around at the shelves stacked with herbs, the barrels, the jars, the dried crocodile hanging under the eaves. My house, she would think, and my shop. I own it all, just me. It was a rare woman in Cerrmor who owned property in her own name rather than in that of a husband or brother—in fact, it had taken Nevyn’s personal intervention to allow her to do so. With winter coming, bringing her plenty of customers with fevers and congested lungs, chilblains and aching bones, her business was prospering. She also had another pressing matter to contend with: Ebrua’s betrothal. Although she herself had let love rule her, she was determined to make a solid, conventional, arranged match for her daughter.
Fortunately, the lad that Ebrua herself favored was a decent lad of sixteen, Arddyn, the younger son of a prosperous family who dealt in tanned hides. After she discussed the formal betrothal with the lad’s father, she went up to the dun to consult with Mael. In a way the trip was foolish;