Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [47]
“Talking to the—here, I can’t face Tudvulc again! I’m not going up to the palace, and that’s that.”
Jill laid her hand on his arm and gave him the sweetest smile she could muster.
“Please, Rhodry? It’s so awfully important.”
“Oh, he’s so handsome!” Babryan said breathlessly. “I’d forgotten about Eldidd men! Those dark blue eyes!”
“He’s a rotten silver dagger, Baba,” Wbridda snapped. “You shouldn’t even talk that way about him.”
“I don’t care. He’s noble-born, after all, and I’ll bet his brother banished him for some silly reason. Don’t you think Rhodry’s handsome, Sevvi?”
“Well, sort of, but he frightens me. He’s so strange, somehow. And I wager he’s a harsh man in battle. I’ll wager he can be truly cruel.”
“Men are supposed to be that way,” Babryan said. “Don’t be silly.”
The girls were sitting at the fireside in their hall, where they’d fled as soon as they could make a decent exit from the dinner table and Lord Timryc. Sevinna had suspected the worst during the meal, when she’d seen Babryan staring at this exile of a silver dagger whom the gwerbret had pitied enough to seat at his table. Now the worst was being confirmed: Babryan threw her arms round her knees and stared moodily into the fire.
“I wish he didn’t already have a woman.”
“Well, he does,” Sevinna said. “And a woman that looks like she could beat you to a pulp if she wanted to, too.”
“How nasty!” Babryan stuck her tongue out at Sevinna, then returned to the moody stare. “Besides, I’d never want to break her heart or suchlike. She must have defied her father and ridden off with her Rhodry. Just like your Mam did, Sevvi.”
“Not at all! My father wasn’t any dishonored silver dagger.”
“My apologies, truly, I didn’t mean that. You’re so growly tonight, Sevvi. I’ll just wager you think he’s handsome, too.”
Sevinna crossed her arms over her chest and did her best to look dignified, but Babryan laughed at her.
“Oh, don’t be such cats!” Wbridda broke in. “Neither of you can have him, anyway. He might have been a gwerbret’s son once, but he isn’t anymore.”
This was true enough to make Babryan lay aside her mood and sit up, but she chewed on her lower lip as if she were thinking something over.
“Now, we saw Jill there at Gram’s, getting a charm. I’ll wager he’s unfaithful to her all the time.”
“Baba!” Sevinna said. “I’m not being catty, truly, I’m not, just worried. What are you thinking about?”
“Naught.” It was Babryan’s turn for the dignified hauteur. “What did you think I was thinking about?”
“Oh, you know!”
They were well into a fit of giggles when the door opened and Lady Caffa came in with Jill right behind her. Babryan blushed scarlet, then rose with the other girls and curtsied to her mother. Sevinna surreptitiously studied Jill. She seemed some years older than herself, and her obvious physical strength placed her as a dweller in some utterly different world.
“Now, darlings,” Caffa said, “your father’s offered poor Rhodry his shelter for a while, so Jill is going to be spending lots of time with us. I shall want you to be hospitable to our guest, and I’m sure we’ll have lots of lovely chats. You must have seen so many interesting things on the road, Jill.”
“I have, my lady. Riding with my Rhodry has been awfully exciting.”
“What a brave way to put it. I know it must have been terribly hard on you.”
Jill gave her a meek smile, as if agreeing, but Sevinna found the smile suspicious, as if she were a wolf pretending to be a lapdog.
Yet on the morrow, Jill settled so easily into the life of the woman’s hall that Sevinna wondered if she’d been wrong. Although the gwerbret gave these odd guests a chamber of their own, Jill turned up in a borrowed dress in the women’s quarters after breakfast, when Caffa held a kind of court. Her daughters, guests, and servingwomen sat round on cushions as she went over the accounts with the chamberlain, discussed menus with the head cook, and generally kept