Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [28]
“And her poppet will be yours, Gwen,” the Queen began—
“Lady Mother—no,” Gwen replied, feeling dimly that if she were given something of Little Gwen’s rather than just a replacement, her youngest sister would only see it as a reason for more vengeance. She straightened her back, gently piled the pathetic remains of the doll on the table, rubbed the back of her hand across her stinging eyes, and looked up at her mother and father. “I’m a warrior now. Warriors don’t need poppets. I won’t have time to play with it, anyway.”
Her mother gave her a skeptical look, but her father relaxed and beamed his approval. “Well said,” was all he replied, but Gwen felt that approval fill her and ease some of the sadness she felt at losing her plaything.
“Bronwyn,” Eleri directed, “Take these things and see what, if anything, can be done with them. The belt especially. Then look for Gwenhwyfach, and when you find her, see she is put in the guard closet to await our pleasure. And let us eat. There is no reason for a nasty child to spoil our supper, nor make us wait until our meat is cold.”
Gwen ate slowly, feeling the ache of every overworked muscle, every bruise. She actually didn’t mind it; concentrating on that made everything else secondary. And while Eleri consoled Gynath and Cataruna with the most golden-crusted of the pies and the last of the honeycakes, the king directed his server to give Gwen all of the leftover goose and with his own hand poured her cup full, not of cider, but of honey-mead. “You’ll be aching, young warrior,” he said in an undertone. “This will help you sleep.”
The mead was sweet but with a fire under it. It burned its way pleasantly down her throat as she slowly ate slivers of goose, spread a surprise bit of goose liver on some bread, and sopped up the last of the goose fat with the rest of the bread. And it did start to make the aches go off into the distance and give her a warm and soft-edged feeling, as if she were falling asleep. Halfway through dinner, Bronwyn returned and reported that a sulky and unrepentant Gwenhwyfach had been put in the guard-closet, with one of the turnspits as a guard on the door.
The guard-closet was a tiny little windowless niche in the stone walls, with a single hard stone bench in it, that the king used to keep single wrongdoers in while he debated what punishment to mete out to them. From time to time all of the girls had been confined there for mischief, but never had he done what he did now.
“Here,” he said, carefully picking out the hardest and most stale piece of trencherbread and a leather cup that he filled with water. He handed both to Bronwyn. “Give her those, and tell her she will be staying in the closet until morning. In the morning, my dogmaster will whip her. And then for the next fortnight, she will sleep in the rushes with the dogs and the scullions. I’ll not have her sharing a soft bed that she did nothing to deserve. I’ll not have her sleeping comfortable beside the sisters she wronged. When she is repentant and ready to act like a king’s daughter instead of a low-born brat, we will see if she may sleep like one.”
Gwen’s astonishment woke her up from a half-drowse. Eleri nodded approval.
“I put you in charge of her, Bronwyn, to direct her as you like,” the king continued. “While she sleeps on the hearth, you will give her work to do so that she learns the evil of idleness. She’ll have nothing but bread and water. At the end of that time, she will apologize, and if I am convinced she is repentant, she may go back to the bed and the board.”
Bronwyn bowed silently, took the bread and water, and disappeared into the shadows.
Gwen sopped up the last of the fat, ate the last bite of bread,