Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [33]
Hydd accepted the answers she brought back without comment, and immediately put her to work in truth. Mostly the work involved a lot of fetching and much more message-taking. In fact, by the time darkness fell she was about run off her feet.
Her duties to Hydd should have included serving at his side at table, but she hadn’t yet been trained in that, and with a chuckle he dismissed her. “Go and sup with yer family, little page,” he told her, kindly. Near starving, she was nothing loathe to obey him.
She found herself seated between the same two boys as at the Samhain feast, but this time word had mysteriously spread that she was now one of their peers. Instead of ignoring her, they included her in their chatter, and despite the long day, she found herself having a lively conversation with them about tricks they had all learned for managing their horses. Though she was younger than they, she discovered she had great status in their eyes, not because she was the king’s daughter but because she was “Braith’s girl.” And that she could entirely understand. Sometimes the fact that Braith had singled her out made her feel giddy.
She had learned how to pour, so when the last of the supper was carried away and the tables set to the side, she stood behind Hydd and saw to it that his flagon was never empty. It was ale, not mead, they were drinking tonight; serious drinking would happen later.
The talk was of nothing particularly serious; that, too, would wait until the morrow, when all the guests would be here. The only thing that Gwen heard of any interest was that Braith would not be racing tomorrow; the best of Hydd’s mares were all in foal (the king looked envious), her team included.
Long before the men were prepared to take to their beds, Gwen and the other pages began to droop. She was willing to hold out as long as she had to, or at least to try, but the king took pity on them all and dismissed them. “My own servants can see our cups stay full,” he said with a laugh. “And we’ll get no work out of these youngsters tomorrow if they cannot keep awake.”
As was usual now, Gwen was the first into the big bed. Now she could have claimed the choice spot in the center, but she kept to her old place instead. This endeared her to her older sisters, who in their turn saw to it that Gwenhwyfach got not so much as a hope of interfering with her. Little Gwen might have outwardly reformed, but it was clear that Cataruna and Gynath were not convinced of her sincerity,
Nor was Gwen, but since her return to the king’s good graces, Little Gwen seemed to have wormed her way back into the position of “indulged baby.” Gwen didn’t much care, given that she had everything she could ever have wanted, but the two older girls were not so happy about it.
And in fact, they woke her up when the three of them came to bed, arguing about it.
“. . . Father thinks it’s amusing,” Gynath was saying, the disapproval so thick in her tone that it surprised Gwen into complete wakefulness. “But it’s a disgrace. You shame all of us, acting like that. You’re too young to be putting on such a show and old enough to know better.”
“But Father likes it,” Little Gwen said insolently. “So you have nothing to say about it! I’m his favorite, and I can do what I want! You heard him!”
“We heard him,” Cataruna said darkly, then laughed. “But you won’t be his favorite for much longer, you wicked little changeling. You just wait till harvest. Ha!”
“Why?” Little Gwen’s tone was suspicious.
“I’m not going to tell you!” Cataruna taunted. “Because you are so full of yourself that you haven’t paid any attention to what’s going on right under your nose!”
“Tell me!” Little Gwen demanded. “Tell!”
“Oh, tell her before they hear her out in the Hall and we all get in trouble,” Gynath interrupted, crossly. “Oh—never mind. Brat, by the time harvest comes around, Mother will have had a baby, and it’s going to be a boy. Which means not only will you not be the youngest