Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [17]
The opening of the library door startled Deirdre awake, and she sat up quickly, rigid, prepared to rebuke whoever dared enter without knocking. She paused when she saw who was there.
"Hello, Mother," Deirdre said quietly.
Robyn Kendrick, High Queen of the Isles, nodded wearily at her younger daughter. It seemed, Deirdre thought, that her mother did everything wearily these days.
"Are you reading, Daughter?" she asked. Robyn's black hair, unlike her husband's of brown, showed no trace of gray. It fell straight and full over her shoulders and back, past her waist, to the level of her knees. Her eyes, of deep green, were bright and alert, though lines of care now spiderwebbed outward from the corners. She walked with all the grace of her station, but Deirdre suspected that her mother sometimes wanted to cast that mantle aside and return to her life of simple tenderness and care, the life of a druid.
Twenty years before, Robyn had been the most accomplished member of that order, studying under the Great Druid, Genna Moonsinger herself. With the passing of the land from the hands of the Earthmother into the watchful protection of Chauntea, goddess of agriculture, Robyn-unlike most of the other druids of the Moonshaes-had changed her faith to the worship of Chauntea.
Deirdre thought that perhaps, unlike the bulk of her compeers, Robyn had sensed the truth of the Earthmother's passing and had turned to a living deity to pursue the pathway into the future. More likely, thought Deirdre, she had understood that her role as queen would take her from the lands and wilds she had grown to love. Her daughters sensed that this choice of their mother's-to take the hand of the man she had loved, at the expense of the places she had sworn to tend-was a burden that she carried with her to this day.
"Did you meet with your father and the lords?" inquired Robyn, sitting in one of the chairs before the cold fireplace. Though the hearth was bare, she leaned forward, as if seeking some sort of residual warmth.
"Yes. Earl Blackstone, as always, was quite persuasive."
Robyn sighed. "We need him, now-you know that. Without the gold he mines and pays in tribute to the king, we wouldn't be able to trade for even minimal goods. His efforts keep thousands of Ffolk from starving each winter."
"I know. You don't have to convince me of that." Deirdre didn't particularly care about the lord and his mines, or the trading needed to sustain her people. She did, however, know that Lord Blackstone was the most powerful lord on the island-after her father, of course-and thus, on his visits to Callidyrr, she made every effort to impress him with her acuity and intelligence. She remembered that he still had two sons and had determined that one day she would meet them.
"And you know that your father sails for Waterdeep in a week?"
"Yes. You were to remain here in his place."
"But now I am needed in Blackstone to inspect the new mines our esteemed lord wishes to open-to sanction the violation of a Moonwell." Robyn's voice remained quiet, her manner somber. Nothing in her tone betrayed other than the logical necessity of the mine, yet her daughter saw a deep bitterness in her mother's eyes.
Robyn looked out the open windows, her expression wistful. The rain did not enter the room but lashed against the courtyard beyond the window. They could feel the moisture on the freshening wind. The queen wished to close the windows, Deirdre knew, but the princess stubbornly remained seated. Something about this storm appealed to her, and if it caused her mother to leave her alone, so be it.
Surprisingly, Robyn rose and crossed to the windows herself, pulling each shutter closed and latching it in turn. When the last shutter was closed, a cloak of semidarkness pervaded the library.
"Mother," Deirdre said, suddenly bold, "what does Chauntea tell you of these storms? Does she offer us no succor? Should we not pray to a different god for deliverance?"
She expected her mother's response to be anger at her sacrilege. Indeed,