The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [116]
“Let me put it this way. He’s a man of the highest possible estate.”
“No riddles! Is it Prince Maryn or isn’t it?”
“Oh, of course it is!”
Oggyn bowed, then hurriedly trotted away before she could ask any more questions. Lilli shut the door and sat on her bed to sound out the words.
“You trouble my dreams and my waking hours. When will you take pity on me?”
Huh! Lilli thought. What would happen if I gave in to him? I suppose he’d find me tedious without the challenge. She put the letter down on the bed beside her, then arranged her pillows and lay down to drowse the afternoon away. Although she was tired, she was no longer exhausted, and she realized that she’d not coughed much at all that day. Nevyn was right, she told herself. I’ve been ill.
She dozed off, then woke not longer after. The sound that had wakened her came again—a knock at the door, Nevyn most like.
“Come in, my lord,” she called out.
Maryn stepped in, shut the door behind him, and barred it. For a moment he stood leaning against the door and smiling, on the verge of laughter, really, as he watched her. She sat up, crossing her arms over her chest, so sleep-muddled that for a moment she thought she was dreaming.
“Oggyn told me you caught him,” Maryn said, smiling. “I thought, well, since you know, I might as well come make my plea myself.”
“My liege—” Lilli found herself stammering.
“Don’t.” He sat down beside her, and his smile was gone. “Don’t call me that. Not my liege, not Your Highness, none of that. I’m not the prince, Lilli, but a man who can’t sleep for love of you.”
He sat close, leaning toward her, and she had no strength to pull away. She felt as if she’d drunk mead; his warmth flooded her and made it difficult to think. His eyes were as grey as storm clouds and as dangerous.
“What shall I call you, then?” She could hear her voice shaking.
“Marro will do.” He moved closer, smiling. “Do you want me to leave? I will if you ask me.”
She knew that she should send him away. She remembered all her worries and her fears, remembered Nevyn’s strictures and even Bellyra’s unhappiness, but they were all voices heard in some distant room, barely comprehensible. Slowly he bent his head, hesitated, his lips half-parted, waiting perhaps for her to tell him to leave. She knew that she could force herself to speak and send him away. He reached out with one hand and touched her face with his fingertips, stroked her cheek, brushed her hair back, his touch gentle, soft. All at once she realized that he was trembling, afraid perhaps that she would still speak and forbid him. That he would find her capable of wounding him trapped her. When his fingers touched her lips, she turned her head and kissed them.
Early in the afternoon, Nevyn collected the proper herbs from his chamber, then went downstairs, heading for the royal broch and Lilli. Although she’d seemed improved that morning, her illness troubled him. He was keeping from her the truth that such a disease threatened to end her dweomer studies unless he could rid her of it once and for all. Studying dweomer with weak lungs could lead to a deadly imbalance of aethyr by bringing more of the fifth element into the blood than the person could assimilate—or so the lore ran. Whether it was accurate or not, the end result was all too well known: consumptions and fevers that could kill the student. As he was crossing the great hall on his way to the staircase, Oggyn hailed him. Nevyn waited and left the councillor catch up.
“May I have a moment?” Oggyn said. “The prince has charged me with finding a suitable holding to settle upon Branoic the silver dagger, and truly, this raises all manner of vexing questions.”
“Such as?” Nevyn said.
“Well, if I make the holding too small, I insult Branoic. If it’s too large, then I’m insulting our liege’s noble-born vassals. And then there are all the other silver daggers, or I should say, those to whom our liege extended a boon. How many of them, do you think, will want land? If the whole three and twenty do, things could