The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [119]
“I’ve heard that, too,” she said. “About the first time a man beds you being the most important day in a lass’s life. Well, that’s not true for me. You know what day truly changed me, my lord?”
“I don’t. Which?”
“The night my mother made me scry, and I saw you in the vision. Today with Maryn? Well, first it hurt and then it was wonderful, but ye gods, I grew up in a country dun. I saw lots of horses and dogs and suchlike doing the same.” All at once she smiled with some of her old spirit. “But the dweomer—that’s worth having, my lord. And that’s why I wept when I thought you might cast me off. I feel like I could die, just from loving Maryn so much, but to give up the dweomer—I really would die then, I think.”
“If that’s truly how you feel,” Nevyn said, “then you’ve no need to worry about having to give it up.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. Though I warn you: you’re going to have to proceed slowly with that weak chest of yours. Working dweomer puts a tremendous strain on the physical body. It’s like, well what? Like running for miles, say. If you’re fit and strong, you can run half the day, but if you’re not, then running that far would kill you.”
“True spoken.” Lilli considered for a moment. “I do understand, my lord, but couldn’t I just practice my reading in the lore book? It’s been dreadful, lying here ill with naught to do. If I only read and don’t try to do the work—”
“Very well. Humph. If I’d not let you get so bored, mayhap you would have had the sense to turn the prince down.”
She looked up startled, then laughed. Nevyn found himself laughing with her. Well, that’s that, he told himself. No use in cursing over spilt ale! What mattered now would be how well he could ease the inevitable heartbreaks when they came. As long as Maryn didn’t get Lilli with child before he tired of her, she would weather this affair well enough.
As the barges made their slow way upriver, the silver daggers rode on the towpath. When it rained, and it rained for most of the trip, the women could retreat into the wooden shelter built on deck, and the chickens could have their coops covered with canvas, but the men rode wet as their horses plodded along. Fortunately, a great many of Maryn’s vassals, old and new, had duns along the river, and at night the princess and her women sheltered with them. Her escort most often slept in the stables, but since the stables were warm and dry, no one complained.
Finally, though, when they reached Camrydd Bridge, the weather cleared. Princess Bellyra invited Maddyn and his harp onto the barge to play for her and her women. He had to admit that it was pleasant, sitting in the sun while the barge glided noiselessly through the water. The princess had a chair; her serving women sat on crates; the nursemaids and the little princes sat on the deck with Maddyn, though he insisted that the nurses keep the boys away from his harp. He knew a fair number of instrumental pieces and played mostly those, not trusting his voice in front of discerning noblewomen, but eventually Bellyra asked him outright for a song.
“Your Highness, truly, I’m not much of a singer.”
“Don’t be so modest.” Bellyra gave him a wicked grin. “Besides, we’re bored, so we won’t care.”
“Now really, Your Highness,” Elyssa said, laughing. “Don’t be unkind to the poor man! You play most charmingly, Maddyn, silver dagger or no.”
“My thanks, my lady. Very well, Your Highness. If you won’t banish me from your lands, I’ll sing for you.”
Although Maddyn started off with ballads, and the women listened with sincere interest, those grim tales of death and love betrayed, of cattle raids and blood feuds, soon struck him as out of place on such a lovely morning. Under the rain-washed sky the river ran full and silently between green banks. In the trees by the riverbank, birds sang. Out in the meadows grazed white cattle with rusty-red ears, and now and again a cowherd and a pair of dogs sat in the grass, keeping guard.
“I don’t know very many courtly songs,” Maddyn said. “I’ve