The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [126]
“It gladdens my heart to have you with me,” Maryn said.
“Does it?” Bellyra smiled at him.
“I need your good sense. Lyrra, things are so tangled at court that I don’t know what to believe. And then there’s Braemys. Did Nevyn tell you about his gall?”
“He did.”
“Good. That’ll save me the trouble of repeating it all.”
She busied herself with unwrapping her kirtle. I will not let him see me cry, she told herself. I will not, not, not!
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I’m just weary. It’s been a long journey.”
“So it has. I wish that it had been safe to send for you earlier, when the weather was better, but it wasn’t. I can only hope it’s truly safe now.”
She merely nodded and concentrated on folding the kirtle. She heard the bed creak as he got up. He walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. Her pride was goading her to stiffen and move away, but she leaned back against him and felt herself tremble.
“You’re truly weary,” he said. “I should let you take your rest. My apologies.”
He let her go with a little pat on the shoulder, such as he might give a dog, and turned away so easily that it wrung her heart. And yet, she told herself, what was he being but more considerate than most noble-born men would ever be? She was so exhausted that she fell right asleep, and in the morning when she woke she found him gone before her.
During that day’s ride north the landscape around them changed. They’d ridden half the morning before Bellyra fully realized what she was seeing. Although the meadows were lush, no cattle grazed in them. The fields were green and tall with weeds, not wheat. When they passed farmsteads, either empty buildings or burnt ruins stood behind their packed-earth walls.
“Ye gods, Marro!” Bellyra said finally. “There’s no people.”
“Not along the river, truly,” Maryn said. “One army too many took their crops and livestock, and they fled. I can’t say I blame them, either, even if they’re supposed to be bound to me. But wait until you see the city. You’ll see why I’ve been scheming to keep Cerrmor under my control.”
See it she did, late that afternoon, when with the sunset they rode through the massive outer walls of Dun Deverry and into a wasteland. Siege after siege, fire after fire, the looting of soldiers in the summer and the thieving of desperate neighbors in the winter—she saw barely two houses standing together in all the long ride through to the hill where the dun stood. As they rode up to the outer wall of the dun proper, Maryn pointed across a shallow valley to a hill crowned with oaks.
“Things fare better there,” he said. “That’s the temple of Bel, and they managed to protect the people on the hillside.”
“I see. Do you think the folk will return?”
“Nevyn insists they will. I can only hope he’s right.”
Slowly they walked their horses up the spiral road into the dun itself. At first Bellyra could make no sense out of what she was seeing. Twilight was darkening the sky, turning the jumble of brochs, towers, walls, and sheds into an incomprehensible mass of stonework. Their procession made one last turn and came out into what she assumed was the main ward, a huge cobbled open space surrounding a complex of brochs, half-brochs, and oddly random-seeming towers. Torches flared in sconces on the outer walls of a huge squat broch, and by their light she saw, waiting for them on the steps, Nevyn, Oggyn, and off to one side, Otho the smith.
“Welcome home, Lyrra,” Maryn said, grinning. “It gets worse inside.”
It was weep or laugh, but she was happy enough at seeing Nevyn and Otho that she laughed. Maryn dismounted, then hurried round to the side of her horse to help her down. She looked back and saw servants trotting forward to help her serving women and the nursemaids. Once she was down, Maryn hurried off to give orders to the captain of his riders, but Nevyn came forward and offered her his arm. She took it gratefully.
“You made him come meet me,” she said, “didn’t