The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [134]
“That should do for a while.” Branoic laid the poker down. “Is this why you called me? To tend your hearth?”
“It wasn’t. I just wanted to see you.”
“That gladdens my heart. I’ve been worrying. I keep asking old Nevyn how you fare, and he keeps shaking his head and looking grim.”
“Well, it’s not that I’m horribly ill yet. It’s that I could be, if I don’t take care of myself.”
Branoic smiled, so sincerely pleased that she rose and laid her hands on his chest. Obligingly he kissed her, then took another. She realized that it wasn’t only Maryn she missed, but his lovemaking.
“Branno?” Lilli said. “I just thought of somewhat.”
“Indeed?” He smiled down at her. “What?”
“We’re betrothed in everyone’s eyes.”
He considered this, his head cocked a little to one side; then he smiled, slowly this time.
“So we are,” he said. “You honor me, my lady.”
When she slid her arms around his neck, he stooped, caught her, and picked her up to carry her to the bed.
Making parchment from calfskin is not such an easy thing. Bellyra was expecting to wait weeks for the materials for her new book, but fortunately the prince’s heralds had brought blank sheets with them, ready for writs of attainder and banishment, should the fortunes of war require such. Gavlyn delivered her a share himself, although he had to wait until Maryn was in attendance upon his wife in the women’s hall before he could enter. On a sunny morning he laid the parchments down on a table by a window. Bellyra ran her hand over them, just the color of cream and as smooth, neatly scored with a blunt stylus to mark out the writing lines and the margins.
“My thanks, good herald,” she said. “These will do splendidly.”
“Most welcome, Your Highness,” Gavlyn said. “May you fill them with happiness as well as words.”
Gavlyn bowed again, walked backwards, and bowed himself out of the door. Maryn strolled over to examine her new treasure. He ran his fingertips down the surface of one piece and nodded his approval.
“What are you planning on using these for?” he said.
“Lore about Dun Deverry. What’s in it, and its history, and any oddities I can discover.”
Maryn looked utterly baffled.
“Like the book I found down in Dun Cerrmor,” she said, “and then I finished out the blank pages.”
“Ah. I do remember that, truly. Very well, if it amuses you. Except—wait a moment. I remember what you were like then, poking around filthy old chambers and sitting with the servants in the kitchens and suchlike. You’re not going to do that again, are you?”
“I am. How else can I find out what I want to know?”
“Well, I don’t want you to go about alone. Some of the floors in these old towers are half rotted through. And it’s not seemly, anyway.”
“I’ll take one of the pages.”
“That’s not sufficient. Take a pair of men from my guard.”
“They’ll get in the way. The old people aren’t going to talk freely if they’ve got a great hulking pair of silver daggers looming over them.”
“Only one man then, and some pages, but I’ll not have my wife wandering around alone like some servant lass. Here, I know. What about Maddyn? He’s a bard, he’ll find the lore interesting.”
“Done, then. I shan’t mind him as much. Which reminds me.” Bellyra laughed, feeling pleasantly wicked. “Have you heard his song about the fox who’s really Councillor Oggyn?”
“What?” He picked up her mood and grinned. “Shall I ask him to play it?”
“Not right out in the great hall where poor Oggyn could hear it. It’s a flyting, because Oggyn tried to extort some coin out of men who wanted to be silver daggers. He made them pay him for introductions to Owaen.”
“Ye gods! Owaen might have killed him for that.”
“He nearly did, apparently.”
“Huh, no wonder Oggyn kept urging me to send him off to fetch Riddmar.” Maryn shook his head in mock sadness. “How Oggo’s greedy little heart must have ached! I will ask Maddyn, if I have a moment, but when that will be, the gods only know. And now I’d best be off, my lady. Nevyn will be waiting for