The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [138]
With one last gasp for breath, Lilli pushed open the door and walked in. Across the big sunny room Bellyra, Degwa, and Elyssa were sitting at a wooden table frame and stitching on a bed hanging. For a moment Lilli could neither speak nor move, not, however, from the sight.
“It’s so different,” Lilli blurted out. “The hall, I mean.”
“It certainly is,” Bellyra said, smiling. “I couldn’t believe how awful it was when we first arrived. Do come in, Lilli, and have a look around.”
“My thanks, Your Highness.” Lilli curtsied, then shut the door. “It’s truly lovely.”
All the old furnishings had been replaced by the princess’s own. Bright tapestries graced the walls, and Bardek carpets lay like little gardens upon the polished floor. The chairs, the cushions, Bellyra’s little tables with her silver oddments—she had brought Cerrmor with her. None of Lilli’s memories belonged to this hall.
“It’s splendid,” Lilli said.
Out of sheer habit she took a chair and brought it over to the frame. When she sat down, Elyssa handed her a needle threaded with bright red wool.
“If you’ll start on that wyvern there,” Elyssa said, “I’ll just finish off these spirals.”
Lilli brought her thread through to the front of the hanging and began to stitch, one hand below, one above, in a rhythm so familiar that her self-imposed exile struck her as one of the stupidest things she’d ever done. And the talk, the news of the dun, news of Maryn’s allies and the negotiations over Cerrmor—after the silences of her sickroom no bard song had ever sounded so sweet.
“Lilli,” Bellyra said eventually. “You’re so quiet today!”
“Well, Your Highness, my life’s been terribly dull. I’ve been shut up so long.”
“Oh huh! And what about Branoic? Is he dull?”
Everyone laughed, including Lilli. As they talked about Branoic, and the sort of demesne that Maryn would settle upon him, Lilli began to feel that her affair with the prince had perhaps never happened. Most certainly it had lasted only a brief time, and perhaps it had ended already. If so, she decided, she could not only live without him—she was also in some deep way relieved.
And yet, about the middle of the afternoon, Maryn opened the door to the women’s hall and started to walk in. For a moment he froze, his face utterly expressionless as he considered the group at the embroidery frame. When the women began to rise, he waved at them to sit, turned on his heel, and left, slamming the door behind him.
“How very odd,” Elyssa remarked. “Well, our prince is much distracted these days, what with the electors to worry about.”
“How kind you are,” Bellyra said, grinning. “He looked terrified to me.”
Lilli bent her head and paid strict attention to her stitches. She could feel her heart pounding like a traitor, crying out that she loved him still.
After the dinner hour Lilli was sitting with Nevyn in her chamber when Maryn appeared. He walked in without knocking, then stood hesitating at the sight of his councillor.
“I assume, my liege,” Nevyn said, “that you’d like me to leave.”
“I would, truly.”
Nevyn smiled, gathered up the book he’d been showing her, and with a bow to the prince, left. Lilli felt as if she were crouching in her chair, half-afraid Maryn would leave quickly, half-afraid he’d stay for a long while. He sat himself down in the chair Nevyn had just vacated and stretched his long legs out toward the fire.
“I take it the princess asked you to attend upon her today,” Maryn said.
“She did, Your Highness.”
“Don’t call me