The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [142]
“Then you’re right: I do count myself lucky. Ye gods!” All at once he smiled at her. “You’ve got ink on your nose.”
She also had ink on her fingers, she realized, and her reed pen had gone all mashed at the tip. It’s a good thing I seasoned more of them, she thought. She tossed it into the fire, where it burned with a hiss. She wiped her hands on a rag, then blew out the candles. By the light of the fire she walked over to the bed.
“Do you think you could have?” she said to Maryn. “Taken the mare, I mean, if you had to in order to be king.”
“I have no idea, and I don’t care to dwell upon it.”
“Well, I’m just curious. I’m not a man, so how would I know? You couldn’t even get drunk first, not too drunk anyway, or you wouldn’t be able to do anything at all.”
Maryn rolled his eyes heavenward. She picked up a bone comb from the wood chest under the window and began to comb her hair.
“You’re thinking about it,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m not!”
“I’ll wager you are. I hope they washed the mare off first.”
“Just hold your tongue about it!”
“Have I made you angry?”
“What? You haven’t. To tell you the truth, I like seeing you like this, so joyous about your lore. It’s like you’ve come alive again.”
“Well, so it is.” She stopped combing and considered for a moment. “I’d not realized it, but that’s true.”
He sat up, smiling at her.
“Come here,” he said. “There’s no use in your combing that out if I’m only going to tousle it for you.”
“And are you, then?”
“You can pretend you’re the mare.”
“You beast!” She threw the comb at him.
He ducked, laughing. When she sat down next to him, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her. Wrapped in his arms she could forget everything, good and bad alike.
But later, when he’d fallen asleep, she lay awake, thinking. In a way she was the white mare, she realized. By marrying her, Maryn had married the Cerrmor rhan and the claim on the high kingship with it, just as in the old days the sexual intercourse between king and mare had served as his marriage—but not to the kingdom itself, exactly. To the sovereignty of the kingdom, she thought. That’s what they married, and then the ruling is a separate thing from the land itself! The idea was so interesting that she got up, lit a candle from the glowing embers in the hearth, grabbed a fresh pen, and wrote it down.
Over the next few weeks, as the last of the summer vanished into a chill autumn, Maryn stayed in her bed every night. In the mornings he would linger in their chamber. They would sit in the sun if there was any or near the fire if there wasn’t, and she would tell him what she’d discovered about the dun’s history. Her serving women began to remark upon how happy she looked, and she had to admit that they were right. Others noticed the change in her as well.
“Well, Your Highness,” Nevyn remarked one afternoon, “you seem a good bit more cheerful these days.”
“I am, truly,” Bellyra said. “And I owe you my thanks for the idea of writing in a book again.”
“You’re most welcome.”
They were sitting by a window in the women’s hall on a day warm enough to leave the opening uncovered for the light. It was a pleasant enough view, Bellyra thought, when the sun gilded the dark towers. Down below in the ward servants were trotting to and fro on various errands, and as she watched, part of the Cerrmor warband returned from exercising their horses. From this height the clatter of hooves on cobbles and the jingle of tack sounded like a cacophony of bells.
“It’s not just the book,” Bellyra said. “Maryn’s been much—well, warmer toward me in the past few weeks. He finds me interesting again, I suppose.”
“That’s splendid! And it sounds like you and Maddyn have ferreted out quite a bit of lore, all of it of some importance.”
“I find it so, certainly. I’m never sure if poor Maddo is just being patient because he can’t get out of guarding me.”
“Naught of the sort. He told me that he finds it quite interesting.”
“Oh, good! But it’s going to be an eccentric sort of lore book. All the other ones I’ve ever heard