The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [51]
Once again Verrarc opened his mouth, and once again held his tongue. The cold around him deepened. Had she gone mad, his beloved Raena? Or could she be speaking the truth and truly serve a goddess who could set men free from the chains of death? She turned to him, her eyes thoughtful.
“Fear not, my love. In time I’ll be showing you more of her marvels, and till then, I’ll not speak a word to anyone else. I do ken better than any how the ignorant will mock and scorn some new thought. I shall be all caution and soft words.”
“Well and good, then. Rae, please, you do see that I be not mocking what you say, baint?”
“I do. Fear not! With her there be only courage.”
Verrarc smiled, but the cold had turned to a wild animal, it seemed, sinking claws of warning into his heart. Raena returned to staring into the fire and smiling to herself, as if she were hearing some grand jest. For a moment he wondered if indeed he should marry her. If she were mad and babbling of false gods, wouldn’t she be a threat to his beloved city? But he could remember his father’s face, flushed with drink and sneering, and hear again the insults he’d hurled at Raena and her kin. A rich pig farmer be a pig farmer still—that was the least of them.
“Well, I ken not the truth of such things as gods,” Verrarc said, “but I do ken that I love you with all my heart, and that be enough for me.”
“Well, now,” Dera said. “I do have some news from young Harl. Verrarc and Raena will marry in three nights, when the moon turns from dark to the first sliver in the sky.”
“It were time that he did make an honest woman of her,” Lael said.
Kiel nodded his agreement. After their midday meal, the family was sitting at the long table in front of their hearth. Niffa realized that they were all looking at her. She got up and began picking up the empty wooden bowls and spoons.
“Harl did say that Verrarc wished us to be there,” Dera continued in a few moments.
“I shan’t go!” Niffa snapped.
She looked up to find the family still watching her. She carried the bowls to the washtub by the door and set them inside to wait until Kiel fetched water. Ever since Dallandra’s warnings, Niffa had been trying to watch her words about the councilman’s woman.
“It’s not that I do blame Raena,” she said at last. “To see a wedding—it would pierce my heart with grief.”
Dera’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh,” Lael said. “Well, then, we’ll let your mam and brother go to represent us, like, and I’ll be staying here with you.”
Niffa covered her face with both hands and wept. She heard her father getting up, felt his arm around her shoulder.
“Here, lass, here,” he murmured. “You have a good cry, like. I do ken how hard it be to believe this, but in time, the pain will heal up.”
“I do hope you be right,” Niffa sobbed. “I do hope so.”
On the day of Verrarc’s wedding, Kiel and Dera went off to the celebration. Niffa and Lael passed the time by working. Since the wicker rat traps and the cage to carry the ferrets wore out fast, Lael always kept a supply of withes and leather thongs on hand. That day Niffa set some of the withes to soak in the washtub whilst Lael inspected the traps and set the broken ones on the table. The ferrets, of course, offered their version of help, capturing any thong that moved, chewing on the wet withes, knocking over the traps, and chasing each other around the table. Laughing at them, Niffa could for a little while feel happy.
Dera and Kiel came home laden with food—loaves of bread, dried apples, a big chunk of fresh roasted pork, a skin of mead, and an entire raw pork liver for the weasels—all bounty from Verrarc. After Niffa cleared off the mended traps, they laid the food on the table, but neither of them spoke until they’d finished.
“He did pay a farmer to fatten up a hog.” Kiel gestured at the chunk of roast meat. “So that the guests would have a proper meal.”
“He be a generous man, Verrarc,” Lael said. “Here, woman, what be so wrong with you?”
Niffa had expected Dera to come home chattering