The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [72]
“Oh, do sit still!” she said. “No one’s going to chase you away like a dog or suchlike.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. I keep wondering what your foster-brother would say if he saw me at your side.”
“I doubt if he’d say anything.”
“Huh! As if he doesn’t know that I’m common-born and a bastard to boot, while you’re a—”
“A lady, sure enough, but one with no dowry, no land, and no kin but him. I see no reason to give myself airs.”
“So!” Branoic grinned at her. “You don’t really enjoy my company. I’m merely the best suitor you can get, eh?”
“Oh hold your tongue! What would you do if I said you were right?”
They shared a laugh. Over the general noise in the hall, Lilli heard pages shouting, “the prince, the prince!” She looked up and saw Maryn coming down the stone staircase with pages marching before him and Nevyn and Oggyn trailing after, hard-pressed to keep up. Maryn never simply walked; he strode, always ready to leap like a stag, it seemed, just for the sheer joy of it. Although he was a handsome man, with blond hair and deep-set grey eyes, he could have been ugly and still captivated. Whenever he walked into a room, it seemed that he brought with him life and power, spilling over onto everything he touched and everyone he acknowledged. The entire great hall fell silent to watch him do something as simple as coming down the stairs.
When she realized that Maryn was heading for them, Lilli stood and curtsied. Branoic slid off the bench and knelt on one knee, his head bent respectfully.
“Good morrow, Lady Lillorigga,” Maryn said. “Branno, you can get up if you’d like.”
“My thanks, my prince,” Branoic said. “My apologies for being where I don’t belong.”
“Oh come now!” Maryn was smiling at him. “And how could I hold it against any man for wanting the company of such a beautiful lass as our Lilli?”
Lilli felt her face burning with a blush. Maryn glanced her way, and for a moment their eyes met, just the briefest of moments before his gaze travelled on, but all at once she wondered if her hopeless feeling for him was so hopeless after all. She hastily looked away and saw Nevyn, watching all of this with his hands on his hips and steel in his ice-blue eyes. Behind him Councillor Oggyn stood clasping an untidy heap of parchments to his chest.
“My liege?” Nevyn said. “My apprentice and I have work to do. If you’ll excuse us?”
“Of course,” Maryn said. “You have my leave to go.”
“My thanks. Oggyn wishes to discuss some important matters of finance with you, should that please Your Highness. I strongly suggest that you do so. Lilli, come along.”
Nevyn turned on his heel and started back across the great hall. Lilli curtsied again to the prince, smiled at Branoic, then rushed after the old man.
In silence they walked up the stairway, slowly to let her catch her breath, but once they reached her chamber and the door was safely barred, Nevyn turned to her.
“I’ve warned you before,” he snapped. “The prince may amuse himself with women as he chooses. For the women in question, it’s not such a lighthearted thing.”
“I know, my lord.”
“Then try to remember it! Here, Lilli, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I don’t want to see you become a cast-off woman with a bastard child—and no place at court anymore because the princess hates you. I doubt me if you’d like the life you’d have then.”
“I wouldn’t, my lord. I know you’re right, but I feel ensorcelled or suchlike. When he walks into a room, it’s like the sun follows him in, and everything becomes larger and more alive.”
Nevyn stared at her for a moment, then did the last thing she would have expected: he laughed.