The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [58]
Later. Nevyn went in to see Belyan, who was sitting up in bed with the babe at her breast. A big baby, easily eight pounds, Daumyr had a soft crown of fine blond hair, and he was sucking eagerly with an occasional bird chirp of satisfaction.
“I’ll be getting the true milk soon,” Belyan said. “The way this hungry little beast is nursing.”
“No doubt. Do you miss his father?”
Belyan considered while she changed the babe to her other breast.
“A bit,” she said at last. “What with all I had to do around the farm, I hardly thought of him all summer, but now that winter’s almost here, I find myself remembering him. I hope he’s safe and well, wherever he is. It’s better to wonder where he is than to go visit his grave.”
“It is, at that, truly.”
With a smile, Belyan gently stroked the baby’s hair.
“He’s a bit different than my other lads were when they were born, and he’ll doubtless look different, with Maddyn’s curly hair and all, but in time, he’ll grow to be like us. It’s a bit like needlework, having a babe. You’ve got your cloth, and you’ve got your colors of thread, but it’s up to you how the pattern grows.”
Nevyn suddenly smiled. She’d just handed him the missing piece of his plan. What better way to have a true and noble king than to raise the prince? Maryn was still young and malleable; he needed tutors, and he would respond to the proper influence. One of us can find a way into the court, Nevyn thought; we’ll make sure the lad grows up well while we lay the rest of the groundwork.
That night, Nevyn walked on the hill just as the full moon was at her zenith. Clouds came in from the north, casting moving shadows across the sleeping countryside. For too long now, darker shadows had killed all joy in Deverry. Nevyn smiled to himself. Deep in his heart, he saw the coming peace and the victory of the light.
THREE
The year 837. Olaedd the high priest died in the spring. Retyc of Hendyr was appointed high priest by the northern conclave. In the summer a little lad with falling sickness was brought to the temple. He had a seizure at Retyc’s feet and cried out that the king was coming from the west. When he awakened he repeated that the king was in the west, but he could give no reason why he said it. Retyc declared the speaking a true one …
—The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn
Up on the dais of the great hall, Ogretoryc, king of all Eldidd and what little of Deverry he could hold with his army, was sitting in his high-backed carved chair. Behind him hung a finely worked tapestry depicting Epona riding with her retinue of godlets in the Otherlands. To either side the tapestry were long banners in blue and silver cloth, with the Dragon of Eldidd appliqued in green. At the king’s feet lay a blue and green carpet, covering a floor of inlaid slate. His bard sat nearby; his picked guard stood behind him; two pages waited with a golden goblet and a pitcher of mead. The king, however, was asleep, slumped to one side and snoring, a line of drool running from his toothless mouth down his wrinkled, flabby chin. Out in the circular expanse of the hall, the noble lords, their warbands, and the king’s own men went on with their feasting and tried to ignore their liege lord.
Because they were mercenaries, the silver daggers were seated in the back and to one side of the hall, where they caught the drafts from the door and the smoke from the fire, but by leaning back on his bench, Maddyn could keep an eye on the dais and the sleeping king. In only a few minutes, Prince Cadlew, heir to the throne, mounted the dais and hesitantly went over to his father. A lean man, his face positively gaunt, Cadlew was tight-muscled and hard from long years in the saddle. His raven-dark hair was heavily streaked with gray, and his cornflower-blue eyes were webbed with crow’s-foot wrinkles, yet he could still swing a sword with the best of them. Cadlew caught the king’s arm and shook him awake. Surrounded by guards, with the pages trailing uncertainly behind, the prince led his father away. The