The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [67]
For Maryn’s studies Nevyn had brought a number of important books, among them a general precis of the laws for beginners and several volumes of history, starting with the Dawntime and continuing through the annals of the various Deverrian and Eldidd kings. Eventually he would send to Aberwyn for copies of Prince Mael’s books, particularly the treatise on nobility, but they would have been hard slogging for a beginner. Every morning he would let the lad read aloud for a while, stumbling often but always pushing on, then take the book and finish the passage himself. Together they would discuss what they had read. Once Maryn realized that history was full of battles and scandal in equal parts, his interest in his studies picked up enormously.
Once he’d become a well-known figure in the palace, Nevyn took to spending some time with the queen, who was glad to have someone new and well educated in the dun. Seryan had been born of the line of Cantrae pretenders to the throne and was a distant cousin of the current king, Slwmar the Second. At nineteen she’d been married off to Casyl—much against her will, because not only was the king five years her junior but his kingdom was a rough, wild place compared to her home in Lughcarn. Now, some seventeen years later, she’d made her peace with her life. She had her two elder daughters and her young son to occupy her, and as she admitted one day to Nevyn, she’d grown fond of Casyl with time.
“If an old man may speak frankly,” Nevyn said. “He’s a much better man than any of that pack of ferrets around the throne in Cantrae.”
“Oh, I agree with you now, but what does a lass of nineteen know? All I could think of was that he was such a young lad, and that I’d never get to attend any of my mother’s splendid feasts again.”
And with a sigh, the queen changed the subject away from such personal matters to a particular song the bard had sung in hall the night before.
Not long after Nevyn’s arrival, the first snows came. The lake froze to a solid glitter of white, and the farmlands lay shrouded, with only the distant trails of smoke to mark where the houses stood. Life in the dun settled into a slow routine centered on the huge hearths in the great hall, where the noble-born sat close to the fire and the servants lay in the warm straw with the dogs. As the drowsy weeks slipped past, Nevyn began to grow honestly fond of Maryn. He was a hard child to dislike—always happy, always courteous, supremely confident because of his position as marked prince yet honestly concerned with the welfare of others. Nevyn knew that if his work were successful and Maryn did indeed take the throne of Deverry, everyone would look back on his childhood and say that obviously the lad had been born to be king. No doubt little legends about a gallantry beyond his years would spring up, and the ordinary events of childhood would be viewed as mighty omens. That his mother was a highly intelligent woman and his father an unusually honorable man would never enter into that kind of thinking. Nevyn was quite willing to have things that way. After all, he was there to create a myth, not write history.
And the myth seemed determined to get itself created. Shortly before the Feast of the Sun, which would also mark Maryn’s tenth birthday, the prince came to his tutor’s chamber for his lessons in an unusually thoughtful mood. Since the lad’s mind wandered all through the reading, Nevyn finally asked him what was wrong.
“Oh, naught, truly. But, sir, you’re a wise man. Do you know what dreams mean?”
“Sometimes, but some dreams only mean that you ate too much before you went to bed.”
Maryn giggled, then cocked his head to one side in thought.
“I don’t think this was that sort of dream. It seemed ever so real while I was sleeping, but then I woke up, and it seemed daft.” He squirmed on his chair and looked away in embarrassment “Father says a real prince never gives himself airs.”
“Your father’s right, but no one can blame you for what you do in dreams. Tell me about