The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [178]
“Here, my love, you look sad.”
“It’s because I agree with you, I suppose. After all, I’ve never known anything but the long road, traveling with my Da like I did and all. Well, except for those miserable weeks before you got exiled. Rhodry, I hated being at court.”
“But then you were only my mistress, and truly, I hated to put you in such a terrible position. Now, my love, you’ll be my wife. Oh, things will be different now, just you wait and see. When Lady Gilyan comes into a room now, no one’s going to sneer and look down their long noses. Oh, that they won’t! Instead it’ll be bowing here, and if it please Your Grace there, and everyone clustering round to see just what her ladyship requires or thinks or wants, because you’ll have more influence over the gwerbret of Aberwyn than any other person, human being or elf alike, in the kingdom. In some ways, my love, you’ll be Aberwyn, especially when I’m off on a campaign or suchlike.”
Jill’s stomach clenched cold, but she smiled, just because he so badly wanted to please her.
“But Rhoddo? There is one thing we’ve got to talk about. You know that I’ve started studying dweomer, and …”
“Well, who’s to say one wrong word about that, even if they do find out, and from what Nevyn’s been saying, you’re supposed to keep it secret anyway, if you’re an apprentice. My love, you don’t understand. The only person in the world who can tell you what you may or mayn’t do is the High King, and judging by what Nevyn told me, the High King knows how blasted useful the dweomer can be.”
“That’s not what was worrying me. It’s the time.”
He stared at her, blinking a little.
“I’ve got to have so many hours a day to do this work. Time and privacy, where I can concentrate and not be burdened with entertaining your guests or having pages barging in to ask what sort of bread to lay on table and that kind of bilge.”
“Oh. Um, I see.” He considered for a long moment, chewing on his lower lip. “Well, we’ll just have to make sure you have your privacy then, in the evening watch after dinner, say, or suchlike. It might be hard at first, my love, but soon enough, things will settle down, particularly in the winter months.”
She wanted to cry out, to scream at him: that’s not good enough! But she bit back the angry words, because she knew that once started, they wouldn’t stop, and they would lead her inexorably to the decision she refused to make. I won’t leave Rhodry, I won’t! She thought it over and over, like a prayer to the Goddess. And in the golden lamplight he looked so beautiful, grinning at her now, glowing with honorable pride at finally having come into his own, that her love for him swelled and wrapped her round until it seemed that she would simply die without him.
That particular evening, while Tevylla was putting Rhodda to bed, Cullyn climbed up to the catwalk round Dun Aberwyn’s walls and leaned onto a merlon to enjoy the view. Far away to the west the last of the sunset hung over the fields and farms, while down at the harbor to the south the waves rolled in all silver in the fading light. Although the night was chilly, and he was wrapped in a good wool cloak, it wasn’t truly cold, either. Spring would come soon, and good sailing weather. He wondered if the regent would be able to endure waiting patiently for Nevyn or if she’d send a galley with marines across the Southern Sea. If she did, he intended to be on it, for all that it would ache his heart to leave his new wife behind.
“Cullyn? A word with you?”
He turned and looked down to find Aderyn and Calonderiel at the bottom of the ladder.
“Of course, my lord, any time.”
As agile as a page the old man climbed up, with the elven warleader right behind him. When Aderyn sniffed the wind and held up a licked finger to test its direction, Cullyn found himself remembering, even though he would have preferred to forget it, that the dweomerman could turn himself into an enormous silver owl and fly when he felt like it.
“I’ve had news,” Aderyn announced. “From