The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [193]
“I see. But I can’t have both.”
“That’s true enough.”
“Did she need you badly?”
“She did. Very badly, just because of the ugly circumstances she was born into. Without me, she had no life at all.”
“But Rhodry’s gwerbret, and he’s got more prospects in life than any man but the High King himself. I keep saying he needs me, but he doesn’t, really. Ye gods, any lass in the kingdom would throw herself at his feet for the chance to marry him, and there’s hundreds better fit to be a ruler’s wife than I am. How am I going to devote myself to his wretched rhan, when all the time I’ll be wishing I could be studying my craft?”
“That’s all true and splendidly logical, but can you bear to leave him?”
She went still, utterly still, except for the tears that welled up in her eyes and ran in two thin trails down her face.
“Nevyn, I keep feeling like I’m drowning. It’s not even Rhodry himself. It’s his position and his rank and Aberwyn and everything. It’s like a river, and it’ll just sweep me under if I let it.” All at once she tossed her head and laid a hand on her chest. “I really do feel sometimes like I can’t breathe. Do you think I’m daft?”
“I don’t. I think you see things clearly. But you never answered my question. Can you bear to leave him?”
The tears came again, and she stared at the floor for a long time before she answered.
“I can, and I have to. I’m going to do it tonight.” She looked up. “I’m going to do it now, or I never will.”
“I’ll be here and awake.”
She started to speak, then merely nodded a distracted understanding and left the room. For a long time Nevyn stared at the closed door while his hands shook with a hope that he’d never allowed himself before, not once in the long four hundred years since he’d made his rash vow.
Lord Edar’s chamberlain had of course given the gwerbret the most luxurious bedchamber in the broch, a big wedge of a room with an enormous bed, hung round with embroidered panels and covered in embroidered blankets. When Jill came in, she found candles burning in the silver sconces and Rhodry sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed and reading from a long piece of parchment. He tossed it aside and gave her a grin that wrung her heart.
“Edar’s terms of fealty to Aberwyn. I see no reason to change them, but he wanted me to look them over just to be sure, so I did. Ah, my love, it’s so good to have a moment alone with you. I’ve been feeling like a hound on a leash. Every time I try to walk your way, someone yanks me back again.”
When she said nothing, merely stood hesitating at the foot of the bed, his smile disappeared.
“Is somewhat wrong, my love?”
“I can’t marry you.” It came out in a blurt that made her despise herself. “I’ve got to leave you.”
“I’ve never heard a jest I liked less.”
“It’s no jest, Rhoddo. I don’t want to go, but I’ve got to. It’s because of the dweomer.”
“What? I thought we’d settled all that. Back in Elaeno’s ship—remember?”
“I do remember, but I didn’t say everything. I’m saying it now. I’ve got to study, and I can’t study if I’m married to you, and I’m leaving. On the morrow.”
“Just hold your tongue! You’re not doing anything of the sort. If you need time for your studies, well and good, then. Time you shall have. I—we’ll—arrange things somehow. I don’t know how yet, but we will.”
“I know you mean that with the best faith in the world, but it won’t ever happen. Be honest. You know it won’t. There’ll always be one thing or another that needs me to tend it, and if I don’t, then all the courtiers will gossip and tell you what a lazy wife you have, and after all a while, you’ll resent it, too. Or what if everyone starts muttering that I’m a witch? I’ve thought all this out, Rhoddo. What if you deny some lord a thing that he thinks he should have, and then he starts saying it’s because your woman bewitched you?”
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t want you to go. Jill, how could you do this to me? Ye gods, you risk your life chasing after me, and just when we’re finally safe and I can shower you with comfort and privilege, you say