The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [195]
“You could still—” He stopped his rush of words, hesitated, then wiped the tears from his face before he went on. “Forgive me. I was going to say that you could still be my mistress, but you can’t. After everything we’ve gone through, the battles we’ve fought—you couldn’t live like that.”
“Thank the Goddess herself that you understand! I refuse to grovel around your wife and hear her gloat every time she has a babe.”
“Oh, my love.” He could barely speak. “Of course you couldn’t do that. Ah, by every god in the sky! I’m sorry I pushed you this far. Forgive me. Oh ye gods, forgive me, too, for cursing the bitter Wyrd you’ve given me!”
“You do understand why I’m going?”
“I do.”
He slipped his arms around her and held her close while they sobbed in one another’s arms, but she was weeping because she hated herself for lying to him. It’s a silver dagger’s ruse, she told herself, and that’s all you are at heart, a rotten silver dagger still.
“I’ll never love another woman,” Rhodry said. “I promise you that.”
“Don’t bind yourself to that! I wouldn’t want you to, ever. But you can promise me this: never love another woman the way you loved me, and I’ll promise you I’ll never love another man that same way.”
“Done, then.”
When he bent his head to kiss her, she twisted away.
“Please don’t kiss me, my love. It’ll only make things worse.”
Before he could answer she turned and fled, running from her lie as much as him. She flung open the door and burst out into the corridor only to charge smack into Gwin. She grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back against the wall.
“Were you spying on us?”
“Couldn’t understand a word you said. All I heard was the gwerbret yelling, and I’m supposed to be his bodyguard now, you little hellcat!”
When Jill let him go, she realized that it was sheer luck that had kept her from reopening his wounded shoulder. She took a deep breath to calm herself down.
“My apologies, truly. You’d better go in. He needs someone to talk to.” She started off down the corridor, then hesitated. “Oh, Gwin? Guard him well, will you? He’s going to need you badly in the next few weeks.”
Then she hurried on, leaving him staring puzzled after her, and ducked into the safety of Nevyn’s chambers. The old man was standing at the open window, and she realized with a profound shock that the first hint of dawn was turning the eastern sky gray.
“Nevyn, I’ve got to get out of here. Can’t we just pack and leave right now?”
“We can. My poor Jill, I—”
“Oh, don’t pity me! I can’t stand it, and I don’t deserve it. I lied to him, Nevyn. I stood there and told him I was barren, and that’s why I couldn’t marry him.”
“And what’s so wrong with that? No doubt he had to have some reason, one he could understand and cling to.”
“But a lie’s a wretched way to start a new life.”
“True, but there are lies, and then there are bandages for the soul.”
The dawn was full and golden by the time Jill and Nevyn were saddling their riding horses out in the ward, and Cullyn came out of the barracks to join them. He glanced at the laden pack mule, then nodded in understanding.
“You’re not marrying Rhodry.” It was no question.
“I’m not, Da. I just can’t. It’s the dweomer.”
“Ah.”
He looked round the ward, glanced down at the cobbles, then turned to look back at the stables.
“I’ll ride with you aways. Let me just fetch my horse.”
As he walked off, Jill realized that she’d be leaving him behind irrevocably, too. For the briefest of moments she wavered; then she caught Nevyn watching her.
“You were right,” he said. “The sooner we get on the road, the better.”
They took the south-running road from Belglaedd, heading toward the coast road that ran to Deverry proper, just as the sun was turning hot with the promise of summer. When, after about an hour, Cullyn paused his horse in the road and announced he’d best be getting back, Nevyn rode a little ways along to give them a private word with each other. Cullyn led Jill down a side lane into an apple orchard, where the branches, heavy-laden with white blossoms, hung down over