The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [123]
Nevyn merely nodded. He was studying the complex, searching for the brochs he’d known as a child and young man, but they were too overgrown with new building for him to make them out.
“Tomorrow, my liege!” Oggyn said. “Tomorrow you’ll at last claim your birthright. Tomorrow the kingdom is yours!”
“Most likely,” Maryn said. “I just hope it’ll be worth the deaths it’s cost.”
“Oh come now, Your Highness!” Oggyn barked a laugh. “No other man in Deverry would think such a thing!”
“Just so,” Nevyn said. “But no other man but Prince Maryn is fit to be High King.”
Trapped in the royal broch with King Olaen and his last defenders were women and children—nine women, Merodda counted, and twelve children, mostly pages, but one of the servant girls, Pavva, had a nursling, whom she clutched so tightly to her chest that Merodda feared the baby would suffocate.
“Give him a little air,” she said. “That’s better, lass. We’re in no danger right now.”
All of the women and children had taken refuge on the top floor of the main broch—the last place that the attackers would reach on the morrow—in an empty half-round of a storage room. Merodda had gotten them up there and dragooned some of the remaining male servants in the broch to haul up drinking water and food. Now there was nothing to do but wait out of the men’s way until whatever Wyrd the gods had decreed swung down upon them like a scythe.
A little way off from the others the queen sprawled on a heap of cushions. Her two maidservants had escaped from the broch in the horrible confusion earlier in the day; like the other missing women, they might have been safe or dead for all anyone knew. In the lantern light Abrwnna’s red hair gleamed like another fire, but her face and dress were filthy and the dress torn, as well. Merodda walked over, laid down the heavy sack she was carrying, and sat beside the queen.
“What’s in that, Rhodi?” Abrwnna said.
“Some things I saved from my chambers. A book. Some potions.”
“Do you have some poison I could eat?”
“Oh ye gods, Your Highness! I wouldn’t give it to you if I did!”
“Why not? It would be better than what’s going to happen to me on the morrow. I’d rather be dead when they come for me.”
Merodda merely sighed for an answer. If only the Dwarven Salts didn’t deliver such a horrible death! She found herself remembering Caetha, twisting in her own vomit. From a distance it seemed she heard a woman screaming, Caetha screaming, as if her ghost had appeared to gloat over her murderer’s death; then Merodda realized that the screams were real and very much present, coming from the trap door covering the stairs down. The screams grew louder and a man’s voice, angry, joined in. She leapt to her feet just as someone hoisted the trap from below.
“I can’t, I can’t!” A woman spoke, but her voice choked so badly that Merodda couldn’t recognize it. “I can’t leave him.”
Merodda hurried over. On the steps stood Rwla, the little king’s nursemaid, weeping and trembling. Behind her two soldiers were trying to force her up to the room above. Merodda leaned down and caught her hand.
“Come up,” she said. “What’s happened? Did Olaen send you away?”
“He told me maybe I could escape,” Rwla sobbed. “As if there’s any safety for any of us. Ah ye gods! Don’t make me leave the poor little lad.”
“Little or not,” Merodda said, “he’s the king, and he ordered you. Now get up here!”
Still weeping Rwla allowed herself to be half-shoved, half-led up to the temporary safety. When Abrwnna slid a cushion her way, she collapsed onto it. She pulled off her black headscarf and let her grey hair spill down, then used the cloth to mop her face. Merodda tried to think of something comforting and failed utterly.
“Tell me somewhat,” she said instead. “Have you seen any of the other women from the dun? What happened to them?”
“I’ve no idea. They all could be slain by now.”
Outside the daylight was fading, and shadow began to fill the room, rising from the floor like water, it seemed, and oozing out of the very walls. Merodda considered lighting candles, but