The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [17]
As the guards hurried up, everyone stopped eating and turned to look. The messenger knelt before the king, then pulled a silver tube out of his shirt and handed it to Olaen with a flourish. Burcan leaned forward and snatched it, then gestured at the man to speak. The great lords huddled around, narrow-eyed and grim. At the queen’s table the women fell silent and turned, leaning to hear the news. From her distance Lilli could hear nothing of what the messenger said, but a rustle of talk broke out, first at the royal table, then spreading through the great hall: more lords gone over to Cerrmor. With a curt nod, Burcan dismissed the messenger. King Olaen was watching the regent with eyes full of tears.
Lilli saw her mother turn and leave the queen’s table, hurry up the staircase, and disappear into the shadows at the top. With a wrench of will, Lilli forced herself to follow. On the far side of the hall, near the stairway, a page was seating the messenger while a serving lass brought him ale. Lilli hesitated, then stopped beside the messenger, who hastily swallowed his mouthful of ale and started to rise.
“Oh, do sit,” Lilli said. “You must be exhausted. I just wanted to ask you if Tieryn Peddyc of Hendyr’s gone over to the rebels.”
“Not him, my lady. He’s steady as a stone.”
“I’m so glad. He’s my foster-father.”
“Ah.” The rider smiled briefly. “No wonder you wanted to know. He and the Lady Bevyan are in good health and as loyal as ever.”
“My thanks.”
Lilli hurried away and climbed the staircase. Maybe Bevyan would come to court with her husband when he joined the muster. She hoped—no, she prayed so, as hard as she could to the Lady of the Moon. Merodda had sent her and her wet nurse to Bevyan when Lilli had been a few weeks old; until she’d seen twelve summers, Bevyan had been the only mother she’d known. If only I could have stayed with Bevva—her eyes threatened tears, but she squelched them and at the top of the stairs paused for a moment to catch her breath. The fear clutched at her heart again, but she had nowhere to run or hide. With one last gasp, she hurried down to her mother’s chambers.
Merodda herself opened the door. She was carrying a long taper in a holder, and in the candlelight her face, her hands, glistened like wax.
“Good. You’re prompt tonight.”
In a pool of candlelight near the chamber windows stood Brour, the man her mother called her scribe—a skinny little fellow, with an oversize head for his body and wispy blond hair, so that at times he looked like a child, especially since his full lips stuck out in a perennial pout. Merodda laid her hand on Lilli’s shoulder and marched her down the length of the room. On the table in front of Brour, among the candles, stood a grinding stone, a chunk of something black that looked like charcoal, and a flagon of water. Apparently the scribe had been making ink, and a prodigious amount of it at that. He put a handful of powder ground from the ink block into a heavy silver bowl, then added water from a pitcher a little at a time, while he pounded and stirred with a pestle.
“Here she is,” Merodda said.
Brour put his tools down on the table, then considered Lilli so coldly that she took an involuntary step back. Her mother’s hand tightened on her shoulder. In a hand black with dry ink Brour took the taper from Merodda and held it up to consider Lilli’s face.
“No one’s going to hurt you, lass,” Brour said at last. “We’ve just got a new trick we’d like you to try.”
“You have strange gifts, my sweet,” Merodda said. “And we have need of them again.”
For a moment Lilli’s fear threatened to choke her. She wanted to blurt out a no, to pull free and run away, but her mother’s cold stare had impaled her, or so she felt, like a long metal pin pushing into her very soul.
“Come now!” Merodda snapped. “We women must do what we can to serve the king.”
“Of course, Mother. Of course I want to.”
“Of course? Don’t lie to me.”
Lilli blushed and tore her gaze away.