The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [33]
Abrwnna stuck out her tongue at Merodda, but she did sit, smoothing her white riding dresses down over her knees.
“I’m quite sure my guards know their duty,” the queen said. “And they’re all very loyal to the king. Well, to your brother, my lady Merodda. He picked them, after all.”
“My brother acts purely in the king’s interests,” Merodda said. “Any loyalty paid to him is loyalty paid to our liege.”
“Oh please!” Abrwnna wrinkled her nose. “You don’t have to pretend around me. We all know who really rules the kingdom.”
A page was approaching. Bevyan laid a warning finger across her lips.
“Your Highness?” the boy said. “The meal is ready.”
“Very well.” Abrwnna rose and nodded his way. “Shall we go, my ladies?”
While they ate, with the pages hovering around in attendance, Abrwnna kept the conversation to court gossip. Her maidservants supplied her with every scrap of scandal in the dun, apparently, to augment what she gleaned herself. She ran through various love affairs or the possibility of them as if she were reciting the lists for a tournament.
“So you can see, Bevva,” Abrwnna finished up, “all sorts of things happened this winter while you were gone.”
“Indeed,” Bevyan said. She reminded herself to tell Peddyc about this use of her nickname. “Long winters do that to people, and with so many widows sheltering here under your protection, I suppose things might get a bit complicated.”
“Very, and I haven’t told you the best bit yet. Lady Merodda’s brother was the biggest prize of all. The regent might as well be a nice fat partridge, for all the hawks that are set upon him.”
Merodda, who was buttering bread, smiled indulgently.
“Well, Your Highness,” Bevyan said. “He has access to the king, and that does make a man attractive.”
“Just so. The worst thing happened though. It was right before the thaw. Two of the court ladies were fighting over Burcan, just like dogs fighting over scraps of meat. It was Varra and Caetha.”
“Caetha? I’d heard she left us for the Otherlands.”
“She did, and here’s the thing. It looked like she was gaining the regent’s favor—everyone said he was much taken with her—when suddenly she died. Everyone said Varra poisoned her, it was so sudden. And then Varra left court and went home to her brother, which makes me think she really did do it.”
“Oh, my dear liege!” Merodda looked up with a little shake of her head. “I doubt that very much. Here—it was at the bitter end of winter, and we all know what happens then to the food, even in a king’s dun.” She glanced at Bevyan. “The poor woman died after eating tainted meat. It was horrible.”
“But she’s not the only one who ate it.” Abrwnna leaned forward. “Merodda had some, too.”
“And, Your Highness, I was quite ill.” Merodda shuddered as if at the memory. “Caetha wasn’t strong enough to recover, I’m afraid. It happens.”
“Indeed, it does happen, and a sad sad thing,” Bevyan said. “There’s really no need to talk about poisoning people.”
And yet, despite her sensible words, Bevyan found herself wondering about Merodda’s herbcraft. If she could wash her face with ill-smelling water and keep her skin as smooth as a lass’s, what other lore did she know? No doubt the queen had no idea that poor dead Caetha’s real rival had been Lord Burcan’s sister.
Since it was the queen’s pleasure to ride, the women returned to the dun late in the afternoon. Side by side Merodda and Bevyan walked into the great hall, where the men were already congregating for the evening meal. They watched the queen and her maidservants flit through the crowd like chattering birds and chase each other, giggling, up the stone staircase. Bevyan could just see on the landing a handful of young lords, each marked as a member of the queen’s fellowship by a twist of green silk around their right sleeve. They bowed to the ladies and walked with them up the stairway and out of sight.
“Bevva?” Merodda said suddenly. “You don’t suppose Abrwnna has a lover, do you?”
“It’s one of my fears, truly. She