The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [48]
She scrambled back down and returned to the tunnel. It was something of a struggle, but she managed to pull the door shut. Once she had a fresh candle in her lantern, she hurried back to Dun Deverry. All the long way, the question tormented her: what if someone had gone into the root cellar for some reason, seen the open door, and without thinking shut it? She wanted to run, but if she did, the candle would blow out, leaving her in darkness. By the time she reached the safety of the filthy cellar she was nearly weeping.
Now all that remained was telling Uncle Burcan about the escape route. Since the weight of the pack would slow Brour down, she decided that she’d best wait two full days. She blew out the lantern and closed the door to the bolthole; then she climbed the steps to the ward. As she hurried back to the main broch, she kept an eye out for pages and suchlike who might tattle to Merodda. What was going to count now was avoiding her mother until she could clean the mud off her skirts.
She slipped into the great hall, then paused in surprise. Even though it was already mid-morning, the king’s table was surrounded by angry lords, arguing furiously with Burcan while the young king cowered behind him. She saw Tieryn Peddyc standing to one side, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips white with rage. A servant girl saw her staring and hurried over.
“It’s ever so nasty,” the girl whispered. “The queen has sent Lady Bevyan away from court.”
“What? Why? How could she?”
“I know not why, my lady. For not much of a reason at all, I’d wager. But oh! the shame of it!”
Lilli ran across the great hall and gained the staircase, got up it as fast as she could, then ran down the corridor to Bevyan’s chambers. She burst in without knocking to find Bevyan standing by the bed, calmly folding her bedsheets and laying them in a wooden chest for her journey, while Sarra sat weeping on a chair nearby.
“You’ve heard, have you, dear?” Bevyan said to Lilli. “Now don’t worry, it’s not as bad as all that.”
“But it is! How could she? What a nasty rotten awful thing to do!”
“It is all of that, dear, but it’s nothing that I can’t bear. Oh, Sarra, come now! You need to get your things together, so do stop that bellowing!”
Sarra wiped her face on the trailing hem of one sleeve.
“That’s better,” Bevyan said. “Now why don’t you fetch the pieces of Braemys’s wedding shirt for Lilli? We don’t want to pack them by mistake.”
With a nod and a hard swallow, Sarra did as she was told. Once she’d left the room, Lilli turned to her foster-mother.
“But why?” Lilli said. “Why would she send you away?”
“She said that I’d angered her.” Bevyan actually smiled. “No doubt I did, too, by pointing out a few truths. She’s a silly child, and she’s in a terrible position, one she doesn’t have the strength for. But here, dear, help me pack these bedclothes. We’re to leave today.”
“Today? Oh, that’s not fair!”
“Life is very often not fair, dear. My lord has already sent his messengers to Lord Camlyn—that’s where we’ll stay tonight, you see.”
“You won’t be safe out there!”
“Peddyc is giving us an escort of thirty men. They’ll be our fort guard when we get home, too.”
Lilli picked up a blanket and began folding it in quarters.
“I saw the tieryn in the great hall,” Lilli said. “He looked ever so angry.”
“No doubt. He demanded that Burcan intercede with your mother for me.”
“My mother?”
“The queen mostly does what your mother says, you know.”
All at once Lilli felt as if her legs had lost all their strength. She sat down heavily on the edge of the stripped bed and rubbed her face with both hands, determined not to weep and distress