The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [56]
Burcan looked up at her with one eyebrow raised.
“I’ve seen him,” Merodda said. “He’s heading north, all right, strolling along beside the river as happily as you please. He’s got up like a peddlar with a pack.”
“Good!” Burcan snarled. “I’m going to take some of my men and ride after him. If he’s burdened he can’t have gone far. If he gives us the slip, I’ll tell my vassals there’s a price on his head. They’ll bring it to me soon enough.”
“Wonderful!” She forced herself to smile. “And he’s carrying a treasure, too, a book.”
“A book?”
“It’s filled with dweomer secrets, a big thing, bound in leather.”
“Very well. If you want it, it shall be yours.”
Burcan rode out around noon, and still Merodda had found no sign of Lilli. The dinner hour arrived but brought no Lilli, either. Merodda sent other servants to scour the dun, but they all returned without the girl. She could scry her daughter out, and she was just heading for the staircase to return to her chambers when a page came rushing up to her.
“My lady, my lady!” He was near tears. “The queen just tried to kill herself.”
“Oh ye gods!” The stupid little dolt! Merodda thought. Aloud she said, “Does she live?”
“She does, my lady. Her throat is ever so bruised, though. She tried to hang herself.”
Everyone in the great hall was turning to look, to listen. In a ripple of hushed noise the news spread out like a ripple in a pond.
“I’ll attend upon her straightaway,” Merodda said.
She turned on her heel and hurried up the staircase, but at the landing she looked back to see the page mobbed by members of the queen’s fellowship. The lad was talking and gesturing while the men listened, white-faced.
Merodda swept into the women’s hall without knocking and found Abrwnna’s maidservants huddled together and weeping. Merodda hurried through to the queen’s chamber on the far side. They’d laid Abrwnna on her bed with her copper-colored hair spread out away from her face like a sunset over the white linen. Two of the royal chirurgeons were attending her; a young man held a flask of liquid to the queen’s bluish-tinged lips and tried to force a few drops down. Old Grodyn stood nearby, leaning on the bedstead and frowning. Abrwnna lay so still that at first Merodda feared her dead; then the girl’s eyes opened and flicked her way.
“Rhodi.” Her voice was a ghastly whisper, like the sound of a metal shovel scraping up coals from a dead hearth. “Let me die.”
“Nonsense!” Merodda hurried to the bedside. “My dearest liege!”
A welt of red and purple bruises circled her throat, with a fist-shaped bruise, bleeding from a scrape, just under one ear. Merodda felt herself turn cold all over, a sick kind of cold, as if she’d just vomited. Her hands shook with terror, but she could not force her gaze away until the chirurgeon spoke.
“It’s a nasty sight, eh?” Grodyn said calmly. “That’s from the knot. They found her just in time. She didn’t give herself enough of a drop, and so she was strangling in the noose.”
“Oh, ah, indeed.” Merodda had to force out the words. Deep in her heart she knew that it wasn’t the sight that had sickened her, but some horrible omen—would she see the same mark on Burcan’s neck one day?
“Are you all right, my lady?” Grodyn said.
“I’ll be fine in a heart’s beat or two. It’s just so awful! Our poor queen!”
Abrwnna stared up at the ceiling and refused to look at either of them. Merodda caught the chirurgeon’s attention and mouthed the words, “Will she live?” He shrugged and held both hands palm up.
“Her throat’s all raw,” the young physician said. “I’m trying to give her somewhat to soothe it.”
“Come now!” Merodda laid one hand on Abrwnna’s face. “Be a good lass and open your mouth, my liege. Just a few drops? Please? Do it for your Rhodi? No one blames you for our poor Bevyan’s death. It was those fiends from