The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [57]
Abrwnna flicked her eyes Merodda’s way, but she kept her lips pressed together.
“Just a little swallow,” Merodda went on. “For the sake of the men in your fellowship. Why, just think: if you ask them, my liege, they’ll swear an oath to avenge our Bevva’s death.”
Abrwnna considered, then opened her lips and sipped the liquid.
“Just a bit at a time,” Grodyn said sharply. “Don’t choke her, lad.”
Merodda found a chair and watched the two men fuss over their royal patient. What if the queen did die of her crushed throat? The king would have need of a new wife, then. What a pity that Tibryn had insisted on settling Lilli’s betrothal already! Of course, betrothals had been broken before. Or would it be too obvious? Probably so, and she might find herself suspected. It was a good thing that Abrwnna had tried to hang herself, not eaten poison, what with all the nasty gossip about dear Caetha’s death still very much alive. I should have known they’d suspect me, Merodda thought. But what if Caetha had taken Burcan’s affections away? What place would I have then?
The sick cold swept over her again. Merodda laid a hand at her throat and sat shivering in the warm room.
The sun was well on its way toward setting when Tieryn Peddyc, his men, and Lilli arrived at Lord Camlyn’s dun. Lady Varylla, with a black scarf thrown over her head, met them at the gates.
“Tieryn Peddyc—” Varylla started to speak, then merely wept.
Fortunately her old chamberlain, the only real servitor in the dun, had seen so much death and misery in his life that he kept his composure. While the servants and riders took the horses to the stables, old Gatto stood with Peddyc, Anasyn, and Lilli in the ward and told them how he’d handled matters. The dead riders were all buried in a mass grave by the road along with the two common-born maidservants; the horses left alive had been rounded up; the bridles and saddles from the dead ones had been collected and were waiting for the tieryn to take with him. Lady Bevyan, Sarra, and the young page, who was also of noble blood, had been laid out here in the dun.
“They’re in the buttery, my lord,” Gatto finished up. “It’s got a chill on it, even in summer. When your messenger got here today, round noon it was, my lady had all the servants comb the meadows for flowers, and we’ve piled them around her. Would you be wanting to see her?”
“I would, at that,” Peddyc said, and his voice sounded calm, even distant. “And no doubt Sanno and Lilli will be coming with me.”
The buttery lay under Lord Camlyn’s hall, reached from an outside door by steep stone stairs, dangerous with damp. Through the little stone room itself ran a trickle of water in a stone ditch, and the air was cold enough to make Lilli shiver. All the cheeses and suchlike had been moved to one side. At the other on trestle tables lay the three dead, mounded with wild roses and lilac, lavender and kitchen herbs, Bevyan to the outer side, as if in death she still protected those who had come to her in need of a home. Even with so many flowers a wisp of rot hung in the air. Holding two lanterns high, Gatto stood by the stairs and let the tieryn and his family pay their respects.
Peddyc and Anasyn stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and Lilli had never seen men turn so still, as if they’d willed themselves to stone. She herself could not stop shaking from the chill and grief both. Bevyan’s face had gone a cold-bluish grey, and her dark eyes, so merry in life, had shrunk to a desiccated stare. All over her cheeks and on the hands that emerged from the flower mound lay white blisters. Very very slowly Peddyc reached out one hand and touched his wife’s cheek with one finger. A blister split with a puff of stench.
“Vengeance, my love,” he whispered. “I’d always thought that you would have the burying of me. Never did I dream that I’d be swearing vengeance at your grave. But swear it I will.” Peddyc turned slightly to look at Lilli and Anasyn. “Leave me.”
Lilli had never been so glad to follow an order in her life. That’s not Bevva, she found herself thinking. And