The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [59]
With a sigh Merodda leaned back in her chair. She could barely remember her own mother’s face. She did, however, remember how her mother had died, slain by her husband for being unfaithful to him, cut down like a beast in the ward when she ran screaming for the gates. Merodda remembered weeping all night, and the way her brothers had tried to hush her, fearful that their father would kill her, too, if he heard her. No one had ever said a word against their father for the murder. It hadn’t truly been a murder, she supposed, but his right as lord of the dun.
With a sigh Merodda rose. She wanted to sleep, but she knew that her place was at the queen’s side, lest some scheming courtier use her absence against her. She returned to the queen’s chambers to find the king curled up asleep at the foot of his wife’s bed, while Abrwnna drowsed, propped up on cushions, under the anxious eyes of the chirurgeons.
Late on the morrow the muster began in earnest. Those lords whose lands lay nearest rode in, and each brought every man who owed him service or who could be bought or bribed. Behind each warband rolled provision carts, loaded with sacks of grain, wheels of cheese, and squealing pigs. Merodda stood on the walls with the other women in the dun and counted each contingent. The others laughed at how high the count climbed, but Merodda knew better. Burcan had begged and bullied an army of desperation into existence. If it failed to stop Maryn’s advance this summer, then nothing ever would stop the Usurper. The northern lords—any lord in the kingdom—would never risk so much two years’ running.
Burcan himself returned on the day after, around noon. Merodda was in her chamber when a page came running with the news that the regent and his personal warband had ridden in.
“And he’s got ever so many lords and riders with him, my lady.”
“He must have joined up with them on the roads,” Merodda said. “My thanks. I won’t go down now, though. I’m sure he has important business to attend to.”
And yet Burcan came up to her chamber in a brief while. Dust from his ride streaked his clothes and hair. He walked stiffly, more than a little tired, and he was laden with sacks, but he was grinning.
“I’ve brought you a pair of gifts,” he said and held out a leather hunting sack. “I’ve got the book you asked about, and then, this.”
The sour stink of old blood hanging in the air warned her of what lay inside. She forced herself to smile as she opened it and peered in. Sure enough, Brour’s head stared up at her, the stump of neck black with old blood, his flesh blue and rigid, his mouth half-open as if to cry out.
“Good,” Merodda said. “We won’t be worrying about him, then. My thanks, my love, my one and only true love.”
Burcan laughed in a burst of pleasure. She found herself remembering him as a lad, before either of them had married. He would find her the first violets of spring and bring them to her with just this sort of laugh. And they would eat them together, this first taste of fresh food, an omen of the summer to come.
Servants had dug graves for Bevyan and Sarra under an oak in the meadow behind Lord Camlyn’s dun, but getting the bodies out of the cellar room took some doing. No one wanted to pick the remains up and carry them, but the stairs were too steep to use the trestles as a litter and carry them out that way. Servants dithered while Gatto swore until Peddyc bundled Bevyan up in a blanket and carried her out himself, shaming the servants into bringing Sarra and the page. This confusion nearly made Lilli retch. Even Anasyn looked pale and shaken.
Once the dead lay decently in their graves, the servants