The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [77]
“It’s a nice position,” Midda said. “I’m grateful to you and your cousin, I am. She told me you’d commended me to her before you left.”
“I did, most strongly, and I’m glad she took me up on it. I’d best go now, but I’ll see you again before we leave.”
For her stay in her uncle’s dun, Branna returned to wearing dresses. She spent long hours up in the women’s hall, catching up on all the local gossip with Galla, Solla, and Adranna, who seemed to be taking her widowhood well. Branna’s gray gnome wandered around the chamber, occasionally unrolling a skein of yarn when no one was looking. The dun cats bore the unjust blame for the resulting messes.
“It’s been nearly a year since Honelg died,” Adranna told her, “and truly, I’ve come to realize just how frightened of him I was. He never beat me, never so much as said that he might slap my face, but the threat hung in the air at times—just at times. It was the way he’d look at me and the children, all glowering and grim.” She let her voice trail away to a whisper. “It happened more and more often toward the end.”
“I never wanted you to marry him,” Galla said. “I suppose I’m being awful, saying I told you so, but it’s one of the few nasty arguments your father and I ever had.”
“You were right.” Adranna managed to smile. “But who else was there, way out here?”
The women were sitting near the window in their hall, Adranna and Galla in cushioned chairs, while Branna sat on a stool and turned the handle on the yarn spinner. The tieryn’s own sheep had just been sheared, producing the first fleeces of the year. Solla was feeding the wheel long twists of carded wool, adjusting the tension to Branna’s rhythm. Little Trenni wound the finished threads onto sticks. The skeins built up fast, thick bundles of yarn, spun in an afternoon, when they would have taken the women days to produce with drop spindles.
“I’ll turn for a while if you’d like, Branna,” Adranna said. “We should train one of the pages to do that, really.”
“Ynedd would do a good job,” Trenni put in, “but Gerro would throw an absolute fit.”
Solla laughed in agreement. “He says we’re ruining the lad,” she said. “If you believe my husband, Ynedd will be fit for naught but mincing around the high king’s court if we don’t stop coddling him.”
“Has Gerran ever been to Dun Deverry?” Branna let the wheel slow and stop, then stood to change places with Adranna.
“Of course not,” Galla said, “none of us ever have. And we’re even less likely to go now that we have a new overlord. I doubt me if anyone minces in Prince Dar’s court.”
Everyone looked to Branna, who smiled. “Of course they don’t. Life’s very different out on the grasslands.” She smoothed her skirts under her and sat down in a cushioned chair. “It can get rather dangerous, truly.”
“Do tell us more,” Adranna said. “I just can’t imagine it, wandering all over the country like that.”
As the spinning went forward, Branna obliged with stories about her life during the winter past, the flash floods, the endless squabbles among the Westfolk, the sea fogs, lost horses, and the like. Yet she could never tell them about the real challenges and dangers she faced, studying dweomerlore and dealing with a Neb who had grown withdrawn and troubled as his own studies progressed.
That night at dinner, and later when they went up to their chamber, Neb seemed more his old self. By candlelight they lay in bed, face-to-face, and talked over the day. He’d spent time with his brother, he told her, and gone round and chatted with all his old friends in the dun.
“Lord Veddyn told me that Lady Solla’s been helping him with the taxes,” Neb said. “His memory’s not what it once was, you know.”
“True spoken. I remember how that used to worry Aunt Galla.”
He nodded, started to speak, then suddenly turned away.
“Is somewhat wrong?” Branna said.