The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [199]
She laughed and threw her arms around him. He kissed her, and for the rest of that night, they talked of very little indeed.
With the dawn, Branna went out with Elessi to feed the changelings. As they left the camp, the pounding of wings split the silence. She looked up and saw Medea, flying east on the prince’s business, like a sleek green arrow in the rising light.
It had taken Berwynna some days to realize that Mirryn considered himself to be in love with her. Since they hardly knew each other, she doubted if he actually did love her, but he followed her around the dun, took her riding, ate with her at meals, smiled whenever he saw her, and in general made a nuisance of himself. She took to staying in the women’s hall as a refuge, where Lady Solla, who was finding the stairs leading to the great hall more and more difficult thanks to her advanced pregnancy, tended to join her.
Usually, the tieryn’s widowed daughter, Adranna, sat with them, although sadly enough she rarely spoke. Generally, Adranna sat in a chair by the window and sewed upon an elaborate embroidered coverlet for her daughter’s dower chest. At times tears filled her eyes; she would brush them away and bend to her needlework as if her life depended on filling up the wolves drawn into the pattern with scarlet thread. Will I end up like her? Wynni would think. Mourning Dougie all my life?
Now and then, Solla tried to draw Adranna into the conversation, but generally the lady answered briefly and withdrew into herself again. Berwynna and Solla had taken to sitting at the other side of the chamber where their talk wouldn’t disturb her.
“About Mirryn now,” Wynni asked Solla one afternoon. “Know you if he does realize that I were betrothed to another man?”
“He does,” Solla said. “But it doesn’t matter to him, and for that I honor him. Gerro asked him outright, you see, and told him that you needed time to mourn.”
“That be true spoken! Not a night does go by when I do fail to dream about Dougie. My thanks to your lord, truly.”
“He’s a good man, Gerro.” Solla hesitated briefly. “But so is Mirryn, in his way. You’ll not always be mourning your Douglas.”
“That be true as well. I do know it be so. Yet it be like a knife in my heart to be thinking I might forget him.”
“Nah nah nah, never that!” Solla smiled at her. “That’s not what I meant. You’ll never forget him, but you’ll find room in your heart for a second love. You’re too sensible a lass not to.”
Berwynna managed to smile. “My thanks, and I think me you have the right of it.”
That night at the evening meal Berwynna found herself looking at Mirryn in a new way. When his father died, he’d be lord of the Red Wolf dun, right there on the border near the Westfolk, part of a wider world than Haen Marn could ever offer. If she stayed on the island, whom would she meet to marry someday, she wondered, if Solla were right and her heart healed? One of the Mountain Folk and live underground all her life? The thought made her shudder.
“Is somewhat wrong?” Mirryn said.
“Naught, my apologies,” Wynni said. “Just thinking of a painful thing.”
“I realize, my lady, that there’s been much pain in your young life.” Mirryn sounded as if he were reciting a bit of bard lore that he’d got off by heart. “I only hope that someday all such trouble will be behind you.”
She glanced at Gerran, who sat across the table from them. He’d probably told Mirryn what to say, judging from his approving smile. When a servant girl put baskets of bread upon the table, Mirryn took one. He drew his table dagger and cut a chunk off the loaf before passing it across. He tore it in two and offered half to Berwynna, who took it from him, had a bite, then laid the rest on the wooden trencher they were sharing.
“What be the thing you truly hope for, Mirryn?” Wynni said. “I do wonder if somewhat lies behind those fancy words.”
Mirryn blushed scarlet. Wynni