As if that were not evident. ‘Lord Father, may I know the reason?’
He looked into the depths of his cup. ‘More ale!’ he called out and one of the servants hastened forward with a pitcher. Rhian wondered how much of that pitcher he had already drained.
‘Lord Father…’ she began again.
He pointed to her with his free hand. ‘Your place is not to question me, Rhian, it is to be silent and obey.’
He downed a prodigious portion of his drink, and when he lowered his cup, Rhian saw something unexpected in his face. Regret, as plain and full as the resentment had been earlier.
She opened her mouth, but all her earlier thoughts had fled her. ‘If you would just tell me what I have done, Lord Father, to merit this treatment.’
He shook his head heavily. ‘Nothing, Rhian. You have done nothing.’
He turned his attention back to his cup.
I have lost. I am lost. Rhian curtsied reflexively. When she lifted her eyes, she saw her mother, Jocosa, standing in the threshold between the great hall and the living rooms. Jocosa gestured to her. Rhian set her jaw again and followed her mother as she walked up the stairs of the stone tower and into the sun room.
‘Now then,’ said her mother, sitting herself down on a cushioned chair. ‘I suppose you will run away and shoot at birds and hares until dark to ease your disappointment.’
Rhian felt her cheeks heat up. ‘That was my intention. What else should I do?’ She threw open her hands. ‘My father consistently denies me other employment for myself.’
‘I know.’ Jocosa took her daughter’s hand. ‘You will forgive your foolish mother. I fear one day you will run off and not come back to us.’
Rhian squeezed her mother’s hand. It felt as worn by years as her face appeared worn by care. In a chest in the treasury Rhian had once seen a miniature of her mother as a young woman. She had been lovely. As a girl, Rhian had wondered where all that beauty had flown. Now, she thought she knew.
‘On my soul, I would never leave without telling you, Lady Mother.’ Rhian let herself smile. ‘Where would I go, in any case? What neighbour would take me in knowing my father?’
Her mother pulled her gently down until Rhian sat upon a footstool. ‘I know, I know, my dear. Perhaps if one of your brothers or sisters had lived, he would not guard you so jealously. Perhaps…’ she stopped herself. ‘Go off to your woods. Shoot what you may. Come back before dark. Then you can amuse yourself with your other skill. Lurking in doorways.’ Rhian opened her mouth to protest, but her mother patted her hand. ‘Do not attempt to beguile me, my lamb. I know in Aeldra you have had an excellent tutor in such matters.’
As hard as she tried not to, Rhian fidgeted. ‘And why, Lady Mother, should I give way to that practice this evening?’
For a moment, her mother’s gaze drifted over Rhian’s shoulder and she seemed to be studying the grey stones of the wall. ‘Because tonight, I mean to have your father announce to you he has reconsidered the suit of Vernus of White Hill.’
Rhian’s heart leapt into her throat. ‘Mother, how?’
Jocosa’s shoulders slumped. ‘Tears, extortion, hysterical fits, threats to bar him from my bed if necessary.’ Her voice sounded drained and dull. ‘I have never, never had to work upon him thus before. Such gross artifice is to be despised. But in this matter, I am afraid your father’s reason has failed him.’ Her gaze came back to Rhian’s face. ‘So now, mine must fail me.’
Rhian said nothing for a moment, she just squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘But,’ she licked her lips. Her mouth had gone unaccountably dry. ‘Forgive me, but why would you want me to witness this…conversation?’
Her mother smiled and some life returned to her voice. ‘Firstly, so you do not hear about it through the general gossip. Secondly, because if nothing else, I am going to force my lord to give his reasons for forbidding you to marry. I want you to hear them from him, whether he knows he is giving them to you or not.’
Rhian let go of Jocosa’s hand and walked across to the window. She stared out across the yard with its people and animals strolling to and fro.
‘I do not like this, Lady Mother.’
‘No more do I,’ said Jocosa. ‘And if you can tell me what else can be done, I am willing to hear you and act.’
Rhian had no answer for her. ‘I will be back before dark.’ She gathered up her skirt and left.
The whirling in her mind did not clear even when she reached the gate in the wooden wall that surrounded the hall and its yards and buildings. Her three long-legged greyhaired hounds leapt to their feet, wagging their tails and baying and straining at their leashes. The boy, Innis, struggled to hold them in check. As she approached, they thrust their noses into her skirt and against her hands. She patted them absently. Aeldra frowned at her, but Rhian did not say anything. She just took her bow and quiver from her maid’s hands and slung them over her shoulder. Innis bowed until his scraggly forelock almost touched the ground.
‘Let us go then. I would see if there are any partridge we can catch unawares today.’ Rhian nodded to Innis and again to the guards who saluted her from either side of the gate. She tucked her skirt into her belt, set her gaze on the meadow past the earthen outer wall and followed the boy through it.
The dogs loped happily forward through the knee-high grasses towing Innis behind them.
‘Let them loose, Innis.’ Rhian unslung her bow and tested the string. ‘Let us see what they find.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ With some difficulty, Innis hauled the dogs to him so he could unfasten their leashes from their collars. With yelps of pure joy, all three sprang into the grass, free to run where they pleased. As she nocked an arrow into the string, Rhian found it in her heart to envy them.
In the next heartbeat, a great flurry of wings sounded from the burgeoning grass. Three brown partridge shot up towards the sky. Rhian drew her string back to her nose and sighted along the arrow’s shaft. She loosed and was rewarded by the sight of one of the birds plummeting back to earth and landing with a loud thud.
‘That one is for Vernus,’ she whispered. ‘And the next is for Aelfric, and the next for Daffydd, and the next for Shanus, and the one after that is for me.’
‘If my lady is thinking of counting her disappointments with arrows, we will be out here all the rest of the year,’ said Aeldra, puffing up behind her.
‘What would you have me do then?’ Rhian watched Innis crouch over the bird and pull out the arrow.
‘It is not for me to say, of course, my lady,’ said Aeldra with the false modesty that irritated Rhian so easily. ‘But there are ways to ensure your father must say yes to your suitor.’
Rhian rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘And don’t think I haven’t considered them Aeldra. But I would have to face my mother also and I’m not yet certain I could.’
All at once, one of the hounds bayed at the edge of the woods. Something flashed white and immediately there was a great crashing of underbrush and bracken as the creature, whatever it had been, fled into the forest. All three hounds barked and howled. They dived forward into the trees. Rhian ran after them.
What is it? A deer? No, it is too white for that…
She broke the treeline and was engulfed in the sun-dappled twilight of the forest. She saw the dogs’ grey backs plunging on ahead of her and again glimpsed the fleeting white form.
The dogs ran into a thicket of fern fiddleheads and Rhian lost sight of them. The wind blew through the forest, rustling the greening underbrush and confusing her further.
‘Orestes!