“Gwetmar? But he’s homely!”
“Then you won’t have to worry about him siring bastards on your serving women. Listen, you little dolt, he’s the only man in court who would have married you because he loves you, not for the dowry, so start counting up his qualities. You won’t see his face when he blows out the candle, anyway.”
Macla groaned aloud, but she trotted off for the dormitory. Only then did Gweniver notice their mother, standing on the edge of the crowd. Dolyan stood with her arms crossed over her chest as if she were hugging grief, her eyes half-filled with tears. When Gweniver walked over and held out her arms, her mother turned half-away.
“You’ve made your sister a good marriage,” Dolyan said in a trembling voice. “I’m proud of you.”
“My thanks, Mam. Are you well?”
“As well as I can be, seeing you like this. Gwen, Gwen, I beg you. Stay here in the temple.”
“I can’t, Mam. I’m the only honor the clan has left.”
“Honor? Oh, is it honor now? You’re as bad as your father, bad as all your brothers, talking of honor until I thought I’d go mad, I truly did. It’s not the honor that pleases you, it’s the slaughter.” All at once she tossed her head, and the words poured out in a rage-tide. “They never cared that I loved them; oh, it didn’t matter half as much as did their cursed honor, riding out, bleeding the clan white, and all to work grief on the kingdom! Gwen, how can you do this to me? How can you ride to war as they did?”
“I have to, Mam. You have Maccy, and soon you’ll be dowager, back on our lands.”
“Back on what?” She spit the words out. “A burnt home and ravaged lands, and all for the honor of the thing. Gwen, please, don’t ride!” And then she was weeping, sobbing aloud.
Gweniver could neither speak nor move. The other women rushed to Dolyan’s side, swept her up, and hurried her away, but all the while they looked daggers back at this ungrateful wretch of a daughter. As Gweniver fled through the gates, she heard Dolyan keen, a long, high wail of grief. I’m dead to her already, she thought. The keen wailed on and on, high and bright in the morning sun, then stopped abruptly, as if the other women had taken her inside.
“What’s so wrong?” Gwetmar snapped. “Who’s died?”
“Nah nah nah. Naught’s wrong. Maccy’ll be out shortly.” She turned away and looked downhill, searching to see Ricyn among her men. “By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell, it’ll gladden my heart to get back to Cerrmor.”
Wherever Ricyn was, she couldn’t pick him out, but she saw Dannyn, sitting easily on horseback at the head of the king’s riders. Soon she would be riding to war under his command, and she thought to herself that the Goddess had sent her a splendid master in the arts of death.
Although Nevyn had several apprentices in the art of herb-craft, the most capable was a young woman named Gavra, a tall, slender lass with raven-dark hair and hazel eyes. Since she’d been born the daughter of an innkeeper down in Cerrmor, she was used to hard work and also determined to better herself in life. In the two years she’d studied with him, she’d made excellent progress in learning the multifarious herbs and their uses. Accordingly, he allowed her to help him every afternoon when he tended the minor illnesses or accidents of the palace servants, who were below the notice of the official chirurgeons. Gavra also used her mind to good advantage when it came to court intrigue. Dannyn and Gweniver had been back in the dun only two days when the apprentice brought Nevyn an interesting bit of news.
“Lord Oldac stopped me to speak with me today,” Gavra remarked.
“Indeed. Has he been pressing his attentions on you again?”
“Well, he was ever so polite, but I think me he had somewhat dishonorable on his mind. Master, would you speak to him? It’s cursed hard to insult one of the noble-born, but the last thing I want in life is one of his bastards—or any man’s, for that matter.”
“Then speak I will. You’re as much under my protection as if you were my daughter, and I’ll cursed well go to the king if I have to.”
“My thanks and twice over. But it wasn’t only his drunken smiles that troubled my heart. He had the gall to insult Lady Gweniver. I think she’s splendid, and I won’t hear that sort of talk from anyone.”
“And just what did he say?”
“Oh, he was insinuating things, more like, about the way she and Lord Dannyn spend so much time on the practice ground.”
Nevyn snarled under his breath.
“He said it more against his lordship than her holiness,” Gavra went on. “Asking me didn’t I think it strange that his lordship was so eager to teach Lady Gweniver his sport, but it vexed me nonetheless. I told him that a common-born servant like me was below having thoughts about his lordship one way or another, and then I marched off.”
“Good lass. I’ll have to speak to Oldac about more things than one, I see. If it gets back to Gweniver’s ears that he’s been insulting her, he may die quite suddenly.”
“Well, it wouldn’t ache my heart if he did.”
The very next afternoon Gweniver and Dannyn came to the afternoon surgery. Gavra had just finished putting salve on the underfalconer’s scratched hand when the two strode in with the rattle and clang of full mail. Dannyn held a bloody rag pressed to his cheek.
“Would you tend the captain here, good herbman?” Gweniver said. “He’s too embarrassed to go to the chirurgeon.”
“If I could call a priestess a bitch,” Dannyn mumbled through the rag, “I would.”
Gweniver merely laughed. When the captain took the rag away, his cheek was scraped raw, swelling badly, and dripping blood from two small nicks.
“We were using blunt blades,” Gweniver explained. “But they can still raise a good bruise, and he refused to wear a helm for our lesson.”
“Stupidity,” Dannyn said. “Mine, I mean. I never thought she’d get near me.”
“Indeed?” Nevyn remarked. “It seems that the lady has more talent for this sort of thing than either of us would have thought.”
Dannyn gave him so insolent a smile that Nevyn was tempted to wash the wounds with the strongest witch hazel he had. As an act of humility, he used warm water instead, forcibly reminding himself that Dannyn was not Gerraent, that while the soul was the same root, the personality had grown to a different flower, and that Dannyn had excuses for his arrogance that Gerraent had never had. Yet every time the captain’s cold eyes flicked Gweniver’s way, Nevyn was furious. When he left, Nevyn allowed himself a sigh for the foolish pride of men, which could hold a grudge for a hundred and thirty years.
Gweniver herself lingered, looking curiously over the herbs and potions and chatting idly with Gavra, who mercifully said nothing about Lord Oldac’s slight. Although the lady seemed oblivious of them, Wildfolk followed her round the room, at times plucking timidly at her sleeve, as if asking her to see them. For some reason that Nevyn didn’t truly understand, the Wildfolk could always recognize someone with dweomer-power, and the little creatures found such fascinating. Finally they vanished with disappointed shakes, of their heads. Nevyn suddenly wondered if Gweniver had stumbled across her latent dweomer-talents and was using them in the service of her Goddess. The thought made him turn cold with fear, and something of it must have shown on his face.
“Is somewhat wrong, good herbman?” Gweniver said.
“Oh, naught, naught. I was just wondering when you’d be riding on campaign.”
“Soon, after Maccy’s wedding. We’re going to sweep the Eldidd border on patrol. We might not even see any fighting, or so Lord Dannyn tells me, so don’t trouble your heart, good sir.”
When she smiled, he felt the fear again,