“And you don’t want him to overhear?”
“Just that. Careg’s his name.” Merryc looked briefly sour. “I suggest you avoid him. I do whenever I can. But the grim news is, the father, Gwerbret Caddalan himself, just happens to be visiting kinfolk who have a villa some miles east of here. Right on the coast, not far at all.”
“The vultures are gathering?”
“Hawks, more like.” He smiled with a grim twist of his mouth. “Hawks who think themselves eagles.”
How much to tell him of their plot? Dovina was tempted to drop a few guarded hints, but still, she hardly knew the man who was going to be her husband. Amara would have warned me if he were dangerous, she thought. Still, she kept her language formal and guarded.
“Is summat wrong, my lady?” Merryc said. “You seem so distant.”
“I have much on my mind, my lord. My apologies. Do you know when the Prince Regent will arrive?”
“Soon. He sent messengers ahead. My mother tells me that you have some interest in the legal matters before him.”
“I do indeed, such as the request for a justiciar on the western border. Our chief bard did me the favor of warning me the lawsuit would come.”
Merryc looked away, thinking. They walked a few yards further on, then paused again. “I have reason to believe,” he said, “that the prince will hear the bards’ request in formal court. I have no idea if he’ll honor it or refuse it, of course.”
“Of course. It should be interesting, either way.”
A cool wind picked up and made her shiver in her light summer dress. Dovina turned and looked southward toward the ocean. Sure enough, a distant gray blur announced fog.
“The weather appears to be betraying us,” Merryc said.
“Shall we rejoin the others?”
“By all means.” He smiled at her with real warmth. “As my lady wishes. I’ll see you again at our clan’s fête. May I escort you when it’s time?”
“I should be honored. My thanks.”
Good! Dovina thought. He likes this betrothal. I can use that as a weapon should I need one.
That same morning, Dovina had received a note from Lady Amara about the afternoon fête. Mavva read it aloud once they were back in their suite.
“For the clan members, you know, and family, and a few family friends. Naught too formal. Only some thirty or forty people, and food, of course, and bards.”
“Only.” Dovina rolled her eyes and sighed. “Well, of course they have to show me off to the bloodkin. The food will probably be good, anyway, so we shan’t be too horribly bored.”
“Splendid,” Mavva said. “I’m getting quite spoiled by these spreads. Going back to the collegium food is going to be difficult.”
The fête, however, proved to be less tedious than Dovina had feared. They did meet a small army of Merryc’s relatives, which necessitated a great deal of curtsying and bobbing in the hot and crowded great hall. At one point Merryc left Dovina’s side to help an elderly great-aunt, who announced that she was feeling faint and needed to leave. Dovina and Mavva retreated to a settee some distance from the enormous buffet while she struggled to remember at least some of her new relatives’ names. Mavva pointed out someone they knew.
“There’s Hwlio,” Mavva said. “The lady with him must be his wife.”
“Markella, her name is. Ye gods, she’s nearly as tall as he is!”
Hwlio had seen them as well. He waved, and the Bardekian couple made their way through the crowd and joined them. Markella was as beautiful as she was tall, with wide black eyes and thick masses of curly black hair, which she wore swept back with silver combs. While Hwlio’s skin was the deep rich brown of Orystinna, Markella’s was somewhat lighter, more of a deep tan, which meant her family came from the north coast of one of the main islands of the archipelago. Markella was also pregnant. The beaded kirtle on her red silk gown sat quite high. Mavva got up and with a curtsy offered Markella her seat on the settee.
“My sincere thanks.” Markella sank into the cushions. “It really is time for my confinement, I suppose, but I’m not quite ready to be shut away from the world again.”
“And do you have other children, then?” Dovina said.
“Only the one. She’s with her nursemaid at the moment. Oh, well, at least I have my tiles to amuse me when I’m confined.”
“Do you read the fortune tiles, my lady?” Mavva said.
“I do, but just for myself and my friends.”
“I certainly didn’t think you’d read in the marketplace,” Mavva said, blushing. “My apologies!”
“Naught to apologize for.”
Hwlio was looking at his wife with his thick eyebrows arched in such a hopeful manner that Dovina saw a possible ploy at work. Here where so many other people might overhear, an open invitation might have caused some wondering.
“I’ve always wanted to see how the tiles worked,” Dovina said brightly. “It sounds so amusing.”
Hwlio relaxed. Message received, Dovina thought.
“Oh, you must come and let me read yours, then,” Markella said. “I’m certainly going to be at home most afternoons from now on.”
“As long as I wouldn’t be imposing—”
“Not in the least. I’d love to have your company. Mavva, of course this includes you.”
“My thanks, my lady,” Mavva said. “I’d love to come.”
They chatted for a bit more, only to be interrupted by a Deverry man whom Markella introduced as Edry, her physician, a stout gray-haired fellow wearing a blue and white striped waistcoat with his breeches and linen shirt. Dovina recalled that the stripes indicated that he’d begun his medical training at Haen Marn.
“Now, now, my lady.” Edry waggled a finger at her. “I don’t want you staying too long here and tiring yourself.”
“I was just thinking the same,” Hwlio put in.
My word, Dovina thought, they do have this well-planned!
Markella laughed at both of them. “Then you’ll have to haul me out of this settee,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get out by myself.”
Grinning, Hwlio helped his wife up while Edry sent a servant to have Markella’s sedan chair brought round to the front door. After the usual round of goodbyes and promises of an afternoon visit, Dovina and Mavva found themselves chatting with the physician.
“I must say,” Dovina said, “the Bardekians strike me as far more rational than our own people. They respect things like books and learning a lot more, too.”
“I quite agree,” Edry said. “I studied physick in Bardek for several years, you see, and so I learned a great deal about their ways. I believe this sensible quality of mind owes much to their dark skin, a sign of their abundance of black bile. Their temperament thus tends toward the melancholy, which allows for serious thought and reflection upon weighty matters. The dark skin also mitigates the rays of the sun, which nurture the choleric humor. Thus our pale lords are quick to rage, while a Bardekian archon will take proper counsel before acting.”
“Doesn’t the sun’s light increase the sanguine humor as well?” Mavva put in. “I remember reading that in one of Neb the Healer’s writings.”
“Quite so.” He gave her a little nod. “And I’m afraid our Deverry lords have no shortage of the sanguine in their humors. It gives them the blithe confidence that they may always do as they please, no matter who objects. It’s no wonder that the sun turns their pale skin red.”
Out of simple coincidence and nothing more, at that moment the chamberlain announced a red-cheeked Gwerbret Tewdyr and Lady Rhonalla of Abernaudd. Dovina stifled a giggle with great difficulty.
Tewdyr, Gwerbret Abernaudd and head of the Hippogriff clan, was a tall, spindly man, quite gray in hair and mustache, and a good many years older than Rhonalla. He had shrewd little blue eyes, narrow at the mome
nt, as he studied the crowd in the great hall. Dovina and Mavva exchanged a look, made a polite excuse to the physician, and drifted over to a quiet corner farther away.
“Where’s your father?” Mavva said.
“I’m not sure.” Dovina was doing her best to scan the room. “Wait! Is that him there, just coming away from the table where they’re serving mead?”
“It is, indeed.”
“I hope he’s not had too much to drink.”
Ladoic, however, seemed both sober and on the alert. He turned back, set the goblet of mead down onto the table, and walked away by a circuitous route through the crowd that kept him a good twenty yards away from Tewdyr. Dovina noticed that Rhonalla was guiding her husband in the opposite direction and liked her a little better. Eventually Ladoic fetched up in Dovina and Mavva’s corner. They both curtsied, and he bowed, grinning.
“My thanks, Father,” Dovina said. “You’re splendid at dancing around Abernaudd and his wife.”
“I’m not going to risk spoiling your fête,” Ladoic said. “Look at Tewdyr there! Gone straight for the mead, hasn’t he? He won’t be right in his mind in a bit. If the pair of us get into some sort of a shouting match?” He shook his head. “I think I’ll leave and avoid him. I’ve paid my regards to all of your new kinfolk.”
“I haven’t accepted Merryc yet!”
“We’ll see about that.” He grinned at her. “But I think me he’s pleased enough with you.”
“The question, my dear father, is am I pleased with him?”
“And are you?”
“I’m still deciding. Ancient traditions give me that right.”
“Well, then, hurry up about it! Hah! I’ll be going back to the guesthouse. Send your page there with a message if you need me.”
He made a little bob of a half-bow to each of them, and then strode off. Dovina watched until he’d made it safely out of the door. She let out her breath with a little puff.
“There. That’s one trouble avoided!”
But when Dovina and Mavva returned to their suite, trouble was waiting for them. As Darro opened the door for the two women, a piece of pabrus fluttered onto the carpet. He darted forward and picked it up. They went inside, and Mavva shut the door behind them.
“It’s some kind of letter, my lady.” Darro handed it to Dovina with a bow.
“Where did I leave my reading-glass?” Dovina in turn gave the pabrus to Mavva. “Do read it aloud, will you? Probably another wretched feast or such.”
Mavva glanced at it and shook her head.
“If you value your life and health, have naught more to do with your impious rebellion. Evil falls upon the head of those who seek to undermine the ancient laws. You have been warned.” She looked up, her face pale.
Dovina stared at her for a long moment until at last she found her voice. “Who could have written that? It sounds too polished to be one of the gwerbretion, and they would have had to write it themselves. You couldn’t trust a councillor with a threat like that.”
“The script’s too finely penned, too,” Mavva said. “Priests. That’s what the language tells me, priests of Bel.”
Darro made a squealing noise, quickly stifled. He looked more excited than frightened.
“Quite so,” Dovina said. “Well, when I make enemies, I do a grand job of it, don’t I?”
“So it seems.” Mavva held the paper up to the fading light from the window. “No watermark. They must have cut this sheet to avoid one.”
“What are you going to do, my lady?” Darro said.
“Nothing, of course.” Dovina glanced at Mavva. “This makes me more determined than ever. What about you?”
“The same. How dare they threaten us! But honestly, I have to admit, I wish Rhys were here.”
“Me, too. It’d be very useful if we could ask the Wmm priests for help. They know everything that’s worth knowing. But he’s not, and we can’t, so let me think. I’m going to hide this bit of evidence. We’ll need it.”
Not an hour later they heard more of the danger around them when Darro returned to the suite. He bowed to both women, but his flushed face and wide eyes indicated he had something important on his mind.
“What is it?” Dovina said. “Never mind the courtesies.”
“My thanks, my lady. The chamberlain told me to go out to the gardens to gather some of the early roses for your chambers. I’d just fetched a basket and knife when this young lord followed me out. He didn’t say his name, but I’d recognize him again. It was growing dark but not that dark. So anyway we chatted for a bit, and then he asked me if I wanted to earn a silver piece. And I said how. I thought mayhap he wanted his horses exercised or such. He wanted me to talk about you, why you were in Cerrmor, and was it really all because of your betrothal. So I said I knew nothing above my station, and then I ran back inside. My apologies, I never got the roses.”
“We can live without flowers,” Dovina said. “Don’t vex yourself about that!” She glanced at Mavva. “I think we may have to do summat about all this after all. I forgot that ferrets can get caught in traps.”
“Indeed!” Mavva said. “Lady Amara?”
“My thought exactly. Darro, I’ll need you to describe this young wretch to the lady. Here, let me write a note, and then you find out where Amara is and take it to her.”
“I wonder,” Mavva said, “if the chamberlain is part of this, or if he just doesn’t want to refuse a request from a priest.”
“I wonder, too. Odd that he should send Darro out at sunset, truly.”
“Very odd indeed. Darro, I wonder if the other pages have seen or heard anything? Do you know any of them?”
“Only one, my lady. Berwyn. His father’s rhan lies right next to ours, but on Gwerbret Tewdyr’s side of the border. So he’s been fostered to Abernaudd.”
“How very interesting.”
When Dovina winked at him, he grinned.
“I told him we could play carnoic if you gave me leave. This evening, that is, unless you need me for summat.”
“I doubt very much if I will. Some of the other lads might like to play, too. A tournament, like. I’ll stand you a Cerrmor penny for a prize.”
“They’ll be glad to join us now! My thanks, my lady.”
“Good luck with the game. For now, go see if Lady Amara’s free to speak with us.”
Darro bowed and hurried out on his errand. The two women sat down to wait. When he returned, he brought Lady Amara with him. He bowed all round, then sat on the floor to wait for his turn to speak.
“Your page told me you’d received an upsetting letter?” Amara said. “From whom?”
“We don’t know.” Dovina handed her the pabrus. “They didn’t sign it.”
Amara sat down in a chair near the candelabra and read the letter. Her face turned as dark and grim as a warrior’s. When Darro repeated what had happened in the rose garden, she was silent for a long time.
“I’ll just wager that lord was Careg.” She got up and moved to a chair farther from the heat and smoke of the candles. “My thanks, lad. You’ve done your lady good service today.”
Darro murmured his thanks and looked modestly away. When Dovina gave him leave to go, he bowed all round and hurried out.
“Well!” Amara said. “This is a nasty little stew you’ve been served! I’ll wager the priests of Bel wrote this. If they lose control of the courts, they lose a great deal of illicit revenue. Those temples are expensive to maintain.”
“My lady?” Mavva sounded honestly shocked. “Are you saying the priests do take bribes?”
“It’s common knowledge, my dear, here in Cerrmor and up in Dun Deverry, too.” Amara scowled at the pabrus in her hand. “Not that anyone would dare try to prove it. Being ritually cursed is as good a threat as hanging.”
“I remember a time when I was a child,�
� Dovina said, “and I brushed my hand against what I thought was a bit of dirt on my bed hangings. It turned out to be a huge spider, and I screamed. I feel rather like that now.”
“Both sick and frightened?” Mavva said. “Me, too. But, my lady Amara, there’s a thing I don’t understand. You and your clan seem to be on our side of this combat. May I ask why? Your clan’s gwerbretal.”
“In name, my dear, in name but not in actuality. Or, to be precise, not in the same actuality as others of gwerbretal rank. Our vast demesne covers some eight hundred acres, a very good-sized farm, it is, and we have milk cows and pigs and some lovely vegetable gardens and a small orchard.” Amara paused for an ironic smile. “If one of our herdsmen or gardeners has a legal complaint, we may judge it. Otherwise, everything we have depends upon the royal clan. We serve it. In return, they are generous to us, more than generous at times. Our interests are their interests.”
“And their interests lie with justice for the common people?” Mavva sounded puzzled. “I shouldn’t have thought—”
“Not precisely that.” Amara glanced Dovina’s way, a quick glance, almost furtive.
“Go ahead and say it,” Dovina said. “It’s in the interests of the king to keep the gwerbretion under some restraints. Oh, come on, Mavva! Haven’t we been complaining that my father and his peers can do whatever they like, whether it’s fair or not? The Prince Regent isn’t stupid. He can see where that leads.”
“To a lot of petty little kingdoms,” Mavva said. “Kingdoms in all but name, anyway.”
“Just that.” Amara looked relieved to have the matter out in the open. “And then there’s the feuds, the stupid bloodshed and trampled crops and unpaid taxes and all the rest of it. How many of those start in a gwerbretal law court? Or in the lack of one, if it’s between two of the gwerbretion? As in this matter of Ladoic and Standyc. Most, I’d say.”
“Just so,” Dovina said. “And the priests of Bel are that spider. I should have realized that they’d consider our reforms an attack on their privileges.”
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