The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  “Ah. Well, there I have to agree with you. Unfortunately, I don’t have any such thing among my medicinals.”

  “So I feared.”

  “Here’s a thought to hold, though. No matter how many mistresses Maryn might have, you’ll always be his only wife.”

  “Not true! Once the priests proclaim him king, he’ll marry again, won’t he? And to his one true love, I think me, beyond any lass of the moment or me.”

  Nevyn sighed, nodding his agreement.

  “You warned me,” Bellyra went on. “I wrote it down in my book at the time. Maryn will always love the kingdom more than anything else, you told me. And I fear me you were right. I suppose that’s why his women don’t bother me. They don’t have his heart either.”

  “That’s certainly true. You know, Your Highness, once Maryn is seated as king, the kingdom will belong to you as well as to him. He needs you rather badly. Your advice he’ll always be able to trust. You won’t be flattering him to get land and honors out of him.”

  “Just so. I know there’ll be plenty of compensations. I also wish I weren’t so given to self-pity.”

  “Oh come now! I can imagine other women in your position taking things a great deal more badly than this.”

  “My thanks. I do appreciate it.” Bellyra paused, thinking. “I wish I had somewhat that was all my own. My station in life I owe to Maryn. My children are Maryn’s. My duties are those of Maryn’s wife. He’s blasted lucky I love him so much, or I’d hate him.”

  They shared another laugh.

  “Well, then,” Nevyn said. “Perhaps you should find a thing that’s yours alone. What makes you happy?”

  “The most peculiar things. Truly, I should be positively giddy with joy over this dun. There are so many odd corners of it to poke around in. I loved doing that in Cerrmor, poking around in old rooms and learning odd bits of the history of the place.”

  “Then here’s what your herbman prescribes. Get the heralds to cut you up some calfskins and turn them into parchments. Go poking around to your heart’s content and write everything down, just like you did in Cerrmor. By sheerest chance I know a fair bit about the oldest broch, and you can start there.”

  Bellyra laughed, seemed to be about to speak, and from her smile she was about to mock the idea. Then she let the smile fade.

  “You know, I think me I’ll do that,” she said at last. “It sounds a bit daft, but truly, Dun Deverry is the most important holding under the high king’s dominion. Why not write its tale down? And I’ll hold you to that promise about the lore.”

  “Have no fear. I’ll honor it.”

  “I should go,” Bellyra went on. “Probably Elyssa and Degwa are frantic by now, wondering where I am.”

  “No doubt. I’ll walk back with you.”

  “My thanks. Do come visit us in the women’s hall, will you?”

  “Gladly. What’s it like?”

  “Oh gods!” Bellyra rolled her eyes. “It might do to house prize cattle. It’s a good thing we brought so many furnishings with us.”

  Nevyn got a cloak, and they went downstairs. Just outside the door a man stood in the ward, walking back and forth as if he were waiting for someone. Nevyn held up his lantern and caught the fellow in its light.

  “Maddyn?” Nevyn said. “What are you doing here?”

  “My apologies, my lord.” Maddyn bowed to Bellyra. “Begging your pardon and all, Your Highness, but I happened to see you crossing the ward, and I wondered if somewhat was wrong, like. I thought I’d wait to see if you needed an escort back to the women’s hall.”

  “I think,” Nevyn broke in, “that it would be far more politic if I escorted the lady.”

  “Oh probably so,” Bellyra said. “But come with us, Maddo, if you’d like.”

  Her use of the bard’s nickname struck Nevyn like a warning. Don’t be a fool! he told himself. What’s the source of her sorrow, anyway, but her being entirely too faithful to her husband?

  When Owaen led the honor guard out, Branoic went down to the ward to bid them farewell. The autumn morning was so crisp he wrapped himself in a warm cloak. To escort Lord Riddmar to Dun Deverry the prince was sending nearly two hundred men, a hundred and fifty from the Cerrmor warband and fifty silver daggers. Men and horses milled around whilst they tried to draw up in some sort of decent order. Branoic stood on the steps, out of the way, where Maddyn eventually joined him.

  “I’m cursed glad I’m not riding with this detail,” Branoic said. “Look at Owaen strut! He’s taking the prince’s command as seriously as a wretched priest.”

  As if to continue the thought a silver horn blew six urgent notes. Carrying the horn, Owaen was riding up and down the line on his grey gelding, yelling at everyone to get ready to fall in when the troop began to move out of the gates. At last the men seemed to have sorted themselves out well enough to please him. He took his place at the head of the line and shouted the order to march. The mob of men and horses unwound like a spiral, riding two abreast out the gates and down.

  “Where will they be meeting our prince’s brother?” Branoic said.

  “Half brother,” Maddyn said. “At Hendyr. I’m surprised you didn’t ride with them to ask Tieryn Anasyn for his sister’s hand.”

  “He already told Lilli he had no objections. Old Nevyn’s sent him a letter, to make everything right and proper, like.”

  “A tieryn’s sister, is it? You’ll be rising high in the world, Lord Branoic.”

  “Ah hold your tongue or I’ll shove it down your throat!”

  When the last of the troop had ridden out, Branoic and Maddyn returned to the great hall. They fetched themselves ale, then sat down not far from the table of honor, empty at this hour.

  “We’re almost up to strength,” Maddyn remarked. “I’ll keep my eye out for good men whilst Owaen’s gone.”

  “How many silver daggers did Owaen leave behind?”

  “About twenty. It should be enough to guard the prince in the middle of his own fortress.”

  Branoic was about to answer when he saw Lilli coming down the staircase. He started to rise and join her when he saw Councillor Oggyn hurrying to meet her. Oggyn took something out of his shirt and handed it to Lilli so furtively that he might as well have shouted aloud that he was trying to keep a secret. Now what’s all this? Branoic thought. Lilli took the mysterious something, slipped it into her kirtle, then turned and went back up the stairs, while Oggyn came back down to the hall.

  “I wonder what that was about,” Maddyn said quietly.

  “Slimy Oggo, you mean?” Branoic said. “I wonder too. Mayhap it was just a gift from the prince or suchlike.”

  “Branno, can you really go through with this wedding?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, aren’t you jealous of him?”

  Branoic considered the question seriously while Maddyn watched, his dark eyes full of honest concern.

  “I am,” Branoic said at last. “But not enough so that it matters. Now, if it were any man but our prince, we’d have this out with cold steel.”

  “Very well, then. If it were me, I’d be cursing him daily, prince or no.”

  Maddyn was leaning back in his chair, looking absently away, but something in his voice caught Branoic’s attention, something painful. Since he had no idea of what to say to address it, he said nothing.

  Lilli was so eager to read the prince’s note that she climbed the stairs too fast. At the top she had to rest longer than she liked, but she gained her chamber without coughing—a solid victory. She sat on a chair in the sunlight and read Maryn’s letter twice through.

  “Forgive me, my lady. I hold you in no less esteem than before, but affairs of state have much distracted me. Stay in your chamber this afternoon, unless Nevyn has need of you, of course.”

  Lilli kissed the writing, then got up and hid the letter with his others.

  The afternoon dragged itself along. She practiced her reading and embroidered a band of knotwork o
n Branoic’s shirt. She kept breaking off whatever she was doing to go lean out her window and squint at the sun. When it disappeared behind the dun, she judged its progress by the shadows creeping across the ground below.

  That afternoon Lilli realized what a treasure she’d thrown away by cutting herself off from the princess and her women. Always before she had lived her real life in the women’s hall among other women who did the same. Men came and went; their fighting determined the course of women’s lives, just as they gave their women children. But when it came to raising the children, or living with the inevitable widowhood, women had other women, and they were the ones who mattered.

  “I’ve got no one to talk with,” Lilli said aloud. “Oh Goddess, what have I done?”

  Sunset touched the sky with flame, but still Maryn didn’t come. At last, when she could see the first star blooming in the pale evening sky, the door opened. She spun around just as he slipped in, carrying a candle lantern.

  “I brought you some fire,” he said. “It’s growing cold out, Lilli, and so you’d best light that wood I see in your hearth.”

  “My thanks, my prince. It’s so wonderful to see you.”

  “Is it?” Maryn set the lantern down on the mantel. “I can’t stay but a few moments.”

  Tears came before she could stop them and slid down her cheeks. Maryn crossed the room in a few quick strides and enfolded her in his arms. She clung to him while he stroked her hair.

  “Forgive me. My days aren’t my own anymore.”

  “I know.” At last she managed to staunch the shameful tears. “Of course.”

  He kissed her, but she could feel the distance he’d set between them. With a long sigh he let her go.

  “I’d best be off,” Maryn said. “Till tomorrow afternoon, my lady. I’ll do my best to get away then.”

  “That will be splendid.”

  Maryn kissed her one last time and left. For a moment she stood looking at the closed door. This is what being the king’s mistress will mean, she thought. Waiting and waiting for the few moments the wretched kingdom will let him give me! Her heart seemed to chill and sink within her. And yet, even in the midst of his delicate maneuvers, devolving the Cerrmor rhan, trying to outguess the king of Eldidd—even then he had worried about her being cold. She’d never known another lord who would have done the same.

  She took the candle lantern and knelt by the hearth, extracted the burning candle, and touched it to the waiting tinder. The straw caught with a crackle; a fine web of fire blazed over the kindling, which smoked, then caught as well. Lilli sat back on her heels and returned the candle to the lantern. The smaller logs were beginning to burn, and the warmth swept over her. Salamanders appeared to caper in the flames. She got up and went to her window to close the shutters, but lingered to see the night sky deepen to a field of stars. She wondered if Maryn would come to her on the morrow or if she’d watch the stars alone then, too.

  Her days devolved into a tedious pattern of waiting for one man or another. In the mornings she could walk abroad, but in the afternoons she waited for her prince. Maryn sent notes, and occasionally he came to her chamber for a few quick words and kisses. Nevyn was much concerned with the priests of Bel and their stubborn refusal to name a day when Maryn would become king. Without her dweomer work, all Lilli could do was read lore, and whilst the dweomer demands a great deal of memorizing, lore work alone can chill the soul. Nevyn at least would appear at the end of the day. They would eat together while they discussed her reading and her health.

  “The weather’s getting quite cold,” Nevyn said one evening. “You should spend as little time outside as possible.”

  “Ah ye gods! I’ll go mad!”

  Nevyn raised one bushy eyebrow.

  “It’s so awful,” Lilli went on, “sitting here alone all day.”

  “Why don’t you go join the other women?”

  “And face the princess?”

  “Lilli, Bellyra blames you for naught.”

  Lilli picked up a slice of bread and broke it in half.

  “Come now,” Nevyn said. “Ask Elyssa if you don’t believe me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you. Maryn’s asked me to wait here for him in case he can get away.”

  “It would do him good to show up here one day and find you gone.”

  “But then I’d miss my chance to see him.”

  Nevyn rolled his eyes heavenward.

  “Things are about to get worse when it comes to demands upon the prince,” Nevyn said. “Gwerbret Ammerwdd of Yvrodur is on his way here to discuss the devolvement of the Cerrmor rhan. He heads the Council of Electors, you see.”

  Lilli began shredding the bread into crumbs. After a moment she heard him sigh.

  “I’m being so strict about your health for a reason,” Nevyn said at last. “At the moment your cough results only from a congestion of the lungs. What if it turns into a consumption?”

  Lilli looked up fast and felt as if all the blood were draining from her face. Nevyn leaned back in his chair; never before had she thought of him as truly old, despite his white hair, but that night he did look old and sad as well.

  “It’s a terrible thing to have your youth eaten up by illness,” Nevyn said. “But it’s better than dying young.”

  “Just so.” Lilli felt her voice shake. “I didn’t realize this cough was so perilous.”

  “Well, it is. Will you swear to me you’ll guard your health, no matter what the prince may or may not do?”

  “I will, truly. I’m so frightened.”

  “I’d hoped to spare you that, but mayhap I wasn’t being wise. You deserve to know the truth. I brought back my books of physick and herblore when we visited Cerrmor, and I’ve been studying them most carefully. There seems to be little to be done for a consumption in the lungs. Not Galyn, not the great Ippocratrix himself, not even the Bardekian Karliko know how to cure it. Ippocratrix does say that if a lass be losing flesh and having trouble with her breathing, the best preventative is intercourse with a man. I have my doubts, but then, you’ve taken that medicament on your own.”

  Lilli blushed, and he laughed at her.

  After Nevyn left, Lilli dragged her chair over to the fire and sat down close to the warmth. Life seemed so bitterly unfair. She’d blossomed as a woman and found the great love of her life—but had everything ended so soon? She could see herself ending up a prisoner to ill health in the grim towers of Dun Deverry, or at the best becoming Branoic’s poor frail wife that everyone pitied. On the hearth the fire cracked and blazed in a shower of sparks, glorious and gold only to die away in a few heartbeats. Perhaps her life would do the same.

  And what of Branoic? she asked herself. She’d not seen him in days, shut away as she’d been. Once before she’d managed to call him to her by dweomer. She thought of him, sounded his name in her thoughts, and all at once she saw him in the fire. First it seemed that he and Maddyn the bard were sitting, as tiny as dolls, in among the logs; then her vision suddenly swooped into the flames, and it seemed that she stood near them at a table in the great hall. She could hear nothing, however, but the crackling of the fire in her hearth. A puzzled Branoic was looking around him. He got up, said a few words to Maddyn, then headed for the stairs.

  Her triumph died when she remembered that Nevyn had forbidden her to work any dweomer, not even simple exercises, and scrying was far from simple. She broke the vision and found herself back in front of her fire. The warmth, the feel of the chair under her, the smell of pine smoke—they were all so solid that she decided she really hadn’t had a vision. She’d fallen asleep and dreamt it; that was all. In the fire a log slipped in a fine spray of flame-red jewels. She got up, looking for the poker, just as Branoic knocked on her door and called her name.

  Lilli screamed. She stuffed her hand into her mouth to stifle it just as Branoic shoved the door open and strode in, reaching for his sword’s hilt.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “You just startled
me.”

  “Did I? I could have sworn I heard you calling me.”

  “Well, so I did, but I never thought it would work.”

  Branoic stared at her, then burst out laughing. He turned and shut the door.

  “We’re a fine pair, aren’t we?” He walked over to the hearth. “Here, I’ll mend up the fire for you.”

  “My thanks.” She handed him the poker. “My maidservants brought up some big logs—there, under the window.”

  Lilli sat back down and watched him fussing with the fire. He picked up in one hand a log that would have strained her to lift with two and set it carefully in place.

  “That should do for a while.” Branoic laid the poker down. “Is this why you called me? To tend your hearth?”

  “It wasn’t. I just wanted to see you.”

  “That gladdens my heart. I’ve been worrying. I keep asking old Nevyn how you fare, and he keeps shaking his head and looking grim.”

  “Well, it’s not that I’m horribly ill yet. It’s that I could be, if I don’t take care of myself.”

  Branoic smiled, so sincerely pleased that she rose and laid her hands on his chest. Obligingly he kissed her, then took another. She realized that it wasn’t only Maryn she missed, but his lovemaking.

  “Branno?” Lilli said. “I just thought of somewhat.”

  “Indeed?” He smiled down at her. “What?”

  “We’re betrothed in everyone’s eyes.”

  He considered this, his head cocked a little to one side; then he smiled, slowly this time.

  “So we are,” he said. “You honor me, my lady.”

  When she slid her arms around his neck, he stooped, caught her, and picked her up to carry her to the bed.

  Making parchment from calfskin is not such an easy thing. Bellyra was expecting to wait weeks for the materials for her new book, but fortunately the prince’s heralds had brought blank sheets with them, ready for writs of attainder and banishment, should the fortunes of war require such. Gavlyn delivered her a share himself, although he had to wait until Maryn was in attendance upon his wife in the women’s hall before he could enter. On a sunny morning he laid the parchments down on a table by a window. Bellyra ran her hand over them, just the color of cream and as smooth, neatly scored with a blunt stylus to mark out the writing lines and the margins.