The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage. Katharine Kerr

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and rather a lot of it. All at once one of them shouted, someone else swore, a third oath rang out and stilled the general clamour. Bevyan rose to look just as the Queen’s men leapt up, knocking over benches, to rush the lords at Anasyn’s table. Bevyan saw Anasyn jump free and grab a friend from behind just in time to keep the lad’s sword in its sheath.

      The fight devolved into shoving and cursing. A table went over with the crack of breaking pottery. Someone swung a punch, someone else reeled back with a bloody nose, but the older lords were on their feet and running, calling out to one another like hounds coursing for game. They grabbed the combatants and dragged them apart, then for good measure dragged them clear out of the great hall.

      ‘And what was all that about?’ Lilli said.

      ‘Oh, who knows?’ Bevyan said with a shrug. ‘Men will take insult and so easily, too.’

      And yet she saw Anasyn, hurrying across to her through the confusion and beckoning her to join him. With a gesture to Lilli to stay put, Bevyan headed to the curve of the wall and a little space free of gawkers, where he joined her. His right sleeve was soaked through with mead, as if someone had thrown a goblet-full.

      ‘There you are, Mother,’ Anasyn said. ‘Father said I should tell you what happened.’

      ‘Oh did he? It was more than some stupid insult, then.’

      ‘Truly. Someone proposed a wager, you see, on how soon one of the Queen’s Fellowship would bed the Queen, and which one it would be. Well, they overheard, and –’

      ‘Oh ye gods! So the gossip’s got as bad as all that? Who started it?’

      Anasyn shrugged for an answer. Out in the great hall everyone was sitting back down; a pair of pages were righting the overturned benches and picking up trenchers from the straw while assorted dogs wagged their tails and watched, hoping for another spill and sudden meal.

      ‘Your father was right to let me know,’ Bevyan said. ‘I’ll have a word with Merodda about this. As far as I can tell, she’s the only one with any influence over the lass.’

      ‘So I’ve heard.’

      ‘Which reminds me, dear. The Queen tells me you were offered a place in her fellowship.’

      ‘I turned it down.’

      ‘So she said. I was just curious –’

      ‘I’ve never wanted to be anyone’s lap dog and run with a pack of them. It’s disgusting, watching them fawn over her.’

      I see, Bevyan thought. So my lad’s fallen in love! Aloud, she said, ‘And quite right, too. Well, I’d best see how the poor lass fares.’

      The Queen’s hall in Dun Deverry occupied an entire floor of the royal broch. Carved chairs, heaped with faded and torn cushions, stood on threadbare Bardek carpets, while sagging tapestries covered the walls between the windows. When Bevyan came in, she expected to find the Queen in tears over this insult to her honour, but instead Abrwnna was pacing back and forth in front of a cold hearth while her maidservants cowered out of her way in the curve of the wall. One of the girls was crying, and her messy hair, pulled every which way in long strands, gave evidence of her royal mistress’s bad temper. Merodda, however, was calmly sitting on one of the wide windowsills as if to take the air. None of the Queen’s other serving women were in evidence.

      ‘There you are, Lady Bevyan,’ the Queen said. ‘I have need of your counsel.’

      ‘Indeed, Your Highness?’ Bevyan made a curtsey in her general direction, since she kept pacing.

      ‘Indeed. Lady Merodda tells me I should disband my fellowship.’

      ‘Ah. I fear me that I agree with her.’

      ‘I don’t want to!’ Abrwnna swung round and threw one arm up, as if she were thinking of slapping the older women down. ‘They’re mine and I don’t want to!’

      ‘No one can force Your Highness,’ Merodda put in. ‘Bevyan, Her Highness asked my opinion, and so I gave it.’

      ‘As I have given mine,’ Bevyan said. ‘And there we’ll let the matter drop if Her Highness commands.’

      ‘Well, I cursed well do!’ With a deep breath Abrwnna caught herself and lowered her hand. ‘We do not wish to hear this matter discussed in our presence.’

      ‘Very well, Your Highness,’ Bevyan said. ‘So be it.’

      In years past Dun Deverry had sheltered three times the men who lived there now. In its tangle of wards and towers stood many an empty building – sheds and stables, mostly, but in a small ward far from the King’s residence rose a deserted broch. Its lower floors stored arrows, stones, and poles for pushing siege-ladders off walls, but the top floor stood empty except for a stack of tanned hides, all stiff and crumbling from age. These Lilli and Brour hung over the windows until, after a lot of struggling and cursing, not a crack of sunlight gleamed.

      ‘Good,’ Brour said. ‘We don’t want anyone seeing our lantern and coming up here.’

      ‘How did you find this place?’

      ‘I’ve been searching for the bolthole for weeks, so I’ve been prying into all sorts of deserted places. I remembered this one when I decided to try a ritual.’

      ‘Do you think anyone else comes up here?’

      ‘There weren’t any tracks in the dust.’

      Lilli looked around the room – an ordinary sort of room for Dun Deverry, yet no one had been up here for years, if the dust and the cobwebs could be trusted.

      ‘I hope my mother doesn’t want me to scry this evening.’

      ‘She won’t,’ Brour said. ‘She told me she’d be attending upon the Queen again. Is somewhat wrong with Her Highness, do you know?’

      ‘I don’t, but I’ll wager it’s that fight in the great hall last night. Everyone is saying that the Queen’s honour was insulted, and no doubt she’s ever so upset.’

      ‘No doubt. Well, that should keep your mother nicely occupied, then.’

      ‘Truly.’ Lilli paused for a sneeze. ‘It’s so dusty up here! Will the Lords of Earth like that?’

      ‘I’ll sweep up a bit before we start. Now you’d best run along before someone misses you. I’ll go back later. We don’t want anyone seeing us come in together.’

      When Lilli returned to the royal broch, she found servants standing around gossiping about the insult to the Queen’s Fellowship, if not the Queen herself. During their afternoon of sewing, Bevyan seemed worried about the incident as well.

      ‘What’s causing the trouble,’ Bevyan said, ‘is having all these young hotheads packed in together, waiting for the summer’s fighting to start. The Regent needs to lead his men out soon.’

      ‘I don’t understand why he hasn’t already,’ Lilli said. ‘Do you, Bevva?’

      ‘Well, I don’t truly know, but Peddyc’s shared his guesses with me.’ Bevyan СКАЧАТЬ