I happen to honestly love your sister, not just her lands!”
“I know. Why do you think I’m offering her to you?”
He tossed his head back and laughed, as bright as the sun breaking through storm clouds.
“Never did I think I’d have a chance to marry her. Taking the Wolf’s name and the Wolf’s feud seem a cursed small price to pay.”
Gwetmar escorted her down to the great hall. In the curve of the wall stood a long dais, where the king and the noble-born ate their meals. Although Glyn was nowhere to be seen, a number of lords were already sitting at table, drinking ale while they listened to a bard play. Gweniver and Gwetmar sat down with Lord Maemyc, an older man who’d known Gweniver’s father well. He stroked his gray mustaches and looked her over sadly, but to her relief he said not a word about the road she’d chosen to ride. Now that the king had given his approval, no one would dare question her choice.
The talk turned inevitably to the summer’s fighting ahead. Things promised to be slow. After the bloody campaigns of the last few years, Cerrmor simply didn’t have enough men to besiege Dun Deverry, nor did Cantrae have enough to make a real strike at Cerrmor.
“A lot of skirmishing ahead, if you ask me,” Maemyc pronounced. “And maybe one good strike north to avenge the Stag and Wolf clans.”
“A quick couple of raids and little else,” Gwetmar agreed. “But, then, there’s Eldidd to worry about on the western border.”
“Just so.” He glanced at Gweniver. “He’s been getting bolder and bolder, raiding in deep to bleed both us and Cantrae. I’ll wager he holds back his full force until we’re both worn down.”
“I see. It sounds reasonable, truly.”
On the far side of the dais there was a bustle at the small door that led to the king’s private stairway. Two pages knelt ceremoniously while a third swung the door open wide. Expecting the king, Gweniver got ready to rise, but another man came through and paused to look over the assembled company. Blond and blue-eyed, he looked much like Glyn, but he was slender where the king was heavyset. His long swordsman’s arms were crossed tight over his chest as he watched the lords with narrowed, contemptuous eyes.
“Who’s that?” Gweniver whispered. “I thought the king’s brother was dead.”
“His true brother is,” Gwetmar said. “That’s Dannyn, one of the old gwerbret’s bastards, the only lad among the lot. The king favors him highly, though, and made him captain of his personal guard. After you see him fight, you can’t begrudge him his birth. He swings a sword like a god, not a man.”
His thumbs hooked into his sword belt, Dannyn strolled over, gave Gwetmar a pleasant if distant nod, then looked Gweniver over. The yokes of his shirt sported embroidered ship blazons, the ship of Cerrmor, but all down the sleeves ran a device of striking falcons.
“So,” he said at last, “you’re the priestess who thinks she’s a warrior, are you?”
“I am. And I suppose you’re a man who thinks he can tell me otherwise.”
Dannyn sat down beside her and turned to slouch against the table. When he spoke, he looked out over the hall instead of at her.
“What makes you think you can swing a sword?” he said.
“Ask my men. I never boast about myself.”
“I already spoke with Ricyn. He had the gall to tell me that you go berserk.”
“I do. Are you going to call me a liar?”
“It’s not my place to call you anything. The king ordered me to take you and your men into his guard, and I do what he says.”
“And so do I.”
“From now on you do what I say. Understand me, lass?”
With a flick of her wrist, Gweniver dumped the contents of her tankard full into his face. As the lords at table gasped and swore, she swung herself free and rose, staring at Dannyn, who looked up, as cold as winter ice, and let the ale run down his face unnoticed.
“Listen, you,” she said. “You’re a son of a bitch, sure enough, but I’m the daughter of a Wolf. If you want to test my skill so badly, then come outside.”
“Listen to you. Feisty little wench, aren’t you?”
She slapped him across the face so hard that he reeled back.
“No man calls me a wench.”
The great hall turned dead silent as everyone in it, from page to noble lord, turned to watch.
“You forget to whom you speak,” she went on. “Or are you blind and unable to see the tattoo on my face?”
Slowly Dannyn raised his hand to his cheek and rubbed the slap, but his eyes never left hers. They were cold, deep, and frightening in their intensity.
“Will my lady accept my apology?”
When he knelt at her feet, the entire hall gasped with a sound like sea waves.
“I’m most truly sorry I insulted you, Your Holiness. Truly, a madness must have taken my heart. If any man dares call you a wench again, then they’ll have to answer to my sword.”
“My thanks. Then I forgive you.”
With a small smile Dannyn rose and wiped his ale-sopped face on his shirtsleeve, but still he looked at her. For the briefest of moments she was sorry that she’d sworn the vow of chastity. His fluid way of moving, his easy stance, his very arrogance struck her as beautiful, as strong and clean as the cut of a sword blade in the sun. When she remembered the dark eyes of the Goddess, the regret passed.
“Tell me somewhat,” he said. “Do you ride at the head of your warband?”
“I do. I’d rather die than have it said of me that I lead my men from the rear.”
“I expected no less.”
Dannyn bowed, then walked slowly and arrogantly through the lords to the door. Once it shut behind him, the hall burst into a rustle of whispers.
“Ye gods!” Gwetmar wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I truly thought your last hour had come. You’re the only person in the kingdom who’s crossed Dannyn and lived five beats of a heart longer.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Gweniver said. “He’s got more sense than to injure a sworn priestess of the Moon.”
“Hah!” Maemyc snorted. “Dannyn does his killing first and his thinking afterward.”
It was some time later that a page came to Gweniver and told her that the king wished to speak with her privately. Mindful of the enormous honor being paid her, she followed him up to the second floor of the main broch, where Glyn had a suite of apartments furnished with carved chairs and tables, hung with tapestries, and carpeted with fine Bardek weaving. The king was standing at a hearth of pale sandstone, carved with ships and interlacements. When she knelt before him, he bade her rise.
“I
