Brandewyne, Rebecca Read Free Page A

the notion of the Northmen's descending upon the kingdom
of Usk. There was no one to whom Rhowenna could turn.
    Sighing
heavily, she rose, deeply distressed and knowing, as well, that for her
tardiness this day, she would be rebuked by her mother. After washing her face
and hands in the icy water of her bronze basin, she stripped off her nightgown
to don a workaday dress of plain, undyed wool. She had just finished dressing
when Enid appeared in the doorway, with a cup of milk, a bowl of thick porridge,
and a cake of laverbread that had been fried in pork fat and spread generously
with honey, all of which she had kindly saved for her mistress from the morning
meal. As Rhowenna sat down upon a low stool to eat, Enid took up a comb
of fine, carved horn and began to work the snarls from Rhowenna's long hair and
to plait it into a single braid tied with a simple thong. Mistress and maid had
been together since childhood, so it was a familiar morning ritual they shared,
most often with companionable talk and laughter. Today, however, Rhowenna, lost
in her disheartening reverie, was inclined toward silence; and Enid, sensing
this, said little, although, once, she did remark that Rhowenna looked tired,
even ill, and then quietly fussed over her more than was usual.
    As
she gazed at her reflection in her polished bronze mirror, Rhowenna agreed with
Enid's assessment of her appearance. Her face was drawn and wan, and beneath
her eyes, crescent smudges of mauve shone dark against her milk-white skin. She
resembled the witch Father Cadwyr would surely name her if he learned of her
dream, she thought dully; for her heavy mass of knee-length hair was as black
and shimmering as a raven's rain-soaked wing, and her eyes were startling, a
strange, crystalline violet in color, like amethysts, and slanted and heavily
fringed with sooty lashes. No one in Usk had eyes like hers, and because of
that, there were many who believed her fey, a changeling, and made the ancient
sign against evil when she passed by. Should he be given a reason to
condemn her, Rhowenna knew that Father Cadwyr would have no difficulty in
finding supporters for his cause.
    She
had never liked the priest. His black eyes burned like hot coals when he looked
at her, and she saw in his fervid glance a licking flame of covetous desire
that did not belong in the eyes of a celibate, a man devoted to the work of the
Christ. In the village, she had heard rumors that Father Cadwyr lay with women,
for which he despised and condemned them bitterly, and flagellated himself
mercilessly afterward. But if such were true, he was careful to conceal his
sins and always showed an appropriately pious face to her father. Still,
Rhowenna mistrusted him.
    Yet
there were those, too, who thought her beautiful and who loved her well. Her
kinsman Gwydion was one of these. She trembled whenever she thought of him— and
she thought of him often these days; for if there were other men who looked
with favor upon her, Rhowenna did not see them. She saw only Gwydion— tall, as
dark as bronze, as lithe as a sapling, his young body as graceful and swift and
hard as an arrow on the fly, his hair as black as her own, his eyes as grey as
the mist, as the Great Sea. In Gwydion as in Rhowenna herself, the blood of the
Picti and of the Tribes was strong and marked. Perhaps that was why she was so drawn
to him. She had known him all her life; yet it was not until they each had
stepped over the threshold of adulthood that she had come to regard him with
more than just sisterly affection.
    At
age ten, Gwydion had been fostered to one of her father's earls, and Rhowenna
had seen him only rarely until the day when, his training completed, he had
returned home. A boy when he had gone away, he had come back a man— no longer
merely her kinsman, her childhood playmate and friend, but a stranger, in ways
that had excited and intrigued her. The touch of his hand upon hers had scalded
her. Even now at the memory, heat rose