Which should not really have surprised them. Because of the nature of appointments to the queen's household, faces came and went, some girls staying only for a season, with many a nubile young lass coming from as far afield as Carthmoor, Marley, and Rhendall in search of suitable husbands — a crusade whose excitement was usually shared by all the younger members of the royal household, often in the form of new wardrobes.
Perhaps because neither of the demoiselles de Corwyn yet entertained aspirations of matrimony for themselves — and had an unmarried brother who was the very eligible future Duke of Corwyn — most of the girls now serving in the queen's household rose eagerly to this latest challenge, bending their efforts to the assembly of suitable gowns. Some of the garments were made afresh, a few gleaned from others' coffers, but the result was a modest wardrobe for each in the allotted time.
Among the instigators of this energy and largesse was a baron's daughter from Cassan, called Elaine MacInnis, some two years younger than they, whose cheerfulness and sense of style had already made her the petted favorite of most of the older women.
«It's a pity that you must wear black for a while», Elaine said to Alyce, as she and Lady Megory, one of the queen's permanent household, adjusted the hem on one of the new gowns taking shape in the hands of the sempstresses. «But we've given you something else for Christmas and Twelfth Night at Cynfyn. It's almost black — a very deep green — but it will have rather nice embroidery at the neck. If we get that part done, of course. Lady Jessamy is working the pattern».
Elaine's good nature was contagious, and Alyce soon found herself relaxing a little — which, in turn, seemed to enable others in the royal household to relax as well. This boded well for the future, if the goodwill persisted when they returned from Cynfyn.
In the meantime, she and Marie spent many an hour starting to settle into other aspects of life at Rhemuth: making the closer acquaintance of the children, exploring the castle's corridors, daring occasional forays into the royal library and scriptorium, and praying daily for Ahern's safe return. Later, they would look back on those days as a welcome interlude of ordinary contentment, temporary respite from the renewed sorrow to come.
Chapter 14
«Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father».[15]
It was early December when the bodies of the slain came back to Rhemuth, with the first snows powdering the rooftops and gusting down off the plains north of the city. For those whose loved ones had resided at the capital, that essentially would be an end to it, as their families laid them to rest from the churches where they had worshipped in life. For Keryell, there still remained the final journey home, and for his son and heir, the uncertainty of his own future.
Duke Richard and Seisyll Arilan rode at the head of the cortege, and retired immediately with the king, to give him an update on the situation in Meara. Most of the Haldane lancers had remained in Ratharkin with Earl Jared, in case he needed assistance in the immediate aftermath of what had happened there, but with winter setting in, it was unlikely that any serious trouble would erupt again until the following summer. The Dukes of Cassan and Claibourne had returned to their lands with their troops, and remained on alert, but they, too, would be locked down against any serious campaign until the weather eased late in the spring.
For Alyce and Marie, the reunion with their brother was tearful but joyous. Young Ahern had survived the initial crisis of his wound, despite his insistence on being moved, and thus far had even kept his leg; but he was exhausted and in great pain by the time he arrived in Rhemuth with the baggage train that brought the bodies. To everyone's great relief, the surgeons now predicted that amputation probably could be avoided, but the shattered knee would heal stiff and unbending. That was better, by far, than losing the leg, but he was well aware that his injury probably had put paid to any career as a warrior or, indeed, for any other activity requiring great mobility. Whether he would even ride a horse again remained another question yet to be answered.
Fortunately, Ahern possessed a keen mind and varied interests, as had many an earl and duke before him, and had received a solid grounding in the administrative skills necessary to his rank — and owned the distinction of belonging to the only ducal family in which his Deryni bloodline was at least tolerated. He also possessed a precocious grasp of military strategy that had already brought him to the attention of both the king and Duke Richard — acumen that, once he was fully recovered, might still enable him to make useful contributions as a tactician.
But few could see much trace of that promise in the gaunt, white-faced youth strapped to the horse-litter that Master Donnard led into the castle yard that bleak December day, shivering with fever and with splinted leg aching and rattled from the journey overland from Meara. And though his sisters bore up bravely at the sight of the shrouded bundle that was their father's body, wrapped in the red and white banner of his arms and escorted by Sé Trelawney and Jovett Chandos, it was Ahern for whom they now wept, for he scarcely knew them as they came to shower him with relieved kisses, so racked was he by fever.
Torn between duty to the living and the dead, Alyce delegated Marie and Se to go with Master Donnard and the king's own physician to see their brother settled into quarters in the castle. Meanwhile, she and Jovett accompanied her father's body to the chapel royal, where Father Paschal and the royal chaplains would keep watch through the night.
But they remained there only long enough for the obligatory prayers proper on receiving a body at the church before retiring to Ahern's bedside. There she and Marie kept tearful company beside him until he slid at last into merciful sleep, eased past pain by the physician's medicines but also helped along, when he slept at last, by Alyce's Deryni touch. The two of them stayed beside him — praying, hoping — until Jessamy finally insisted that they go to bed.
The following day, the king and queen and all the court of Gwynedd attended the Mass offered by Father Paschal for the soul of Keryell Earl of Lendour — in the chapel royal rather than Rhemuth Cathedral or even the basilica within the walls of Rhemuth Castle, for Ahern was insistent that he be allowed to stand upright before his father's coffin, braced on crutches and supported by the two young knights who had brought him from Ratharkin. His sisters stood to either side, gowned and veiled in black, and managed not to shed a tear where anyone could see.
Prince Richard Duke of Carthmoor led the cortege that set out the following morning for the Lendouri capital of Cynfyn, where Earl Keryell would be laid to rest with his ancestors. In addition to an honor guard of Haldane lancers, King Donal had sent along half a dozen of his senior knights to remain in Cynfyn and assist its seneschal in setting up the council that would advise the new Earl Ahern until he came of age, still ten years hence. The late earl's chaplain, Father Paschal, was also in the party, along with the sisters of the new earl, several of the queen's ladies as chaperones, assorted domestic servants, and the two young knights who had accompanied Keryell from Ratharkin.
During the week-long journey across the great plain east of Rhemuth, the two girls took turns keeping Ahern company, one sharing the wagon where he lay with his splinted leg pillowed and stretched before him, the other riding elsewhere in the party. Alyce made a point of varying her position in the cavalcade, riding sometime with the other ladies or Father Paschal and sometimes even at Duke Richard's side, but Marie, more often than not, could be found beside Sir Sé Trelawney.