Kerr, Katherine - Deverry 10 by Kerr Katherine

Author:Kerr, Katherine
Language: eng
Format: epub

'Splendid!' Bellyra sat up straight again. 'When shall we leave? On the morrow?'

'I think me that might be too soon,' Elyssa said, judging from what Tammael told me. But after a pair of nights, surely.'

'Thank the Goddess!'

Bellyra got up and walked to the window to lean upon the sill. Down below she could see the polished ward of the dun and its beautiful stonework. She'd miss it, she supposed, but then, to her anywhere her husband might be was the most beautiful place in the world. Not long now, she told herself, and you'll see him. She wondered if he would pretend to be glad that she'd arrived.

In the end they did take two barges with them to Dun Deverry, thanks to the taxes due Maryn as Gwerbret Cerrmor and the servants due to Bellyra as his wife. What with the nursemaids, the children, the scribes and the maids of her chamber, she travelled in a crowd. As for the taxes, live hogs, live chickens, the food to feed them on, plus sacks of meal, salt fish, dried beef, apples, cabbages and cheeses made up Maryn's dues from the farmers of his rhan, and the city folk owed him tanned leathers, lengths of cloth, refined salt, baskets, ceramic pots and barrels of ale. A few merchants, those who held the charters to trade with Bardek, paid in silver coins, carefully weighed as well as counted and wrapped in bits of fine cloth. All of it needed hauling upriver along with the princess, her women, and their furnishings. Each barge was so laden that the bargemen hitched up a foursome of heavy horses instead of a pair to pull each barge.

'I feel like the richest farm wife in the world, 'Bellyra said. 'Those are fine pigs, aren't they? And we have eggs to offer you as well, bard.'

Maddyn laughed. Along with the serving women they were standing on the river pier up at what was then the village of Dai Aver, where they were waiting for the servant girls to finish stowing the baggage. Their barge would travel first, of course, upwind from the livestock. Behind them in the road the silver daggers waited, each man standing beside his horse, or in a few cases, beside two horses. The escort would lead the women's palfreys, ready for the last few miles to Dun Deverry, when the river road grew too steep for the barge horses. A parade of carts would meet them to carry the furnishings and goods. Bellyra glanced at the cloudy sky.

'I hope the weather holds,' the princess said. 'It's going to take us long enough to get there as it is.'

'At least you'll have shelter on the barge, your highness,' Maddyn said. 'But I wish the prince had summoned you before this. Summer's all but gone.'

'So it is. I had rather hoped to be summoned before this as well.'

Maddyn winced.

'My apologies,' Bellyra said. 'With half the folk in the kingdom starved and turned out of their homes, I've no call to be pitying myself.

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