C. Dale Brittain by Voima Page A

make up for the last ten years.
    Here were no cupboard beds, and she could hear the sound of no one else’s breathing.   The horsehair mattress felt hard and awkward to someone who had slept for years on rye straw.   Her pillow was small, not the large pillow stuffed with goose down she had plucked herself.   Though one wall of the room backed up to the fireplace in the royal chamber, she had no fire, no coals to wink at her in the dark.
    She thought over what Queen Arane had said that afternoon, and as she considered it King Hadros’s castle seemed simple, comfortable, even welcoming.   The faeys, she remembered, had told her that queens had to deal with upsetting things every day.
    And without the fogged perception through which she had gone the last ten days, she could also think about Roric clearly.   She had not been able to ask him—and now perhaps never would—if he knew why the Wanderers wanted him.   Hadros had spoken truly that the Wanderers did not appear to mortals except in the oldest tales.   Even if the faeys were right, the housecarls’ story—which had taken on additional wild embellishments each time it was told—was not the story of a Wanderer.
    What could a mortal do against beings like that, armed only with his own strength and a little bone charm?   And where could he possibly be now?   But Roric was indubitably gone, and since he had been gone for days already without a word, he might well be gone forever.
    Suppose she was carrying his child?   She had not really considered the matter before—first they had assumed they would soon be wed, and then she had been too worried for his safety, even before her life had passed into a fevered dream.   But she had thought of it when Hadros told her father she was coming home a pure maiden.   Would her father reopen the war himself if her waist began to thicken?
    She put her hands on her stomach.   It felt the same as it always did, except perhaps a little uneasy.   But even worse might be to lose Roric and not even have his child.
    And in the meantime, what could she possibly do with herself tomorrow morning?   She could not relieve her tension with weaving, would not have the milking and churning and brewing and sewing to keep her stepping.   She put an arm across her eyes and gritted her teeth, homesick as she had not been since she left this very castle.
     
    3
    Valmar slipped away from the All-Gemot.
    He had often attended the royal Gemot back home, held four times a year, but he had expected the conclave of the Fifty Kings to be different.   To his disappointment, the proceedings within the cords that marked the Gemot-field were very similar, whether accusations were made, sworn testimony given, or evidence—a bloodstained cloak or a sealed agreement—handed around.
    The only markedly different aspect had come at the very beginning, when the two kings new since the last All-Gemot stood forward and announced their rule, and those kings who had brought their heirs with them for the first time introduced them to the rest.   King Hadros introduced Valmar, and Karin’s father showed her to all the other kings.   Several of the younger ones, and several of the older ones whose heirs were reaching marriageable age, made low and appreciative comments that made Valmar frown as though they had been insults.   She wore a heavy gold brocade gown slightly too big for her, and she seemed not to see him or anyone else.   Once introduced, she returned to the castle with the maids and warriors who accompanied her.
    But after that the All-Gemot was very much like the quarterly Gemots Valmar knew.   Karin’s father, King Kardan, presided, as Valmar’s father presided at home.   Even though the Gemot began at dawn, when everyone was sober and most men still sluggish, there was the normal arguing and shouting.   Men leaped at each other, reaching where their swords should be except that no one was allowed weapons within the cords, and were