Sorrow and Song: Part 3 | Starlight Under Clouds

Chapter XI

"Why?"

Mordred looked at the heap of garments piled across the bed in the way he might have eyed an off-color catch of fish in market.

Berethar, already clad in the embroidered tunic and gartered leggings, raised his brows slightly. "It is the king's wish that we do not appear at his table this evening with the smell and tatters of beggars."

"And I suppose when my own clothes are washed, I shall be able to go back to wearing them?"

"Mordred." Berethar's heavy hand descended on his shoulder. "Put the attire on."

Mordred's nose twitched as he gathered up the armful of cloth. "I shall look ridiculous," he muttered as the last word.

They were late joining supper in the long common-hall below the ground level; King Cyhado himself had delayed his attendance in order to give them audience, and he was still eating at the center of the long table.

Mordred looked around for indication of where they should sit; there was no room near the king, but more tables lined the walls in an open-ended square, and Mordred, with a questioning glance at Berethar, struck out towards one largely unoccupied.

As he settled himself, a servant approached them both and began filling their cups with some dark, faintly aromatic liquor. "Echerag Castle welcomes you, llythydef," he said. He was young, his beard wispy and sticking to itself with sweat.

"We thank you," answered Mordred with a smile.

"I am Arbhan," continued the young man with a frank air of comradeship and extended his hand. "Arbhan dimmur-Cythlan, gúlf-Myrdí."

Mordred studied it a moment, and said politely, "If I were an ordinary ambassador – or should I say llythyda? – I should know what to do, but I confess I do not know what–"

Berethar leaned over and grasped Arbhan's forearm in a brief, sturdy clasp. "Berethar dimmur-Cirnac, bharoc-Hylfher, gúlf-Mycraí," he said.

"Hylfher? That is not a house name I know." Arbhan sat down comfortably beside them, crossing one leg over his knee. "Have your kin dwelt away for a long time?"

"It has been a long time. And there are few of us left – perhaps only my own household. But we have returned, from time to time, to seek wives from our own people."

"There are not many of the Myrdí left, either," said Arbhan with sudden gravity. "But now, I think have heard of your line after all – the wandering house, are you not?"

Berethar nodded briefly. "Dúlhythr the Wanderer is the first named in our genealogies, though there were others before him."

"So have you indeed come yourself for a wife? For I think the thing has not happened for some generations now."

"I am already wedded."

Arbhan seemed turned aside by none of Berethar's curt, if civil, rejoinders, and the young man continued making pleasant conversation with them as the meal progressed. At one juncture, he took up a third, half-empty plate from nearby and began himself to eat.

Halfway across the room, the king's central table was still humming gently with sound and laughter. A woman sat there on his left hand, clad in white that stood out starkly against the wealth of brilliant dark hair waving over her shoulders.

As a harp lifted up glassy, tumbling notes over the settling noise, uplifted by the low swell of some pipe, she stood up and rested her hand on the squared corner-post of the king's chair – a discreet, possessive gesture. She moved as though she might command an army or offer a cup to a weary traveler with equal familiarity and grace. Something glittered around her neck, echoing the firelight caught deeply in her hair, something Mordred thought was shaped like a sickle.