Page 12 of Touched By Maen Llia
“The wine is not to my taste. Too sour. Although that was to be my question.”
“You would prefer my senses dulled?”
“Why do you require sharp senses? This is an evening of merriment, is it not?”
Catrin pressed her lips together. It thinned her cheeks and made her cheekbones seem even higher and prouder. Her flesh was so pale it seemed he could peer through it. “It shouldnotbe such,” she admitted. “But the entire palace is against me there, especially since Prince Merlin and your company arrived. They would not be deprived of a chance to catch the eye of a soldier.” Her expressive mouth turned down. The lips were full, rounded. “I have heard at least once already about Lancelot’s prowess with a sword, and Gawaine’s fierceness on the battlefield. Of Cai’s enormous strength, the beauty of Guinevere and…” Her lips thinned even more, pressed into a straight line of disparagement. “…and the wonderous gowns!” She made a fluttering motion with her hand, as if she was fanning herself.
Marcus grinned. He’d seen more than one maiden make such a gesture, tonight. “But you do not preen so, for you have no wish to live in Camelot. I remember.”
She shook her head. “Only the most marvelous people live in Camelot, and I am not one of them. I am neither a princess, nor a lady.”
Marcus hesitated. “Then you really do sit at this table because you are…” He paused delicately.
She frowned.
“There is a bastard’s table in the great hall at Camelot,” Marcus said. “But it is merely a table for those who have no other family members at court to sit with at a table of their own.”
“That, too, is true of me,” Catrin said, her voice low. Her gaze settled on the nearly untouched platter in front of her. “No one knows who my father was. My mother was Queen Eira’s favourite handmaid, and when she died, the Queen made me her maid in my mother’s place. If not for Eira, I would have no place at all. Not here, nor anywhere else.”
Yet her chin came up, and her gaze met his, as if she dared Marcus to denigrate her simple origins.
Marcus tried to imagine what it would be like, to wonder who his father was. It was near impossible to encompass what that lack of knowledge might be like, how it might affect one’s life, as it clearly affected Catrin’s. His parents were simple folk, too, but they both could reckon their ancestors back more than four generations, and were proud of that heritage. So was he. “I have never before considered what it might be like to be a bastard,” he admitted. “In Camelot, only the table is endowed with the name. Those who sit at it are as much a part of the court as any of the kings and Queens who sit at the other tables.”
Catrin’s eyes widened a fraction. “I did not realize that the tales of King Arthur welcoming anyone who has proved their worth were actually true.”
“They are true,” Marcus said gravely.
“If only they were true of Dyfed, too,” she said softly, her gaze upon her plate once more.
Marcus could find no response to that. If he agreed, then he would be denigrating the kingdom which hosted and fed him this night. If he did not agree, he might offend her. The silence stretched.
He noticed the full cup of wine once more. “You were about to explain to me why you do not drink tonight—a reason I think you do not want to share with the rest of the palace?”
Catrin’s crystalline gaze shifted to his face. Then she gripped her thin fingers together in front of the platter. “You will not believe me.”
“I believe the truth behind stories. Perhaps I will believe yours.”
Her mouth quirked. Then her amusement faded. She glanced to either side of them, looking for eavesdroppers. The tables were close together—he could have reached out and rested his elbow upon the one beside him—but the diners were fully occupied with their own raucous conversations, and with drinking as much as possible while the wine flowed easily, and the company was good. Voices raised around them. Fists thumped tables with delight. Cups, too.
Marcus leaned forward instinctively, to hear every word Catrin spoke.
“The wine is black,” she said, her voice very low. “When I look into it, that is all I see. I cannot bring myself to even sip it.”
Marcus studied the winecup before her. It was three-quarters filled with the thin, sour wine that had been served to all this night, and looked no different than the wine sitting in his cup, back at the table where he had eaten.
He cast about for a response, but Catrin saved him from answering, by adding in a rush of words, “Besides, it is not really the solstice. Drinking tonight, instead of tomorrow night…it seems chancy to me. Perhaps the gods will be offended because we are not observing the proper day.”
“It isn’t mid-summer?” Marcus repeated. “But surely your druid has calculated the proper day…” He broke off, unsure of what to say. No one in Camelot had ever disputed those who decreed the feast days. One of those experts was Prince Merlin. The idea of challenging Merlin’s opinion made the hairs on the back of Marcus’ neck try to stand up, and sent a shiver down his back. “How can you know it is not the solstice?” he added. “The druids are the ones who know such things.”
“Not only the druids,” Catrin said simply. Her gaze swung back to him once more. She was measuring him. “You truly prefer truth, Marcus Yorath?”
Did he? Even yesterday, he might have said he liked the congeniality of the court at Camelot, even if he was not sure he could name the people there friends. Not even Bryn, who had made no attempt to sit near Marcus tonight, but was instead chatting with one of the ladies, his head close to hers and his knee even closer.
Marcus wove his fingers together and put his hands on the table just as she was holding hers. “I prefer the truth,” he confirmed flatly.
Catrin looked around the room once more. Her gaze came back to him. “Then come with me and I will show you the truth.”
VII
