Romilly said in shock, “But need you have another so soon? I should think two in three years was enough.”
Darissa shrugged and smiled. “Oh, well, it is the way of things – this one I think I will feed at my own breast and not put out to nurse, and perhaps I will not get with child again this year. I love my little ones, but I think three is enough for a time.”
“It would be more than enough for me for a lifetime,” said Romilly vigorously, and Darissa laughed. “So say we all when we are young girls. Lord Scathfell is pleased with me because I have already given them two sons, and I hope this one is a daughter; I would like a little girl – later I will take you to see my babies; they are pretty children, little Gareth has red hair; maybe he will have laran, a magician for the Towers.”
“Would you want him to-” Romilly murmured, and Darissa laughed. “Oh, yes, Tramontana Tower would be ready to take him, the Aldarans are Hastur-kin from away back before the Hundred Kingdoms, and they have old ties with Tramontana.” She lowered her voice. “Have you truly no news of Ruyven? Did your father really disown him?”
Romilly nodded, and Darissa’s eyes widened; she and Ruyven had played together as children, too.
“I remember, one year at Midsummer, he sent me a Festival-basket,” she said, “and I wore the sprig of golden-flower he sent me; but at the end of that Festival, Father betrothed me to Cathal, and we have been happy enough, and now there are our children – but I think kindly of Ruyven, and I would gladly have been your sister, Romilly. Do you think The MacAran will give you to Cinhil if he should ask? Then should we be sisters indeed.”
“I do not dislike Cinhil,” Romilly said, but inwardly she shrank away; three years from now, then, would she be like Darissa, grown fat and short of breath, her skin blotched and her body misshapen from breeding? “The one good thing about such a marriage would be, it would bring me close to you,” she said truthfully, “but I see no haste to marry; and Luciella says, fifteen is too young to settle down; she would as soon not have us betrothed till we are seventeen or more. One does not breed a good bitch in her first heat.”
“Oh, Romilly,” Darissa said, blushing, and they giggled together like children.
“Well, enjoy the dancing while you can, for your dancing days will be over soon,” Darissa said. “Look, there is Darren’s friend from the monastery – he looks like a monk in his dark suit; is he one of the brethren, then?”
Romilly shook her head. “I know not who he is, only that he is a friend of Darren’s and of the Castamir clan,” she said, and kept her suspicions to herself. Darissa said, “Castamir is a Hastur clan! I wonder he will come here freely – they held by the old king, I heard. Does your father hold to Carolin, or support the new king?”
“I do not think Father knows or cares, one king or another,” said Romilly, but before she could say more, Alderic stood beside them.
“Mistress Romilly? It is a set dance – will you partner me?”
“Do you mind being left alone, Darissa?”
“No, there is Cathal; I will ask him to fetch me a glass of wine,” Darissa said, and Romilly let Alderic draw her into the forming set, six couples – although one of them was Rael and Jessamy Storn who was eleven, and half a head taller than her partner. They faced one another, and Darren and Jeralda Storn, at the head of the line, led off, taking hands, circling each couple in the complex figures of the dance. When it came Alderic’s turn she reached confidently for his hands; they were square, hard and warm, not the soft hands of a scholar at all, but calloused and strong like a swordsman’s. An unlikely monk, indeed, she thought, and put her mind to the intricacies of the dance, which at the end of the figure put her opposite Darren, and then opposite her brother Rael. When the set brought her briefly into partnership, crossing hands and circling with Cinhil, he squeezed her hand and smiled, but she cast her eyes down and did not return the smile. So Lord Scathfell thought to marry her to Cinhil this year, so she could be fat and swollen with baby after baby like Darissa? Not likely! Some day, she supposed, she would have to be married, but not to this raw boy, if she could help it! Her father was not so much in awe of the Aldaran Lords as that, and besides, it was only Aldaran of Scathfell, not Aldaran of Castle Aldaran. Scathfell was the richest and most influential of their neighbors, but The MacAran had been an independent landholder since, she had heard, before the raising of Caer Donn city!