Arillia’s gentle call summoned Elcon’s thoughts from the gray wasteland they wandered. The garden path they walked appealed to him more, for the vibrant garments of fall dressed the trees. A piquant breeze stirred the leaves and searched his collar as he bent his head to focus on her familiar face. “I’m sorry, Arillia. I have much on my mind.”
With a gloved hand she touched his face. “What a weight you bear, Elcon. I hope you will not let it overcome you.”
He captured her hand and carried it to his lips in a courtly gesture that brought a sparkle to her eyes. Tucking her arm into his own, he took her farther into the scented shade. She matched her steps to his and, when he paused, turned into his embrace. This time he kissed her in earnest, much as a thirsting man quenches the need for water. He drew away to look at her and caught his breath at her dewy skin, reddened lips, and pale oval lids. She opened her eyes, gasping a little, and he backed away, for honor’s sake.
She gave a slight smile. “That was not a goodbye.”
“It will have to serve as one, since you intend to leave me this day.”
She sent him a coquettish look. “You must find occasion to visit Chaeradon, Elcon.”
He sobered. “It will be some time before I can do that, Arillia.” He tucked her arm in his and strolled back along the path. “I depart tomorrow on a peace-making tour of the Elder lands.”
“Is that what so occupies your mind?” Jealousy tinged her tone.
“I’ll come to Chaeradon when I return, Arillia. I promise.”
A contented look settled over her face. “I’ll look forward to your return.”
They walked on in silence, but when he started toward the fountain where Kai waited, Arillia touched his arm and stopped him beneath a strongwood tree. “Wait. I’m not ready to go back. I need to know something, Elcon, and I want the truth.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Go on.”
She looked full into his eyes with shadow and light playing over her face. “Do you mean to court me?”
At her words, laughter shook him.
Horror crossed her face. She stumbled backwards, turned and ran.
Elcon recovered his wits and caught up to her. He took her by the shoulders, but she averted her face. “Forgive me, Arillia. I don’t laugh at the idea of courting you, just that you would ask such a question after…” He sent a look Kai’s direction and lowered his voice. “Do you think I would embrace or kiss you if I did not mean to honor you?”
Her face lit with sudden joy, and he flicked her tears away with his thumbs. “Stop weeping, dear one. I have a journey to make, but when I return, if you will have me, I’ll court you.”
She smiled and reached to place a kiss on his cheek. “Keep safe on your journey, Elcon. Remember, I await your return.”
He laughed at the satisfaction in her tone and pulled her into his embrace. “With that in mind, I’ll take even better care of myself.”
8
Desire
“Aewen.” Murial’s quiet summons cut through the morning.
Aewen gave a wry half-smile and stopped moving but did not turn back.
“Time to return, flitling. The household will awaken soon.”
That Murial named her after the tiny birds that flitted from bush to bush in freedom seemed more irony than she could bear. Her life had become a cage. Each day she spent as Raefe of Darksea’s betrothed showed her more clearly how unsuited they were for marriage. Did he see it, too? If he did, he gave no sign.
She could not fault his attentiveness, except that he scoffed at her need for quiet and called her “bookish” because she could read. He also informed her that wandering in nature was no proper occupation for a woman. “Leave that to the commoners.” She understood by his tone that he would not welcome a wife who tended “peasants.”
Aewen looked across the Cobbleford to the other shore just as a fawn emerged from the trees. She put out a hand to silence Murial, and the little creature’s ears flicked. She held her breath. The fawn reached down to drink. Tears stood in her eyes. When its head lifted and the delicate creature vanished into the underbrush, she barely saw it go. How could she bear it? Except for those tournaments and social gatherings he favored, Raefe meant to confine her indoors, away from nature’s beauty.
Murial touched her arm with a gentle hand, and a smile split her weathered face. Her maid seemed more fragile these days. She kept silence more and startled easily. The change in her made Aewen’s heart sink. She wished she could do something to ease Murial’s peace of mind, but could not even save her own, not with the wedding banns soon to be nailed outside the chapel door for all to see. To soothe her maid, Aewen attempted a weak smile that, when they started back, failed entirely.
Upon her return to the castle, garment fittings, discussions of jewelry, and hair stylings soon overtook Aewen. Mother at first included her in the excited discussions of fabrics and flowers and friends but, when she failed to respond, no longer consulted her. Aewen could summon only a lackluster interest in such things, whereas Caerla brought into the conversation all the enthusiasm a mother could want.
Raefe called for Aewen partway through the morning, and her mother, laughing, drove him off until after the midday meal. Mother seemed gay these days, almost as if she herself became a bride once more. Aewen, by contrast, sank deeper into gloom with each passing day.
That afternoon Raefe took Aewen and Caerla riding in his carriage and urged his driver to whip the horses until they bolted down the rutted track. Aewen shrank into a corner of the carriage, which rocked and jostled her so severely she nearly tumbled from the seat. Her white fingers gripped the elk-leather armrest as she fought the urge to vomit. She could not even enjoy the benefit of scenery since the red velvet curtains were drawn against the dust, although it entered anyway. She felt its effects in her stiffened hair and aching eyes. Caerla and Raefe seemed unaffected by these discomforts. When the carriage canted at what seemed an unsafe angle, they laughed out loud. Where Caerla found such an appetite for danger, Aewen did not know.
She was thankful when they arrived home. It took Murial a long time to wash the road dust from her hair and change her into clean garments for the evening meal. Aewen stared at her bed, longing to crawl into its comfort and forget the ordeal she’d just experienced. Soon she would find no refuge in her bed. Mother had explained physical duty to a husband as a distasteful burden she must learn to bear.
Aewen stood still and allowed Murial to fasten her new garments and untangle her hair. Protocol required she present herself in the great hall for the evening’s feast. She might contrive to slip away early, however.
She sat beside Raefe throughout the meal, smiling and commenting whenever politeness required, but for the most part ignoring him. His blue eyes sought hers repeatedly, as if he sensed the distance she placed between them, but she could not, after that frenzied ride today, manage anything more.
“You are quiet tonight.” Raefe refused to be ignored.
At the annoyance on his face, her irritation melted into remorse. The fault was hers. A man should find more of a welcome from his intended bride. Raefe was handsome, but he didn’t attract her. What would it be like to yearn for her bridegroom? The thought made her sigh, but she instantly regretted it. From the way Raefe’s eyes narrowed, the sound gave away more than she intended. “I am weary.” She shifted forward in her chair, and he grasped her wrist with a restraining hand, as if he guessed she meant to flee.
“They’re about to start. If the music pleases you, we’ll invite this troupe of minstrels to play for us at Trillilium.” The name of her future home, seat of Darksea, spoken by her betrothed, should have brought delight to her. She sighed again. How far she was from the bride he would want her to be.
Caerla leaned toward Raefe, her tawny eyes alight, and Aewen saw again her sister’s hidden beauty. “Another sort of entertainment will follow.” Excitement infused her voice. How Caerla could look forward to an evening’s entertainment after the battering in the carriage, Aewen had no idea. She hadn’t lied to Raefe. She could barely keep her eyes open. Still, for his sake she lingered. Minstrels strummed lutes and psalteries while timbrels and finger cymbals lent percussion. There was even a timpani, carried into the minstrel’s galley on the back of a brawny youth with deep brown hair. That particular minstrel struck her as a little strange, although she couldn’t decide why.
King Devlon, seated on Aewen’s other side, glanced across her to his son. “That one bears Kindren blood. They’d better watch the silver.”
“And the women.” Raefe’s laughter sounded course. “He’ll be a half-cast, probably a son of Ellendia.”
Aewen knew the story as well as any Elder maiden. The huntress Ellendia of Sloewood had fallen under the enchantment of a son of Rivenn who found her after she was thrown from her horse in the canyonlands. The Kindren were no more ready to accept her as an Elder than her own people would condone her marriage to a son of Rivenn. Aewen didn’t know all the details, but Selfred, one of the Kindren kingdoms, had formed when it divided from Glindenn as a result of the strife that followed. Ellendia and her husband had vanished together into the wilds of Dyloc Syldra to live hand-to-mouth, under constant threat from the garns who dwelt there.
Aewen stared at the minstrel with unabashed fascination. While he had the Kindren’s long eyes, his darker coloring was that of an Elder. Could he be a son of Ellendia?
He swung the timpani into place and boomed an accompaniment to “A Pirate’s Rolicking Tale.” Another minstrel stepped forward to sing, his bright voice threading the jaunty music.
Oh, I’ll away ‘cross the rolling sea
To an isle overlooked by all
But the lively men of Dead Man’s Key
Who never forget to call
Wandering ships into the lea
Of their hospitality
As verse after bantering verse enlivened the hall, Aewen’s exhaustion fell away, and she tapped her foot in time. Raefe, after ensuring she remained at his side, all but forgot her as he laughed with Caerla.
Now was her chance to escape. If she hurried, she could distribute leftover food to the poor when they gathered at the castle gatehouse. How she longed for her accustomed task and to hear news of little Caedmon. Had his wound healed? She hadn’t been able to keep her promise to check on him again. She made to rise from the table, but Raefe caught her wrist. “Stay with me.” His tone brooked no refusal.
A frisson of fear touched her. What did she really know of Raefe of Darksea?
She sat back down with her cheeks burning and rubbed the wrist he’d squeezed too tightly. Wood scraped as servants cleared the trestle tables from the floor below their dais, and a troop of acrobats ran in. They wore jerkins and leggings but kept their feet bare the better, she supposed, to perform their feats. The acrobats climbed on one another to form impossible towers. When they tumbled in a beautiful free fall, Aewen gasped with the others, but the acrobats landed on their feet.
Her weariness returned. When Raefe forgot her again in favor of Caerla, she managed to slip from his side at last. This time she did not murmur polite words in his ear but whispered instead to a servant she instructed to deliver her apologies to Raefe and her mother after she left. She sidled out of the hall by a servant’s door and followed the narrow passageway to the kitchen. Raefe might be angry to find her gone, but he should have let her go earlier. He didn’t own her, after all, at least not yet.
She descended worn wooden stairs illumined by wall-hung torches as voices drifted to her from below. She could put names to most of them. Maered, a dark-haired serving girl about half her own age, looked up from the rush baskets which held scraps of food and the trenchers of bread from which they’d eaten their meal. Maered smiled when she saw Aewen and held out one of the baskets from long habit.
Maered’s mother, Brianda, turned from scrubbing pots in a sink supplied with water piped into the kitchen from the Cobble River. “
Tsk
, girl! Don’t be disturbin’ the princess wi’ such.”
“Nonsense,” Aewen declared in robust tones as she laid hold of the basket. “I’ve come this night to tend the poor.”
Brianda gave her a hesitant look. “Are you certain, milady?”
Her heart sank. Why did Brianda address her with formality? And for that matter, why did the others gathered about the battered trestle table stare at her so?
She swept from the room, going up another flight of stairs made of equally worn wood. A small arched door gave onto the bailey and the side passage leading to the gatehouse.
“Who goes there?” The watchguard’s voice halted her.
“Let me pass, Lyriss. It’s only Aewen.”
From behind the portcullis above the watchtower, Lyriss gaped at her in surprise, and then broke into a toothy grin. “I thought to see you giving alms no more.”
“I will serve while I may.” She choked on her brave words but took a steadying breath. “Raise the portcullis so I and the others who will soon follow may distribute leftovers from the king’s table.”
Chains clanked as the portcullis raised with a groan. Outside the castle, the poor waited. She walked among them, not fearing these faces she knew. Her friends hailed her with gladness and without jostling stretched out thin hands to take the portions she gave. She smiled to herself. She’d taught them that, to consider one another even in their need.
She recognized the face of Jost, a weaver whose cottage stood just north of Willowa’s farm, and gave him the last trencher. “Do you have news of Caedmon? Does he heal?”
“Aye, he heals.” Jost delivered himself of this speech and bowed his head with a jerk, acting as strange as had those inside the kitchen. She swallowed against a lump in her throat. When had she become someone else?
Movement caught her eye. At the edge of the torchlight pranced a black horse with wings—a creature of surpassing beauty bearing a Kindren youth with fair hair tinged red in the torchlight from the guardhouse. She took a step toward him but halted, speechless.