by Sandra Elsa
Conall smiled at him. Bella quickly realized without the mindtouch, reassuring him that this was a smile of greeting, Torel would be quite sure that the two hundred fifty pounds of snarling animal was about to tear his throat out.
“You’d better reassure him,” Conall thought at her, “his mind is panicking; I can’t make anything out of it.”
“Well maybe if you’d stop smiling he’d relax,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve told you before how unsettling your smiles are.”
“Sorry,” he thought back, “I must make do with what I’ve been given. I’m sorry that I frightened him.”
“Well, we’ll see who’s laughing when I decide to eat the supper I brought for him,” Captain Torel said.
That stopped Bella. She had forgotten to bring the meal for Conall. It had slipped her mind. With a chagrined look, she told Conall, “He’s got us there. I was so busy I forgot.”
“If he has food, I guess he’s alright,” Conall told her.
With a smile she relayed this to Torel.
“Then I guess we’d better get him fed.” Speaking directly to Conall he continued, “I didn’t know exactly what you ate. I rather thought meat since you have lived a long time as a wolf, but I also brought some roots and vegetables. I thought maybe other types of food would still appeal to you as having once been human. If not, perhaps food or other familiar items would enable you to bring back memories of who you once were.”
“There are some roots I've eaten through the years if there wasn’t any carrion. They were sufficient to sustain me, but this form weakened if I ate them exclusively for long periods of time.” He paused briefly in his thoughts, “You didn’t tell him that I'm unable to kill, have you?”
Resting a hand reassuringly on his head she thought to him, “No, the least number of people who know that, the safer you will be. Your appearance is fearsome--I suppose we should play on that. Will you let other members of the Guard see you?”
“Yes, by all means. I feel at home here, such as I have not felt in a good many years. If the gate guards are an example of the discipline this man instills in his troops, they should all be trustworthy. The more people I can interact with, the better the chance I can remember myself.”
When they were in close proximity to each other, speaking mind to mind was effortless and took less time than carrying on a normal conversation so Torel was surprised when she turned to him and said, “He appreciates the offerings and would like to try them all.”
“You can speak to him without going into a trance?” he asked in awe. “Our best wizards cannot speak with another mind without going into trance. Just how talented are you, Miss Bella?”
Taking a page from Johann’s book, she downplayed her abilities. “I’m not that talented, I just have a great connection with Conall for some reason I can’t explain. It’s very much like having one mind split between two bodies. This is none of my doing, it simply is.”
“Liar,” she heard. “Without the incredible amount of talent you contain I would still be in the mountains up north. I've tried to reach many talented minds as they passed through my small area of the world. In fact I tried to reach Graybeard earlier the same night I first spoke to you, while he stood guard. Not only could he not hear me, he didn't notice me, and he contains a great deal of power within him.”
“If I had anything to do with it I do not know what. At that time, the most magic I knew was Healing, and I fail to see how that relates to mind speech with a wolf.”
The reply she got sounded somewhat saddened, perhaps at her obtuseness. “If ever there was a body in need of Healing it is mine. Perhaps it was that very skill as a Healer that opened your mind to mine. I would give nearly anything to have my life returned to me so I could live it’s brief span and die as everybody else.”
This gave her plenty to think about. “Let’s just get you fed then,” she said lightly as though the last conversation had been nothing more than a discussion about food.
“Go into my room, Bella,” Captain Torel said. “The food is on the table. Bring it out to him please.”
He stayed with Conall while she went in to find the meal he had brought. It sat on the table, stacked in silver trays. The trays all had rearing unicorns around the outer edges. They were extremely well wrought. They must have come from the King’s own kitchen.
Then she remembered that Torel had not been at the mess hall earlier. She had assumed she had simply missed him, but she remembered the effect that his presence had on the RA mess. Perhaps he wanted to spare his troops the stress of being on good behavior during a time they should be able to relax. It would seem, Conall was going to eat better than the rest of them tonight.
“That will be a pleasant change,” he thought to her. You’d best hurry--I think I still make him nervous. Of course he’s making me rather nervous as well. I feel like a bug under a glass.”
When she went back outside she saw what he was talking about. Captain Torel’s scrutiny of Conall was intense. As though simply by staring at him hard enough he could decipher the mystery that stood before him. But he stood with some distance between them, not quite trusting to the wolf’s good intentions.
“Relax Captain,” she said “you’re making him nervous.”
“I’m making him nervous,” Torel retorted with a laugh. “What do you think he does to me?”
“Well sir, Conall’s well aware that he makes everybody nervous. Such is the nature of his curse. Hopefully people will come to trust him as they get to know him.”
Torel helped her set the silver trays on the ground. “He intends to see others then?”
“Yes Sir, he has a great respect for the discipline you have instilled in your troops, and believes he would be safe with any of them. He is quite content just now,” Conall had not told her this, but she knew it to be true. His mind was calmer now, than at any time since she’d met him. She would have thought he’d be nervous among so many people.
Bella uncovered the silver plates and Conall walked over to them. He sat down beside them and stared at her and questioned, “Do I really need to ask you not to watch?”
“Captain,” she said, “why don’t we step down here a ways? He finds it humiliating to have to eat from the ground. Odd as it may be to think of it as dehumanizing in relation to a wolf, it’s things like that, which have kept him from forgetting that he is a human under it all, knowing that he is better than the form he was given.”
“Not necessarily better, just different. Wolves do in fact have many good qualities. Of course my curse kept me from benefiting from them. For instance they have a closely-knit society in which they assist each other with the task of survival. In the singular they are just another hunter. As a pack—a family unit—they are fierce and unstoppable.”
The captain walked away, saying, “How can it possibly be dehumanizing to eat off the king’s silver?”
“Humor him,” Bella responded.
They sat and talked about nothing important, just passing the time until Conall joined them. He lay at Bella’s feet, full and contented.
“Well Captain, thank you for bringing his supper, but it is late, and tomorrow is already upon us. Robin said we'd be getting up early, and I need to get some sleep, Sir.”
They walked back towards Torel’s cottage and Bella bent over to pick up the silver trays.
Torel asked, "Would you like me to get his breakfast?”
“I’ll get it as long as Master Rull will allow me to carry it out,” Bella said.
Taking the almost spotless trays from Bella, Torel said, “I‘ll speak to him. But for tomorrow morning I’ll go ahead and pick it up, just to avoid problems until I see him.”
“Thank you then, Captain. Good night," she said.
"Good night."
Chapter 33