WINDKEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  " ’Twas but the dream, Highness," his rescuer whispered. "Just the old dream."

  Conar slowly closed his eyes and leaned into the reassuring arms of the man who now sat on the bed beside him, whose strong arms closed around him with gentleness, protecting, shutting out the demons that had ridden him.

  "Don’t leave me, Hern," he begged, burrowing his head against the massive chest.

  "I’ll be here for as long as you want me, son," the man said and raised a callused hand to wipe a sweat-drenched lock of fair hair from the young man’s forehead. "Just you relax now. You ain’t alone no more."

  Conar could still hear the pounding of his own heart against his ribcage, could feel the blood roaring through his temples. He squeezed his lids shut even tighter and sank into the comfort of the arms.

  "Is he all right?" Legion spoke from the doorway. He knew better than to come into Conar’s room if Hern didn’t want him there.

  "He’ll be right as rain, Lord Legion." The man turned. "Be back to bed with you, now."

  Hesitating only a second or two, Legion knew he wasn’t needed and closed the door behind him, motioning Teal back down the hall to his room. "Hern’s with him."

  Teal nodded. No one else would be allowed in the room, then.

  As he closed the door to his own room, Legion sat on his bed and wondered for the hundredth time what terrible dreams ripped so badly at his younger brother. He stretched out and stared at the ceiling, wondering also why Hern could still the nightmares that had returned of late to plague Conar. Not since he was a young boy had his brother had such frightening dreams. Now, in the past two weeks, they had returned with a nightly vengeance that left Conar shaken and unresponsive for days afterward.

  Only when he slept in Liza’s arms did the dreams not come to terrorize him.

  "What could have frightened you so, little brother, that you still keep the pain of it with you?" Legion asked the silent room. He could hear Hern’s soft voice across the hall as he spoke to Conar. "And why can Hern soothe your spirit when I can not?"

  * * *

  "Lie yourself down, Highness," Hern said gently and eased Conar out of his arms. "Rest yourself, now." He pulled the covers over Conar’s naked chest, tucking them around the young Prince as if he were still a child.

  "You won’t leave me?" Conar asked.

  "No, Highness. I’ll not be leaving you." He smoothed Conar’s hair away from his eyes. A light frown crossed the man’s rugged face. "You need a haircut, you do."

  Conar tried to smile, but his lips felt frozen and his mouth trembled. He looked away from the direct gaze that probed his own.

  "When did the dreams come back, Highness?" Hern asked, his big hand turning over so he could run the backs of his scarred fingers down Conar’s fevered cheek.

  "Awhile ago."

  "How long is awhile, son?"

  He had never been able to lie to Hern. "Two weeks."

  Sighing, the man put his hands in his lap and stared at the closed door. He wasn’t sure he should say his piece, but his love for the young Prince outweighed any loyalty he had to his informants. "Even after you installed the lass at Ivor?"

  Conar looked at the granite-carved profile of his friend. Nothing ever got past Hern and he wondered if anything ever would. "How long have you known?"

  Hern laughed. "What you’re really asking is if your Papa knows," he answered. He turned his fathomless gaze to Conar. "He doesn’t. I’ve had no opportunity to tell him."

  "How long have you known, Hern?" he repeated, relieved Hern hadn’t told his father yet.

  The man’s gaze moved over Conar’s damp face and what passed for a smile stretched the thin, hard lips. "From the very first night you brought her there."

  "You’ve known all this time and haven’t told Papa? Why not?"

  Hern shrugged his massive shoulders. "I’ve been busy with this and that. The King’s been busy with this and that. I’ll get around to telling him when I think he can handle it."

  Conar could only stare at the man. He had known this rugged soldier all his life. Sir Hern Arbra was the Master-at-Arms at Boreas Keep. He was also King Gerren’s best friend and closest confidante. The two men had been suckled at the same breast as babes, Gerren’s mother refusing such an onerous chore. Their loyalty to one another ran deeper than the waters of Lake Myria and the love they bore one another was legendary in the Seven Kingdoms. They had fought beside one another in battles too numerous to list; had shared wine and women and many a drunken song; had shared the same uncompromising love for Queen Moira: one man’s bride; the other man’s only love, unrequited as it had been. Hern bore the lady’s sons the same affection; but Conar, he loved most of all.

  A stalwart soldier in King Gerren’s own Elite Guard before that good man had become King, Hern Arbra had taken a quarrel meant for the young Prince and had almost succumbed to the wound. Prince Gerren’s own blood had been fed into Arbra’s veins so the soldier might live, making them blood brothers in fact as well as in deed. What one felt, the other felt, so close was their attachment to one another after the blood-giving.

  King Gerren liked to joke that it was royal blood flowing through Arbra’s body that gave the man such a keen insight into Gerren’s own mind. In truth, it was the common bonds of love, affection, devotion, and friendship that made it possible for Hern Arbra to know how his friend felt.

  On the day Hern Arbra was knighted, Prince Gerren had wept bitterly. It was an honor he had wished to bestow upon his friend, but the duty had fallen to the young prince’s father, the King. But it was Gerren’s old silver spurs that graced Hern Arbra’s black boots that day; a gift of love that had lasted their lifetimes.

  Standing near seven feet in his stocking feet, Hern was a massive man weighing in at close to three hundred pounds. His wide chest, fully thatched with almost snow-white hair, stretched so far across it took a special tailor to make his uniforms. His boots were specially made, as well, and rivaled in size those worn by the Loure brothers, Rayle and Thom.

  His thick crop of yellowish-blond hair was always combed straight back from his high, wide forehead and hung in a long queue down his back. His eagle-beak nose between those startlingly pale eyes gave his face the look of unmistakable authority that had shriveled many a young recruit on the training ground of the Wind Warrior Society where Arbra was Master-Trainer. His thin lips were straight with no noticeable curving in the pale pink flesh, and they rarely moved in anything but a grimace of anger.

  When those lips did move, a voice that barked like the thunder of bull elephants on the run could shake the ground beneath a soldier’s feet and make the poor young man soil his breeches in fear. And the heavens help any young soldier who did not heed Hern Arbra’s angry words.

  Conar, himself, had trained under Hern. Had taken his early training with crossbow and quarrel with the man when he had been hardly big enough to nock the fletch. Had learned to ride his first unwilling pony under the unforgiving eagle-eye of a man whose motto was: if you didn’t break nothing when it tossed you, you can still ride! Had learned how to rub down a horse; how to curry the beast; how to saddle a steed who didn’t want to be saddled; how to get the stuffing knocked out of you by a horse you didn’t handle properly.

  He had learned all those things and more from Hern Arbra by the time he was six years old.

  He didn’t see the man again until he was thirteen, but time had stood still for the Master-at-Arms. He looked no different than he had when Conar had been taken by Kaileel Tohre to the Wind Temple near Corinth. His hair was the same; his massive build was the same; his sharp eyes were the same. Conar realized Hern must have seen something in his eyes that no one had recognized, for Hern Arbra had become the young Prince’s confidant, as well as, the boy’s second father.

  Looking now at the pale blue eyes regarding him, Hern could still see that something in the boy’s face, somthing that had worried him that day six years earlier when the young Prince had come to find him on the trainin
g field.

  "Do you remember me, Sir Hern?" the boy had asked, his gaze going past Hern’s to a spot off in the distance.

  "Aye, I know you still." Hern had crossed his arms and carefully watched the boy.

  "If it pleases you, sir, I would like to be taught."

  "Is that so?"

  "Aye, sir." The blue eyes flickered. "I would like you to teach me all you know, Sir Hern."

  "Do you now?" Hern asked him. "What makes you think you’re able to learn what I can teach?"

  The boy flinched, but he held his ground, his sight still locked on something only he seemed to be able to see. "I will do my very best, sir."

  "And just what is it you wish to learn, boy?" Hern’s voice was gruff.

  The young Prince seemed to force himself to look up and in that young face was a disquiet, a pain that went far beyond his young years. "Teach me how to be a man, Sir Hern." His voice turned husky with some inner agony. "I need to know I can be a man."

  Hern remembered standing there on the training field under a broiling August sun that was turning his armor to a molten pit of discomfort and taking the boy’s measure.

  The lad had been thin, almost to the point of emaciation, pale, already beginning to turn a faint red from the merciless sun that beat down on his golden hair. Hern had always thought the boy’s hair his most handsome feature, but on that long-ago day, the lad’s golden locks were gone, the hair shorn so close to his scalp Hern could see flesh. The boy looked fragile, feminine, with his big blue eyes haunted by something that seemed to be eating at him like a ravaging beast. The little body trembled as the men about the field shouted at one another. The lad kept looking nervously about him as though he was afraid of being caught up by some beastie from the pit.

  Hern had made a decision that he had never once regretted. He had reached out to put a hand on the boy’s thin, slumped shoulder, not at all surprised when the lad jumped away. "A man always stands his ground, brat," Hern recalled saying. "He don’t back away from nothing." He put his hand up again. The boy quivered, moved away from Hern for a split second before settling. "Or no one," Hern had finished and then laid his heavy, chain-mailed hand on the fragile shoulder. It was all Hern could do not to flinch, himself, as he felt the bones thorough the young lad’s clothing.

  The boy’s chin came up a fraction. "Will you teach me, then, Sir Hern?"

  Hern squeezed the thin shoulder in his huge hand. "Aye, brat. I’ll teach you."

  "I’ll not let you down, Sir Hern."

  What passed for a laugh rumbled out of the wide chest. "I know that, brat. If you do, I’ll send your scrawny ass to the kitchens to bide your time peeling spuds for my next meal!"

  Hern turned his back on the boy, dismissing him. He let the young Prince walk a few steps away before calling him back.

  "Aye, sir?" Conar faltered, fear showing on his pale face.

  "You’ll get no special treatment just cause you was born on the right side of the sheets." He fixed his sharp gaze on the lad. "You’ll be treated like any other raw recruit."

  The boy nodded sagely. "I expect no special treatment, sir. I am not accustomed to it."

  "That’s good." Hern walked away. When he had looked around, he could have sworn there were tears in the boy’s eyes, but he dismissed that. Princes did not cry.

  It was later that night when Conar had moved his few allowed belongings into the barracks beyond the sporting and game fields that the bond between teacher and student cemented itself. Despite his vow to see the young Prince got no special treatment, Hern had, nonetheless, given the lad a room to himself; a room near his own.

  The boy’s terrified screams had awakened the others that night, but Hern had sent them back to their rooms, posting a guard at Conar’s door so no one could enter. He had brought the boy out of the demon-ravaged nightmare that had threatened to suffocate him; his strong arms had held the boy close to his chest, whispering to him to calm him. His deep, bass voice had been as soothing as any nanny’s; his callused fingers and fighting hands tender as they stroked the back of the sweat-dampened head.

  " ’Twas only a dream, brat," Hern said, deep worry etched on his rugged face. "Dreams can’t hurt you."

  "They hurt me," the boy cried, tears streaming down his ashen cheeks as he clung to the big man. "They hurt me."

  "But they’re only dreams, son."

  "Don’t leave me, Sir Hern," the boy begged as though he had not heard. "Please don’t leave me alone. They’ll come back for me!"

  "Nay, brat," Hern assured him. "The dreams be gone this eve. But I’ll not leave you. I am right here."

  Hern had made the boy lie down and tucked the covers over his painfully thin chest, shaking his head at the crisscrossed lines that marred the boy’s shoulders, thinking them bramble scratches until he got a closer look. It was then he realized it had not been dreams that had hurt this child.

  "Who whipped you like this?" he growled. "Who dared do such a thing to you, Coni?"

  "Please don’t tell Papa," Conar begged him.

  "He should be told, brat," Hern snapped.

  "Please, Sir Hern," the boy cried, clinging to the man in fear. "I could not bear him knowing what was done to me."

  " ’Tis not your shame, brat. You have no—"

  "Hern?"

  Hern mentally shook himself from the past, coming back to the present with a jolt. "Aye?" he asked gruffly.

  "Who told you about Liza?" Conar had to know. His whole life depended on it. He couldn’t risk having his father find out about her.

  Hern was aware he had said these same words before, long ago. "He’ll not find out, Highness. You have no need to be worrying. If you don’t want him to know of this, I won’t be telling him. Your secret is safe with me. You have my word."

  Conar relaxed. He trusted Hern Arbra more than any man alive. He had learned almost all he knew from the man: swordplay, fighting, wrestling, riding, archery, battle strategy. But most importantly, he had learned honor. Hern, and Hern alone, knew what caused the dreams, and he knew why Conar had never told another living soul.

  "Does the lass know?" Hern asked, standing and leaning one huge forearm on the headboard of Conar’s bed.

  "I don’t have them when I’m with her."

  Hern nodded. "I would think not." He ran the backs of his fingers along the young man’s high cheekbones. "Can you sleep now?"

  "I think so." Conar knew Hern would settle in the chair by his bed and not leave until morning came to chase away any dreams left over from the night.

  "Good eve to you, Highness," Hern said, settling his bulk into the overstuffed chair that sat beside the smoldering embers in the fireplace.

  "Good eve." Conar turned over and couldn’t help but smile. It had been "brat" until the day he had bested the old soldier at archery. Then it became "boy." On the day he had outdistanced Hern’s mighty bay war-horse it had become "son." On the day Conar had thrown Hern Arbra to the ground in a well-timed flip during wrestling practice, it had become "Milord." When Hern was deeply affected by something, it became "Coni."

  "And don’t you be waking me no more tonight, Coni McGregor," he said as he drew a cloak around his shoulder. "Do you hear me, now?"

  "Aye, Sir Hern," Conar whispered. "I hear you."

  With his nightmares gone for the night, Conar thought of Liza. Her laughing, smiling, seductive face was the last thing he saw before drifting into a dreamless, easy sleep.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  Morning brought with it a punishing rain that struck with hammering fists of hail and staggering winds. The sky had turned a dull gray, and thunder boomed across the courtyards like cannon shots. Lightning speared the grounds beyond the keep and lit the storm-laced day with eerie white flares of brightness. Howling in the eaves like an invading army on the loose, winds buffeted the arched windows of the study and shrieked down the chimney to attack the fires with invisible feet meant to stamp out the heat.

  A shutter banged, an
d a hapless servant was sent to see to it in the strumming pelt of rain. Shingles flew from the roof, pinged against the window panes like gunshots and set on edge the nerves of those who were forced to listen to the racket.

  "You will not be riding out in this foul weather and that’s final!" King Gerren shouted at his son and snapped shut the book he had been reading. "What the hell ails you anyway, Conar?" He took off his spectacles and fixed his son with a steely-eyed glint. "When I tell you no, I mean just that! Are you having trouble understanding my words, boy?"

  Conar let out an angry hiss. "I can’t abide these stone walls! They close in on a person." He flinched as a jagged snap of lightning hit outside in his mother’s garden. The loud clap of thunder shook the panes in the window beside him.

  "Come away from that gods-be-damned window before you’re toasted like a meringue!" the King shouted. "Don’t you have sense enough not to stand in front of a window when ’tis lightning, fool?"

  Stepping away from the window, Conar plopped into a chair near the fire. "I’m not a child, Papa."

  "Nor are you a gods-be-damned adult, either, it would seem!" his father qualified. "You can sit there the whole day and pout like a babe if you wish. You are not leaving in this weather!"

  Barely able to contain himself any longer, Conar heaved himself out of the chair and stomped off, muttering dire predictions under his breath. His boot heels rang on the marble as he slammed out into the main hall.

  "What ails him, Hern?" the King asked, turning his attention to the other man in the study.

  Hern glanced up from his book on the Burning War and gave his King a blank stare. "I am not his keeper, Highness."

  "Highness?" Gerren questioned. Was it that bad?

  "Have you asked your son what ails him?"

  Exasperated with the whole situation, for he and Conar had been going at their argument all morning, King Gerren met his friend’s inquisitive stare with a frosty glare. "You know he wouldn’t tell me a gods-be-damned thing; but you know more than you tell, now, don’t you, Arbra?"