Elanraigh - The Vow

by S. A. Hunter

  “Indeed, there was much need of it in those times. It was when your great-grandfather was Duke at Allenholme, Lady Thera. There were constant territorial disputes between Allenholme and Ttamarini in those days.”

  The healing mistress held Thera’s gaze. “It is said that the Ttamarini chieftain, Chemotin, mortally wounded, was brought by his men to Elankeep. The tale is that the Ttamarini were cut-off from their own healers. They claimed they were guided by a spirit animal to bring their wounded chief here, to the heart of the Elanraigh.

  “Lady Dysanna hunted for and found lichenstrife growing near her tree cave.”

  All the swordswomen present were familiar with the story, but Thera heard Rhul mutter, “Bless me if I can understand how a Salvai can wish to meditate near a place she knows will someday be her tomb.

  “Ow. Sorry,” Rhul amended as Lotta kicked her shin. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the story, mistress. Good story.”

  Thera searched her own feelings. No. She felt that the hemlock tree cave would always be a sanctuary to her, now, and whenever her last day should come. The Elanraigh thrummed comfortingly at the base of her skull.

  Even as she gazed unseeingly at her toes, Thera thought she felt the healing mistress’ glance.

  “Well,” Rozalda continued softly, “a Salvai must know the darkness where grows a tree’s roots, as well as the sunlight where grow branch and leaf.”

  Lotta prompted. “Um. So, after Salvai Dysanna found the lichenstrife, mistress?”

  “Ah. Well. The lichenstrife healed the Ttamarini chieftain’s wound. While he was convalescing here at Elankeep, Lady Dysanna journeyed to Allenholme. She appealed to her Duke, Leif ArNarone, Thera’s great-grandfather, to hear Chief Chemotin’s peace proposal.”

  “But my great grandfather would not listen,” said Thera grimly.

  Rozalda leveled a steady look at Thera. She spoke slowly, “The Salvai was never said to condemn Allenholme’s royal house—her story ends with Allenholme’s refusal to treat with the Ttamarini. Soon after, Lady Dysanna herself, was dead. Perhaps elder Dama Brytha could tell you more.”

  “Ha,” snorted Lotta. “That old soul cannot remember what happened yesterday!”

  “True,” replied Rozalda glancing up at Lotta. She returned her attention to Thera, “but she remembers forty-five years ago, very well indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The elder Dama’s chamber was pleasantly warm. It was located behind cook’s work room, and just now, was fragrant with the scent of fresh baked bread. Thera, seated in the window niche, heard her stomach growl.

  She lightly pushed open the window shutters. Bushes of anise grew below the window and as the morning sun warmed the yellow flowers, its sweet tang rose to delight her senses.

  The elder Dama’s voice broke into the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

  “That you, Ella?” she called out to the door.

  Thera smiled in response to the conspiratorial twinkle in the old woman’s eye.

  Dama Ella appeared in the chamber doorway. “Oh.” Ella twisted her apron in her hands, her cheeks slightly flushed. “I see you have a guest today, Dama Brytha.” She made a courtesy in Thera’s direction.

  “Aye,” The old woman drawled the word, and returned her gaze to her knitting. “You needn’t be bothering to listen at my door, Ella. I’ll know if you do.”

  Affront stiffened Dama Ella’s features. Thera bit her lip and turned her face to the garden view. For a moment the only sound in the room was the small tick of Brytha’s needles.

  “Well!” Ella puffed indignantly. “I only wished to be sure you fared well. And…and to see if there be aught you wanted. Well…,” she said again, “I’ll be about my work then.”

  Ella pointedly drew the door closed and soon pans were heard clattering. Brytha continued to rock in her chair, her knotted fingers manipulating wool and needles.

  Then, as if there had been no lull or interruption in their conversation, the old Dama continued.

  “Aye, child. Of course I remember my Dysanna.” The old woman’s voice became fierce. “So full of life and vitality she was.” Her hands rested a moment and she smiled. “And a beauty she was too.”

  Her mouth pushed outward in a wrinkled pout. “Not at all like that poor thing that was Salvai here these last few years.” After a moment Dama Brytha dutifully added, “May Elanraigh bless her and keep her soul in peace.

  “Ah, but how fiercely the Elanraigh loved Dysanna. Often, often she would disappear into the forest for, oh, long periods of time. Bless me, how I fretted those times. When she came back she would be a-tangle with leaf and twigs in her hair. If I chide her, she would look at me, amazed.

  “‘Bry,’ she would say so gently, ‘how could I ever come to harm in the Elanraigh’s care.’

  “Many’s the night I’d find her gone from her bed. She would be on the north tower, her hair all blowing about her, leaning into the wind as if she caressed it with her body.”

  “‘Feel how soft the wind is, Bry!’ she would say to me.”

  Dama Brytha chortled a little, “And me, bitten to the bone with the chill of it.”

  The knitting collapsed into a colorful mound. “She was like a wild thing of the forest herself, come to think.”

  Her voice quavered with anger. “I heard what Lady Keiris said when she came, years ago, to be Salvai here. I heard what she said of my Dysanna—Ainise couldn’t wait to tell me.” Dama Brytha’s swollen fingers twisted, “She said that my Dysanna was as close to wanton as a high born lady can be.”

  Brytha’s cheeks were flushed as she regarded Thera fixedly. Her tiny knotted hands bounced on her lap. “Wanton! My beautiful Dysanna! There were others, too who saw her as abandoned, something too strange and wild. But I never did. Dysanna was such as Keiris could never hope to be, and Keiris knew it.”

  The elder Dama sniffed and resumed her knitting. “The Elanraigh never loved Keiris, not as it did Dysanna—not as it does you, dear.” The look she bent on Thera was warm and approving.

  “You see, I was not especially well-born myself, as most First Ladies are. However, Lady Dysanna took a shine to me when she was still at her maiden home, and I was sent as a housekeeper’s assistant there. So maybe I don’t see things quite the way the others do. There were those here at Elankeep who thought they were better suited to be the Salvai’s First Lady than me,” she rolled her eyes toward the cook room. “That Ella was one.”

  The old Dama folded her lips and shook her head. “The things Ella said during those early years, mocking my ordinary speech or plain ways. This for instance,” she lifted the knitting in a small gesture. “‘Fishwives knit,’ Ella said to me, ‘Ladies do needlework.’”

  Thera offered, “I hate needlework.”

  Dama Brytha smiled. “Well, there are those here now who are glad enough of the leggings and vests I knit.”

  “There were some here who said I should never have let her be so wild. But she was ever in the Elanraigh’s care more than mine. Then my lady went away with the Ttamarini Chief.” Again tears welled in the elder Dama’s eyes, “Oh, if you could have seen them together you would not have doubted it was right. I have no gift, but any could see, who chose, that the Elanraigh loved them both and wished for their union. The winds blew sweet those spring days they were here together. How happy she was, until word came from Allenholme.

  “They would not countenance such an alliance. Dysanna was declared dead—severed—root and branch.” The old lady paused in her rocking, “She bid us farewell that very day. I wished to go into exile with her. Indeed I begged to go. She would have none of it.

  “In the days, months, then years that followed, I climbed to the north tower each night, even though my legs were no longer young.” She shivered slightly. “I don’t know what I hoped, I have told you I have no gift, perhaps just to hear or sense her upon the wind.

  “One night, as I neared the trap door, I could feel the wind colder than eve
r before whistling through its planks. The door was snatched from my hand just as the very breath seemed dragged from my chest by its fierceness. Why I did not return immediately the way I had come, I do not know. I believe now that some part of me knew Dysanna was near. It was a struggle even to reach the wall, and when I looked out at the black trees it was to see their branches tossing wildly with a sound like a stormy sea. It was then the Elanraigh spoke to me for the first and only time—to tell me Dysanna had died.”

  Tear-blinded, Dama Brytha reached a frail hand to Thera. They touched a moment, then Dama Brytha reached up her cuff for a plain, immaculate linen, and dabbed at her eyes. “Did you know any of this, dear?”

  “Salvai Keiris had told me some of it, in her own way.” Thera chewed her lip, considering, then added, “And some of the story was told me by a Ttamarini who says he is Lady Dysanna’s grandson.” Thera patted the old lady’s hand. “She lives in him, and she lives in the Elanraigh.”

  Dama Brytha sighed. It was not an unhappy sound. “Aye. I’ve felt her there. I’ll join her soon.” The elder Dama’s gaze was a clear and bright blue as it travelled over Thera’s features. “Do you know how like her you are, daughter?”

  Thera nodded, too full of emotions to speak.

  At that moment, there was a brisk tap at the door and Dama Ella entered with a tray of tea and scones. She bustled about the little room, arranging a linen cloth on a small table.

  Brytha puckered her mouth and withdrawing her hand from Thera, resumed her knitting.

  Thera repressed a smile. Dama Ella could not help but be aware that the ancient lady very deliberately ignored her.

  “Here,” Thera offered, “let me take the tray, I will serve Dama Brytha and myself.”

  Ella cast a reproachful look at Dama Brytha’s averted face, “To be sure, my lady, I did not mean to interrupt. Healing mistress said she should eat small and regular, I was but thinking of her needs.”

  Dama Brytha finally looked up, “You were snooping, as always. I know.”

  Ella gasped. “Oh! How could you think…!”

  Thera soothed Ella out the door, and returned to pour tea for the eldest Dama. The old lady seemed weary now and her thoughts wandered. She did not speak any more of Dysanna. Finally she nodded, asleep in her chair.

  Thera called Ella in to help her to bed. She closed the chamber door on their voices.

  “Ella, where have you been keeping! You know I nap after noon meal.”

  “Blessings, and me likely to get my head bitten off if I so much as look in the door.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Thera walked to the window, flexing her arms forward and back, until she felt a deep satisfying pull on her shoulders.

  By the One Tree! I ache!

  A few days ago Swordswoman Enid had offered to help Thera improve her weapons skills.

  * * * *

  “Lady Thera!” The soldier jogged to where Thera stood by the herb garden, and saluted.

  Swordswoman Enid’s forehead still glistened with salve.

  “Enid. Blessings. How is your healing?”

  “Well enough, Lady, when I recall I was preparing to offer my soul to the Elanraigh as that Memteth swung his blade, about to cleave my skull.”

  Thera nodded somberly, remembering.

  Enid shifted to a slung-hip stance and jerked her chin toward the courtyard where some of the troop practiced weaponry. “Lady, you too were overpowered by a Memteth raider and most certainly he would have killed you had not the Elanraigh sent the grey wolf.”

  “I…” Thera flushed deeply.

  Enid quickly interjected, “Lady, I do not say this to pain you,” her color deepened also. “It is we who should be ashamed, who are sworn to protect the Salvai. I wish to offer my service to teach you any fighting skills you might wish to learn.”

  Thera stared at Enid, intent on her own thoughts.

  “Salvai Thera. I do not mean to offend—I know weapons craft is not a Lady’s task.”

  “Enid,” Thera lightly touched Enid’s tense forearm, “I am grateful for your offer, I was just…thinking within myself. You see, I was once told that the sword would not be my weapon. The shade of my great-grandfather told me this, but I would like to be stronger of body. Could you help me train as you do?”

  Enid’s features, still swollen from her injuries in the Memteth battle, cracked into what must have been a painful smile. “Elanraigh bless you, Lady! It will be my honor.”

  * * * *

  Thera rubbed at her shoulders again. Enid kept her promise all too well. She had worked Thera hard the last few days.

  Yet this physical exhaustion did not relieve the restlessness Thera now felt.

  No word from Allenholme in eight days now. What does it mean?

  Her mouth drew down ruefully, her father’s missives had always been brief, but Thera needed those few scrawled words of home.

  She lifted her head, sniffing the air and sending her thoughts out. Even the Elanraigh forest mind seemed distant from her right now, as if it were preoccupied.

  Well. It seems I’m forgotten.

  Outside her window, a dreary grey mist darkened the keep’s walls and moisture dripped from the trees. Thera bounced a light, determined fist on the stone sill.

  “I swear I will trek back to Allenholme. By the One Tree, I will go if I have not word of them by tomorrow.”

  A gust of wind swayed the hemlock trees with a sound like waves, and homesickness washed over her.

  Mieta and Enid, dressed in light kilts and linen shirts, appeared in the courtyard below. Thera called to them.

  “Enid…Mieta, Blessings!”

  The swordswomen paused in their stretching routine. “Lady Thera, blessings of the new day! You are early to rise.”

  “No earlier than you, it seems.”

  Mieta grimaced. “We’re a little ahead of the others this morning. We go on our run soon.”

  “I would like to join you!” Thera called.

  Mieta looked so startled that Enid barked a laugh.

  “Aye, Lady, do.” Mieta called, recovering. “We’ll be glad of your company to be sure, and perhaps the Sirra will choose an easier path than she threatened us with today.”

  Thera dressed quickly, in the same kilt, shirt, and leggings she had been wearing for her training sessions with Enid. She smiled. Enid couldn’t wink with her eyes as swollen as they were, but she had flashed a conspiratorial smile as Thera spoke to Mieta.

  She had asked Enid to keep their training sessions a secret, “No need to upset the elder Damas, Enid.”

  So, she continued to improve her penmanship and knowledge of courtly protocols with Dama Ainise, and, with more enthusiasm, studied healing lore with Mistress Rozalda.

  In addition, there were welcome summons from the Elanraigh. On the latest of these quiet retreats forest-mind had taught her the Bear’s Sleep Trance. Thera learned how to slow her body’s functions; how to draw needed minerals from her bones, and how to break down her own body’s wastes and reuse them, thus rebuilding what she had drawn from. This way, the Elanraigh explained, when she projected out of her physical body, even if for many days, she would not be so weakened and ill when she returned.

  Thera ran down the main stairs, feeling the stretch and pull of the muscles in her legs. At the main hall she turned left and pushed through a small postern exiting into the north courtyard.

  Mieta smiled an upside-down greeting from her spine-flexing bend. Thera followed Enid’s warm-up moves until she no longer felt the morning’s chill on her bare arms. As others straggled out, they gave her friendly nods and salutes.

  When Sirra Alaine strode into the courtyard, she stopped by Thera’s side. “Salvai?”

  Now why did the Sirra choose to use her title? Did she mean to side with the Damas and point out that it was undignified of her to be here? Thera studied the Sirra’s dark-oak features.

  “I feel the need to—to be doing something, Sirra. The troops don’t mind me joi
ning them.” Thera knew she jibbed like a restless colt, but she couldn’t help it. She felt that she needed to fill her lungs with air and fling her body against the wind.

  Sirra Alaine nodded.

  Mieta grinned broadly, as did others.

  Alaine, observing this, spoke dryly, “We plan to run hard today, Lady. There has been much lolling about close quarters, what with convalescents to tend and the Elankeep itself needing repair.”

  Mieta groaned dramatically, “My shins hurt already, Sirra. Bruised and sore, that’s what they are. The way Alba flails those walking-sticks of hers.”

  Thera laughed with the others. Alba’s rapid recovery had lightened many hearts around the keep.

  “Sirra, I ran with you before, if you remember the day I first came to Elankeep.” Thera’s gaze swung around the group. She drawled, teasing, “I won’t prevent the troop from being exercised to your liking.”

  * * * *

  The sun had almost burned off the morning mist, when the small group returned toward Elankeep. Rhul panted, “It’s going to be a steaming mug of Ella’s blackberry tea, warm barley bannock, and creamy cheese for me!”

  Thera felt no need of food. Her body felt light as the sea hawk’s adrift on the wind—her blood ran hot under her wind-chilled skin. I could run forever!

  “Alba!” Somebody behind her shouted.

  Thera narrowed her gaze toward the keep. There was Alba, tottering on her walking-sticks and waving enthusiastically.

  Alba is waving something—a letter! It has to be a letter from home!

  Thera lengthened her stride. Edred laughingly matched her pace. They drew ahead of the others, who cheered them on. Thera reached for more speed as they passed the amazed guard at the gate, skidded past Alba, and collapsed against the keep wall. Their laughter echoed under the great stone arch.

  “Cythian Hell!” Alba spun on her crutches as four hands reached to steady her.

  “There is no one else here…” panted Edred, “…who can beat me at a foot race, Lady.” Edred, a lean sliver of a woman, cast an amazed look at Thera.

  Thera paced the small paved area by the door, one hand holding the stitch in her side. “I would be…hard put…to say whose foot first reached the entrance, Edred.”