by T. O. Munro
Vahnce surveyed the three of them in silence before telling Hepdida, “you have to go now.”
“I can’t, this isn’t my dress,” she said.
“Keep it,” Vahnce said. “Maia has enough dresses, keep it, burn it, do what you like with it but just go.”
For emphasis he grabbed her arm with a force that whitened the scar Grundurg had left. She struggled instinctively at the constraint, but he bundled her through the door and out into the cloistered corridor.
“Let me go,” she insisted, but he did not.
Instead he pulled the door shut behind them and hissed in her ear. “What do you think you’re doing you little fool? Getting involved in matters which don’t concern you.”
“I was borrowing a dress.”
“You could get hurt, little girl, really hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“Aye, and you’d think that might have taught you something. Like staying away from trouble, by the Goddess. If you turn up here again I will not answer for your safety.”
“Let me go,” she wriggled free from him at last but only to fall to the stone floor a nose breadth away from the toes of a pair of riding boots.
“What is this, Sir Vahnce?” the boots’ wearer demanded in a familiar lilting voice. “What business have you with the Princess?”
“Nothing, Seneschal. Miss Hepdida was just borrowing a dress from the Lady Maia.”
Hepdida was grateful as Quintala caught her arm and lifted the girl gently to her feet. “Are you quite well, Princess?” the half-elf asked.
“I.. I think so.”
“I’ll thank you, Sir Vahnce, to speak of the Princess Hepdida with all due respect, and to handle her not at all.”
“I meant no offence, Seneschal. The lady…”
“Princess!” Quintala quickly corrected.
Vahnce swallowed. “She is young, and the young are curious beyond wisdom. Let her keep to her own quarters and the nursery, it better fits her station.”
“Her, station, Sir Vahnce, is third in line to the Vanquisher’s throne,” Quintala reminded him. “She is no child and about this place she can come and go as she pleases. There will be a day when you bend the knee to her, Sir Vahnce.”
“Seneschal,” Vahnce bowed low and went back through the doorway. As the heavy oaken door closed behind him a babble of voices blurred its way through the timber.
“What was that all about, Princess?” Quintala asked.
Hepdida shrugged, “I was borrowing a dress.”
At last the half-elf took in the borrowed garment. She gave it an appraising glance. “I don’t think your cousin will approve, Princess. Best get back and changed before she sees it.”
***
Niarmit caught the flash of pink as Hepdida ducked into the room. “What’s that?” she said with all good intent. “Another gown?”
“Er.. yes. I’m just going to change it.”
“Oh, do let me see it first.”
Hepdida approached without enthusiasm, arms folded across her chest. As she drew near, Niarmit’s smile faded. “Have you left some of it behind?” the Queen could not help herself.
At the sharp enquiry Hepdida dropped her arms to her side, revealing how much the dress revealed. “The lady said I looked very fine in it.”
“I cannot imagine Giseanne or any of her people in such a garment.”
“I meant the Lady Maia.”
Niarmit’s frown deepened, “What were you doing with Tybert’s whore?”
“Nothing,” Hepdida’s chin jutted forward with her defiance. “She just offered to loan me a dress. The lady wanted friends. She misses the parties she used to go to.”
“That woman is no lady and her parties are no place for a Princess. You’re not to go near her again, you don’t need her as a friend.” Niarmit spoke sternly, her tone undimmed by the tremble in Hepdida’s lip.
“How does the Goddess put up with you, Niarmit?” Hepdida exploded. “How can she stand that you must always be so right?”
The Queen rose quickly in unanticipated anger. All this, when she had only meant to compliment her cousin on her appearance. Now there they were, the dark haired girl glaring at her with hatred in her eyes and Niarmit, Queen of all the Salved, lone bulwark against the Dark Lord pressed with a dozen urgent considerations of state in the midst of an argument about a dress.
“Go to your room, Hepdida. Until you can keep a civil tongue in your head.” Niarmit yanked open the door to her cousin’s room and seized the key from the lock inside.
“Oh,” Hepdida said. “So you’re going to lock me in are you? Couldn’t you find a cupboard?”
Niarmit stopped her hand mid-flight, still inches from Hepdida’s cheek but not before the girl had flinched into a cower, hands up to protect her face. When the blow didn’t fall, Hepdida looked up at her cousin through splayed fingers.
“Your Majesty,” it was Quintala at the door at first urgent, then puzzled as she took in the scene. “Your Majesty?”
“What is it, Seneschal?” Niarmit said, without looking round.
“The Steward of the Silverwood has arrived.”
Niarmit swung away from her cousin, the smaller girl trembling with anger or fear. At the entrance to their chambers she looked back at Hepdida who had slid down the wall to sit in pale shock on the floor. “We will speak when I get back, Hepdida. There will be no more …. no more of this.”
***
At the Prince’s command, the body of Rugan’s grandmother had been laid out in state in the palace chapel. This was where Niarmit found him and the newly arrived Steward of the Silverwood, both facing the bier on which Kychelle had been laid.
The Steward, still clad in mail and helm, cloak splattered with the mud of the road, had clearly hastened to the chapel on first hearing the news. Niarmit bit back her curiosity. For centuries Kychelle had been the mouthpiece of the elves of the Silverwood, the only elf the outside world saw, while the rest stayed hidden in their secretive world, protected by the enduring wards of Andril and governed in Kychelle’s name by the Steward. Matteus had told of tales that the Silver elves walked at times unseen through the lands of the Salved, their wonderings veiled in magic. But, until this day, no one amongst the Salved had set eyes on a silver elf besides Kychelle.
At Niarmit’s shoulder, Quintala coughed an announcement of their arrival. As Prince and Steward turned, Niarmit bowed respectfully. “My deep condolences for the Silverwood’s loss,” she told the Steward’s boots. “The Lady Kychelle will be remembered for her principles and her love of her people.”
“For two thousand years those principles stood her and her people in good stead, Lady Niarmit.”
Niarmit shot upright at the soft female voice. The Steward had removed her helm and shaken free a tumble of long blond hair, falling in elegant tresses either side of her finely tipped elven ears. Her skin was as dark as an Undersalve fisherman’s at the end of a long hot southern summer. Her eyes were a startling blue set in the midst of an oval face of perfect symmetry.
“Lady Niarmit,” Rugan observed the formalities. “May I present my mother’s cousin and Steward of the Silverwood, the Lady Marvenna.”
“The Lady Kychelle was my aunt,” Marvenna added by way of clarification. “We were each other’s only blood kin left in the Petred Isle.”
“Saving my brother and me.”
The Steward frowned, though the gesture did little to dim the lustre of her appearance. Niarmit, one hand at her back, tried to wave Quintala into silence. This was not the time to argue the status of the half-elven.
“I had not thought to lose her companionship in such circumstances.” Marvenna looked down at Kychelle, running her fine finger across the elf lady’s face and along her lips. “We will not see her like again.”
“It was a dreadful crime,” Niarmit agreed.
“So Rugan tells me, and is the murderer found?”
Rugan grunted some displeasure, while Niarmit blushed at
the memory of the imponderable behaviours of Kaylan and her cousin. It was left to Quintala to answer the Steward. “We have not found them yet, but it appears an outside assassin struck the blow. We have priests questioning everyone within a league of the Palace. Someone will have seen something and the Goddess will help uncover the truth.”
Marvenna nodded slowly. “We will wait for that truth.”
“Where will you wait?” Niarmit asked, her mind a whirl of logistics. Quartering the elven host at Rugan’s palace would mean food and fodder. She had half answered her own questions before the Steward replied.
“In the Silverwood. We will wait there.”
“You have brought the three thousand spears, have you not?” Quintala asked. “It was the lady’s last command to you.”
“They wait outside the gates of the palace. They will make a fitting escort as we bear Kychelle home.”
“But,” Niarmit began helplessly. “We need those spears. Kychelle had been persuaded of that need.”
“Lady Niarmit, Kychelle lived two thousand years by Lord Andril’s dictums,” Marvenna reflected. “Yet the day she abandoned that stance, she died and her murderer nowhere to be found.”
“Does not her death prove the danger we face?”
“Who knows, Lady Niarmit? Without the murderer before us who is to say whether it was the hand of fate, or the danger you fear which struck my Lady down.”
“It was her last command to you, to her people.” Niarmit could have wept with frustration.
“And now I command her people, Lady Niarmit. Kychelle is the first elf of the Silverwood in a thousand years to be denied passage to the blessed land through death in this realm. I do intend for there to be any others.” She sighed, even sorrow could not stain her beauty. “I came in obedience to Kychelle’s call, I will bear her body home under my own authority.”
Niarmit looked to Rugan for support, but the Prince avoided her gaze, his jaw set and his countenance forbidding. “Rugan,” she begged. “You know much we need those spears.”
“And I know how loved Kychelle was, both by her people and in this palace, Lady Niarmit. I cannot gainsay the Steward’s argument. In her place I would say the same.” He turned at last to stare at Niarmit. “Let us first find the murderer, before we offer lectures as to how the Silverwood should interpret Kychelle’s wishes.”
“Let me at least stand vigil with you, Lady Marvenna.” Niarmit offered. “In remembrance of the good terms on which Lady Kychelle and I had parted.”
The Steward raised an eyebrow at that but insisted, “there is no need, Lady Niarmit. We leave tonight.”
“You have only just got here.”
“There is no need to stay. We will not burden you for supplies.”
“The winter rain has come, Lady Marvenna. The cold has followed, snow cannot be far behind. You must be tired from your travel. Will you not at least pass one night here, it is the smallest courtesy we could offer, is it not Prince Rugan?”
The Prince was deaf to Niarmit’s entreaties while the Steward was unmoved by her argument. “Horses tire, Lady Niarmit, but elves do not. I doubt the snow will trouble us much, let it come when it will. Send word when you have found the murderer, we may speak again then.”
Niarmit spun away to hide the despair in her face. Quintala could only shrug helplessly at the Queen’s beseeching look. Behind the Seneschal the chapel door opened again and another tall mud splattered figure strode in and down the narrow nave.
“Your Majesty, Lady Giseanne said I might find you here.”
“Tordil?”
The elf Captain bowed low to the Queen and straightening caught the eye of Marvenna.
“What brings you here, Captain?”
Niarmit waved away Quintala’s demand, seeing in Tordil a new ally in the lost argument with the Steward. “Lady Marvenna, this is Captain Tordil, latterly of Hershwood. Tordil, this is Lady Marvenna, Steward of the Silverwood. We were just discussing the three thousand spears she has brought to the palace.”
Tordil bowed to the Steward. “I rode them past them, aye, your Majesty. We will have need of them this night.”
Marvenna returned Tordil’s greeting with a courteous nod. “I am glad to meet another refugee from Hershwood. As to the three thousand spears, Lady Niarmit, there is no more to say or hear on the matter.”
“I am no refugee.” Tordil’s eyes flashed fire at the Steward.
Marvenna smiled, “you have found a home then? to replace the one you lost.”
“Not a home, Lady Marvenna, I have found a cause and I hope your soldiers may serve it too.”
“My soldiers leave tonight for Silverwood, our home and home to others of Feyril’s people now.”
“You cannot!”
Her eyebrows rose at his insistence. “I can, Captain Tordil. There will always be a place for you in the Silverwood, when you wish to join us. Now please excuse me.” She made to walk past him.
“Five thousand undead!” The captain cried.
“What?” Niarmit was dumbstruck, Marvenna at least curious enough to wait for Tordil to elaborate.
“Four days ago now, they slipped past us in the night.”
“Slipped past you? How?” Quintala’s tone conveyed her disgust that an enemy should have eluded them.
“The blame is mine, your Majesty.” Tordil confessed to Niarmit. “I was drawn into chasing orcs down the Eastway. All the time it was only a diversion. Their real intent was to drive five thousand zombies over the Palacintas.”
“Five thousand zombies in my realm!” Rugan stormed.
“I have sent Elyas and the hobilers in pursuit. I left Abroath and the archers with Sir Ambrose to hold the pass.” Tordil bowed his head. “The Prior’s judgment proved wiser than my own.”
Niarmit reeled at the new information. The Steward moved forward with a slight nod, as though to leave the Queen to her pressing business, but Niarmit grabbed her arm. “See Lady Marvenna, See what need we have of your spears.”
The elf looked down at Niarmit’s hand until the Queen let go. “This changes nothing, Lady Niarmit. The affairs of elves and men remain ever separate.” While Niarmit’s mouth worked in helpless silence the Steward gave Tordil a modest bow. “I am glad to have met you Captain, we may yet meet again. My soldiers leave within the half hour. Let me know if there are any messages you would have me carry to others of your kin.”
With that, the Steward walked unhindered from the Chapel.
***
Hepdida lay on the bed. The cerise gown lay in shreds across the floor; she had taken Sir Vahnce at his word and done as she pleased with it. There were no scraps left large enough to cover a mouse’s modesty. The key to the locked door lay beneath her wet pillow and she huddled, knees drawn to her chest, trying to understand why luxurious survival could be so relentlessly miserable.
There was a soft knock at the door, the squeak of a handle turned in vain, and then a short scratching and click before the creak of a door swinging open on its hinges. She sat up. Niarmit stood in the doorway. The nightlight that Thom had cast for Hepdida lit up her cousin’s weary face.
Puzzled Hepdida reached beneath her pillow and finding the cold iron of the key, held it up in an unspoken question to the Queen.
Niarmit smiled and held up her own hand with a ring on which were two twisted strips of metal. “Kaylan taught me all he knew, before he started teaching you. A lock such as that is no great barrier,” she said.
“Is this where we talk then?”
Niarmit nodded. “Aye, but not in a bad way.” She picked her way to the bed without commenting on the fragments of pink cloth on the floor. As her cousin sat down, Hepdida lunged to hug her. Arms wrapped around her cousin’s body, head resting on her chest.
Niarmit hugged her back, stroking her hair with gentle hands. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry,” Hepdida insisted. “I’ve been a bitch.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Wha
t? When?”
“Tonight.”
Hepdida swung her legs out of bed. “I’ll get ready.”
Niarmit pulled her back. “No, you can’t come. You have to stay.”
When Hepdida looked at her in disbelief, Niarmit added, “there’s a lot of riding to be done, hard riding.” She gave a nervous laugh. “You would not like it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Tordil has come with news. Zombies have slipped their way into Medyrsalve and the force at the Gap of Tandar is much weakened. I am needed elsewhere.”
“Don’t go.” Hepdida seized her cousin in a tighter hug.
“I’m sorry, I must. But Kaylan will be here.”
“Kaylan?”
The Queen shifted position to look into her cousin’s eyes. “He volunteered,” she said watchfully. “Said he would stay to keep an eye on you.”
“Oh!”
“Quintala will stay as well. She can represent me at council. You will not be alone.”
Hepdida hugged her tighter, squeezing the breath from her cousin’s body. “Don’t go.”
“I thought you’d be glad of a bit of freedom from my smothering interference,” Niarmit said lightly.
The tears were flooding down Hepdida’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t go, please.”
“I have to. You’ll be perfectly safe here.”
“But… but what if you don’t come back?”
“I promise I will.” Niarmit wiped the tears from her cousin’s cheeks. “There, don’t cry.”
Hepdida sniffed and blubbed. “I’ve been being such a bitch. I’m so sorry.”
“There, there,” Niarmit patted her back.
“I see him still, you know. I can’t get him out of my dreams. I’m scared to sleep.”
“He’s dead, Hepdida, the orc is dead.”
“Not in my head he isn’t.”
The Queen pulled her cousin up and looked into her eyes. “What did he do, Hepdida?”
Hepdida was hiccoughing with her sobs, tears coursing over her scarred face. She spluttered and Niarmit pulled her back against her chest and said, “tell me?”