by R. Cooper
“I am not a good choice,” she argued, and heard, “Stubborn,” whispered beneath her ear. “I did it for you, offered myself as chevetein. I only went there for you, because you asked, and I thought I might be able to help you.”
Prityal raised her head with no warning. “You did it because once you realized you could, you knew you had to try. Because we needed you.” She moved her hand back to the mark over Delf’s ribs. “You may be humble with the others, Delflenor, but I know the truth. I see you as you are, I think. You could have done it before. I wish you had known that, and not just for Ainle’s sake.”
“You…” Delf swallowed. “You should be recovering, not calming my silly fears. I’ll be fine. Rest now, so you’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Very few come to me for softness.” Prityal came close enough to brush noses. “And never like how we are together. Would you deny me this?”
“Oh.” Delf was somehow weaker than before. “You know I won’t. I wouldn’t deny you anything.” Surely that was obvious by now. “Please do not get struck down by magic again. Seeing you like that… not hearing you hum out of boredom, or call me Delflenor….”
“Delflenor,” Prityal murmured, and sighed when Delf kissed her cheek, “who chose to be a hero.”
Delf’s body had given up on moving, but her mind spun on, marveling and confused. Prityal watched her from her pillow, her hand slowly falling still beneath the blankets. This was the warmest and cleanest they had been together, Delf noted absurdly, and let her head fall more heavily on her pillow.
“I have loved you for a long time,” she admitted, the only thing left. “Admired, at first, but then loved. Far before I kissed you. You should know that.”
Prityal’s eyes lit before the smile reached her mouth. “As many of our friends have often told me you did.” Delf could not feel embarrassed with Prityal so content. “Yet you would not approach me, not more than the once.”
“You know why I did not.” Delf shivered one last time before succumbing to the warmth of the bed. “I still do not believe it, truth be told.”
Prityal wrinkled her nose and peered at Delf anxiously. “And I thought you knew more about this than I. You made the offer to save me. But you do want to be here? With me?” Her worry seemed to ease the moment the words were out, and she brought her hand up to slowly wipe away what was left of Delf’s tears. She kissed Delf’s mouth, careful and soft. “I’ve wanted to know you more, and be with you—although I did not grasp that part then—since the night I noticed that the knight who had helped tend my wound was the one whose words reached me in reports. Who would look at me until I tried to meet their eyes. The others saw me staring. They were encouraging.”
Delf stared at her with shock. “I should have been straightforward from the start.”
Prityal smiled for that. “It would have helped. But I didn’t know, then. I did not know when you kissed me, only that I was happy when you did, and wounded when there was nothing else.”
“They could have told me.” Delf no longer had chilly hands. She brushed her fingertips across Prityal’s cheekbone and eyebrow, down over her pretty nose.
“Would you have believed them?” Prityal challenged, leaving Delf stymied and quiet. Victorious, as she liked to be, Prityal rolled over, then reached back to gently pull Delf’s arm over her.
Delf pressed in closer, putting her lips to Prityal’s nape before exhaling and shutting her eyes. The events of the day were still clear in her mind. Worries about tomorrow lurked behind them.
“I cannot sleep yet,” Delf confessed. “But I will stay to keep you warm. Also, in all honesty, I don’t think I can move.”
Prityal seemed attached to holding Delf’s hand. She kept it against her breast and laced their fingers together. She exhaled deeply. “I don’t want you to worry all night.”
Delf kissed the back of Prityal’s neck again, because it was allowed. “The beloved of the chevetein,” she murmured. “They think They are funny.” And I thank Them for it, she added silently.
“Is that what you discussed with Them?” Prityal now seemed to be experimenting with placing slow, gentle kisses along Delf’s knuckles. She hummed as if the act pleased her.
“Well,” Delf opened eyes that had fallen closed, “what else was I to talk about?”
“Yourself.” For all her weariness, Prityal’s tone still contained a thread of steel. “But if you will not tell Them, tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Delf submitted without argument, only curiosity. “What I said to Them?”
“Everything.” Prityal held Delf’s hand to her mouth. Delf thought she was smiling. “I was asleep, and woke to your lips, and your hands, and your heart. But I do not know the rest. Tell me the story. Tell of me of the Devotion of Delflenor. In your words, before I hear it from others.”
“Ah,” Delf whispered, hiding her warm face in Prityal’s hair. But she would not ever want to disappoint Prityal, not as her chevetein, or as her hero, or as her beloved. She breathed deeply once again, and held Prityal safe and close, and told the tale.
Delflenor of Ainle
SHE WOKE ALONE. Well, that was, she woke up alone in the bed, stiff and sore, with chilled toes and an itch at the back of her throat, as though wound-fever still threatened. She reached out reflexively, but the place next to her on the mattress was cold. Delf would have thought herself entirely alone, if not abandoned, if Jareth had not delicately cleared her throat and informed Delf that she had food waiting, and she was not permitted to rise from bed until at least one bowl of porridge had been consumed.
Jareth did not say on whose orders, or comment on whether or not anyone had the right to order Delf to do anything, now, save the Three. Delf did not ask, in any event. She blinked herself to further wakefulness, and twitched her heavy limbs into action, and sat up, pulling the bedding up to cover her chest. She did not think Jareth was the type to get shocked, not by nakedness, but the room was hardly warm. The fire had gone out. But the air was not dark. Light spilled in through the windows. It was day, but winter still approached.
Jareth brought Delf the bowl and a spoon, and Delf spared a moment to consider the shadows beneath Jareth’s eyes as well as the brightness in her eyes themselves. Up all night, then, as predicted. Delf nodded her thanks and shoveled porridge into her mouth and said not a word.
She felt as if she had been knocked onto her ass several times, then dunked into an icy pond and left to dry in the winter air. There was a spot of blood on the blankets, although her arm appeared to have been rebandaged. Her sleep had been very deep. Whether that was due to true exhaustion or a longing to avoid this day, Delf did not know. But the day was here and there was no running from it. She had walked herself here, and she would keep walking.
She was slow to notice the clothing laid out over the foot of the bed. Hose and clean breeches and a long-sleeved tunic shirt, not her own. A fact which prompted a vague memory of Ona wondering about Delf’s belongings and Ange chastising Delf over her odd habits.
“I’ve never had a room to myself,” Delf said honestly into the silence. Only after the last bite did she realize her porridge had been sweetened with dried apples. “What am I to do with a house?”
“Hardly the most pressing matter,” Jareth observed, now seated before the cold fireplace, a surcoat folded over her arms. “But I am sure you will figure something out.” She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully. “There might be others who have never known a room of their own who might like one.”
There would be. There always were, even with the best of intentions. That did not mean that Delf could be Brennus.
She licked porridge from the corner of her lips and put the bowl, and that matter, aside. “Is she well?”
If Jareth thought this a strange change of subject, it didn’t show. “Still making up for missed meals, but otherwise perfect. You saved her. You again have my gratitude.”
Delf ducked her head, unsurprised when her hair fell into v
iew and it was little better than a bird’s nest. Safely behind the tangled curtain, she closed her eyes and breathed. It made no difference if her heart was on display to Prityal, or to the Seat, or to all of Ainle. It had been bared enough before and this changed nothing. If Prityal had been uncomfortable in the light of morning, or had reconsidered offering her affection to a chevetein such as Delf, Delf could not blame her. Prityal had struggles enough.
“Are you embarrassed to be thanked?” Jareth pressed curiously. “I can stop thanking you, but you will have my gratitude regardless.”
“Any of us would have done it.”
Delf’s words were not a lie, yet Jareth made a small noise of protest as though they were. “But not everyone could have, or would have, kept going in the condition you were in. And—you’re not listening, are you? I see now why she is so fond of calling you as she does.”
“I will get dressed now,” Delf informed her, leaving it to Jareth to leave or stay for that, since neither of them were shy. “Is Bon outside? Others?”
Jareth rose to her feet and placed the surcoat with the rest of Delf’s clothes. It was plain white, with blue flowers along the hem. Not one of Delf’s, and not one of Ran’s, since Ran’s would have been too short for her.
“There are many waiting to speak with you.” Jareth said this with meaning, a meaning Delf ignored for the moment as she clambered painfully out of Prityal’s bed. “You won’t ask where she is?”
“She is with Frire,” Delf responded immediately. “Or, if he has been already seen to, she is somewhere in the barracks, clean and shining, walking when she should be resting, reassuring everyone that she lives and she is well. She will consider it her duty, and in a way I suppose it is. I’d rather she rested, but my words would not stop her.”
“They could.”
Delf froze. But the chill of the room was too great to stand around in bare skin, and she was hurriedly dressing in the next moment. “Then let us say that I will not stop her, because it is a choice she has made, and it will ease her mind to do it.” She nearly fell over trying to slip on the hose, but Jareth, thankfully, made no moves to help her. “And I do not wish to be the sort of cheve to command out of cruelty,” Delf added, quiet.
“Chevetein,” Jareth corrected, but inclined her head. “That seems a good place to start.” She cleared her throat. “She has slept and eaten and bathed, if that calms you to know. She has exchanged whispers with Ran—which should not calm you to know, as you will learn.”
Delf raised her head sharply.
Jareth stepped toward the door. “There is talk all through the barracks and the Seat. Bon, who was at Prityal’s bedside throughout this, has gone to rest at last. So you have some freedom, for a while, if the other priests do not find you first. The mood is….” She appeared to be choosing her words with care. “Prityal’s presence has soothed them.”
Delf focused again on her struggle to dress herself and coordinate her shaky limbs. “There is a chevetein, and cause for rejoicing. And also for doubt. And also to wonder what the Three could possibly mean by accepting an offer from me. I cannot reassure anyone on that score. I have no idea, either.”
“Ah, yes, that reminds me.” Jareth made the sort of face one made when trying to be serious while also being deeply amused. “I’ve had two different people instruct me to tell you something—and it happens to be the same something. Hopefully, it will make sense to you, because I don’t see what it has to do with our current situation.”
“I am stubborn?” Delf guessed as she wriggled into the shirt. She yanked it down a moment before Jareth opened the door.
“You are the Champion’s Champion,” Jareth explained simply, before adding, “There’s more food waiting for you in the feasting hall.”
Delf’s legs were not steady. Walking that far would exhaust her. But she did not object, and with a nod, Jareth left.
It was a poor sight Delf would make as the new chevetein; weary and shaken in borrowed clothes. She found a comb at least, hidden by the surcoat, and got rid of the worst of the tangles in her hair before she slipped the surcoat cover her head. She had no belt, so the cloth hung loose.
The boots by the door were her own, found by someone and cleaned and returned. Delf stumbled into the wall twice while getting them on, and felt the porridge roll in her stomach before she opened the door.
The hall outside Prityal’s room held only four people, three begleys and a squire. All of them straightened when they saw her.
For several moments, they all stared at each other, then two of their names returned to Delf’s memory. It allowed her to offer a smile. “No lessons today?”
“Feast day,” the squire answered, chin up. Delf did not question whether that was in challenge or a personal quirk; she was too tired.
“Feast day?” Delf considered the fact that it was still the middle of harvest, but didn’t speak of that, either. It had been ten years. People would have a feast and she would not want to stop them. She nodded and moved along, feeling their stares follow her.
“Do you need a belt?” one of them called after her. “Did you lose yours in the woods?”
Delf turned slowly to flick a look over each of them in turn. Their stares remained, sharp and curious. “I have another,” she answered at last, cautious and confused. “But I thank you.”
She received four, perhaps slightly overly bright, smiles. She decided to take them as well-meant, and nodded again before making her way from the hall.
She was forced to take her time since her body had not forgiven her for her exertions the past few days. Although some of the weight in her bones might have been the belated impact of what she had done yesterday.
Delf walked and was stared at by others, and offered someone’s arm, which she politely refused. She rested when there were no stares, and wondered with distant bewilderment where the other priests were, and how long it would take angry cheves to ride to the Seat to see her. She wondered if the chevetein’s house was cold, and if the floors could still be warmed, and, foolishly, if Prityal would like that better than fires in the winter. Then she considered that perhaps it would scare people, the Hope in the chevetein’s house, and they would think Delf a tyrant, too, and Prityal would choose to stay away. Delf regretted the porridge, then, only to want more moments later when her stomach growled.
At last, she found the empty room where she kept some of her belongings, and hid there for a while. She dug out an old belt of braided leather and wrapped it around her waist, then put a knife there to make her feel more of the knight she no longer was. She tied her hair at her nape as she looked up to the windows of the small room—to the sky, no longer filled with any color but the gray of clouds and the hint of yellow sunshine behind them.
“Now, you are silent,” she said to those listening, and watching, and waited, but it was as she had said. They had led her here, and she had gazed at the stone in the stream and spoken her thoughts, and They had answered; to be the chevetein They wanted her to be, she had only to be herself, with perhaps some guidance from those around her.
A fool’s plan, she thought for Them to also hear, but wisdom was often found in the words of fools, and might be discovered in the plans of fools as well. It was, after all, not for Delf to see the end of the path, only the steps before her. She sighed for it before abandoning the safety of the hidden, dusty room.
She thought of Kee, but trusted the Stablemaster, and, for that matter, Prityal, who she had no doubt would have visited her. Delf would see Kee later, and bring treats and apologies, and tell her the news. First, there was duty.
But Delf was no Prityal, so she headed not for the courtyard to be seen or to the road to the Seat itself and the chevetein’s house. She crossed the threshold into the feasting hall and stopped, stunned, although it took only a moment for her to chide herself for being surprised.
The hall was as full as it could be with some knights out on missions. It was fairly early in the day, as far as Delf co
uld tell, but the air smelled of wine and ale, and giddy chatter carried through the room.
There would not have been time to prepare much in the way of a real feast, but those in the kitchens had made an attempt, with small cakes and breads in baskets on every table. They might make more, if the merriment and drinking did not slow them down.
Not everyone present in the hall worked or lived in the barracks. Some must have been guests of those who did. Several wore the clothes of merchants or artists. Delf could only imagine what the rest of the town around the Seat was like at the moment. Or, she would have, if her attention had not been focused on the opposite end of the room.
Arranged in chairs before the fireplace, along with a few aged knights, were Tay, Ranalaut, and Prityal.
Delf stumbled forward, belatedly noting the cup by Prityal’s feet, which doubtlessly held ale. Though how much ale depended on how much care Prityal took today. Delf hoped she took none, and drank freely and allowed herself to smile sleepily at all who crossed her path.
She also thought Prityal ought to eat more if she was to drink heavily, because worry was not a thing Delf could stop feeling, even now.
Her arrival was noticed. Conversations stopped or became hushed. Someone to her left gasped loudly. Ahead of her, Ranalaut turned his head as if tracking the disturbance in the room and then flashed his teeth at Delf in a wolfish grin.
Delf had no emotions to spare for that, despite Jareth’s warning. She gave Ran a nod before refocusing on Prityal, who must have noticed Ran’s distraction and sought out the source.
Prityal was in a thick doublet and surcoat, a surcoat that Delf had never seen her in before, and it took Delf several dazed moments to recognize it as one of her own, with three embroidered lines in deep orange and purple along the hem. She would have taken the time to ponder where Prityal—or someone else, such as Tay—might have known to find it, but there were many, many eyes on her now, and she had other concerns.
Prityal looked well, hale and whole, if a bit less upright than she might have been. Her curls gleamed. Her skin was radiant. The healing magic had even given her gaze more fire.