I found this a little hard to take in. Elfin, yes, dragonets, yes, jewels? Why not, really? Then I realized that if the Elfin would not want to take jewels, I didn’t have much to offer them. Unless I converted the jewels to money.
“Well, I have money too,” I said after a moment, but it seemed that I did not fool him.
“My, you’re single-minded. But we are not that enamored of gold, you know. We have enough already. So do not sell your poor jewels. I'm sure they’ve never done anything to deserve it.”
“But you sound as though you like jewels,” I persisted. “There might be some that wouldn’t mind belonging to you. I've got some very nice ones.”
Ystevan laughed at this and unfastened the buttons of his sleeveless robe with a few flicks of his long fingers and folded it back. “You seem to think I am short of jewels.”
I gasped and stared, fascinated. He wore a wide collar around his neck, lying flat around his chest. It was made of a sort of metal mesh, flexible like chain mail, and it was set literally all over with jewels. If this was not amazing enough, a broad belt of a similar construction was fastened around his trim waist. He pushed up his sleeves to show wide wristbands studded with semi-precious stones. He was a walking safe!
“I am not short of jewels,” he said rather ironically, “and my jewels are my friends. I certainly would not part with them.”
He brushed a fingertip over one of the jewels on the collar, and something wild and whirling spun up from it and shot around the chamber before disappearing back into the jewel.
I couldn’t help starting back. “What...what’s that?”
“A safyr. A rather excitable one though. Let’s see,” he mused, looking down at his jewels, “why don’t you come and say hello to Serapia.”
He touched another jewel with his fingertip, and a little shape flew up and landed on his finger. He held it out for my inspection. This one was shaped like a bird, but wispy and insubstantial looking, like mist. It was as blue as the sapphire out of which it had come, and it puffed out its chest, cocked its head on one side, and trilled a proud but soundless song. Could Ystevan hear it? After a few more moments, it leapt up and flew back into its jewel.
“So...” I said after a moment, “how come my safyr have never come out to say hello?” Even as I said it, something fell into place. The hematite had never come out, but it had often said hello, after a fashion.
Ystevan was laughing. “You are human,” he said simply. “Safyr require elfin power to manifest themselves. They love to manifest, though, so if they do get displaced from their family their next preference is to end up in elfin hands. Preferably in the hands of an elfin powerful enough to let them manifest frequently.”
Still reeling from all this, I somehow didn’t quite feel like pulling out Siridean’s dagger to show him. “So...you’re actually a very wealthy elfin?” I ventured, somewhat chagrined. Wealthier than I was, that was for sure! I’d seen no servants since waking up in his home, and had assumed...
“Each clan has their own ancestral jewels,” he explained, smiling. “They are distributed among the clan for keeping according to the power of each elfin in the clan. Obviously I, ah, have quite a few of Clan Valunis’s.”
“Why do you cover them? And come to it, why do you wear all of them all the time?”
His lip twitched at this miniature barrage of questions. “I cover them so they don’t gleam and make me visible for miles,” he replied dryly, “and also so they are protected from scratches and other damage. And I do not wear them for the fun of it. Safyr require an elfin’s power to manifest, but they also bring power to their keeper; that is why they are distributed according to an elfin’s strength. There’s no point anyone having more than they can use, and equally, it is a shame for a weaker elfin to lose the extra power jewels will bring them. Fort guardians are expected to wear all their jewels, so they can always be at maximum strength to deal with anything that may arise.”
“Do you wear them in bed?” I asked, rather incredulous.
“No, little one,” he said gently, “I just put them on the table by it.”
“Oh.”
I would probably have found some more questions to ask, but there was another tap on the doorframe, and Alvidra stood there, fixing Ystevan with a look.
“Mother says are we to have any food today or nay, little brother?” she said rather cuttingly.
Ystevan cocked his head on one side as if considering something unseen and far away. “Alas, yes, it is a bit late,” he said, unruffled. “I had best be off.” He stood and looked down at me. “My mother will look after you,” he assured me, “but I am a bad he-elf, and have chatted half the morning away.”
He strode off and was gone through the doorway. Alvidra followed him hastily, as though I might be able to bite clean across the room...
The arrival of the pot boy with our tisanes jerked my mind back to the little private room, but at least I’d remembered something. I’d asked Lord Ystevan and he’d said no. But I’d been going to ask the Queen...
What had the Queen said? I tried to make the memory unroll further, by sheer force of will, but it remained blank. A stubborn absence. I would have to ask Lord Ystevan again anyway, all unknowing... Blast him for taking my memories!
I picked up my cup and sipped, glancing at the memory-thief. Raven had just popped out from under his hair, where she’d hidden from the boy, and was climbing across his chest, but the he-elf had clearly been sitting there in silence, the whole time I’d been thinking...or rather, remembering. Because we’d had this conversation already? How many conversations had we had?
Curiously, I poked his chest with a finger. Yes, he was wearing his jewels. Their hardness was unmistakable, hidden though they were beneath his outer layers.
His watching eyes noted my little investigation. Ticking it off from some list in his head? Things the human knows... A sudden wave of something more like pain than anger closed my throat, tight. For some reason it hurt to think that he had done this to me, it really hurt! I just had to say something, or I was going to...to cry.
“So...so if you’re a fort guardian,” I demanded, “and the protection of the fort is your absolute priority, what are you doing here in London?”
“I am hunting a rogue elfin,” Lord Ystevan said, his voice suddenly as cold as midwinter ice. “A dark elfin. And that is all we are going to say about that.”
Raven squeaked and ran inside my dress. I drank the rest of my tisane in silence. His tone had quelled any possible questions I might have had about dark elfin.
I had to ask him about my father, but it was so hard, not knowing all that had been said between us before.
“Will you tell me about the dragons and creation?” I asked at last, as lightly as possible, hoping to ease the tension.
He gave me a somewhat disquieted look. “No, there is not much po.... Well, I think it best if I do not. I have promised not to bespell you and cannot do so effectively, besides, but I think it best if we go our separate ways again.”
I stared at him furiously. “What about my father?”
“What about your father?” he said coolly.
“He’s dying!”
“By his own hand, if rather slowly,” said the he-elf imperturbably.
“You heartless beast!” I exclaimed, stung. How could he be so friendly one moment, and so remote and feelingless the next?
“Ser...Lady Serapia, since I have no fear that you would ever use anything you know of my people to harm us—your own kin—this renewed acquaintance causes me no real concern. However, I think that must be that. As for the rest, I did my duty, and I pray you can one day forgive me for it.” He took up his stick, raised it in salute and headed for the door.
“Lord Ystevan, please!” I cried. “How can I contact you?”
He paused to look back at me with a much softer expression, and his eyes were very sad. “It is best that you do not,” he said quietly and slipped through the door.
I knew better than to hesitate by now and bolted to the doorway as though the room was on fire, but when I reached it, he was already gone. I ran out to the street and looked around, but not entirely to my surprise, he was nowhere in sight.
I went back into the inn and sat down again in the private room with my head in my hands, dizzy with the events of the last few hours. On the one hand, Lord Ystevan had never once said that my father couldn’t be healed, only that he wouldn’t do it. But on the other hand, after going to extraordinary lengths to find the he-elf, he’d slipped through my fingers yet again.
~+~
CHAPTER 33
THE CLOTHES’ PROBLEM
I was mildly annoyed to find some hours later that I had drifted off again. I had meant to insist that I was fine and get up. Still, I did feel better now. Even better, that was.
I couldn't tell exactly how long I’d slept, for I had yet to see a window in the fort, and I suspected there probably weren’t any. The light in the room came from a piece of rough quartz sitting in a little metal ring that was suspended from the ceiling on three chains. It gave a steady, almost wholly unwavering light of a kind that I had never before seen from a man-made lantern. Of course, this ‘lantern’ wasn’t exactly man-made.
My stomach was starting to complain a bit, so I pushed back the covers and got up, finding myself tolerably steady on my feet. I cast around for my clothes, but couldn’t find them. I did find something along the general lines of a chamber gown, and a pair of slippers, so I put those on. I emerged into a slightly irregularly shaped chamber that seemed to be a living room and dining room combined, since it had a circle of armchairs around a hearth, and a table and chairs.
Alvidra was there, laying a new fire in the grate. Apparently sensing my presence, the she-elf sprang to her feet, shot a look over her shoulder, and hurried through another doorway. Before I could reach this doorway, Haliath came hurrying out, smiling.
“Are you awake, then, elfling?” She paused and smiled deprecatingly. “Sorry, the word is child, I believe. But are you feeling better?”
I nodded, pushing away the memories evoked by that diminutive. “I really am fine now,” I added, in case I was in danger of being put back to bed.
“That’s good,” said the she-elf, then, as my stomach gave an audible grumble, “We’ll be having luncheon as soon as Ystevan gets back. And I must just check on it.”
She headed back through the doorway she’d appeared from. I followed and found myself in a kitchen. A very sophisticated looking stove had pride of place, with a pan bubbling away on top of it.
The stove fascinated me. While the fact that they clearly cooked for themselves sat at odds with my human idea of them being well off, I could already see that Ystevan was far from unimportant in the fort, and this stove... I doubted anything like this existed in my world.
A door creaked open somewhere, and after a moment Ystevan came in. He bore a large wickerwork basket on his back, held on with leather shoulder straps. A quiver was woven onto the basket on one side, and on the other a holder for a bow, both of which were occupied. He gave me a smile and went through a doorway in the kitchen wall. Haliath and Alvidra followed, so I did likewise.
We entered no simple larder, but a good-sized room. Shelves and wicker baskets lined the walls, and several rabbits and fowl hung from hooks over a wide stone shelf. A big table stood in the middle of the room, the top a mighty slab of smooth slate.
Ystevan emptied his basket swiftly onto the table and the two she-elves whipped the various foodstuffs away to different baskets and shelves.
“Sorry it’s a bit sparse,” apologized Ystevan, absently examining the two parts of a broken arrow.
“It’s more than adequate,” said Haliath without concern, although Alvidra sniffed and remarked,
“Avragrain never gets distracted from his providing.”
This seemed decidedly cryptic to me, but Haliath went on with her work and Ystevan went back to examining his arrow as if the remark was of no importance whatsoever.
“Have I got time to fix this?” Ystevan asked after a moment.
“No,” said Haliath, “the elfling...the child’s hungry.”
I felt myself turn pink at this, and was entirely unsure what to say.
“Luncheon, then,” returned Ystevan, apparently unconcerned.
~+~
I couldn't resist asking some questions over luncheon since I hadn’t the faintest idea about the Elfin way of life. I learned that the day was split into two halves. The first half was for family work. This generally meant that the he-elf of a family would go out and gather food, while the she-elf cooked, cleaned, and cared for the elflings. That did not seem particularly strange to me. What was a little stranger was that if a she-elf preferred to do the gathering, there was no problem; so long as there was a provider and a home-maker in each couple, no one was worried.
So in the morning, generally, he-elflings went out with their fathers, and she-elflings stayed to help their mothers, although most tended to have at least a basic knowledge of the other skills. Luncheon was fairly late, and in the afternoon was communal work, and academic schooling for the elflings.
The very most powerful elfin were the fort guardians—so long as they were brave and virtuous enough, Haliath added proudly, making Ystevan give unwarranted attention to the contents of his plate. Their work was checking the wards, and usually for part of the afternoon, attending on the Queen for more serious discussion. Many who were not fort guardians were also counselors to the Queen, so all these would spend the afternoon in finer clothes, which explained the discrepancy between Ystevan’s two sets of garments.
Some of the remaining elfin were teachers or pursued other such specialized occupations. Others saw to the maintenance of the fort, which included the cleaning of communal areas, and the care of the odd bullock, pig or sheep. These were occasionally staked outside a sheiling-fort by a grateful farmer and sent up to the torr-fort for care until the next feast day. Apparently hearing one’s gift lowing from inside an elfin fort tended to erode the Elfin’s mystical status.
Haliath had charge of the clan laundry in the afternoon, I learned, so she was hardly unimportant herself. And Alvidra, it turned out, was only there for a brief visit, and was actually married, and normally lived at a smaller sheiling-fort with her he-elfen, as a husband was called. It was all a lot to take in. I ate with my ears wide open and several times restrained myself from asking after Ystevan’s father.
Having unsuccessfully attempted to help Haliath clear up from luncheon, I followed Ystevan into a little side chamber, where he sat at a table and started mending his arrow with glue and some very thin gut-twine. His slender fingers were nimble, and he worked the repair in an unwarrantedly short space of time.
I hesitated to disturb him and watched in silence, but eventually, when the repair seemed to be essentially complete, I ventured, “I don’t want to say something wrong in front of your mother...so, I was wondering if you could tell me...”
“Ah, my missing father,” remarked Ystevan. “Thank you for not saying anything, my mother is very sensitive about it. And it’s easily explained. He’s dead. A long time ago, now. My sister and myself were still fairly young, so mother didn’t pine away after him, which is something.”
I was a little startled. “Is that, normal?”
Ystevan nodded as if surprised I asked, then cocked his head on one side as he had earlier and rose to his feet. “It is time for me to get ready to go to the Queen. I will be back later.”
“Can I come with you to the Queen?” I demanded.
The he-elf covered a smile as he looked at me, and I became belatedly conscious that I stood there drowned in a nightgown and chamber gown that were both far too big for me.
“Tomorrow,” he replied gently. “By then you’ll be right as blue sky and mother should have found some clothes to fit you!”
I blushed, faintly mortified to have forgotten about the clothes’ problem.
How quickly might Haliath be able to find me clothes? But Ystevan disappeared through another curtained doorway off the living room, and when I went into the kitchen to find Haliath, she was still washing the last dishes, and I felt I couldn’t trouble her. I returned to the sitting room and sat in an armchair feeling decidedly purposeless.
Ystevan smiled when he saw me sitting there, as he reappeared in fine wool and velvet. “When I get back I'll take you on a tour of the fort, if you’re dressed,” he told me, clearly seeing how I felt. Then he was off down a corridor and out the wooden door that clearly led to the rest of the fort.
~+~
I was extremely pleased when Haliath, after a little more time in the kitchen, disappeared briefly to return with an armful of clothes. We withdrew to ‘my’ room and I tried on garment after garment, trying to find some that fitted. The she-elves seemed to wear just-below-knee-length dresses with elegant leather boots to the knee for general wear—all of which came rather further down my shorter human legs, though they still barely reached my ankles. Haliath had also brought some full-length dresses of much richer fabrics, clearly aware that I would be seeing the Queen.
“You’re so curvy,” said the she-elf after a while. “The younger she-elves will be mad with envy, but it’s making this rather tricky...”
“But I'm terribly skinny,” I protested—even though yet another dress had just failed to fit around my hips.
Haliath seemed puzzled by this. “Yes, Ystevan thought so, but you seem pretty curvy to me. Well, try this one.”
Finally I was buttoned into a smart little day dress and boots, and Haliath had coaxed Alvidra into letting out a few seams of a much finer formal gown for the next day.
Elfling (U.S. Edition) Page 22
