by K. J. Hargan
Summeninquis rose to power quickly and mysteriously, as though he had power over men's minds. But Wynnfrith wasn't worried about the High Judge, as her father, King Bosruss was of such a firm intellect and fiery temperament, no man swayed him unless their arguments were compelling and just.
"There is no reason to try the Lords of the Eaststand, " Alrhett forcefully said.
"They went to war against their king," Summeninquis intoned, his right hand clutched something under his robe.
"Now, now, High Judge Summeninquis, let us forgive and celebrate," King Bosruss said as he strode up, coming to his wife's defense. Bosruss wore the crown of the Weald, an old diadem supposed to have been fashioned by the elves. In its center was a large green jewel called the Jewel of Atrundr. It was supposed to have magic qualities, though no one could accurately articulate the nature of its power for Wynnfrith.
Wynnfrith's heart leapt to see her father, but she knew better than to interrupt when royal matters were being discussed.
"But the Lords of the Eaststand are coming here," Summeninquis said as he continued to fiddle with something hidden under his robe. Wynnfrith caught sight of a golden, jeweled sheath as the judge's robes rippled. Wynnfrith was certain Summeninquis was drawing and sheathing a small golden dagger as if he thought it would produce some kind of magic effect. "We have them in our hands. What better time to try them?"
King Bosruss was a large man, tall and husky. His black hair was streaked with white. His black and white beard was closely cropped. The wealdkin loved him, not only because he was fair and just, but also because he loved to celebrate and feast with the wealdkin whenever he could. King Bosruss loved life, and it was evident in the festivities he enjoyed and reveled in, with his family and subjects.
"Now is the time for reconciliation," King Bosruss warmly smiled, putting a large, battle scarred hand on Summeninquis' shoulder. "Judge the murderers and thieves, let us be glad our brethren of the Eaststand are once again in the fold of the Weald."
High Judge Summeninquis seemed perplexed and disappointed. King Bosruss' answer was not what he expected, and he jiggled the hidden object with an annoying insistence.
"Do you have fleas?" King Bosruss said with burly jocularity.
Summeninquis simply shook his head and ambled away.
King Bosruss turned his large, hairy head to spy his daughter, and a great blinding smile spread across his face as all his large white teeth shone with pleasure.
Wynnfrith ran to her father. And the large man easily scooped up his daughter in his massive arms.
"My squirrel!" King Bosruss boomed with affection.
"My bear!" Wynnfrith squealed with delight as she hugged and hugged her father, the King of the Weald.
"Today is a special day," Bosruss tenderly said with his deep voice, as he shifted Wynnfrith to easily perch on only one of his thick arms.
"My day of birth?" Wynnfrith said with girlish delight.
"Oh? Was that today?" Bosruss said with mock surprise, as Alrhett shook her head at her husband's teasing of their daughter.
"You don't have to give me a gift," Wynnfrith said as she hugged her father again. "The end of the war and your return is the greatest present I could ever ask for."
Tears welled in the king's eyes. Although a great and fearsome warrior, a tenderness settled over Bosruss that was astounding to behold. The love he felt for his family was great in his heart. Alrhett held her husband's arm and pressed her body close to him.
"Then I suppose I shall have to give this to some other girl," Bosruss said when he found his voice, and he pulled out a wide silver bracelet. The bracelet was four, crossed bands of silver fashioned to resemble the branches of trees, intertwined, and covered with small emeralds that resembled the leaves of the silver branches. It was a royal image of the tangled forests of the Weald.
"Oh, father!" Wynnfrith exclaimed as she put the bracelet on.
"Now I want to hear the rest of the dream that so troubled my lovely wife last night," Bosruss said as he turned to Alrhett. "You and Wynnfrith were walking through tall grass, headed west, yes? Who was it that led you? An elf you said?"
"My King," an attendant interrupted. "Lord Ergester and the Lords of the Eaststand have arrived."
"Admit them! Admit them!" Bosruss boomed. "Today is a glorious day. We will have peace and prosperity from this day forward."
Bosruss, Alrhett, and Wynnfrith hurried to the massive, carved oak front doors of the royal mansion. The huge slabs of wood swung open to reveal the Lords of the Eaststand, all in their finest armor and silks, led by Lord Ergester.
Lord Ergester was seventy-two winters old, but the old Lord was strong and frightening to Wynnfrith. He wore his battle-scarred armor even in King Bosruss' presence, a societal slight. His grizzled face was twisted with years of cruelty, and his lips drooped with a leering lechery that made Wynnfrith uncomfortable. His cloudy eyes turned and fixed on her, and she felt a chill run through her bones.
"What a beautiful daughter you have," Lord Ergester said, rudely ignoring the King and Queen of the Weald. "If I had known how precious she is, I would have thrown myself at your feet long ago to marry her, Bosruss."
"She is still a child," Alrhett said with a mother's growing defensiveness. Alrhett put her arms defensively around her daughter.
"Has she bled?" Lord Ergester rudely said. "Then she can marry."
"Lord Ergester-" Alrhett said stepping forward to thrash the decrepit, old Lord of the Eaststand.
Bosruss caught his wife and turned to smile at Lord Ergester. "Let us leave this admiring of women for some other day," King Bosruss said. Then he moved dangerously close to Lord Ergester, and his smile turned into a savage grimace with all his teeth showing. "I thought you were here to sue for peace," Bosruss said low and dangerous, their noses nearly touching, Bosruss' eyes flickering with silent rage.
The Lords of the Eaststand backed away from Ergester in fear of the King of the Weald. Wynnfrith was sure that her father was about to snap the old Lord in half, and secretly wished he would.
Lord Ergester sniffed.
"Of course, of course," Ergester said dismissively as he shuffled into the royal mansion without an invitation. "We must have peace. A lovely home you have here. I should have come to Rogar Li years ago."
Alrhett was seething with rage, but she held her tongue and turned to the other Lords of the Eaststand who were paralyzed with fear and sure they were about to see a brawl among the nobility.
"Won't you come in?" Alrhett said to the other Lords, holding her breath with a veiled disdain.
The rest of Wynnfrith's birthday was spent alone in her room as her father and mother spoke in low, yet emphatic, tones to the Lords of the Eaststand, speaking of peace and treaties.
At night a feast was set in the largest hall in Rogar Li. All the Lords and ladies of the Weald were in attendance.
Wynnfrith avoided Lord Ergester all night, as the seventy two year old lecher constantly maneuvered to be near the sixteen-year-old princess.
Bosruss and Alrhett were constantly busied with greeting and conversing with the Lords and Ladies of the Weald throughout the feast, and so, were unmindful of the danger to their daughter.
As the feast wound down and Lords and Ladies excused themselves, Ergester finally cornered Wynnfrith near the stand with the musicians.
"How has my little bride-to-be enjoyed her birthday celebration?" Ergester drooled, his large, musty frame looming near.
Wynnfrith saw no avenue of escape. She was pinned in by all the musicians who were packing up their instruments.
Ergester's gnarled, brown spotted hands reached for Wynnfrith, who found herself paralyzed and speechless with fear.
"Lord Ergester!" A kind, but forceful voice made the Lord of the Eaststand turn.
"I haven't had the chance to congratulate you on your peace pact," a white haired man said as he strongly grasped the old man's shoulder, holding him back.
"Yulenth," Ergester sne
ered, "the emissary of the glafs. I have no time for you."
Ergester tried to brush the glaf away, but the lean man forcefully turned the old Lord and clasped him in a tight embrace. With a surreptitious hand on Ergester's blind side, Yulenth motioned for Wynnfrith to make her escape.
Wynnfrith scuttled away to see old Ergester rudely pushing the glaf emissary away, only to find his prey gone.
Later that night, in her bed, admiring her new bracelet, Wynnfrith heard voices raised in the royal mansion. She had barred her bedroom with her bureau and nightstand for fear of Ergester, but now she pushed them aside and opened her door, as moonlight streamed through the windows of her immense, darkened home.
The quiet creaking of the houses and halls nestled in the giant trees of the Weald wasn't frightening to Wynnfrith, but the voices were.
The sound of men struggling reverberated through the quiet mansion. Then Wynnfrith heard her mother's voice, low and pleading, and her father breathing fast, the painful pace of a dying man, all in hushed tones.
Peeking through her parent's bedroom door, Wynnfrith saw several men crowded around her parent's bed. The sheets were dark with some liquid. Her father lay back, clutching his chest. Alrhett sat up in bed clutching the cloak of the nearest man, who was short and fat.
All the men wore masks, except for Ergester who hovered over Bosruss.
"You see?" Whispered the short, fat man nearest Alrhett. "There can be peace in the Weald. You see how the Lords of Rogar Li can come together with the Lords of the Eaststand."
"You will tell the court," Ergester said, "that your husband died of a natural death, peacefully in his bed. You will also tell the court that you have sanctioned the marriage of your daughter to me. If you do not do these things. I will slaughter you tonight. Do you understand? Good. Now go fetch the little one. I wish to solemnize our nuptials ahead of time."
The circle of men evilly chuckled at the last comment.
Alrhett stumbled from her bed and to the door. She met Wynnfrith crouching in the shadows, and quickly motioned for her to be silent.
"I will do as you say," Alrhett said from the doorway, hiding her daughter behind her.
Alrhett griped Wynnfrith's hand, and moved silent as a cat to the nearest window. At the window was a sheer drop to a large branch.
"We must do it," Alrhett whispered to her daughter.
Wynnfrith needed no encouragement. She crept out the window and dropped to the branch below. She hit hard, and her fingers slipped on the thick branch of a titanic oak. The bracelet her father gave her snapped and slipped off her wrist with the impact. Wynnfrith watched the royal token fall among the dark branches of the trees of Rogar Li, disappearing into the dark with no sound of striking the ground far below, lost to the shadows. Wynnfrith scooted out of the way, knowing her mother would be next.
As Alrhett thudded to the branch, she lost her grip and began to slide off the massive limb. Wynnfrith clutched at her mother and pulled her back to safety. The two then shimmied off the branch to the nearest walkway.
Up above a voice hissed. "They've escape!" A dark face peered from the window they had just fled. "There they are!"
Alrhett and Wynnfrith ran down the darkened wooden ramp and collided with a man walking in the moonlight.
"Alrhett! Wynnfrith!" The man said. "What are you doing out here in the night... in your bed clothes?"
"They have killed the king, Yulenth," Alrhett breathed. "And we are next."
Wynnfrith immediately recognized the white haired man who saved her from Ergester earlier in the evening.
"This way," Yulenth whispered and the three fled down the walkways to the forest floor. High up above, the sound of men running back and forth across the ramps of Rogar Li resounded in the still night.
"Run to the Eastern Meadowland," Yulenth said to Alrhett. "Do not stop. Run until you find Alfhich or some other small village to hide. I will find you later."
Wynnfrith saw a moment between Yulenth and Alrhett as they locked eyes. Her mother gazed upon the glaf in the same way she looked upon Bosruss.
As they fled to the west, Wynnfrith looked back to see the glaf waving from the shadows to the gang of men that charged down the ramp.
"This way!" Yulenth called to the men. "They went this way!" Yulenth led the men to the north, into the darkened maze of the Weald.
The rest of the night was running, always running, and crying, tears without end. They stayed off the North Bairn Road that ran near the banks of the Bairn River, staying in the safe cover of the trees.
At dawn they reached the expanse of the Eastern Meadowland, avoiding the small village of Rion Ta.
"Come my daughter," Alrhett said to sixteen year old Wynnfrith. "There is safety for us somewhere out there."
Two days later they found the small, hidden village of Bittel, where a tall blonde haired man, twenty years of age, lived out his solitary days trying to forget the tragedy of his life back in Gillalliath.
The moment Wynnfrith laid eyes on Kellabald of Bittel she knew she was safe. This quiet, tall man was polite and sympathetic. He moved with a gentle strength in everything that he did. There was nothing violent or boasting about Kellabald. He was filled with love, and Wynnfrith saw that love shining in him like a beacon in a dark world full of despair.
Wynnfrith didn't care that he lived as a peasant, her life as a princess was over, and this attractive man, with the soft brown eyes, became her whole world.
A year later they married. Back in Rogar Li, her royal wedding would have generated a feast that would have lasted for a moonth, with contests and parades. At their wedding in Bittel, there was only a priest Kellabald brought from Alfhich, the bride and groom, the bride's mother, and sunlight pouring through the quiet cathedral of trees that canopied their hidden village. Wynnfrith was the happiest bride in all the world.
A year after that, shortly after their son Arnwylf was born, Yulenth the glaf came to live with them, telling a sorrowful tale of the destruction of his people by the Northern Kingdom of Man. Alrhett and Yulenth fell in love and were married by the time Wynnfrith's second son was born.
Bittel was quiet, filled with love and happiness, and oblivious and isolated from the wars that raged throughout Wealdland.
Wynnfrith looked down at Frea. This red haired girl is the same age as I was when I fled Rogar Li, Wynnfrith thought. The sun rose over the Far Grasslands, hot and burning. Wynnfrith took Frea's long dagger and cut the branches of some low-lying scrub to cover them, as they rested for the day.
Frea turned fitfully in her sleep, and she dreamt.
She was older. She was an adult and she was wandering the great granite corridors of Ethgeow, the castle in which she spent her childhood years. But this was not her Ethgeow. This was the New Ethgeow, the rebuilt Ethgeow, grander, more resplendent than any structure ever constructed by any human.
Her grandmother Miri came to her, smiling.
"Miri!" Frea cried. Her grandmother was a strong woman, the mother of her father, Haergill, King of the Northern Kingdom of Man. Miri had short gray curls. She was tall for a woman, wide of shoulder, and not to be trifled with.
Miri spread her arms and took her granddaughter in a warm embrace.
"What do you think of New Ethgeow?" Miri asked.
"New Ethgeow?"
"Did you not think your husband would keep his promise?" Miri smiled, still holding Frea.
"Husband?" Frea asked.
"King Arnwylf the Great," Miri said with a reproving shake of her head.
Frea could only blink in disbelief.
"Let us go see him," Miri said, and led her granddaughter by the hand through the arched stone corridors, out onto a parapet.
New Ethgeow was filled with a crush of humans, happy humans dressed in gay colors, laughing and feasting. They all looked up and cheered to a far balcony.
Frea followed their adoration to see Arnwylf on a far balcony. He was older and regal, and age made him more handsome than ever. He spo
rted a dark blonde beard, and had several more scars upon his face than Frea ever remembered.
Frea turned to ask Miri a question, but her grandmother had disappeared.
"Oh," Frea said aloud. "Of course, she can't be here because my grandmother is dead."
Then Frea was startled by terrible high-pitched screaming. She looked down at the courtyards filled with people, who were shrieking in terror for their lives. They pointed up and Frea turned to look up as well.
High in the sky, something was coming.
It was Deifol Hroth, ringed in blazing fingers of lightning. He held the Sun Sword and the Moon Sword joined together in one hand, and the Lhalii, the elvish crystal, in his other hand. He landed near Arnwylf on the balcony.
Frea tried to scream to warn Arnwylf, but she was in a dream and couldn't open her mouth.
Deifol Hroth put the Lhalii onto the extended hilt of the Sun Sword and a fire began to emanate from the joined devices.
Arnwylf drew a sword and tried to strike Deifol Hroth, but Arnwylf simply burned, horribly burned, until he was nothing but ashes.
Frea closed her eyes in her dream and willed herself away from the scene.
"Only a dream," she repeated to herself.
Frea opened her eyes to find she was standing on an ocean tormented and boiling with awful waves. Frea looked and saw Ronenth in a small sailboat, wrestling with the ropes that controlled his sails. The sky was black and filled with roiling storm clouds.
Vyreeoten exploded from the turbulent foam and crashed down on Ronenth's boat, their disgusting, snake-like bodies smashing the small craft with a white, frothing splash.
Again Frea squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself away from the second dream.
Then she heard a voice in the dark that chilled her to the bone.
Frea opened her eyes to find she was in pitch-blackness. She was floating in an emptiness, a terrible void of lifelessness, there was no sun, no moons, no earth, not even stars. But it was a real place, a vast, infinite, abyss. The darkness was so complete, Frea couldn't even see her own hand in front of her face.
