An Elf with a commanding manner, rather more heavyset than the rest, came over and bent down between Féolan and Danaïs, speaking quietly and rapidly. Féolan seemed both sobered and satisfied by his news. The man straightened, glanced at Gabrielle and offered his palm to her, talking a mile a minute. Gabrielle smiled and returned the gesture, while Féolan came to the rescue: “Gabrielle, this is Haldoryn. He led our raid on the Greffaire camp.”
“Then I owe him my thanks, for myself and for my people. Please tell him that, Féolan.”
Haldoryn looked momentarily nonplussed, but he smiled and bowed. Then clapping Féolan on the shoulder and speaking briefly once more, he strode away.
“Why do they do that?” Gabrielle demanded.
“Do what?” asked Danaïs.
“Everyone seems to assume I speak Elvish. Do they suppose that Humans, who have not even laid eyes upon them for so many years, all study their language just in case?”
She had meant it to be humorous, but Féolan gave a frustrated laugh that seemed almost angry.
“They don’t realize you’re Human, Gabrielle, not at first. You should look in a glass sometime. When I saw you dressed as one of us, it seemed as though ... “ His voice trailed away.
Gabrielle was startled. “Are you saying I look Elvish?”
Féolan turned to Danaïs. “Am I wrong?”
Danaïs smiled at Gabrielle. “I mistook you for an Elf the first time I laid eyes on you. Of course, I was not my usual perceptive self at the time. But in those clothes, I think you will have to display your ears if you wish to be recognized as Human.”
Gabrielle let her fingers glide over the remarkable softness of her new clothes. I had never felt anything so soft as the shawl you were wrapped in. Solange’s words leaped into her head, bringing with them a thought so heady it left her weak. A foolish thought, no doubt, mere running after rainbows, yet she could not seem to thrust it away. Her very skin tingled with it.
Féolan touched her hand, reclaiming her attention. “Haldoryn had news. While we were away, the Council decided to join our forces with yours. I didn’t expect it of them. Apparently the plan is to close in behind the Gref Orisé when they make their advance, so they will be beset from two sides.”
Féolan would go, of course. He could hardly stay behind after his big speech to Council. Gabrielle stared at her plate. She thought of Tristan and Féolan on the same battlefield. Two she loved. Two more she might lose. And Tristan, she realized with a stab of regret, would be mourning his father and sister both right now, even as he prepared for battle.
“Gabrielle?” Féolan had more to tell her. “The Council of Elders wants to speak with both of us this evening.”
“Me?” she squeaked. “They want to speak to me?”
“More precisely, I expect they want you to speak to them,” Danaïs corrected, amused at her discomfiture.
“But why?”
“Well,” said Féolan. “They want me because I know the most about the Gref Orisé, I expect. And you certainly know the most about the Human forces.”
Gabrielle doubted she knew anything of much use about the Human forces. She remembered how Féolan had addressed the Verdeau Council, and realized how challenging that must have been. Now she was the closest thing to a foreign ambassador Verdeau had. She would do her best.
GABRIELLE AND FÉOLAN SAT on a rock ledge overlooking a waterfall, snatching a brief interlude alone. They had followed an almost invisible trail to get there, Gabrielle trying to imitate Féolan’s way of gliding silently through the dense foliage. Now they sat in the sun, watching the light sparkle through the spray.
“I’m so relieved to see you looking better,” confessed Féolan. “I thought you would be several days in bed, maybe seeing our healers.”
“It seems like the very air of this place makes me better,” mused Gabrielle.
“And how are you liking ‘this place,’ anyway?” asked Féolan. “I know it is not exactly what you are used to.”
“It’s wonderful,” said Gabrielle. “I love the way you live. Though my mind is whirling with questions.”
“Name some, and I will answer if I can.”
Gabrielle thought. Where to start? “Well, do you have a king or queen, or how are you governed?”
“We have no royal family,” answered Féolan. “Not here in the Basin, anyway. They say there were Elf-kings and Elf-queens in Elvenhome.”
“Elvenhome?”
“Where we came from, far over the ocean. No one now knows where.” Féolan paused, as if seeking in his mind for that faraway land.
“So now,” he said, coming out of his reverie. “Each settlement has a Council, and there is a greater Council of Elders for matters concerning all the Elves. When a councilor wishes to end his or her duty, the Council picks a successor. Or they may ask someone to serve temporarily, if their skills are needed.” He laughed. “If they needed an expert on Humans, for example, they could ask me.”
“Why do you laugh?”
“Oh, I have already shown myself this year too reckless by far to serve on Council. But in any case, I would be considered a little young.”
“Well, and there’s another question,” said Gabrielle. “How old are you, anyway?”
“I will be eighty-two this summer.”
“Oh.” Gabrielle was deflated. “I thought you were about my age.”
“I am about your age,” he smiled. “For your information, I am just nicely into my full adulthood.”
“Then how old is Danaïs?”
“Danaïs has just passed his first century. Last year, in fact.”
“Does no one ever look older?” she demanded. There was something so upsetting about this. An image flashed in her mind: Solange at eighty, old and bent.
“Danaïs does not look older because he is still young,” Féolan said gently. “But we do show age. It is subtle, in the eyes, mostly. Kinder than for Humans.”
Gabrielle wasn’t ready to face this square on. She changed the topic. “Your ears. Are there other physical differences, from Humans I mean?”
“Now that I wouldn’t know,” he teased. “You’re the one who sees naked bodies, not me.”
“Hmmm, point granted.”
“Some say that in the long-ago our ears were bigger and more dramatically pointed, that they are shrinking in this new land. But then,” he laughed, “they also say we were immortal.”
“Immortal?” Gabrielle was shocked. “Do you believe it?”
Féolan became serious. “I look around, Gabrielle, and I see that no creature, from the greatest tree to the tiniest midge, lives forever. No, I do not believe it. Perhaps in Elvenhome we did live longer. But forever? No.”
Their mood had turned somber. The war stretched its long fingers once more over Gabrielle’s heart. “You have to go soon, don’t you?” she said.
Féolan nodded, pulled her close. “First thing tomorrow,” he said. “The delay caused by your work with Col’s son brought unforeseen hope to the Basin. But time has run out. We must move quickly, or it will be too late.” They sat without speaking for a long time. How strange, Gabrielle thought, that her presence at the battle had, after all, made a difference, though not in the way she had wished. She remembered how courageous she had been about the war—before she lived in its shadow. Now she knew too much. This time, she would obey her father’s wishes and stay behind.
She felt Féolan take a breath before speaking. “There is one thing I would ask you before I leave.” Oh, she knew what was coming, yearned for and dreaded it.
“You turned away my love once,” said Féolan. “But fate has brought us together again, and I must grasp at this second chance. Gabrielle, my love for you will not waver, whatever the future holds. Will you not be my betrothed and join your life to mine?”
Gabrielle had had no time to mull over the thought that had shaken her so at the mid-day meal. She longed to share it with Féolan now, but hesitated. To raise false hopes could prove ev
en more cruel than hard reality. It was the worst, not the best, he must be willing to face with her. She squared her shoulders and turned to him.
“Féolan, if we pledge our troth, it must be in willingness to accept the future as well as the present. It will be a bitter cup at the end.” Féolan nodded, his eyes never wavering from hers. Gabrielle lifted her hand to his cheek. “I could not leave you again. If you will have me for my life’s short season, then I will be yours.”
CHAPTER 26
TOO soon, the urgency of war reclaimed them. Féolan was to report to his commander and prepare for battle. “I’ll try to rejoin you for the evening meal,” he said. “If not, Danaïs will guide you to the Council Chamber.”
Alone in her little cabin, Gabrielle wondered what on earth she would do with herself in the days that stretched ahead. Danaïs, Gabrielle learned, had been assigned to the home guard because of his young child. That had surprised her. In Verdeau so many of the men in fighting prime had families that they could not have raised a viable army without them. Then again, she had seen surprisingly few children in Stonewater ... In any case, once Danaïs went on sentry duty, there would be no one—no one she knew, as yet—she could even speak to. She had just worked up the nerve to look for Celani and mime an offer of help, anything rather than wander around uselessly, when there was a knock on her door. Danaïs poked his head in.
“Are you free, Gabrielle? There is someone who would like to meet you.”
Someone turned out to be Stonewater’s healer, Haloan.
“He will travel with our forces tomorrow, and I expect he has his poor apprentice in a lather of preparation,” explained Danaïs. “Your help will be more than welcome.”
Gabrielle was relieved to find that Haloan spoke decent Krylaise—”Quite a few of us elderly folk do,” he said—and that the Healing Lodge bore many similarities to her own clinic. Haloan welcomed her graciously, complimenting her work on Danaïs’ leg.
“I never had a chance to ask,” said Gabrielle, turning to Danaïs. “How is your leg?”
“As you see,” he said, smiling and performing an effortless deep knee-bend.
Haloan continued. “We are short one healer just now at Stonewater. Normally we are two, but my colleague traveled to another community last fall to be with her mother in her last years. My apprentice here, Towàs, can handle routine illnesses and accidents.” Here the fair, strawberry-blond Elf, who had been measuring and packing herbs, offered Gabrielle a tight smile and nod. He didn’t seem overly thrilled with her presence, Gabrielle thought. Haloan’s next words solved that mystery. “I understand you have experience with battle injuries. It would ease my mind if you would be available to Towàs for difficult cases, or if the worst happens and our community comes under attack.”
Ah, thought Gabrielle. Refugee Human swaggers in and lords it over Elvish apprentice. No wonder he’s cautious. She phrased her response with care: “Please tell Towàs that I will assist him in any way I can. I will need his guidance, though, as I am unfamiliar with your medicines and methods.”
“Wonderful,” said Haloan. “As you know, we have much packing to do. Perhaps you could lend us a hand, and then if time permits I will show you what’s where.”
Danaïs ducked out and left them to it. Haloan set Gabrielle to rolling and packing bandaging. He asked her more about her experience and methods as they worked. “I met many skilled Human healers during the last war,” he remarked, “but never one who could hand-heal, or not to any significant degree.” Gabrielle looked at him quizzically. “There were one or two who seemed to bolster a patient’s strength or resolve, just with the force of their presence,” he explained, “but none who could effect an actual repair. From what I have heard, your powers are remarkable.”
There’s a reason for that, Gabrielle thought; but she was not ready to speak of her birth.
“What is the most challenging wound you have healed?” Haloan asked.
Here was another thing she could not easily speak of. Her grief for Jerome was still fresh, and her sense of failure strong. Yet in Haloan’s eyes she read wisdom and compassion; they spoke of long experience of loss and joy, struggle and peace. Perhaps this was what showed when Elves aged. The words came out before she had even decided, and she found she was glad to be speaking them.
“My father,” she began. “He took a battle-ax to the spine.” Haloan was gravely attentive, recognizing the emotional charge behind her words. He sat down across the table from her. “I wanted to reattach the nerve endings before they died back. It was very slow and difficult.” She sighed and met his eyes. “I am haunted by the thought that I may have contributed to his death.”
Haloan’s voice was gentle. “Reconnecting nerves is complex, beyond the skill of most healers, even the most experienced. We must all learn to accept our limitations.”
Gabrielle shook her head. “It’s not that. Or maybe it is, in a way. I was able to make the connections.” Haloan’s eyes widened. “But we were on the field too long, and I was so absorbed in the healing that I never noticed ... “ The memory of that awful moment flashed through her, and her eyes welled with tears. “A soldier killed him, and at first I could not even tell what had happened.”
Haloan did not speak or touch her, yet his very presence was a comfort. He let her recover herself and then said, “So, a soldier killed your father. Yet you feel you made an error?”
“Yes,” she said. Haloan, perhaps, would understand what Danaïs and Féolan had not. “My friends point out that I had no way of taking him off the field to safety in any case, and this is true. But I did not even consider it. I was so determined to make him whole.”
“Ah,” said Haloan. “I think I understand. You made a sound decision, but perhaps for the wrong reason.”
“Yes,” said Gabrielle gratefully. “Yes, I guess that’s it. I wouldn’t accept a life for my father as a cripple.”
“But this is a very valuable lesson,” said Haloan. “Every talented healer must confront, at some time, his or her own pride and power. Your learning has not come without pain, but it comes kindly nonetheless. You could not have altered the outcome for your father, how ever you chose. So you did no harm. And in future, you will weigh choices with more care, humbled by the knowledge that the healer’s desire is not always the patient’s and that not one among us is perfect in judgement.”
Gabrielle got up to wash her face and hands as she pondered Haloan’s words. He had taken the dark, confused burden that weighed on her and given it a name. He had freed her to mourn her father’s death without a choking overlay of guilt. Her awkward Elvish thank-you hardly seemed adequate.
“We can talk more about this, if you like, when I return,” said Haloan. “But now we have another job to do.” He set Gabrielle and Towàs to loading the bags and parcels of supplies into large panniers that would be strapped across the horses’ backs.
FACING THE ELDERS of the Council once more, Féolan confirmed Haldoryn’s report on their raid of the Gref Orisé camp, and then added that he had killed their commander. He had told Gabrielle about his encounter with Col on their way to the meeting and had been a little deflated by her subdued response.
“I thought you’d be glad,” he had said.
“I am glad, for us,” she said. “Only, I think of Derkh. He was good to me, Féolan, and without his father’s protection I don’t know how he’ll fare.”
Féolan’s news caused a greater stir at Council. How did he think it would affect the morale of the enemy army, he was asked. He put his mind to the problem. “They are well organized,” he said at last. “The structure under Col will remain intact. But his command was centralized. If there is an obvious and strong second-in-command, he will take over. But if there is a group of officers under him, I believe they will jockey for power rather than work together. There is hope, at least, that their advance has been further delayed by the need to regroup.” And if not, he thought, the battle might already be lost. He had never been so a
ware of the fleeting march of time.
“Thank-you, Féolan.” Tilumar dismissed him. “Unless there are further questions?”
As Féolan glanced around the room, his eyes rested on Councilor Orienne. He remembered her auburn hair, piercing dark eyes and keen attention from his last Elder’s Council. Today, though, she seemed oblivious to the discussion at hand. She had been staring almost avidly at Gabrielle throughout Féolan’s presentation. Perhaps she disapproved of a Human presence at Council. She didn’t appear hostile, though—fascinated, rather.
In any case, there were no questions, and Féolan was asked to stay and translate for Gabrielle. Tilumar welcomed her in imperfect but passable Krylaise and introduced her to the seven other Elders. Gabrielle put her hand over heart and bowed to each.
She spoke with poise, asking Féolan to begin by giving her personal thanks to the Elves of Stonewater for their hospitality. He briefly explained who she was and how she came to be there.
Gabrielle was then asked about Verdeau’s numbers—how many they started with, which she knew, and how many they left with, which she didn’t, though she could confirm Haldoryn’s guess that the losses were not crushing. Were reinforcements expected and from where? Did they have archers, horses, other special contingents? Was the leadership of the Basin armies intact? Here she faltered a little, and Féolan, wanting to spare her reliving Jerome’s death, asked if she wished him to tell the story. She shook her head, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in the gesture of determination already familiar to him.
“King Jerome, my father,” she began, “was killed on the field.” She took a breath to steady herself. “But General Fortin, his military commander, directs our forces, and my brother Tristan will support him. The Verdeau army will not falter.”
“May I ask a question?” It was Orienne. “I understand you were captured on the battlefield by the Gref Orisé. I have been long away from Humans, but I did not think it was usual for their women to fight. How is it that you happened there?”
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