She was so deep in her own head that she almost walked straight into the queen, who was waiting outside the cottage door. Rehan waved away Elthrinn's apologies, and stepped back to give Elthrinn room to open the door, and to manoeuvre herself and the basket through it.
"I didn't think we'd see you today?" Elthrinn commented as they closed themselves into the cosy dimness of her home. It was Kwek. Gorren had explained to her the happenings that would take place on this day, and they had both assumed that Rehan would spend the whole day by Dorll's side.
"I can't stay long. I've just come from the barracks."
Elthrinn stilled; for Rehan to interrupt Gorren's day meant that she did not bear any good news. "What should we be ready for?"
"The king is going to designate Gorren as Barnoor this year. I know that you were planning to avoid much of today's celebrations. I'm afraid that won't be possible now."
"Is it customary for him to make such last minute decisions on this matter?"
"Oh, yes. If he let his choice be known sooner, it might be that some of the new wolves would practice with the capabilities of their Barnoor in mind. Their test today is to assess their abilities to think in a fight, as much as to see how strong they are in one."
Elthrinn lifted the kettle in a silent question as to whether Rehan wanted something to drink, but the queen shook her head. "No, no. I can't stay long. I need to get back before I'm missed."
The handful of dread that had permanent resident in Elthrinn's chest began to expand. "He still doesn't know that you're coming to see me?"
"He knows about some of my visits, not about all of them. He would be more curious if he knew I was here nearly every day. And he can't know about the baby at the moment."
"We won't be able to hide it forever." The dread was gripping her lungs now, and making it hard for her to breathe. Elthrinn knew why Dorll couldn't know about his impending grandchild. The thought that the king might kill his own son over the child was ridiculous to her. She couldn't understand how he wouldn't be happy. But then, she'd seen enough evidence with her own eyes to understand that Dorll considered Gorren as something much less than his progeny and heir. Their secret did not only protect Gorren, though. If the king found out, and took the news badly, there was every chance that Elthrinn's own life, and the life of her baby, would be in danger, too.
"I am hopeful I can broker a reconciliation of sorts before then," Rehan said.
"Honestly, I think you have more chance of making it snow tonight," Elthrinn asserted. She had the sinking feeling of being at the mercy of other people's decisions again. Just as when she had decided to become a priestess of Doohr, as a way of taking control of her destiny, of choosing which path she preferred to take, she was thinking over a plan to protect herself, her family, now.
"Have faith, my dear. Anyway, you'll have a full set of guards tonight. Gorren's friend's will be by your side while he's occupied with his official duties. Take care to stay with them, and bring your knife."
"It's always with me." Elthrinn patted the loop of leather that hung from her belt, to which the blade and its sheath were attached.
"Good. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, you'll still be a foreign female in a crowd of rowdy, drunken wolves."
"Will Athine be there?" Elthrinn asked.
"More than likely," the queen answered. "In that, at least, I'm beginning to have some success. The king grows frustrated with Noridan's unwillingness to consider a native bride."
Elthrinn wasn't thrilled by that, but as long as she didn't have to interact with Noridan's consort, Athine's presence would not impinge on her night too much.
There was something else that she needed to discuss with the queen. Now was not the time, they didn't have long enough, but the words were out before she could stop them.
"He misses you, you know. I know he acts like he doesn't, but he does. He misses his mother." Elthrinn had seen the wistful look in Gorren's eye whenever his mother was around, the way that his brows were permanently creased, as if he were in pain in her presence, and the way that his hand sometimes reached out instinctively, and how he would snatch it back when he realised, and think that no one had noticed his weakness. The aloof demeanour he adhered to when he was near the queen was a facade to hide his pain.
"I know," Rehan nodded sadly. "I miss him, too. I'd like to think that when we're through this difficult time, we'll both be content, but I fear that won't be the case." She sighed heavily. "But I will do my best to see him happy."
Rehan kissed Elthrinn on the cheek, and left. The bright sunshine intruded briefly through the open door, and then was locked out again by the shadows. The queen would lose her husband or her son, there could be no other result from the dispute that was building, but Elthrinn hoped that there might be a way out of the tangled web that wouldn't see the family descend into bloody chaos.
~o0o~
Gorren had explained the proceedings of the Prowv to Elthrinn, and had told her that the whole town turned out for the event, but she was still overwhelmed by the crowds that were gathered in front of Cranak Hall. Jorm, Delban, and Ornef had been by her side since she'd left the cottage. If one of the men had to go anywhere for anything, the other two moved even closer. Elthrinn had never been given to a fear of enclosed spaces before, but she was beginning to reconsider, and she was having to make a determined effort not to keep her palms spread protectively over her belly. She'd settled for hooking the thumb of one hand into the waistband of her belt. Her other hand was clutching her sheathed dagger.
Ornef leaned down to her ear as they pushed through the press of people. "We've missed the part where they ink the new ones. But that's probably just as well. It's all very interesting for their proud families, but for us, it's the same design being done over and over, the fun's in the drinking, and since you can't..."
"Shhhh," Elthrinn admonished. Her pregnancy was turning into the worst kept secret in Dorvek. Gorren had told his friends. She wouldn't have minded them knowing anyway; she trusted them, and she trusted Gorren's s implicit faith in them. They'd had to know why they had to keep extra care of her, but Elthrinn couldn't help worrying that the news would reach the king's ears all the quicker if it was whispered by more and more mouths.
Ornef grinned, straightened, and put his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer to his side. Elthrinn allowed him to keep her snug against his body, and tried to match the pace of his much longer legs. It kept her from being barged into by many of the people they were passing, most of whom seemed to have trouble keeping on their own two feet. Jorm turned, his eyebrow rose when he saw Ornef hugging her to his side, but he nodded once, turned, and continued forward. He was at the front, forcing their passage through the crowd. Delban was behind them, somewhere. Elthrinn couldn't turn to see without twisting out of Ornef's protective grasp.
Jorm managed to work through the crowds well enough to find a vantage point for their little party, atop a cartful of hay. Elthrinn wasn't even a little embarrassed that he displaced a gaggle of revellers to secure their seats. She would be high up, able to see Gorren, and out of the way of being shoved and jostled. Jorm climbed the hay stack first. Elthrinn prepared to scrabble up the pile of loose stalks after him, but Ornef wrapped both hands around her waist, and lifted her up to Jorm's waiting hands. Elthrinn let out a shrill squeak; she hadn't been expecting to be so manhandled. Delban had scrambled up after them, and had got himself settled.
Elthrinn could see Gorren. Her husband was standing with his parents in front of the locked doors of the hall. He'd already changed into his wolf form, and she wondered if he had done so to avoid awkward conversation, or equally awkward silences. Noridan and Athine were nowhere to be seen, and Elthrinn wondered if that was Dorll's doing. Gorren was looking up at her, and his friends. Even though he was an animal, she could tell that he was frowning. He'd probably heard her exclamation of surprise, and was wondering as to its cause. If a wolf could nod, he did so. Out of the corner of her eye,
Elthrinn caught the movement of Jorm's answering nod. Gorren was at least pleased with the seat they'd found.
There was a small crowd nearby the royal trio. The casual Dorvern attitude to nudity continued to amaze Elthrinn. The crowd was composed of young people, older than children, but not quite old enough to be young adults. They all looked to be about the same age, and although it was a time of life that Elthrinn remembered being particularly self-conscious about her own changing body, not a one of the members of that group appeared to be the least bit concerned that they were naked before the whole town.
The last of the sun's rays dipped below the horizon, and the heat and golden glow of the day faded into cool twilight. The merriment of the crowd paused noticeably. An air of expectation rippled through the assembled people, bringing goosebumps to Elthrinn's skin. Jorm noticed her shiver, and pulled her closer to the comforting warmth of his body.
There was no speech, which Elthrinn noted as remarkably different to proceedings in Thrissia, which, as far as she had known them, had always been preceded by a lot of self-important verbiage. Instead, the king threw back his head, and loosed a very animalistic howl that seemed wrong coming from such a human-looking throat.
A shudder coursed through the assembled initiates, and they all began to change. Elthrinn was relieved that she had had the opportunity to actually witness Gorren changing. If she hadn't already seen the way a body could remould itself into another form, especially done by someone who was used to doing so, she would have been horrified by the sight she was witnessing. She could see the awkwardness, and the way that these new wolves were not familiar with what their bodies were trying to do. They were reacting to the change, either fighting it, or trying to hurry it, instead of simply letting it happen. When it was over, a pack of wolves stood on gangly, shaky legs.
Gorren loped out into the grassy area in between the doors of the hall and the eager crowd. He did not sit, only waited, and the king called the first challenger forward. Elthrinn understood how well each fight was progressing, because Jorm, Delban, and Ornef provided her with a constant running commentary. She flinched a time or two, when a lucky paw swipe happened to draw Gorren's blood, or when small teeth nipped his ear.
"I think he's the best Barnoor I've seen for some years," Delban muttered absently at her shoulder.
"Dorll won't be pleased. I think he always thought Gorren was too soft-hearted for this role," Jorm answered.
"So why ask him to do it now?" Elthrinn asked.
Delban shuffled forward a little. "Offering him such a prestigious role is bestowing an honour on him, but the king thinks Gorren will fail, that he'll embarrass himself."
"And he isn't doing?" Elthrinn wanted to make sure that she'd understood the fights correctly.
"No, he isn't. The Prowv should not be about trying to hurt the young ones. It's like a sparring session, a training exercise. The Barnoor should highlight strengths and weaknesses. They need to know what they should learn, without losing confidence in what they can already do. Of course, there's only so much of that you can do in the course of one fight, but a good Barnoor will challenge as he teaches."
"Has Dorll ever been Barnoor?" Elthrinn asked, and then immediately regretted doing so when a blanket of silence fell on the three men. She wondered if they were going to refuse to answer her question, until Jorm spoke.
"Yes, several times. He was Barnoor for Gorren's Prowv."
That didn't surprise Elthrinn at all. She swallowed before she asked, "And what happened?"
Jorm looked at her, his eyes were almost black in the shadows under his drawn brows. Elthrinn wondered if she was blundering into private territory, but she also got the feeling that Jorm was trying to make her understand something. "You've seen the scars over Gorren's stomach."
Elthrinn nodded.
"I thought the king was trying to gut him. Maybe he was. I was watching from the crowd that year, my Prowv came a year later. I was terrified when it was my turn, but I needn't have been. Later, I realised that Dorll was not a good Barnoor."
Elthrinn paused, trying not to allow the images that Jorm's words conjured to infest her mind. She looked back to the fighting, to the wolves who were so much smaller than Gorren, some of whom were a little timid, trembling as they waited their turn. She turned back to Jorm. "How did Gorren keep his place then? I mean, he has stature here, doesn't he? He's a Captain in the army, and a prince, but the way he explained all this to me, none of that would have mattered if he'd been so badly injured by the Barnoor."
Jorm's eyes flicked back to the fighting wolves, or perhaps to the watching royalty, before he answered. "Dorll has a scar on his neck, where it meets his shoulder. You can't see it, because there's a tattoo of a raven obscuring it, but it's there. Even with his belly opened, Gorren tried to rip his father's throat out."
"Have they ever gotten along?"
"Not in all the years I've known them," Jorm answered. Delban and Ornef nodded, and muttered their agreement with that observation.
"But they're father and son?" Elthrinn couldn't resist the urge to cover her stomach with her hands. Such animosity in a family was not something she witnessed in the day-to-day lives of the people who inhabited the town, but she couldn't help wondering if it was a common canker in a culture that had the capacity for such violence.
Jorm leaned closer, almost intimately so. Elthrinn fought the urge to shy away. She knew he had no dishonourable intent, but she was not accustomed to being so close with men other than her husband. Jorm's words came out as a whispered breath, so that no one else could possibly hear.
"I'm not privy to what's happened behind closed doors, but if you were to ask me, I would tell you that Dorll is jealous of Gorren."
"Jealous?" Elthrinn breathed.
"Yes. He's jealous of the love that the queen has for her son."
His answer relieved Elthrinn so much that she almost slumped as tension left her body. She couldn't imagine a life in which she and Gorren didn't dote on their child equally... if they were both able to do so. She hoped, that if the worst happened, Gorren would not blame their child, but she honestly did not believe that the man she loved was capable of such an evil hatred.
"They will never reconcile, will they?"
Delban leaned closer now. "No. Despite the queen's desire for them to be civil together, it isn't possible. It never has been."
Elthrinn turned her eyes back to her husband, who was waiting patiently for his next nervous pupil to approach, and continued to think over the plan that she had been developing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gorren thought it might have been wise if the First Mother of Felthiss had mentioned that her party planned to arrive on the back of gryphons. After permission for the visit had been granted, there had been some negotiation as to date, and the size of the group that might be welcomed. Gorren had heard from his mother that the king had been privately surprised that the visiting group would truly be so small, but at no point had either of the emissaries mentioned gryphons.
They had agreed upon the moon of Uthved. The emissaries had said that the First Mother was confident that the baby would have been birthed, and that she would be well enough to travel by that time. The baby had been born as Dorvek had celebrated Kwek; it would be two moons old now. Gorren thought he understood the First Mother's impatience to visit before the weather turned cold and unstable. Whether she had travelled by land, or by air, it would not be a wise thing to carry an infant through a snow storm. In that line of thinking, Gorren understood the use of the gryphons. A full moon's journey would have been reduced to a mere handful of days, more sensible still, given that the visit itself would not be a long one. Still, some warning would have been polite.
His father had designated watchers to look out for the arrival of the First Mother, and to ride to Cranak on the fastest horses available with the news in advance. Their swift horses had barely made it to Cranak Hall before the thunderous beat of the gryphons' wings could be hea
rd by the whole town. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one considered it, Dorll had insisted that his youngest son and wife should be in attendance at the hall since the morning. Gorren and Elthrinn had borne it by enclosing themselves in the library. There would definitely have been other ways that Gorren would have preferred to celebrate their wedding anniversary, but he would not have suggested that Elthrinn miss any part of the visit from her family.
Thus, the entire family was assembled at the doors to the hall when the gryphons circled, and wheeled over the town. Gorren had made sure to place himself and Elthrinn by his mother, as far away as he could get from his father, Noridan, and Athine. As far as Gorren was concerned, it was a serious impropriety that his brother's mistress was being treated as a member of the family, but it wasn't a subject he was willing to pick a fight with his father about. If, however, Noridan kept glancing sideways at Elthrinn in the sly manner that had become his habit, they were going to have much bigger problems than Athine's presence.
Searching the Darkness (Erythleh Chronicles Book 2) Page 29
