by R. J. Grieve
“A nice hunting bow that, light but strong, made from the finest willow. Normally a trifle long for a lady but you are tall enough to handle it. Would you like to try it out? I have a target set up in the yard at the back.”
Elorin cast a doubtful look at Celedorn. “It....it seems so familiar in my hands. Prince Andarion thought that I had at one time handled a bow. Would you mind if I try it, just to satisfy my curiosity?”
Celedorn’s casual shrug did not betray the intense interest he felt.
The shopkeeper lifted some steel-tipped arrows and led them through the dark recesses of the shop out into a little enclosed yard. At one end, a target had been set up against a wooden fence.
Elorin took an arrow and fitted it to the bow. Taking an archer’s stance with one foot forward and body turned sideways to the target, with the minimum of aim-taking, she fired. The arrow pierced the target to the right of the bull’s-eye.
“It veers to the right,” she murmured almost to herself. The shopkeeper smiled tolerantly and offered her another arrow.
This time, to his astonishment, the arrow hit the centre of the target, so also without exception did the next three.
Reluctantly she handed the bow back to him. “Once you know its character, it is a fine weapon.”
She looked questioningly at Celedorn. “What can this mean?”
He pulled his mouth down wryly. “It means that I’m not ever going to provoke you if you have a bow in your hands.” He turned to the shopkeeper. “We’ll take it and the hunting knife too. You can throw in a quiver and a sheath for the knife.”
The man opened his mouth to argue, caught Celedorn’s eye and wisely capitulated.
Elorin stepped closer and said quietly: “Is this not an unnecessary extravagance? After all, what do we need a bow for? When we find a ship willing to take us back to Serendar, we will no longer be in any danger.”
“Possibly, but if all does not go well, it may prove to be a sound investment.”
They left the armourer and resumed their slow progress along the street. Elorin stopped at a stall displaying brightly-painted pottery that had caught her eye. She was holding up a cup for Celedorn to admire, when suddenly she uttered a gasp and dropped it. With his usual catlike reflexes, Celedorn deftly caught it and looked up to see what had startled her. She was gazing down the street, her face white, her eyes wide open with shock. Following the direction of her gaze, Celedorn realised that she was staring at a tall, fair-haired man threading his way between the crowds. Suddenly the man’s glance fell on Elorin. He stopped dead, his face even more shocked than Elorin’s. Without a word Elorin leaped forward and began to fight her way through the crowds towards him. She accomplished the last few yards at a run and flung herself into his open arms. He snatched her up in so tight an embrace that he lifted her clean off her feet and swung her round, his face transformed from shock to the most overwhelming joy.
Celedorn, still holding the cup, stared astonished. He moved close enough to hear what they were saying without intruding upon them.
The man had set Elorin on her feet again but held both her hands tightly in his own, his eyes devouring her as if he could not believe the signals they were sending him. Words tumbled out of him in a disjointed torrent.
“Is it really you? My dearest Elorin, surely it can’t true. All these months I’ve been driven nearly insane with worry. All I could think of was you - trapped at Ravenshold, hurt perhaps dead. I.....I just can’t take it in. How did you get here? You look well!” His hands gripped her shoulders, turning her to the light. “Yes, you do look well! Not hurt! Not imprisoned! This is a miracle! How do you come to be here? How did you escape from Ravenshold?”
“Stop, stop! You are asking too many questions for me to answer all at once. Perhaps it would be easier if you told me how you come to be here.”
Celedorn, sourly watching this exchange, had by now gathered that Elorin had at last found her prince.
“My story is simple,” the Prince replied. “I was on my way to Kelendore when my ship was caught in the storm and we were shipwrecked right at the very mouth of the harbour. Very few survived - just three Serendarian sailors, myself and Relisar.”
“Relisar is here?”
He nodded. “Yes, I left him at the inn where we are staying. I swear that since you went to Ravenshold, his beard has grown even whiter with worry. You see, he had one of his dreams that you were in danger.”
“I was for a while, but all is well now.”
At that point Celedorn stepped forward, his brow black, his expression stern. Elorin caught the movement out of the tail of her eye and turned to him, realising that she had a problem on her hands.
“Prince Andarion,” she began hesitantly, “I......”
She got no further because the Prince gave vent to a growl of anger.
“Celedorn!” he snarled and in a flash had drawn his sword.
Celedorn’s response was just as fast and the two men confronted each other, bristling with hostility, oblivious to the crowd scattering with alarm all around them. Elorin knew she had to act. She had never seen Andarion fight, but she had seen Celedorn, and it was enough to make her fear for the Prince.
Before they could close with one another, she quickly stepped between them.
“Both of you, sheathe your weapons,” she ordered calmly. Neither of them paid the least heed to her. She turned to the Prince, as the one most likely to be reasonable.
“I know what you think, but you are wrong. Celedorn has saved my life many times and I owe him a great debt. I know his reputation and I also know that you have cause to do what you are now doing, but believe me when I tell you that you must not fight him. If you have any regard for me, you will heed my words. Much has happened since I last saw you and you must listen to my story before you judge him. Please,” she begged, “for my sake, if for no other reason, please sheathe your sword.”
Celedorn remained tense, ready to fight, but when the Prince encountered the beseeching look in Elorin’s eyes, he was not proof against it. Silently her eyes pleaded with him and reluctantly he lowered his sword.
She turned to Celedorn, knowing her task would be more difficult. “To fight the Prince would be madness. If you killed him, the authorities in Sirkris would hang you from the highest tree.”
Celedorn looked at her coldly. “I’ll take my chance.”
Realising that reason would not work, she turned to the one approach that he usually respected - and that was to boldly confront him. She stepped closer, until the point of his sword almost touched her breast.
“If you wish to kill the Prince, you will have to kill me first.”
“I suppose you think that will stop me.”
“With any other man I would say “yes” but with you, one can never tell.”
The point lowered a fraction. “There was a time when you were afraid of me.”
She looked him full in the eyes. “Sometimes I am still afraid of you.”
The black look lifted a little. “If only that were true,” he remarked, his mouth twisting slightly. “Very well,” he said, and sheathed his sword.
She turned to the Prince. “We are staying at the Inn of the Grey Dolphin. Come this evening and bring Relisar with you. I’ll tell you everything that has happened to me.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “It will also allow time for tempers to cool.”
“You should not stay a moment longer in the company of that villain,” said the Prince in an urgent undertone.
“Nonsense. I’m perfectly safe with Celedorn - as you will better understand when I explain everything to you this evening.”
When Andarion and Relisar repaired to the Inn of the Grey Dolphin that evening, they found Elorin by herself in a cosy downstairs parlour. When Relisar saw her, he went to her and quietly took her hands in his.
“There were times, my dear child,” he said, his voice shaking a little, “when I thought I would never see you again. My old tower seemed so empty
without you.”
She tightened her grip on his hands reassuringly. “You are my family, Relisar,” she glanced towards Andarion to include him in the statement. “You are all I have.”
Seeing that he needed a moment to recover himself, she led him to a chair by the blazing fire. The curtains had been drawn against the encroaching darkness and the room was filled with the golden light provided by a branch of candles.
Andarion leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
“Where is he?” he asked abruptly.
Elorin did not pretend to misunderstand him. “He’ll join us later. I wanted some time alone with you to tell my story.”
She crossed to the table and poured out three glasses of wine and handed them to her guests. When she gave the Prince his glass, she asked: “How did you recognise him? Had you seen him before?”
“No, I had not,” Andarion answered shortly, “but his description is difficult to mistake - tall, dark haired, three severe scars running diagonally across the left cheek. I cannot understand your present attitude towards him. I would have thought that you of all people would have wanted to see him hanging from the highest gallows.”
She didn’t reply for a moment, but resumed her seat and stared into the depths of the ruby wine in her glass. “Perhaps you will understand when I tell you all that has happened to me, from the moment I left you to be taken as hostage to Ravenshold, until I met you in the street today.”
She spoke for a long time in a quiet, emotionless voice. Neither of her guests interrupted her or asked her questions, but sat absorbed in her narrative, allowing her to tell her story in her own way. When she finally stopped, there was silence broken only by the crackling of the logs on the fire.
At that moment the door opened and Celedorn came in. Three pairs of eyes swung from the fire and regarded him without speaking. He didn’t seem to be put out by the scrutiny but advanced into the room with all his customary nonchalance.
He looked at Andarion and inclined his head. “My Lord Prince,” he said, his tone of voice an insult. “And the old fool as well? Permit me to congratulate you,” he mocked Relisar, “You set in train the events that led us all to this exotic spot just in time for the Turog to trap us here.”
Elorin already knew that he was contemptuous of Relisar but she was surprised by the extent of his hostility towards Andarion. The atmosphere in the room crackled with it. It was an emotion that was apparently returned.
Andarion disdainfully watched Celedorn cast himself into a chair and sprawl at his ease there, one leg hooked casually over the arm. He turned to Elorin.
“I can understand now why you feel grateful to him, but there are wider issues here. He may have saved your life, but think how many Eskendrian lives he has taken. He must be punished for his crimes under Eskendrian law.”
Before she could reply, a bored voice said: “We are not in Eskendria now, my Princeling, and I have committed no crime in Sirkris.”
Andarion cast a cold glance at him. “I will take you back to Eskendria to stand trial.”
The response was a crack of rude laughter. “I fear that may be a feat beyond your capabilities.”
Relisar unexpectedly spoke up. “Celedorn is right. Whatever crimes he has committed in Eskendria are irrelevant here.
The Prince turned on him. “Irrelevant? How can you say such a thing? For years he has preyed on merchants passing through the valleys in the Westrin Mountains, choking our trade with Serendar. Robbing, pillaging, ravishing......”
He was interrupted at this point by Celedorn. “If I might enter a caveat here,” he drawled coolly. “Robbing and pillaging, I admit I took to with the greatest of ease, but I never quite got the hang of ravishing. It has always seemed to me that there is more pleasure to be had when a woman is willing.”
The reaction was all he could have desired. The Prince looked shocked, Relisar nonplussed, only Elorin turned away, her shoulders shaking. She was rewarded for her levity by a pained look from the Prince.
Deeming that the conversation needed urgent redirecting she said: “The Turog are terrified of him. That’s a good point.”
“I will grant you that,” Andarion conceded. “But he hunts them not for the good of Eskendria, but for his own selfish ends. They interfere with his activities in the mountains. That is why he kills them.”
Relisar sighed. “If only the Lord of Westrin had not been killed, the region would never have descended into lawlessness. I remember Ravenshold when he was alive, and it was not a grim fortress then, but a home, filled with beauty and warmth. It grieves me to think of it now as some grim bandits’ lair.”
Celedorn cast him a slit-eyed look that was difficult to interpret. “It appears to me,” he said, “that instead of raking over the coals, we would be better employed in finding a way of getting off this damned rock. There are no boats to be had, and it’s looking increasingly likely that Sirkris will soon be under siege.”
The Prince raised his eyebrows sardonically. “Are you suggesting we run away?”
But he found himself outmatched at that game. “Even your august presence, oh mighty Prince, is not going to make any difference to the outcome of the siege. With Kelendore’s navy so badly mauled, relief is going to be a long time coming, and I had thought, if my memory serves me correctly, that Eskendria was facing the type of threat that might conceivably require your presence there.”
The Prince sank slowly back in his chair, clearly disturbed by the words.
“He’s right, you know,” Elorin advised. “He has an unpleasant habit of being right. If there is a siege and we are trapped here, it could be for a long time, and goodness only knows what will happen in Eskendria in the meantime.” She looked enquiringly at Andarion. “What was the situation when you left?”
“The Turog army was still massing on the far side of the Harnor but it hadn’t yet crossed. I left our army under the command of Sarrick, watching their every move. I went to Serendar to forge the old alliance of the three kingdoms but King Orovin would not commit himself until Kelendore signalled its agreement, so I was on my way there to persuade them, when the storm struck.”
Celedorn had tilted his head back against the chair and was looking down his nose at the Prince, the personification of arrogance. “King Orovin making you dance to his tune?” he suggested.
His needling began to tell on Andarion. “Be careful, brigand,” he said softly but with an edge to his voice. “You escaped the edge of my sword earlier today because of Elorin’s intervention, but it will not always be so.”
His tormentor’s lip curled in the sneer Elorin knew so well. “Forgive me if I forget to tremble.”
Relisar, who had been fidgeting restlessly in his chair during this episode, suddenly leaned forward. “I think we are apt to forget the point, in this exchange of civilities. If you two would put your dislike of each other to one side for a moment, you might realise that there is a decision to be made here - and not an easy one either. Do we stay here and probably stand siege, or do we try to find a ship to take us back to Serendar?”
“I have tried all morning to find a ship,” Celedorn replied. “All the larger ships were destroyed when they broke loose from their moorings. There is nothing left bigger than a rowing boat.”
“Then it looks like we are stuck here,” Elorin said in a resigned voice.
“Not necessarily,” Celedorn contradicted. “There is another option.”
They all looked at him expectantly. He paused for a moment, then raising his eyes and looking challengingly at the Prince, he said: “We could cross the Forsaken Lands and head south until we reach the Harnor.”
Uproar greeted this pronouncement, with everyone talking at once. Finally the Prince made his voice heard.
“Are you mad?” he asked incredulously. “Have you completely taken leave of your senses? No one has ever crossed the Forsaken Lands and lived to tell the tale. There are no maps, no roads. The place crawls with the creatures of the Des
troyer and even if by some miracle we were not detected, the journey could take months.”
Celedorn shrugged. “I didn’t say it would be easy, but Elorin and I will try it, you may do as you please.”
Elorin sat up abruptly. “Excuse me but.....”
“Nonsense, you’d never make it,” the Prince interrupted, ignoring her. “Besides Elorin is not going anywhere with you.”
Elorin tried again. “I hate to interrupt but......”
“Elorin will come with me,” Celedorn declared flatly. “We have a better chance than staying here to be overrun by the Turog, caught like rats in a trap.”
“That is only your opinion. Sirkris is provisioned to stand siege for years if necessary. Elorin will certainly not.....”
“.......Elorin will certainly not allow either of you to dictate her actions,” the subject of their argument interrupted with some asperity. “I’ll thank you two gentlemen to stop discussing me as if I wasn’t here.” She glared at them both. The Prince looked a bit abashed but a little devil of mischief danced in Celedorn’s eyes.
“Now,” she said decisively, “I will tell you what I’m going to do. The siege is as yet no more than a rumour and may never come to pass. Until we have more concrete evidence that Sirkris is about to be surrounded, I, for one, am not going to rush off into the Forsaken Lands. I have already had a taste of them and I’m not keen to repeat the experience. In the meantime, just in case, I think we should accumulate supplies that would be useful to us if we are forced to make such a journey. That is my opinion,” she concluded grandiosely, then somewhat undermined the effect by grumbling. “Not that anyone had the good manners to ask for it.”
