He hesitated. “I met the princess today, Gran.”
She gasped and stared at him. “How? – where?”
“In the field, north of the bridge.”
At that, her gaze darkened. “That’s castle land, Brennie – what were you doing on castle land?”
He shook his head. “I was fishing under the bridge, in that long pool, when she came.”
Her gaze widened. “She caught you fishing there? Are you in trouble?”
“No, Gran,” he assured her. “Emi is a nice girl… and she is very pretty.”
“Emi? You dare to call Princess Emilene – Emi?”
“It’s alright, Gran – she gave me permission,” Brenyn said.
“To call her Emi?”
“Yes.”
“You spoke to her?”
Brenyn nodded. “We sat in the field and talked for a time. I offered her my catch, but she refused and said she would take some fish home with her next time.”
“Next time?”
Brenyn nodded. “That is what she said.”
“You’re going to see her again?”
“I hope so,” Brenyn answered.
Mirae’s brow wrinkled with concern. “If the prince should discover that his daughter is consorting with the son of a farmer, then there will be trouble indeed, more than we can bear.”
Brenyn frowned at that. “I told her that I was a hunter, Gran – not a farmer. Besides, my father was a soldier.”
She nodded, still troubled. “Indeed, he was, but we are still common folk, Brennie, and she is royalty.”
“Common folk?” Brenyn scowled. “If we are common folk, then Emi seems common as well, for she was easy and friendly.”
Mirae gasped. “Don’t ever let anyone hear you name her as common, Brennie – never.”
Brenyn’s scowl remained. “But she was easy to talk with, Gran. I liked her – I like her a lot.” His scowl became a frown then as he remembered. “She put her hand on my arm and… she claimed to feel something. That was the only odd part of the morning.”
Mirae stared at her grandson. “The princess felt the tingle?”
Brenyn stared back at her. “You know about it?”
Slowly, she nodded. “I felt it the first time, the day you were born, when the storm came. You were in my arms, Brennie, as your poor mother died, and I felt it, like… I don’t know… a tingling.”
“Emi called it a heat – or a power,” Brenyn told her.
Mirae nodded. “Yes, like that.”
“Emi said that it was the thrill of destiny.” He grinned. “She thought that maybe a dragon would come, and I would have to save everyone.”
Mirae did not respond with a smile of her own. Instead, she sighed. “I would hope that your destiny, Brennie, is to work this farm, marry a nice girl someday, and take care of your old Gran.”
At that, Brenyn’s grin faded. “I will always take care of you, Gran – you needn’t worry about that.”
“I know,” she agreed. “You’re a good boy, Brennie.”
Brenyn was silent for a moment, then; “I’m still going to see Emi again – as a friend.”
She watched him closely. “You said that she was pretty?”
Brenyn nodded. “Very pretty.”
“Then you need to be extra careful, my boy,” she said softly. “Things can happen between boys and girls.”
He frowned. “What things?”
“Just be careful, Brennie.”
“I will, Gran.”
“I don’t want you to find any trouble,” she persisted.
“I won’t find any trouble, Gran,” Brenyn assured her.
She picked up her fork. “Let us finish our fish. This big one is quite tender and delicious.”
Brenyn nodded. “He was a fighter, too.”
For the rest of that meal, neither of them talked much, but Mirae often turned an uneasy gaze upon her grandson.
For the next few days, while he labored in the garden every morning, Brenyn kept his ear turned toward the road, especially where it crossed the bridge and went through the forest toward town. But several days passed and Emi did not come. No horses’ hooves sounded upon the roadway, though several oxcarts passed, either going into or coming out from town.
Then, about three hours after sun-up one morning, he heard the sound he’d been waiting for – the sound of at least two horses cantering toward the bridge from the direction of Pierum.
Casting his hoe aside, he sprinted down to the gate and then hastened up the road toward the bridge. By the time he arrived at the bridge, Captain Grizeo was leaning on the railing, looking north, and drawing deeply on his pipe, the blue smoke curling around his weathered face. The captain turned his head as Brenyn hurried up. Pulling his pipe out of his mouth, Grizeo used the stem to point toward the fields that lay below the bridge on the north side.
“She’s down there, by the river,” he said. “How’s your Gran, Brenyn?”
Brenyn halted and answered politely. “She is well, captain, thank you. May I give her your regards?”
Grizeo grinned and waved him away. “Get on with you, lad; ‘tis not me you came to see.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Brenyn went down the slope and into the field. Emi was seated upon a blanket by the blackberry thicket, placing foodstuffs onto napkins. She looked up and smiled.
“I brought a picnic.”
At the mention of food, Brenyn abruptly realized that he had neglected to bring his fishing pole. He stopped dead, mortified. “I must go back and retrieve my pole,” he told her, “to catch the fish I promised.”
She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Do you not understand small talk, Brenyn?”
This question mystified him. “Small talk?”
She shook her head. “Should you never catch me a fish, I care not. I came to see you. The fish were no more than small talk.” She indicated the cheeses, breads, and meats that she had laid out. “Besides, I brought food.”
He hesitated. “For me?”
Her laughter came again, like the tinkling of bells. “For both of us.” She put her hand on the blanket. “Come and sit.”
He looked down at his boots, covered with soil, the earthy detritus of his morning’s labor. Then he looked at the blanket, a small square of white linen with frills at the edges.
“I’ll sit on the grass,” he said.
She saw and understood his reticence. “A little dirt will do no harm,” she protested.
He shook his head and sat upon the grass near her, keeping his boots off the linen, and then looked over. “I’m glad you came.”
“I said that I would come,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he replied, “but, after all…” He trailed off.
Emi frowned at this. “You thought me untruthful?”
That shocked him. “No.” He glanced away from her as he felt his cheeks reddening. After a moment, he looked back. “But you are a princess, Emi, royal. I am but the son of a soldier.”
Her frown deepened and her eyes darkened. “So – you will not be my friend? – because of that?”
He stared at her. “Of course I will be your friend.” He looked away again and breathed deeply before looking back. “But what of you?” He asked.
“Me?”
“Can you befriend a commoner?”
At that, she treated him to a sly smile. “I can see,” she said, “that I needn’t trouble myself to adopt a haughty air – for you have enough pride for the both of us.”
He gazed at her for a time and then shook his head. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
At that, her smile went away. She sighed with exasperation.
“We are just friends, Brenyn. What? – did you think it might be more?” Her smile came back. “I am not thirteen years of age for another month yet – and even that is not of an age to marry.” She lifted her chin. “And when I am of an age to marry, I will marry who I like – you and your pride will have no say in it.”<
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He grew quiet. “I was not trying to rise above my lot in life, Emi. And I was certainly not thinking of marriage, for we are both of us young. I just want to know if it is acceptable for me to be your friend.”
“Acceptable?” She watched him in silence for a moment. “Do you want to be my friend?” She asked.
Brenyn nodded. “I do – very much.”
Emi nodded, too. “Then we are friends.” She reached over and placed a napkin of food near him. “Enough of such talk. Let us eat, and then I want to wade in the river.”
For the rest of the hour that she was with him, Brenyn felt uneasy, uncertain, afraid that he had in some way spoiled the day, for she was quiet and pensive. He felt keenly the difference in their stations that hour and despised himself for a fool in bringing it up. Had his words served to remind her of the folly of befriending the child of a common soldier? Had he ruined their budding friendship before it could grow? Emi spoke little, even when they went down and looked for colored stones in the gravels of the shallow water along the banks of Small River.
While he pondered these troubling, discouraging thoughts, Brenyn found one small, round, and smooth stone that was multi-colored, and polished by the actions of the current. Parts of it were translucent and when held up to the sun, glowed with a tapestry of color. He held it out to Emi.
“Here,” he said, “you can keep this one. It’s pretty, especially when you hold it up to the sun.”
She accepted it and took his suggestion, closing one eye and holding the stone up between her and the mid-day sun. “Oh,” she agreed, “it is very pretty.” She held it out. “But you found it and should keep it.”
“I want you to have it.”
She studied his face. “Truly?”
“Yes.” He affirmed.
“Thank you.”
She deposited the gift in the folds of her dress and went back to searching among the stones of the gravelly bottom. Silence fell between them once more. Then, Emi lifted a stone from the water, wiped it on her dress, and examined it, turning it over and over in her hands. She held it out to Brenyn.
He took it and looked down at it. It was smooth and utterly black, so black that it gleamed in the sunlight. He looked up at her.
“I like it,” he said.
Emi stood there watching him, serious, grave, small, slender as a willow, with her hands on her hips, and her large sapphire eyes somber. She shook her head.
“No more black thoughts, Brenyn,” she told him quietly. “No more talk of how we are different. Whenever you look upon that rock, remember – I am your friend.”
He nodded, abashed. “I will, Emi. I am sorry.”
She looked away as Captain Grizeo came striding through the field toward them. Then she looked back.
“I must go now, but I will come back when I can.” She held out her hand to him and he took it and kissed it. She looked down and rubbed at the back of that hand with the fingers of her other hand. Then she looked up at him from beneath her lashes.
“Someday,” she told him, “we must discover why it is that you make me tingle.”
They climbed the bank then and she and Grizeo gathered up her things and went toward the road with Brenyn walking behind. At the road, Grizeo helped her onto her horse, and she looked down at Brenyn.
“Goodbye, Brenyn.”
“Goodbye, Emi.”
They turned away, but Grizeo looked back.
“Give your Gran my regards, lad,” he said.
“I will, sir.”
Brenyn watched them until they reached the far side of the woodland and angled north toward town and went from view. His heart was heavy and cold inside him, and his thoughts dark, despite Emi’s admonition, as he turned away and went toward home.
5.
Emi returned to the bridge a week later. The intervening days had been a misery for Brenyn, for though he spoke no more of Emi to his grandmother, his thoughts were nonetheless full of her.
And he had become aware of something vital, astonishing, something that would color everything about his friendship with the princess of Vicundium.
He loved her.
Yes, he was but a youth, barely fourteen.
Worse, Emilene was only twelve, not yet thirteen, slim, and small, without even the slightest suggestion of curves that would someday grace her frame – far too young to know love.
For her, the relationship was undoubtedly no more than the novelty of a friendship with the scion of one of her father’s subjects and would never be anything more.
But Brenyn loved her, and it could not be resisted.
He loved her.
He was at the top of the garden, checking on the tiny green apples to see if any had developed blight, when he heard the sound of hooves coming from town. Weighed down by the uncertainty of what might arise from the changes in his heart, but anxious to see her nonetheless, he alternately ran and walked toward the bridge.
Captain Grizeo was there once more, drawing upon his pipe while he watched over the princess, who was skipping through the grasses of the field north of the bridge. He turned and smiled at Brenyn. “Hello, lad.”
“Hello, captain.” Brenyn inclined his head and made to walk past him and descend the slope to the field, but then he stopped and looked back.
“Forgive me, captain; but were you ever married?”
Immediately, the captain’s face darkened.
Brenyn, startled by Grizeo’s reaction to the question, sucked in a sharp breath and held up his hands. “I’m sorry, captain.”
Grizeo, his features yet shadowed by dark memories, shook his head. “Nay; it’s alright, lad.” He drew deeply upon his pipe and tried to smile. “It still shows on me, eh?”
Brenyn shook his head. “I am sorry.”
“Nay – as I said – it’s alright.” Grizeo gazed out over the field, as if seeing something far away, and then he nodded. “Aye; I was married once, long ago. She died, giving birth. The child died, too. Once, I had everything, all that a man could want. But she died, they both died, and I was left with nothing.” He glanced over. “It’s how I came to know your father, Brenyn. He had lost his wife, too.”
He looked away once more as his features darkened again. “Most men as become mercenaries do it for the money.” He shook his head. “But not Fynn and me. We were there because there was nowhere else that we wished to be.”
Grizeo sighed. “And, at least at the first, like Fynn, I carried a wish for death in me. But, unlike your father, it gradually faded on my part. After that, it was about my comrades, about the men that I fought beside. Fynn became like a brother.” He sighed once more, deeply. “Now? – now I just want peace.”
He turned his head and looked out toward Emi. “Watching over that wee princess suits me now. Cole has little time for her – he mopes about the castle like a ghost since his own wife passed.”
“How long were you with your wife?” Brenyn asked him. “Before she… died.”
“Four years,” Grizeo replied. “Four short years they were, but they were the whole of my life. Since then, I’ve only been biding my time.”
Brenyn hesitated. “When – when did you know that you loved her, captain?”
“My wife?”
“Yes.”
“When first I saw her, lad.” Grizeo looked away again, as if gazing at that distant something that only he could see. “I was at a dance at her father’s house. He was one of the larger landholders in Vicundium at the time, but he was a decent, charitable sort. She came down the stairs with her younger sister.”
His smile grew soft and pensive upon his deeply weathered features. He shrugged. “And, just in that wee bit ‘o time, seeing her walk down a flight of stairs, I was in love with her.”
He went silent for a long moment, lost in his thoughts, with the smile yet upon his face. But then, rather abruptly, a frown came and displaced that smile. Grizeo looked hard at Brenyn, and then glanced out toward Emi. “Brenyn –”
B
renyn shook his head. “Don’t worry, captain; for I know better.”
Grizeo narrowed his eyes. “Do you, lad?”
Brenyn nodded, rendered abruptly miserable. “I do.”
“She’s just a wee lass,” Grizeo stated, pointedly. “And she is the princess of Vicundium.”
Brenyn nodded again and stared down at the gravel of the roadway for a long moment before looking up again. “Maybe I will become a mercenary, too,” he said.
Grizeo continued to watch Brenyn for another moment and then he sighed and drew on his pipe. “Life, my boy,” he said, “and love. Neither is for the faint of heart.”
“Brenyn!” Emi’s voice broke their reverie. Brenyn turned and looked. She was racing toward him, waving one hand in the air. “Come!” She called. “It is a warm day – let us wade in the river.”
“Go on, lad,” Captain Grizeo said. “Enjoy it while you may.”
Emi was in high spirits, smiling at him and waving gladly as he came toward her. Any hint of the disagreements of a week ago had vanished. She reached out and touched his arm as he drew near and then quickly took it away again. “Still there,” she said, and she laughed and turned toward the river. “I may swim today – it’s so warm.”
“The water will yet be chill,” he warned her.
“Oh, Brenyn; don’t be a dark cloud today. The sun is warm, and the day is warm – and I want to swim.”
Her good humor made him smile. “Alright,” he said, “but don’t blame me when you freeze.”
They found a pool where the current ran slow next to the near bank and Emi went in, wearing her dress, moving slowly until the water came to her chin. Brenyn shed his shirt, to keep it dry, for the thought occurred to him that the day would not seem quite so warm once she came out of the water again.
They swam for perhaps a half-hour, laughing and splashing, and then Emi’s teeth began to chatter.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “The water is yet cold.”
He held out his hand to her. “Come,” he said, “let us sit in the sun. You can wear my shirt; it will warm you.”
She frowned as she accepted his aid in climbing clear of the water. “But what about you?”
A Plague of Ruin: Book One: Son of Two Bloods Page 4
