Dear Ravondir
I wrote to you before of my love for a commoner here in Bree-Land. It pains me to speak more of it, but I feel I must set it down. I will write it down, and then I will set this letter in the fire, for you will despise me if you learn of the sordid dealings in which I have mired myself. I did not name her before, but I will name her now: she is called Dernwynn. I will not say she loves me, but it is plain she has more feelings for me than she previously admitted – though I have at last learned that this is of no import. I must shun her. My love for her can only bring me pain.
When we met I named her Anor-elloth, flower of the sun, for she is very fair to look on, and her hair is golden. I did not know then that I was in love with her; she seemed to accept my suit, and then she rejected me, and I grew angry with her, still not thinking that what I felt for her was love. It was only after my anger cooled that I realised a great passion remained in my breast.
Her heart belongs to a rude woodsman of this country, one I had a certain respect for at one time, though I know him now for a fool and a craven, swollen with self-love. After she rejected me I sought him out, wishing to hurt him for the injury I felt I had been done. In the end we talked, and I realised there was nothing to be availed, for the choice was Dernwynn’s. However, he insisted on ‘offering’ me the chance to walk away without coming to blows, which my pride did not allow. You will think me ridiculous for suffering a commoner to goad me into a fist-fight, but so I did; once we began to fight however, and we had landed some good blows on one another, I saw only shame in brawling, as I should have at the start, and I allowed him to beat me to the ground, raising no hand in my defence. We parted on good terms, as I thought, though as you will learn, he saw our encounter in very different terms.
My anger remained strong at Dernwynn, and I thought I had put her from my heart. I took another woman, for which, again, you will curse me for a stain on our family’s honour. She very quickly declared that she loved me, which love I knew I did not return, though I felt great tenderness for her, and she pleased me very well in the way that a woman pleases a man. I hoped that love might grow, and blot out that feeling that nagged at me, unrecognised, but undeniable. It did not, and while I was with her, I met Dernwynn by chance a few times and found that my anger had cooled; we came to be on friendly terms once more, but then I came to understand the nature of my feelings for her.
I love her, Ravondir. I love her still, though my account of what has since occurred will make you wonder if I am a lunatic. This love, as I said to her, will be one of the things that defines my life when I look back from the end of my days. It has hold of me like a hound with a hare; I am wracked with, imprisoned within it, poisoned by it.
I parted from the second woman, knowing that I would not come to love her, and shamed beyond all shame that I had allowed her to love me, for she is a good, sweet-natured woman, a loving mother, many years my senior. I hope she will forgive me in time. But I tell this first because I am still more ashamed; I must tell it truly, and the truth is that before I parted from her, I had already declared my love to Dernwynn.
I did not make any plan to declare it to her, but we fell to talking, and we were both out of sorts in some manner; so we spoke to share our burdens, and she encouraged me to speak my heart to her, though she must be held blameless in this. Nevertheless, I spoke. And to my surprise she seemed pleased, though she had not so very long since rejected my affections. This woodsman to whom she has given her heart knows not at all how to treat a woman, but neglects her needs and wants, and speaks no words of affection. Why she cares for him is beyond my ken. There was much discussion around this time, as she is planning a trip to the North Downs, and the roads there are not safe; I wished to persuade her to take an armed escort, myself preferably, but any other good man if not. I feared for her greatly, and well, I have told the tale awry again.
Before I had declared my love for her, I went and knocked at her door, and I gave her Túrphen’s dirk, that he had on his person when he was killed. For this you will hate me, I know, and so I know now beyond doubt that I will burn this letter, yet I must continue to write for the moment. I gave our brother’s knife to her, and bid her keep it on her when she travelled, thinking that his spirit might watch over her, tallest and bravest knight of Tarnost that he was. For this reason I do not think she was surprised at my declaration, which I made on the following day.
I meant little by telling her. I wished her to know that my anger had been a mask, that I bore her no ill-will, that I wished only for her happiness; and I wished her to understand why it was so important to me that she not come into harm’s way. I asked if the woodsman that she loves, who is named Scarlock, would not accompany her, for he is crafty in the ways of the wild, and an expert bowman. She said she had not seen him for many days, and that she receives scant attention from him; I suggested that I should seek him out and ask him to go with her, though events pre-empted any such attempt.
On one day, we fell to talking, and I do not know why, but my feelings became unlocked, I could not hold them back. I spoke to her of the way that an honourable man should treat his woman, saying that she deserved better than she could hope for at Scarlock’s hands. She spoke in turn, saying that she had never been treated by a man in a way that you or I would regard as decent. And in the end I abandoned all pride and abjected myself to her. I begged her to take me as her lover, to be as her servant, to come and please her when she needed comfort, to be dismissed when she had no need of me, and promised to obey her as I were a dog at her command. And she accepted me. She accepted my proposition. I have not spoken to her privately since this time, but I do not doubt she was sincere, that she wanted me, not as I want her, but enough. I stripped myself bare, I showed her the innermost recess of my heart and emptied myself of the pride that I have borne since I learned to swing a sword.
And she betrayed my confidence, to the man I would least wish to learn of my abjection.
I was riding to Bree from Hookworth, hoping perhaps to see her there, as I wished to bid her farewell, her departure now being imminent. And I came upon her with Scarlock on the road, deep in an angry dispute. Straightaway when Scarlock saw me he nocked an arrow and bore down upon me. I dismounted; or perhaps I dismounted before he strung his bow, I do not recall. Regardless, he stood before me and said he would kill me for an oathbreaker. I was amazed, and stood transfixed. I had no armour on me, only my sword and dagger, and I stood many yards from him; I knew that I could move fast enough, and unpredictably enough, throwing my cloak about me, to throw off his aim, if I moved first; but I knew also that I would get his arrow through some part of my body. So I waited and heard him out.
He believed I had made promises to him. He threw words at me that I barely recalled, but even as he related them it was clear they held no promise. I had said that Dernwynn would not be mine, meaning that she had given her heart to him; he took this as an oath to abjure her company, to give her up to him. And this is a man who makes much of his freedom, that he owns nothing and no-one, and is owned by nothing or no-one. Yet he thought that he had won a woman in a fist-fight as though she were a prize milk-cow to be traded, and that the hand of friendship I offered him after we fought was as the sealing of a blood-oath. Had I made any oath to him he would have known it, and I would not have forgot it. I have abandoned my honour in diverse ways since I came to Bree-Land, but not in this.
I would not run from him, or bow to him. That is not my way. I have faced death too many times, seen too many men die badly; if death stands before me I will face it proudly and embrace it. But I did not speak over-harshly as I knew I stood in deadly peril, and I do not wish for death. My anger rose within me then, and I forget what was spoken, for I was boiling with rage at his insults; he said I was no true knight, that I had broken my plighted troth, and that I should not have spoken of my love to Dernwynn. On this last I agreed with him, though I did not say why, which was that in the words that passed among us it became clear that Dernwynn had told him all that I had said to her.
Oh, Ravondir! I love her. She has treated me with the basest contempt, but I cannot feel the anger for her that I felt when she rejected me. She has told all that was most secret in my heart to this man, who I once thought well of, but who I now know for a fantasist and a coward, who thinks only of himself. And still I can only think how I long for her, and pray that she is happy.
In the end I think he was swayed by Dernwynn’s presence, guessing she would hate him if he ended my life in front of her. He spoke foully to me, dismissing me as a servant. I told him that if he would meet me with steel in his hand then I would answer his words in that wise; and that if he would kill me I would offer him my back. So I turned from him, and called my horse, and rode on to Bree. He made no answer to me, as I guessed he would not, lacking the courage to face a trained man in combat, or even to kill me before the woman he claims as a chattel.
If I see him again he will have three choices: to face me with a sword, and die a man; to shoot me with his bow, and be known for a murderer and a craven; or to do neither and be known for a coward. And I know what you would say, brother: that I would dishonour myself in offering him single combat; that he should be beneath my notice. But since I came to Bree I have ceased to judge men and women by their station or birth.
These events have lifted a fog from me. There are many unfortunates in Bree, who are too poor to have even simple comforts, many of whom are unlettered. I plan to dedicate my free time to their welfare. I was raised to do good, and I have spent my time in doing ill, in shaming myself with my weakness before a woman who does not love me. I will teach those that would learn to read and write, and I will see what may be done to alleviate the hunger that I see in the poorer part of Bree. It is time I began to act as a man. And I shall renew my search for our mother’s kin; it is too long that I have neglected that duty.
Dernwynn, I see now, can never be anything but a source of pain to me. I must speak to her, and I shall write a letter to request a meeting. But I shall tell one last lie. I shall tell her that I love her not.
Your brother, Deredan
