I stepped out onto the narrow path directly in front of Gilastor. With swift management, Estarfin halted the mighty warhorse a few feet from me. He met my eyes with an expression that would have feared most folk. He was furious.
But I could not move away. It was not the woman, Hildfrith’s fault she had been in our homestead. It was mine. I had invited her, knowing, though not thinking at the time, I placed her life in danger. It was my fault, and I had to try and stop matters from worsening now.
“Why are you doing this? What do you think to achieve?” I asked, looking up at him with great sorrow. “I invited her here. She knows naught of why you hate her. How could she? She should not die for my stupidity.”
There was no change to his expression. Gilastor ‘danced’ impatiently before me, those hooves torn between his instinct to trample me, and his recognition of me as someone to protect. On the slope behind him there was a sharp whinny as Swan Hoof almost ran into him.
I saw Parnard’s pale face for a moment, his look of horror as he took in the scene.
I imagined him suggesting I move swiftly out of the way.
I could not.
“Estarfin, I have said I am the cause of this, not you, not her. Why will you not believe me?”
“She is the cause of this,” he bit back at my words, a wild light was in his eyes.
“I cannot let you slay her. It is against all hospitality. It is beneath your honour so to do.”
Parnard had a hand over his eyes, as he turned little Swan-hoof.
Estarfin was not hearing me.
“You will have to ride me down first,” I said, fey of spirit and little realising how my words sounded to him.
Would he do such a thing? I almost thought for a moment he would……’Estarfin, how have we come to this?’
Shaking his head at me, he then shrugged and rode the massive war horse most deftly around me, that I felt but the lightest brush of Gilastor’s shoulder and of his knee in passing.
And I remained in the middle of the path, feeling a slow building rage of my own at his humiliation of me as he urged Gilastor on to a gallop.
Parnard edged past as well. He looked greatly concerned, but at that moment my battle was with my own anger. The Woodelf pulled his hood up over his head, and low on his face.
“I will watch over him, Lady” he said gently.
“You have already lost sight of him,” I replied a touch bitterly.
Parnard made to say something further, but the excited mare was already leaping away.
And I stood in that spot. I stood.
I could not understand what had happened?
It began to rain lightly. I knew I should go indoors, I should sit and think, not stand and fume.
But I was angry.
How could he treat me so? Had we not both just come to the understanding we should have had years past?
I stood. Numb.
Would he have urged Gilastor forward? Would he have called me out? I thought he certainly would not have backed down. But then again I knew he would never hurt me. I trusted him with my life.
A candle appeared in the ground floor bedroom of my house, a short distance uphill. Filignil, no doubt, checking all was well.
‘No!’ I wanted to shout, ‘it is not well. I am angry and humiliated, and a woman may well die for my mistake.’
The candle was by the door, as she called “Lady Danel, the night closes in and the weather is inclement for watching stars.”
“I care not about the stars this eve,” I called back. But she was right. It was folly after folly to remain where I was. I walked, sick of spirit, back to the house.
Upon entry I saw and smelt in passing a goblet of hot spiced wine which had been placed in the study. The fire had been lit as had a couple of candles, and a large woolen blanket was thrown lightly over a chair.
Filignil! I smiled a little despite myself. And I found I was thanking Lelyar and Arnone for their wise choice of her as the Housekeeper.
I made myself comfortable in the chair, hugging the blanket around myself and wondering over and again, how things had come to this? Why had I permitted any of it to start? Then there was a flash of burgundy, and the housekeeper was back with a dish and a spoon.
“Two matters Lady, if you will,” she said a touch curtly. “Then if you have no further need of me I shall take some rest.” She promptly placed a bowl containing apple pie and cream in my hands. “Apple and raspberry pie is best eaten soon after it is baked, and with a generous amount of honeyed cream.”
I nursed the bowl, and treasured her thoughtfulness. “And it hurts most terribly when someone you trust acts as if you do not exist, no?” was her second matter.
She smoothed a strand of loose hair back into her bun, gave me a ‘superior’ look for a moment, then retired from the room.
I sat back in the chair again, picking at the pie with more curiosity than real hunger. It did smell and taste very good.
And I took her point.
Estarfin and I could both react more like fifty year olds than elves of a nigh venerable six and a half thousand years. His temper and my fey willfulness could push us to behave without due thought. Even so, as my mood cooled I remembered why I trusted him above all others. I was more than contrite. I understood. If it were not for the weight of concern for the woman, Hildfrith, my own anger was diminished. But now we had both wounded the other for no reason save pride. It had to stop.
I sat for a while longer. Indeed, I had hoped he and I could experience some of the ways of youth we had both missed out on. That joyful riding together some weeks back, the dancing, the carefully respectful touching of hands, the increasing closeness, I had wanted that so much. The first steps of a much longer dance that could reach past the end of time?
I looked up as I heard Filignil walking about upstairs still. It sounded like she had moved to stand near the door of Estarfin’s room. I sighed. There was no way she would not see what he had done there. After a while I went upstairs to remind myself of the view, and she joined me. But instead of the ‘I told you so’, regarding Estarfin’s decorating skills, she defended him wisely. Housekeeper? I think that was the first step to considering her as a ‘friend’.
And after, she and I went to pack some few of my things, in case it was wise for me to depart for a little while, and to partake of just a little more wine. I did not want my mind fogged in the coming hours.
