The Council of Laeliquaende
She did not loathe her cousin at first, not until the shape of his desire was laid clear; the Elder do not marry so close, and her heart did not turn in his direction. The son of Gethsael struggled with his longing, and most agreed he did so with much grace. Yet under the seeming, his very being twisted into madness.
—Elaedie the Swift, of Aerindael
Can you not guess?” Floringaeld did not quite hiss, but he sounded scandalized as Albeig when some steading-gossip was brought from a neighbor’s sparring-yard or sewing-room. “No doubt he roams the hills alone, listening to the sounds of festival.”
“I would have thought him eager to render duty and counsel to his uncle,” she returned, sharply. “Despite whatever base desires linger in his heart.”
Arn shifted, an uneasy movement. My cheeks were hot, and I studied my hands in my lap. I could not close my ears, but I could pretend to.
Sometimes that is wisest. Besides, I had to think. Did they truly mean to send me from this place to a shadow-locked forest? Why? And if they did… the mountains were a deterrent to wandering; a mighty Elder seidhr capable of barring the Allmother’s eldest son from entering was as well. The journey to reach another place might afford me some chance of freedom, yet I thought it unlikely.
At least Dorael was a comparatively larger cell than this valley. Still, the thought that I might spend my entire life being shuttled from one Elder prison to the next was chilling.
“I have oft found profit and solace in Maedroth’s counsel, and he is my sister’s child.” Taeron’s tone turned forbidding, and the tent’s walls rippled with the breeze. “He has borne his shame with courage, and his habit of telling truth earns him few friends. I do not wonder he wished to avoid witnessing the morning’s work.”
“Is it truth he tells, my father?” Naciel was a tense blur of silver and green at the very periphery of my vision. “Or is his honesty merely the leavening of ash-bread?”
“You have gained what you sought, my beloved child.”Strange, how an Elder speaking the Old Tongue should sound so… well, at that moment the High-helm seemed very like Eril the Battle-Mad chiding Astrid, with far more gentleness than he ever used upon our brother. “Be gracious in victory, so you may be strong in defeat.”
A pained silence descended, not quite the same as the quiet when a passing spirit slips invisible through a mortal crowd. This was an entirely familial pause, and the music outside the tent only underscored its dimensions.
“Yes,” Naciel finally said, and a soft sound of cloth was her shifting. Slight bitterness, well-reined, edged her tone. “We must turn our attention to weightier matters, as always, like where to stow a precious item so others do not even glance upon it. Yet I would advise you to beware of using small things so. Even a master grower asks a blade of grass what it wills.”
I could not help it; I raised my chin. The daughter of Taeron tilted her bright head, and her smile was just as ageless and pained as her sire’s as she regarded him. They resembled each other very much indeed in that moment.
None—save Arn, perhaps—would see the stamp of Eril the Battle-Mad or my mother Gwendelint upon me. I knew I would never see Dun Rithell again, but the realization kept returning, a hungry bear at an inadequately fenced midden-heap. And each time, my heart gave a hard wringing pang.
“And yet, to hand over Lithielle’s Jewel…” Floringaeld stiffened as Taeron turned in his direction. “That is what we are discussing, my lord. Is it not?”
I stirred, sensing a change in the discussion as surely as a shift in riverflow. “I do not want your Elder gem.” My tone was soft enough, but seemed unmusical as Eol’s after Elder voices. “Faevril’s taivvanpallo nearly killed me in Nithraen, and Caelgor called it a mere toy. This other thing may stay in that tower for all eternity, I care not a whit.”
“You have not seen it, child.” Taeron now leaned forward, propping his elbow upon his raised knee, and rested his chin upon his hand. It was a familiar pose; he often sat thus upon his throne. “The Enemy himself was helpless against such beauty, for he halted in his escape to steal them first and other treasures only as an afterthought. And none knows what even a single Jewel might do in the hands of another alkuine.”
Now was my time to speak, as a wise but seemingly reticent warrior will turn after luring his opponent into ill-judged pursuit. “Perhaps it might be dangerous wielded by an Elder, but I am merely Secondborn, am I not? You count us lesser in everything—sheep to be won upon a dice-toss, not even thralls.” I did not mean to sound so rancorous, but the truth had its head like a runaway horse, and if it pained them to hear such facts it also stung my tongue to utter them. Indeed, I spoke much as Tarit of Redhill then, and welcomed the likeness. “What threat am I, Taeron Goldspear? If your terrible Enemy found this place, would you cut my throat to keep me from his clutches? Or do you mean to simply trammel me like a rabbit in a wicker hutch until I die of old age? It may be a mere eyeblink to an Elder, but it is all the life I have, and what will I say to the gods when they ask me how it was spent?”
Arn lifted her spear, and its blunt end struck the carpeted floor. It did not have the crisp sound it would upon stone, but was still clearly audible even through the muffled music.
All of Laeliquaende celebrated that afternoon; my own feelings were otherwise, and mattered less than naught.
Eol rocked back on his heels. Aeredh’s gaze fastened upon me, and I could not tell if he looked chastened or merely shocked at my temerity. All the silence and forbearance I had used upon our journey to this place curdled within me, every word I had dammed behind the screen of a weregild’s obedience and the prudent quiet of a woman among armed men not her kin now jostled for release.
A volva must speak carefully, yes. So must a weregild, and an ally. But by the gods, I had held my tongue long enough.
“Tjorin did not even ask for our help,” I continued. “We offered it freely, for he and Naciel have been kind. Wise you may think yourself, Elder king, and ageless your counselors. But as I see, your daughter and her husband far outrace you in both wisdom and honor. Keep this jewel of yours in its doorless casket; even had I known of its existence in Dun Rithell I would not have stirred a single step to seek it out.”
“You say that now, but should you look upon—” Floringaeld began.
“Why was I summoned to this meeting, merely to hear my doom?” Perhaps the river was still within me and the morning seidhr filling my veins, for my tone demanded silence. I fixed the Elder captain with a glare that would have done Ulfrica at home proud. “Or did the High-helm think to punish me for rewarding kindness with aid? You have not heard of another alkuine, but the world is wide; have you looked in every possible corner? Has the son of Aerith? He and his friends rode south to ask for allies against the Enemy, yet this is how your friends are treated?”
“Yes.” Eol, pale and rigid, took a single step forward. A ripple passed through him, the wolf inside his skin turning restlessly. “Each time some alliance seemed likely it was withdrawn, and the creatures of the Enemy dogged our heels until Lady Solveig’s brother felled mine with a single blow, for Arvil made rude comment upon her younger sister. And afterward my brother’s pyre smoked foully, refusing to burn clean; when we left that place we were not followed so closely.” He spread his hands, the rawness upon them all but healed. “I deserve your anger and am in your debt besides, my lady. If you are trammeled here so am I, for I will not leave you to suffer such fate alone.”
He had not said it so baldly before, and now I was not the one who had told the tale of my leaving Dun Rithell. Still, I had not meant to provoke him, and disliked the event.
“Ah,” Taeron said. “So that is why the heir of Naras stays.”
“You cannot keep wolves who do not wish it,” Aeredh answered. “Yet I still hold this a design of the Blessed, Taeron, and do not regret bringing her here.”
“It is as well you do not regret it, son of Aerith.”The words leapt from me, the Old Tongue sharp as one of their well-wrought blades. “For it cannot be undone, and you are not the one who pays the price.”
“By the Blessed.” Daerith eyed me, and perhaps it was his aim to calm the conversation, for he spoke in southron. “I have never heard you speak so, alkuine, and would have thought you of gentler temper. Valkataela we should name you, for you hide your fire well.”
As far as I could tell, the name meant the light from that which precedes thunder—poetic, but hardly hidden. Aeredh all but flinched; so did Floringaeld. Taeron’s mouth turned down at both corners, but Naciel smiled as if well pleased.
“I invited you because your counsel is sought, Lady Solveig.” Taeron’s expression forestalled any interruption. “I would not keep any creature unwilling, did not the safety of my entire people rest upon it. And I would not send you forth from sanctuary either, for I think the Enemy knows another alkuine has been found.”
A cold shiver rippled down my back. Arn tensed, and glanced down at me. Thick silence enfolded cloth, pillows, Elder, and Secondborn; pipe and harp, voice and drum faded in that tense hush.
“The Accursed One does not move against Dorael or Faeron-Alith yet, even with Nithraen gone.” Tjorin spoke softly and nodded, as if confirming a private guess. “You were not tempted forth after the fall of your kinsman’s city, as you came once before to the field. He does not know where the High-helm is, and that disturbs him.”
Taeron clearly agreed, and if he was sour at his daughter’s suitor seeing his meaning so clearly it did not show. “The Enemy’s spies comb the lands around Dorael’s edges; if I know of Aenarian’s failing, so does he. The likeliest answer is that he is watchful, and furthermore keeping Faeron’s land for last, hoping we act in haste.”
“Or…” Naciel shook her bright head, as every eye turned to her. Rippling gold slipped over her shoulders, strands pooling in her lap. “We should go to Dorael, my father. Swift and silent, as we came here.”
“Leave Laeliquaende?” Floringaeld’s objection was swift. “Even with every secrecy, we would be discovered as we marched. Our children, our families, all our treasures—”
“Swift,” she persisted, “and silent. What use is everything we have wrought if all our people perish? And if Aenarian dies of grief we may yet hold Dorael with or without the Cloak-Weaver’s aid, and keep the Enemy penned.”
“Alkuine.” The High-helm’s gaze turned to me again. “You spoke with the voice of the Blessed before. What say you now?”
“I cannot force the gods to utterance, only accept what is given.” And in truth I felt rather faint. I had seen the names upon maps—Dorael, Faeron-Alith, and even the blot called the Gasping. Dun Rithell did not merit a single mark; indeed, only the upper thread of our river showed at the very edge of the largest and oldest chart despite the fact that once our settlement had an Elder name and my mother’s ancestors had marched forth to face the Enemy in mythical times.
Yet just this morning I had sung a saga even older than that. A vast weight of history threatened to crush me.
“Just so.” Taeron showed no anger, nor any discomfort; he appeared simply thoughtful, though passing grave. “To issue forth prematurely may well cast us all into the Enemy’s hands. He has not moved, and even orukhar find the season of melt difficult.”
“Made of mud,” Daerith murmured. “Yet they do not swim in it well.” It sounded like a proverb; the Elder and Northerners each smiled grimly, but I suspect I merely looked blank.
“Solveig.” Arneior spoke softly, and her woad glared in the tent’s soft light. “I am reminded.”
“Of what, my shieldmaid?” Another shiver went through me; I knew what those words meant, especially in that quiet, pitiless tone.
For it was her duty to remember what I said when prophecy was upon me.
“Just before we reached Redhill. You were delirious with the cold, and you spoke.” My small one paused, as if unwilling, but a shieldmaid does not shy from duty. “It rang true.”
“What did I say?” My mouth had turned dry as summerdust on the ancient paved road outside Dun Rithell’s gates.
“He knows I am here,” she quoted. “You said it more than once. And, North, amid the ash.”
Daerith breathed something highly impolite in the Old Tongue, turning away; Aeredh’s eyes burned. “So she did,” the Crownless agreed, in a near-whisper. “I remember it too.”
“My brother.”Eol sounded stunned. “Perhaps he somehow…” And if Arneior was pale, the heir of Naras now looked deathly ill, two feverish spots standing high on his cheeks and a ghost of stubble roughening his jaw.
“Do not let it trouble you so deeply, son of Tharos.” The words held only kindness; Taeron Goldspear was indeed a lord worth following, for at that moment he sought to comfort a two-skin Secondborn. “The Enemy sees much with many spies, even among the birds and beasts.”
“Beasts.”Eol half-swallowed the word, staring at the lowered tent-flap. His shoulders were rigid, and swelled under black cloth. “Thus the Enemy cursed us, and it became truth.”
“Peace, my friend.” Aeredh laid a hand upon the wolf-captain’s arm, his fingers digging in—not harshly, meant to steady instead of wound. “Your house did not serve him then; you do not serve him now.”
Charged silence descended, and perhaps the High-helm thought no more would be accomplished that afternoon. For Taeron rose gracefully from his seat.
“It is the first day of spring.” The silvery fillet at his brow gave a single sharp flash as he moved. “Much has been said, and much must be thought upon at length. Yet this should not keep us from celebration, for many completed the course today and my daughter’s joy must be shared with all.”
With other fair words he dismissed the last council of Laeliquaende, and when he left the tent it was with his daughter and Tjorin, all smiling broadly to meet the gazes of their people. Floringaeld and Daerith accompanied them; Aeredh ushered a silent, grim-faced Eol out.
Arn and I were left to our own devices, perhaps because I had been too bold. Still, I did not mind.
When we stepped forth into a bright warm afternoon, I was temporarily blinded. A hint of smoke reached me upon a soft cool breeze, though the Elder in that valley did not use open flame for heat. Still, a mortal blaze is cheersome, and I thought it likely some might gather around bonfires amid the groves and vineyards as the sun descended.
I was wrong, but I did not know it then.
Cups of springwine were pressed into our hands by passersby. Arn drank with a will, no doubt glad to be free of endless talk. I was troubled indeed, but there was nothing to be done.
No matter how much of their delicious vintage I poured down, a deep unphysical weariness remained. And I wondered much, as we were hailed by groups of Elder and invited to share some amusement or another, upon the words Arn had remembered. I could not say I had spoken them, being half-dead with cold before we reached Redhill, but I knew better than to doubt my shieldmaid.
I wondered as well upon the exact nature of Eol’s curse, the illness of a faraway Elder high king, of gems even the Allmother’s first child could covet. But there was nothing to be done at the present moment, and many were the voices calling.
I would chew these thoughts at leisure when we retreated to our quarters, I decided, and did my best to appear cheerful.