20
NOW, SOME WEEKS after the orc army had left, while Dathor was still considering how it was that he was going to sell an alliance with the Valaedor to the orc leadership, a letter arrived from Thelandel Chapel.
It was a problem, this letter, because it came by way of a servant from the Chapel on horseback, not through the post, which he had dealt with.
The post was delivered on the train, and he sent an orc to fetch it, an orc who was dressed as if he worked at the Peak, not as if he were part of the orc army, who claimed to be a new servant at the Peak.
Not that this was adequate if Dathor wanted to keep news of the fall of Foxglove Peak from getting out.
There were a number of reasons that the news may have already spread.
Coming on the day of Aerhril’s wedding, doing it in front of so many people, keeping all the women captive in the keep, it had not been well thought out from the perspective of secrecy.
There was no denying that people knew something was wrong, even if they had been prevented from coming past the gates at the end of the drive of Foxglove Peak, even if they had been told all manner of various stories—a illness, a quarantine, an accidental collapse of a tower, a madman servant opening fire on the groom and all the people in the chapel.
There was talk. He knew that.
In the village, even, some of the servants had gotten free and spread the tale of orc invasion.
Even so, this was not strictly his problem. He was to hold the Peak for the orcs, to be ready when called to support the army. It was not his job to keep the secret from spreading, to stop the rumors.
But when the servant arrived from Thelandel Chapel, the servant had no idea that Foxglove Peak had been overtaken by orcs.
He intercepted the servant himself, at the gate, took the letter and made to send the servant on his way.
“I’m to wait for a reply if possible,” said the servant.
He almost told him to go away without one, but then he changed his mind. “Wait here.”
“At the gate, sir?”
“There is sickness in the Peak,” he said.
“Oh,” said the servant in another voice.
“Wait here,” said Dathor.
He opened the letter himself. It was from Elrion’s daughter. She had been young before, eleven or so. She was seventeen now, the age that Aerhril had been when she started her flirtation with the girl’s father.
First the girl apologized for having missed Aerhril’s wedding, citing the fact that her father, of course, was insistent they never see any of them again, that he still held a grudge against Aerhril for what she had done to his orcs.
Dathor thought of that again, thought of how she’d completely sabotaged her own future just to spite him. It warmed him, now, the lengths of the two of them had gone for each other. He smiled to himself.
Elrion’s daughter wanted to visit Aerhril, saying that she could get away, claiming to be going elsewhere and could come for tea someday, that Aerhril must only reply that she was willing.
Dathor took the letter and went looking for Aerhril.
She wasn’t with the women. She wasn’t in her her bedchamber. He yelled for her and she appeared at the top of the stairs, seemingly coming out of his old room, the small room from when he had been a boy.
“What were you doing in there?” he asked her.
“Just a place to hide is all,” she said.
He supposed that made sense. He handed her the letter. “Quickly write a reply and tell her that there is sickness here and that she must not come, that no one is coming in or out.”
Aerhril scanned the letter and nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Sickness.” She took the letter down to the sitting room on the first floor, sat down at the writing desk and quickly composed a note back.
Dathor took it back to the servant and sent him on his way with the reply.
He told himself that it was all going to be all right, because the servant would have believed that there was sickness here and that it was only going to Elrion’s daughter, anyway, who would conceal it from her father, who would never set foot in Foxglove Peak again, so great was his anger at everyone here, but especially Aerhril.
Well, also with him, he supposed, for what he’d done to Nathre.
He told himself that, again and again, and he mostly believed it, except the fact the worry kept resurfacing, so he must not have truly believed it.
And then, four days hence, who was at the gate but Elrion himself.
“It is you,” said Elrion, dismounting from his horse. “I said you’d gone over the pass, and they said you were here, and that it was most definitely you, and I had to see it with my own eyes, and here you are, and it is you.”
“There’s sickness here,” he said.
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” said Elrion. “Which is why I’ve brought Igbar with his herbs and concoctions to help.” He beckoned and the orc appeared, leveling his gaze at Dathor, his nostrils flaring. “Well? Open the gate.”
Dathor swore under his breath, but there was nothing for it. He opened the gate, escorted them up to the Peak, shut them in the sitting room on the first floor, told them they’d be received by the lady of the house soon, and then locked them both inside.
Was he going to have to kill Elrion nae Nilriane?
If so, perhaps he might relish it, at least to some degree.
But Igbar? What was to become of Igbar, the orc who loved Elrion like a father, the orc who was loyal to him even though the man used him, the orc who was so brainwashed that he could not see that he was being abused?
Dathor could not kill Igbar. Neither, however, could he let Igbar go.
And what about Elrion’s daughter, left behind at Thelandel Chapel?
This was a right mess.
“DO YOU HAVE tea?” Dathor was saying, his shadow falling over Aerhril’s cards as she played a game in the dining room that afternoon.
Aerhril was playing with Raclahad and Hafindel, since Hafindel had still not left. She looked up at him, wondering why he would ask such a strange question. “Tea?”
“There must be tea,” he said. “And it must be in the kitchen, along with the tea service.”
“I suppose,” she said.
“Can you brew tea?” he said to her.
“I…” She shook her head at him. “Well, I likely can, but I’ve never been taught to do it. If you are saying that we would all be happier here with a bit of tea each day, I’m heartily in agreement. I’m sure Hafindel knows how to brew tea.”
Hafindel smirked at her. “It is not difficult.”
“Good,” said Dathor, furrowing his brow. “Then go and brew some. And then we must go to the sitting room, and you must see if you can get rid of them.”
“Who?” she said.
“Elrion and Igbar, who have come to minister to the sick here at Foxglove Peak, since I sent that wretchedly stupid letter to them.”
She sat up straight. “Truly?”
He put a finger in her face. “If you tell him anything, anything at all, I shall have to kill him. I would much rather you go in there, pretend nothing is wrong, and then convince him to go of his own volition.”
Aerhril blinked at him. “Elrion? I haven’t spoken to him in years. Not since all of it happened. He hates me.”
“Who doesn’t hate you, fair elf?” he said with a shrug. “Get rid of him. Get tea.”
But it was all ridiculous. Even with Hafindel’s help, they could not manufacture a proper reception in the sitting room, because they did not have anything besides tea.
Well, there was sugar and milk. The cows in the barn were still being milked and the grain mush was improved by milk, but tea was usually served with sweets, biscuits and sweetbreads and cakes and the like.
At the very least, scones. They had nothing of that nature made up, and it would have taken far too long to make it, even if they could have spared the refined flour, of which there was very little in their stores. The orc army had taken most of it.
They were obliged instead, to go with the tea only.
Aerhril brought Raclahad, though for what purpose she did not know. Perhaps she thought that Elrion would be a bit less awful to her if her sister was there as a buffer.
The door was locked, and they had to unlock it to enter. Dathor was with them, but he stayed out of sight as they entered. He was going to listen at the door, to make sure she said nothing to Elrion that would indicate that orcs had overtaken the keep.
When they entered, Elrion and Igbar stood up.
“Well, being received by the stewardess herself,” said Elrion, and his tone was not kind. He did hate her. “We are simply here to see the sick, not as a social call. And do tell me why have we been locked inside?”
“A precaution only,” she said. “Against the spread of the sickness. You should not have come, truly.”
“Well, if the sickness is so very bad, then we must do our duty as the gods command,” he said. “We must care for each other, must we not?”
She smiled at him. “It is a noble thought, sir.” She pushed Raclahad at him. “Have you met my sister?”
Elrion looked her over. “I cannot say that I have had the pleasure.”
And then, she suddenly had an idea. Could she get Raclahad out with him somehow? Get him to take her sister away from all of this? If she knew that Raclahad was safe, it would make everything easier.
“Well, allow me to present my sister, Raclahad nae Hariel,” she said. “Raclahad, this is Elrion nae Nilriane.”
He took her hand and smiled at her.
Raclahad looked terrified. She tried to smile and did not manage it.
“Let us sit,” said Aerhril. “Do you still take your tea the same way, sir? Two sugars and milk?”
He looked at the tea service, nothing in the way of refreshments. “I assume everyone is too sick to make up anything for visitors?”
She smiled at him. “Indeed. Your tea?”
“I don’t even want any tea,” he muttered. He sat back on his couch, eyeing her, his dislike all over him. “Truly, I cannot say why I am here.”
She poured the tea. For him and for Igbar, who was silent, as usual. She handed it to him, however, and then made her way over to the writing desk, where she got several sheets of paper, the pen and the inkwell.