24
IN THE END, Aerhril stayed at Thelandel Chapel for nearly a month. By the time she left, her face looked much better. The spot on her head where the horse had made contact was hidden by her hair, and it had settled into a tender little knot there. It was shrinking as time went on.
During all those weeks, though she had agreed to be Elrion’s wife, he never so much as kissed her. He said that it would not be proper until he had negotiated her bride price with Celedin, that she still belonged to the other man.
She spent too much time lying in bed and thinking about Elrion without clothes.
During this, Elrion would be droning on about his theories of government and the equality of people and how it was that prejudice on the basis of species was irrational, a behavior learned and passed down from generation to generation.
He would be speaking about his deep and elevated thoughts, and she would be wondering about his cock.
She would be thinking that her first time would be with this man, and she wondered if he’d talk political theory while he reached his peak.
She imagined going up and undoing the buttons of his trousers and freeing him and putting her mouth on him the way she did with Dathor, and she wondered if Elrion’s speech would falter or if he would simply continue on, unbothered, if his orgasm would only make him gasp a little, if he would say, That was very nice, dear.
She supposed, even then, she could see he didn’t have the capacity for passion.
He had revolutionary ideas but he didn’t feel strongly about them. He was sort of a muted person, she thought, but she liked it.
Perhaps it would be good for her. He would be like an anchor, holding her down when the storms came through her and the winds tore her asunder. He would keep her from being blown away.
It did not help, of course, that she disagreed with him.
She did not think that people simply learned to hate orcs, that it was only passed down from generation to generation. She thought that Elrion thought this because he wasn’t very in touch with his own body. Or perhaps because his body didn’t produce very many sensations. She wasn’t certain.
For someone like Elrion, someone distanced from being a physical creature, it was easy to think that all things were simply intellectual ideas. That anyone could be dissuaded from an idea simply by being talked out of it.
But she knew that people weren’t swayed by words in the way that they were swayed by other more powerful things. There were forces that swept through bodies, like the forces that swept through the craggy landscape of the mountainous north. Those forces weren’t rational, but they were natural.
It was natural to fear something like an orc.
Look at them. They were bigger and stronger than the elves. If it came down to a physical match between them, the orc would likely beat an elf to a pulp with his fists.
So, yes, then there were all sorts of arguments and words that were put on top of that. The elves told themselves things such as, Yes, the orcs are stronger than us but we have sharper minds. We are more civilized. They are brutes; we are higher creatures.
It was the same with the Valaedor and the Cirdan, the silvans. It was the same rationalizations for fear.
Rational beings did not like to believe that they were swayed by fear. They wanted to believe they could think their way out of danger.
Perhaps sometimes, they even could. The man who had created the revolver, he had certainly thought his way out of danger.
Perhaps that was natural, too, actually.
Perhaps the thinking part was not some higher, elevated element within a being.
Perhaps it was all muddled together, both and neither, all working in tandem.
She was not so stupid as to get into an intellectual argument with the man who was going to marry her, rescue her from Celedin, and bring Dathor out from under the thumb of those cruel men, of course.
No, instead, she nodded, smiled, said to him, “What a brilliant man you are, sir. I should never have thought of it that way.”
They discussed the best way to broach the topic of their marriage with Celedin and the steward.
She would have liked it if she simply never went back there at all, but they both thought that would make things much worse.
Celedin thought of her as a possession, and he would not take well to the idea that she had been taken by force.
No, she must be returned and then Elrion must go and ask permission. He must negotiate, he must promise to make things right with Celedin. He must give Celedin something that he wanted.
“You must make him feel as if he is coming out of the discussion having won in some way,” she said to him. “He is a proud man. He does not take well to the idea of being swindled.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” said Elrion. “But what could he wish for? What could I offer him that would make him feel that way?”
“Perhaps it isn’t about offering him that, it is more about making him feel as if he is well shut of me, as if I am a burden to him?”
Elrion thought about that, furrowing his brow.
He was quiet for some time. “I cannot see how he would ever think such a thing. You are a prize. You are young, very beautiful, cultured, a fair elf, a woman he should not hope to be able to win in all his years. Even if he were not cursed with such a contrary disposition, he would be unlikely to marry a woman like you.”
“Yes, but I am so very poor,” she said. “And he and his father have often complained about having me thrust upon them. Furthermore, the effort they’ve put into making me worthy of being the stewardess of the place—the lessons, Flaihir, the dresses, all of that expense, the steward speaks often of it. ”
“He does?” Elrion was disgusted. “What sort of people are they?” He shook his head. “As if you could eat much at all. As if seeing you in a pretty gown could be anything other than pleasure. I want you out of there now.”
“I want out of there, too,” she said.
“I will not pretend that you are anything other than a prize, my lady,” he said. “If they cannot see it, they are blind and idiotic.”
This warmed her, she had to say.
Eventually, she was sent back to Foxglove Peak. She did not know when Elrion would come to call upon Celedin to formally ask for her hand and to make his offer to him. She could only wait.
Flaihir was happy to see her back, and she confessed that everything had gone better than they could have predicted.
Flaihir was worried about his knowing that she was penniless, however. “That makes you the desperate one, not him,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose I know that,” she agreed. “I do not think I will be able to control him in the way that I had hoped. But perhaps it will be all right, because he is so grounded and older and wealthy and good and so cultured and intelligent and—”
“Oh, dear, you have fallen in love with him,” said Flaihir, laughing.
“How does one not fall in love with a man like that, especially when he is coming to rescue you from this place?”
Flaihir smiled at her. “My work here is quite done. I have served you well, I think, better than many of the girls I am hired to make ready for marriage and ladyship. From now on, I shall ask myself if I can top this, if I can see a way to make a girl’s life as better as I have made yours.”
And Aerhril laughed and felt pleased and happy.
Of course, Dathor was neither pleased nor happy.
He did not come to see her when she came back from the Chapel. He was not there to greet her, and he did not sneak into her bedchamber, and he ignored her when she tried to get his attention, because she had written a note they should meet at the cavern that night.
Eventually, she had to sneak out to the stables, but when she got there, Nardion was not sleeping in front of the door and she walked right in.
“He’s sick,” said Dathor. “Too sick to come in to work, a very bad fever, I hear. If he didn’t drink so much, he probably would not be bearing the brunt of it so badly, but his body is weak. He will be gone for another week at least, I think.”
“And you could have come to me,” she said. She had been home for nearly a week at this point. “But you did not.”
“Why, what is the point?” He folded his arms over his chest. “I have reports that you are marrying him, that you hang on his every word with a dreamy little expression on your face, that you look at him in a way that indicates you hunger for him.”
“What?” she said. “Who is saying this?”
“Oh, all of them,” he said. “Nathre, Igbar, Taktre. They are all watching the two of you together. He has told them that my presence will be requested, that he will request to buy my price along with yours, when he comes to purchase us like slaves.”
She drew back. “I can see why you would think it that way—”
“You’ll be a slave, too. He’ll make use of your body and he’ll force you to have his children, and I can tell you don’t wish this one dead anymore. So, why am I coming along, hmm? Just so that you can rub my nose in it?”
She squared her shoulders. “I’m not going to be a slave, and neither are you. You will be paid wages, just as the orcs are there, and they are happy, are they not? You will be amongst your own kind. Is it not better than it is here?”
“But you will belong to him?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that right?”
“It is not as if I can marry you, Dathor,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want him dead, no, but it doesn’t mean things must entirely end between us either. You and I can be—”
“This is more of your scheming. You bring me along, your loyal manservant, ready to go down on my knees and lick your cunt whenever you wish—”
“I am the one on my knees much more often than you,” she said, glaring at him.
“Well, not anymore,” he said. “Because I’m not taking his leftovers. So, you choose that, you have that.”