Elrion came into her chamber and sat down at the edge of her bed. “I have just spoken to your husband-to-be.”
“Oh?” she said. Her head hurt constantly, and it was worse than when her ankle had been hurt. There was something about the throbbing in her head that threatened to encroach upon her very sanity. Talking was not the easiest thing to do. The fewer words she used, the better.
“He said he was upset over your illness and that should excuse his behavior,” said Elrion. “But he jeered at Evriane’s flower crowns, and she is but a little girl. It made her burst into tears.”
Aerhril had only met Evriane briefly, at the beginnings and ends of visits. Her impression of her was that she was a shy and quiet little girl, sweet and pretty. She thought of Celedin jeering at her and perhaps it made her think of Celedin’s treatment of her when they were both children. “How dare he?” she fumed. “Why must he be so very abominable all of the time?”
“Is he?” said Elrion. “Is he so very abominable all of the time?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he pressed on. “Because he also demanded of me that he be allowed to see you, and when I said that I must see to my crying daughter first, he told me you belonged to him, that you were his, andthat he had a right to see you any time he wished, and that I had no right to keep you here away from him.”
“Oh, he did?” She hunched up her shoulders. “Yes, it sounds like him.”
“This is the way he behaves regularly, then, you are saying? Not simply because he is worried about you? He is not in a bad temper only because your health is precarious?”
“Oh, he loves to see me suffer,” she said.
Elrion nodded. “I see.”
Then she repented of having said it. “Oh, I don’t know if I should characterize him that way. Truly, he is not entirely awful every moment of every day. Sometimes he can be good, like when he…” But then she couldn’t think of any times at all that Celedin had been good, actually. She supposed that she felt sorry for him sometimes, because the steward was cruel to him, but she didn’t think that actually meant he had done anything good, only that he was pitiable.
“I see,” said Elrion, in a deeper voice, a voice of sympathy and concern.
She sagged into the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.
And then it was simply quiet.
“Why have you agreed to marry him, then?” he asked eventually.
She looked at him and she did not wish to tell him, for when this had been a ruse, and she was only to have hurt her ankle, nothing serious, then she was not supposed to tell him about how she didn’t have any money, because this might make him suspicious. But she could not conceal it now. She saw no way to do so. “My father can no longer support me at home,” she said. “When Celedin offered for me, my parents were overjoyed because they do not have the money to keep me with them. My father’s investments turned sour or something of that nature.”
“Yes, investments have a way of doing that,” said Elrion, nodding. “It is not like land, which one can depend upon. That is why I am here, trying to invest in something lasting, though the man who owns this land has no desire to sell it to me, for the same reason. He knows that land is somethingyou can depend upon. He cannot afford to keep it, though, and must rent it out.” He shook his head. “Sorry. Why am I babbling about this when you are here, telling me your sorrows and troubles? You must think me a terrible man.”
“I do not,” she said. “I think quite the opposite. You are a very good man. A brave man who went to protests and marched with orcs. A man who takes care of orphans. A man who dreams of better democracy and the ends of kings. You are… I am in awe of you, sir.”
He sat up straight at this, smiling at her. “Truly?”
“I would not lie to you.”
“I had thought there was something in the way you were with me, but you are engaged to be married, and you are a bit younger than me, and I had put it down to my own imagination, but I feel confident to tell you now, Aerhril, that I have been an admirer of you since our first dance.”
She smiled. “Well, but now you cannot admire much of me with this bandage on my head.” She had seen herself in a handheld mirror. She had a black eye and her face looked practically misshapen. The doctor had tutted at her that her pretty features had not been touched and she should not worry, everything would go back as it had been, but he had also thought her foolish for caring and she had seen that.
“I do, in fact,” he said, smiling. “I have seen how you hold up in the face of pain.”
Not well,she thought.I’ve been a bit of a terror.
“And anyway, I do not think you should be forced to stay there. I do not think you should marry that man. If you are at all amenable, allow me to attempt to convince you to become my wife instead.”
And after all that, it was so easy. All she’d had to do was get kicked in the head by a horse. “You honor me, sir.”
“I would buy your bride price, of course. I would do whatever was necessary.”
“I need Dathor,” she said. “I cannot leave him under that roof.”
“No, of course,” he said, nodding. “I cannot think Nathre would mind that either.” He chuckled.
She felt shot full of a lightning bolt of jealousy. But she did not let it show, or maybe no expression could be read on her ruined and bandaged face, anyway. “I would be quite pleased to be your wife, sir.”
He smiled at her, his face lit up in pleasure. “I must not say that I am pleased you have been kicked in the head by a horse, my lady, but… well… this is all working out so very well.” He scooted up the bed and took one of her hands in his. “After my Alichil died, I despaired. I thought I should never love again, that I should never have an heir, that I should simply wane alone for the rest of my days. I had no notion that life could change in such exciting and wondrous ways. I could never have predicted you. You make me feel alive in a way I had thought long gone.”
