The next day, he had a raging headache as he worked his chores at Foxglove Peak. He saw Aerhril going to and fro, her long hair streaming out, and he thought of telling her that he had not waited for her, that he had gone and taken some other woman, not her, and how she would react to that.
Now, in the light of morning, he could not even understand why he’d done it.
His head was throbbing, and that maybe made thinking hard, but truly, it was nothing like him. He was not that sort of man, not one to use a poor girl in that way. He hadn’t even pulled out. He’d spent inside her.
I could have gotten her with child,he thought.
But no, not the first time, not only once. He hoped it would not be so easy.
Except within two weeks, he was having that horrible conversation with Igbar in which Igbar informed him that he had, indeed, gotten her with child.
25
DATHOR AVOIDED THELANDELChapel after it happened. He avoided the other orcs there. He knew this was foolish, that after Aerhril’s marriage, he was going to go and live there, and that he would have to see them all, but he had no idea how to face any of them, but most especially Nathre.
He might have simply waited until they were all forced together at the wedding, but one day, he looked up from his work in the barn to see that Igbar was standing in the doorway there.
The light illuminated the other orc from behind. He looked like a dark, ominous figure there, huge and hulking, a harbinger of doom.
Dathor straightened and his heart began to beat very, very fast. He did not move at all, just stayed frozen there, for some time.
Then, all at once, he went to the other orc and said, “Not here,” and he walked past Igbar.
He and Igbar went out to the fields behind the Peak, and they walked together.
“This is about Nathre, I suppose,” said Dathor in a dull voice. “I have nothing to say for myself. I was drunk, and that is not an excuse, and I know she is like a sister to you, and were I in your position, I would hate me. I would wish to hurt me, and if that is why you have come—”
“So, it is you,” interrupted Igbar.
Dathor stopped moving to look in the other orc’s eye.
Igbar stopped walking as well, and the two regarded each other for several moments.
“What do you mean?” Dathor finally said.
Igbar folded his arms over his chest. “For some time, two weeks at least, I have found her hiding away, trying to conceal her tears. She would not say why, but once she asked me if I thought she was ugly.”
Dathor swallowed. “Well, she is not.”
Igbar let out a hollow chuckle. “She said I should tell her if there was something about her that men would not find pleasing, something she could correct. And she has not been eating much, and she told someone—not me—that she wished to reduce, that she thought she was too plump.”
Dathor winced. “That’s all foolish. There is positively nothing about her that is not pleasing, and—”
“She is with child,” said Igbar.
Dathor was hit with a wave of nausea. He started to walk again, moving too quickly. Perhaps he thought if he walked quickly enough, he could simply outrun this. How could that be? Only once? How could the gods be so cruel? Was it truly so easy to get a child on a woman?
He’d been so careful with Aerhril. Why, why had he spent inside Nathre? He had been so stupid and so drunk.
Igbar caught him by the arm and stopped him. “She did not name you. She said it did not matter, because the man in question did not want her, and she would not be trapped in a marriage with a man who loved another, and we have all heard the way your voice hitches whenever you speak of the elf woman who is betrothed to Elrion.”
Dathor let out a breath. “Well, that’s foolish. Nathre cannot wish a life of shame for herself, for her child. I do not care what she says, that is no life for anyone. Elrion could turn her out. Where would she go? What would become of the babe? Obviously, she has to marry me.”
Igbar nodded. “Yes, I said as much to her as well.” He let out a breath. “If you are serious about that, then all can beremedied. You will come with me now and tell her that.”
Dathor cringed. “You wish me to go and speak to her?”
“You have done quite a bit more than speak to her, it seems, so yes.” Igbar’s voice was hard.
