Chapter 7 No.7

Present Time

In the kitchen, she moved between the women and children that worked at the table. Their household had been torn apart between the warring Fae and humans, the men folk and older boys being taken to the armies, leaving behind only the young, the old and the women.

The workload of a keep did not diminish with their inhabitants, however. The people within it still needed to be fed, the animals tended to, the gardens watered, linen laundered... Everyone turned their hands to whatever task needed to be done, and mealtimes more so than anything, the large, heavy wooden table framed with people hip-to-hip and elbow to elbow as they washed, peeled, chopped...

"I hope you washed your hands," Yelena said to the children. "Playing knuckles in the courtyard amongst the animals and bringing the dirt into our food. Tsk. Go on, now, and scrub your nails," she scolded them. The women laughed as the children retreated complaining about the unfairness of needing clean hands.

"We have guests," Yelena murmured to Arithen's most trusted aid, Frendria whilst they were distracted.

"Ah, yes," Frendria filled a basket with bread, and lifted a pot from the hook over the fire, using cloth to pad her hands whilst Yelena lit a candle. "She prepared this before she went upstairs."

They took the stairs to the rear of the kitchens down into the kitchen's storage space, and from there passed behind the shelves to where the entrance to the deeper cellars were hidden. They passed the room used to store meat and Yelena grimaced at the number of empty hooks.

"There is a rabbit warren," Frendia saw the expression of dismay. "That the lads have been watching for some time. We'll flush it out at the beginning of winter, when we have snow to pack them in."

"Alright," Yelena knew it was not much. Wild rabbits were rarely fat with meat. How many rabbits were in the warren? How long would that feed the keep? She sighed.

The roof lowered, and the hall narrowed, and Yelena shivered in the damp chill. The candle flickered, and she cupped her hand around it. The hall opened into a larger room where the wine was kept lowered from another entranceway which led out beyond the curtain wall in the outer courtyard. It was through that entrance that their guests had arrived, and it would be through that entrance that they departed.

They huddled in one of the smaller rooms, which may at some stage in the keep's history been a cell for prisoners, but the doors had long ago been removed. Due to the frequency of use, the cell held straw-filled mattresses and blankets, as well as a often re-filled cask of water brought in from the well in the kitchen garden.

The humans looked up with gaunt and haunted faces. Even the young children's cheeks were hollow, Yelena saw with sadness, the look in their eyes recalling Sylvin's face that first day in the village with the loaf of bread clutched so desperately to his chest.

Where are you now? She wondered, her heart aching as she thought of him, but she put a welcoming smile onto her lips. "You are welcome and safe here," she told them. "I am Yelena, daughter of Lord Sevethen of Elliard."

"My Lady," several murmured bowing their heads, afraid to look at her eye to eye. She was too Fae for their comfort, she thought ruefully, with her almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones and pointed ears. Too human for the Fae, and too Fae for the humans, always to walk between, belonging to both and yet neither entirely.

"My mother was human," she said. "Elliard has always walked the path of neutrality, both human and Fae, and welcoming all the peoples of this world onto our lands. You can be assured that none that serve you here in this cellar will betray you."

She moved amongst them, using her power to heal them. As they realised that, like them, she was a mage, they began to relax and caught at the hems of her skirts and her hands, pressing kisses of gratitude to cloth and skin. "Oh, no," she pleaded. "I am just doing as I was taught by my mother. In life it is always better to choose kindness and service to others."

Having ensured that her guests were fed, Yelena returned upstairs to the chamber that she still thought of as a guest bedroom, although she continued to sleep in it, because it had been where he had last slept beside her. She lay upon the pillow where his head had rested, on the side of the bed where he had lain and thought of her silver-haired man.

Three years, she thought with despair. Never had he been gone for so long. A season, two, once a year had passed, but most often, every month would see him sneak through the nursery window, for a handful of moments, occasionally for a day or two, and once for a glorious two weeks. But always, he would suddenly be gone one morning, the wandering spirit within him calling him away from her.

Three years, and all the word they had received from him was gossip and whispered stories of his ferocity in battle, his acumen at warfare, his mercilessness... The Butcher of Breochen, the Silver Soul Slayer, Macedius' Knight of the Silver Dragon. He had been awarded a Lordship before he had come to marry her, and since the Fae Kings' gratitude had given him titles and riches unparalleled by any Lord on the continent, according to the rumours, though Elliard had certainly seen none of it.

Which made her wonder why? Unless time and distance had changed Sylvin's heart towards her. Lord Rithelwen's words were like foul maggots burrowing into her mind, she thought, irritably. It did not help that it was not the first time she had heard something of their ilk. No, no, she told herself firmly, not Sylvin. What was between them... it was more than love, more than desire. They simply belonged to each other, always had, and always would.

Please, she squeezed her eyes, but felt the wet track of a tear escape. Please, let that be true, because if the rumours were true and Sylvin no longer wanted his provincial back-water bride, she did not know if she could carry on, and Sylvin's name and reputation was the only thing that kept both Fae and human Kings from totally tearing Elliard apart between them.