Alred borrows a book

Alred stood in the door of the shed and stared into the empty stall, wishing Egelric were at hand.

He did not doubt his ability to protect Sela and the babies from any danger – at least of the human or natural sorts – but he needed Egelric to translate her gestures to him.

He had walked all over the clearing and peeked into the pine woods that surrounded the house. All he knew was that Sela was frightened and cowering behind her bedroom door, and she had pointed insistently at her ears, as if to tell him that she had heard something that disturbed her.

But Belsar had come padding along beside him, his tail slowly waving as if they were only on a merry little jaunt and not looking for danger. If the dog did not smell or sense trouble, it didn’t seem likely that there was trouble to be found.

“Shall we tell her she was imagining things,” Alred asked him, “or rather that we must have frightened off whatever it was?”

He looked down as if he expected the dog to reply, but Belsar ignored him and smiled up at the roof of the shed, his tail waving more briskly now. Alred’s eyes followed his up to the shadows above the rafters, and he had his sword drawn before his mind had quite realized that there was a pair of green eyes staring back down at him.

“Jupiter!” he cried as he sheathed it again. “I’m getting too old for such a fright!”

“Are you alone?” the elf asked softly.

“There’s only my companion-​​in-​​paws here. Egelric is away, and I don’t mind telling you that you frightened his wife. Did she see you?”

“When she came out to get water.” He swung himself down from the rafter on which he lay and landed with the soft grace of a cat.

“Damned stupid dog!” he said to Belsar and kneeled to hug his dark head.

“Were you hiding from me?”

“I didn’t know whether you were alone.” He stood and brushed the dust from his coat. “There have been other men here before. And boys,” he added with a sniff. “But I am pleased to see you again.”

“As am I, although you might consider coming to the gate instead of hiding in the rafters like a thief if you ever come to pay me a visit.”

“I hope that I may one day permit myself to do so.”

Alred bowed.

“In the meanwhile, although I did not expect to find you here, it was for you that I came.”

“Oh?”

“I thought you might like to read the book I mentioned when we spoke. I had meant to leave it with Egelric, but I should rather give it to you directly. I can show you the passage of which we spoke – if it – that is…”

“I would be most grateful.”

The elf smiled and pulled the book from a pocket on the inside of his coat. Alred had to restrain himself from snatching at it in his eagerness.

“They are called the Eclogues – ” the elf began.

“Oh! Complete? Jupiter! I have only read the fourth, which everyone knows because it foretells the birth of Christ.”

“The fourth?”

“‘He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father’s worth reign o’er a world at peace…’” Alred quoted.

“Oh, the part about the child. I always thought it was dreadful at the end, where the baby is told to smile at its parents, because if its parents don’t love it, the gods won’t either.”

“Rather sober advice for a new baby,” Alred admitted with a chuckle. “But the rest of it is a fine parallel of the prophecy of Isaiah.”

“Isaiah…” the elf murmured as if he did not recognize the name, but the sudden pallor of his face showed that it meant something to him.

“Isaiah is an old friend of mine,” Alred said with a grim smile, “and most edifying reading. Young man, when I return this book to you, I recommend you read the fourth Eclogue again, and the Book of Isaiah alongside – you have Isaiah, don’t you?”

“I believe so…”

“Excellent. And you may reconsider thereby the supposed negligence of our One God, who makes even pagan poets into prophets according to His need.”

“I shall. Read, that is. Reconsider, I don’t know. That was many centuries ago, was it not?”

Alred shrugged. “You won’t reconsider until you see with your own eyes the Red Sea parted again, will you?”

“That would be the thing the least likely to amaze me, I must admit,” he muttered. “But look. This is the part I like.”

He opened the little book, and inside the sober brown binding were pages that sparkled with color like jewels. Alred gasped. “It is magnificent,” he whispered. “And very old.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the elf agreed. “We have had it for more than a century – and before that…?” He shrugged. “But it is difficult to read. I don’t like this sort of writing. Look. It is the shepherd-​​singer Damon who sings.”

Alred looked.

“What comes before is this,” the elf said, and he read aloud: “‘Once with your mother, in our orchard-​​garth, a little maid I saw you – I your guide – plucking the dewy apples. My twelfth year I scarce had entered, and could barely reach the brittle boughs. I looked, and I was lost; a sudden frenzy swept my wits away.’”

“Ah, the apple,” Alred sighed.

“Then he knew what love was! And what comes after is this: ‘Rise, Lucifer, and, heralding the light, bring in the genial day, while I make moan, fooled by vain passion for a faithless bride, for Nysa, and with this my dying breath call on the gods, though little it bestead – the gods who heard her vows and heeded not.’”

“Alas!”

“And then he threw himself off a cliff and died.”

“And what did you like about this poem, young man? Are you at the cliff-​​throwing age already?”

“No,” he flushed. “An elf would never do such a thing. It is one of the things that I find fascinating about men.”

“Suicide?”

The elf closed the book gently. The dull leather cover was nearly hidden between his long, white hands.

“That,” he agreed slowly. “Also the way they love. It seems truly like a sudden frenzy sweeping their wits away – but only for a short time. They are like the birds that mate for a season and love passionately, but the next year they have gone their own ways. However, the men and women find themselves married at the end of it, and must stay together.”

“Some birds mate for life,” Alred reminded him. “We had a pair of swans at home for over fifteen years, and when the lady swan was killed by a dog, her mate died of grief a short while later. Over fifteen years…” he repeated, suddenly realizing that he had been married to Matilda for so long.

The elf shrugged. “All I know is what I read in your books – the shepherd-​​singer Damon, for instance – and what I see among you. And they are often very different things.”

“Alas! I suppose the books are the ideal, and we men are but imperfect shadows of what we would like to be. Perhaps it is another reason why we should not write our poetry in books. Then, after the frenzy had passed, we would not need be reminded of how we had failed.”

“And yet you seem to like to remind yourselves.”

“Another thing that fascinates you?”

“It is.”

Alred smiled and shook his head. “I must scold Egelric for keeping you to himself for so long. You are both a scholar and an object worthy of study.”

The elf smiled back at him and handed him the book. “You remind me that I must not allow myself to be studied. I am certain there are many things you would like to know about the elves, and if I stay here to talk with you I shall say far too much. But I wish I could.”