Gils finds someone who cares

Gils shuffled back and forth before the fire, but no one heard his scuffing feet. No one heard his sniffles and his muffled sobs. Gils himself heard everyone, however: talking loudly in the dining hall, laughing often.

There were many funny things to remember about Lili, it was true, but nothing could make Gils laugh today. Neither he nor Wulf could understand how the grown-​​ups could laugh as well as cry. Crying took all the strength they had.

Wulf had taken to his bed with a stomach-​​ache, but Gils had stubbornly sat through the dinner so that he could have his bit of goose. He had not had the leg he had been promised, however, for little boys were not granted goose legs when the King and the Crown Prince came to dine – not even when the geese had been killed for the little boys’ birthdays.

Gils had only had a slice of breast, lacking even a crunchy strip of skin, and nothing had ever settled so ill in his stomach. He regretted having eaten even that much. Oh, how gladly he would have drunk one of Lili’s vile German concoctions at that moment! He would drink one every day. He would never complain about them again. If only Lili would come back to make them…

He heard a pair of gentle feet arriving, but he knew it was not Lili. It was not even Hetty. It was only Kraaia.

“Don’t cry, Gils.”

Gils tried to sniffle, but his nose was so stuffy he could scarcely inhale.

“Have you seen Cedric?” she asked softly.

Gils shrugged. “I think he went up to Finn’s room with him and Cubby and Domnall.”

Kraaia looked left and looked right. “You won’t tell anyone I went up there, will you?” she whispered.

Gils knew it was unwise to antagonize Kraaia: she had an uncanny knack for detecting the boys when they were trying to sneak. However, such a favor deserved another. He did not particularly care to go anywhere, but he did not want to waste an opportunity either.

“If you don’t tell anyone I went outside by myself,” he countered.

“Deal!” Kraaia whispered eagerly.

Even to elf ears her feet were almost silent as she hurried past Gils to the door and vanished up the stairs. Kraaia also had an uncanny knack for sneaking.

Gils did not even bother to sneak. He put on his cloak all by himself and shuffled outside alone. He kept his head down as he passed the guards in the entry, so he never knew if they so much as looked at him.

No one tried to stop him. Perhaps their orders were merely to stop young Master Wulf, and Gils alone was free to come and go. Perhaps no one cared where or whether Gils went.

It was a wasted opportunity, but he only had the heart to go as far as his little fort.

He and Wulf had not come to play outside since Lili had died. Looking at his toys now, he saw that all of the toy-​​ness had gone out of everything. Hetty had promised him that he would have his birthday presents tomorrow, but he was six now, and growing wise, and he already suspected that the presents would please him no more than his bit of goose.

He began to hope Hetty would forget, as everyone else had already seemed to have forgotten.

But two others besides Hetty had not forgotten, and in no more than the time it took to scrabble down from the heights of the towering hill, two pairs of especially quiet little feet came sneaking into his fort.

“Don’t cry, Kilos,” Hila said as she hurried down. “Where’s Wulf?”

“Where’s the cake?” Kia added.

“There’s no cake,” Gils blubbered.

“I thought it was your bird-​​day?” Kia demanded. “We counted, six days.”

“One, two, tree, four, five, six,” Hila demonstrated in English.

Gils shook his head. “It is my birthday, but there is no cake.”

“But you said – ” Kia protested.

Hila smacked her across the back. “Shut up, you id-​​di-​​dot! Can’t you see he’s crying?”

Gils stood by, dull-​​eyed and impassive, as the girls scuffled. He could not interest himself in their argument. He could not even bring himself to care that he was crying in front of girls.

But he could not ignore Hila’s attempt to solve the problem as girls tended to do: by opening her arms and embracing him.

“Don’t cry, Kilos,” she cooed. “We don’t care about cake. We’re not hungry. Are you?”

As boys tended to do in such situations, Gils began to squirm. “I’m not crying about cake!” he whined.

“You id-​​di-​​dot,” Kia muttered. “He won’t cry about cake. He didn’t cry even when he cut his knee wide – open. Almost to the bone!” She shivered in delightful horror at the gruesome memory.

“Because boys are brave,” Hila sighed in delightful adoration.

Gils stopped struggling. Elf girls were strong, after all, and anyway, Hila’s hair was silkier even than Hetty’s against his cheek, and her breath was warm and grassy-​​sweet blowing over his hands and mouth and down into his collar. It was better than hugging his pony’s neck, because his pony could not hug him back. And his pony could not be made to understand.

“I’m crying ’cause Lili died,” he mumbled. “And her funeral was today.”

“Fun-​​er-​​al,” Kia repeated sadly. She was not seeking an explanation: the girls had participated in the old six-​​toed cat’s solemn funeral early in the fall.

“And I didn’t get my cake, and I didn’t get my presents, and I didn’t get my goose leg.”

His nurse had already scolded him for complaining about such trivial matters on the day of Lili’s funeral. He had dared no more than hint at it during the quarter hour he had been permitted to snuggle in Hetty’s lap, but even then Hetty had started to cry, and Ethelwyn had made him leave Hetty alone.

Neither his nurse nor Ethelwyn – nor perhaps even Hetty – had understood that he did not truly care about the cake or the presents. He only wished someone else cared.

Wulf had gained some sympathy through his stomach-​​ache, though Lili had been no more Wulf’s mother than his. For his bravery at going to Mass and dinner and going among the people, Gils had only been ignored.

Until Hila and Kia had come. To Hila and Kia, his well-​​established bravery merely proved the gravity of his tears.

“Must you go live with your grandmother now?” Hila asked.

“I don’t even have a grandmother…” Gils mumbled.

“You id-​​di-​​dot,” Kia snapped at Hila. “He doesn’t have to go to his grandmother. He has a father!”

“Not his real father,” she replied, silencing Kia. It silenced Gils, too. “Poor Kilos… No mother, no father, no grandmother…” she continued thoughtfully.

“He has a father,” Kia interrupted.

Hila’s eyes went wide, and Kia’s immediately widened in imitation.

Every mention of that mysterious elf made Gils’s stomach queasy and his mouth dry. “I don’t want to see him…” he protested feebly.

“But he wants to see you,” Kia insisted.

Hila gasped in horror.

“He does so! The elf Surr said so!”

“But he’s a boy!” Hila squeaked.

“So is Kilos! All the boys go live with Lord Lar, or with the cave mothers. And I think Kilos should go with Lord Lar because he is his real father.”

“I don’t think I want to do that…” Gils whimpered. Better to be ignored amongst his family than… he did not know what.

“But Lord Lar makes the thunder on the lake,” Hila said, as if that decided the matter. She added, “And he rides a black horse that won a race with the wind.”

“My Da has a black horse…”

“Does he make the thunder?” Kia challenged. “He is only a man.”

“Lord Lar could teach you about your magic,” Hila said.

“And let you ride his horse. And we would say, ‘Lord Lar’s son is our friend!’” Kia smiled. “And all the girls would be so jealous.”

“And we’ll come live with you when we’re a little older, if you go,” Hila said. “And if Kia has some babies, you can be their father, if you want.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Gils said miserably.

But he did want to learn about his magic and show Wulf a thing or two. He did want to sit up high with a great lord who did not take him into his house and onto his horse out of pity alone, but out of pride. He did want to hear someone cry, “Don’t you look like your father!” as Wulf heard every time he so much as frowned. Even once. Even for an afternoon.

“Lets just play with our toys or something,” he suggested, in spite of the toy-​​ness-​​less of everything.

Gils knew he was not so brave as to leave everything he knew for a chance at something more. Not yet.