The elf demands an explanation
Sela was shaking his shoulder and yet trying to hide her face in it at the same time.
“Was I snoring?” Egelric asked in drowsy confusion. “What? The baby? Sela? Is it time?”
He was awake now, but she still tried to burrow her head under his shoulder.
“No.” The voice came from the doorway, and Egelric sat up. It was the elf.
“The devil! What do you want?” he barked.
“I must speak with you.”
“Damn you! Will you allow me to dress?”
The elf turned without a word and went into the other room.
Egelric spent a moment trying to soothe Sela, and then quickly dressed with hands that trembled with fury. He went out and closed the door softly upon the frightened girl.
The elf stood before the fire, looking at him almost hungrily, trembling with something that did not seem to be fury.
“What do you want?” Egelric growled. “And how did you get past the dog? And how dare you?”
“I must speak to you,” he said. “Where were you last night?”
“Last night? Away,” Egelric said warily. Last night he had been with his daughter.
“How is your daughter?”
“Did you come to this house last night?”
“How is she?” he begged.
“Damn you! Answer me!”
“I came, but I never bothered her,” he said impatiently, waving a dismissive hand towards the bedroom. “She never knew I was here. I was looking for you.”
“What did you want?”
“I want you to tell me how she is!” he pleaded.
“What makes you think she is anything but well?”
The elf stood for a moment with his head between his hands. “Don’t do this to me,” he whimpered.
“What do you know about it?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Did you send the man?”
“What man?” His voice was like a sob.
“I don’t understand this,” Egelric said. “You know nothing, but you know something.”
“I only know that she was – ” He pressed his fists against his temples and shuddered. “Terrified. In danger.”
“How do you know that?”
“We are elves,” he said quickly. “What man? What did he do to her? What did he do?” he begged.
Egelric felt the hair rising on the backs of his arms, and he crossed himself for lack of a better defense. The elf’s knowledge of his daughter’s fright was uncanny – and his agitation at the thought of it was unnatural.
“I have been trying to speak to you for two days!” the elf cried. “Think of what you would feel if you knew for two days that something terrifying had happened to your daughter, but you did not know what!”
“The difference is that she is not your daughter. I have a great many cousins of whom I am very fond, but none enough that I would break into a man’s house in the middle of the night, terrify his pregnant wife, and then demand explanations here, in a cold sweat, in his kitchen!”
“Why won’t you simply tell me? It is all I ask!”
“Why do you care so?”
“We are elves!”
“That is no explanation!”
“It is the only one I have!”
“He tried to kill her!” Egelric barked. “My daughter! He tried to burn her in her bed! He set fire to her bed! Is that what you wanted to know?”
The elf shook his head and blinked in confusion. “It couldn’t hurt her.”
“He didn’t know that.”
“She wasn’t hurt?”
“He tied her legs with rope, and it scratched her. That is all–I believe. She won’t talk about it, but Matilda – the Duchess – does not think she was hurt. And he lit his own cloak and burned to death.”
The elf turned to stare down into the low fire, leaning heavily against the fireplace.
“And it’s your fault,” Egelric snarled.
“Mine?” The elf turned back to him, his eyes bright with surprise.
“You, the elves, you pointed-eared devils!”
“How?”
“Many of the men are eager to kill any elf they may come across, and there are only two at hand – namely my wife, and my daughter! And you won’t even allow me to be with both of them at once!” he sobbed. This would be the death of him.
“Why? What have we done? We haven’t attacked the men in years.”
“But the women?”
“What?”
“What? What?” he mocked. “Since I saw you last, four young women have been raped by bands of elves. And not even the same elves every time!”
“What?” he gasped. “That isn’t possible.”
“Isn’t it? As it wasn’t possible for Sela to speak to me – before you took her words away?” he cried bitterly. This too was an anguish to him.
The elf turned his eyes away, but not before Egelric thought he saw a shadow of guilt beneath their dull green. He muttered something Egelric could not understand or did not hear, then he looked up and said, “I am sorry. We did not know this was happening. I assure you it was not my people. It must have been hers,” he said with a jerk of his head towards the bedroom.
“Savages, hmm?”
“I told you they were. Are any of them with child?”
“What?”
“The young women.”
“I have no idea.”
“Let us hope not.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” he asked angrily. “Is this not enough for you?” He gestured broadly at the bedroom door. “Will you not be happy until the entire valley is populated with filthy half-breeds, and no one knows quite whether he is dog or wolf, elf or man or beast?”
“Or devil!”
“Yes, or devil!”
They glared at each other for a long while. The elf broke first.
“I shall put a stop to this,” he said, “though I don’t know how I shall tell my father without revealing that I spoke to you again.” He sighed ruefully. He suddenly seemed as young and gentle as the boy Egelric had met years before.
“How old are you, Ears?”
“Seventeen at the equinox.”
“That’s rather too old for a whipping.”
“Elves do not whip their children,” he sniffed.
“My son has never been whipped?”
“Never.”
Egelric smiled sadly. “God help you, then, if he’s anything like his father.”
The elf smiled in return. “He is a lot of trouble. The sons of men are not as easily managed as the sons of elves.”
“I find the daughters of elves difficult as well.”
“Is she very bad?”
“No, I suppose not. But there are many things she quite naturally wants to do, and she can’t be allowed.”
“Such as leaving the castle?”
“You see now why she may not.”
“I told you that you might trust the elves to watch over her.”
“Where were the elves two nights ago?”
He glared at Egelric, his fists trembling now with suppressed fury. Egelric took a step back. The reaction was not what he had expected.
“I must go,” the elf said brusquely after he had mastered himself. “I am not supposed to be here.”
“Is there a way for me to find you?” Egelric asked. “If I had spoken to you after the first girl was attacked, we might have saved the other three.”
The elf seemed slightly bewildered to hear him speak, as if he had forgotten he was there at all.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Hang a… what shall we say?”
“I could tie a rope to one of the lower branches of the tall pine before the shed. Let it hang down.”
The elf shrugged. “I shall look for it, but can’t promise I shall come. I am not always here, and when I am, I do not always come near this house. But I shall look for it.”
“Thank you.”
“And remember that every time my father learns I have spoken to you, I am punished for it.”
“Seems rather harsh.”
“He is.”
“At least he doesn’t whip you.”
“There is worse than whipping,” he muttered and went to the door.
“The peace of God on you, young devil.”
The elf turned back to him and smiled. He seemed the boy again. “And you, old man.”
