the unwanted elves 19

 

Unwanted Elves

Chapter 19

 

During all the excitement poor Serashawn had stood shaking in terror at the hideous threats of the king. Now that the king was no longer in charge she burst into tears. Chessina hurried over and wrapped her arms around the girl’s torso, speaking to her soothingly as to a child. The sight was a little incongruous as Serashawn’s head was many inches above Chessina’s. Serashawn clung to Chessina and her sobs began to subside.

“I am sorry child for my husband’s... outburst,” said the Queen in a gentle tone. “He has not been himself lately and our daughter’s disappearance has brought matters to a head. You are not in trouble and I will not permit any to harm you.”

“I think, your Majesty, that it would be as well to announce formally that the king is taken ill and you are ruling in his stead until he recovers.” Blaithamlwg leaned over to speak quietly to the queen.

“I concur Majesty,” echoed Tancyfrwys. “Some of the nobility are surely under Prydythaur’s influence and they may try to wrest control from you. If Blaithamlwg and I support you publically that should quell dissent.”

“If I might suggest your Majesty,” Chessina turned from the now calmer centaur, “it would be best if Blaithamlwg and Tancyfrwys stand one each side of the throne a little behind it. That shows the Court that you give Her Majesty support, but she leads. We will all stand to one side and glower menacingly at your nobles. That ought to keep them quiescent, for a while at least.”

“I do suggest most seriously, Your Majesty, that you listen to Chessina. She is very good at this sort of thing.” I added. I managed to curb my impatience as although I wanted to follow Prydythaur as soon as possible, trying to deal with him would be hard enough without his supporters staging a revolt while we were gone. We stood as Chessina had directed, with Serashawn standing behind Chessina, and surreptitiously holding onto the shoulder of Chessina’s robe. Chessina had already removed portions of Serashawn’s mane from her mouth where she had been chewing it.

We waited while servants went to summon the Elven nobility to an audience with the Queen. As the gaudily clad elves filed into the throne room I wondered if elves at Court have the same sort of non-jobs that most human nobility does in order to keep the idiots too busy to make a serious nuisance of themselves. To keep myself calm while waiting I made up increasingly ridiculous elven sinecures. ‘Second reciter of Soothing Poetry while the King struggles with constipation’, made me want to laugh out loud which wouldn’t help matters. As you might have gathered, I don’t like elves, or rather, I don’t like most elves. I was starting to like Blaithamlwg and even Tancyfrwys. How dreadful, my perfectly reasonable prejudices were being eroded. To stop my inappropriate humour, I then started to consider the voices I had heard in the light and what they were saying and had a few moments of enlightenment before stopping to listen as the Queen began to speak.

 

“Nobles all, I summoned you here at short notice to impart some melancholy news,” she began. “My beloved husband the king has suffered a sudden illness and is indisposed.”

This caused a sudden silence among the assembled nobles who had been muttering softly among themselves. Muttering among the nobility was something I had noticed in our previous visit to the throne room. To my mind it indicated a lack of respect for the king, not that he deserved much.

“His Majesty is receiving the best of care, but while he is unable to fulfil his royal duties, I shall be ruling in his stead.” The queen continued.

The muttering which had ceased due to the queen’s announcement broke out again much louder than before. I overheard snatches of conversation, “What is wrong with the King?”, “Is it catching?”, “Those humans are to blame.” At this many turned to look at us and I assumed my enigmatic frown, almost as useful as my enigmatic smile, but somewhat threatening. “Where is the Princess?”, “Where is Prydythaur?”, “Yes, where is he?”.

Blaithamlwg’s staff crashed onto the floor, startling the nobles and stilling the chatter.

“Silence!” His voice boomed out, augmented by the magic in his staff. Yes, I had checked previously.

“I am touched to hear of your concern for my husband, our beloved King,” the queen resumed. At this point I was hard pushed to keep a straight face. From snippets that we had picked up while we were here, I didn’t get the impression that the king was universally loved. I wondered how much of that was down to Prydythaur’s machinations.

“However there is no cause for concern.” The queen resumed speaking. “The king’s illness, while sufficient to keep him from his duties, is not serious. Nor catching.” She added, looking pointedly at the noble who had raised that possibility. “Please continue with your duties as before.”

Dismissed, the nobles filed out, glancing surreptitiously in our direction.

When they had all left, the queen rose and led us into the royal apartment. She looked around at us and smiled.

“Thank you all for supporting me. As you no doubt heard, several members of the nobility are Prydythaur’s followers, and I was concerned that they might not respect my authority.”

“We are very glad to assist you, Majesty, but we need to be on Prydythaur’s trail.” I said.

“The forest has told me that he has gone to the Enclave.” Silavara replied.

“It will be difficult to find him there as he can change his appearance at will.” I said.

“On the contrary,” said Chessina with a smug look on her face, “Prydythaur has trapped himself, I believe.” Turning to Tancyfrwys, Chessina asked, “As the Enclave is home to part elves, am I correct in thinking that there is much less magic than in the city, particularly the Court?”

“Yes, that is true.” Tancyfrwys replied.

“Then the method I have of detecting the demonic will be so much more effective.” Chessina said in satisfaction. “He will stick out like a sore thumb.”

 

“In that case, may I ask you to both return Serashawn to her family and take a letter from me to my daughter?” The queen asked. The expression on her face was identical to that of a worried mother of either humans or dwarves.

“Of course, Majesty.” Chessina replied. Silavara and I nodded.

 

We withdrew to allow the queen some privacy to compose her letter and I approached Tancyfrwys.

“Thank you for supporting us against the king when he made those vile threats against Serashawn.” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you up so early, after the shock you had last night, unless elves recover from shock much more quickly than humans.”

“I don’t know how elves and humans compare in that regard.” She replied. “I came because I was woken from a dream; a dream of Arcana. She told me many things, most of which were unpleasant to hear. Suddenly she told me that I had to go to the throne room, IMMEDIATELY, so I did.”

It was by no means unknown for deities to contact their worshippers in dreams rather than when awake, so as not to destroy their minds[1]. However, this was happening more frequently that I had ever heard of before. The events I and my friends were involved in were far more significant that I realised and only Arcana knew why.

“When you arrived in the throne room you were fully dressed, do elves have a spell to dress quickly?” I enquired.

“I really don’t know how that happened,” replied Tancyfrwys, “I just moved from dream to waking so smoothly, I didn’t notice. I did mention that it was disturbing and I would like to discuss my dream with all you humans, and with Blaithamlwg.” Tancyfrwys said softly. Was it my imagination, or did she blush a little when mentioning the chamberlain?

 

oOo

 

Chessina, Silavara and I were walking towards the current location of the centaur village, having left  Tancyfrwys and Blaithamlwg with the queen to guard her, Serashawn was chattering nineteen to the dozen, having got over her terror at the king’s threats. This absolutely guileless girl was a fount of knowledge and delighted in imparting it as well as asking about humans, with whom she was fascinated. Apparently centaurs dwell in one place for a period and then abandon the structures they have built and move on, returning again some years later. I was at the back of the cavalcade, Serashawn having reduced her pace as she realised we couldn’t keep up, and I was thinking about the king and his reactions to Serashawn. The charm spell doesn’t really change its target’s basic ideas and opinions, only making them look at the caster and their suggestions in the best possible light. Given that, and the glimpses I had had of the king’s mind, he really had a detestation of humans. For Prydythaur to encourage the king to move against humans took very little persuasion. The king also had a visceral disgust of centaurs which moved him to make such vile threats to poor Serashawn. Even when Prydythaur’s charm had been broken, assuming it could be, the king would remain a source of danger to us and to the centaurs. That settled it, the king would have to have an accident. All right, if you want to be pedantic, the king would have to have an on purpose.

 

oOo

 

Silavara and Serashawn had been deep in conversation about the flora and fauna of this section of the Great Forest while Chessina listened closely, and I had not been paying as much attention as I should have done, thinking about ways for the king to meet his ancestors. I became aware that we had been joined by two centaurs, one each side of our group. By the Gods, they were silent, far more than I would have thought possible for such large... people. Yes people, not creatures; not thinking of them as people was what I am sure enabled the king to think such disgusting thoughts as he obviously had. That he probably had similar thoughts about humans was not pleasant to contemplate. Fully alert now I saw nearby a building made of interlocked logs with a timber shingle roof and a brick chimney. I thought it might be a woodcutter’s hut although most woodcutters’ huts weren’t festooned with growing flowers. Then Serashawn announced,

“We’re here. Come and meet my parents and I’ll give the Princess the letter from her mother.”

Among the trees I could see other structures scattered around, with winding paths between them. This was the centaur village. When we set off Serashawn had announced that she was taking us to her peoples’ village and my mind’s eye had constructed a place similar to Fair Pastures for which I was responsible, indeed owned as the Towermaster. How foolish of me; human habitations, particularly those like Fair Pastures cut out of the forest have their buildings concentrated together to leave the maximum land area for crops and livestock, centaurs had no need of this, living from and with the forest. I meekly continued at the tail end of the cavalcade.

I had misjudged the size of the dwellings and the distances between them. I was still thinking in human or dwarven terms without considering the greater size of the centaurs. Several of them, men, women and... foals?... had come out of the buildings or were arriving from elsewhere and all appeared to be converging on a structure which seemed much like all the others. It too was made of hewn logs roofed with wooden shingles and brick chimney. Closer to I noticed that the eves, door and window surrounds were intricately carved and like most of the buildings, flowering plants were trained to grow up the walls giving a delightful prospect.  

A male and female centaur were visible at the, very wide, doorway and, on seeing them Serashawn broke into a canter shouting,

“Mum, dad, it’s me, I’m back with a letter for the Princess!”

On seeing this Chessina whispered to me,

“This must be the centaur of village life, and I hope they have a very stable relationship.”

I groaned, what else could I do?

 

Approaching her parents more sedately than Serashawn had done, made me gradually realise the sheer size of adult centaurs. Serashawn’s mother was almost eight feet tall to the top of her head, as far as I could judge through the mass, almost a mane of auburn curls she wore loose. Her father even taller, his luxuriant dark hair also making that difficult to determine exactly. Serashawn’s horse body was coltish in size, how appropriate, while both her parents’ bodies were huge equating to that of warhorses. Her mother I would have called a roan, while her father’s body was as dark as his hair. They both wore loose green tunics like the one Serashawn was wearing and belts with sheathed knives.

“Mother, father, this is Towermaster Castamir and Chessina who is his wife and apprentice, and this is Silavara, Guardian of the Stone Circle. These are my parents, my mother Evashawn, Knight Protector of the Forest, and my father Serban Priest of Hernos.” Although the two adults stiffened slightly, I wasn’t offended by Serashawn treating her parents as more important than us, to her they were, being the hub of her world. No I’m not calling them the centre, once is enough for that joke.

“I am very pleased to meet you both,” I said, smiling to show I wasn’t offended by what, after all, was a minor solecism. From what I knew, centaurs weren’t that concerned with unnecessary formality. I pushed firmly down the thought that they weren’t saddled with extraneous trappings.

Further conversation was interrupted by princess Ariannaith who burst out of the building crying,

“Did you say that you had a message from my mother?” Ariannaith was followed out by someone I presumed was Cyfaill, dressed like the princess in the elven colour shifting cloth.

“Yes, here it is,” said Serashawn, reaching into her satchel and passing the letter to Ariannaith. She broke the seal, and read the contents. While she was doing so Cyfaill placed his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. Ariannaith then turned and caught her husband in a fierce embrace.

“My mother has given her blessing to our marriage and wishes us every happiness!” She said in relief.

“What about your father?” Asked Cyfaill anxiously.

“When I gave the king your message he was furious and went a funny colour,” said Serashawn, “and then he threatened to have me killed and cooked and I was very frightened. But then all these kind humans said they wouldn’t let him and the royal wizard said so too. Then the Towermaster sent the king to sleep so he couldn’t hurt me.”

At this news Evashawn’s expression made ice look warm, while Serban’s face clouded up like thunder.

“I’ll rip that elven pile of dung’s guts out through his nose!” Serban growled.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] See Unexpected Demon