Tanis groaned inwardly, yet he knew deep down that Laurana was right. She was his cousin only by marriage- and even that link was tenuous. She certainly was not his true sister. But did he even wish her to be so? He shook his head, thinking of the golden ring that lay hidden still in the bottom of his leather purse.
"Laurana, please understand," Tanis said, his voice weary. "I do love you. But I love you as a-"
"-as a sister?" she finished acidly, and suddenly pulled away from him. 'That's what you told father this morning, wasn't it? 'I love her only as a sister.' "
Only the ragged sound of her breathing broke the silence in the room. When she spoke again, her voice was bitter.
"I've been a fool, haven't I? I won't trouble you any longer, Tanthalas, my brother. I should thank you, really, for opening my eyes to the truth "
Her face was as cold as the quartz walls of the room, but Tanis saw Solinari's light reflected in the tears in her eyes.
"I could learn to hate you, Tanis!" she cried, and then shoved past him to the corridor, leaving Tanis to stare after her. Just before she disappeared down the hallway, she stopped and turned. Her voice was nearly calm again. "Throw away the ring, Tanthalas." Then she vanished.
Tanis mentally kicked himself. There must have been a better way to have handled that. He shook his head and sighed, then closed the door.
Chapter 19
A.C. 308, Early Summer
Weeks went by without any further word on the controversy over Lord Xenoth's death. A quiet funeral was held for the longtime adviser two days after his death. Truth to tell, few people in the court missed the irascible adviser, and more than one elf silently breathed a sigh of relief at not having to cross verbal swords with him anymore.
Xenoth's funeral did not prevent the general population from conducting spontaneous festivals to celebrate the slaying of the tylor. The beast had done much to inhibit the trade that increasingly formed a basis of the Qualinesti economy. The beast's horned head was displayed for a time at the southwestern guard tower, and long lines of elves, many with excited children in tow, formed to view the trophy.
Tanis found himself the focus of admiring glances by the common elves in the Grand Market, and suspicious ones by the courtiers in the Tower and palace. Both situations made him uncomfortable. In addition, Laurana was avoiding him and treating him with elaborate coolness on those instances when they could not evade each other. As a result, he spent more time than ever in Flint's shop, watching the dwarf prepare sketches for Porthios's Kentommen medallion.
"The Speaker filled Lord Xenoth's position yesterday," Tanis observed one morning as he watched the dwarf's hands fly over the parchment with a piece of charcoal.
"With…?" prompted the dwarf.
"Litanas, of course."
"I imagine that has sealed Litanas's suit with Lady Selena," Flint remarked.
Tanis nodded. "Ulthen is walking around like a lost soul, sighing and gazing at Selena like…" He cast about for an appropriate simile. Suddenly, a clatter of mule hooves interrupted his reverie, and Fleetfoot appeared in the open doorway to the shop, limpid brown eyes alight with affection. "… like a lovelorn mule."
Flinging down his charcoal with a soft curse, Flint intercepted the creature just as she placed a hoof inside the sill. Berating the animal, he led her back to the shed.
When Flint's grumbling had receded, Tanis rose and moved to the table. More than a dozen sketches, showing different views of the medal, lay on the wooden surface. Flint was working with various combinations of elven symbols-aspen leaves, of course, and other woodland elements. He'd even roughed in a caricature of Porthios that suggested both stubbornness and strength but emphasized too much the permanent glower on the elf lord's face; Flint had drawn a big "X" through the sketch. Tanis decided that a medallion showing intertwined aspen, oak, and ivy leaves was his favorite.
Flint stomped back into the shop and slammed the door, inadvertently cutting off the welcome breeze that had eased the midsummer heat. He'd doffed his usual tunic in the heat, and wore only a lightweight pair of parchment-colored breeches and a loose shirt, the color of a robin's egg, gathered in the front and back and left untucked.
"That blankety mule," the dwarf groused. "I've made four different latches for her stall, and she's outsmarted every one."
"She adores you, Flint. Love conquers all, you know," Tanis commented, hiding a smile.
"My mother used to say, 'Love and a penny will get you a crusty bun with cheese at the Saturday market,' " Flint remarked, his concentration back on the drawing.
Tanis was opening his mouth to comment on Flint's sketches when he snapped it shut again. -He gazed at the dwarf in befuddlement. "So?" he finally asked.
"So?" the dwarf echoed, raising one bushy brow.
"So what does that mean?" the half-elf demanded.
"Reorx only knows," Flint said, seating himself at the table and taking up the charcoal again. "It was just something my mother said."
"Ah."
Flint twirled the drawings around so Tanis could see them. "Which do you prefer?"
Tanis pointed to the intertwined leaves. That one, but it's too plain."
The dwarf pondered the sketch. "That's what I thought. The problem is, I can't figure whether to do the medallion in metal or wood."
Tanis looked questioning at the dwarf.
"It seems," Flint explained, "as though wood would be a good medium-to show the elves' connection to nature. But a carved wooden medal will look like one of those birch disks the children use for play coins." Flint turned the sketches back toward himself. "Not exactly an image to celebrate the coming of age of the Speaker's heir."
"How about steel?" Tanis asked.
Flint thought, his voice far away, musing. "There's that. It's a precious metal, but everything comes across cold and heartless in steel. Take your mother's pendant." Tanis touched the hilt of the sword he still insisted on carrying everywhere with him. "It's beautiful, but it's… distant somehow. Beautiful-and full of meaning for you, her son-but it's not warm."
As the half-elf watched, the dwarf rested his forehead on his hands. "I don't have that much time left," he complained. "The Kentommen is coming up in two weeks, and I've yet to take my sketches to the Speaker for approval."
When Tanis didn't say anything, the dwarf rubbed his eyes one last time, rose, and crossed the dwelling to an oak sideboard that held a huge trencher of raspberries. There he used a wooden scoop to fill two pottery bowls with berries.
"Another gift from Eld Ailea?" Tanis asked ingenuously. "Like that shirt you're decked out in today?"
Flint glanced suspiciously at Tanis. "Exactly what is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, nothing." Tanis held up his hands in mock-surrender.
The dwarf pointed the scoop at the half-elf. "Ailea has become a good friend. And I might add that you yourself have spent a fair amount of time with her in the past few weeks, lad."
Tanis plucked a berry from one bowl and ate it. "Do you want me to get some cream to pour over these?" Flint cooled his provisions, including milk and cream, by sealing them in ceramic jugs and lowering the containers into a spring in his back yard.
The dwarf spooned a generous portion of raspberries into his mouth, closed his eyes, and chewed slowly, murmuring, "Wonderful, just the way they are." Then his blue-gray eyes flew open, and he glared at the half-elf. "And anyway, I pay Ailea with toys. These are not gifts." He lifted the bowl and took it back to the table to examine his drawings.