This he said, and other things, and Elansa heard it all, slipping careful looks at Brand as she walked. She thought of Kethrenan and his warriors. She thought that such talk as this would have gotten a Qualinesti soldier so severely disciplined he'd be wondering whether he needed to find another profession. Brand, however, let the talk go, though it wasn't to be imagined he didn't hear it. So close to him did she walk that Elansa saw the muscles tighten in his neck when Arawn questioned him. She saw the bristling of his beard as his jaw clenched.
Walking and taking great care not to stumble so she would not be kicked back to her feet, she wondered why Brand held his peace.
"It’s not a weakness," Char said quietly when they’d stopped to rest. The day had not passed, only some hours, and this moment to be still would not last long. "It's not that. It’s a kind of strength. Arawn knows that. Or so far, he does."
Elansa eyed him keenly, the dwarf who seemed to know all these men and their various tales: Chaser the orphan, Kerin who lost his teeth in a fight with a troll-"Proof the boy's not too bright"-Dell who became an outlaw because she would not become a whore, and the tale of Ley and Tianna. There were other stories to tell, and he knew them all, often drunk in the shadows and hearing things people wouldn't have imagined he'd had a dry wit to understand or recall.
She thought, watching the dwarf now, that he would tell the tale of Arawn and Brand, and she would understand why this outlaw lord tolerated what he did. But Char only said it was time to get going again, and she should take good care not to lag behind Brand.
On the next day, they learned the weapons cache was empty, and the men began to mutter about the loss of their hoard. It had not been stolen by ogres. The place was clean, no sign of their filth. Not even a rag of the oil-soaked cloths meant to protect the steel from rust remained-only the faint scent of the oil and the wet wool. Further, they saw that the way out of the mountain had been blocked by a tumble of stone, the dust of the fall still gritty and fresh on the floor of the cave.
"Our treasure," Swain called it. Nigh-toothless Kerin agreed that the gleaming swords and fine axes had been the due of them all, now stolen. Chaser nodded but said nothing aloud. The one Elansa had expected to complain was silent.
Arawn stood quiet on the outside of things, watching. He did not watch the grumblers or even seem to care about the plundered cache. He stood with his hand on the jeweled grip of Kethrenan’s sword and watched Elansa. She felt his eyes on her, and Brand's. She was again held in tension between two men.
A long moment she stood so, breath held.
"You," Brand said, his voice hard and sharp.
He meant her. She fell in beside him, keeping pace with him as they left the cave and never lagging behind. They walked many long hours, and not even Arawn complained about this. Their cache had been discovered, their way out blocked. It might be chance, a goblin’s luck to find the cache while sheltering against the cold. But he was no fool, Brand, and so he sat a while with Char and Ley. They discussed the next closest way out to good hunting, then he sent Dell, Tianna, Loris, and Pragol ahead to be sure the rest of the caches were secure. A meeting place set, the four slipped away into the darkness, soon parting from each other.
"He doesn't send Arawn," Elansa said to Char.
The dwarf shook his head, his lips set in a grim line. He said nothing, though he had the look of one who knew the answer to her implied question. He would not give it, though, or even look at her as they walked.
It was not until they grew too weary to go on that Brand let his band stop for the night. During that night, he grew impatient of crossing glances with Arawn. So that he would not have to cross swords, he settled the matter of the disposition of his captive. In the ruddy light of failing fires, he called Elansa to him and nodded to the place apart where he'd spread his sleeping fur.
"Your choice," he said. "Me, or Arawn. And when he can't hold you, soon all the rest."
Slowly, like a draining, the feeling went out of her body. She did not tum cold. She did not flush with shame. It was as though all sensation had fled, or perhaps she had herself flown from that complicated structure of flesh and bone and blood that was her body. She did not feel her heart beating, and when she noticed that, she wondered whether it were turning to stone.
Behind her, voices went still. A hound growled somewhere, then fell quiet. In that perfect silence she heard two things: the sound Char's leather bottle made as he unstopped it, and the long breath in-drawn he always took when he was about to enjoy himself for a time. The breath, though, the breath taken was not Char’s. Brand took it in the moment he knew he was going to be able to make his point to Arawn easily and, doubtless, pleasurably.
In the silence, she went to him, for no matter what he said about it, Brand had given her no choice at all. When he told her to, she undressed. Perhaps she shivered in the cold, but she didn't feel either thing, the cold or the shivering. When he gestured, she lay down, and when he touched her, his hands callused and rough, she did not protest or fight him. She would not give the watchers beyond so much as that. She lay silent beneath him. She let him make his case to his outlaws and make her off-limits to them. She was, in the end, grateful for one thing. She was grateful he didn't kiss her or even try to.
Chapter 10
A red-tailed hawk screeched across the sky, the sound the first thing Kethrenan heard waking. He lay watching the rosy gray, the cloudless sky, waiting. He lay, breath held, for that is just what hunters do, even when prey is so far away no breath of theirs can be heard.
He knew how to wait, did the prince. He knew how to watch for a bird in the sky. No good to lie with his eyes darting all about. You miss the motion then. You miss what you're looking for. He lay still, and he became aware of a similar stillness across the campfire-Demlin, on his back, watching for the hawk.
They were good hunters, the two. It was a thing the prince hadn't known about his servant. Until lately, he'd known Demlin to be a good pourer of wine and a good man to pick the right clothing for a state dinner. He'd known him to be a congenial fellow and conscientious. He'd not made him part of Elansa’s escort, all those months ago in autumn, for his battle skills. There had been warriors for that. He'd included Demlin in the party so his wife could have someone of the court to talk to on her way, someone witty and amusing.
Events had turned the courtly servitor into a hunter, hard-eyed, keen to kill, and with the wit to know that he who keeps still has a good chance at the prey that will soon walk past him.
The hawk sailed in the gray sky, wings spread to catch the currents, tilting a little, circling, then climbing. Queen of her skies, she sailed and paid no attention to the elves on the ground. What were they to her? Nothing. She sailed out of sight, rounding away.
Demlin let his breath go. He got to his feet and went around the fire to where the goblin lay curled in a ball against the cold air. He toed Ithk. The goblin had not been sleeping. All the while he'd lain watching the hawk, Kethrenan had known that because he knew what it sounded like when Ithk slept. That was a noisy undertaking.
"Up," Demlin said, toeing the goblin again.
Ithk whined, and he whimpered. Poking up the embers of the night’s fire, Kethrenan thought that if he never heard another goblin's whining voice, he'd be a happy man.
"Let him eat, Demlin," he said, "and see he's quick about it.