But Ellysta instead hid the sheep and goats, taking care of them herself even though her family had herders who could have done the work. She would not put them in danger, she said.
So danger came to her, and worse. She had looked half-dead when the kender found her, and it had taken days to nurse her back to enough health to walk as far as Tirabot Manor. Fortunately none of her enemies had actually come searching for her until she was actually on her way, Perhaps they had thought she was dead.
Apart from no kender having ever tolerated someone like the kingpriest, no kender had ever punished someone by saying that what had been theirs now belonged to someone else. In the course of a year, almost every sheep, goat, pot, pan, and kettle in a kender village made the rounds of every household. Sometimes they ended up where they had begun; other times they went with somebody who was marrying outside the village, or going traveling, or were stolen by gully dwarves.
This looked confused and complicated to humans, or so Elderdrake had heard. To him, it was the humans who had all the complicated laws, and all the worries about enforcing them, even when they wanted to be just, and all the opportunities for the unjust to make trouble….
"We have one problem," Shumeen said. "Sir Pirvan is not at the manor. He was gone off again, on some quest, or matter of the knights, or spying on enemies, or whatever."
"Haimya too?"
"Haimya, and Young Eskaia, and more than half the fighters. Knights named Darin and Hawkbrother came, but went with Pirvan."
Elderdrake wanted to put his head in his hands, then realized that this would alarm his friends.
"Gerik is a seasoned warrior," Elderdrake said. "I have been on the same battlefield with him and seen as much. Also, House Dirivan will think twice before attacking the property of a Knight of Solamnia, even if the knight is not at home."
"If they can think at all," someone muttered.
Shumeen glared all around her, so that everyone except Elderdrake looked abashed. Then she smiled. "Now, tell us about your day in the woods," she said. She looked ready to hang on his every word, which she probably really wasn't, but Elderdrake was willing to be flattered. He was also willing to get his hands on another plate of sausage.
When somebody had handed him that plate, he stood up, waved a sausage for attention, and began: "Now, some humans are easier to fool than others, and these were the easy kind. But there were quite a lot of them, and I had to go on fooling them over and over again. If they started to learn from the time before and do better next time, I was going to be in a really bad situation…."
Chapter 4
"Father, Mother, it is both our wishes." Young Eskaia said, hands on hips, daring her parents to contradict her.
Pirvan wondered where Hawkbrother might be. He did not question the courage of his son-in-law-to-be in light of the young warrior's absence from this confrontation. Rather, he thought it prudent, though he hoped it would leave no lingering resentment in Eskaia, to poison the marriage in later years.
"I believe that," Pirvan said. The alternative, calling both his daughter and her betrothed liars, was unthinkable. "I also ask you to believe that five days is rather an immodestly short time to make ready for your wedding," he added. "People will say that you are unmaidenly eager-"
"I am," Eskaia interrupted. "So is Hawkbrother. Ask Mother how she felt after your year of celibacy. Ask your memories how you felt, and remember that for my beloved it has been two years."
Pirvan flushed. This was partly from the memories, partly from hearing such matters from his daughter's lips, and partly because Haimya was desperately struggling not to giggle.
"I was thinking of more than modesty," he said, commanding his voice. "Believe me or not as you choose. I was thinking that five days is not much time to gather your wedding garb."
"Lady Eskaia has promised all the help in her power, including all the tailors and seamstresses either of us could wish. Her own preparations are long made, and Aurhinius has insisted on being wed in his best armor, much to her annoyance." The girl giggled. "Besides, you know full well how little garb a bride and groom need for their wedding."
Pirvan coughed. "I believe you are confusing the wedding with the wedding night. Not even the forest barbarians wed unclad, although on the islands north of Ansalon it might be warm enough to do so."
This time it was Young Eskaia's turn to flush. "I also remind you," he continued, "that if it takes place with Lady Eskaia's, only your kin will be present at the wedding. Would you rather not have your husband's kin standing beside him?"
"Sir Darin has already sworn to stand in place of Redthorn and Threehands for the giving of the necessary oaths," Eskaia said. "Both approved him at the time of our betrothal oaths. And you must remember that those oaths also give Hawkbrother and me the right to wed at any time and place we choose, according to the customs of my people. We need thereafter only reaffirm our wedding vows before witnesses of the Gryphons, at a time not later than the presenting of our first-born son to Hawkbrother's father or eldest surviving male kin."
It occurred to Pirvan, not for the first time, that the Free Riders were, in the matter of oaths, legalists who could contend with any Istaran law counselors or even one of the high knights. Moreover, wedding a Free Rider seemed to have corrupted the good sense and moderation of his daughter.
"Well, it seems we shall have to wait on Lady Eskaia to discuss this matter further," Pirvan said. "I would not wish to ask of her more than she is prepared to give, even out of old friendship."
"You will waste your breath and her time, Father," Young Eskaia said, but with a lilt in her voice that took the sting from her words. "However, it is not your wedding, so perhaps you will have idle moments."
She bowed so elaborately that it was almost a parody, the more so in that she was wearing tunic and trousers in the Free Rider style, but of silk and lace in the Istaran fashion. When she turned and strode out, the hard soles of her formal boots clicked on the stone floor.
Pirvan started to follow his daughter, but found that the floor had suddenly sprouted an obstacle. Namely, and to wit, his wife. She seemed suddenly as immovable as a granite block, and the idea of laying hands on her to move her out of his path was something else unthinkable.
"I think we had best let the young folk do as they wish, and as our old friend is prepared to let them do," Haimya said. "I do remember what it was like when you came out of your training." She hugged herself, and then, surprisingly, him.
"So, if we do not want them to take their betrothal rights before we sail," she continued, "for fear that their love will never be…"
"Consummated?" Pirvan put in, and was glad to see Haimya now blushing. She seemed a trifle more content with having a daughter old enough to think of wedding and bedding, but only a trifle.
"Yes," Haimya said, after a moment. "Also, consider that the wedding of Lady Eskaia and Gildas Aurhinius will be the talk of Ansalon for months to come. And they will say that Lady Eskaia allowed her namesake to stand up beside her and wed a desert barbarian, in the same chamber, on the same carpet, with the same blessings, while breathing the same perfumes…"
Pirvan held up both hands, to stop Haimya's torrent of persuasive words. "I begin to understand," he said. "Yes, it will do well to mark Hawkbrother's acceptance, and that can do him no harm among the knights.
"Nor can accepting him do the knights any harm," he added. "I will not mind hearing less often that Hawkbrother's knighthood is a mere whim of Sir Pirvan the Wayward."
Sir Niebar stood in the middle of one wall of the chamber where the wedding-weddings, he corrected himself-would take place. Two knights stood on either side of him, and beside each pair of knights were two men-at-arms.