Gwynn caught Hetty's arm just outside the door.

Gwynn caught Hetty’s arm just outside the door and dragged her to a halt.

“Wait! Wait, Brit!” she squeaked.

“It’s too late to turn back now!” Britamund said ominously. “Supposing your Destiny awaits?”

'Supposing your Destiny awaits?'

“I know, but – wait! Rua!” she said eagerly. “Are there any elves in there to hear us?”

Flann snorted. “Not unless Osh caught on to your father’s trick and came back early.”

“What trick?” Gwynn chirped.

Hetty sighed miserably. “Ach, Flann, did you guess?”

“Guess?” Flann laughed. “He told me! Who do you suppose helped him to get rid of Osh?”

'Who do you suppose helped him to get rid of Osh?'

“Did he say get rid?” Hetty whimpered. “I told him not…”

“What trick?” Gwynn repeated.

“I do not hear any elves,” Rua said coldly to Gwynn, since she was strictly forbidden from insulting Flann.

“Good!” Gwynn gasped, apparently oblivious to anything aside from what was happening in her own silly little head. “Soooo… what are they saying in there?” she asked sweetly.

'Soooo... what are they saying in there?'

Lasrua put on an equally sweet smile and shook her head. “We elves are not so indiscreet, my lady. When one hears everything, one repeats nothing.”

“And a lucky thing it is for me!” Cat cried. “And God bless the Gaelic for grumbling, for without it my marriage would not last a day!”

'When one hears everything, one repeats nothing.'

“Paul is beginning to understand, you know,” Lasrua laughed softly. “Your curses are so hilarious he has fun trying to piece them together: May the cat swallow you sideways,” she intoned, “and may the something swallow the cat!”

“It’s the something I don’t want him to know!” Cat cackled.

“The what?” Gwynn asked.

'The what?'

“It rhymes with – ” Lasrua began, and then she bent double and pretended to cough and hack.

“Ach, she’s getting the knack of the accent!” Cat beamed. “Just what will warm the heart of a Scotsman!”

'Ach, she's getting the knack of the accent!'

Lasrua could not help but laugh with her. Cat was perilously, terrifyingly indiscreet, but she knew all – and she approved. It was something to have an ally, even if one had little reason to hope the battle would ever be fought.

“I’m no elf,” Kraaia sniffed, “but I know what they’re not talking about in there. They are not talking about how pretty we may be, or what color eyes we have, or how romantic it all is. They are men,” she said, as proudly as if she were one herself.

'They are men.'

“Mayhap you’ve simply been associating with the wrong sort of men,” Margaret muttered under her breath.

“That is the way of men, dear,” Hetty said softly to no one in particular. “They like to seem big and rough before the other men, but in their hearts they can think very gentle thoughts.”

“That’s a fact!” Cat declared. “It’s the sweet-​​talkers we must be mistrusting! Heed my words, girlies! It’s an empty barrel makes the most noise!”

All the ladies laughed, but from back to front the laughter seemed less real and more forced, unto Gwynn and Hetty and Britamund, who seemed to laugh through gritted teeth.

'Alred is in a class of his own!'

“Excepting Alred, of course,” Britamund said soothingly. “Alred is in a class of his own! Poets are,” she corrected, no doubt at the thought of her own composer of maudlin verse.

“Wait you one moment!” Flann said. “If I had a cow for every time I’d heard the Gaelic like of Roses are red, violets are blue…!”

'Wait you one moment!'

“True poetry is exempt,” Gwynn said haughtily, for she considered herself a fine critic of the art form. “Simply because it rhymes, it does not make it a poem.”

Hetty twitched her arm out of Gwynn’s grasp, almost yanking it away. Her softly savage reply was as startling as hearing a kitten’s purr sharpen into a growl, though only Lasrua and perhaps Gwynn could have heard it at all.

“Simply because it is a poem,” Hetty whispered to herself, “it does not make it true.”

It does not make it true.