Pol keeps a promise to himself

“What is happening here?” Pol roared.

An instant later the door swung shut behind him with a thunderous boom, and the baby began to whimper, as a child of elves only would not have done. Otherwise there were only the sounds of hearts and hastened breath.

The Shalla straightened her back slowly and asked, “How comes this elf here?”

It was Polin who had told him—a guilt-​wracked Polin who could not bear the thought of what he had done—a sobbing Polin who remembered the day when the tiny, fair-​haired mite Iylaina had been wrestled from his sobbing sister’s arms.

And Pol saw that Polin’s wife was there too—gentle, obedient, unquestioning Ria—and the wives of Morin and Midor, and Madra the wife of Ris, who had gone too to take the baby from his mother. It was clear to Pol who besides the Shalla had been behind this crime.

But he told the Shalla none of this.

“Does the Khir know what is happening here?” he demanded. At once he knew the answer to his own question. “Ah, no! The moon is full! You did not choose this night by chance.”

“This elf will agree that the boy child of the elf Iylaina needs a name,” the Shalla said coldly.

“That is for his mother to decide.”

“His mother knows nothing of our laws. She would not accept.”

“Then it is a great cruelty you have done her, to crown the others! I do not accept!”

“The child will be returned to her this night.”

“Does she know this?”

“She has been told.”

“Why should she believe anything she is told by elves?”

“She will believe when she sees him returned.”

“I shall return him,” Pol growled.

“This elf shall quit this chamber and allow the Shalla to proceed!”

Pol stood tall and lifted his head so high the tips of the Shalla’s feather headdress would scarcely have reached to tickle his nose.

“No. I shall name the child. These elves are far from the child in blood. There is no mother, no father’s sister, no mother’s mother here. They are all dead; they are not. I am the mother’s father. It is my right.”

The other ladies looked to one another in confusion. Not one of them, he knew, had ever named a child in the presence of a male. But he knew it could be so: he knew it had been done in ancient times. Ever since the death of his wife, he had sworn that he would name the son of his daughter. He had simply never realized that it would not be the son of Vash.

The Shalla appeared to be searching for an excuse to deny him, but when she spoke, she only said, “The elf Madra will step aside.”

Pol stepped into her place, and the Shalla proceeded as if nothing had happened.

He had never witnessed this ceremony, but Lira had told him about it, and he had read. The Shalla had the only complicated part to play: a long poem that the old elf surely knew by heart after so many years. His part would be easy, but it would be brief, and he told himself he would have to make the most of it. He feared he would not be permitted to touch the child again.

Pol was startled back to his senses when the Shalla reached the end of her speech and announced to the baby: “It is the name Makil for you.”

Pol thought he must have misunderstood, but the gasps from the other ladies suggested he had not. No male had been given the name Makil since ancient times.

The Shalla had just added another name to the Wheel of Present Time, and such events were never without significance. More than twenty winters had passed since the last new name had been granted. Then it had been the name Vash of the still, dark water, and Vash had been the first Khir since the ancestor Druze himself to be permitted to enter the halls of the Bright Lady.

But the significance of his grandson’s name might not be revealed for many years, and the Shalla would never tell. Perhaps she did not know.

Stunned too, Ria was startled when the Shalla attempted to present her with the baby. Pol told himself he would have to be ready.

“O Makil,” Ria said, “May the air lift you up and the wind always sing your tale.”

The Shalla walked behind him to sit on her couch, and then Ria was coming towards him with the baby—his daughter’s son! He was not ready.

“O Makil,” he murmured. The baby’s head was warm in his hand, and so tiny! He had forgotten just how small an elf could be. “May the earth be a foundation for you and welcome the tread of your feet.”

That was all. He would have to carry him to Dashela now. He had not had time to look. He had not even remembered to look. He had not been ready.

He stood beside Dashela as she named the baby, and then he stood where Dashela had stood and watched her carry his grandson away to Kiva. Kiva named him too, and that was all.

His arms shook in disappointment. His chest ached in disappointment. Since Lira’s death, he had lived for the moment when Iylaina would be returned to him, but now it seemed she never would. He had lived for the moment when he would hold his grandson, but his grandson was not to live among them, and he might never be so close to him again. This was not the fate he had been promised. He would never have consented to this.

“Pol?” Kiva asked behind him. “Look. I think he has the elf Lira’s bottom lip.”

He was not ready, but Kiva slipped the baby back into his arms.

It was true: it was Lira’s bottom lip. He should have known it at once. He had kissed that lip a thousand thousand times. But he had not been ready to see.

“Oh, but I think he is more interested in your beard,” Kiva smiled as the baby worked his hands into the long, wiry hair and rubbed his face against it. “It is a fine beard, Makil. Perhaps when you are grown you will have such a one.”

Perhaps when he was grown, this son of his daughter would find his own way, as he had promised the man Egelric for his own son. Until then Pol had the boy Vin in his care, and he had never known how to prevent himself from loving those he knew he would have to lose. He would go on living, despite the ache.