Egelric held his aching head in his hand. It was all he could do.
He wondered now whether his mother had sat like this on the nights when he had been cruel. He had always thought her heartless, capable only of inflicting suffering but never suffering herself. Now he feared that Iylaine thought the same of him.
He wished that his mother had lived so that he could ask her. And, if it was true that she had suffered as he was suffering now, then he would have liked to have told her he was sorry.
He would have to tell Iylaine to apologize to her stepmother, but he would have to wait until morning. He thought that if he went to her now, he would only end up apologizing himself. Not for yelling at her in the hall: that was perhaps no more than she had deserved. But he would apologize for making her what she was. He would apologize for the unhappiness and the anger that was her heritage from him.
He had not even been able to comfort Lili as he ought. He had taken her up to her bed to make her lie down and rest, but in the end she had only held him as he told her about his mother – and as he cried like a little girl.
He would apologize to her when he went up to bed. Surely when she had married him to flee from Raedwald and Friedrich, she had not dreamed she was fleeing into such a family as this. She was still a young girl, scarcely older than his daughter. Perhaps unhappiness and anger would be her inheritance too.
When Ethelwyn knocked on the door, he was tempted to tell him to go to the devil, but then he was struck with a sudden fear that Lili had taken ill after the shock of that evening. It was a month too early for the baby. Martinmas, she had promised!
Egelric decided he would let his steward in. He could always tell him to go to the devil after hearing what he had to say.
“Enter!”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but there is a young gentleman calling himself ‘Ears’ here to see you.”
Egelric had given instructions that any young gentlemen calling themselves “Ears” or “August” were to be admitted at any hour of the day or night. August was the elf who had stayed with him on the night that Sela had been killed, though they had never met again.
However, he had not mentioned that either of them were elves. He wondered whether Ethelwyn had noticed.
“Send him in!” Egelric said.
He had only seen Ears once since that day, and that was well over a year ago. Thus he was too stunned to wonder whether he wanted to have company at all. He did not even consider the fact that his daughter was only a few flights of stairs away.
Ears was wearing a hood over his head when he came in, which explained why Ethelwyn had not noticed anything odd about the young man besides his name. Even so, Egelric thought he was taking a risk by coming, and he worried over the reason. But the elf smiled broadly at him.
“Your man is trusting, to let such a strange person into your castle and not even blink an eye when he refuses to remove his cloak.”
“I told him to expect foreign princes named Ears.”
“Oh, I see!” he laughed.
“But you may remove your cloak now if you like. I didn’t think I wanted to see anyone tonight, but I’m glad you’re here. Now you can tell me whether there’s anything important I should know about raising young elves.”
“I’m not the one you should be asking about that,” he smiled. “I don’t have any yet. I shall be coming to you for advice.”
“But you were one yourself not long ago.”
“I don’t remember what I was like when I was three!” he laughed.
“I mean when you were fourteen. I’m talking about my daughter.”
“Oh! That’s different.”
“She spoke rather cruelly to her stepmother this evening. And I should be angry at her, but I’m mostly angry at myself for raising her so poorly.”
“I know all about that,” the elf sighed. “But my father twists it so that he is angry at me for making him angry at himself for raising me so poorly.”
“You’re making my head hurt with that one, if it wasn’t already. Care for a drink?”
“I knew you would do that!” he laughed. “You do this every time. I always come by your castle when I have the ill luck to be out on the night of the new moon, because it always seems to be the night when you want to see me. And what do you do? You try to get me drunk so I go stumbling home like a… like a drunken man,” he said, feigning scorn.
“I?” Egelric smiled. “I would have to guess that you only came because you hoped I would offer you something to drink.”
“I only came because I once promised you I would come when you wanted me, if I could. You owe me at least a drink for that.”
“Granted, and you shall have it. But how did you know I wanted you?”
“By the rope!”
“What rope?”
“The rope you hung outside.”
Egelric had taken a few steps towards the cabinet where the wine was hidden, but he stopped at this. “I never hung any rope.”
“Oh, that’s fine!” the elf laughed. “One of your men leaves a rope hanging, and I come along like a fool. You owe me at least two drinks for that.”
“You shall have them,” Egelric murmured. “Where’s the rope?”
“Hanging from the tower in the southeast corner. I thought it was hanging from the battlements, as you said, but it looks like it’s hanging out of the top window.”
“The southeast tower.”
“Closest to the cliff.”
“That’s Iylaine’s room.”
“Oh?”
“Excuse me a moment,” Egelric said darkly and took a step towards the door.
He knew Malcolm had already left when he had returned home, because Malcolm’s horse had not been in the stable. But a horse could be hidden in the woods. He trusted Malcolm more than any other sixteen-year-old boy, but he still trusted him no more than he could trust a sixteen-year-old boy. This trick with the hidden horse and the rope was just the sort of stunt he himself might have pulled at sixteen, though he had to admire the lad for risking a sheer climb of nearly four stories with only a rope.
“Wait!” the elf gasped. “Was she here?”
“She is here. And her cousin was here,” Egelric growled, “but now I’m thinking perhaps he is here as well, or soon will be.”
“She isn’t here,” the elf murmured.
“What?”
“She isn’t here now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she isn’t here.” The shadow of beard on the elf’s chin was starkly apparent as his face paled.
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
(Don't answer that) 
Chapters
uh oh.. have you killed off lyalaine?