Egelric keeps his grudges to himself

“I think someone should go back for him,” Ethelwyn said abruptly.

Sir Egelric turned his head slowly and let his arms slip from the mantel. “Back… for… whom?” he intoned.

“For the blind elf, sir.”

“Did I ask you what you think?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Egelric had just began to turn back to the fire when Ethelwyn blurted, “However, if I had not told you what I thought earlier, Cat might still be dead right now.”

“Do not say ‘still be dead’,” Egelric snapped. “She was not dead. The proof is that she is not now.”

“Her heart had stopped, and she was quite cold.”

Egelric turned to him fully. “Are you trying to tell me that any miserable blind elf has the power of the Lord to resurrect the dead?”

Ethelwyn hesitated. “Lady Gwynn says that Vash can walk on water…”

Egelric let himself fall back against the mantel. “Are you trying to annoy me?”

“No, sir.”

“If your blind friend can turn water into wine, send him to me. Otherwise, I have no desire to see him again.”

“Only consider what we owe him! If he – ”

Ethelwyn got no further in his considerations, interrupted by a scream from behind the door to his bedroom.

“Devils!” Egelric pushed himself away from the fireplace and shoved Ethelwyn aside as he passed.

He barreled halfway into the room and then stopped, bewildered. Mouse and Flann were huddling against the cabinets on one side of the bed, and Vash and Shosudin had flattened themselves against the wall on the other side. In the center of it all was the source of the blast.

Egelric had seen the bottom half of her when he had found her lying dead – apparently – beside the campfire. Now he was seeing the top half. Then it had not mattered, but now his hand went up to cover his eyes.

Then he could not bear to look at her, but now he could not help but peek between his fingers. His cousin was beautifully made. However, it was not the admiration of her beauty that attracted his eyes but his disbelief of it.

He had seen her when they had found her by the fire, with her severed muscles sagging away from the wound and her skin puckered all around the edges like Jehanne’s little smocked dresses. He had seen her when they had carried her into this room, with the front of her body blackened like the belly of a roasted pig. He had seen her after Flann and Mouse had washed her, with that seared and shining gash across her chest.

Now she was beautiful and flawless as only a twenty-​​year-​​old girl can be.

Catan only screamed once. Afterwards it was worse – a squeaking, sobbing pant that only proved she was too terrified to scream. She was sitting up in the bed, flailing at the air, fighting against an invisible enemy. Egelric did not fail to notice the red gash that ran across her palm.

“You’re safe, Cat!” Flann cried. “You’re safe! He’s gone!”

“No!” Catan stopped fighting and looked up at the elves with wide eyes.

“You remember me,” Vash said softly. “I’m Vash.”

“Don’t look at her!” Egelric roared.

Vash cringed and put his hand up as well. Shosudin did not, but he turned his head to give Egelric the full benefit of his raised eyebrow.

Catan struggled with the blankets for a moment, crying, “Flann! Mother!” Her gaze then fell where Egelric’s had already been arrested, and she too froze in bewilderment. “Did I…”

“We healed you,” Vash said.

“No!” she howled. “Elves! Go! Flann!” Catan sobbed and fell forward across the bed in her attempt to reach her sister.

“Are you two done here?” Egelric growled.

“I suppose…” Vash said.

“Don’t look at her! Now come with me!”

Ethelwyn had taken Egelric’s place against the mantel, but he hurried forward when they came out. “How is she?”

Vash began, “I believe she will be – ”

“What did you do to her?” Egelric cried. “There’s not a scratch on her!”

“Did you look at her?” Shosudin asked gravely.

“You…” Egelric growled.

“We healed her,” Vash said. “That is why you wanted us, is it not?”

“Aye. And I thank you. And now I want to know what happened to her. And what’s going to happen to her.”

“I can’t tell you what happened to her. She might.”

“Oh, can’t you?”

“No. It wasn’t an elf did this to her, if that’s what you’re thinking. There’s not an elf abroad tonight. It’s the new moon.”

“Not an elf! How come I to find you on my doorstep when I bring her home?”

“That’s a little…”

“And that blind creature?”

“He must have heard her or heard you…”

“Perhaps he did it?” Egelric suggested.

“No! Why would he hurt her and then save her?”

“He would not,” Shosudin said.

“He would never hurt her so,” Vash agreed.

Egelric snorted. “You seem to know a lot about him, considering you tell me you know nothing about him.”

“Well… he’s an elf…”

“Aye, and we all know of what elves are capable! Gils would not be here if they were not! Sela would still be here if they were not!”

“But those were her kind!”

“And the blind elf is yours?”

Vash lifted his head. Shosudin tried to catch his eye, but he did not turn. “That elf is not of my people,” he said.

“And Sela’s?”

At that moment, to the elf’s apparent relief, they were interrupted by Mouse coming in from the chamber where Catan lay.

“How is she?” Egelric asked her.

“She’s getting calmer,” Mouse squeaked. She took a deep breath and began, “She said… Oh, Wyn!”

Ethelwyn put an arm around her and pulled her head against his. “Whisper it to me.”

Egelric watched the elves’ faces as she told. He knew from experience that even from knee-​​level and across a room, elves could hear a whisper.

Few emotions ever transpierced the gravity of Shosudin’s pale face, but even Vash appeared coldly impassive, with perhaps only a slight flaring of his nostrils and a higher tilt to his chin.

Ethelwyn embraced his wife and sent her back into the room with Catan, whose soft cries, it seemed to Egelric, should have melted the heart of any creatures less than devils.

“Well?” he asked.

“It was elves,” Ethelwyn said. “Four.”

“Elves?” Egelric whispered. “Four?”

He did not know what sort of unsavory characters made up Cat’s acquaintance, since he had not started watching her closely until he had found her with Leofric. However, he had – regretfully – been seeing the affair as the unfortunate consequences of her own actions. She had gone off with some man she knew, who was far crueler than she knew, and something had been taken far too far.

That there had been four surprised him more than the fact that they had been elves. The poor, unhappy girl would not have gone off willingly with four men – and certainly not with four elves.

“And you tell me no elves are abroad tonight!” he shouted at Vash. “That’s three already with you two and the blind one, and – since I shall not do you the dishonor of accusing you of this crime – that makes seven altogether! I don’t know whether it’s a law or a custom among you elves to stay indoors for the new moon, but it seems readily broken.”

“It’s a law,” Vash murmured.

“Well, then! You seem to have a few outlaw elves among you!”

Vash and Shosudin only stared at one another.

Egelric was curious to see what they would conclude, but Ethelwyn took advantage of the silence to ask, “What will happen to the blind elf if he is left alone among them tonight?”

“Oh, not him again!” Egelric cried.

“He saved my life and Cat’s life! We can’t simply leave him lying out there! If only as Christians!”

“Is it a Christian act to save a devil’s life?”

Ethelwyn tugged at his curls in frustration. “What is your grudge against him? One would think he had killed me and Cat, not saved us!”

“My grudges are my own affair,” Egelric growled.

Ethelwyn turned to Vash. “Can’t you help him? He looked so ill after he saved Cat. He couldn’t even walk, and we left him lying on the ground. And I shall never forgive myself if he comes to harm after I left him lying there!”

“We couldn’t help him…” Vash murmured.

“Can’t you do anything?” Ethelwyn pleaded. “August, please? Only go to see that he is well. I shall lead you.”

The tall elf lifted his eyes, and whatever emotion succeeded in breaking through his grim face only soared off over their heads, unreadable. “There is nothing we could do.”