Egelric says what he has been dying to say

“What do you want?” Egelric muttered after Ethelwyn had gone out. The elf could hear that he had his back turned.

“I wish to speak with my wife.”

“You have no wife here.”

“She is upstairs.”

“You have no wife here. Bring me the priest that married you, and we shall see.”

The elf had enough hatred for Egelric that he could have snarled at him, but he could not speak these words other than gently, even in English. “I call her my wife because it is the only word you know. She is my éla. My life. No priest made her so.”

“You made her so,” Egelric growled. “You took her when she was lying all but dead and could not refuse you. It is a sort of rape, is it not?”

The elf turned his blind face aside. He had already asked himself the same question. There was no doubt the fire in her had met the fire in him with full joy, but he did not know what the woman Catan thought.

Egelric turned to him and repeated, “Rape?” He waited again, and he snorted when the elf still did not answer. “I am sorry – it is the only word I know.”

“I know what it means.”

“I am certain you know what it means. You and your kind, all of you.”

“I have never done such a thing.”

“I believe I just said you did. And your four friends certainly have.”

“What friends?”

“The four elves that raped Cat!”

“I – don’t…”

In the last year he had learned discipline of the mind. He had not known what had happened to Cat, but he had not speculated either, since anything he might have imagined would have hurt him so. He knew only that she had been slashed open across the chest and left to bleed to death. That was horror enough.

But there had been four of them. They had raped her. They had been elves.

“Please let me go to her,” he whispered.

Egelric erupted. “No! You’ve hurt her enough! Devils! She’ll never be the same.”

“Please…” He would not be able to think of anything else until he had seen her – touched her.

“No!” Egelric leaned his head close to the elf’s face and snarled through clenched teeth, “You – you monster! I’m starting to see how you operate, though the devil only knows what you have planned!”

“What?” the elf gasped.

“Bleed the men dry one by one and replace our blood with yours! What abomination is this?”

“What…?” he whispered.

“Do you think I don’t know who you are? Kiv?”

The elf took a step away from him. “I am… not…”

Egelric’s deep voice rumbled with grim, gloating laughter. “Eh, Kiv? Do you think because you grow a little ragged beard and start dressing like a heathen, I won’t recognize you?” His hand came up to roughly pat at the elf’s chin.

The elf swatted it away and held his own hand over his chin for a moment, over the edge where the smoothly shaven skin met the beard.

Since he had been chased from the society of other elves, he had only bothered to shave when his beard began to itch, and then it all came off. But now he had a wife. It was a society of two – a society of one only, as long as he was kept apart from her – but he had a wife, and he would wear a beard with pride.

Before setting out that evening he had shaved around the edges of it, blind, trying to make the least goaty arrangement he could with the scanty beard he had been granted. He could not see it to know the effect, though if it had been Vash telling him he looked like a goat he would have considered it a great honor after all. He would have gone as far as wearing horns and chewing brambles if he could have heard Vash joke about it.

But the scorn of the man Egelric was difficult to bear, even though Egelric could not have known the customs of the elves well enough to have realized how deep went the wound.

“Tell me something, Kiv,” Egelric sneered. “Something I have been dying to ask you.” He paused until the elf began to cringe away from him with dread. “Was it you who tried to kill my son-​​in-​​law?”

The elf was speechless. He hated Egelric enough that he should have been able to stand against him, matching shout for shout and snarl for snarl. But it was all happening so fast, and he could not think of anything else until he had touched Catan.

“I thought so!” Egelric’s voice was a low growl, but he was breathing heavily, uncomfortably near to the elf’s face.

The elf expected to feel a knife in his side at any moment, but he was no more capable of defending himself with weapons than with words.

“You were behind the whole thing weren’t you?” Egelric panted. “Lure Cat away from here, let your friends have their fun with her – in exchange for the service, or for whatever reason – and then bleed her almost to death so that you can come along and ‘save’ her later.”

“No!”

“Just like Malcolm!”

“No! I never hurt Cat! I had nothing to do with what happened to her!”

“How was it that those elves knew something that only you could have told them?”

“What? What did they know?”

“I don’t know. That is what Cat told me.”

“What did they know? Let me speak to her! I beg you!”

“She doesn’t want to speak to you. She doesn’t want to see you again, nor any elf, nor any man – nor any living creature – nor the night, nor the day, nor the sun! She wants to die! That poor, pretty girl! She wishes you had let her die!”

Egelric’s voice broke as it had that night, when he had at last ceased trying to prevent the elf from helping her. But then Ethelwyn had been there to plead with him. Then Egelric had softened. Now he remained firm.

“Please let me speak to her,” the elf gasped. “Let me explain…”

“No! Not until she wants to speak with you. Not until she wants to hear your explanations. And I hope it may be never! And I think it may be never!”

“How can she, if you’re telling her – ”

“Go! I can’t bear the sight of you! Monster!” Egelric’s voice was ragged from too much shouting and too much emotion. He grabbed the elf’s cloak in both hands and held him for a moment, his arms trembling so that the elf himself shook. “If I don’t kill you now,” he said when voice and arms were calmer, “it is only because Vash told me it might do her harm if you were to die violently. But if you could die quietly, so that it wouldn’t hurt her, I think it would be the kindest thing you could do for her. It might be the closest thing to peace she’ll ever have now.”

Egelric’s voice and words were eloquent enough that the elf did not need to see his face. However, he feared that his own was telling secrets he did not want anyone but his wife to know. He turned away and wandered blindly towards some of the more distant points of light.

“Door’s the other way,” Egelric said coldly.

When his voice and arms were calmer, the elf said, “I shall go now if she isn’t ready to see me, but, please, tell her I didn’t have anything to do with this. I would never do her harm. Please tell her that. And please tell her I love her.”

Egelric laughed such a grim, gloating, bitter laugh that the elf turned back to him, though it did not help him see what the man found so amusing.

“If you won’t let me speak to her, you must at least tell her that much,” the elf said. “It is cruel to her to do otherwise.”

“Perhaps a little,” Egelric said thoughtfully. “Nevertheless I shall not tell her. I shall not tell her.” He laughed again. “Once, when I thought I would never see my beloved again, I asked your friend Vash to tell her I loved her. And he would not. He would not, because he said that such creatures as she could not understand love. And so I say to you: such monsters as you can not understand love. I shall not tell her.”

“You would be cruel to her for the pleasure of being cruel to me.”

“I shall tell her you claim that you weren’t involved in what happened to her, though even she must realize you wouldn’t admit it if it were true. However, I shall not tell her you love her. If you had treated her kindly before, she would already know it. If she needs to be told, you have not loved her well enough. This is how I comforted myself when I thought I would never see Sela again. You may think about that as you go slinking back to your lair tonight.”

The elf was already thinking about that, and stood silent.

Egelric snorted scornfully at him. “Now, the door’s this way. And I shall follow you out. I wouldn’t want you getting ‘lost’ on your way.”