The elf hears a cry

The elf never built a fire before he heard the clang of the bar falling into its bracket behind the great door. That sound meant that all the inhabitants of the manor on the hill were home for the night. That sound meant that his wife was safe from whatever threats could be stopped by a heavy iron bar, a great door, and a knight’s sword. He was nearby for the others.

That sound meant that no more men would be wandering past the shed where he slept, and so no one would see the smoke from his little fire. But the bar often fell very late. He was often very cold.

He was becoming a bat indeed, for he now spent his nights awake to take advantage of the heat of his fire, and he only went to sleep at dawn. But he wished he could hibernate as the bats did. It was very difficult to keep his mind focused on trivial things when it was so tempting to dream of what might be. He wished he could close his eyes and sleep through the cold, and when he woke it would be because Catan had come and laid her little hand on his face, as she had done a few times before.

But wishing for that was already dreaming of what might be. He needed to focus on trivial things, imaginings…

Tonight, though, shortly after the bar fell, he heard something that took his mind off of everything else.

He heard a lady’s shouted sobs. This was not yet exceptional for one whose ears could often hear the arguments and the roaring laughter that came up from dozens of farm houses and peasant huts all around. However, in addition to calling upon the name of the man Aengus, the lady was crying for her lost baby in the elven language.

Even this might not have astonished him, for he would not have been surprised to learn that the miserable kisór he often heard in the woods were so stupid as to be capable of misplacing their children. However, this was the night of the new moon. This was the first elven voice he had heard all night.

He had spent very little time with his wife so far, in truth, and so he had thought over their few conversations many, many times. He remembered in exquisite detail that summer day when she had come to ask where the elves dwelled, on behalf of her cousin Aengus. He remembered that this Aengus was supposed to have been imprisoned with an elf until he got her with child.

He remembered too how he had reacted to the idea – how he had called such children monsters and abominations, and how he had compared them to the unnatural offspring of women and pigs.

He feared he had killed any love in her for him that day. There were times when he tore at his own flesh with his fingernails to distract himself from the pain of the thought of what he had done. There were times when he told himself that everything would have been different if he had been kind to her that day, and that what she had endured might have been avoided entirely. She might have simply loved him, without having been bound to him against her will.

Now he would never know. Even if she came to him some day and laid her little hand on his cheek, he would still think her – as Egelric did – unfairly won.

But it was as he had learned as a child: if he spoke into the air, he could not breathe his words back in again. It was too late – what he had done could not be undone.

But it was not too late to help her cousin Aengus.