Alred has his hand kissed

“Would you mind waiting here?” Egelric asked awkwardly once he and Alred had reached the edge of the clearing. “I think it best that you meet her outside. You should try to avoid standing between her and the door when we go inside.”

“Is she so very shy, Egelric?”

“It’s the house she doesn’t like. I don’t think she feels safe inside, as odd as that sounds to us. It was days before she let me close the door at all.”

“Like a wild animal, I suppose. Feels safer in the open. But do you really believe she will ever accept to live among men?”

“Did you ever believe I would?”

Alred chuckled. “There have been times when I have doubted.”

“Only wait until you meet her. She’s remarkable.”

“I believe I have waited long enough to meet her,” Alred reminded him.

“I’m sorry,” he smiled slowly. “I shall only be a moment. I hope…”

Egelric turned and walked up to the house, and Alred did not fail to notice how softly he treaded, barely swinging his arms, as if he were approaching a skittish colt at the far end of a pasture. He supposed it had become a habit with him.

He was a long while in the house. Alred planted his hands on his hips and waited. He wondered whether the meeting would change his opinion of the matter. He did wish she had been a nun, a harlot, an adulteress, anything but an elf. Even if she eventually consented to live among men, it seemed equally improbable that the men would allow her to live among them, and he feared that if she could not, then Egelric would not.

Egelric returned more slowly and more softly than he had gone, for he was coaxing the elf along with him. He held her hand, and she followed without being dragged, but her every movement was accompanied by a hesitation.

She was nearly tall as Egelric and finely built, and indeed Alred felt he would have known her for an elf at once, even though her dark hair hid her ears. Perhaps through the years of living with Iylaine, he had unconsciously learned the subtler features distinguishing her from the other girls.

There was something graceful and elastic in her body, like Malcolm’s little Moorish horse, that one never saw in grown women and rarely in girls. Her hair was smooth and fine, and yet it gave one the impression of being wild, as if it had only ever been combed by fingers. And her eyes were so large and dark and shining that he felt he was in the presence of some gentle animal. Those eyes made him feel all the rest of the animal: the quivering of a sensitive muzzle, a long, outstretched neck, a trembling body ready to spring away at the slightest movement, and a mingled curiosity and fear.

He did what came naturally in such a case, without thinking, and held out the back of his hand to be sniffed.

She sprang forward, took the hand in hers, and kissed it. Then she looked up at him, stunned at her own audacity, too frightened to let go of his hand and spring away.

Alred laughed softly. “You have things a little backwards, my dear.”

Her mouth quivered, and she looked back at Egelric for reassurance, but when she saw his smile, she turned back to Alred and laughed. For all her trembling shyness, she had the ingenuous laugh of a small child.

“I have so often kissed her hand upon meeting her that she may believe that is how men greet one another,” Egelric explained sheepishly.

“In that case I could wish you had the habit of greeting her with a kiss upon the mouth,” he winked at her, and they all laughed. “Do you understand?” he asked her.

“I kiss your hand, you kiss my mout’!” she giggled.

“Oh, no!” Egelric said, extracting Alred’s hand from hers. “Alred kisses your hand, and I kiss your mouth,” which he immediately did.

“It is an easy life, Sela,” Alred sighed. “Merely stand around and wait to be kissed.”

“I wait for you,” she said gravely. “I wait in de evening, Egelric make fire.”

“Oh, aye,” Egelric said. “I promised a fire of cherry wood.”

“No!” she cried in childish outrage. “It is bee-​​wing-​​flower-​​fire in de evening I wait!”

“That’s cherry, Sela,” he soothed. “She has her own names for things,” he said to Alred. “I suppose I should correct her, but I like to hear them.”

“Correct her! Certainly not. You didn’t tell me that she was a poet, too, old man. Bee-​​wing-​​flower-​​fire?”

“I don’t understand it,” he shrugged.

“I do.”

“She has names for most of the trees and plants, and thinks it very odd that our names mean nothing.”

“Egelric, you make fire,” she reminded him, prodding his arm with a slender finger.

“Do you like fires, Sela?” Alred asked.

“I like fire!” she laughed. Nearly everything she said came with a laugh at the start or the middle or the end of it. “I like Egelric make fire. It is fire for me.”

“Prepare to be roasted,” Egelric told him. “She likes it hot.”

“I like it hot fire, hot, hot!” she laughed breathlessly. “It is drink water for Egelric. It is fire for you?” she asked Alred.

“I like whatever you like,” Alred replied.

“It is fire for you, fire for Sela-​​elf, drink-​​water-​​eat-​​snow for Egelric,” she giggled, turning back to him and getting caught up in his arms. “It is sleep-​​snow for you!” she teased him and pretended to try to struggle away. “It is sleep in de lake for you!”

Egelric held her firmly and looked down at her laughter with only a hint of a smile. Everything was in his eyes. His eyes too were dark, but they burned with something like the hot fire she loved, and Alred felt that he was in the presence of something extraordinary. He was no longer sorry that she was not merely a nun. Those eyes made him feel all the rest, and he would not have denied Egelric that after all he had suffered. Still, his happiness for his friend was mingled with fear.