Iylaine looks into Malcolm's eyes

“Here we are.” Malcolm stepped out of the trees and looked up at the darkening sky. “I hope it doesn’t decide to rain.”

The weather had shown signs of clearing when they left, but it had taken them a long while to arrive. Iylaine had to walk slowly. It was already a great effort for her to get out and walk at all, but Malcolm’s heart had seemed set on it. She supposed he thought it would do her good.

“How do you like this spot, Babe?” he asked as she came to stand beside him.

She shrugged. “It’s pretty in the summer, with all the ferns and flowers.”

“I’m glad you remember! Use your imagination and pretend it’s the summer. Now what do you think of it?”

“You know I like it here,” she said.

They had come here on occasion when the weather was fine and there was not time enough to go exploring far into the forest. They had come most often on Sundays, since it was so near the place where the church had once stood. This Sunday they had attended Mass in Sir Sigefrith’s chapel, but that too was close enough to make it a short walk—or so it would have seemed, if she had not been feeling so ill.

The clearing opened out among the trees at the edge of Selwood proper. In the spring it was bright with flowers, and it hummed all summer long with bee wings. Forest birds and meadow birds alike came to it, and if she and Malcolm came before Mass they would often find deer. There was even a small brook that ran chortling by.

But the brook was frozen now.

Now all the waving ferns were curled up within their rootstocks; all the flowers and the stems of soft grass were still lying as seeds upon the frost-​parched earth; and all the trees were bare. It was the season of sleep, and a grim time indeed for those who did not heed its call. Iylaine longed only to stretch herself out upon the ground and sleep until spring, or to die, perhaps, and awake as a tree. But Malcolm was talking to her, and it was him she had to heed.

“It would be a fine place to build a house, don’t you think?” he asked. “Trees all around, but almost none in the middle. One would scarcely need to fell a single tree.”

Iylaine nodded slowly and looked around. It was like the men to find such a clearing and immediately think of what they could build in it. She thought an elf would look at it and think about what sort of trees he could plant in it—or even how nice it would be to simply let it alone and to come to enjoy it as it was. It was like the men to want to turn things away from the direction in which they wanted to grow.

“Wouldn’t you like a house here, Babe?” he asked. “It’s so far from the road you can’t even hear the carters when they shout. And there aren’t any poplars now, but they grow quickly. And there’s a brook, and flowers, as you know. And sun and shade in the right proportion. Don’t you think?”

She realized suddenly that he was speaking seriously and truly wanted her opinion—not only on whether it would be an agreeable location for a house, but whether she would want to live there.

“I don’t know,” she said, though she knew it was a fruitless tactic.

“Is there another spot you would like better?” he asked gravely.

“No… I can’t think of any…”

“Neither can I. And I like this one because we have often come here. It belongs to us already.”

Iylaine only wanted to lie down and sleep, and Malcolm was determined to speak of this now.

The dim light of the midwinter noon made the dark bands around his irises seem black, and it was those bands that still could make his eyes appear golden and catlike in some lights. Just then his eyes were not dark. She did not want to dive into them and drown. The dark band around the outside and the dark dot in the center made each eye seem like a golden ring. A wedding ring. If she dove into them now, she would never get out again.

“Malcolm, are you thinking of building a house here someday?” she asked softly.

“Someday soon. I shall start as soon as you say I may.” He paused as if he had asked a question and was awaiting a reply.

“How long does it take to build a house?”

“A few months. It won’t be of stone. Not at first. And it will be small, and tidy, and quiet. And with a fire in every room.”

“A few months?” she whispered, stricken with fear. A few years wouldn’t have mattered. In a few years nothing would matter. But in a few months, she might yet be alive.

“Aye. Only timber for now.”

His eyes had been bright when he was a child, but even as a young man their warm brown was still flecked with shining gold, as if a few motes of dust had become trapped in his eyes, and trapped within the motes were traces of the slanting sunlight of suns long set. They reminded her of those lazy summer afternoons they had spent in the loft, in air that was warm and dust-​sparkled and golden like his eyes. Sometimes they had talked and teased; sometimes they had fought and kicked and wrestled; and sometimes they had only slept in the hay, often with kittens, but always with each other for company.

He was, she reminded herself, the best friend she had ever had. It would not be so terrible a fate to sleep at his side, if she must sleep. And now she was tired, and she felt so cold and alone. Sleep and fire and company were no longer any relief to her. Perhaps it was Malcolm she needed. If she dove into his eyes, perhaps she could find again the warmth and ease and comfort of those golden summer afternoons.

“But, Malcolm,” she murmured. Trapped in those sparkling artifacts of their childhood were so many old memories. “I thought you wanted to live in a house of gingerbread.”

He whispered, “Baby!” and put his arms around her waist. The golden flecks were submerged beneath a blue-​white shimmer that reflected the midwinter sky. He was moved, it seemed, nearly unto tears. “You remember that?”

“I remember you wanted to marry a banshee and have a lot of children.”

“You’re a bit of a banshee yourself, with all your greeting and carrying on when you don’t have your way.”

She smiled.

“What about you, Babe? You wanted to marry a goblin, and I suppose I could make a convincing goblin with my nose. And if you still want to live in a cave under a hill, I shan’t mind.”

“You remember too?”

“I made up my mind on that very day to grow a goblin nose and learn to like caves. And roasted grubs.”

“But I thought you only wanted to pretend to be married.”

“I don’t want to pretend now,” he said tenderly.

“But we’re so young.”

“I shall be seventeen in two months, and you will be fifteen in the spring. Sigefrith’s mother was not fifteen when she was married.”

“But my father will never allow it.”

“Your father has already agreed.”

Iylaine was stunned. Was that the secret she suspected Malcolm and her father were keeping from her?

“What do you think, Baby mine? I’m a man now, or just about, and I want to marry this one particular elf girl, and live in an ordinary house made of timber, and have a reasonable number of ordinary-​looking children, and eat bread and meat, and be happy. What do you want?”

She wanted to say that she only wanted to sleep. Instead she said nothing, and her eyes overflowed with tears. Malcolm wiped them patiently away with his hand, and she was reminded that it was the only way her tears would ever be dried henceforth. Then she began to cry in earnest.

Malcolm embraced her and stroked her hair down her back, but he said nothing for a long while. He began to tremble before he spoke, as if he had to draw up all his courage merely to do so. “I love you, Baby,” he said at last. He sounded very sad.

In her talks with Lili, Iylaine had been made to feel what her father must have felt during all the long months when he had loved his young wife and never dreamed she had any interest in him, except as her savior from the sins of Sir Raedwald. Iylaine did not believe she could have sympathized with Lili, but her heart had ached for her unhappy father.

She had been made to understand that the words Malcolm had just spoken did require courage, but that if they were not said, there could be much needless suffering. She had not been able to think of her father without thinking of Malcolm, who had had the courage, at least, to say the words on several occasions. If her father had ever said them, Lili could have put him at ease immediately. But Iylaine had left Malcolm to suffer on and on and on. Needlessly.

“I love you, too,” she said in a tiny, sad voice.

Malcolm did not reply at first, but he held her more tightly, and that stopped his trembling for a while. After it had begun again, he asked, “Will you marry me? As soon as I have a house for us?”

She lifted her head and stepped away from him so she could look into his eyes. He held his head higher than before, and now they caught the reflection of the midwinter sky. They seemed very dark, like dark pools of rain reflecting rain clouds.

She had always felt very alone and unwanted. Now someone wanted her above all other creatures of the earth, and she would never have to be alone again.

“You don’t mind that I’m an elf?” she asked.

“You couldn’t be anything else,” he said gravely. “And I couldn’t love you better if you were.”

Never again would the men be asking themselves the question, “Where shall we put Iylaine?” She would no longer be passed from house to house, from guardian to guardian. She would be a guest no more. She would have her own home, and she would come and go as she pleased.

“May I let my cats come inside the house? Even at night? And on the bed?”

“You may have all the cats you like in the house, and squirrels and turtles and anything else you want.” He thought for a moment and added, “Except for badgers.”

Malcolm did not seem to be joking, but she laughed anyway. “Why not badgers?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said sheepishly. “Wouldn’t they dig a lot?”

She nodded. “No badgers then.”

“And I should like a dog.”

“If my cats don’t mind.”

“Whether or no,” he said sternly. “I want a dog to watch over you when I’m not home.”

“That’s what the turtles are for!” she giggled.

“Silly girl!” He smiled and sighed and embraced her again. “Will you?”

“Let you have a dog?”

“Marry me.” His eyes were dark and wet with tears, and she could see her tiny self twice over, reflected in them.

“I shall do both.”