Arc 2: Chapter 21: Thorned Wisdom
I paid the castle smith to fix my armor. She had to use ordinary steel, which looked odd with the shadowy elf-iron links. The smith, a gnarled old woman with ashy gray hair and arms near thick as mine, kept grumbling about how sacrilegious it was to do such patchwork repairs to Sidhe work. Finally, after some cajoling, she ended up using an engraved iron plate as the centerpiece of the repair, mostly covering the mismatched metal, making it look like a deliberate touch.
I liked it. It made the hauberk look less uniformly black, adding a small flare. I hadn’t gone for aesthetic in my gear since I’d been in the peerage, and part of me had missed those indulgences.
I paid her well, thanked her, and quietly hoped whatever penance she assigned herself wouldn’t be too harsh. That done, I made my way to the stables to meet Emma, passing through an inner courtyard of the keep. True to their aesthetic, House Hunting had turned it into a small wood, shadowing the interior with trees. I imagined an invading force would find the effect uncanny, and find many sharp spears waiting for them in the shadows.
A figure lurking beneath one of those trees stopped me. “Master Alken. Out late, are we?”
I paused, instinctively reaching for the dagger beneath my cloak. I didn’t draw it, only assured myself I could. “Ser Lydia,” I greeted the Hunting bannerwoman who stepped out of the shade. I hadn’t noticed her, which unnerved me.
She still wore her brassy armor, with a breastplate reinforced with scale and a leather coat more reminiscent of a woodsman’s than a soldier’s. She no longer wore a helm, however, giving me my first good look at her face. She approached middle age, with a narrow face and thin lips, pale brown eyes bright in the dim light. A blistering mark covered the lower portion of one cheek, pulling at the corner of her mouth. It would probably remain as a nasty scar, a reminder of Jon Orley’s wrath.
“If you intend to depart without being noticed,” the knight said, her tone politely neutral, “you should know that most of this fiefdom’s soldiery have very good night vision. Old blessings from the fae-folk who lived in this land in past times.”
She tapped a gloved finger under one wolfish eye.
I let out a small laugh, more a sound of tension breaking than humor. “Right. Should have guessed. That Gors fellow looked like he had some erkish blood in him. You even have a town called Orcswell.”
Lyda sneered at the name. “I’m half certain Gors himself is a changeling — some parents keep them, rather than leaving them in the wilds as they should. But I digress. You are leaving us?”
The way she said it made me guess she’d assumed I planned to abandon them. “I’m not fleeing,” I said, too hastily. Lydia only lifted a dark brown eyebrow.