The moredhel rose and the elves surrounding him helped him remove his tunic, the grey of the moredhel forest clans. Martin had lived with elves all his life and fought the moredhel many times and could recognize the difference. But now his senses were confounded. One moment the moredhel seemed odd, somehow different from what they had expected, then suddenly he was a moredhel no longer. He was given a brown tunic and, miraculously, Martin saw an elf there. He had the dark hair and eyes common to the moredhel, but then so did a few other elves, just as an occasional moredhel was blond and blue-eyed. He was an elf!
Tathar observed Martin’s reaction to the change and said, “Occasionally one of our lost brothers breaks away from the Dark Path. If his kin do not discover the change and kill him before he reaches us, we welcome his return to his home. It is a cause for rejoicing.” Martin and Baru watched as every elf in the area came to embrace Lorren in turn, welcoming him home. “In the past, the moredhel have attempted to send spies, but we can always tell the true from the false. This one has truly returned to his people.”
Baru said, “Does it happen often?”
“Of all who abide in Elvandar, I am eldest,” said Tathar. “I have seen only seven such Returnings before this one.” He was silent for a time. “Someday we hope we shall redeem all our brothers in this fashion, when the power of the Dark Path is at last broken.”
Aglaranna turned to Martin. “Come, we shall be celebrating.”
“We may not, Majesty,” answered Martin. “We must be away to meet with others.”
“May we know your plans?”
“It is simple,” answered the Duke of Crydee. “We shall find Murmandamus.”
“And,” added Baru without expression, “we shall kill him.”
SIX - Leavetaking
Jimmy sat quietly.
He absently studied the list in his hand, attempting to keep his mind on the matter before him. But he was unable to concentrate on the task. The duty roster of squires for that afternoon’s cortege was done, or as done as it was likely to be. Jimmy felt an emptiness inside, and the need to decide which squire was posted where seemed trivial in the extreme.
For two weeks Jimmy had been fighting the feeling that he was caught up in some horrible dream, one from which he could not shake himself. Nothing in his existence so far had affected him as deeply as Arutha’s murder, and he still couldn’t face his emotions. He had slept long each night, as if sleep were an escape, and when awake he was nervous and anxious to be doing something as if being busy would keep him from dealing with his grief. He kept it hidden away, to be confronted later.
Jimmy sighed. One thing the young man knew, this funeral was taking a hellishly long time getting organized. Laurie and Volney had postponed the departure of the funeral procession twice now. The bier had been placed aboard its carriage within two days after Arutha’s death, awaiting his body. Tradition held the Prince’s cortege should have started for Rillanon and his ancestral vault within three days after his death, but Anita had taken days returning from her mother’s estates, then a few more days in recovering enough to depart, then they needed to wait for other nobles who were arriving, and the palace was in disorder and so on and so on. Still, Jimmy knew he wouldn’t begin to get over this tragedy until after Arutha was carried away. Knowing he lay in the temporary vault Nathan had prepared, somewhere not too far from where the squire now sat, was just too much for Jimmy. He rubbed his eyes, lowering his head, as once more the threat of tears was forced down. In his short life, Jimmy had met only one man who had touched him deeply. Arutha should have been one of the last men in the world to care about the fate of a boy thief, but he had. He had proved a friend, and more. He and Anita had been the closest thing to family Jimmy had ever known.
A knock upon the door brought his head up and he saw Locklear standing before the entrance. Jimmy waved him in and the younger boy sat down on the other side of the writing desk. Jimmy tossed the parchment at him. “Here, Locky, you do this.”
Locklear quickly scanned the list, and took quill from holder. “It’s almost ready, except Paul is down with the flux and the chirurgeon wants him in bed for the day. He needs rest. This is a mess. I’d better recopy it.”
Jimmy nodded absently. Through the blanket of grey sorrow that wrapped his thoughts, an irritant was gently scratching. Something had been nagging at the corner of the young man’s mind for three days now. Everyone in the palace was still in shock at Arutha’s death, but there was an odd note here and there; every so often someone said or did something that was somehow discordant. Jimmy couldn’t put his finger on what that difference was, or even if it was important. With a mental shrug he pushed aside his worry. Different people reacted differently to tragedy. Some, like Volney and Gardan, threw themselves into their work. Others, like Carline, went off to cope with their grief in a private way. Duke Laurie was a lot like Jimmy. He just put his grief aside to be faced at some other time. Suddenly Jimmy understood one reason for his feeling of oddness about the palace. Laurie had been just about running the palace from the time Arutha lay stricken until three days ago. Now he was almost continuously absent.