Part 26 (1/2)
He began to whistle a quiet tune, not waking the slumbering old man. Gossamyr could picture the soul shepherd sitting with a youngling on his knee, tending her curls. And the lightness returned.
She lifted one foot from the floor and pointed her toes, stretching out her muscles. Closing her eyes, she held out her right arm and tilted up her palm to wiggle her fingers.
”Feeling better?”
Stirred from her lull, Gossamyr reached for the aleberry wine. She swallowed back the wine and swiped her forearm across her lips. Lifting her right foot to fold across her left thigh, the brown wool rode up to her knees. She guessed her exposed legs were not seemly and stomped her foot back down.
Soft fingers strode along the surface of her scalp, following the wake of the comb. A prinkle fluttered along her neck. Ulrich weaved lovelocks into her hair. A mortal prince imprinting his favor with every twist of his fingers.
Would her future husband ever be so gentle? Could Desideriel open his heart to a wife that could never be what he wanted?
”So, Faery Not, tell me about your family. There is your father and mother. You left behind no... other? A... fee man you cared for?”
”Mayhap.”
Gossamyr again closed her eyes...
Three suns and three consecutive moons witnessed her heartbreak. Tears flowed from her eyes, trailing warm streams down her cheeks and into her clothing. When her fine arachnagoss gown had saturated, the bed linens took on the sad liquid.
When on the third day s.h.i.+nn finally entered his daughter's bedchamber, tears dripped from the bedframe and into a puddle upon the blue marble floor. No s.h.i.+mmer sparkled in the pool. When s.h.i.+nn's toe brushed the edge of the liquid a mournful cry echoed up from the floor.
Her tears flowed without effort; mayhap she could no longer stop them. She did not know; she did not care.
”Please, child of mine, cease your mournful tears.”
Gossamyr lowered her head and studied the pool that had begun to spill across the floor. So much then she had loved? Yes love, not the false love faeries know.
”I now know how you felt when Veridienne left,” she said.
”Nay, you do not.” s.h.i.+nn's weight settled beside her and Gossamyr allowed him to lift her hand into his.
”I loved h-him.”A choking sob pushed out a rapid purl of teardrops. ”You will never understand.”
”It is done. I...reacted,” s.h.i.+nn said. ”I should have first listened to you.”
”And then banish my lover?”
”Gossamyr.” He pressed his forehead to the back of her hand.
Tentatively Gossamyr touched her father's head, trailing a finger over the short horn and around it as she had done so many times when she was younger, curious and fanciful.
Fancy had been murdered three days earlier by her father's ruthless lack of regard. The attribute that had made him a lauded warrior and commander of the now-defunct Glamoursiege troops also made him a devastating foe to his own daughter's heart.
”We are both alone now,” she said finally, resolute in her courage.
Unwilling to forgive him, yet feeling in her heart the need to keep her family close, Gossamyr tilted s.h.i.+nn's face up to look at him. ”Perhaps love is not so favorable after all.”
”Gossamyr? Mon Dieu, I wager Faery Not did leave behind a lover. Oh, Gossamyr?”
She blinked out of her state and homed in on the singsong tone of Ulrich's voice. He stood close. ”Too close,” she said and stood up and pressed her combed hair from her eyes.
”You left a lover?” He tipped the comb to his lips in thought. A nod confirmed some knowledge she could not know. ”Mayhap that is what has hardened you so.”
”What mean you?”
”Well, you are a warrior. Emotionless. Set on your course and ready for fight.”
”One must dampen emotion to retain battle instincts.”
”I see. Yet, so young and pretty to become a warrior. Pity.” He patted the bench before him. ”Sit and allow me to braid your hair. Just one braid down the back, yes?”
His hand, flat on the bench, asked so much of her. To sit. To place herself in his hands. To trust.
”So long as 'tis out of my face, it is bone.” She did trust him, and so sat with her back to him, both legs to one side of the bench, as she deemed proper for a lady in a gown.
He started at the back of her head. ”Tell me of this abandoned lover.”
”He is-” swallowing at the sudden dryness at the back of her throat, Gossamyr pressed a palm along the cut on her jaw ”-the pin man.”
”What? You mean...”
”Yes, the man with the pins and the unnatural hair.”
”But-truly? He is a faery?”
”Yes. s.h.i.+nn found us together and banished him.”
”For having relations with his daughter?”
There was a hint of tease in his voice. That he should ask such a bold question! ”We were not...having relations. But close. s.h.i.+nn had refused Avenall's request to court me.”
”Why?”
”Because he is a Rougethorn.”
”Your father doesn't like Rougethorns?”
”It is like your Armagnacs and Burgundians. Of the same race but with differing beliefs. It is known they dabble in magic. After the Netherdreds, the Rougethorns are the most scorned tribe in Faery.”
”I see. And yet, you continued to see Avenall?”
”Of course! He did not dabble. Avenall had come to Glamoursiege with his family when he was very young. 'Twas merely a fact of his birthplace that my father claimed him unfit to court me. Such ignorance!”
Ulrich tugged gently on her half braid, bringing her eyes back to stare up at him. ”If you were my daughter I would have locked you up and tossed out the key.”
”I would have screamed.”
”Of course, s.h.i.+nn could not deny you a thing, my spoiled faery princess -and I mean that in the kindest manner. So, to remove his one sore spot s.h.i.+nn had no choice but to send away your lover.”
”My father claims not to believe in romantic love. But I do.”