Ed Greenwood: Swords of Eveningstar

Not that he talked much. “Silent,” they called him in Espar, and there were farmers who scarce knew the rest of them existed, yet respected “Young Silent” as a man among men, a bright hope for the years ahead, a man who’d lead and give wise counsel and end up an elder, a rock to stand against the storms.

Jhess sighed again, rolling over to clutch her coverlet against herself. She was a little in love with Florin, she thought, and a lot in awe of him. Tall, handsome-and there was something about his looks, his keen glances, that drew the eye.

The eyes of every lass, more like. She’d seen them watching him, just as she watched him. Florin came into her mind whenever she heard minstrels singing of heroes. Quiet of manner, never a swaggerer, but firm. And kind. And understanding. And probably not for her, ever, no matter how deeply she might long for it.

But did she? It was enough to call him true friend. Yes. No woman can ever have enough true friends.

She could see him now, standing in the Stronghold, saying firmly, “We must do what is right-and be very sure as to what ‘right’ is.” It was one of his favorite sayings. Purple Dragons must revere the king as she-as they all-revered Florin. A man you’d follow to your doom, knowing it, because he’d ordered it, and you wanted his respect more than anything else.

Jhessail looked at the moon again, Florin’s face suddenly gone, and asked it in a whisper, “And what will happen, if the king-if Florin-ever comes to know what power they hold over us? And ask us to follow? What then?”

In answer, the moon stared unblinkingly back at her, as silent as always.

Nobles Have A Certain Spice minstrels’ ballad, first popular in

The Year of Silent Steel

The world wafted back to her on woodsmoke. Sharp and thick, from a fire that was snapping a little… sloth of sleeping dragons, would she never find capable servants? Oh, but Khalandra was being unforgivably careless this morning! No bedchamber fire should ever snap like that, spitting sparks on what could be a priceless Athkatlan rug! Why, the room’d be ablaze in a breath or two, if Someone touched her feet, gently. The light, deft handling made pain stab through her, jolting the Lady Narantha Crownsilver rudely awake.

She blinked up at green leaves blazing emerald in bright morning sunlight, and a blue and cloudless sky above them, over her head. Where by all the watching gods-?

In a wild forest somewhere, it seemed, but how…?

A forest stream was chuckling softly past, somewhere beyond her pain-wracked feet, the smoke she’d smelled was wafting from a small fire yonder, mingled now with smells of cooking meat and fish, and-and one of the most handsome young men she’d ever seen was washing and bandaging her feet.

Her bare, scratched, and cut feet!

In a sudden rush the night came back to her: the fear, the horrible growls, her frantic flight into menacing darkness, crashings close behind her, being cruelly bound and carried, blindfolded as men lugged her like a sack, pawing her-she was unbound now, thank the Dragon! — and some sort of fight around her in the dark, between outlaws and the king’s men…

Outlaws would be cruel, murderous rapists, unshaven and filthy, hardly likely to wash anyone’s feet. Nor would they untie a captive.

So this man had probably rescued her, and must serve the king. Or did he?

He’d not looked up at her, though her sudden fast and hard breathing as she remembered it all must have told him she was awake. The Lady Narantha raised herself on one elbow, suddenly acutely aware that she was wearing only her crumpled and torn, once-splendid nightrobe, and a strange man was kneeling at her feet, where he could see more than enough of her!

Fear and fury surged in Narantha, and she wanted to kick him and shriek at him for being the lustful villain that he was… but he wasn’t done binding her feet yet, and… gods, yes, her back was aching. Oooh. Worse, she was beginning to feel bruises and stiffnesses all over herself. Gods above, she probably couldn’t even stand without his help.

Narantha clenched her fists until she felt the sharp twinges of her own nails digging into her palms, and choked down the furious words she’d been about to spit. She needed this peasant, whoever he was, just to find her way back to a road and some Purple Dragons to escort her to Lord Hezom-that thrice-cursed, stinking backwoods lowlife that Father had for some insane reason decided she needed to be tutored by! Why, the only tutoring she’d allow A particularly strong stab of pain brought her attention back to the here and now. Wincing, Narantha looked around.

She was lying on a fern-cloaked sandbar beside a forest stream. A snared-she sniffed; yes, rabbit and two river brownfin; those were smells she knew-were roasting on arched-over saplings, tied just above a small fire that had been lit on a bare rock.

Beside the fire lay the largest leaf she’d ever seen, heaped with fresh-picked buds of some sort that small brown birds were swooping and darting at. The man at her feet was shooing them away with long sweeps of one brown-tanned hand, without seeming to even look their way. A long white scar cut across the palm of that hand.

He wore dusty, dirt-smeared leather armor-foresters’ garb-yet looked like a king. Not like a blood-son of King Azoun, Narantha told herself hastily. Rather, he had the same quietly commanding manner and air of alert intelligence as Duke Bhereu or Baron Thomdor… or the king himself.

Then he looked up at her, this dirt-smudged stranger, and Narantha was lost.

Fearless yet friendly blue-gray eyes gazed at her out of a square-jawed, quietly regal face-that split suddenly with a warm, welcoming, kindly smile.

A smile, somehow, that she wanted to earn again and again. Her heart started to beat faster.

“Well met, Lady Fair,” he said quietly. “I am Florin Falconhand, son of Hethcanter and Imsra of that name, of Espar.”

He looked aside, and made a swift lunge that sent a bird whirring away with a bud falling from its beak. Deftly he caught the little green orb out of the air, and put it back on the leaf. “Forgive me,” he added, “but the wood-riskins are intent upon stealing our morningfeast.”

“Where’s Delbossan?” she blurted. “And where am I?”

Florin looked back at her and spread his hands. “As to your first, I know not, though if you mean the Master Delbossan who is Horsemaster to Hezom, Lord of Espar, I know him. As well as any Esparran does; Espar is not so large a place. A good man. As to your second: here. In the forest. The King’s Forest, to tell larger truth, hard by the stream called the Dathyl.”

“Wherever that is,” she snorted. “The King’s Forest covers half the kingdom!”

“So it does,” he agreed with a smile, reaching out one hand as swift as a striking snake to grasp a diving riskin, turn, and throw it out over the stream. The bird chirped shrilly, obviously astonished to find itself no longer racing at a tempting heap of buds, but headed in quite a different direction.

Florin gave it a bright chirp in return, and it answered him, sounding almost rueful, as it vanished across the Dathyl into a dark stand of trees.

Narantha stared at him. Could he speak with birds? Or was he crazed-headed, and Then this Esparran forester brought the same hand that had just caught a bird-the same unwashed hand-down on her own ankle. “You’re fair cut up, and no doubting,” he said, and shifted aside on his haunches, as graceful as any dancer, to reach behind himself and pluck something from a pack.