R. Salvatore - The Sword of Bedwyr

What might have been had the parents of a king not met? What might have been had a hero been cut down in his or her youth by an arrow that whizzed harmlessly past, cracking the air barely an inch away? Often does the simplest chance affect the history of nations, and so it was that August night, when Luthien walked out of House Bedwyr to the stables, where he found Ethan readying a horse, saddlebags stuffed with provisions.

Luthien moved near his brother, eyeing him curiously, letting his expression ask the obvious question.

“I have been sent away,” Ethan answered.

Luthien seemed not to understand.

“I am to go to the south,” Ethan went on, spitting out every word with disgust, “to travel with the king’s soldiers who would go into Gascony and fight beside the Gascons in their war with the Kingdom of Duree.”

“A noble cause,” replied Luthien, too overwhelmed to consider his words.

“A mercenary cause,” Ethan snarled back. “A mercenary cause for an unlawful king.”

“Then why go?”

Ethan stopped tightening the saddlebags and turned an incredulous look upon his naive little brother. Luthien just shrugged, still not catching on.

“Because the eorl of Bedwydrin has ordered me to go.” Ethan spelled it out plainly and went back to his work.

It made no sense to Luthien, and so he did not reply, did not even blink.

“It will bring honor to our family and to all Bedwydrin, so said Gahris,” Ethan went on.

Luthien studied his brother carefully, at first jealous that Gahris had chosen Ethan for the campaign over him. “Would not Blind-Striker serve you better if you go for the honor of House Bedwyr?” he asked, noticing the unremarkable weapon sheathed on Ethan’s belt.

Again came that disbelieving, condescending look. “Can you be so incredibly blind to the world?” Ethan asked, and he got his answer when Luthien winced.

“Gahris sends me,” the elder son went on, “following the whispered suggestions of Aubrey. Gahris sends me to die.”

The casual way Ethan spoke struck Luthien more than the words. He grabbed Ethan roughly by the shoulder and spun him away from his horse, forcing his brother to face him squarely.

“I am not his choice for the succession,” Ethan spat out, and Luthien, remembering his earlier conversation with his father, could not disagree. “But the rules are clear. I am the eldest son, thus I am next in line as eorl of Bedwydrin.”

“I do not challenge your right,” Luthien replied, still missing the point.

“But Gahris does,” Ethan explained. “And my reputation of disloyalty has gone beyond Bedwydrin, it would seem.”

“So Gahris will send you out with the army to win glory and restore your reputation,” Luthien reasoned, though he suspected his line of thought was still traveling the wrong direction.

“So Gahris has sent me out to die,” Ethan reiterated firmly. “I am a problem to him—even Aubrey has heard of me and understands the difficulties of my potential ascension. Perhaps it is my arrogance, but I do not think Morkney’s cousin’s only purpose in coming to Bedwydrin was sport.”

“You think Aubrey braved the breakers of the Dorsal, came all the way to Bedwydrin, merely to have you sent away?”

“Beyond that, my young brother,” Ethan said, and for the first time, a ring of sympathy was evident in his harsh tones. “My young brother, who has never known freedom, who has lived all his life under the rule of Carlisle and Montfort.”

Luthien crinkled his brow, now thoroughly confused.

“Aubrey toured the northern islands,” Ethan explained. “Caryth, Marvis, Bedwydrin, even the Diamondgate on his return trip, to ensure that all was as it should be in the northland, to help secure Morkney’s tethers. Politicians do not take ‘holidays.’ Ever they work, living to work, to heighten their power. That is their way and their lifeblood. Aubrey came to Bedwydrin in part to deal with me, and also because the duke has no eyes out here. That has been remedied.” His work on the mount done, Ethan swung up into the saddle.

“You will have a new mother, Luthien,” he went on. “Treat her with respect and fear.” He started to walk the horse away, but Luthien, flustered and outraged, grabbed the bridle and held the beast in check.

“One who is known to you,” Ethan went on. “One whose pennant you once carried into battle.”

Luthien’s eyes widened in shock. Avonese? This could not be true! “Never!” he protested.

“On Sunday’s morn,” Ethan assured him. “The duke has forced Gahris’s hand,” he explained. “Lady Avonese remains, the perfect spy, to wed Gahris. It is bait, you see, for the fall of the House of Bedwyr. Gahris will bend to the events, or Morkney will have the excuse he desires and will bid Greensparrow to fill the harbor with black sails.”

“How can you leave?” Luthien cried out helplessly as all of his sheltered world appeared to be falling down around him.

“How can I stay?” Ethan corrected calmly. “Gahris has given his command.” Ethan paused and stared hard at his brother, his intensity offering a calming effect to the excited young man.

“You know little beyond Bedwydrin,” Ethan said sincerely. “You have not seen the eyes of the poor children starving in Montfort’s streets. You have not seen the farmers, broken in spirit and wealth by demanded taxes. You have not seen the helpless rage of a man whose daughter was taken from him to ‘serve’ in the house of a noble, or heard the cries of a mother whose child has died in her arms for lack of food.”

Luthien’s grip on Ethan’s saddle loosened.

“I do not accept the world as it is,” Ethan went on. “I only know how it should be. And our father, lackey to an unlawful king, has not the strength nor the courage to stand up and agree with me.”

Ethan recognized that his blunt accounting was finally beginning to sink into Luthien’s naive skull. If he had hit Luthien with a dwarvish maul, he could not have stunned the man any more. Beyond all their differences, Ethan loved and pitied his brother, who had never known life before Greensparrow, the king who had subtly stolen away true freedom.

“Farewell, my brother,” Ethan said solemnly. “You are all of my family that I will miss. Keep your eyes to the window and your ears to the door, and above all, beware the Lady Avonese!” A kick of his heels sent his horse leaping away, leaving the perplexed Luthien alone in the yard with his unsettling thoughts.

Luthien did not sleep that night and wandered the grounds alone all the next day, not even harking to a call from Katerin, who saw him from across a field. Again the next night, he did not sleep, thinking of Ethan, of Garth Rogar, of this new view of Gahris.

Most of all, Luthien thought of confronting his father, of calling Gahris out on the accusations Ethan had boldly made. What might the other side of that tale be? he wondered.

But it was a false hope. Ethan’s few words had opened Luthien’s young eyes, and he did not believe that he could ever close them again.

And so, in the morning of the next day, he went to see Gahris, not to seek any explanation but to put in his own thoughts, to express his anger over the tragedy in the arena and the fact that this Avonese creature was apparently intended to become his mother.

He smiled when he considered how much like Ethan he would sound and wondered if his father would send him away to fight in a distant war, as well.

He entered the study without even knocking, only to find the room empty. Gahris had already left on his morning ride. Luthien started to leave, thinking to go down to the stables and take a horse of his own and ride off in pursuit of the man. He changed his mind almost immediately, though, realizing that Avonese might be riding beside his father, and the last thing in all the world that Luthien wanted was to see that woman.