Continued from Manhandled, Folly and Fury, Sword and Stone, Black Ice, Deep Thoughts, The Speech, Expectations, Leaving All Sadness Behind
Lord Anglachelm sat down upon the wooden chair beside the fire. It groaned and creaked under the weight of his heavy armour.
“What a poorly crafted chair!” Parnard observed sprightly. “It was not built to seat such a grand and ponderous king, and does not know how lucky it is; it should not complain!”
“I am no king,” replied Lord Anglachelm.
“Kings, or kingly folk: these are all one and the same to a lowly, simple chair,” said Parnard, making a deep flourishing bow before his lord. Behind him, Rainith grimaced at his obsequiousness.
Lord Anglachelm studied the fawning Wood-Elf over the rim of his wine goblet. “So, you have returned to us, and the Valley, at long last! Just what do you have to say for yourself, sir? I would hear your tale.”
Parnard glibly spoke of his travels in the land of Men, and his failure to persuade them from evil, and how he had gotten lost and confused in the mountains upon his way back, and when Lord Veryacano and his Hammers discovered him in the snow.
Anglachelm held up his hand. “Enough. I have heard this part of your tale elsewhere: Lord Veryacano told me the rest. And now, you must be judged for leaving the Valley without permission, and for your other deeds.”
Parnard felt a trembling inside and his breath choked within his chest. He threw himself flat on his face before the Tûr of his household and begged forgiveness, and pleaded not to be sent away.
“My lord,” Rainith spoke up, “Parnard is ignorant of our ways, and suffered terribly while he was with the Hammers. His talents should not be wasted under Lord Veryacano’s scorn.”
“Indeed, they will not,” Lord Anglachelm said. Parnard remained on the floor, but dared to lift his eyes up and meet his lordship’s gaze. Lord Anglachelm was again treating him as if he were a looking-glass; his eyes looked not upon him, but at a great distance beyond. “I received your letters, sir. Very prettily written they were. You remind me of someone I used to know, long, long ago, in the white city of the seven fountains,” Anglachelm said mysteriously, and fell into a brooding silence.
“Who? Who, my lord?” Parnard cried, wondering if this person might have been the traitor Maeglin, son of the Dark Elf Eöl.
“How beautiful it was before it fell!” Anglachelm continued, as if he had not heard Parnard’s question at all. “There even the singers and wordsmiths took up arms against the Darkness, before it destroyed everything.” Lord Anglachelm frowned, then seemed to recollect where he was. He fixed his steady gaze upon Parnard. “I am an Elf of Law, sir, and I should reward your deeds and bravery.”
Rainith muttered something inaudible.
“Henceforth, you will report to the Lady Miste of the Order of the Harp,” commanded Lord Anglachelm.
“The Order of the Harp!” Parnard said, greatly dismayed. “Oh, no, no, no, my lord, do not place me in that House! I cannot play any instrument, or dance, and some ill-natured folk have likened my singing voice to a raven’s raucous call, but there may be something in it, or they would not have closed their windows. O venerable and beneficent lord, I beg to be allowed to serve you instead!”
Lord Anglachelm looked surprised. “Serve - me - ?”
“Yes, mighty and generous one! I will do for my lordship all I can! I can do a hundred thousand useful things: organize his papers, tidy his rooms, serve his refreshment: Daegond the Hound waits upon Lord Veryacano, and serves that dread lord’s tea, yet my lordship has no one to pour out wine for him. It is not right nor just.”
“You have it all wrong, sir,” Anglachelm stated matter-of-factly. “I am the greatest slave of the House of Vanimar.”
“Yet even a slave has need of a slave, my lord,” persisted Parnard, not understanding him one whit, and gave Anglachelm a timid, imploring glance from underneath his dark eyelashes.
“Nay, sir! I can pour out my own wine,” Anglachelm said, lifting up his blood-soaked gloves, “at least, until my hands fall off.”
Parnard grew alarmed, and was about to suggest that he might wish to have a healer look at this injury, and bind it up, but Lord Anglachelm spoke again.
“I have it!” exclaimed Lord Anglachelm. “A perfect solution! You will serve Caun Rainith here.”
“Me?” Rainith cried out.
“Rainith?” cried out Parnard, stunned and disappointed.
Lord Anglachelm rose to his feet, and on his way out of the Hall of Fire, spoke briefly with Rainith in low tones. Parnard strained his keen ears to listen, and heard the word “education,” but nothing else. Then the lord of the house of Vanimar strode out without giving him another word or look.
I had hoped he would do me a greater kindness, Parnard thought, sighing to himself, but I must have a little patience. I will rise in my lordship’s favour, and persuade him to make a better use for me, and then he allow me to serve him personally. But in the meantime, I will do Rainith all the good jobs I can.
