Eaworth
“What ails you child?”
Taala looked up with a start, not expecting anyone to have found her sitting behind the mead hall. “Ails me?”
“Aye, little one, of late I have oft seen you alone, staring at that trinket in your hand”.
Taala looked down at the locket in her hand, the chain wrapped about her hand and entwined in between her slender fingers. After a time she raised her eyes towards the rugged, weather beaten man stood before her, his once straw coloured hair and beard now peppered with grey.
“Celeod... did you not once say to me that our greatest weakness lies in giving up, and the most certain way to succeed is always, to try... just one more time?”
The aged man's eyes crinkled in the corners. “When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place”.
Celeod sat down next to her and held out his hand inviting her to drop the locket into the palm of his hand. Taala hesitated, then reluctantly dropped the locket into his outstretched hand.
“If I were to open this trinket that you grasp and treasure so dearly, what would I find within it?”
Taala snatched the locket from his grasp “Do not open it Celeod, or the wind may steal what lies within and it will be forever lost to me”.
Celeod smiles “Captain, Taala, I am your Captain...but you have not yet answered my question”
Taala swallowed a lump in her throat. “A lock of hair, Cel..Captain, naught more than a lock of hair”.
“Aha, you have found a suitor?” Celeod's look of amusement betrayed his attempt at sincerity. “I know you better than to believe you have settled with any of the men here, even though they hold you dear to their hearts”.
Celeod held her in his gaze, his expression as gentle as his voice “You still long for him, don't you child? From the moment they tore him from your arms, you have ached to embrace him again, have you not?”
Taala nodded weakly. She opened the locket ever so slightly, taking great care to shield it from the breeze. “Save for the kindness of a wet nurse, I would have naught of Tagens”.
Celeod placed his hand on her shoulder “You have served as well as any rider in the Éored despite the circumstances of you being here”. “You were sent to us sullied, shamed, your belly swollen with child... but you will leave us with honour”. “I judge thee not by your misdemeanour’s of the past, but how you have atoned for them”. “I am proud to have known you, proud to have had you in my command, and the men have been proud to have fought alongside of you”
Taala clicked the locket shut and fastened the clasp about her neck “Is it your counsel that I should ride to Snowbourn and be reconciled with my son?”.
“It is my counsel that you should do what your heart compels you to do Taala”.
“But what if they deny me?”
Celeod squeezed her shoulder “A bend in the road is not the end of the road...unless you fail to make the turn, a path without obstacles, is unlikely to lead anywhere...”
Snowbourn
“Mother?”
“It is settled Taala!”
The two men who had taken her captive followed her mother, Esther into the room that had been locked and carefully guarded. Her attempt to snatch her son Tagen the day before, had been thwarted.
Esther's tone was somewhat stiff, yet forced. She placed a purse, heavy with coin in her hand and closed her fingers around it. “Safe passage to Bree has been arranged, you will leave by wagon and join a caravan in a day or so”. She handed Taala a sealed envelope “You are to give this to your your father, Hardoleth, he should not be too difficult to find”.
Taala protested “You have not told me much of this man, the one you finally admitted to being my father, what if he dismisses me...what if he does not want me?”
Esther held up her hand in front of Taala's face dismissively. “Kiss me upon my cheek and bid me goodbye daughter, it is uncertain that we shall ever meet again, but you must never come back here”.
Taala brushed her mothers hand aside and turned away from her. “Do not be afraid daughter...”
“I'm not...”
Esther nodded to the two men standing by the door and did not speak again.
The men each took an arm and dragged Taala to the gate by the mead hall where a wagon was waiting.
“Hold her”
She did not feel the blade the first time it entered her abdomen, but she felt the chill of the blade the second time it did. She looked into the face of the man before her in disbelief.
His yellow teeth formed the shape of a cruel sneer “And herein ends your line of bastards...”
