(This story follows from A Deadly Dance of Fire and Smoke by Waelden )
He turned to embrace me, tears in his eyes as I could see the shock was already wearing off. He drew me close, covered in soot and ash though we both were, and held me like he would never let me go. Most willingly I welcomed him, as I would welcome a rope to cling to were I hanging down a cliff face. I wrapped my arms around his neck in turn. In that moment I hoped his embrace would last forever.
We were standing in front of a lit fireplace, in a sparsely furnished upper room belonging to one Northgyth of the village of Bancross. It was a roof over our heads, and a kindly offered one at that from a woman who owed us nothing. She had seen the state of us from her doorstep when I had knocked, three filthy, shattered folk, with four horses, a variety of animals and a loaded wagon. She had taken pity on us, hearing of our plight. ‘Poor lambs’ she had uttered, on seeing Ethel, and ushered us in with talk of a meal, and refusing to mention payment. She had placed our terrified cats and the young goat in her barn overnight. Our horses had been watered, fed and stabled by her and her servant, Ymma.
So here we were, in a clean and warm room, with a fire, a rug and a bed, upon which Ethel now slept, with Herne by her feet. We were homeless.
There were barely retained tears in my own eyes, my heart was still beating a fast marching song of its own and seemed unlikely to slow. “We have to be strong for Ethel, my love…” I whispered to him, so as not to wake her.
His hold remained tight, close. We were finally as one again, drawing strength and comfort from each other in the face of what had befallen our family. He kissed my head, my soot and smoke embodied hair, and started slowly stroking my back in an attempt to soothe me.
“I know, we could both have died today,” he whispered in turn, “But we didn’t. We have to stay strong.”
But the numbness was wearing off on me too. Waves of strong emotions coursed through my body, and at the heart of them, one thing, ‘I thought I would lose you both,” I part sobbed. And I reached up to try and wipe some of that cursed soot from his face, only making things worse as I smeared it with his tears and mine. For the briefest instant I grinned at him.
“I thought the same, you know.” he nudged me with his nose, and I kissed it, tasting the soot again on my lips but not caring.
“I can’t… I won’t even think about losing the farm at the moment because to lose you or Ethel would have been more than I could bear.”
He kissed my forehead, not caring either about the taste, the smell of burning wood. And I clung to him for a few moments more, to reassure myself he was really there, that Ethel was really asleep on the bed.
“Your farm, your home….our home’ he spoke sadly, his head lowered. ‘I am so sorry.”
“You are sorry? “ I pushed back against his chest a little so I could look him in the eye. No, I would not have him blame himself in any way for this. “Oh my love, why would you think that?”
He looked across the room to Ethel, who appeared to be in a deep sleep, then drew me back again, burying his face in my hair. “ I don’t know….for everything...for not getting you both out sooner...I don’t know.”
My heart ached at his words. He was blaming himself for failing us where in truth he had done all he could. I reached up a hand to run my fingers through his thinning grey hair. I loved him so much.
“You did all anyone could have done.” I whispered gently, seeing in my mind him hurling himself and swinging that axe time and again at the door, only to be greeted with impassable flames, and then seeing him grab Ethel and nigh throw her through the opening he had made in the window of her room. “You did everything you could to save us. Never think otherwise….and so did Ethel, and Herne trying to drag her out of bed and barking the alarm.”
“You did good, love” he replied, smiling faintly as he returned my gesture of affection by running his fingers through my hair.
“We all did good. But we were pitted against an evil-heart that knows only it’s own will and search for pleasure, no matter how cruel.” I felt a change in him, not a distancing, no, not that, but the old warrior in him would not let this rest now. Not after the fear and despair he had seen in Ethel’s eyes once again. Not after believing we would all burn to death.
“Yes, the blackest of hearts and minds...but we’ll get him and I will make him eat his own black heart before he dies.” There was a rarely seen fiery anger in Waelden’s eyes as he spoke.
“I just want him dead, Greybeard, so he cannot harm us or others anymore.”
I could feel the anger through my fingertips as I started to lightly stroke his cheek, his neck..slowly...calming… Any revenge needed to be planned with cool and clear thought. Waelden knew that. He hadn’t lived as long without understanding there was little place for rage in a fight.
“Bancross is a quiet village.” I continued. “Few folk pass through. If we lay low, keep out of Edoras….if the soldiers say nothing, the Dunlending may think he succeeded in killing us. That gives us an advantage.” I also continued the gentle caressing of his face, slow… drawing out the heat of anger as much as I could. He closed his eyes, his breathing settled.
“The Riders won't speak much. They do their duty, what they can. I think we are safe, for now.”
“When we are rested and ready, I will find him, and you will kill him. We keep Ethel out of this, aye?” I stated as fact, in a low voice.
He took my hand then, halting my soothing, though I think it had already had effect, then he covered it with his own, pressing both against his cheek.
“Aye, we do this together. Tell me what Isa needs, and I will give her whatever she wants.”
I smiled. He knew what to say, he knew the wolf in me, but he understandably found it hard to fully comprehend. “She needs danger, my love, to come to the fore, she needs strong emotions as we have already found,” I kissed him on the lips to remind him. “But I am learning to work with her now. She will track him because he tried to slay me, and my mate and our cub. What I will need is a quiet place, and this…”
I drew a small object from my pocket, one I had found entangled in a bush outside our burning home….a fancy beard decoration. “He was in a hurry to leave’ said I.
“No man of Rohan would wear something like that,” Waelden observed. “And it’s worth a try if we are to keep this between us, though I must also consider scouts of a more ‘usual’ kind’ if we chose that path. But not just yet, aye?. We all need to rest a little, to get back on our feet.”
“What I ask, if we do use the wolf, is that you stay by my side, in case I get lost.”
He smiled. Had he not often threatened to put me on a leading rein or leash when we rode, because of my wandering habits getting me ‘lost’. “You know I will, dear,” he said.
And that was it for the night. We lay on the carpet, as close together as we could, listening to Ethel’s breathing and Herne’s snoring until exhaustion finally claimed us.
I had lost my home...our home. It was the place I had been born in, grown almost to womanhood in. It held dear memories of my parents and grandparents. It was our hope for a future of bright days. And it was gone, burnt beyond restoration. There was no going back.
But I also knew that what I had first experienced at Faldham was true. Before we were even together I had looked at him and thought ‘Home’, he is my home. I had hardly known him then, but my instinct had been right. And again, but a short time ago in Floodwend, when I had made that sudden pledge, that ‘foolish’ oath to Radwig, (whom I admired), it had been my way of giving my oath to Waelden, though I don’t think he understood. Where he went was my chosen home, and Ethel’s too.
“While you live, I shall never be homeless my love.”
