Over fifteen years before the cousins met at Helm's Deep once more ...
He had found her house for the first time on a summer night many years ago. He had been doubled over by the doorframe, white hands trembling; she hardly recognized him at first.
“What happened to you?” Before he could answer, she spun on her heel and shut the door to the back room behind her. “So my child does not hear,” she whispered, watching him nod weakly. When he didn’t reply, she stepped closer, sweeping his hair away from his face with a flick of her hand. “Are you ill, Elfwyrd? Let me see you.”
Heaving breathlessly, Alweard raised his head with great effort. “Are the rumors true? The old soothsayer—did she teach you anything?”
A wry retort lingered on her tongue, ready to slip free, but she forgot the temptation when he fell forward into her arms. “She did.” Dragging him over to a chair, she propped him up like a ragdoll. “Sit. You may stay, but be quiet; my child is sleeping.”
He wrapped his arms around his waist. “I’ll try to retch quietly, then.”
“Did they not teach you manners in Grimslade?” She rolled her eyes, tucking a stray wisp of hair back into the knot of braids that sat at the nape of her neck. “Your impertinence will be the death of you.” Yet when she turned and saw his face gray in the firelight, the air between them chilled and the hardness melted away from her expression. “So this is more than mere ale-sickness. You truly need my help.”
“I do. As much as my pride forbids me from admitting it.” When he peered up towards her, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the shining mirror of her brooches. Deep shadows grew beneath his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. Yet to him, his countenance looked younger for his present frailty, softened by fear and idleness. He knew he must look to her like a beardless waif of a boy playing in a soldier’s hauberk. “I must return to the Hornburg soon; I cannot make a coward of myself.”
At first, she answered him with no more than the sigh of a woman much older than herself. Then she stepped over toward the far side of the room, where her shelves were lined with jars. She poured a handful of seeds into her mortar. “Are you convinced, cousin? Is this what you want?” Reaching up to the bundles of herbs that hung over her head, she plucked a bluish leaf and then another, crushing them both with her pestle. A withered umbel was next; she ground it until they could both hear the seeds rasping against each other. “Many of these cures could poison you if you take them recklessly. You look weak; if I try to help you, will you die?”
Alweard leaned forward in his seat and clutched at her cloak. “Please, Alruna. Let me be cured and I will be no deserter. I will return to Helm’s Deep as an honest man.” As he begged, his voice broke like shattering glass. “I have wanted nothing more in my whole life.”
Alruna’s mouth drew into a tight line. “Then stay strong, cousin; do not make a kinslayer of me.” Then her voice became a whisper, sharp with haste. “What will the villagers think if they see me burying a boy in my garden?” She scraped the paste of herbs into a small bowl and passed it to him.
Shuddering with relief, Alweard took the bitter potion without even the tiniest whine of disgust. Day bled into hazy night and night bled into day.
