Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [59]
Oddly enough, there appeared to be no women among the servants. That puzzled Bronwyn. After all, her very existence proved that the Knights of Samular was not a celibate order.
She was tempted to ask her guide about this but upon second consideration decided that he was not the confiding sort. When told to take Bronwyn to the fortress commander, he had responded with folded lips and a curt bow. He had bid her to follow him and then turned away. Not a word had he spoken since, and Bronwyn had seen frowning faces less eloquent than the stiff lines of his back and shoulders. Not the confiding sort at all. She hoped that her father would be more approachable. At this point, though, and for no reason that she could express or explain, Bronwyn felt unwilling to place many coins on that bet.
Her guide led her through the bailey and to one of the towers. They climbed a broad stone staircase. Near the top, her escort stopped before a door fashioned of stout oak planks banded with iron.
“This is Hronulf’s chamber. He should be finished with his devotions by now.” With that, the paladin turned and left Bronwyn alone in the hall.
This was it. She had waited for this moment for over twenty years-longed for it, worked for it. Suddenly she felt strangely reluctant to proceed. Muttering an imprecation, she lifted a hand and knocked.
Almost at once, the door swung open. A tall man, taller than Bronwyn by at least a head, stood in the portal. Although he was of an age when most men would be accounted elderly, he was still in fine trim, and he stood with the balanced poise of a warrior. Broad shoulders and powerful arms declared his prowess with the sword that hung at his hip, and he wore a tabard of white linen emblazoned in blue with the symbol of Tyr-a balanced scale, set upon the head of an upright warhammer. His hair was thick and iron gray, as were his mustache and neatly trimmed beard. Keen silver-gray eyes peered kindly at her from a ruddy, comely visage that wore its years exceedingly well.
Before Bronwyn could speak, the color drained from the paladin’s face. He sagged and grasped the door lintel. Instinctively, Bronwyn reached out to steady him, but he quickly recovered himself, shaking off the moment of shock.
“Forgive me, child. For a moment you reminded me of someone I once knew.”
“Who?” she asked. The word spilled out before she had time to consider.
“My wife,” he said simply.
My mother, she thought.
The silence stretched between them as the paladin waited courteously for her to state her business. But Bronwyn’s facile speech utterly deserted her. Finally the paladin spoke. “Surely, you did not come to listen to an old man’s tales of the past. How may I help you, child?”
Bronwyn took a long breath. “Sir, I came from Waterdeep to speak with you. I have gone over what I wished to say many times in my mind, but that didn’t seem to help. I don’t know quite how to tell you…”
“Simple words are best,” he said. “A straight arrow flies truest.”
The words stirred a memory in some distant corner of her mind. She had heard them before, and others like them. “I was raised in Amn as a slave, taken there when I was very young. I do not remember my age, or my village, or even my family’s names. All that I carried with me was my given name and a small birthmark on my lower back that looks a bit like a red oak leaf. My name is Bronwyn.”
The paladin turned so pale that for a moment Bronwyn thought he might collapse. She gently, but firmly pushed him back into the room and into a chair.
He gazed up at her for a long moment, his expression utterly incomprehensible. It occurred to Bronwyn that he might be testing her, as the guard at the fortress gate had done-the man who had found “no real evil” in her. Bronwyn decided that she could not bear and would not abide another such grudging acceptance.
Her chin came up and her shoulders squared.