Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [65]
He rose with her, and his visage softened somewhat as he studied her. “You are overwrought. Forgive me. I gave you too much to think about too soon.”
“I’m adaptable,” she assured him, wondering even as she spoke if perhaps she had finally come up against the edges of her flexibility.
“We will talk more in the morning. There are secrets known only to the descendants of Samular that you must hear. You must understand your family responsibilities.”
This time, Bronwyn could not hold back a small, grim smile. Until this moment, she had always been fond of irony. To Hronulf of Tyr, family responsibility apparently meant the continuation of the bloodline of Samular. Yet in doing his duty, he had left his family vulnerable.
She was not even the slightest bit tempted to point this out to her father. So vast was the gulf between them that Hronulf was unlikely to ever see this matter as she did. If she married well and produced sons to follow Tyr, he would be content. Nothing else she could do, nothing else she was, could possibly matter. In any way that truly counted, she was as alone now as she had been before she’d entered Thornhold.
Bronwyn reminded herself that she had never really expected to have a family. She had merely sought to learn about her past. If she could think of this meeting with her father as a means to that end, then maybe the ache in her chest would subside.
So she took the scroll Hronulf handed her and the small leather book that he bid her read in order to learn more of the family’s creed and purpose. Bronwyn still had a thousand questions, but the answers seemed finally within her grasp. The answers, that is, to all questions but one:
Why was the knowledge of her past, this fulfillment of her dreams, not nearly enough?
* * * * *
Elsewhere in Thornhold the dinner hour was ending and the Knights of Samular scattered, each to his preferred rest and ease. One aging paladin, once known throughout eastern Faerun as Randolar the Bear, made his way up a narrow stair to his chamber. He retrieved a book from his modest bedchamber, a fine tome brimming with exciting tales told with admirable brevity, and betook himself to an even smaller room-a tidy latrine set into the thick wall of the keep. There he ascended the throne of the common man and happily settled down to read.
So engrossed did he become in the tale that, at first, the muted curses seemed nothing but echoes of the vanquished villain’s ire. It came to him, slowly, that the voices were real, and that they were coming from the midden shoot below him. After a puzzled moment, Randolar realized that someone was climbing up the interior of the keep wall, an invader determined enough to risk the sort of unpleasant reception he had just received. It also occurred to him that since this was not the only privy in the keep, there might be other, similarly determined invaders.
The old paladin leaped to his feet and dragged in air to fuel a shout of alarm. Before he could utter a sound, the privy’s wooden seat flew up and slammed against the wall with furious force. Randolar spun just as the head and shoulders of a black-bearded man, grim-faced and covered with the leavings that coated the midden, emerged from the shoot.
Propping himself on one elbow, the invader lifted a small, loaded crossbow. His grimy finger jerked at the trigger. The bolt tore into Randolar’s chest, and he slid slowly down the wall onto the cold, stone floor. His last thought was deep mortification that a knight of Tyr should die so, his last alarm unsounded and his breeches tangled about his ankles.
* * * * *
On a hilltop not far away, Dag Zoreth stood on the watch-tower of a conquered outpost, his eyes fixed on the fortress. All was in readiness. His minions bad done well. Even Sir Gareth had delivered above expectations. According toDag’s scouts, a young woman had entered the fortress several hours ago. His reunion with his lost family promised to be more complex and fulfilling than he’d dared to hope.
And it would happen soon. By now, his advance soldiers should have