The Romance of Eowain

Chapter Nineteen Scene Forty-Nine

        The merchant and the acolyte opened the doors to his little cell.

Through the door, he saw Eithne. Red-haired. Green-eyed. Fair-skinned and freckled. Her eyes grew round, and her shoulders relaxed. She chewed at her lower lip, then looked down and away to the left. Her coppery hair glinted in the candlelight as it fell upon her cheek.

The merchant's Foreigner had a hold on her arm. As he ushered her in, she shook him loose. Her eyes flashed anger at him, then at Eowain. "I do not appreciate being summoned." She sketched an insolent curtsy. "Your Grace." She lowered her eyebrows at him, planted her feet firmly on the stone floor.

"I wouldn't have summoned you if you'd been here."

Out in the hallways beyond his little cell, a tumult arose, as of people crying out in conflict. "I was... a little busy." she said. She glanced over her shoulder. The chords of her throat tensed.

"Too busy to come and tell me what you've decided?"

She turned back and jutted her chin at him. "Yes, maybe." Then she looked down and twisted at the three golden rings on her fingers. "You don't know what's been happening since we—"

"All I need to know is that you haven't yet answered my suit." He pushed himself up. The linen sheets of his bed slipped from his broad, bare chest.

"Didn't Medyr—?"

Abruptly, he tossed the leathern pouch to her. She caught it, puzzled over it. "What's this?"

"A promise fulfilled."

She opened the pouch. Revulsion crawled across her face. She looked up to meet his gaze.

"I swore you'd have the eyes from Cael the Viper's head. The men of Droma keep their word."

"Eowain, I—"

"After all I've been through for you, I'll hear it from your own mouth. Don't play coy with me any longer. Damn it, woman, I'll have your answer."

"After all you've been through—?" Her eyes widened.

Outrage rose in his heart. "Yes, in fact. After all that I've been through. After all my brother has been through. After all my people have been through, on your behalf, on the scant promise of 'maybe later.'" He levered himself up out of bed, drew himself up to his full height.

She scowled at him. "Listen to me, you oaf. This is not love, this ordering people about." She spat on the ground between them. "I see nothing but boastful pride here before me, not love."

"How dare you—?" He took a step toward her.

She stood her ground and fixed him with the icy stare of her green eyes. "How dare I? How dare you? Love doesn't dishonor others. Love isn't self-seeking, or easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs." She pointed a finger at him. "Yet all I see here is a hard mile of accounting."

"Lady, are there no limits to your stubborness?" Eowain pounded his fist against the granite block wall.

"Are there no limits to your damned foolishness?" She put her hands on her hips. "Was that supposed to frighten me, that punch? Am I supposed to cower now like some scullery wench?"

"Damn you, enough of this skirmishing. Let's have it, my lady." He spit in his palm and laid it open for her. "Clap hands and a bargain?"

She stared at his hand. Anger grew like storm-clouds in the greens of her eyes.

"If that's how you woo women in Droma, it is small wonder you find yourself in want of a bride." She curtsied with all due formality. Every line of it mocked him. "Your Grace."

She turned on her heel and walked out, past the obsequious merchant and the shame-faced acolyte.

Eowain stormed from the priestess's cell and shouted after her retreating back: "Who needs the love of such a woman?"

—33—

Look for the next installment in this Continuing Tale of The Matter of Manred: The Romance of Eowain.

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