To Marry a Dragon

15. Raul the Earless

Elvira squinted instinctively when Sigvart commanded her to stop and tugged the blindfold from her eyes, but the light was dim.

She stood in a cavern crowded by at least two dozen ruffians, men and women both; assorted furniture and blankets, crates and barrels, jugs and baskets; and enough weapons to arm a legion. Candles wept wax onto bronze platters and larger fires burned in the pits providing more warmth and smoke than light.

Somewhere high in the cavern's ceiling there must have been shafts, because the smoke went up and out instead of suffocating the gathering.

As her eyes adjusted, Elvira realized that the hands capable of wielding tools expanded the cavern: the floor was smoothed, the far corners of the cave were enlarged, leaving rough-hewn columns for support, and endless shelves ran along the curving walls.

Since the blindfold only deprived her of sight, Elvira heard a musician plucking the lute's strings before they stopped climbing the staircase. It was no tune she had heard before, a tune that was still looking to become a song. The music stumbled sometimes, changed its pace, pieces got rearranged to fit better.

The lute player seemed absorbed in his composition, and Elvira had no choice but to wait it out. She studied the bard at her leisure.

The right side of his head and neck, as low as the wide-spread collar of his loose shirt let on, was a wrinkled, purplish mass of a healed injury. That old burn or disease also took his ear. The scar tissue contrasted with his undamaged skin. It was oak-brown shade, with dapples where whatever disfigured him didn't eat through flesh.

On the left of the bard's head, chestnut curls lay flat over where the second ear should have jutted out.

He was lean, wide at the shoulders, with well turned out calves in hunting leggings and short boots. His fingers had a stronger grip than the throat of the lute required. It was hard to tell with him being seated, but she thought he was shorter than the lanky Sigvart. Then again, Sigvart was at least a hand taller than most men.

There could be no mistake: before her sat Raul.

"Welcome, Princess." Raul leaned his lute to the side of his gilded armchair. His hands came to rest in his lap, fingers braided.

"I am a knight," Elvira said at the same time as Sigvart said, "She is a knight now."

"Aha," Raul acknowledged. "Thousand pardons. She came alone?"

The last question was addressed to Sigvart, but Elvira answered anyway, "I came alone."

Naturally, this resulted in their words overlapping, when Sigvart said, "Yes, Raul," again.

Raul made an amused sound, too soft to be an 'aha'. "In this case, why did you risk life and limb to seek me out, Dame Elvira?"

His voice was so pleasant that she wished he had been singing to that tune when she had entered.

It had a wonderfully soothing effect on her nerves. Why was she so worried about being here? The man suffered a terrible pain, so how could he not be touched by her plight? She could see it by his eyes, untouched by the cruel wound, moss-green and kind.

Thanks the light she had found one soul in the world who would Listen and understand her! Hurriedly, Elvira told Raul about Ferrante, how much she was in love with Ferrante, how beautiful Ferrante was in great details, how noble, how badly she wanted to kiss his lips—

The bandits crept closer to their leader's chair, making themselves comfortable by the central fire. They smiled toothy smiles and pushed each other with their elbows whenever Elvira said Ferrante.