The Romance of Eowain

Chapter Ten, Scene Twenty-Six

The next morning dawned frosty. Rainwater had frozen to slush overnight. Eowain shook ice from his canvas as he rose from his tent. Eithne's team was already mounted up. He found Eithne's steed and took its bridle. "My lady."

"I shouldn't be speaking to you."

"It's the safest thing for you."

"To Annwn with that!"

"And I won't be arguing it with you." He felt heat rise to his face. "I would have your answer, my lady. Have you decided, after all this, that we'll be wed?"

She turned up her nose at him. "When you have so little trust in me? I can fight as well as any one of your men. I needn't be bundled away lest I break."

Anger burned in him. "And when you have so little trust in me, not to see wisdom."

"What wisdom?" She looked at her horsemen and her men-of-foot. "A score of the finest Men of Ivearda stand ready to fight, and you turn them away. Who is foolish here?"

He lowered his voice. "Damn you, woman. Would you throw their lives away? And your own?"

"Why not, when you choose to throw your own away? Are their lives—or mine—worth anymore than yours? You're the King of Droma, you idiot."

He clenched his leather-bound fists. "I'll not be called a fool and an idiot."

"You will be when you act like one."

He jerked on the bridle of her horse. "No, I will not be. Not by any man alive, and certainly not by you!" The horse nickered and sidled.

"Or else what?" Her sneer cut him to the bone as surely as any sword. "You've had months to capture and kill Cael the Viper. Months to flush out your cousin's treachery. Months to set your house in order for a new bride. Yet this is the best you can do? Snarl like an old bear at a woman?"

There was no sunlight in that grey dawn, but she seemed radiant to his eyes nevertheless, proud and upright in her saddle. He remembered then the first time he'd seen her. She and her father had come secretly into Droma, to meet with him on the matter of marriage. Cael and his brigands had seized her, carried her away to their stronghold at the center of a wintry marsh. He'd worried enough for her safety then, not even knowing her. But then he'd fought his way into the bandit camp, found her in Cael's own pavilion. A petite, fair-skinned, red-headed waif of a girl, bound and gagged on her knees.

His throat choked at the memory. The responsibility and guilt he'd felt. The fear she must have known.

He shook his head at her, suddenly weary of the fight. "I—." He choked and stumbled, in search of words. As if he'd chewed on old iron nails, or swallowed bad asparagus. "It's—fear, my lady. Fear for your safety. I don't want to see you killed."

The hard look upon her face turned to surprise. She furrowed her brows, tilted her head to the side to consider him. Then she softened. Her small hand reached out to his hold upon her bridle. "Nor I you." She sniffed, then stiffened. "Fine. I'll go. Keep yourself well."

With that, her company struggled through the slush with Rathtyen's wagons and their supply-mules. She took a score of her own men, as well as Eowain's eight horse-scouts and ten skirmishers in light gear, with hunting bows and axes.

As they slogged out of sight, Eowain turned to his own men. He had the sixteen men of his bodyguard, fifteen horsemen, and his brother, Lorcán. There were also thirty men on foot with shields, swords and spears, as well as a squad of archers.