Knights of the Rose

Epilogue

It was well into autumn, even on the north coast around Vuinlod. Lady Eskaia met Gildas Aurhinius in the Tapestry Room, where layers of colored wool, linen, and silk not only brightened the long evenings but stood between the chill of the walls and the air she was trying to keep warm.

She listened to Aurhinius’s tale of Pirvan, Haimya, and all who had been with them at Belkuthas, and watched him briskly reduce a full wine jug to an empty one. He seemed to hold it well, however.

“I trust none in Istar will hold it against you, for telling me so much to the dishonor of the Mighty City,” she said at last.

“They may, if they wish. But it will not harm me. I am no longer in the Istarian service. Indeed, my resignation was one condition that they made for not protesting Sir Pirvan’s being elevated to Knight of the Rose.”

“I have not heard that the knights are wont to let others say whom they may honor or not.”

“This time, I think Istar would have tried. So when it was a matter of my leaving a service I no longer enjoyed, or Sir Pirvan’s being denied an honor he had earned thrice over, I took the more honorable course.”

Eskaia sipped her wine. It was sweet wine, stronger than what she had served Aurhinius, but her cup was still two-thirds full.

“Does the Order of the Rose no longer demand that its knights be of royal blood?”

“I doubt they do, seeing as how Sir Marod wears the Rose. But as I understand it, the rank the Silvanesti gave Pirvan in their nobility commonly only goes to those with a blood tie to the kings. So Pirvan is a kind of honorary elven royalty. Which makes all his kin and comrades members of his household, and honorary Silvanesti.”

Eskaia pondered the light dancing in her wine. “That could well prove more burden than blessing.”

“It certainly will, if the knights want to use him and them to deal with every problem that may arise from the Silvanesti.” Aurhinius shuddered.

“So how fare the others?”

“Sirbones decided to go back to his temple and take Tarothin with him. After all, the healer had only been on his journey for twenty-seven years. Tarothin was worn to a nub after blowing open the Pass of Riomis, so he will need a good long rest in the temple before he can do magic again.

“Hawkbrother is going to train as a Knight of Solamnia. This puts off his wedding to Eskaia for two years. Pirvan and Haimya are trying not to look too happy about this.

“Meanwhile, they are making a great fuss over Serafina, who will stay in Tirabot until the babe comes. Not that Serafina needs that much help. Dwarven healing seems to agree with Grimsoar. He says his wounded lung that the dwarf healed is better than the other one that was never wounded!”

Aurhinius looked at his empty cup. “May I have another drink?”

“Have you not had enough, my lord?”

“Do you presume to speak like a wife to all your male guests? I was going to ask for something I could only dream of in the desert. Cold spring water, with a tinge of lemon to it.”

“That you may have, with my blessing.”

Belkuthas was cleaner than it had been for some while, but the darkness did not hide the scars of the siege. Rynthala drew the shutters and turned to the bed, where her husband sat cross-legged in a pose of meditation.

She sat down with her back to him, and he lifted her hair and began to brush it out. She now wore no night robe or anything else, not even the bow she had worn to their bed on the wedding night. (She had heard of the wager, and wanted to see what Darin really would do. He had laughed so that it nearly unmanned him-for a moment or two.)

He was freer with his strength now, but never overbearing. Waydol, Pirvan, the Knights of Solamnia-all who had taken a hand in composing him had not intended to make the ideal husband for an unborn woman when Waydol took in the shipwrecked orphan … but to Rynthala’s way of thinking, they had certainly done so.

She arched her back, until her hair hung straight down, then arched further, until her lips could brush the underside of Darin’s chin.

He laughed-a low, contented noise.

She thought he could not have done much laughing for the first twenty years of his life, and not enough for the ten years thereafter. If she could make him laugh, it was the best gift she could bring him in return for his keeping away the darkness of her memories.

She kissed his throat again, nibbling gently at his firm flesh. He shifted, and his lips came down on hers, while his arms drew her tight against him.