Young Writers Society

74 THE ELF AND THE ROVER

In due time, Christian was sitting back by his fire with Finn, Narodnaya, and a snoring Mr. Catcher. No sooner had Tirion and Morrow told him their plan than Liza appeared to inform him (rather grumpily) that he needed to get off his feet before he hurt his hip even worse.

“It’ll have to hold him once he’s in battle,” the elf remarked. Liza scowled at him.

“Don’t talk to me about battles,” she said, patting Christian’s spider as if she had forgotten it was an arachnid and not a canine. The accountant gathered that Conrad had refused to go home while there was still a fight to be had, no matter how bad his injury. “As it is, I don’t see why, if there must be some horrid fight, it can’t hold off a few days. Give people time to heal.”

By “people,” Christian assumed she meant her husband.

Morrow shook his head. “It has to be tonight. Goblin knows we’re here—or if he doesn’t yet, he will soon enough. The longer we stay here, the more likely it is he’ll launch another attack. Better to meet him in battle on our terms.”

Liza scowled at him, too, until he cracked a small smile and said, “But I think we can give them another hour or two.”

Under her watchful eye, the Rover helped Christian back to his fire, followed by the elf and the marsh-witch. His spider, however, trailed after Liza. Now it lay beside her, outside the wagon on the edge of the courtyard. She glared into her own fire and said nothing either to Graham Chelsea, who, somewhat recovered, was sitting on the spider’s other side, or the contortionist who cradled the horse-master in his lap. But she petted the spider steadily. Christian could hear it purring from where he sat.

Rowan stalked out of the crowd and joined her siblings beside Christian, looking as sour as Liza did. It was such an uncharacteristic expression that the accountant almost laughed at the sight.

“What ails you, sister?” Finn asked pleasantly. Now that Mr. Catcher was with them, the two ringmasters had forgotten their feud.

Christian followed the line of Rowan’s glare to the far edge of the courtyard, where Morrow and Tirion sat at their own small fire, removed from the crowds and talking together quietly. Even as he watched, Tirion’s hand strayed to the Rover’s shoulder, and this time Morrow did not rebuke him. Rowan glowered.

“That elf,” she said, “is messing our boy around. And I swear by all that is good and holy that I’ll run him through myself if he hurts Morrow again.”

Finn yawned. “Relax, Rowan. Look how happy they are. You remember when they were young and in love.”

Rowan’s glower deepened.

“Yes,” she said, “I remember. And I remember when Tirion left and when Morrow started drinking, too, and I tell you I won’t have it happen again.”

Morrow gave Tirion a rueful smile. The elf laughed.

“What did happen?” Christian asked, watching them. “I thought Morrow started drinking when his mother died.”

“Sure,” Rowan said. She pulled a flask out of her jacket and took a swig. “That was a bit of it. And the people’s attitude—didn’t like him because his father didn’t much like him, you know. That and he spent a lot of his youth trying to get away. I think they resented it. But he would have got by alright if he’d still had Tirion. Something broke in him when they split up.”

It looked as if Morrow and Tirion’s conversation across the courtyard had taken a more serious turn, for the Rover’s chin rested on his knees as he listened to the elf talk. Neither was smiling now. But Christian, recalling (with some embarrassment) their conversation outside his tent, couldn’t understand why two people so in love with each other would ever split up in the first place.

Why do humans and their ilk do anything at all? Narodnaya remarked dryly beside him. He did not answer her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Mmm?”

“Why aren’t they together anymore?”

Finn swiped her sister’s flask and said, “No one really knows that except the two of them. But everyone says it was Tirion’s father—the king of the wood-elves, you know. They all say he made his son choose between the throne and Morrow. And Tirion chose his throne.”

“The wrong choice, if you ask me,” Rowan said, glaring in the elf’s direction again.

Her sister waved her annoyance aside. “Yes, yes. But you’re awfully hard on him, you know. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have chosen the same if someone had made you choose between the circus and Tiriel.”

It was the first time Christian had ever seen Rowan speechless—almost speechless. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said, “Well, no one did make me choose.”

“That’s what I thought.” Her sister grinned and turned back to Christian. “Oh, they were friends for years before anything happened. Hunted together for—goodness, it must have been a decade or so. And then Morrow went and got himself attacked by a herd of night-mares like a fool and nearly died, and Tirion brought him back to Greendale to be healed, and that was that. They were nearly inseparable, and Morrow spent more time than ever away from the Sunforest—and then, out of the blue, Tirion up and left.”

Watching the elf and the Rover across the courtyard, Christian found it hard to believe—or would have, if he had not overheard them earlier. Morrow’s face had fallen into harsh lines that made him look much older than he was, but when the elf touched his face, his eyes crinkled into a small smile.

“No one knows what his father’s objection was anyway,” Rowan said, still glowering. “In general, the elves are free to marry wherever they please. My guess is that the king didn’t want his son marrying a human.”

She tugged her flask out of Finn’s hand and took another long drink.

“Why not?” Christian asked.

“Oh, they think us ridiculous creatures,” Rowan said. “Our clothing, for example. Just look how Tirion walks about—half-naked, without even shoes for his feet. That’s about how they all dress. More than that and they think you’re wasting cloth that ought to be saved for infants, the elderly, and the infirm. I suppose they’ve a point, at that. Still, one can’t feel like a proper ringmaster without a ringmaster’s coat.”

“Quite right, sister,” said Finn. “About the clothing, that is, but you must be mistaken about the king’s objections. After all, Morrow’s mother was an elf. Of course, his father was a hero, but a human all the same. And there were no objections to you, when Tiriel—”

“True, true. How I do miss her. But you know the elves—”

The two sisters launched into a debate about the wood-elves’ feelings towards humans, which then turned into a discussion of everything ranging from elvish architecture to the elves’ disdain for tears to speculation as to whether or not the elf-king really had been in love with his chief healer like everyone said he had. They talked for so long the fire burned down and died and their older brother awoke with a start to reprimand them for almost letting him sleep through a battle. Christian, sitting quietly with his own thoughts, was the only one who saw Morrow at last lay his head wearily in Tirion’s lap to rest while the elf held him and kept watch.