In The Coils Of The Snake (20 page)

The
sensitive elves had been horrified by the goblins, depressed
about
Arianna’s s loss, and reserved and uncertain over Miranda’s own appearance in
camp. They had sensed their lord’s concern and
dismay
over her, and they had attentively observed all the arguments
that
had taken place, arguments ordinarily being rare in an elf camp.
Now they felt that
they had achieved a victory. Their lord had kept
the poor, unhappy girl that the goblins had wanted back, and he had
changed
her into something like an elf. They surveyed their new
companion and found her pretty, and so they were ready to celebrate
her transformation, as wholeheartedly pleased
with themselves as if
they were the
ones who had personally dragged her out of a wretched
captivity.

Igira
sat Miranda down on the grass. The minute she did seve
ral women came over and began combing Miranda’s hair.
Miranda
didn’t know what to do about the unwanted
grooming, so she just
endured it with a
shocked face. The women exclaimed over the fasci
nating color, lifting
tresses and watching them glisten in the light.
They were very happy. They had been wanting to get their hands on
that
unusual hair ever since her arrival.

Motioning for
Miranda to extend her feet, Igira pulled off the girl’s slippers and propped
her ankles up on a thick log. Then she
cleaned
her feet just as the elf lord always did while several more men
and
women drifted over to watch. They passed the goblin slippers from one to
another, laughing over them and making faces as they knocked on the hard soles.

With elf hands in
her hair, elf hands on her feet, and elf hands passing her property about,
Miranda decided resentfully that she
couldn’t
call herself her own. But Igira, glancing up and catching
her eye, gave her a friendly smile. Then, as she
worked, she told her
enthralled
audience all about the excruciating clothing that the goblins
had forced
the girl to wear.

Igira walked away
into the darkness and returned with a small
white
pot. Reaching into it, she plastered some warm, wet goop onto
Miranda’s
feet, shaping it carefully until it looked as if the girl were wearing dark
slippers. At last, when the stuff was thick and even enough to satisfy her, she
motioned for the girl not to move.

Miranda was just
wondering whether this was some outrageous
joke
when the elf lord appeared out of the dark and sat down beside her. Her hair-combing
crew broke up and left at his approach, leav
ing Miranda glad of his
company.

“What
is that?” she demanded, pointing at the cold, soggy slippers.

“Those
are your felt inner shoes,” he told her. “They have to dry on your
feet, so you’re going to have to stay still, but you can watch
me
give a magic lesson. That will take everyone’s mind off you.”

What
Miranda watched, she decided, didn’t resemble a lesson. It
was more like a riot. Elated over Miranda’s rescue and
thrilled with
the healing spells, the elves turned
cutting themselves into a new
form of
entertainment for the pleasure of making the cuts disappear.
They inscribed messages and drew pictures on their
arms; they
played highly unsafe forms of catch-the-knife; and Hunter
staged a
mock swordfight with a companion
that gave both of them plenty of cuts to practice on when they were done. A
young man pretended to
cry, holding
out his hand for his shy fourteen-year-old fiancee to heal.
Miranda
thought that the whole undignified display was perfectly ridiculous.

“I’ve
never seen grown men carry on like that,” she said in amazed
disapproval
to the elf lord when he returned to sit beside her. She had a vague feeling
that he should share her disapproval, if only because his own dignity was so
remarkable. But the handsome and stately lord just watched his elves with a
pleased smile.

“I have,”
he commented. “Many times.”

When
the inner shoes were dry, Igira peeled them off and
handed them to her. They were something like the felt
that she knew,
but
there was a springiness to them that normal felt didn’t have, and
they
were amazingly tough. Nir helped her up, but she had to walk barefoot to the
shoemaking elf. Her goblin slippers had completely disappeared.

Galnar
was the oldest man in the camp, but Miranda had no idea
of that. He didn’t look particularly old; he just looked
kind. His
hair was so blond that it was almost
white, and his green eyes and shrewd smile reminded her painfully of Marak. He
had exhausted his fun with the healing spells and was playing his violin softly
to
himself when Miranda walked up with the
elf lord, ready for him to
make her shoes.

Elf
slippers were made of just two pieces of leather, the large one
wrapping under the foot and the smaller one covering the
top, and in
order to get a
good fit, the leather was stitched with the foot already
inside
it. Miranda stared breathlessly as the curved bone needle,
unguided by any hand, flashed through the leather
almost faster than
the eye could see, pulling the pieces tight around
her feet. She was sure she felt the stab of that needle at least a dozen times.

When the Stitching
Spell was over at last, Miranda took a few
steps,
surprised to find that her new shoes, with no hard soles, let her
feel
the ground beneath her feet. They were more like gloves than
shoes, she decided. Then she realized with an
unpleasant shock that
she had almost a death grip on the elf lord’s
hand. During the spell, she had squeezed it so tightly that now it was slippery
with sweat. Uncomfortable about this, she tried to free herself, and the stars
at
her wrists began to sparkle. The elf lord
noticed them and let her go.

“That’s
the first time you’ve been glad of a hand to hold,” he said
quietly. Miranda was
too embarrassed to reply.

• • •

The goblin King had
come to the end of a trying day. It had started
long before dawn, when he had had to sleep on the cold stone of the
metal grove beside his runaway wife. Not that that had
done much good, he reflected. Even though he was sure he had been unable to do
more than doze, she was gone again when he awoke. This time, her lengthy,
wandering trail had ended in the green banquet hall’s jam closet.

By
that time it was morning, so he had roused her from her nest behind the pickle
barrels and jars of brandied fruit and had kept her
with
him all day, walking through the valley under the waters of
Hollow Lake. He was sure that she had enjoyed
visiting the flowers,
but he couldn’t persuade her to say a single word.
Now he was exhausted from the long nights and hard days, and he was sure that
she must be exhausted, too. With her penchant for roving, she was sleeping much
less than he was.

If the day had been
a trial, he couldn’t complain about its end
ing.
He was lying in his own comfortable bed with his nomadic wife
beside
him. She sat on the bed with her legs folded under her and
her silky black hair around her shoulders. Slowly,
gracefully, she was
combing out the tresses, watching him all the while.

The First Fathers of
the elves, he knew, had endowed all the
members
of their race with beauty, but there was almost as much dif
ference
between the attractive elf commoners and the stunning elf nobles as there was
between an average human and an elf Arianna was spectacular even for an elf
lord’s daughter, he was sure. Some times her beauty made his head swim.

What he wouldn’t
give, he thought drowsily, to have his arms
around
her now. Watching her comb the smooth black locks, he felt
his worries
slipping away. Someday soon, he would take her in his arms and feel that cloud
of soft hair around him. What a day that would be, he thought blissfully,
closing his eyes with a sigh.

A second later, he
opened them again.

“That
was an excellent sleep spell,” he said coldly. “A subtle and
powerful effort. I
would have woken up to find you halfway across
the lake valley, I suppose. If you don’t stop these nonsensical peregri
nations,
I’ll lock our bedroom door with a King’s Lock, and you’ll find your magic of
very little use to you then.”

With
a cry, Arianna flung down the comb and retreated from
the bed. The goblin King propped himself up on his paw
to look for
her. She had
taken refuge behind a brocade-covered bench and was
peering
at him over its top.

“Honestly,
Arianna!” he exclaimed. “What sort of behavior is
this? Sometimes I feel as if I’ve married a bird
or a squirrel instead of
a woman. I should be luring you to my side with
lumps of sugar!”

No
answer. The elf girl laid her arms across the top of the bench
and
rested her head on them, still watching him.

“But you can
speak,” he pointed out. “You spoke to me in the truce circle. I’ll
make you a bargain. If you’ll start speaking to me again, I won’t lock the
door.”

He saw her hesitate
and glance longingly toward it. After a
moment
of thought, she shook her head. The goblin King was
pleased. This
indication of further resistance was in itself more cooperation than she
ordinarily gave him.

“All right, I’ll
make you another bargain,” he said. “Come lie
down now so that we can get some sleep, and I won’t lock the door.”

Arianna emerged from
her corner and slipped into bed next to
him,
pulling the blanket over herself so gracefully and gently that he wouldn’t even
have known she was there if he hadn’t been looking at
her. She really
was like a wild creature, he mused. No wonder he never woke up when she left.

Propped
on his paw, he studied his apprehensive wife. He stroked
her black hair, marveling at its softness, and played
with the strands around her face. She stared at him anxiously, not moving a
muscle, and when he took her hand, she didn’t resist. But when he raised the
hand
to his lips, she gasped and tried to jerk it away.

Marak
Catspaw gave an irritated sigh. While she might look like a woman to him, it
was obvious that he still looked like a monster to
her,
something that might decide to bite off a finger and chew it up for a snack.
The goblin King found himself once again cursing the villainous elf lord.

`Arianna,”
he said with soft bitterness, “I know you won’t be
able
to believe this, but I had a fiancee. too. She was a human girl,
taller than you are, and quite lovely as humans go,
with red hair that
was even more
remarkable than yours. She liked me, and she liked to
talk with me; we had read the same books, and we
enjoyed discussing
them. She used to
smile at me, and even kiss me, and as incredible as
it sounds to you, my
fiancee wanted to marry me. The night that I married you, she shed tears.”

The
elf girl listened to this disclosure with an astounded expres
sion,
and Marak Catspaw relented.

“I won’t lock
the door,” he promised. “Even though you can’t
leave my kingdom, you aren’t a prisoner here. You’re
the King’s Wife,
and you can go
wherever you like. You don’t need to overpower the guards, either. They’re
posted to stay at the doors until you or I give
them an order. If you leave, they won’t try to stop you, and they won’t
follow
you. But you need to sleep now, not go wandering. You’re wearing yourself out,
and your health is important.”

Still holding her
hand, he settled himself beside her and began to work on a sleep spell of his
own. She detected the magic at once
and
began to fight it, tensing herself up with the effort. Very well, he
thought,
that wasn’t going to work. He could force her into uncon
sciousness by sheer magical power, but she would continue to oppose
the spell. She might not move for several hours,
but she wouldn’t get
much rest, either.