[littlemanpoet]

“Eodwine, why don't you want to be eorl?”

"It is a dungeon with golden bars, a sentence for life, the eorlship. I am happy to be free. I love the folk here, but not this place. We do not have to stay. Were I eorl, we would not have that choice."

"Oh." Saeryn said nothing for a moment, and then again spoke. "But what about the people? What about men like Lithor? Or Erbrand? I know you would not have thought that Erbrand was right to beat Athanar's man so, but what of Lithor? Neither of them should have been forced to leave Scarburg, and yet they did. And I believe Thornden was somehow mixed into that, too."

Eodwine looked at Saeryn. He knew from Falco that Lithor had been accused what the Gondorians might call "insubordination", and that Erbrand had been violent and both had left, but she was describing things from what Eodwine took to be greater knowledge, and - - Thornden mixed up in it?

"Forced to leave? Thornden mixed up in it? Maybe you should tell me about all this from the beginning. I do not think that I have heard the tale in its fullness."

Saeryn took a breath, faced him more squarely, one knee up on the bed between them, and related the events of Lithor and Erbrand. Eodwine noticed that she did not speak directly of Thornden through all of it. When stomachs were growling in hunger for lunch, she stopped.

"And what of Thornden?"

"He saw where they went, as they rode off, and he said nothing. He protected them. I don't know what came of it. Athanar learned of it, and when he became angry, he and Thornden went outside and words passed between them. I do not know exactly what, Thornden did not go into much detail."

"I - see..." Eodwine paused. "I am not sure what to think, what I can do if anything. Time will tell. It will have to."

"Have you spoken to Athanar? Besides what I and others have likely said to you, do you know what manner of man he is?"

"We know each other from the war, but have had little to do with each other since then. I know that he is a man of quick and firm choices. From what you tell me, he made quick and firm choices about Lithor and Erbrand. Maybe he is over-sure of his choices, and does not wait to hear all there is to hear before he chooses his course. If that is so, he could be wiser than he is. Maybe that is my role, to give counsel as much as I am allowed to give."

"Be careful, lest he think you are trying to teach him his role and he take offense," Saeryn said. Then she regretted speaking so. That was not fair to Athanar. "No," she corrected herself. "I speak wrongly. Athanar will listen, I think, if your counsel is good, and I know you will give it carefully." She turned again to sit beside him, although she could not look at him from here. She took his hand and again pulled his arm around herself and nestled against him.

"What will you do if the people want you to take eorlship?" she asked.


"I will do what I have already. I will tell them as kindly as I can that I am not the eorl and do not want to be, but I wish to be their friend."

Saeryn seemed to accept this. But she stiffened and sighed deeply before speaking again, with much hesitation.

"Eodwine. . .after telling the women in the kitchen that you had returned as their eorl, when I came up here, I encountered Athanar. He asked me what troubled me, and I told him. . ." she hesitated a long moment. "I told him that you should be eorl, and that he shouldn't be, and that I would see to it that you were set in his place."