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the field, but in the minds of our people, they begin to grow very hazy indeed."
"Do you need anything here?" inquired Kith-Kanan.
"You wouldn't have a hundred bawdy dwarven wenches, would you?" asked
Dunbarth with a sly grin. He winked at the elf. "Though perhaps they would merely sap
our fighting spirits. One has to be careful, you know!"
Kith laughed, suddenly embarrassed about his own circumstances. The presence of
Suzine in his house was common knowledge throughout the camp. He felt no shame
about that, and he knew his troops liked the human woman and that she returned their
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obvious affection. Still, the thought of her being regarded as his "bawdy wench" he found
disturbing.
They talked for a while longer of the pleasures of homecomings and of adventures in
more peaceful times. The storm continued unabated, and finally Kith-Kanan remembered
that he needed to finish his rounds before returning to his own house. He bade his
farewells and continued his inspection of the other elven positions before turning toward
his cottage.
His heart rose at the prospect of seeing Suzine again, though he had been gone from
her presence for mere hours. He couldn't bear the thought of this winter camp without
her. But he wondered about the men. Did they see her as a "wench" as Dunbarth seemed
to? As some sort of camp follower? The thought would not go away.
A bodyguard, an immaculate corporal in the armor of the House Protectorate, threw
open the door of his house as he approached. Kith quickly went inside, enjoying the
warmth that caressed him as he shook off his snow-covered garb.
He passed through the guardroom once the parlor of the house, but now the garrison
for a dozen men-at-arms, those trusted with the life of the army commander. He nodded
at the elves, all of whom had snapped to attention, but he quickly passed through the
room into the smaller chambers beyond, closing the interior door behind him.
A crackling blaze filled the fireplace before him, and the aroma of sizzling beef
teased his nostrils. Suzine came into his arms and he felt completely alive. Everything
would wait until the delights of reunion had run their course. Without speaking, they
went to the hearth and lay down before the fire.
Only afterward did they slowly break the spell of their silence.
"Did you find Arcuballis in the pasture?" Suzine asked, lazily tracing a finger along
Kith-Kanan's bare arm.
"Yes. He seems to prefer the open field to the barn," the elf replied. "I tried to coax
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him into a stall, but he stayed outside, weathering the storm."
"He's too much like his master," the human woman said tenderly. Finally she rose
and fetched a jug of wine that she had warmed by the fireplace. Huddled together under a
bearskin, they each enjoyed a glass.
"It's odd," said Kith-Kanan, his mood reflective. "These are the most peaceful times
I've ever spent, here beside the fire with you."
"It's not odd," replied the woman. "We were meant to know peace together. I've seen
it, known it, for years."
Kith didn't dispute her. She had told him how she used to watch him in the mirror,
the enchanted glass that she had crashed over Giarna's skull to save his life. She carried
the broken shards of the glass in a soft leather box. He knew that she had seen the
griffons before the battle yet hadn't told her commander about this crucial fact. Often he
had wondered what could have made her take such a risk for one an enemy! she had met
only once before.
Yet as the weeks became months, he had ceased to ask these questions, sensing as
did Suzine the rightness of their lives together. She brought to him a comfort and serenity
that he thought had been gone forever. With her, he felt a completeness that he had
never before attained, not with Anaya nor Hermathya.
That she was a human seemed astonishingly irrelevant to Kith. He knew that the folk
of the plains, be they elf or dwarf or human, had begun to see the war break the barriers
of racial purity that had so long obsessed them. He wondered, for a brief moment,
whether the elves of Silvanost would ever be able to appreciate the good humans, people
like Suzine.
A schism was growing, he knew, among his folk. It divided the nation just as
certainly as it would inevitably divide his brother and himself. Kith-Kanan had made up
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his mind which side he was on, and in that decision, he knew that he had crossed a line.
This woman with him now, her head resting so softly upon his shoulder, deserved
more than to be considered a general's "bawdy wench." Perhaps the fumes from the fire
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