Preparation

He threw himself into the work. He had the men clean every surface in the keep. He had the stables mucked and reorganized. He checked every room that would be used for guests and had the linens replaced and the hearths cleaned. He walked the walls four times a day and checked the gate mechanisms and the portcullis chain.

The men responded to the work because he worked alongside them. He did not stand and watch. He hauled water and carried stones and helped repair a section of roofing that had been leaking into the guest quarters. Briwer worked next to him on the roof and after a while the old man spoke.

"You are different from Colven."

"How so."

"Colven gave orders. You give orders too but you also do the work. Colven wanted to be noticed. You do not seem to care about that."

"I care about the keep being ready."

"Aye. That is what I mean."

Aldric left it there. He did not ask about Colven. He had been told not to pry and he had told Elara he would not. But Briwer had opened a door and Aldric could choose to walk through it or not. He chose not to. He was not ready to break his word to her over curiosity.

Three days before Caswell's arrival Elara called him to her chambers for the first time. The boy came to his door and said "The lady wants you in her room" and Aldric felt something tighten in his chest. He had not been past that door since he arrived.

He knocked and she said "Enter" and he did.

The room was not what he expected. It was sparse. A bed with plain linens. A desk covered in papers. A wardrobe. A small altar in the corner with no icon on it. The walls were bare stone. There was no luxury here. No comfort. It looked like the room of a soldier not a lady.

She stood by the desk with a dress spread across it. Dark red. Rich fabric. He had never seen her wear anything like it.

"This is what I will wear for the feast with Caswell," she said. "I need you to understand something about that night. Caswell will bring Ser Harren and Harren will watch me. He has watched me before. He will try to get close to me during the feast. He will say things to me that are not appropriate and he will do it in front of you and in front of his men because he enjoys that."

"My lady if he disrespects you in your own hall I can remove him."

"No. You cannot. That is what I need you to understand. Harren is part of the price of Caswell's agreement. Caswell knows what Harren is and Caswell does not care because Harren is useful to him. If you challenge Harren you challenge Caswell and if you challenge Caswell the agreement falls through and I lose the timber I need to expand the eastern fields. Do you understand the mathematics of that."

He understood. He did not like it. "You are asking me to stand by while a man harasses you in your own hall."

"I am telling you to stand by. I am not asking."

He looked at her. She looked at him. The room was very quiet.

"You told me you were what you were told to be," she said. "This is what I am telling you to be. A man who stands in my hall and does nothing while Ser Harren says what he says and does what he does. Can you be that."

"I can."

"Even if it costs you."

"Even if it costs me."

She nodded. She looked away from him then and her hand went to the desk and rested there and he saw her fingers press against the wood. A small movement. A crack in the control.

"I need you to know something," she said. Her voice was different now. Lower. Less certain. "I am not asking you to do this because I enjoy it. I am asking you to do this because it is necessary. The agreement matters. Greyhollow matters. I have built this place from nothing and I will not let it fall because a knight cannot control his temper."

"I understand."

"Do you." She looked at him again and her eyes were bright in the candlelight. Not with tears. With something fiercer than that. "Because after the feast when Caswell and Harren are drunk and the hall is empty I will be alone and I will be angry and I may not be kind to you. And you will take that too. Because that is also what I need."

He did not fully understand what she meant. But he said yes. He said it because he meant it. He said it because she was his lady and she had asked and he was what he was told to be.

He left her chambers and the door closed behind him and he stood in the hallway for a long moment. His heart was beating hard and his hands were steady and he did not know what was coming but he knew that something had shifted. The ground beneath him had moved and he was standing on a new surface and it was not solid.

He went to his room and he cleaned his sword and he oiled his armor and he waited for the days to pass.