10 - Regret
Silas woke with his arm and head aching as if someone had been pounding at them with a mallet. He gave a soft groan and opened his eyes.
Thin, grey light filtered through the leaves of the forest canopy over his head. The leaves blurred slightly.
That explained the aching head. Cursed fauns' wine. He'd never been able to stand much of it before it sent him over the edge. But what about his arm?
He shifted under what felt like a pile of completely unnecessary furs. Why in the name of the great oaks would he have asked for them, when he didn't need protection from the cold as much as some here? It was certainly warm enough that his dryad heritage would have protected him, sleeping outdoors all night. He tried to move again, but the aching arm resisted.
Because Jaelyn was stretched out beside him, with her head pillowed on it.
Silas jerked wide awake. The rush of his returning senses hit him like another mallet blow, and he stifled another groan as his head swam in sickening circles.
Jaelyn mumbled something and curled up into a tighter ball under the furs.
With a soft curse, Silas eased his arm out from under her. Once he was free, he slipped out from under the furs and shot across the tiny clearing where they'd slept. His mail shirt jangled softly. Armor still on. Everything still on, thank Aslan. Except his sword, and his father's and uncle's, bundled in their wrap beside the furs.
Jaelyn stirred and opened her eyes. "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?" he demanded, more sternly than he had the right.
"I was sleeping." She started to sit up.
"Don't!" Silas whirled away to face the trees.
Furs shifted. "Don't what?"
The alarm in her voice piqued his caution enough to risk a look. She had all her clothes, even that flimsy cloak. He let out a huge breath.
Her eyes went round, and a high flush washed across her cheeks. "You thought we ... ?" She jerked the furs up to her neck, and her stare went irate. "Why would you think that!"
Silas swallowed hard. Why? Because just now, as his muddled memory spun frantically back over the past evening, he remembered that last night, he almost hadn't cared that he was bound to marry a dryad. He'd recalled it, and recalled his sense of honor, of course. The later it got last night, the harder she'd shivered, away from the crowd of the Old Narnians and the roaring bonfire. He'd taken a few furs and wrapped them around her, and laid close beside her until she stopped shaking with the cold. One kiss was as far as it had gone. Where else could it go? He didn't belong here, and she was a human, and they were leagues—centuries!—away from a marriage to one another. He stood there like a fool, like a tree dug deep into the earth.
Jaelyn pulled the furs around her, as if all her clothing still wasn't enough to separate them. The flush remained on her cheeks. She scraped another fur toward her.
He sighed and started toward her. "Jaelyn, I'm sorry. It was dishonorable of me to—"
"You kept me from freezing," she said, too fast, still not looking at him.
"I wasn't talking about ... this," he said, encompassing the furs with a gesture. "It would have been boorish of me not to see to your comfort." Except, he thought, that sometime during the night he'd gone from lying beside her to having his arm curled around her. A sensation not at all unpleasant. He shook the memory off and forced out the rest of his words. "I was speaking of kissing you."
Her gaze snapped to his again, all attention, but that blush crept redder across her cheeks. He almost smiled. She had a poor face for deception.
"So you're sorry for it?" she asked, hurt in her voice.
Her tone worked on him like the twang of a bowstring. He almost ducked, and when he caught himself, he gave another rueful sigh. Females were, invariably, more hazardous than battle. He pushed to his feet again. "Nothing I say is going to be right," he told her.
"How is a kiss dishonorable?"
He hitched his still-aching shoulder and scowled. "It's dishonorable when everyone saw us, and there are no intentions of a contract behind it," he growled. Seeing the hurt on her face, he added, much softer, "Where I come from, such things aren't given lightly."
"They aren't given lightly here, either," she snapped. Her gaze fell away again. Quietly, she said, "I wouldn't have ... just anybody."
Oh, Aslan. There would be no help for him. If he opened his mouth again, he might as well have someone bash the words back down his throat for all the good it would do. He was so much better at patrolling Selbaran for enemies than ... than ... well, than this. He drew a long breath, preparing to speak as if he were readying himself to run a gauntlet. "I'm a soldier," he said at last. "I don't have a scribe's gift for words. All I can say is—"
"Ah, so there's the warrior prince!" said a gravelly voice.
Into the little clearing came Prince Caspian. Beside him walked a man with spectacles, curling grey hair, and a well-rounded belly. Silas guessed it was he who had spoken.
Caspian grinned, first at Silas, and then his companion. "Didn't I tell you? He even looks like the old paintings of King Edmund! I mistook him for such, at first."
The other man came forward. The instant he drew close, Silas smelled dwarf blood, mixed with human. The old man extended both hands. "Gladly met, Your Highness, gladly met."
Silas clasped the man's hands, and the stranger gave him a respectful bow. It was clear his old joints were stiff and paining him, so Silas urged him back upright with a quick gesture. "Well met, yourself, sir ... ?"
A grin creased his wrinkled face. "Doctor Cornelius at your most humble service, my lord."
Jaelyn shot up from the furs with round eyes. "Doctor Cornelius!"
The old doctor turned to her, his bushy eyebrows aloft. "Yes?"
Frantically, Jaelyn scrambled through her pack, lying beside the furs. Out came a little book. She handed it to the doctor, and even from where he stood, Silas saw that her hands shook a little. The look of relief on her face as she handed it over raised his suspicions.
The old man opened the book, and his brows went up even higher. "Where did you find this, my dear?"
"There was a note with it," she said, "from my master Rune. Anvard's master scribe."
"Yes, yes," the doctor muttered, examining the little book. "Where is it?"
"I lost it," she added. "I'm sorry, sir. My master said that you would know what to do with this book, but it was all the help he could provide."
As she spoke, Silas scowled darker and darker. Caspian looked over the doctor's shoulder as the old man turned the book's pages with gentle fingers. At the next page, all three paused to stare from it to him.
"Perhaps the magic chose rightly," said Cornelius.
"What are you talking about?" Silas demanded.
"The horn of Queen Susan was believed to possess the power to summon the Kings and Queens of Old, Your Highness," Cornelius explained. "Your father and his siblings. Instead, it chose someone able to awaken tree spirits who have slept for over a thousand years."
"You were trying to summon my father?" Silas demanded angrily. Enraged, he stalked toward them. "He and my mother are soulbound. They would die if separated! How dare you trifle with our lives?"
Cornelius's eyebrows shot up so far, they were lost in his bushy grey forelock. Caspian looked horrified. For a few seconds, the young man only stared at him, but he shook out of it. He withdrew a small, wrapped object from his coat and handed it over.
Silas took it, and not gently. Even before he unwrapped it from its cloth, he knew that it was his aunt's horn. He thumbed the lion-face carving. With his voice hard and shaking, he glared in Caspian's eyes and said, "Did you think it nothing to tear someone out of their own world, their own time, to come to you like a trained dog? Even now, my home—my family's home—may be in danger, and you have sacrificed it to your own ends."
"We have done you a great disservice, my lord. It is my fault for suggesting the use of the horn." Cornelius bowed low. "If my small knowledge of magic may be of any use to you, I vow that I will find a way to send you home."
Silas gave the old man a curt word of thanks. To Caspian, still white-faced, he gave a disgruntled stare.
But Jaelyn, when he turned to her, had her hands over her mouth and tears in her eyes as though it was she who had sentenced him to this exile. Two, three, maybe ten motionless seconds passed while they stared across the clearing at one another. Then she snatched up her pack and fled into the trees.