Mithros' Chosen: Prologue
Lady Elysse of Tirrsmont was a small, delicate woman who acted, for the most part, as a noblewoman should—the perfect wife, her lord husband often thought. Now was not one of those times. There had been few such incidents in the fourteen years of their marriage when the quiet, dutiful woman he had married displayed the steel that lay hidden somewhere underneath her poised exterior. "We will not," she said coldly, "let a child die out in the snow. Bring her in, my lord, so that she may be warm."
He glanced, sighing, at the small grubby bundle she indicated. There were a thousand reasons why that tiny, wailing thing could not be a nobleman's child. That had been Elysse's first argument—that if the child was nobly born, it was his duty as a knight and a nobleman to see it warm and fed. And, fortunately for Elysse, there was no way of knowing, entirely, the child's origin. Even though he did know, beyond doubt—if his knowledge was without proof—that the child was common-born and hardly worthy of their attention. He had no doubt Elysse knew it too, but she had decided to press the issue, and there was really little he could do.
The baby could not have been more than a few weeks old, but even under layers and layers of thick blankets and feathers to keep out the chill northern weather, he could see that it was a hardy child. One chubby fist stuck out of the wrapping, and it was bawling loudly, as it had been for the gods knew how long before Lady Elysse had noticed it. Through the multitude cloths covering it, it was impossible to tell the gender, but his wife had already referred to it several times as 'she.' Perhaps this was what set him so against it—with four daughters already, and not a single son or heir, he would hardly have been reluctant to take in a boy-child and call it his own. But another little girl to run through the halls squealing was not something he particularly desired at the moment.
"Lord Halden," his wife said again, sternly, as she bent down to scoop up the squirming bundle, "every moment you stand here considering her fate, this child grows colder. Perhaps it might be wiser to take her inside, where if you do find it in your heart to keep her, you will not realize that it is too late and she is already dead." The bitter sarcasm of Lady Elysse's words was hardly recognizable in her honey-sweet tone. It made him smile. So like his wife, that was. He followed her obediently into the castle, attempting to hide his smile under his beard.
He sat next to her in a chair by the fire. "There you are," she was telling the child as it burbled happily in the warmth emanating from the flames. "Nice and warm now, no need to worry." She looked up at him, her eyes very large and innocent blue, her expression that of a child with a puppy that has followed it home. It would hardly be dignified, he thought, smiling and hiding it still, for her to ask, 'May I keep her?' And yet he could almost imagine her saying it. He nodded, half to himself, half in response to her unspoken sentiment.
"I have decided," he said, the severity of his tone half in jest, "that the child may remain with us for the present."
"See, now?" his wife asked the child. "I told you it would be all right, and there you have it. Of course you can stay." She turned back to him. "It's been a long time since there's been a child here," she said, excitement in her tone. That wasn't entirely true—the servants' children ran around all over the place, and their youngest daughter had but eight years to her name, and her siblings not much older. It was a baby, not a child, that Elysse was so excited to have. "What should we name her?" she asked, now, turning to look at the child again in consideration. "There is nothing- no sign, nothing left by her parents as to what she should be called."
"Are you sure it is a girl?" he asked. Now was, he supposed, as good a time to ask as any. It would certainly be unfortunate to favor a boy child with a girl's name. "I rather like Daren as a boy's name." The lady of Tirrsmont shook her head. "No, Halden, she is a girl. But... Daren... Darenne, I think we should call her, if it pleases you. A girl's name, sure enough, but enough like the name you would have picked for a boy- child to make you happy?" This last was phrased as a question, to which his answer was only a gruff nod. There had, for a while, been the hope again that he would have an heir, but it had vanished as quickly as it had come. That must go behind him now, lest it taint the way he felt about this new addition to his household. He was not sure if he would be able to care for her as much as he did his true daughters, but let him try, at least, for his wife's sake if not the child's.
"Darenne, then. It is a good name, and a strong one."