What will Dain do, do ya think? Read on and please review. I'd love to hear from as many as possible, so I can say thanks! It's a lot of fun to correspond with readers.

Chapter 42

"My darling daughter … no … no ... My lady, I am more pleased than I can say to meet you at last … no. My child, I'm delighted to see you recovered … no … no … no."

Lord Dain squirmed and shifted back and forth in a well-padded chair while he worked out what to say to Relianna. What could he say? Nothing seemed suitable, nothing came to mind that would hit the precise note to create harmony in a most discordant situation.

"Hammer and stone! Nothing I say will atone! Nothing!"

He rubbed his bushy whiskers with his knuckles and reached for a decanter of whiskey that sat half-empty on a small side table. A large wine glass was soon filled again with the burning drink, and he tossed it down. He waited for it to seep into his veins and blur too-sharp memories, but it didn't.

"They cheated me of her, they did," he muttered, once more hearing the cold voices that demanded he abandon Tamra. "They contrived to steal her, the bastards, then they killed her. Murdered her. My love, wife of my heart. Now my child. Knifed her they did. My beautiful girl. My son. Murdering bastards. They would steal everything from me. My family. My honor, my people. Accursed brood of vipers! Vile spawn."

Dain ruminated on the long, lonely years that he mourned Tamra. He had never stopped mourning her. Never would. The yawning emptiness of his grief had swallowed up everything except her words of love and his two children beyond the door. His heart nearly burst out of his chest and did a jig when Fili asked him to stand by his daughter, that he would be needed. He swore to go anywhere, do anything, and wait as long as necessary for her.

"We don't need anything other than an acknowledgement of her lineage when the time comes," Fili had said.

Dain nodded like an eager dwarfling. "Where do you need me? When do I come out?" He didn't see Kili's pitying glance when they left.

Marching down the stairs single-file, the grim and determined group of nobles decided to redeem their doubtful places in the court of public opinion, and they approached the king and future queen with the solemnity of a funeral procession. King Thorin had proved to be a much more cunning opponent than they had anticipated, but he had made a mockery out of Thror's expressed command, and they were determined to bring him back in line. That this might keep people's eyes off their financial skullduggery was an added bonus. Their exalted status was the only thing protecting their incompetence, and they wouldn't give it up without a fight.

Thorin's warm smile turned cold, and he and Frain stepped up on either side of Relianna and threw their chests out, communicating their strategy with a quick nod. Similar thoughts of council members bumping into each other and rolling like barrels down the stairs added luster to their eyes, and Thorin's upper lip quirked while Frain's mouth pulled to one side. Their allies, both noble and common, quickly concluded their conversations and closed ranks. Bemma and the maids slipped in behind Frain while Fili, Kili, and Lord Kerba and his daughter moved behind Thorin. The company stood behind the rest to defend the rear.

"My lord," Dolor began in a voice perfectly suited for an arena, "although you've made a choice, we are duty-bound to point out that King Thror's command states in no certain terms that you marry a noble-born of acceptable connections, and even though this maid may have her attractions, she is not suitable to be Queen of Erebor."

Absolute silence met his pronouncement. No one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed for a terrible moment, but everyone knew a line had been crossed with heavy boots. Into the stillness came a great whoosh of breath and a long inhale. Faster and faster the breaths came with the rhythm of the great bellows of the forges. Thorin's head lowered, and his brows hunkered around his eyes while his breath hissed through his teeth. Frain clenched his fists so tight they turned white. Abandoning any attempt at diplomacy, they shouted over each other.

"You dare insult …?"

"I'll have you all …."

Both stepped forward, but Relianna flung out her arms to hold them back and walked out to face her contemptuous opponents, leaving Thorin and Frain spluttering.

"You challenge my fitness to wed King Thorin, Master Dwarves?"

"Aye," said a council member with the unfortunate name of Hiep. He stood next to Dolor. Although he usually let Dolor do the talking, he was the oldest and most respected member of the council and better at arguing the finer points. "You are and have been but a maid and nothing more. Our noble-borns have the benefit of hundreds of years of impeccable family connections, while you are a mixed-blood." He tossed out the word like a soiled, smelly rag. "Most unsuitable. The law is clear." He smiled, and the rest of the council agreed and hooked their thumbs in their expensive belts.

Thorin and Frain pulled Relianna aside, and the three held a conference.

"I don't want you fighting this battle, love," Thorin said. "I've had enough of this farce. It ends now."

Frain nodded and put his hand on her arm. "We'll take it from here."

She squeezed their hands but shook her head. "Not this time. Please. I need to do this. I admit I'm scared, but if I'm to be accepted I need to do this myself." She took off her outer robe and held it out to Thorin. "I don't want this anymore." He made to speak but stopped at the look on her face. "Please, Thorin, please. If you command me, I'll step aside, but what if it were you?"

Frain eyed Thorin whose veins were straining against his collar.

"Very well, love," he said after visibly struggling to swallow what she had handed him. "Frain and I will stand behind you, but I will step in if it goes too far." He held her eyes until she agreed, and Frain put his hand on her shoulder.

"We're right behind you, sister."

She turned back to the council with a smile of her own.

"I ask you then to define the standards by which I'm being rejected."

Neither the crowd nor the council members expected Relianna to take them on alone, and Dolor and Hiep raised their brows at what they believed would be an easy victory.

"Why, lass," Hiep said, "that should be obvious. Nobility is a quality of character innate to birth and breeding."

"So my lords, if that's so, what say you about my brother who stood alone against Zozer the Shadow Assassin?" The crowd above murmured with heads wagging and hands waving as the dwarves discussed what had happened. "I noticed none of your other most noble, noble-borns had the courage to step in. Or contrast my most noble brother with Princess Onkra who plotted our murder. A family connection as it turns out. So much for those. Should I mention Lady Wogren who snuck into the king's bedroom in an attempt to seduce him?" Shouts of disbelief from the crowd landed around her. "Or perhaps Lord Modral who forced his underage daughter Meera to assume her elder sister's place?" The shouts grew louder. "King Thorin and other witnesses can confirm these facts if you feel that the word of a mixed-blood is unsuitable." The shouting stopped.

With great satisfaction, Thorin, Frain, and their friends watched Hiep's mouth fall open and Dolor flush a dark red. Frain leaned over to Thorin. "She's back to her old self and just in time."

Thorin nodded but was still uneasy. He felt that he should be out there defending the woman he loved, that he should put a stop to the shameful inquisition. It rankled him that he hadn't arrested the council yet and that to do so now would look like he was trying to muzzle the truth. No. It was out of his hands. He hated not being in control, but he had to admit that she was more than holding her own, so he decided to relax his guard—slightly. Frain's easy grin told him that he enjoyed watching her flay the disloyal opposition.

"Now, erm, now we don't mean to criticize your brother's actions that day," Hiep began, "but …."

"But of course you do, Master Dwarf," she said before he could finish. "If what you say is true, then my brother could have neither the character nor the ability to do what he did, yet he did. If nobility is a matter of character then Princess Onkra, Lady Wogren, and Lord Modral could not have done what they did, yet they did. By your reckoning then, my brother is a prince, something on which we agree. What the others are I leave for Erebor's astute residents to decide."

A general laugh followed her words, and she crossed her arms and lifted her chin.

"Lord Dain! Lord Dain!" A sentry, huffing and puffing, ran shouting down the hall, causing Dain to splash the last of the whiskey on the floor. "Your son and daughter! You must come at once."

With a mighty thrust, Dain propelled himself out of his chair and shook his bulk like a waking bear. All his years of anger and bitterness sharpened into daggers that he looked forward to using. His time had come.

"Lead on!"

"Their behavior is beside the point," Dolor said with an angry glare at Relianna.

"No, it is exactly the point," she said, "but your bigotry and arrogance, neither desirable traits, nor noble ones I might add, won't allow you to see otherwise"

Dolor turned an interesting shade of puce and quivered with rage, but Hiep held him back. He smiled a tight, insincere smile that she calmly returned.

"Now, lass," Hiep said, "what's more important is the matter of your birth and breeding, which all must agree are seriously lacking."

"Ah, so you agree with me then?" she said. "I applaud you, Master Dwarves, for your tactical retreat after losing the point so badly. As for my birth and breeding ..."

Hiep's cheek twitched, and he worked his mouth in an attempt to stay calm. She was clever and had twisted the truth to suit herself—not surprising with a mixed-blood—but the next set of facts were irrefutable.

"You are a bastard," he interrupted with a stab of his finger, "with no clan and no family, so I hardly think …"

"ENOUGH!" Thorin said, but another voice shouted over his.

"You hardly think?" Dain roared, standing in an entrance to the hall and facing the nobles. He stabbed his finger at each of them as if to remember their names and faces for future retribution. "Hiep, is it? Aye, I remember you. You named the problem right there. You HARDLY THINK, you heap of warg dung, heap of villainy, heap of putrescence!"

The council turned in dismay at the identity of her defender, and heedless of Relianna's urgent motions for him to back down, he stormed out into the middle of the floor to fight for his own.

"Do you call your king a liar? Treason, that's what that is. The only reason King Thorin hasn't called the guards, I'll be bound, is because his people deserve to know the truth, so here it is. She is my daughter, and he is my son. I claim them as my heirs. Tamra was the wife of my heart, and the only bastards I see are standing in front of me. I swear that if you don't take back what you said about my children I'll tear you to pieces with my own hands!" Holding out his arms, he flexed his fingers and growled like an animal. "C'mon! I've waited years for this. Your ilk murdered my Tamra. Poisoned her! And now you want my children? As Mahal is my witness, I'll KILL YOU SNAKES WHERE YOU STAND!" His words echoed in the cavern and were heard repeating themselves in hall after hall. No one said anything as they listened to them fade away. Marching closer, he whipped out a dagger and charged. Frain and Thorin scrambled after him, and Relianna ran to stop him.

"Don't!"

Father and daughter collided and clung to each other before she went limp on Dain's shoulder. He grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling, and she choked and doubled over.

"Oh, Mahal!"

Thorin pulled her from Dain and shouldered her weight. Blood dripped steadily off her hand to the floor. Dain held up his own bloody hand and stared at his wet dagger without comprehension, but the others understood and came running. Fili and Kili looked up at the crowd. Most had their hands or fingers against their mouths. More than one were shaking their heads.

"No, no, my sweet Relianna … no!"

Thorin held her against him and buried his head against her neck with an agonized cry, rocking them back and forth. He turned away with a snarl when Frain tugged on his arm.

"Let us see to her, Thorin," he said with the calm but grim voice of a healer. With great effort Thorin nodded and opened his embrace. Oin, Nella, and Frain moved in and checked her for injuries. Everyone else stood just outside the small circle, bobbing up and down on the balls of their feet.

"M'all right," she said between rattling efforts to breathe. "Just … my arm and … wind knocked out …."

Satisfied that she received only a glancing cut when the knife slipped, Frain took a cloth from Bemma and staunched the blood. Afterward, Thorin swallowed her up.

"It's over, love," he whispered against her ear, "no more. No more."

Dain said nothing but continued to stare at his daughter's blood mingling with his own. She lay quiet in Thorin's embrace while he rubbed her back, more to reassure himself than to soothe her. Frain walked over and inspected his hand. Another cloth from Bemma was wrapped around his palm.

"I never meant this," Dain said through tears. "I'd die before I'd hurt her. I'd die. I'm so sorry. Mahal, I'm so sorry."

"I know you didn't."

Thorin handed her over to Frain and Oin at their request, and Lord Kerba stepped in and gave Thorin's shoulder a squeeze.

"We'll watch over her—and Dain."

The King of Erebor closed his eyes and drew strength from the strong hand that gripped him. He felt Balin's hand on his back

"I can't go through this again. I'll run mad."

"You won't, Thorin, you won't."

"It's done, laddie. Look up, look up."

Thorin raised his anguished face to see his people dropping to their knees one by one. Looking down the hallways, he saw the same. His people had made their decision. Drawing himself up, he scowled at the council, and his lips twisted in disgust. Making a show of wiping the blood from his hands, he stalked over to them, and they stared back wide-eyed. He couldn't believe that he was in the same situation twice and for the same reason. Twice in one month he'd wiped the blood of his beloved off his hands. He tossed the crimson cloth at Dolor's feet. The portly dwarf flicked his eyes down and then to Hiep who pressed his lips together. There was nothing left to say, and trying to bargain with the king would lose them any scrap of leniency he'd forgotten to destroy.

"Now you owe my wife your miserable lives. I won't waste her sacrifice by separating your heads from your shoulders, but are you are hereby banished from Erebor and expelled from the Longbeard clan. If another wishes to accept you, that is no concern of mine, but I doubt they will. I will hear no appeal. Lord Kerba? Dwalin? Balin? Will you please escort the council members to their chambers? I want them out in two hours." Looking up and around, he addressed his people. "I ask that you go about your business now and keep this area clear." Without a word, they moved away.

Step by hesitant step, Dain made his way to Relianna and Frain. "My … child," he said stepping forward, "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to … finally …. I never meant to..." She backed away holding her arm, and his head dropped. By far these weren't what he wanted his first words to her to be, and he sagged against a pillar, now sure that whatever he touched would somehow be poisoned by some obscure curse that had struck him in infancy. She stared down at him, unwilling to consider anything other than what she'd decided, and walked away. Frain hurried after her.

"You need to hear him out, Relianna."

She looked up at her brother but kept walking. "Tell me in one sentence why I should?"

"Because he was given the choice of letting mother go or letting thousands die, because things aren't what we thought they were, because we're healers, and because he's earned the right to explain himself."

"That's a long sentence."

"True, but I'm right."

Relianna sighed and looked back at the quietly sobbing dwarf. She took one step toward him and stopped. Turning around, she almost walked out but couldn't make herself. Thorin overheard her angry whispers and headed toward her, but Frain stopped him.

"She needs to figure this out herself."

Relianna paced some distance away from Dain until she made up her mind. He was wiping his eyes on his sleeve when a pair of fine satin slippers came into view, and he looked up to see his daughter standing in front of him.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"I thank you for coming to my defense just now."

"I never meant to hurt you." She knew he meant more by those words and struggled to find a reply.

"It appears not."

Dain nodded with his head down and pushed away from the pillar. With another low bow, he turned to leave but she called him back.

"My lord, Frain tells me that he had talked with you."

"Aye, he did."

"And that you explained what had happened."

"Aye."

They faced each other with so much unsaid that it seemed like a third person stood between them. Dain wouldn't look at her directly while she inspected him, but he couldn't help furtive glances at her lovely face. For her part, Relianna stared at her father, taking in his wild, red and gold hair, so much like her own, and those bright green eyes that kept peeking up at her. She felt a chill. It was eerie to see parts of her in someone else.

"He says I should speak with you."

"If you wish, my … my lady."

"Then I want you to tell me what happened."

An almost childlike joy transformed his face, and against her will compassionate tears threatened to flood her eyes. She swallowed them down and hugged her stomach.

"I won't take up too much of your time."

"Very well."

He bowed so low that his head almost touched the ground. She dipped into a shallow curtsy in return and clutched her arm.

"Please have that seen to," he said. She bristled at his words but caught herself before she sharpened her tongue.

"I will, of course."

"Thank you."

She motioned to his hand.

"And you too, my lord."

He curled his fist and held it against his chest, much as she had done a moment ago.

"I will. I thank you for your concern."

She watched him walk away with less vigor than when he first appeared but with a lightness that seemed at odds with his blocky frame.

"You've made him very happy, sister," Frain said.

"Should I care about that?"

"Yes," he said, "because he's not too, too far from the father we once talked of. Not really. Not once you understand everything."

"He's not anything like the father we thought we had," she said with some heat.

Frain sighed, and Bemma came up to him with a sympathetic smile. Without thinking, he put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

"Yes, in that the father we thought we had was perfect in every way," Frain said, "and without fault. That's not fair to anyone."

Relianna paused and took in her brother and Bemma together. They looked so happy that she waved the argument away.

"That's enough about that for now," she said with a growing smile. "What I want to know is how you two happened."

"So do we," said Plumma with all the maids behind her.

So how did Dain do, my friends? Was it dramatic enough? I promise that nothing more happens to Relianna that she doesn't very much want to have happen, and I have to credit both David Copperfield and The Princess Bride for Dain's opening salvo. Inconceivable! Please review and let me know your thoughts!