Love & Honor | Roderick & Aoife
Eithne had proven reasonable to treat with and, having heard -- to his wroth -- Valentina's unseemly delcarations at the Malconaire Ball the other night, Roderick was determined that his conversations with her sisters should go just as smoothly.
Roderick had arrived early in the morning, not much past the dawn, and found to his astonishment only one rough-tongued young man present to take his horse. Lady Valentina must have given her servants leave to take the morning off after last night's festivities, he thought. And clearly her foolish help knew not to whom they spoke, or else he had little doubt that uncivil boy would have kept a quiet tongue in his head. Still, he'd cooled his wrath. He was here for a purpose and did not mean to be recognized, and it better suited him that the household should not be roused.
"Where might I find Lady Aoife?"
"What do you want with my lady?" demanded the swain.
"Nevermind what I want with your lady, where is she?"
It had taken some doing to wrest any information from the youth and he'd not gotten her location, but thrusting his reins roughly into the peasant's mongrel hand, Roderick had strode off into the woods, himself.
It was an unquiet wood. Above, gusts of wind struck the sentinel trees till their boughs groaned and creaked, emmitting low ghastly moans. But worse was the leering silence that came later. Light was dim, flickering eerily through the crags in the leaves, till he found himself caught in a murky gloaming twilight, queer at the dawning of day. Branches seemed to crouch low, sightless eyes turned to stare. Leaf-less branches clawed skyward, raking the air with skeletal fingers and tore at his clothing. The air was musty and close. The trees closed in.
This is an ungodly place, he thought, unconsciously pulling his cloak tighter as if against a chill he did not feel.
"AOIFE!" he bellowed.
Alarmed, a songbird shrieked. Roderick pulled back. With a puff of green feathers, the bird escaped skyward.
A voice. Roderick gasped, turned quickly. A pale face loomed from beyond the wind-swept trees. The sounds of birds and squirrels and deer resumed. Light, real daylight, filtered through the trees and cheerily dappled the forest floor below. The wood was an ordinary wood, again.
Swallowing hard, Roderick shook himself and approached the girl. "Forgive my...abrupt appearance," began the Emperor, taking her by the arm and beginning to guide her from the too-close trees. An open field would do just as well, he thought, suppressing a shudder, as the screeching woods.
"After the night's...festivities, I wished to speak with you." He paused. "It has become clear to me, after all, how much my son...values your...friendship, and I wish to give a gesture of..." he glanced away. How to be delicate in such suggestions. "Is it so that you are soon to be betrothed, Lady Aoife?"
Cormac Calleary had spoken of his intentions. Yet, the rumor was surely quite widely spread, already, of Aoife's shocking behavior as regarded Sebastian. Perhaps even Lord Calleary would find himself less than delighted with such a prospect...only time, he supposed, could tell.
Aoife had tossed and turned most of the evening once she'd finally been able to go to bed after the party that previous evening. She hadn't been foolish enough to assume the event would be a pleasant evening-- from the start she'd been all but thrown at Arthur Varmont who, thankfully, had almost immediately called for his brother to join them. Sebastian always managed to put her at ease, even in the most uneasy of places like a party made up primarily of people she did not know well.
She wasn't sure how long she'd managed to sleep before the sun began streaming in through her bedroom windows but, despite not feeling like she had rested nearly enough, she found herself restless. Thankfully it seemed as if her stepfamily was sleeping in after the festivities as the main level of the house was silent as she headed out through the back door and made her way into the forest.
The woods were a comfort to Aoife, as she knew they were to all of her sisters. She loved the sounds the forest made, the chittering of creatures back and forth, the bird songs, the rustling of the leaves. It was like the forest had its own language in all of those sounds and only those who dwelled beneath the canopy of leaves would ever learn to speak it, too.
"AOIFE!" Her name came through the trees at such a volume it seemed to shake the whole woods, Aoife herself feeling as if she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden noise. Some instinct told her to turn back towards the house and as she did, she found the source of the shout.
It was the Emperor.
"Yo-your Imperial Majesty?" Aoife questioned as if she might be seeing some sort of spectre. He turned immediately, eyes wide as he saw her. This was no spectre, this man was of flesh and blood... and he was looking for her.
Aoife made to curtsey to the Emperor but he was grabbing her by the arm and walking her out of the forest. Aoife hadn't realized until she stood this close to Roderick Varmont that they met eye to eye. It felt strange to see him this close, when he often seemed to tower over everyone in a crowded room.
Aoife hadn't been sure how to respond to the Emperor's mention of Sebastian-- she did value Sebastian's friendship as well. He understood her in a way others did not-- that had been made clear when he'd given her time to process the revelation about one of the prince's being the cause of her father's death. But even before then, she knew-- she'd known when he'd just chosen to sit with her quietly or walk through the fields without needing to carry on a long conversation.
The abrupt change in conversation topics, however, was not what she'd expected to hear.
"Am I-- am I to be betrothed?" Aoife repeated, slightly confused why the Emperor of the Twelve Kingdoms would come on his own to find Aoife and ask her that. She could never have imagined Cormac's chatterings had taken on some actual ground and it was getting about that she was potentially to marry Finn Calleary.
"I-- not that I am aware of, Your Majesty. Though, my step brother was still in bed when I left for my walk this morning... I do suppose my situation could have changed since I went to bed myself last evening...?"
She looked stunned to see him, but for the moment, Roderick could not focus on mortal astonishment. He saw only his opportunity to escape from the thick, over-arching brush of the majesterial trees. They seemed to watch, looming over them as they did, casting their wide, shadowy judgment over all they surveyed. His sons loved this place -- Roderick's gut clenched at the thought. He felt he might break into a cold sweat at any instant. Rapidly, too rpidly to apper entirely composed, he hastened Aoife away from the cloying atmosphere of the wood. The fields or the house would prove superior.
"You have wretched servants," he told her, irritably, as they left the shadowed forest. "We advise you to dispatch them at once, if they are your ordinary help. You've no manner of state here, at all. First we are accosted by the ill repair of the roads -- now your groundskeeper cannot be bothered to keep a civil tongue in his head." Best he learn to, thought Roderick. Lest others learn to rip it out.
"I was obliged to find you under my own ingenuity. You may blame the sorry stte of your servants, therefore, for any astonishment you may have endured just now. It could not be helped."
He felt relieved to emerge from the trees, as if some terrible vice had released him and, at last, he could draw a full, deep breath. Roderick glanced at the girl for a long moment. Perhaps it was no surprise after all that these young women had proven to be creatures of such low cunning. How else to survive so dreadful an environment.
Her question caught him out. He'd been attempting to be delicate, but Roderick regarded it truly not as a thing yet to occur -- but as one already accomplished. He wondered, silently, for a moment if she were mocking him. Obstinent girl. Would she not allow him to help her? It was only for Sebastian's sake that he...
Sebastian. A whirring sensation ached in his chest. His hand still stung where he had struck him. My boy, he thought. My boy...If she was carrying Sebastian's child, it was not undue that he suck in a deep breath...and continue on. Perhaps she was simply a dullard. There was such confusion in her face, after all. And besides -- it was not unheard of that a fool fall for an intelligent woman, while an intelligent man fell for a fool...Perhaps Eithne had all the brains in the family.
"I daresay it changed well before that," replied the Emperor, dryly, suppressing irritation. No, she was not quick, was she? Roderick offered up a silent prayer to the god that the child within her take after his father and not his mother for brains. I will speak more slowly, he decided. Perhaps that will help her keep up.
"Lord Finn of Calleary," he said, very slowly, indeed. "Your betrothed. Surely...you have not forgotten who he is? But perhaps...it would be better were I to speak to your brother on the question of your future and your...forthcoming marriage? He seems..." he hesitated to call him capable. "Well, he is Lord Malconaire. I ought never to have bothered you with it in the first place," he said, almost to himself. He folded his arms behind his back, nodded to himself. "Marriage and children are the province of women." He turned to her, arching a brow. "Should you like to be included in any...discussions on what may become of your...future children, Lady Aoife?"
