Chapter Text
He was a clever thief, the boy with the glossy black hair and the grey eyes ringed with lashes so long and dark that almost it looked like he was wearing kohl as courtesans of the eastern lands did. Yes, a very clever thief. He had to be, to survive. The humans who had raised him had told him so; they, and their children, and their children’s children. Such short lives had Lutha’s caretakers led before disease and old age had struck them down, while he had thrived, looking forever as though he had seen just sixteen summers. But he had seen more than that.
Lutha had dwelt among the mortal men for all of his sixty-eight years. Perhaps he had lived a day or two before the humans, but then they had rescued him from the parents who hadn’t wanted him. A stocky woman of middling years, grey before her time, had become his mother. He still missed Mama Bera even though she had died over forty years ago. He missed Fynn too. Fynn had been hanged after being caught stealing horses. Even though Fynn had married into the family from outside, he had still been a better brother to Lutha than any of Mama Bera’s other children. Well, Thora and Niklas had been all right, even if Thora had liked to pinch Lutha’s pointed ears and Niklas had been too free with the back of his hand. But Aerik, Runa, Kori, and Svala had been cruel to their mother’s adopted son. Aerik hadn’t been the worst. That had been pretty Svala. But then the Clan Father had died, leaving Aerik to take over, and power had turned Aerik into the worst. None of that mattered now. Lutha’s people were gone. They had been routed, driven off and killed by a stronger tribe. Lutha’s only choice had been to run.
So run, he did.
He ran for hours that turned into days.
After a journey that had lasted weeks and taken him from the hot and dusty lands in the south and up through green and verdant plains, Lutha found himself under the eaves of a great forest, searching for he didn’t know what. He had come to the edges of the forest when the Clan’s travels had brought them that way, but he had never been allowed to venture over the border. That had been a job for the men and a few women trusted with the important jobs. Lutha had been forced to stay behind and tend the campfires, teach the smaller children how to sneak and steal, and stay out of everyone’s way. He had always resented that. Father Thorir, Father Aerik, and Aerik’s eldest son and heir who had become Father Vali for a short time before the Clan had been slaughtered, had never been shy about using Lutha in whatever way had most benefited them. He had been one of their cleverest and fastest thieves, after all, and certainly their most beautiful. Lutha had never understood why they had kept him away from the trees. He hoped that wherever they were now they could see him walking boldly through the forest without a care in the world. Well, a few cares. But that was to be expected.
A day into his trek through the forest, Lutha came across a signpost with markers pointing in different directions. The language written on it didn’t matter, because Lutha could speak a few languages but he could read barely a word in any. He noticed that each marker had a picture cleverly carved into the wood. On the marker pointing straight ahead was a waterfall. Pointing left was what looked like an inn with a sign blowing in the wind. Below that and pointing in the same direction was another marker but longer, with an important looking building carved into it. That was probably some sort of governmental place. Maybe a courthouse or some such thing, Lutha thought distastefully.
“We’ll avoid that,” he said to a sparrow watching him from a perch in a nearby tree.
The sparrow chirped sagely.
Moving his pack – which was just a cloak that he had stolen and fashioned into a makeshift sack – from one shoulder to the other, Lutha headed west towards the inn. He stopped along the way to drink from a clear stream tumbling over polished black rocks, but the water tasted so pure and sweet that he nearly spat it out. After sitting back on his heels and looking at it suspiciously, he decided to try again. That time he was ready for it, and he drank and drank until his thirst was quenched. Finally, Lutha looked around and left his makeshift sack in the bole of an old oak tree. Bad enough that his tunic was ripped and he had a fading bruise on his cheek that nobody would mistake for dirt. He didn’t want to attract any more attention than was necessary. He would return later for the sack and its contents.
As he continued his journey, Lutha began to pass dwellings. Some were small cottages with pretty little gardens and handsome thatched roofs. Others were larger and more solidly built houses of pale stone or brick. Many of them had outbuildings – stables, barns, workshops, and there were even a few with their own watermills. Lutha laughed in delighted relief. He had walked miles through the forest without seeing a single living soul that wasn’t a woodland creature, yet here were all these homes just waiting for a clever thief to sneak in and take clean clothes and fresh food. Perhaps the forest wouldn’t be such a bad place to stay for a while.
The further Lutha walked along the smoothly paved road, the more people he started to see. It didn’t take him long to reach the startling conclusion that they were not humans. They were like him, he realised, his stomach lurching unpleasantly. They had silky hair in every shade that he could think of, and like his skin, theirs was fair and without blemish. They even had the same pointed ears – ears that Lutha had spent his life hating and hiding under his hair, because it had upset him more than he had let on when people had pulled them and called him a freak.
“Elves,” Lutha whispered in wonder. This was why the Fathers of the Clan had stopped him entering the forest, he thought with a jolt. They hadn’t wanted him to see his own kind. Or was it that they hadn’t wanted his own kind to see him? What had they known? What if, for all their violence and cruelty, they had been trying to protect one of the Clan’s most precious commodities? Because the truth was that Lutha knew very little about his own people. He had heard humans speak of Elves in awe, in fear, in contempt, in reverence, but all that had ever told him was that they were a mystery to be unravelled. He had never managed to unravel it. Not for lack of trying, but because asking questions about Elves had only ever earned him a kick in the ribs or a fist that he’d had to dodge. Elves could be the most dangerous creatures in Middle-earth, and Lutha had just walked straight into their territory.
So caught up in his own thoughts was Lutha that he didn’t hear the hustle and bustle up ahead. He didn’t notice the cart that passed him laden with barrels of fruit, nor the three young women carrying baskets full of goods. Only when he was standing in the middle of it all did he come back to himself and look around with wide eyes. The signpost hadn’t directed him to a wayfarer’s inn at the roadside. It had taken him to a town, or maybe even a small city, with not one inn but three, not to mention a vibrant marketplace, shops all around, restaurants and a banking house, somewhere to see a healer, and everything else that one could imagine. In the centre of it all was a beautiful three tiered fountain, the burbling of water in its marble pools not quite drowned out by a puppet show taking place just next to it.
Lutha tried to take in all the sights, smells, and sounds of a new place, but there were so many that he didn’t know where to look. This wasn’t like some of the towns that he’d had the misfortune to visit. It was clean and pretty, with a sense of safety and…and what else? It took Lutha a moment to realise. Familiarity. The elleth with elflings clinging to her skirt as she argued with the baker about the price of his bread was familiar. The ellon sweeping pale brown hair out of his face as he cheerfully called for people to come look at his strawberries was familiar. Oh, there was beauty to be seen everywhere that Lutha looked in the curves of the architecture and the pristine streets, but other than that it was normal. It was a tableau of scenes that he had witnessed a hundred times before, and that eased his heart.
Wandering about and cleverly putting his fingers to good use whenever he got a chance, Lutha watched the elves from under his lashes as they went about their business. Some looked well to do in silks and brocade, which made him think that they might be merchants or financiers, maybe even nobles. Many others were dressed more simply in hunting leathers, nice woollen dresses, and tunics with leggings that were plain but more finely woven than his own ragged clothes. There was nobody dressed like him. That stung Lutha’s pride, but he could fix it. He had stolen and consumed one jam tart and two sweet red apples, and that was enough to keep him going for the rest of the day. Now he needed to think about new clothes. Maybe even coins that he could exchange for a night at the inn where he might have a bath and sleep in a real bed.
As Lutha tried to remember the last time that he had slept in a bed, he noticed his first target. He might have guessed that the slender and delicate looking elleth was hovering somewhere in the region of twenty. But he knew better. One of the things that he did know about his own kind was that they lived forever, but he had no idea how one put an age on an immortal being since his only experience was...well, himself. The elleth’s hair rippling down her back reminded Lutha of watered silk. It wasn’t quite white, but a silvery blonde so pale that it was only a shade or two away from white. Everyone that Lutha had seen in the forest had been beautiful, but this elleth in a floaty gown of periwinkle to match her eyes was radiant and her smile was kind. It almost made Lutha feel bad about what he was going to do. Almost.
Putting himself into the path of an unsuspecting victim was a trick that Lutha had perfected and performed many a time. As he drifted in front of the elleth and collided with her, his arm knocked her basket from her elbow. She didn’t stumble and barely lost her balance, but the basket dropped to the floor. Packages spilled out, making the elleth gasp in dismay. “I’m so sorry!” Lutha exclaimed, kneeling next to her and helping to gather up her purchases. One of them cleverly made its way up his sleeve. “That was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention at all! You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I am not hurt, elfling. But you will return that parcel to me at once,” came the startling reply. “I doubt that you are sorry at all if you are willing to steal from me.”
“It was an accident!” Lutha attempted.
The elleth wrapped one slender hand around Lutha’s wrist. Her other hand went up his sleeve and plucked the parcel out. “This was an accident?”
“Fine.” Lutha knew when he was caught. “You’ve got it back. Let me go.”
“Let you go? No, I think not. Thieves do not have free rein in this forest,” the elleth replied.
The victim-turned-captor put the small parcel back into her basket and rose, hauling her prisoner up too. As she looked around, Lutha recognised the turn of her head and the way that her eyes scanned the crowds. She was searching for guards. “Don’t do that,” he protested. “You don’t have to call anyone.”
“I do,” the elleth said calmly. “You will be put under house arrest until you can stand trial before Elder Faelind.”
Three words penetrated Lutha’s consciousness. House arrest and trial. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said quickly.
“You are not sorry, elfling.”
Lutha wasn’t at all sorry but the elleth didn’t need to know that. He glared at her. Then he dropped his gaze. He had to work fast, before the guards came. “You don’t have to do this,” he tried again, glancing back up through his lashes. “We can work it out ourselves. Just you and me.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” came the incredulous response.
Lutha was offended but he tried not to let it show. “Whatever you like.”
The disbelief on the elleth’s heart shaped face was replaced by something that Lutha struggled to identify. She almost looked sad, though he didn’t know why she had any reason for it. “Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked softly. “You, a child?”
Surely she couldn’t be sad because he had offered himself to her, Lutha thought. A body was just a body. His body was as useful a tool as his quick feet and clever hands and charming words. It was true that men had always been easier to seduce than women. Men had never cared how old he was. Women, now, they seemed to care more about that sort of thing, which Lutha didn’t understand because his age had never made much difference to the things that he could do or have done to him. He drew a breath to reply even though he didn’t know what to say, but someone else filled the silence for him.
“Nithaniel? Are you all right?”
The elleth let her gaze linger on Lutha a moment longer before she turned to look at the one who had spoken. Standing a short distance away were two young ellyn. The taller of them had hair the colour of honey, and he was staring at Lutha through eyes like suspicious forget-me-nots. The other ellon was shorter though still a head above Lutha, and he looked so much like the elleth – Nithaniel, Lutha corrected – with the same silver-white hair and just slightly darker blue eyes that they could have been twins. There was no suspicion in his gaze as he looked at Lutha, mostly just earnest curiosity tempered with a touch of wariness.
“I am well, Carthalon,” Nithaniel replied. “But I won’t have time to go home before my meeting on the hill.”
“Can we help with anything?” the smaller of the ellyn asked hopefully.
“Take this home for me, sweetling,” Nithaniel said, holding her basket out. “My coin purse is in there. Buy yourselves lunch at the inn. My treat.”
Carthalon gave Lutha a final suspicious stare, and the smaller ellon offered a tentative smile. Lutha just glared. He couldn’t help a flare of jealousy that they were going to get a meal at the inn. He would have got a meal there too if none of this had happened. He watched Carthalon put a hand on the other ellon’s shoulder and draw him away, and as they disappeared into the market, Lutha looked darkly at Nithaniel.
“My little brothers,” she said, by way of explanation. “They live further north but they have been visiting me.”
Lutha decided that he didn’t care. “I thought that you were going to summon the guards.”
“I had intended to,” Nithaniel said, but there was a touch of uncertainty in her voice.
There was only one thing for it. Lutha took advantage of Nithaniel’s hesitation to wrench his arm out of her grip. He turned on his heel and made a run for it, weaving through the stalls and ignoring the angry shouts of people going about their day as he made a beeline for the fountain. He would get back on the road and put the town well behind him. There would be another sooner or later. But as he darted around the fountain, he collided with someone coming from the opposite direction. The elf in his path remained upright, but the collision made Lutha stumble backwards and fall hard on his bottom.
“You should look where you’re going!” he shouted tearfully, as a russet haired ellon in hunting leathers pulled him to his feet.
“So should you,” the ellon said, closing his hands around Lutha’s wrists. “I saw you running from Elder Nithaniel, little one. What had you done to her?”
“She didn’t even tell me that’s her name so you ought to talk to her about manners,” Lutha snapped. He tried to pull his hands free, but he was well and truly trapped even though the hold on his wrists was not a cruel one. “And I’m not little,” he added in flustered frustration. “Do I look little? Like a child?”
“You are quite small,” the ellon said kindly. “And you are behaving like a child. Nithaniel, what happened?”
Nithaniel had walked serenely around the fountain. “This boy collided with me as I strolled through the market and he stole the gift that I had bought Elder Galawen for her Begetting Day. As for names, you did not give me yours either,” she remarked, turning a mildly disapproving look upon Lutha. “But I am indeed Elder Nithaniel. I am concerned with the welfare of the young of our forest. I know that you are an elfling, certainly no more than halfway to your first yen and surely less than that.”
“Stop saying things about me! You know nothing,” Lutha said furiously. “Let me go and I’ll leave. I don’t like your stupid forest anyway.”
“No. Introductions seem to be important to you, so hear this: I am Elder Feredir, hunter and forester,” the ellon said, taking a length of slender rope from his belt and tying Lutha’s wrists securely though not tightly enough to hurt. “I will not allow you to wander the wood alone, especially having been caught in the act of thievery. You will be taken before Elder Faelind and judged.”
“I hope you get eaten by a bear,” Lutha spat.
“I doubt it,” Feredir said calmly, giving the cord a light tug and starting to lead his prisoner out of town.
“I don’t,” Lutha retorted. “A big, hairy, angry bear.”
“You are more likely to end up with a soundly spanked bottom than I am to be eaten by a bear,” Feredir remarked.
Nithaniel laughed under her breath as she walked alongside them, though she didn’t sound wholly unsympathetic. Still, Lutha growled at her and bared his teeth. “Go away,” he warned her. “Or maybe I’ll bite you.”
That made Feredir snort in dry amusement. “No, elfling.”
“Yes, elfling,” Lutha said mutinously.
Without pausing in his stride, Feredir landed an unerringly precise swat to Lutha’s bottom. “Don’t backchat your elders, little one. Don’t bite or threaten to bite.”
Lutha glared but said nothing more as the road began to lead them gently uphill. It was not entirely straight. Here and there it curved slightly or went back on itself in a serpentine sort of way. When it did that there were steps cut into the hill to save time for those on foot. Although the road was wide enough for two large carts to easily pass one another, the only other living soul that Lutha saw was a rabbit who sat up and watched them. Lutha tugged angrily at the cord, envying the rabbit her freedom. He had never been jealous of a rabbit before.
Thick trees that covered the hillside had made it impossible for Lutha to see precisely where he was being taken. But, as they reached the top of the hill and the terrain flattened, he saw a pair of iron gates standing open in a wall of pale stone which snaked around the summit. Both the gates and the wall were so high that Lutha thought even the tallest person would have to jump to reach the top. An ellon and elleth in identical uniforms stood at the gates, boots of supple leather laced to just below their knees over leggings so dark a grey that they were almost black. The hems of their open-collared tunics brushed their lower thighs, and under the forest green tunics they wore olive shirts with fitted sleeves beneath brown vambraces wrapped around their wrists. Both warriors were armed with a sword each and curved daggers.
Lutha could only spare them a passing glance. It was what lay behind them that caught his attention. Up ahead was the grandest and most breathtakingly beautiful building he had ever seen. Prettily veined white marble and stone glistened in the summer sun. Towers and balconies that must surely command views of the entire forest stood atop the building and around it. It was not a house. It was not even a mansion. Lutha had seen mansions and manors before. Some of them he had been in when he had seduced the local lord or wealthy magistrate to avoid prison, but even those great dwellings were put to shame by this. He thought that a dozen mansions must be able to fit into this palace – for surely it had to be a palace – and that was only what he could see of it from the front.
Wide-eyed, he let himself be led through a paved courtyard elegantly landscaped with lush swards of grass and wildflower beds, and past a white fountain three times as large as the one that he had seen in town. A dozen steps led up to a wide portico supported by pillars of marble where two more guards stood on duty in front of open doors again taller than Lutha had ever seen before. Beyond them, the vast entrance hall was lit with natural light and overlooked by a statue of a leaping stag in the middle of a shallow sunken pool where ornamental fish glided above tiles set with sparkling gems. Lutha stopped taking anything in. It was a blur of marble floors, curved staircases, stunningly carved bannisters of polished wood, and a delicate floral scent so sweet that he wished he could breathe it in forever.
Suddenly Lutha realised that they had stopped. He looked around and saw that Nithaniel and Feredir had brought him to an oval antechamber guarded by two ellyn in uniform. Just past them was a mahogany door with a golden oak tree inlaid into the wood. “Protector Amathlogon, Protector Níndir, kindly take charge of this child whilst we inform the Elders of his presence,” Nithaniel was saying.
The ellyn bowed their heads. The auburn haired one called Níndir took hold of Lutha while his more solidly built colleague towered over the young thief. “Your name, elfling,” Amathlogon demanded, staring at Lutha with cool grey eyes as Nithaniel and Feredir stepped through the door.
“Elfling,” Lutha said, calmly meeting the warrior’s gaze. “Since everyone keeps calling me that.”
Amathlogon reached around and gave Lutha a single hard smack on his bottom as Níndir held him still. Lutha couldn’t help the startled cry that escaped his lips though he did his best to stifle it as he glared at the Protectors with unshed tears in his eyes. The force of the smack and the ache that it left behind told him that Amathlogon could deliver a punishment that would set his backside to burning for hours if he dared sass him again.
“Whatever it is that you have done, elfling, you will answer for it and it will be over,” Níndir said mildly. “And we would not be calling you elfling if you had provided a proper name. You know our names.”
“Not by choice. I didn’t ask to know them,” Lutha pointed out. “Anyway, you don’t need my name. I’m leaving as soon as this is over.”
“I very much doubt that,” Amathlogon said.
“I very much doubt you,” Lutha mumbled.
Níndir put his hands on Lutha’s shoulders and held him still as Amathlogon gave him another powerful smack. “You really shouldn’t be rude,” Níndir said. “What are the Elders trying you for, anyway?”
“Mind your own business,” Lutha said miserably. “Or you could untie me and I’ll show you.”
Barking a laugh, Amathlogon folded his arms over his broad chest. “Do you take us for fools?”
“I can answer that if you really want me to,” Lutha replied.
“Sass him again and he’ll heat your bottom for you before you’ve even gone to trial,” Níndir said in warning. “I wouldn’t cross him if I were you.”
“Tell him not to ask stupid questions then,” Lutha complained.
Amathlogon pointedly unfolded his arms, but the doors opened and Elder Feredir beckoned them inside before he could carry out the threat. The Protectors each put a hand on Lutha and marched him into a long room where pretty floral friezes were carved into the walls. Natural light spilled in through high windows and shone into every corner of the impressive room. On either side of the central aisle were six rows of benches, faced by fourteen high-backed chairs arranged in a neat semi-circle. Lutha thought that they looked a bit like thrones.
The throne-chairs were occupied by a nearly equal mix of ellith and ellyn. Only one of them stood empty. Nithaniel and Feredir were seated directly opposite each other, but it was an ellon at the centre of the half circle who caught Lutha’s attention. Even seated, he was clearly the tallest there. Sapphires and opals glittered in his pale gold hair and his robes of silver and green were finer than Lutha had ever lain eyes or hands on. While some of the Elders regarded Lutha with quiet sympathy and others with curiosity, this ellon stared at him through deep blue eyes. His expression was as coldly disapproving as the stars, and yet…he did not look cruel. Severe. Hard. But not cruel.
“Come forward, child.”
The voice like velvet came not from the ellon but from an elleth seated to the left of the single unoccupied chair. Gowned in silver and white with a myriad of tiny silver chains strung through thick black hair that cascaded freely down her back, she was like some magical creature from a story. Lutha thought her beautiful, but only because under the scrutiny of her midnight gaze he could think of no better word. He sensed no disapproval from her as she locked eyes with him, not even when he scowled at the Protectors for shoving him forward so that he stood directly in front of the Elders.
“We were told that you would not give your name, elfling,” said the ellon with pale hair, his voice dripping with displeasure. “You will give it now.”
Next to him, a dark haired elf in unrelieved black robes with a silver circlet on his brow fixed piercing emerald eyes on their prisoner. Lutha was silent. He looked away from them all and stared at the floor to evaluate his options. Sometimes it was necessary to pick the battles in which one wished to engage. Lutha did not want these strangers to know his name…but after all, it was just a name even if it was his. He supposed that they could throw him in prison or cut off his hand whether they knew it or not. And having already been hit by Amathlogon for withholding his name, Lutha acknowledged that the ordeal might be less painful if he conceded this small point.
“My name is Lutha,” he said finally.
“Lutha,” the pale haired ellon repeated. “And where are you from, Lutha? You speak our language passably though I do not recognise your accent.”
“I gave you my name. I’m not telling you anything more until you give me yours,” Lutha replied.
Icy blue eyes lingered on him until finally the ellon drew breath. “I am Elder Rethedir. These are my colleagues Elder Faelind and Elder Aermanis.” Rethedir nodded to the ellon in black and the elleth with silver chains in her hair. Then he indicated the rest of his colleagues, giving their names and titles, but after hearing a few names Lutha decided to temporarily stop listening since he wouldn’t be able to remember them all.
“Elder Nithaniel and Elder Feredir you have met,” Rethedir finished. “We are the Circle of Elders, the governors and caretakers of Greenwood.”
“You’re more like a semi-circle,” Lutha observed.
Feredir and the brown haired elf to his right both stifled laughter and earned themselves a sharp look each from Rethedir. A big blond elf, who Lutha vaguely remembered was called Elder Serellon, leaned across and gave the brown haired elf a backhanded smack to the shoulder. “Don’t encourage him, Thavron,” Serellon snapped. “And you can shut it as well, Feredir.”
“The elfling has a point,” Thavron said calmly. His chocolate brown eyes were gentle as he smiled at Lutha. “But the Semi-Circle of Elders sounds silly.”
“Regardless,” Rethedir said pointedly. “We are the Circle of Elders, Lutha. And you will answer for the crime that you committed against an Elder of the Greenwood.”
The pronouncement induced cold dread in Lutha which he tried to hide beneath bravado and a toss of his dark hair. “I didn’t know that she was an Elder.”
“You would answer for it were she not an Elder,” Faelind said neutrally. “Stealing is stealing.”
“That’s not my fault,” Lutha replied. “I didn’t make the rules.”
“Insolence,” Rethedir snapped, his voice cracking like a whip. “Where are your family?”
Lutha shrugged. “Not here.”
“Where are they?” Rethedir demanded.
“I just told you they’re not here,” Lutha drawled. “You don’t even care where they are. You just want to know that someone will take me away so that I don’t cause any more trouble in your precious forest.”
Faelind stirred and stared incredulously at him. “We want to know why they have been so irresponsible as to let you wander alone, why they have left you no choice but to steal from us. Your family ought to be providing for you, Lutha, and we shall demand answers from them. In Greenwood we do not abandon our children. That is not our way.”
“I’ll tell them you said so,” Lutha offered. “Look, just do whatever it is that you have to do. Give me the beating that I’ve earned and let me go.”
“We do not let children wander homeless. Nor do we beat them,” Elder Aermanis said, a tremor in her voice. “We do not beat anyone.”
“Make an exception for me and then we can go our separate ways and forget that this happened,” Lutha retorted.
Faelind shook his head minutely. Sunlight beaming through the high windows made his hair gleam an almost midnight blue. “You will not be going anywhere.”
The patience that Lutha had been clinging to suddenly snapped like a cord that could take no more fraying. “Then throw me in a cell and have done with it!”
“No,” Faelind said gravely. “You are not going in a cell.”
Lutha had been sentenced to death exactly five times in his career as a thief. Twice, the Clan had rescued him. Twice, he had paid for his freedom with his body. The last time he had escaped through a window with a broken grate. He knew what it was like to realise the sentence being passed without it being spoken aloud. That moment of icy dread where everything went still and the world stopped turning was like nothing else he knew. And if these elves were not going to beat Lutha, nor were they going to imprison him…
“Please.” Lutha finally looked like a child instead of a rebellious youth defiantly pretending to be a grown up. The fear that shone in his eyes had bubbled up from so deep inside him that it could not be mistaken for anything other than the real and genuine terror of someone who thought that he had to fight for his life. He swallowed as he looked around at his captors. “Please don’t.”
“Tell us what you fear, elfling,” Rethedir said.
“I don’t want to die. My family are all gone and I’m the only one left,” Lutha whispered, the words spilling out of him. “I stole because I thought that I could sell whatever it was to buy food and new clothes and maybe even stay at the inn and have a bath and sleep in a bed. I swear I’m telling the truth. I’m sorry for breaking your rules, but…but please, don’t execute me. If you let me go I promise I’ll leave and you will never see me again, not ever!”
Murmurs of disbelief rippled through the Elders – even inscrutable Faelind and surly Serellon – and the ice in Rethedir’s gaze melted and revealed compassion beneath it. “Come here, child.” Lutha had no choice as the Protectors moved him to stand directly in front of Rethedir. The Elder reached out and took his bound hands, squeezing them gently. “You are not to die. That was never to happen. You have my word.”
“You are safe here,” Faelind added quietly.
“We will all swear to that. Now, I am the eldest and chief of our circle,” Rethedir continued, “but Elder Faelind is concerned with justice and the law of the forest. It is he who passes judgement on those who stand before us. You have admitted stealing and told us why you did so. Elder Faelind will take everything into account so that he may pass a fair and just sentence. Is there anything else that you wish to say, elfling?”
“I don’t want to,” Lutha replied, feeling numb.
“Very well,” Rethedir said. “Elder Faelind?”
Faelind shook his head slightly and gave Lutha a long look. His expression had returned to one of cool impassiveness. “I understand why you stole. I understand the difficulty of your circumstances. One might be forgiven for assuming that leniency is called for. But I think not. You have failed to demonstrate appropriate remorse. You have displayed a rude and insolent attitude, and you attempted to run from justice when you escaped Elder Nithaniel. So, Lutha. You will not be beaten and no blood will be drawn. But you will be soundly switched for your crime and your subsequent behaviour. Then, we will begin your rehabilitation. This is my judgement.”
“When?” Lutha asked briefly.
“As soon as our meeting is over, for we have more than just you to discuss,” Faelind replied. “The Protectors will take you to the kitchens so that you may have a good meal. You look as though you have not eaten well in far too long. When we are finished here, you will be summoned to the birch grove and your sentence carried out by Elder Rethedir.”
Lutha nodded distractedly to that last pronouncement, but his eyes flickered with doubt. “You’re going to give me food?”
“Everyone is deserving of good food,” Faelind said quietly.
“But what do I have to do?” Lutha asked, suspicion lacing his voice. “I can’t pay you for it.”
“You are our ward now, and it is our duty and our pleasure to provide for you,” Rethedir said. “You need not pay for food freely given. Go now with the Protectors and they will see that you have plenty to eat.”
It didn’t seem right to Lutha that people who he had stolen from and who were going to punish him for that thievery also intended to give him a good meal. A soft apple and some stale bread would have made more sense, or maybe a bowl of stew cooked an unappetising shade of grey. The truth was that it wouldn’t matter how poor the food was. When Lutha was hungry, when all he had eaten for five days were handfuls of berries and the jam tart and apples that he had stolen that morning, he would eat anything.
Lutha let himself be led out of the council chamber by the Protectors who had first marched him in there, and he laughed softly as a sense of relief washed over him. He wasn’t going to be dragged outside and executed. He was going to live, with only a painful but survivable switching to endure before he could leave this place and carry on with his life. Shaking his head at his luck, the young thief looked around and found that he was finally able to take everything in. Not facing death did wonders for clearing the mind. “What is this place?” Lutha asked. “A palace? Is there a king?”
“Not yet,” Níndir replied. “They say that there will be one day.”
“They say? Who are they? Why isn’t there a king already?”
The Protectors maintained a dignified silence as they led Lutha through the halls of the palace. Lutha couldn’t help but think of it that way, though he supposed not-palace might be more accurate if there was no king. They came to the kitchens, and Lutha was immediately taken aback by their sheer size. Given the grandeur of the not-palace, he thought that he probably shouldn’t have been.
The main kitchen was long and wide with vaulted ceilings, and windows that looked out onto vegetable and herb gardens. The walls, which had more pots and pans hanging from them than Lutha had ever seen before, were lined with ovens and counters for the preparation of food. A long wooden table ran down the centre of the kitchen, but the room was so big that the table would have posed no obstruction even if the place had been a hive of activity. There wasn’t just the one room, either; through an open door in an arched frame, Lutha could see into a huge wine cellar, and there were other rooms with closed doors that hid the bounties within. Lingering over it all was the smell of freshly baked bread. It made Lutha’s stomach ache in pleasure.
A small staff was seeing to the running of the kitchen, and a tall elleth with honey-gold hair and sharp hazel eyes left off stirring a cauldron of soup when she saw the Protectors and their charge. “A prisoner, hmm?” she asked, wiping her hands on the white apron that she wore over her dress of spring green wool. She gestured to one of the benches tucked under the central table. “Sit him down there. And for the love of the Belain, stop towering over him, Amathlogon. He’s not going anywhere.”
Amathlogon glowered but stood back with his arms folded while Níndir pulled the bench out for Lutha to sit down. Lutha hadn’t expected kindness from the elleth, especially not once she had identified him as a prisoner, but she set a plate in front of him with a thick slice of fresh bread slathered with butter and accompanied by slices of cheese and apple. The cord binding Lutha’s wrists held him fast, but it didn’t restrict his ability to pick up the food with his hands and eat it. He savoured every single bite, from the sharp tang of the cheese to the warmth of the bread with sweet butter melting into it. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever eaten.
“That’s better, isn’t it,” the elleth said, smiling gently at him. “You look better already.”
“Thanks,” Lutha said awkwardly.
“You are most welcome. My name is Maechenebil,” the elleth added. “I serve the Elders of Greenwood.”
“I’m Lutha,” Lutha replied. “I’m a thief.”
Maechenebil’s eyes brightened with mirth. “Were. You were a thief.”
Lutha offered no answer because he didn’t have one. He was still a thief, was he not? He hadn’t stopped being a thief because he had been caught. And now that he had been caught, he wasn’t going to stay in Greenwood – at least not this part of it; he might have better luck further north – because he fully intended to continue being a thief no matter what the Elders said about it. He had been stealing from strange men and women since he had learned to walk and selling himself to them for not much less time. It was the only way he knew how to survive. Without it, he was dead.
“This bread is nice,” was all he said.
“I am glad you think so. I baked it myself,” Maechenebil replied. She studied him critically. “When was the last time you had a home cooked meal?”
Lutha didn’t have to think about that. He always remembered his last proper meal. “A farmer’s wife gave me a hot meal twenty days ago and let me sleep in their barn.”
“Twenty days ago? You poor elfling. Well, you are a ward of the Elders now even as I was in my time.” Maechenebil smiled reminiscently as she walked around the table to continue stirring her cauldron of soup. “They will find you a good home once your rehabilitation is concluded and you will choose a good trade to learn, something to work at that you will enjoy. They will never let you go hungry. You have a home now, little one.”
“What does that word mean?” Lutha demanded, remembering that Elder Faelind had said it too. “That big word.”
“Rehabilitation? Well, thieving is naughty. Some might call it bad, but that doesn’t mean that you are a bad elfling,” Maechenebil explained. “Elflings usually do such things when they have been taught to or when they desperately need help but don’t know what else to do. Yet, they are still good inside. The Elders will help you find that, so that you may help yourself and others. You will have friends and a family. You won’t be alone.”
“I don’t need help and I like being alone,” Lutha said. “I’ve managed fine.”
“That is what I said too,” Maechenebil said wryly.
Lutha looked up from the slice of cheese that he had been about to eat and gave the elleth a suspicious look. “Did you steal things?”
“I did. I had a family, but we were not close and I thought that I was grown up enough to take care of myself, eighty-three years old as I was,” Maechenebil said. “But I couldn’t have been more wrong. So when I was caught stealing an opal necklace which I had thought to sell for coin, I was brought before the Elders to be judged – not by Elder Faelind, you understand; his father held the position before him – and I was terribly afraid because Elder Elrain had already sentenced me to prison time once before.”
“An opal necklace,” Lutha repeated longingly.
Maechenebil nodded but she suddenly appeared to be distracted. She sniffed at the soup, frowned, and then threw a handful of chopped herbs into it. “An opal necklace, indeed,” she agreed, resuming her stirring. “It was taken back by the Elders and I was sentenced. When I finished my sentence, I got given good employment as a cook’s apprentice, for I had some small talent in that area. I was a quick study and I impressed my mistress. I struck out on my own, and in time Elder Angoliel took me on to manage her kitchen. Now here I am, second in command of these great kitchens. I’ve even got my very own opal necklace, bought and paid for fairly by the savings from my wages.” With a proud smile, Maechenebil touched the opal pendant that hung from a silver chain around her neck.
Lutha looked at the necklace, and then he looked back at his food and ate in silence. It was a nice story, but it sounded too good to be true. He didn’t understand why anyone – not least the Elders in all their finery – would care about an undersized thief in a tattered shirt. Even if they did care, what would he do? He was good at selling his body and stealing. He could charm people and he was quick with numbers, and out of necessity he had learned a few languages for the times when he needed to talk his way out of trouble in foreign lands. That was about it. He couldn’t read or write. He couldn’t make anything. He was a scrappy fighter but he couldn’t swing a sword, although he supposed that he was a fair shot with a throwing knife. Lutha sighed. He couldn’t imagine what the Elders might make of someone like him. He had to get back to his old life, the only life that he knew, and he couldn’t do that in Greenwood.
“What makes you so sure that you want to leave?” Maechenebil asked, as if she had read his mind.
“I don’t belong here,” Lutha said quietly.
“Perhaps not yet,” Maechenebil agreed, her tone gentle. “But you could belong here. We are your people.”
Lutha sighed and tried to think what to say, but there was no time. A golden haired Protector strode through the door with a swish of his cloak. “Amathlogon. Níndir. The Elders are ready for the prisoner.”