Dayn armallah

10. Golden Deer

It was amazing how quickly his strength returned, once he finally got over the fever, I thought as I looked at the Forester. He sat by the cooking fire in front of the house wearing only his leather trousers, long hair thrown over one tanned shoulder, and combed it patiently, tress by tress. The gleaming brown mane was still partly wet and had a metallic sheen in the afternoon sunlight. The muscled body still seemed somewhat too lanky; the fever simply hadn't wanted to let him out of its claws, and during the battle against it he had lost rather too much weight from his tall frame.

But now that he was on his feet again, he seemed to be growing stronger by the minute, and with his strength had also returned the desire to groom himself, I mused and smiled to myself. Nobody in this village certainly had anything to complain about that, either. The Foresters were generally filthy and did not much care about cleanliness, in stark contrast to my people for whom bathing was among the greatest delights, and going about dirty an absolute horror. So why indeed would anyone complain about a Forester man who enthusiastically embraced our ideas of bathing and took great interest in his appearance?

At the moment this particular man had nearly finished combing his hair and now began to braid it with experienced hands. I looked at his handsome tanned face, slightly curved nose, arrogant eyebrows, large mouth and strong beardless chin. Beardless indeed – one of his first requests, as soon as he had gained some lucidity after hazy spells of fever and delirium, had been to be shaved. Once again I tried to guess at the reason for that penchant. Was it to make it easier to keep himself clean? To stand apart from others in yet another way? Or to show off his handsome, scarless face? Well, if it was the first then he should have shaved his head as well, I thought and swallowed a chuckle. Not a chance of that, judging from the obvious satisfaction with which he tied the end of that very thick braid and pulled it on his left shoulder.

Holy Mother, but the man was handsome! I nearly gasped when he stood up, still a little cautiously, and straightened himself. The wounds on his side and arm had healed nicely, the scars still looked a little too red and fresh but needed no bandages anymore, and I looked at him with satisfaction. His body, although emaciated after the hardships of winter and illness, was well-formed and strong. He had obviously been a healthy baby to grow into such a man, long legs and arms straight, teeth strong and white, eyes sharp, quick to bounce back into life even after nearly dying of his wound.

His returning health was not the only reason to heighten my spirits: as soon as I had managed to even try and explain the situation to Golden Deer, he had taken it with surprising equanimity. Or, to be quite honest, a much better word for his attitude was 'enthusiasm'. His eyes had roamed all over the hut, taking in the surroundings and the people around him. He kept bombarding me with questions that I was hard put to understand let alone answer, given my very limited vocabulary in his language. He was very determined to learn our speech, listening very closely to my exchanges with the prince, his sun-brown eyes looking hungrily at us, as if he could will himself to understand. And he had soon begun to imitate us, asking me for words and expressions, echoing the prince's quiet voice and smiling to him in return when corrected.

Yes, my prince Merilion... I suddenly noticed two things at the same time. The first of them was that I had been simply sitting there for who knows how long, staring at the Forester and totally oblivious to my designated task, that of mending the jacket crumpled in my lap. The second, that the prince had sauntered from behind the house and was now standing in its shadow with a strange expression on his face. His disturbingly dark eyes were fixed on Golden Deer, his lips were parted and, judging from the heaving of his chest and the slightly crouched posture, he seemed to have difficulty breathing. I stared at him and forgot in turn to breathe for a while. What in the Goddess' name was this? The prince frowned ever so slightly, his eyes narrowed, and in a split second I knew where I had seen that expression before: when he was stalking the Foresters in the woods, when he stood still as a statue, his aim steady and bow drawn, his black arrow poised to take yet another life, hand unwavering and ready to release that lethal shaft. The moment of death. Merilion the predator. I had seen the passion burning in his eyes at that moment, and I could see it now.

Golden Deer turned, noticed the prince, and a wide smile spread on his face. The prince seemed to catch his breath, then he too smiled and walked towards the fire. I gasped air again into my lungs – for how long had I forgotten that basic activity? – and bent once more over my work, heart beating furiously. What was going on inside that head crowned by honey-brown hair? What was that look? I'd thought he liked Golden Deer!

But I had to quickly banish my puzzlement when I heard the prince's smooth voice:

"Tarisha, come over here. I want you to share your meal with us, so we can talk as well."

Throughout the dinner I kept looking closely at them both over my bowl, but could not tell what could possibly be wrong with either. Golden Deer was obviously hungry, and equally obviously he was being offered the best of the best – by the prince. Basically it was nothing new to me, not after I had watched the care with which he had nursed the ailing man for days and nights. However, after that dark glare I had seen, I suddenly felt a cold fear in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't fathom what was going on and felt squeamish because of it.

Yet I couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary in the prince's behavior. He was his usual self, every now and then asking me to speak to Golden Deer, listening as I fumbled for words, focusing all his attention on me as I struggled to understand the Forester and then translate what I had understood into our language. Most certainly he did not look in any way murderous. My thoughts were swirling wildly, and I was expecting something terrible to happen any moment. But nothing did, and I didn't know whether I should be relieved or worried because of it.

At last the bowls were empty, the fire only a low flicker over glowing embers, and the prince decided it was time for us to retire. That we did, crawled into the cabin we shared, and took to our beds. As soon as he was on his feet again, Golden Deer had understood that the bed he had so far occupied in fact belonged to someone else, and had simply gone to lie down on the bed that had been mine to start with. That would have resulted in an argument of sorts, if only the two protagonists had been able to understand each other any better, and it had ended when the prince had just walked to the beddings and dragged them closer to ours. Thus we slept now, within an arm's reach of each other: me with the prince, Golden Deer in the other bed that had been made so that the crowns of our heads were nearly touching. In the dark cabin I could hear his breathing, the rustling of his mattress as he settled on it and wrapped the blankets over his body, the grunt he let out when he first settled badly on his wounded side. For some reason that sound also made the prince's breath hitch beside me, and I knew we were both listening intently until the Forester sighed and relaxed in his bed.

Having noticed it once, I could not help seeing it again as spring gave way to summer. The glare, the look. And I really saw it, there was no doubt about that. It was not only something in my head. That darkness would creep into the prince's gaze when he looked at our tall barbarian; his eyes would narrow nearly into slits, long lashes hiding the unnaturally bright gleam, and I could almost see the tip of a fang press on his lower lip. More than once I felt a chill along my spine and shuddered inside my clothes, averting my eyes. It made me nervous, for I couldn't even begin to understand it, not for the life of me.

Wasn't he friendly towards the man? Unfailingly so. Golden Deer worked hard with our language; for him, every day when he hadn't picked up at least half a dozen new words was a day wasted. He listened attentively, and was enthusiastically putting his hitherto accumulated vocabulary into use whenever the opportunity offered itself. Moreover, ever since we first took him along into the forest, he proved to be every bit as tough and skilled a hunter as I had thought him to be, and then some. Outside the village, our lack of common language just lost its meaning. It didn't take long before a glance, a nod, a raised eyebrow, or a pointing finger were all the language we needed to understand each other perfectly. Thus, with his expert input, we all lived through the early part of summer much better fed and generally more comfortable than anybody could have hoped for. So it was hardly any surprise that the village as a whole was soon accustomed to his presence, the men talking to him in a friendly way, women eyeing his tall form with more or less open admiration. Only the priestesses, predictably enough, shunned him when they – rarely – caught a glimpse of him.

The summer wore on, and I was simultaneously shocked and pleased to realize how much of a city-like edge his behavior had taken in such a short time. Golden Deer loved bathing, kept himself and all his belongings meticulously clean and well-cared, and never wasted an opportunity to demonstrate his respect and friendship towards the prince. Nothing seemed to be wrong, and yet I kept catching those odd looks for which I couldn't think any reason. I just knew I was growing increasingly queasy in the prince's presence, and found it odd that neither of them seemed to notice anything.

By late summer, I couldn't find any other than 'friends' to describe their relationship. Golden Deer had learned enough of our language to actually talk to the prince in the evenings, and their range of topics was increasing in pace with the Forester's growing vocabulary. Many times these discussions went on and on, continuing still after we had all gone to bed. They were strange discussions, sometimes chopped and halting, when the men tried to find common words for things that were actually much too complicated for someone so fresh in our speech. But they didn't give in, and I learned to simply fall asleep listening to the murmur of their voices, talking, talking. And once or twice I was startled out of near-sleep by something rare and precious: the soft, deep sound of the prince's laughter beside me. At such moments the vague fear gnawing inside me seemed just too ridiculous, and I would smile to myself and decide that I'd stop being a fool – then sleep peacefully, and be convinced that I had imagined the whole thing.

That is, until the next time I again caught that predatory look in prince Merilion's eyes.