“But Pa,” I objected, “why can’t we at least go and ask? They can do it, I’m sure of it, or this wouldn’t have been my answer! We can at least ask! The worst that can happen is that they say no!”
The Duke looked at least as exasperated as I felt, though for rather different reasons. “Child, you have no idea what you are speaking of! First, the elfin that are kin to us are somewhere around Elfindale, which is in the shire of York, hundreds of miles to the north. And secondly, the Elfin hate sorcerers above anything else. There is no way on God’s green earth they are going to cure a man of self-inflicted sorcery, distant relation or no. They’d probably execute me themselves and save a lot of time and bother!”
“Pa!” I cried, “don’t talk like that! Don’t you see, this is the only hope for you; I’m convinced of that now! We must go and find them.”
“We are going nowhere,” declared the Duke with grim determination. “My days of charging up and down the roads of this country are over. At least previously I’ve always sought something that can be found! Find the Elfin! Child! As well try and catch smoke in your bare fingers!” He saw me open my mouth again. “Enough. Let’s go to dinner, and no more of this foolishness.”
Slowly I closed my mouth, my jaw set in a mutinous line. I knew better than to push him too far all at once, but he had not heard the end of it.
~+~
I had just tallied up the days and realized with horror that it was over a week since I had received that unexpected answer to my prayer. I’d been as tenacious as a terrier with a rat, but with much less effect. We were still there, at Albany House, not a step closer to Elfindale and my father’s only hope. Now there was a cure within sight, I fretted almost more than before. This was my answer.
Everyone knew that the Elfin had powers. The ignorant termed it magic, but from what my father said it was something less sinister. A heightened influence over nature? An ability to touch the spiritual? A bit of both? But whatever the details, everyone knew that farmers with elfin forts on their land had livestock that never died of sickness and families where virtually every child born would live to adulthood. The healing powers of the Elfin were legendary. And my father and I were the Elfin’s direct kin. I was sure that was why Siridean had helped me.
But it might well take some time to persuade the Elfin to help, I thought, anguished, as I ran my father to earth in his study.
I was starting to get the impression that he was avoiding me. Perhaps not surprisingly. But he showed no signs of budging. I was in a particular panic today, because he hadn’t even ridden out with me for the last few mornings and although he claimed he was busy with his own affairs, I had a horrible suspicion that he was simply finding it too tiring. I just had to persuade him.
With that thought, I squared my shoulders, gritted my teeth like a knight sallying into battle and strode into the room. His book lay on his knee when I entered and he was staring rather bleakly into the fire, but he raised it quickly and fixed his attention on it. Frustrated before I had even said a word, I sat on the arm of the chair and took the book from him, ostensibly to look at the title. I shot a sidelong glance at him and put the book out of reach on a nearby table. He looked so thin, now.
“Pa...” I started, but he cut me off, an irritation approaching real anger warring with sadness in his eyes.
“Child, you seem dissatisfied with the speed at which the sorcery is dispatching me. You clearly intend to nag me to death.”
This unusually harsh remark told me I had already pushed him too far today, but what could I do, but push further? I wasn’t getting anywhere.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to be upset. “Pa,” I objected, “why can you not at least try? Can’t you think of me? Do you want to die?”
He looked at me sharply, at that. “I wish to be saved,” he said softly, “which is not the same thing. I have made my bed, child, and now I must die on it. It is only proper.” He touched my cheek with a rather bony finger. I drew breath, but he moved the finger to my lips. “Quiet, Serapia. One more word from you tonight and I shall probably say something I do not mean and hurt both of us. Would that you could understand that when I say nay, I mean it.”
I bit my lip and after a long moment, I withdrew quietly, leaving him again staring into the flames. I was getting desperate, but I had no wish to really draw his wrath. He did not get angry very easily, but when he did...
~+~
I went up to my bedroom and sat gazing into my own hearth. I just couldn’t understand why my father wasn’t prepared to at least try. He professed himself certain that the Elfin would not help, that at best they would turn him away with anger and contempt, and at worst, do him harm themselves. But I was not convinced. I doubted the Elfin would do more than turn us away, in which case we had absolutely nothing to lose by asking. In either case, we had nothing to lose! So why wouldn’t he go?
And I realized that he had finally told me why, though I had not noticed at the time. He wished to be saved. He did not expect it, but he still wished it. And he felt, reasonably enough, that to accept without demur the consequences of his sin, as an earthly penance, might mitigate his eternal punishment. That was why he was not prepared to stir so much as a foot in search of bodily salvation, not even for me. The Duke had learned by now that one did not put one’s soul on the line for another’s worldly happiness or longevity.
I could not blame him for it. He was terribly afraid that he was damned, a fear I had not been able to talk him out of and perhaps that was only proper as well. But it still meant that my hopes of talking him around had just plummeted. When I say nay, I mean it, he had said, and I rather believed that he did.
Hearing the stairs creak a little later, I peeped out to watch him making his way to his own bedchamber. He walked as if weary, and his hand rested on banister and side tables as he went. He was growing weaker by the day, though he tried to hide it. I bit my lip. Very well. I would have one last try.
I waited a while, then went to his bedchamber and tapped on the door. I couldn’t tell if there was more wariness or weariness in his ‘Enter’ but I did so. He still had one candle lit, and I went over and sat on the bed. I looked at him, and he regarded me with cautious serenity. I am being selfish, I thought to myself. He thinks of his soul, but you think only of his body, trying to force him to what he knows he must not. He has the right of it. What he must do, and what you must do, they are not the same.
So I leant over and kissed him on the cheek. “I just came to say goodnight,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a nag.”
He gave me a thoughtful look. “And I am sorry I have to say no. But I must, and I hope perhaps you understand...?”
I nodded and hugged him tightly for a long moment before returning to my own bedchamber.
He could not go in search of an elfin cure without harming his soul, but that did not mean that I could not do it for him.
~+~