Chapter 5: Invitation to Court

I woke up the next morning feeling better but still weak. Carefully sitting up, I looked around the room. Fianna was asleep on a small cot against the wall opposite the door. Not seeing the other girl, I assumed she was staying elsewhere.

There was a small table next to my bed with a pitcher and a mug on it, so I reached over with my left hand and picked up the pitcher. It felt full, so I poured it into the mug. It smelled like apple juice or cider with a hint of an unfamiliar spice. Putting down the pitcher, I grabbed the mug and had a small sip. It was a lightly spiced and tart cider. I drank down the whole mug quickly and poured another and drank that too.

As I put down the mug, Fianna sat up and looked at me and smiled. That girl had a smile that could light up a cave. I smiled back as she got up and came over to my bed.

She knelt beside me and said, "Good morning, Father. I trust you slept well."

I nodded and said, "Very well."

She smiled again and said, "Good. I'll get dressed and see about getting you some food to break your fast with. The healer said that you can have something a bit more substantial than the soup today."

I thanked her and she went over to her cot. She put a on a dress over the shift she'd worn to sleep with and quietly left the room

She wasn't gone long, and when she returned she had a large tray with two plates on it. I could see the steam rising off the plates and could smell ham and something else. I didn't recognize the smell, but it still made my mouth water.

Fianna placed the tray with one plate on my lap and put the other plate on the small table beside my bed after moving the pitcher and mug.

I looked at the food on it and only recognized the thick slice of ham. There were some vegetables that I wasn't familiar with and a pile of what looked like mashed potato's but wasn't. I tried each item and found them all good. It wasn't hard to eat every bit on the plate.

Thanking Fianna after I finished and handing her the tray with the plate on it, I asked her to pour me a mug of the cider. It didn't take me long to finish that either as I was thirsty. All in all, it had been an excellent meal.

Fianna put her plate on the tray as well as the now empty pitcher and left the room again. When she returned, the female elf that had been here the last time I woke up was with her. She had another pitcher and Fianna was carrying 3 steaming mugs. I could smell the tea almost as soon as they came in to the room.

The girl placed the pitcher on top of the small dresser and Fianna put the mugs on the small table next to my bed. She then handed me one of them.

We sat and drank our tea and chatted for awhile. I don't recall most of what we talked about, but the Elf girl started talking about her father. She told us that he was a human trader that her mother had fallen in love with.

Together, they had two children, her and her brother. He would travel during the spring and summer months while she stayed home. She was a healer. Although not very gifted, she helped the rest of the villagers with minor problems.

It was while she was telling all this that the surprise came out. She said that her father had gone to pick up his niece since the girls parents had died during a plague of some kind. Fianna stiffened up and asked her the name of her father. The girls said, "My father is named Roland."

Fianna burst in to tears and said, "Cousin, he's dead. I'm the niece that he was bringing back to his home."

I could see the shock on the girl when Fianna told her that her father was dead. First was disbelief, followed by sorrow. I hadn't known her father, but I could see the sadness as she started crying with Fianna. I new the sorrow, myself. I'd lost a few friends that I could remember since I'd been in this land. I'd also lost my life.

I still didn't remember any of my past from before Artemur's patrol had found me. I only remembered waking up in a clearing in the forest. I'd followed a trail and found the Hill cat, as they were called, caught in the dead fall.