Thanks again to Nilmandra for her thoughtful beta reading.

Chapter 2.  The Kiss

"You are dismissed," the blade master said.

Eilian jammed his practice sword into the rack, then stood jiggling one leg while Gelmir chatted with Gîl-Garion, who was still swinging his sword, trying out the different grip the blade master had suggested.  Eilian was pleased with how well he had done today.  He liked the blade master, who had made Eilian the leader of his side in the group bout with which they had finished the class.

Two figures moved out the lengthening shadows under a clump of pines along the right hand edge of the field, and Eilian stilled.  One of the two was Lómilad, the head novice master, and there was no mistaking the other tall, broad shouldered form.  Eilian began tapping his toe again.  Yesterday, Ithilden had been on the path near the training field at end of the previous day's archery class.  Was his brother watching him?  Ithilden and Lómilad were moving away, Ithilden slowly nodding as the novice master spoke.  Uneasiness prickled at the back of Eilian's mind.  In his experience, people did not keep an eye on him out of an overflow of enthusiasm for his behavior.

Eilian shifted from foot to foot and looked toward the forest, crowding up against the field's far end.  Why did people have to make things so complicated?  Life held so many good things.  What was wrong with reaching for them sometimes?

At length, Gelmir sauntered to the rack and dropped his training sword in.  As soon as Gelmir joined him, Eilian strode off.

Gelmir trotted to catch up.  "Is there some reason we are running?"

Eilian slowed his pace, but Gelmir caught his arm and dragged until it felt to Eilian as if they were creeping like earthworms.

"I have an idea," Eilian said.

"About what?"

"About Alfirin."  Eilian had sought Alfirin out on both of the last two evenings.  He was at training all day, and she was busy with the lembas maidens, but he had found her by the river both nights.  Unfortunately, both times she had been in the company of the smugly smiling Fendîr.  He could not have shadowed her more closely if he had been appointed her bodyguard.

Gelmir rolled his eyes.  "That battle is lost, Eilian.  Celuwen says they are spending the night in the woods doing whatever it is the lembas maidens do before they make the bread at dawn.  And by the time we are done with training tomorrow, your three days will be up."

"That is why I have to make my move tonight."

Gelmir gaped at him.  "You mean interrupt the lembas making?  You cannot do that!"

"Of course not.  Making the lembas is important.  Besides my naneth will be with them."  Eilian paused over that thought.  His mother was usually sympathetic to his schemes, but he had the uncomfortable feeling she would be less than happy about his wager with Fendîr.  "But last year, Celuwen said they ground the grain the day before, then move away from the grain field and keep vigil around it in the company of the maiden they worked with.  So Celuwen and Alfirin will be together somewhere near the lembas grain field tonight."

"They will be keeping vigil.  They will be silent.  You cannot talk to them."  Gelmir sounded as if he were explaining that Eilian should not go out in the rain because he would get wet.

"But the vigil will not start until the moon rises," Eilian said.  "We just have to catch them when they first take up their position."  He grinned.  "You see how perfect it is?  Fendîr will be nowhere in sight, and Celuwen will know I want her to leave Alfirin and me alone."

Gelmir snorted.  "Have you not been listening to Celuwen?  She will restring your harp and wrap it around your neck."

Eilian shrugged.  "She talks like that, but she is always our friend before she is anyone else's.  We need to find a way to get out tonight."

"We?  Why do I have to go?"  Gelmir's protest was feeble, and the look on his face said even he knew it.

"I need you as a witness.  Fendîr will never believe me otherwise.  Can I spend the night at your cottage?"

"My naneth will check on us every time she hears a leaf land on the roof.  She has grown more suspicious since the last time."

"Then you will have to stay with me.  I will think of a way for us to slip out of the palace."

Gelmir groaned and rubbed his hand over his face.  "All right."

"Your parents will allow it?"

"Oh yes.  My naneth thinks we are under guard when I stay with you.  She likes the idea."

Eilian laughed.  "I cannot imagine why."  They resumed walking home.

***

Eilian cracked open the door to the antechamber, checked that neither his father nor Ithilden was in sight, and then, with Gelmir by his side, he crossed it and walked confidently out the Great Doors, through which he and Gelmir had returned from the river only a short time earlier.  As they passed between the guards, he turned to Gelmir and asked, "Will your naneth make griddle cakes for morning meal tomorrow?"

"Yes, she will.  She always does on the day the lembas are made."  Gelmir sounded as if someone had yanked his quiver strap too tight.

One of the guards was moving toward them, but now he hesitated.  Eilian nodded and smiled to him and his companion.  "Good evening."  He and Gelmir descended the steps and sauntered toward the path leading to Gelmir's cottage.

As soon as they were out of the guards' sight, Gelmir let out a long, wobbly breath.

Eilian laughed.  "You see.  The trick was to leave early, while it was still plausible we could be going to your cottage.  Come.  We don't want to be late."

They moved quickly through the forest toward the lembas grain field.  Eilian stopped well before they reached it.  The field was sacred, and he did not want to get too close.  It belonged to the maidens, and their mothers and their mothers in the years before they wed.  Most of all, it belonged to Yavanna.  He and Gelmir did not belong there, though when the time came, they would accept with gratitude what Yavanna and the lembas maidens had grown and cooked.

Still, he saw no harm in approaching Celuwen and Alfirin after they had left the field, so long as it was before the moon rose.  He and Gelmir hung their packs in an oak and slid through the trees, taking greater and greater care not to disturb a twig or leaf as they closed in on their target.

Eilian's body hummed with the same pleasant tension he felt when he dove from the highest rocks at the bend in the river.  He heard more clearly, saw more sharply, felt more acutely than he did in the flat moments of everyday life.  The forest whispered around him, and his body settled into harmony with it.  Without being able to say how, he knew when he and Gelmir drew near the first pair of lembas maidens.  The life of the forest flowed around them, as a stream flowed around pebbles lying in its bed.

He raised his hand.  Gelmir must have been watching for his signal because he halted instantly.  Eilian stood still, watching the pale spot under a maple.  After a moment, a feminine voice murmured something, and maidens' soft laughter bubbled through the night.

He smiled but moved on.  Neither maiden was Celuwen, whose voice was pitched low for a maiden's.  He led Gelmir in an arc to their left, circling the lembas grain field.  Something stirred to their right, and again he halted.  In a small clearing, two figures sat with their heads tilted up to the stars.  The night breeze stirred the skirts of their light summer gowns.  One of them swept her arm in a gesture that took in the whole sky, and immediately, Eilian knew.  Even among Elves, Celuwen's grace was unusual.

He put his mouth next to Gelmir's ear.  "Can you see from here?"

Gelmir nodded.

"Then stay."  Eilian crept a dozen yards further, then drew a deep breath, and walked boldly toward them, twigs snapping beneath his feet, leaves stirring at his passage.

"Who's there?" Celuwen asked sharply.

He stopped.  "Celuwen?"  He let his voice rise, as if startled to find her there.  "Is that you?"

There was a moment's silence.  "Good evening, Eilian."

He suppressed a grin.  Celuwen's tone told him she knew exactly how unsurprised he was to find them.  He advanced to within a yard of them.  Starlight washed over the two faces turned up to him.  He saw Celuwen's almond-shaped grey eyes, slightly arched nose, wide mouth, the parts that added up to the most expressive face he knew, one that at the moment was alive with disapproval.  Then he shifted his gaze to Alfirin and saw with a little thrill that her hair was loose, tumbling in thick waves all the way to her hips.  He could almost feel the way it would spring back if he squeezed it in his hand.  Alfirin regarded him with wary silence.

"Am I so close to the lembas grain field?" he asked.  He knew he was.  He felt it just beyond them, and he had no intention of going any further.  "I hope I am not disturbing anything.  With the holiday tomorrow and all, I decided to spend the night in the forest.  I had not realized just where my wanderings took me."  He gestured to the grass beside Alfirin.  "May I join you for a few moments before I go?  I promise I will be gone by the time the moon rises."

Celuwen and Alfirin exchanged a look he could not read.  Celuwen opened her mouth as if to speak, but Alfirin put a hand on her arm.

"Sit," Alfirin said.

Celuwen looked at her for a long moment, then sighed and looked away.

Eilian dropped down next to Alfirin.  "The stars are thick tonight."

"Yes," Alfirin said.

"Did the lembas grain harvest go well?"

"Yes."  Alfirin folded her hands in her lap, making it impossible for him to "accidentally" brush his fingers over hers.

Beyond Alfirn, Eilian thought he saw Celuwen give a brief smile.  He felt a twinge of irritation.  Celuwen was his friend.  She was supposed to be helping him.  The least she could do was leave them for a while.  Perhaps she could think of no excuse.  He would have to help her.  He cast around for an idea.  "The vigil will be long.  Celuwen, if you need to retreat to the bushes to do anything personal I will keep Alfirin company."

Both feminine heads swung to look at him.  Then Celuwen sputtered with something that sounded distinctly like a laugh.

Unexpectedly, Alfirin spoke.  "I can manage this myself, Celuwen."

Celuwen hesitated for an instant before rising.  "I will not be far if you need me."  Her eyes met Eilian's.  Then she walked away into the darkness.

Eilian frowned after her, uneasiness creeping up his spine.  For a moment, he was tempted to call her back.  He felt almost as if danger lurked somewhere nearby, but the lembas grain field was well within the Home Guard territory, and when he listened, he heard only Celuwen's light footstep, the rustle of a small animal in the underbrush, and the sleepy night song of the trees.  He deliberately relaxed.  If Gelmir realized how uneasy Eilian was, he would be laughing his head off.

He smiled at Alfirin, his eyes going past her face to the glorious cloud of her hair.  "I have been wanting to talk to you, but Fendîr has been making such a nuisance of himself I have not had a chance."  Tentatively, he reached out and brushed back a strand of her hair.

With a vigor that surprised him, she slapped his hand away.  "Enough of this game, Eilian.  I have tried to be gentle, but you heed only your own wishes.  I am not going to kiss you, not now, not ever.  So since that is what you have come for, you might as well be on your way."

He shook his stinging fingers.  "What?"  Heat flooded his face.  She opened her mouth to speak again, but he interrupted.  "No.  I understand."   He was not sure he did, but he certainly did not want her to repeat the scathing words that had just spilled from her deceptively sweet looking mouth.  He rose.  "I will leave you.  I am sorry I bothered you."  He marched stiffly away, going not toward Gelmir, who Eilian fervently hoped had been struck in the face by a branch and blinded at the crucial moment, but toward the comforting darkness under a stand of pines.

Something light moved toward him out of the blackness.  Instinctively, he grabbed for his belt knife.  "It is only me," Celuwen's voice said.  He relaxed and let out a long, shuddering breath.

She moved into the lighter space between the trees.  "I take it that did not go well."

He gave what he meant to be a laugh.  "No."  He thought about the last few horrible moments, and his eyes narrowed.  "She knew.  She knew I meant to kiss her.  Fendîr must have told her about our wager.  That vile little orc spawn."  He imitated Fendîr's self-satisfied tone. "'You know me, Eilian.  I always play fair.'  The liar!"

Celuwen shifted from foot to foot.  "No, Eilian.  Fendîr did not tell her."

He blinked at her.  "He must have.  How else would she know?"

She met his gaze, her lower lip caught in her teeth.

The truth burst upon him with suddenness of summer lightning.  "You told her."

"I did."

It took all his restraint to keep from grabbing her arms and shoving, wrestling with her as he had when they were children.  "Why?  Why did you do that?"

She sighed.  "You were behaving badly, Eilian, and I could think of no other way to stop you."

"It was none of your affair!"

"It was my affair.  You are my friend, and you are upset, I think, probably by something that happened at training or at home, and when you are upset, you do stupid things.  I hate seeing you get swept away into actions you regret when you come to yourself again."

He turned away from her, clenching and unclenching his hands, drawing deep breaths.  He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and faced her again.  "What am I going to tell Fendîr?"

For a few heartbeats, she stood with starlight washing over her unreadable face, which was tilted up to him.  Then she stretched onto her toes and brushed her lips over his.  Warmth shot through him.  He stopped breathing.

"Tell him a lembas maiden kissed you."

Then she was gone, running lightly toward where he had left Alfirin.

Eilian stared after her.  What had just happened?

"Eilian," Gelmir's voice called softly.

"Over here."

Gelmir emerged from the underbrush.  He grimaced.  "That certainly did not go well.  Sorry."

"What?"

Gelmir scrutinized him.  "Alfirin.  That was painful even to watch."

Eilian made a face.  "I deserved it.  I was being a troll's tail end."

Gelmir rocked back on his heels.  "If you say so."

"I do.  Come.  We need to retrieve our packs and make camp.  We need our sleep because going home will take some precise timing.  We have to get there after the guard changes but before my father realizes we have been out all night."  His mind intent on his plans, Eilian was already walking, and Gelmir fell in beside him.

Gelmir was quiet the whole time they set up camp.  Eilian glanced at him occasionally to find him muttering to himself and frowning, as if trying to work out what he might have missed.  Finally, they spread their blankets over piles of pine boughs and lay down.

"Eilian."

"Yes?"

"One of the things I have always liked about being your friend is that I am seldom bored when I am with you, but sometimes I have a hard time keeping up."

Eilian laughed softly.  "Me too, Gelmir.  Me too."  He thought about his evening.  The scene with Alfirin had been humiliating.  What was worse, Celuwen had been right.  He had been behaving badly.  He should have known the moment he felt the need to hide his actions from his mother.  So why did he feel so inexplicably peaceful, as if something in his tumultuous world had been set right, at least for a while?

He smiled to himself in the dark.  Celuwen had been good to try to help him win his wager.  She was his friend always.  Too bad he would have to hand his swan feathers over to Fendîr anyway.  Still, fair was fair.  The dream path rose to meet him, and he ran lightly along it.

TBC (one more short chapter)