The wagon rocked, sometimes soothing, sometimes jarring, as it rolled along the rocky path, heading north. Sitting on the open bed and looking back the way they had come, Wulfgar watched the skyline of Luskan recede. The many points of the wizard's tower seemed like a single blur, and the gates were too far for him to make out the guards pacing the city wall.
Wulfgar smiled as he considered those guards. He and his accomplice Morik had been thrown out of Luskan with orders never to return, on pain of death, yet he had walked right into the city, and at least one of the guards had surely recognized him, even tossing him a knowing wink. No doubt Morik was in there, too.
Justice in Luskan was a sham, a scripted play for the people to make them feel secure and feel afraid and feel empowered over the specter of death itself, however the authorities decided was timely.
Wulfgar had debated whether or not to return to Luskan. He wanted to join in with a caravan heading north, for that would serve as his cover, but he feared exposing Colson to the potential dangers of entering the forbidden place. In the end, though, he found that he had no real choice. Arumn Gardpeck and Josi Puddles deserved to learn of Delly Curtie's sad end. They had been friends of the woman's for years, and far be it from Wulfgar to deny them the information.
The tears shed by all three - Arumn, Josi, and Wulfgar - had felt right to the barbarian. There was so much more to Delly Curtie than the easy, cliched idea that many in Luskan had of her, and that Wulfgar had initially bought into himself. There was an honesty and an honor beneath the crust that circumstance had caked over Delly. She'd been a good friend to all three, a good wife to Wulfgar, and a great mother to Colson.
Wulfgar tossed off a chuckle as he considered Josi's initial reaction to the news, the small man practically launching himself at Wulfgar in a rage, blaming the barbarian for the loss of Delly. With little effort, Wulfgar had put him back in his seat, where he had melted into his folded arms, his shoulders bobbing with sobs - perhaps enhanced by too many drinks, but likely sincere, for Wulfgar had never doubted that Josi had secretly loved Delly.
The world rolled along, stamping its events into the books of history. What was, was, Wulfgar understood, and regrets were not to be long held - no longer than the lessons they imparted regarding future circumstance. He was not innocent of Josi's accusations, though not to the extent the distraught man had taken them, surely.
But what was, was.
After one particularly sharp bounce of the wagon, Wulfgar draped his arm over Colson's shoulder and glanced down at the girl, who was busying herself with some sticks Wulfgar had tied together to approximate a doll. She seemed content, or at least unbothered, which was the norm for her. Quiet and unassuming, asking for little and accepting less, Colson just seemed to go along with whatever came her way.
That road had not been fair so far in her young life, Wulfgar knew. She had lost Delly, by all measures her mother, and nearly as bad, Wulfgar realized, she had suffered the great misfortune of being saddled with him as her surrogate father. He stroked her soft, wheat-colored hair.
"Doll, Da," she said, using her moniker for Wulfgar, one that he had heard only a couple of times over the last tendays.
"Doll, yes," he said back to her, and tousled her hair.
She giggled, and if ever a sound could lift Wulfgar's heart....
And he was going to leave her. A momentary wave of weakness flushed through him. How could he even think of such a thing?
"You don't remember your Ma," he said quietly, not expecting a response as Colson went back to her play. But she looked up at him, beaming a huge smile.
"Dell-y. Ma," she said.
Wulfgar felt as if her little hand had just flicked against his heart. He realized how poor a father he had been to her. Urgent business filled his every day, it seemed, and Colson was always placed behind the necessities. She had been with him for many months, and yet he hardly knew her. They had traveled hundreds of miles to the east, and then back west, and only on that return trip had he truly spent time with Colson, had he tried to listen to the child, to understand her needs, to hug her.
He gave a helpless and self-deprecating chuckle and patted her head again. She looked up at him with that unending smile, and went immediately back to her doll.
He hadn't done right by her, Wulfgar knew. As he had failed Delly as a husband, so he had failed Colson as her father. "Guardian" would be a better term to describe his role in the child's life.
So he was on that road that would pain him greatly, but in the end it would give to Colson all that she deserved and more.
"You are a princess," he said to her, and she looked up at him again, though she knew not what it meant.
Wulfgar responded with a smile and another pat, and turned his eyes back toward Luskan, wondering if he would ever travel that far south again.
The village of Auckney seemed to have changed not at all in the three years since Wulfgar had last seen it. Most of his last visit, of course, had been spent in the lord's dungeon, an accommodation he hoped to avoid a second time. It amused him to think of how his time with Morik had so ingratiated him to the towns of that region, where the words "on pain of death" seemed to accompany his every departure.
Unlike those guards in Luskan, though, Wulfgar suspected that Auckney's crew would follow through with the threat if they figured out who he was. So for the sake of Colson, he took great pains to disguise himself as the trading caravan wound its way along the rocky road in the westernmost reaches of the Spine of the World, toward the Auckney gate. He wore his beard much thicker, but his stature alone distinguished him from the great majority of the populace, being closer to seven feet tall than to six, and with shoulders wide and strong.
He bundled his traveling cloak tight around him and kept the cowl up over his head - not an unusual practice in the early spring in that part of the world, where the cold winds still howled from on high. When he sat, which was most of the time, he kept his legs tucked in tight so as not to emphasize the length of the limbs, and when he walked, he crouched and hunched his shoulders forward, not only disguising his true height somewhat, but also appearing older, and more importantly, less threatening.
Whether through his cleverness, or more likely sheer luck and the fact that he was accompanied by an entire parade of merchants in that first post-winter caravan, Wulfgar managed to get into the town easily enough, and once past the checkpoint, he did his best to blend in with the group at the circled wagons, where kiosks were hastily constructed and goods displayed to the delight of the winter-weary townsfolk.
Lord Feringal Auck, seeming as petulant as ever, visited on the first full day of the caravan faire. Dressed in impractical finery, including puffy pantaloons of purple and white, the foppish man strutted with a perpetual air of contempt turning up his thin, straight nose. He glanced at goods but never seemed interested enough to bother - though his attendants often returned to purchase particular pieces, obviously for the lord.
Steward Temigast and the gnome driver - and fine fighter - Liam Woodgate, stood out among those attendants. Temigast, Wulfgar trusted, but he knew that if Liam spotted him, the game was surely up.
"He casts an impressive shadow, don't he?" came a sarcastic voice from behind, and Wulfgar turned to see one of the caravan drivers looking past him to the lord and his entourage. "Feringal Auck...." the man added, chuckling.
"I am told that he has a most extraordinary wife," Wulfgar replied.
"Lady Meralda," the man answered, rather lewdly. "As pretty as the moon and more dangerous than the night, with hair blacker than the darkest of 'em and eyes so green that ye're thinking yerself to be in a summer's meadow whenever she glances yer way. Aye, but every man doing business in Auckney would want to bed that one."
"Have they children together?"
"A son," the man answered. "A strong and sturdy lad, and with features favoring his mother and not the lord, thank the gods. Little lord Ferin. All in the town celebrated his first birthday just a month ago, and from what I'm hearing, they'll be buying extra stores to replenish that which they ate at the feast. Finished off their winter stores, by some accounts, and there's more truth than lie to those, judging by the coins that've been falling all the morning."
Wulfgar glanced back at Feringal and his entourage as they wound their way along the far side of the merchant caravan.
"And here we feared that the market'd be thinner with the glutton Lady Priscilla gone."
That perked up Wulfgar's ears, and he turned fast on the man. "Feringal's...?"
"Sister," the man confirmed.
"Died?"
The man snorted and didn't seem the least bit bothered by that possibility, something that Wulfgar figured anyone who had ever had the misfortune of meeting Priscilla Auck would surely appreciate.
"She's in Luskan - been there for a year. She went back with this same caravan after our market here last year," the man explained. "She never much cared for Lady Meralda, for 'twas said she'd had Feringal's ear until he married that one. I'm not for knowing what happened, but that Priscilla's time in Castle Auck came to an end soon after the marriage, and when Meralda got fat with Feringal's heir, she likely knew her influence here would shrink even more. So she went to Luskan, and there she's living, with enough coin to keep her to the end of her days, may they be mercifully short."
"Mercifully for all around her, you mean?"
"That's the way they tell it, aye."
Wulfgar nodded and smiled, and that genuine grin came from more than the humor at Priscilla's expense. He looked back at Lord Feringal and narrowed his crystalline blue eyes, thinking that one major obstacle, the disagreeable Lady Priscilla, had just been removed from his path.
"If Priscilla was at Castle Auck, as much as he'd be wanting to leave, Lord Feringal wouldn't dare be out without his wife at his side. He wouldn't leave them two together!" the man said.
"I would expect that Lady Meralda would wish to visit the caravan more than would the lord," Wulfgar remarked.
"Ah, but not until her flowers bloom."
Wulfgar looked at him curiously.
"She's put in beds of rare tulips, and they're soon to bloom, I'm guessing," the man explained. "'Twas so last year - she didn't come down to the market until our second tenday, not until the white petals were revealed. Put her in a fine, buying mood, and finer still, for by that time, we knew that Lady Priscilla would be journeying from Auckney with us."
He began to laugh, but Wulfgar didn't follow the cue. He stared across the little stone bridge to the small island that housed Castle Auck, trying to remember the layout and where those gardens might be. He took note of a railing built atop the smaller of the castle's square keeps. Wulfgar glanced back at Feringal, to see the man making his way out of the far end of the market, and with the threat removed, Wulfgar also set out, nodding appreciatively at the merchant, to find a better vantage point for scouting the castle.
Not long after, he had his answer, spotting the form of a woman moving along the flat tower's roof, behind the railing.
There were no threats to Auckney. The town had known peace for a long time. In that atmosphere, it was no surprise to Wulfgar to learn that the guards were typically less than alert. Even so, the big man had no idea how he might get across that little stone bridge unnoticed, and the waters roiling beneath the structure were simply too cold for him to try to swim - and besides, both the near bank and the island upon which the castle stood had sheer cliffs that rose too steeply from the pounding surf below.
He lingered long by the bridge, seeking the answer to his dilemma, and he finally came to accept that he might have to simply wait for those flowers to bloom, so he could confront Lady Meralda in the market. That thought didn't sit well with him, for in that setting he would almost surely need to face Lord Feringal and his entourage as well. It would be easier if he could speak with Meralda first, and alone.
He leaned against the wall of a nearby tavern one afternoon, staring out at the bridge and taking note of the guards' maneuvers. They weren't very disciplined, but the bridge was so narrow that they didn't have to be. Wulfgar stood up straight as a coach rambled across the structure, heading out of the castle.
Liam Woodgate wasn't driving. Steward Temigast was.
Wulfgar stroked his beard and weighed his options, and purely on instinct - for he knew that if he considered his movements, he would lose heart - he gathered up Colson and moved out to the road, to a spot where he could intercept the wagon out of sight of the guards at the bridge, and most of the townsfolk.
"Good trader, do move aside," Steward Temigast bade him, but in a kindly way. "I've some paintings to sell and I wish to see the market before the light wanes. Dark comes early to a man of my age, you know."
The old man's smile drifted to nothingness as Wulfgar pulled back the cowl of his cloak, revealing himself.
"Always full of surprises, Wulfgar is," Temigast said.
"You look well," Wulfgar offered, and he meant it. Temigast's white hair had thinned a bit, perhaps, but the last few years had not been rough on the man.
"Is that....?" Temigast asked, nodding to Colson.
"Meralda's girl."
"Are you mad?"
Wulfgar merely shrugged and said, "She should be with her mother."
"That decision was made some three years ago."
"Necessary at the time," said Wulfgar.
Temigast sat back on his seat and conceded the point with a nod.
"Lady Priscilla is gone from here, I am told," said Wulfgar, and Temigast couldn't help but smile - a reassurance to Wulfgar that his measure of the steward was correct, that the man hated Priscilla.
"To the joy of Auckney," Temigast admitted. He set the reins on the seat, and with surprising nimbleness climbed down and approached Wulfgar, his hands out for Colson.
The girl shoved her hand in her mouth and whirled away, burying her face in Wulfgar's shoulder.
"Bashful," Temigast said. Colson peeked out at him and he smiled all the wider. "And she has her mother's eyes."
"She is a wonderful girl, and sure to become a beautiful woman," said Wulfgar. "But she needs her mother. I cannot keep her with me. I am bound for a land that will not look favorably on a child, any child."
Temigast stared at him for a long time, obviously unsure of what he should do.
"I share your concern," Wulfgar said to him. "I never hurt Lady Meralda, and never wish to hurt her."
"My loyalty is to her husband, as well."
"And what a fool he would be to refuse this child."
Temigast paused again. "It is complicated."
"Because Meralda loved another before him," said Wulfgar. "And Colson is a reminder of that."
"Colson," said Temigast, and the girl peeked out at him and smiled, and the steward's whole face lit up in response. "A pretty name for a pretty girl." He grew more serious as he turned back to Wulfgar, though, and asked bluntly, "What would you have me do?"
"Get us to Meralda. Let me show her the beautiful child her daughter has become. She will not part with the girl again."
"And what of Lord Feringal?"
"Is he worthy of your loyalty and love?"
Temigast paused and considered that. "And what of Wulfgar?"
Wulfgar shrugged as if it did not matter, and indeed, regarding his obligation to Colson, it did not. "If he desires to hang me, he will have to - "
"Not that," Temigast interrupted, and looked at Colson.
Wulfgar's shoulders slumped and he heaved a deep sigh. "I know what is right. I know what I must do, though it will surely break my heart. But it will be a temporary wound, I hope, for in the passing months and years, I will rest assured that I did right by Colson, that I gave her the home and the chance she deserved, and that I could not provide."
Colson looked at Temigast and responded to his every gesture with a delighted smile.
"Are you certain?" the steward asked.
Wulfgar stood very straight.
Temigast glanced back at Castle Auck, at the short keep where Lady Meralda kept her flowers. "I will return this way before nightfall," he said. "With an empty carriage. I can get you to her, perhaps, but I disavow myself of you from that point forward. My loyalty is not to Wulfgar, not even to Colson."
"One day it will be," said Wulfgar. "To Colson, I mean."
Temigast was too charmed by the girl to disagree.
One hand patted the soft soil at the base of the stem, while the fingers of Meralda's other hand gently brushed the smooth petals. The tulips would bloom soon, she knew - perhaps even that very evening.
Meralda sang to them softly, an ancient rhyme of sailors and explorers lost in the waves, as her first love had been taken by the sea. She didn't know all the words, but it hardly mattered, for she hummed to fill in the holes in the verses and it sounded no less beautiful.
A slap on the stone broke her song, though, and the woman stood up suddenly and retreated a fast step when she noted the prongs of a ladder. Then a large hand clamped over the lip of the garden wall, not ten feet from her.
She brushed back her thick black hair, and her eyes widened as the intruder pulled his head up over the wall.
"Who are you?" she demanded, retreating again, and ignoring his shushing plea.
"Guards!" Meralda called, and turned to run as the intruder shifted. But as his other hand came up, she found herself frozen in place, rooted as if she was just another plant in her carefully cultivated garden. In the man's other hand was a young girl.
"Wulfgar?" Meralda mouthed, but had not the breath to say aloud.
He put the girl down inside, and Colson turned shyly away from Meralda. Wulfgar grabbed the wall with both hands and hauled himself over. The girl went to his leg and wrapped one arm around it, the thumb of her other hand going into her mouth as she continued to shy away.
"Wulfgar?" Meralda asked again.
"Da!" implored Colson, reaching up to Wulfgar with both hands. He scooped her up and set her on his hip, then pulled back his cowl, revealing himself fully.
"Lady Meralda," he replied.
"You should not be here!" Meralda said, but her eyes betrayed her words, for she stared unblinkingly at the girl, at her child.
Wulfgar shook his head. "Too long have I been away."
"My husband would not agree."
"It is not about him, nor about me," Wulfgar said, his calm and sure tone drawing her gaze back to him. "It is about her, your daughter."
Meralda swayed, and Wulfgar was certain that a slight breeze would have knocked her right over.
"I have tried to be a good father to her," Wulfgar explained. "I had even found her a woman to serve as her mother, though she is gone now, taken by foul orcs. But it is all a ruse, I know."
"I never asked - "
"Your husband's actions demanded it," Wulfgar reminded her, and she went silent, her gaze locking once more on the shy child, who had buried her face in her da's strong shoulder.
"My road is too arduous," Wulfgar explained. "Too dangerous for the likes of Colson."
"Colson?" Meralda echoed.
Wulfgar merely shrugged.
"Colson..." the woman said softly, and the girl looked her way only briefly and flashed a sheepish smile.
"She belongs with her mother," Wulfgar said. "With her real mother."
"I had thought her father had demanded her to raise as his princess in Icewind Dale," came a sharp retort from the side, and all three turned to regard the entrance of Lord Feringal. The man twisted his face tightly as he moved near to his wife, all the while staring hatefully at Wulfgar.
Wulfgar looked to Meralda for a clue, but found nothing on her shocked face. He struggled to figure out which way to veer the conversation, when Meralda unexpectedly took the lead.
"Colson is not his child," the Lady of Auckney said. She grabbed Feringal by the hands and forced him to look at her directly. "Wulfgar never ravished - "
Before she could finish, Feringal pulled one of his hands free and lifted a finger over her lips to silence her, nodding his understanding.
He knew, Meralda realized and so did Wulfgar. Feringal had known all along that the child was not Wulfgar's, not the product of a rape.
"I took her to protect your wife...and you," Wulfgar said after allowing Feringal and Meralda a few heartbeats to stare into each other's eyes. Feringal turned a scowl his way, to which Wulfgar only shrugged. "I had to protect the child," he explained.
"I would not..." Feringal started to reply, but he stopped and shook his head then addressed Meralda instead. "I would not have hurt her," he said, and Meralda nodded.
"I would not have continued our marriage, would not have borne you an heir, if I had thought differently," Meralda quietly replied.
Feringal's scowl returned as he glanced back at Wulfgar. "What do you want, son of Icewind Dale?" he demanded.
Some noise to the side clued Wulfgar in to the fact that the Lord of Auckney hadn't come to the garden alone. Guards waited in the shadows to rush out and protect Feringal.
"I want only to do what is right, Lord Feringal," he replied. "As I did what I thought was right those years ago." He shrugged and looked at Colson, the thought of parting with her suddenly stabbing at his heart.
Feringal stood staring at him.
"The child, Colson, is Meralda's," Wulfgar explained. "I would not cede her to another adoptive mother without first determining Meralda's intent."
"Meralda's intent?" Feringal echoed. "Am I to have no say?"
As the lord of Auckney finished, Meralda put a hand to his cheek and turned him to face her directly. "I cannot," she whispered.
Again Feringal silenced her with a finger against her lips, and turned back to Wulfgar. "There are a dozen bows trained upon you at this moment," he assured the man. "And a dozen guards ready to rush out and cut you down, Liam Woodgate among them - and you know that he holds no love for Wulfgar of Icewind Dale. I warned you that you return to Auckney only under pain of death."
A horrified expression crossed Meralda's face, and Wulfgar squared his shoulders. His instincts told him to counter the threat, to bring Aegis-fang magically to his hand and explain to the pompous Feringal in no uncertain terms that in any ensuing fight, he, Feringal, would be the first to die.
But Wulfgar held his tongue and checked his pride. Meralda's expression guided him, and Colson, clutching his shoulder, demanded that he diffuse the situation and not escalate a threat into action.
"For the sake of the girl, I allow you to flee, straightaway," Feringal said, and both Wulfgar and Meralda widened their eyes with shock.
The lord waved his hands dismissively at Wulfgar. "Be gone, foul fool. Over the wall and away. My patience wears thin, and when it is gone, the whole of Auckney will fall over you."
Wulfgar stared at him for a moment then looked at Colson.
"Leave the girl," Feringal demanded, lifting his voice for the sake of the distant onlookers, Wulfgar realized. "She is forfeit, a princess of Icewind Dale no more. I claim her for Auckney, by Lady Meralda's blood, and do so with the ransom of Wulfgar's promise that the tribes of Icewind Dale will never descend upon my domain."
Wulfgar spent a moment digesting the words, shaking his head in disbelief all the while. When it all sorted out, he dipped a quick and respectful bow to the surprising Lord Feringal.
"Your faith in your husband and your love for him were not misplaced," he said quietly to Meralda, and he wanted to laugh out loud and cry all at the same time, for never had he expected to see such growth in the foppish lord of that isolated town.
But for all of Wulfgar's joy at the confirmation that he had been right to return there, the price of his, and Feringal's, generosity could not be denied.
Wulfgar pulled Colson out to arms' length then brought her in and hugged her close, burying his face in her soft hair. "This is your mother," he whispered, knowing that the child wouldn't begin to understand. He was reminding himself, though, for he needed to do that. "Your ma will always love you. I will always love you."
He hugged her even closer and kissed her on the cheek then stood fast and offered a curt nod to Feringal.
Before he could change his mind, before he surrendered to the tearing of his heart, Wulfgar thrust Colson out at Meralda, who gathered her up. He hadn't even let go of the girl when she began to cry out, "Da! Da!" reaching back at him plaintively and pitifully.
Wulfgar blinked away his tears, turned, and went over the wall, dropping the fifteen feet and landing on the grass below in a run that didn't stop until he had long crossed through Auckney's front gates.
A run that carried with every step the frantic cries of "Da! Da!"
"You did the right thing," he said to himself, but he hardly believed it. He glanced back at Castle Auck and felt as if he had just betrayed the one person in the world who had most trusted him and most needed him.