Iron and Wood #Wattys2017

Chapter Twenty-Two

The feast hall was brightly lit with torches in brackets along the walls, and the fire in the centre blazed high enough to reach halfway to the ceiling.  The smoke billowed upwards through a hole in the ceiling.  The starry sky was clear for the first time since Ella's return.

The revellers, Haugrian warriors in their chain mail, gripped decorated horns sloshing with mead and sported beads and braids in their long hair.  They were loud enough in their shouting and laughter to shake the walls of the hall.  The long tables were groaning with food.

The high table was two dozen feet away from most of the noise, but Ella still found the chatter of the nobles intensely distracting, responding as quickly as would be polite when they asked about her journey.  She sat on Asbrandr's right, Shal's seat empty on his left.

As Skod was feeling faint and opted to retire for the evening, the one on her right was empty as well.  It gave her a great sense of unease, even as she dutifully ate the sumptuous courses placed in front of her long after she felt full, since every man and woman in the hall designed to be there.  Leaving the seat unoccupied for the entire feast would be a poor political move on Asbrandr's part, and foolish.

Ella saw Shal enter through the wide doors of the hall, dodging a servant who offered her a full horn.  The smoke blocked her from Ella's vision.

Asbrandr touched her shoulder briefly.

Ella glanced up, spotting a man on her grandfather's other side.  He was neither young nor old, and blandly handsome, with the braided brown hair and muscle of a warrior.  Grey eyes regarded her with interest.  She put down her fork.

"Logir, Thane of Mjola," Asbrandr gestured graciously from the man to his granddaughter.  "May I present my granddaughter, Ella?"

Ella quickly glanced from him to Asbrandr.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Thane," she said for the sake of politeness, glancing back down into the crowded hall.  She briefly noticed Shal conversing with two warriors, before Logir's voice drew her back.

"And you, milady." He looked to Asbrandr.  "May I?"

"Please." 

Asbrandr gestured just as smoothly to the empty seat.  Logir sat down.  He did not seem this big before, but took up so much space that even at the large table their elbows brushed.  

"You are the Thane of Mjola?" Ella asked.  "I-I've never heard of it."

"It is a very isolated hold," Logir's voice softened at the end of his sentences, drawing them out so that it seemed that even the short ones would never end.  "It took two weeks just to ride here for the feast. But I hear you have had a much longer ride."

"I have," Ella laughed uncomfortably, and then changed the subject.  "How did you win the title of Thane?"

"I led the lord of Mjola's men into battle, alongside the Imperial Templars," Logir said proudly.  "Our loyalty was recognized so that there has not been a Templar in Mjola for a decade."  

"Logir, they say your hold has grown since the last time we met,"  Asbrandr asked from Ella's other side.  

"Indeed it has.  While there is still no village to speak of, the farms bring in an excellent harvest-- at least for the altitude.  Tributes to the Empire must still be paid, but at the end of the day--"

Ella glanced around the hall as they spoke.  Her heart jolted as she realized she could no longer see Shal.

"Excuse me."  Without waiting for permission she stood up, grabbing her walking stick from the wall behind her.  Ella left as fast as the uncomfortable wooden leg would let her, disappearing behind the pillar of smoke.