Arnulf the Destroyer by Robert Cely Page B

colony?  Compared to watching warriors fight in the open field – even if they were wooden swords – the sight of men with handfuls of paper and Blackberries made them seem puny by comparison.  Less somehow.
    A figure startled Jenna as it walked by on the other side of the door.  She started and looked just in time to see a man’s retreating figure walk down a row of the cubicles and then turn out of view.  Her heart thumped with recognition.  He seemed so different, but it had to be him.  He didn’t walk with that same masterful stride that she was used to seeing, but the blond hair, pulled in a ponytail instead of flowing free, told her all she needed to know.

    His hair seemed to embody all he was.  Like his hair, Arnulf was beautiful, strong and free.
    For the next two convenings of the Kingdom, Jenna only looked with admiration at Arnulf.  Of course he excelled in the lists, standing out in battle as he stood out in any crowd.  Ladies threw themselves at him, offering tokens and promises.  These he politely refused as he refused every lord’s and prince’s plea to enlist him.
    Arnulf was independent.  In every way he refused to be bound.  It was an essential part of his nature.  Free.  Unbound.  Like the wildness that carried him into battle.
    Then their eyes met.
    His face glistened with exertion.  His chest heaved in deep breaths.  Striding from the field from which he displayed his mastery, he turned and their eyes met.
    Jenna could feel something in that gaze, could feel him drawing her, but also felt him drawn as well.  When they spoke she offered no tokens, she asked no favors nor tried to enlist him in her service or the service of her house.  Even though Tyria was vulnerable and could flourish with such an ally, she dared not ask.  She wanted Arnulf as he was, wild and free.
    They shared a love that those in the outside world do not know.  It was a love of moonlight and forest, of soft whispers in the dark.  Their love basked among the aromas of unseen flowers and enjoyed the delicate consummation of tender flesh touching tender flesh.
    In his next fight, and for every fight after, Arnulf fought for the house of Tyria.  He was careful to wear no signia.  It was as if he said, today for Tyria, but perhaps tomorrow no more.  And Jenna loved him the more fiercely for it.
    Only he wouldn’t love her outside the Kingdom.
    “Let us meet,” she begged him one day.  “Outside of here.  I think about you all the time.”
    “My love,” he answered with a finger on her lips.  “Do not ruin the spell of the moment with talk of the outside.  We do not exist there as we do here.”
    Every other entreaty of hers to continue their love outside the Kingdom was equally rebuffed.

    Jenna felt a moment of doubt as she pushed open the glass door to follow Arnulf… Randy’s retreating figure through the maze of cubicles.  Maybe he would be different.  Maybe he was right, that they weren’t the same people outside.  Maybe he wouldn’t even love her here.  Maybe in this world he loved women like that perfectly put together secretary who stared down her nose at women like Jenna.
    She forced the thought out of her mind.  It had always been her conviction, and her conviction still, that life inside the Kingdom, and especially the love found there, was stronger than what was on the outside.  If it could thrive in the Kingdom, then here it could conquer.
    Turning the hallway she saw him.  With stooped shoulders he stood among three other men.  Unlike them, who wore dress slacks and ties, Randy had on a simple white shirt and khakis.  Also, unlike them, Randy seemed to be the odd man out.
    Two of the men were laughing as a third confronted Randy.  He had a shaven head, though Jenna could tell it was to avoid the crown of premature balding.  A ring of stubble poked out of his head like a hastily shorn tonsure.  All the signs that marked a top-of-the-rung athlete emanated from him: the