Ralph and the Pixie

For years, the neighbour had looked back upon his promise with mixed feelings. For one thing, Haloch would never be a man of means. As well, there were no unattached women in his family close to Haloch’s age.

Yet one day, decades later, this reneging on his promise seemed to come back to haunt him in the form of none other than Prince Cir himself, who began to take an unhealthy and unnatural interest in a girl of fourteen, one of this neighbour’s nieces.

The following year, on her fifteenth birthday, for her own protection she was hastily wed to Haloch.

The false Adjunct sighed at the memory, in spite of himself, for he had known the girl. She was beautiful, intelligent, charming . . . and looked after the middle-aged ascetic with absolute love and devotion. And Haloch, who had never known such tenderness, received her ministrations with a sort of baffled, clumsy affection; he truly loved her, though his love could almost have been considered a mixture of a husband’s love and a father’s affection.

In due time, she bore him a son. And soon after that, she was dead.

The knowledge of her death touched a rarely explored, desolate place in the heart of the false Adjunct.