Four fantasy sketches

I.

Waking in darkness
deep in the morning
he felt the veil of sweat
on his naked chest
cold as a pall.

II.

No one in the land
could play the harp so nimbly
and none had a voice
like the handmaid Leraen.
Clear and bright
like wine it could charm
the hearts of stalwart knights.
But her heart and eyes
turned ever inward
to their music.

III.

Leraen loved to follow
and watch her lady's quicksilver step
barely printing newfallen snow.
How the lady adored her horses!
Her graceful hand
carressed the stallion's quivering neck,
soft lips whispering to him.
And when riding, her hair rushed
like a dark river on the wind.
All this the handmaid saw.

IV.

He learned how to move silently
down corridors.
He knew the forgotten doors,
became a shadow among shadows
a whisper among silences.

~~~~

I'm trying to awake some characters from a novel I worked on in my teens and early adulthood. Yesterday at the e-bar I tried writing some character sketches. A few passages asked me to turn them into poems. This is something new. The product is unlike any poetry I have written before.