Royal Blood
Page 14
“But you still want to try?”
“Yes. But...I won’t. I can’t.” She sighed. “I’m sure someone else will though, and I’m quite envious.”
They looked at the night sky for a little bit longer. The storm was almost over, and there were only small, scarce drops of rain hitting the window now.
“What you say about tools and inventions,” Elloriann said after a few minutes of silence, “that they aren’t good or evil. I think that’s probably true for most things. Whatever we take from nature, whatever powers we harness – how we’ll use them will define whether they will be good or bad, whether they’ll do damage or serve for good.”
Licky smiled, finally walking away from the window.
“That may be true, but once we get a taste of power, even if we use it for good, we want more and more. We’ll start taking it without regard for how much there is, for whether nature has that much to give, for what will eventually happen if we keep on taking. We’ll think of ways to get more, and justify them by saying that we’re using the resulting power for good.” She put the kettle on the fire. “We’re a very greedy species. I think of it every time a new invention comes to me as I try to project what could eventually be done with it, how it could be used, and what lengths people would go to in order to make more of something they find useful.”
Elloriann thought about this for a while before replying.
“Do you ever...not make something you’ve invented? On purpose?”
Licky let out a nervous giggle.
“More often than you’d think.”
“That must be difficult for you.”
“Not as difficult as seeing what those inventions would lead to if I brought them into the world.”
“But someone else would invent them, wouldn’t they? You always say that – everything will eventually be invented, one way or another.”
“Maybe. But maybe much later, elsewhere, maybe not as well, maybe not at all.” Licky pulled some boxes from a shelf. “Tea or camomile?”
“Camomile, please.” Elloriann got lost in her thoughts for a while as she watched Licky put the dried herb into a pot. “Some would probably think it selfish of you to rob the world of your inventions.”
“And some would think it selfish or cruel to invent something potentially dangerous, or to invent something that could make certain professions obsolete, or to invent something that only certain types of people could afford,” Licky said, pouring water into the pot. “It doesn’t matter what others think. I don’t owe anyone what’s in my head.”
Elloriann nodded, conceding without words.
Licky poured the camomile brew into mugs. They drank and spoke for a while longer, occasionally jumping topics. They spoke until well past midnight, until exhaustion and the calming effects of their drinks finally forced them to seek rest.
The last light was put out. Licky went into her bedroom, while Elloriann joined Carla on the sofa.
The rain, lightning, and thunder had stopped. Another anniversary of the storm had passed, and everyone in Evlirone’s castle survived.
32
The day before the anniversary of Elloriann and Carla’s first meeting, Elloriann asked Hannah and Stav to help her pack a basket for a lunch outside.
On the actual anniversary, the weather decided to cooperate, so at midday, when Carla and Rich were taking a break from working in the garden, Elloriann picked up her basket from the kitchen and went out to meet Carla in the fields. Together they went into the woods, found a nice spot, Elloriann rolled out a blanket, and they sat down to eat.
Inside the basket was a cutting board and a knife, as well as an assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables. Carla watched in amusement as Elloriann made a salad right in front of her, on the ground, in the woods.
Once they were done with the salad, the fruit, and the punch, they lay down side by side on the blanket and watched the trees above them sway in the soft wind. It was still quite hot, but the trees protected them from the sun. They were comfortable and content.
They hadn’t discussed whether or not they intended to give each other gifts, but both had, nonetheless, prepared one.
Elloriann sat up and pulled a small bag out of an inside pocket of her shirt. She shook out two objects into the palm of her hand. Carla sat up as well, looking at Ell with a silent question.
“I wanted to give you something,” Ell said quietly.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know. I wanted to.” She shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d want anything expensive, but giving you something mundane and useful seemed insufficient, so...” She took Carla’s left hand in hers and slid a ring onto her ring finger.
“Oh...” Carla said under her breath.
She brought her hand closer to her face to examine the ring. It was a simple band with no gems or ridges.
“I made it myself, with some help from a goldsmith in town,” Elloriann said, a bit self-consciously. “It’s silver. It, ah, used to be a spoon.”
Carla let out a happy laugh.
“It’s beautiful.”
The other object from the small bag was a chain. Elloriann let it dangle from her fingers.
“If the ring is ever in the way, you can wear it on a chain around your neck.”
Carla nodded and accepted the chain, putting it on immediately. She didn’t think she’d need it. The ring was small and smooth, it likely wouldn’t ever get in the way, but she did work with her hands a lot, and it was nice that Elloriann had considered the alternative means for wearing her gift.
Carla looked down at her hand. The ring fit perfectly, and she wondered how Elloriann had managed to craft it so well.
“Thank you,” she said, as a tear escaped her eye.
“What’s wrong?” Elloriann asked, panic shooting through her at the sight of Carla’s tears.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” Carla said reassuringly, taking one of Elloriann’s hands in hers. “It’s just...my parents had rings like that. Theirs were a little bigger. I just always thought if I ever get married, I want a ring like that too.” She laughed and cried at the same time. “You didn’t know this, and yet here we are.” She held up her hand in demonstration. The ring glistened a little in the filtered light. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Elloriann leaned in to plant a light kiss on Carla’s lips. “Happy anniversary.”
“Happy anniversary.” Carla let out a happy sigh. “I have a gift for you as well.”
“Oh! Really?”
“It’s in my room. If you want to keep it in our bedroom, you might have to help me carry it.”
“Oh, it’s something heavy?” Elloriann’s curiosity made her eyes glisten.
“You’ll see.”
They packed up and walked back to the castle, holding hands, fingers entwined. As they reached the edge of the woods, they paused. Letting go of each other felt almost physically painful, but they were leaving the safe territory and couldn’t risk being seen by guards or the king.
They dropped the basket off in the kitchen, thanking Hannah and Stav for their help, then walked to Carla’s room.
She didn’t spend much time in that room anymore, and Elloriann hadn’t been there in months, which was why it was so easy for Carla to hide her gift there for as long as she had.
Elloriann saw it as soon they entered. On a table by the window stood a large pot with a small tree in it. Elloriann wasn’t certain that that was, in fact, her gift, but seeing as Carla had never spoken of it before, her guess was that this was the surprise.
“This is for me?” she asked as she approached the plant.
“Yes. It’s a nectarine tree. It can be grown inside as long as we keep it warm enough.”
“Nectarine?” Elloriann’s eyes lit up.
“I remember you said you liked peaches.”
Elloriann practically pounced, engulfing Carla in a tight embrace, then kissing her several times. She wasn’t so much happy about the possibility
of growing nectarines as she was about the fact that Carla had remembered this bit of personal information that she’d mentioned only once, a long time ago, and gone through all this trouble to give her such an amazing gift.
“Where did you get it?” she asked, finally breaking away from covering Carla in kisses to examine the tree more closely.
“I grew it from pit. Rich had one of the traders get it for me.”
“How long have you been growing this for?”
“A few months.” Carla smiled. “I wasn’t sure it’d live, but it seems to be doing quite well. There’s no guarantee that it’ll ever fruit, but it can, in theory. Though we might have to replant it into a larger pot later.”
“We definitely need to take it to our bedroom. We have better chances of keeping it warm there in the winter.”
After carrying the tree together into their bedroom, they set it down by the window where it could get sun and fresh air for as long as the weather would allow it. Elloriann kept staring at the tree like it was a small miracle. She didn’t even care if it ever gave fruit. She just hoped she’d manage to keep it alive.
Carla eventually had to go back to the garden and work for a little longer before the sun set. In the evening, she and Elloriann bathed together, then went back to their bedroom and made love for a long time. Afterward, they talked and laughed, and finally fell asleep, their bodies entwined, happy and content, and just a little bit more ready to face whatever life would throw at them next.
33
Summer was ending. And that meant harvesting and preparing for the winter. The jute, flax, and hemp all came out quite well, though Carla and Rich decided that next year they’d concentrate more on flax, because of its culinary uses, and to a lesser extent on jute.
Several servants helped with retting, partially in containers and partially in the river. Carla, Elloriann, Jo, Kay, and Rich all worked on separating the fibers from the straw once the retting was done. It wasn’t the most pleasant work, and everyone was sort of glad that Rich and Carla hadn’t grown more fiber plants. If they grew more in the future, it would be harder. Carla and Rich were considering approaching Mari about hiring some temporary workers to help with the garden the following year.
Carla and Elloriann helped with the canning, and almost everyone in the servant wing helped to shell the beans. Wood was stocked up for the winter.
Once the fibers were ready to be spun, Carla made a spindle and went to work. Elloriann soon had one of the traders purchase a spinning wheel, which made the process a bit faster. Acquiring a loom turned out to be a little bit harder.
“I couldn’t get one,” Zergo, one of the traders, said after another failed attempt to purchase a loom. “But I got this.”
He handed a rolled-up sheet of paper to Elloriann. She spread it out on the dining room table.
“Oh,” she said as she realized what it was. “This is perfect. Well, not perfect, but it’s good. Licky can work with this, I’m sure.”
“I hoped so,” Zergo said with a shrug. “I’ll keep trying, but getting a loom might be difficult right now.”
“We got one without trouble when I was younger,” Carla said. “I don’t know why there would be a...loom shortage?”
“Things are still strange after the storm,” Zergo said with another shrug. “It’s been a while, but not that long. People used to trade all sorts of things, now we’re mostly dealing with bare essentials. People don’t make what they don’t need or can’t sell right away, and foreign traders don’t bring luxuries to a suffering land’s market. Tailor shops have their looms made for them. If we want to get one, we’d have to have one built or request one from another land. That’s expensive.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Elloriann said, examining the technical drawing on the table. “This might actually be better. Once Licky figures this out, she could make several, should we need them.”
“Good.” Zergo nodded. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
When Carla and Elloriann took the loom plans to Licky, she got a lot more excited than they would have expected. The prospect of building something she’d never build before, understanding a piece of equipment she was entirely unfamiliar with was basically Licky’s idea of fun. It wasn’t long before she introduced improvements into the design she’d been originally given. She talked with a sparkle in her eyes about adding more shafts and improving warp tension, while Carla nodded in approval, and Elloriann just nodded, having no idea what any of that meant. In the end, the loom Licky built was far better than anything the traders could ever hope to buy.
She actually built two. One was placed in Carla’s room, the other in Carla and Elloriann’s bedroom. It allowed Carla to work on two warps at once, plus Elloriann really wanted to learn to weave as well.
She learned quickly, and soon Licky had to build yet another loom to put in Carla and Elloriann’s bedroom, so that they could weave at the same time, sitting side by side.
Elloriann was very proud of her first completed piece of cloth, which eventually became a sack for storing potatoes. Her later achievements would become simple garments which Carla, Silva, and Kay sewed, as well as bedclothes and heavy curtains that would be of great help in the cold days of winter. They eventually used up all the fiber that Carla and Rich had grown, and additional yarn had to be purchased.
Carla was glad to be doing something more for the castle, especially in the months when gardening was put on hold.
Carla’s second winter in Evlirone’s castle wasn’t nearly as bad as the first. Some days were cold, but they would come in short periods, while most of the winter days were fairly mild, and there wasn’t nearly as much snow as the year before.
Carla and Elloriann spent many winter nights weaving or sewing together. The loom in Carla’s room was not abandoned, however. Once again, she used her room as a means of making a surprise for Elloriann. She wove her a simple, but beautiful scarf, which she eventually gifted to her to commemorate the start of another year.
They continued their combat training with Sal. Elloriann started training with more weapons, and would occasionally fence in various outfits, including dresses and armor.
Carla and Elloriann managed to keep the nectarine tree alive throughout the winter. It grew quite a bit as well, and they replanted it into a bigger pot when spring came.
As snow melted and the weather got warmer, Carla’s room was once again filled with containers full of young plants that would eventually be planted in the garden. She and Rich were making plans for the season, intending to plant more soy, as well as plant some new trees for firewood.
The castle was forming a new routine, with Carla as one of its integral parts.
Carla and Elloriann’s relationship blossomed, while also falling into a comfortable domesticity. Their situation was still risky and precarious, but without actively thinking about it, they could sometimes forget about their uncertain future, and simply live their lives like any other couple would. They worked, they fulfilled their duties, both together and apart, they went to sleep together, they woke up together, and more often than not, they were happy.
Which, of course, meant that everything was about to fall apart.
34
On a warm day in spring, Carla was working in the garden on her own. She was walking to the shed to pick up some tools, when she was suddenly grabbed from behind, violently turned around, and pinned to the shed wall.
“You’re alive,” a familiar voice said. “And I owe you something, don’t I?”
Prince Rondall was visiting Evlirone’s castle uninvited, which meant that neither Elloriann nor Carla had known about it, and had had no time to prepare. And now Rondall was staring right into Carla’s face, his hands braced against the wall behind her.
She was on the verge of panic, but those months of training had not gone by in vain. Rondall was not yet holding her down, merely bracketing her body with his own and limiting her mobility. She could still get out of this.
When Rondall tried to yank her up, she hit him with the branch on the bridge of his nose. It would do no real damage, but the shock of it made his eyes water, and he stumbled backward, cursing. This gave Carla enough time to run.
Fortunately, Carla managed to get quite far away from him before he regained his composure. Unfortunately, he had throwing knives.
Rondall threw 3 knives after Carla in quick succession. The first 2 missed her, but the last one hit her on the side of her leg, causing her to fall.
He was on top of her in seconds, deciding not to waste any time talking, instead going right to choking her. Carla was about to black out, when Rondall was suddenly pulled off her. Air rushed back into her lungs and she coughed.
“You again!” Rondall screamed, turning around to see Elloriann standing behind him with a sword. “Who the hell are you?”
“None of your business,” she said, raising her sword in challenge. “Are you going to fight me or would you prefer to run?”
Rondall sneered, unsheathing his own sword.
Elloriann was a far superior fencer. Rondall was disarmed within minutes. However, he’d never had any intention of fighting fairly. As he bent down to pick up his sword, he grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in Elloriann’s face.
She screamed as the dirt went in her eyes, and Rondall happily took the opportunity to pounce and pin her to the ground.
“I don’t care who you are,” he said as he began to choke her, “I’m killing you anyway.”
Elloriann kicked, landing a few decent blows on Rondall’s lower body, but she still couldn’t see, her eyes burned, and her throat was being crushed.