Sanctuary's Assassin (The Complete Part 1)

by Loren Elias

CHAPTER 3

  (Seven Haerfests Past)

  She could not have held more pride, dancing around to this side and to that, watching the frills and lace rippling about her knees as Jourdan Creek after a big rain. The looking glass before her shared her glee as it twinkled with the fading of Lesser Sun just beyond a bedroom window, a perfect square positioned low over the sturdy wooden frame of a bed from which a quilt dusted the plank floors.

  Another little dance overtook the little girl with hands on her hips swinging her top to the right and to the left, extending this leg and that. She surrendered to herself an extra big smile, corners turned up wide and eyes squinted tight lest they burst with joy. “It’s perfect, Mama.”

  “Glad you like it, My Darling, but it looks no different than it did two nights past when you tried it on.” Mother pulled the girl’s shoulder up and back, before curling around to pinch the waist to assure its proper fit.

  “Oh, no. That was before you added the lace along the bottom. Before, it might have been mistaken for a work dress. Now it’s fit for royalty.” She darted a little head around her mother as if unbearable the moment in which she could not see herself. Ren’ai did not profess to know much about royalty but she could not imagine a princess could wear a dress much finer. Green, it was, like the buds on a sapling, tight to her shapeless chest, flaring out at the hip before cascading down to bony knees.

  “I’m glad you like it.” Mother laid a tender hand upon her daughter’s arm. As Ren’ai’s hand came up to meet her affection, Mother started at the coarseness of the girl’s touch. She hoped Ren’ai had not noticed the shock.

  Since Ren’ai could walk she had been apprentice to her father’s trade. From the time her tiny hands could wrap around twinlin pole, she had been coiling twine. From the time she could lift a hammer she had laid the spikes home. And no sooner had she raised her first water pitcher than she wielded her father’s axe against the mighty oak and cedar. From the time her eyes held light she did not see a tree but the chair, table or wagon she and her father might build from it.

  Such labor spared not a girl the callused palm and splintered finger. Having seen but eleven Haerfests she held the strength rivaling any boy five Haerfests her elder. And she dared one to test her. Her arms held firm curves even if her chest and hips yet lacked.

  She was her father’s greatest pride and she knew it. Though he be the finest craftsman in the Four Cities, his greatest joy was that his daughter so shared the same passionate love and proven skill of the axe and the hammer and a job well done. After all, he had to protect his family name at all cost. He would bring honor to the Name of Ren and see that honor carried into the next generation.

  She remembered the first piece she had built from start to finish. Having seen only eight Haerfests at the time, she had never thought she could do it: felling the tree, quartering the timber, shaping the legs even, weaving the seat strand by strand to completion. She remembered the first sit of her father, testing the integrity, judging her work, then the smile, oh, the smile, on that worn and determined face as he rose, scooping her up to sit upon one broad shoulder, then dancing in circles as he sung her praises.

  And when he showed it to Big Sister and Mother how they put on their smiles and told her what a fine job she had done, but she could hear in their voices that they had no idea if the work be good or be bad. A chair stood before them. Ren’ai curtsied to their praises anyhow.

  What they thought mattered little. To her and her father not a chair but a work of art they had created and their buyers deserved no less than their best and they would sooner fall upon their blades than to allow a piece not perfect to leave the shop.

  Yes, Big Sister Ren’iv could never understand. Her mind lay elsewhere. She would cook a glorious meal of roasted squirrel and steamed shalon greens but never would she think to take a piece of wood, whittle it to form and build something that would provide use for Haerfests hence. But Ren’ai could only be grateful. Better Ren’iv to tend to household duties with Mother and leave Ren’ai to help her father increase their household purse.

  Ren’ai loved her sister despite their differences. Not only was a meal prepared by her sister beyond compare but Ren’ai thought Ren’iv had to be the most beautiful person in all of Aletheia. She was tall with long perfectly proportioned thighs, not too skinny like some of the girls in town. She held elegant poise, a lovely dress of her own design creeping down to her ankles to swish with each soft stride, no sleeves to hide shoulders narrow and firm. Her neck reached up to her chin slightly pointed out. Rosy cheeks met the edges of her lips in a perpetual smile. Plump were her pink lips and always scented with lavi oil which brought a slight shimmer. Full lashes shadowed sapphire eyes balancing deep brown, almost black hair, always pulled back, not a strand to stray, into a tight braid which sailed down to the back of her knees.

  Quite a contrast, it was, to little Ren’ai with her dirty brown hair cut a thumb’s length from her scalp. She had chopped it herself. She could not have it getting in her way. A dress once new, always stained with wood dyes and sap. Avoiding this outcome she found an insurmountable task. She did not share her sister’s height, at least not yet. Her shoulders were broad and defined from the swinging of an axe and her eyes a dull grey like granite at twilight. Quite unspectacular they were. Upon her face always the contemplation of what the next task would be.

  But here she stood in her new green dress. She swore this one she would treat better. Never would it see a hammer in her hand, never hear the thud of a great spruce, never snag on a prickly vine or find her wading into Glenrock River to redirect a straying log. This would be her special, special dress, the one she would wear to Haerfest Balls and someday her sister’s wedding.

  It would not be long now, seventeen Haerfests and one could never call Sister lacking in wooing suitors. But as many as had made the offer, she could never accept. There was always something wrong with each. Something no amount of money or charm could overcome. This one had a big nose. That one had bad teeth. She did not like the color of this one’s hair. Ren’ai hoped she would be wise though, choose one who would treat her well, provide for her as she deserved, and make many beautiful children. But that is why towns host Haerfest ball. Maybe tonight she would find the one.

  Ren’ai straightened her dress down shapeless hips as she bounded down the stairs as if tumbling down a valley wall to get to the prized blue spruce.

  A man met her at the base, dressed in a finely weaved suit with hair combed back and slicked. Upon his balding head a high-brimmed hat. She held back laughter as she looked up into those familiar eyes, before throwing her arms up around a thick neck. “You look funny, Papa.” He smelled a sickening sweet smell of carrot water, not of the pine sap which would have wafted across her nose as a scent recognizable. She could not think of the last time he had been home for Haerfest Ball. Always away he found himself at market two or three towns over.

  “I could say the same to you. But I’m too much of a Gentleman.” He took a step back, pulling that high hat down to puffed chest. “You look beautiful, Ren’ai.”

  Beautiful. A word quite unfamiliar, it fell upon her ears. Good with a hammer, yes. Good with an axe, absolutely, there could be no doubt, but Ren’iv was beautiful. Ren’ai was strong and skilled in wood craft. “Oh, it’s just the dress. Mama and Niv’Niv made it for me. See the lace.” She threw her leg up to rest in on the banister to show him.

  No sooner had her ankle tapped the wood, than large hands met her waist, pulling her up, holding her out until her feet dangled again to the ground. “Nai, Ladies don’t go around kicking their legs up in the air. Keep your feet on the ground.”

  “I’m not a lady, Papa. I’m a master craftsman; at least I aspire to be.”

  “Great ambition.” Father’s mouth cracked into a stern but caring smile. “We all wear many faces, Nai. You must learn which face meets the occasion.” The father scooped her up into thick arms and took a hard seat in a simple yet sturdy ch
air by the front door. Frenzied feet swung at his side. Grey eyes looked down upon her. “I don’t wear a fine suit to chop wood.”

  “It simply would not be practical. You can’t move as you must to complete the task.”

  “Right.” Father nodded. “But to Haerfest Ball, I’d look simply a mess if I wore my work clothes.”

  “So have to be a lady sometimes?” She looked down at the lace around her knees, then to the black slippers upon her feet.

  Father reached around her tiny form before scratching at at a sun-thrashed arm in apparent discomfort. “I guess I’m saying that you are good with your hands, but there are going to be times when other things will be demanded of you and you must be able to adapt. One of our clan elders, Ren, uh…” Father scratched his head. He just could not remember the name. He cursed himself under escaping breath for having forgotten a thing of such importance, but many Haerfests had pasted since that great man crossed the river. “Well, he always said, ‘a man can have many faces. Choose the right face for the task.’”

  Father reached into an expertly-woven pocket and pulled out what at first appeared to be a block of wood. As it grew closer, Ren’ai’s face lit up. She eyed the intricate carving upon each of six sides. Different Faces: The Hunter and the Cook. The Craftsman and the Proper Lady. The Demanding and the Forgiving. The detail astounded her. With the rises and shadows, the corners and rounds, it could only have been crafted by hands so skilled.

  “It’s wonderful.” Ren’ai could not contain the edges of her mouth as they burst out the sides.

  “Happy Haerfest Day, Nai’Nai. How many have you seen now, six?”

  The girl laughed a small and delicate laugh to show him she could be a lady. “I’ve seen eleven, Papa. As the land consumes Lesser Sun this night, it will be twelve. And Niv, eighteen.”

  “Twelve Haerfests. Nearly a woman, Nai.”

  “Not a woman, Papa. A lady. One face at a time, please. But promise upon promise, I’ll be a lady tonight, just for you.”

  He ran a leather thong through one corner and strung it around her neck. Then he smiled as he rose, planting her feet again on the floor as his wife and eldest daughter entered, lovely as always. He bent down and spoke in little more than a whisper. “No, not for me. It must be for you.”

  She nodded, before turning to face the other women of the household. “Time to go?”

  Big Sister extended a gentle hand to Ren’ai’s shoulder. She smelled of rose pedals and jonquil. Ren’iv smiled down to Little Sister with cheeks lightly rouged and a twinkle in her lips.

  Outside, two horses waited. Ren’ai watched as Father lifted Ren’iv and then Mother to sit upon them ankles crossed down the horses’ sides.

  Ren’ai took up the reins of Sister’s and Father the reins of Mother’s horse as they set into steady pace toward town.

  Ren’iv and Mother bantered back and forth about this suitor and that, goings on in the town, who made the best apple pie and what color shawls the ladies would be wearing through the Renatus, the coldest months of the year when white held the land captive until Auctus when the first sprigs of green again greeted blue skies.

  Ren’ai mostly tuned it out, watching shintflies dancing in formation before scattering as they approached only to return to their game once the crew had passed. The suns, Greater and Lesser, hung low in the sky, casting golden light through the shadows of the great branches far above them. Wind whipped across the travelers’ faces and backs as if trying to pull them off the trail and into the depths of the forest. On occasion a hawk or jay swooped across their path, setting the mounted ladies into a momentary panic before Father calmed them with a song, pleasant and serene.

  Never, if she lived a thousand Haerfests could she hope to hear such a voice in another. Ren’ai named it a gift from the gods bestowed upon a man to bring some joy to a world of pain. He often hummed and sang in the workshop as he whittled and shaped. It always made her smile.

  As town rose before them Ren’ai shook the dust from her hem. Her slippers now clacked against cobble. The torches upon each post drowned out the last remnants of Lesser’s fading glory upon their backs.

  All around them people strolled the streets and alleys in their finest clothing as if on display. Ren’ai imagined that they had been walking about the square since mid-day, strutting their fineries as they had not a care in the world. But she knew what Father would say; they were just as she having finished her daily tasks, sliding out of her work clothes, combing her hair, showing a different face.

  Ren’ai handed the reins over to an attendant as Father stirred her from thought. She handed them, happy to have use of her hands again. The attendant tied them securely as he smiled up at Ren’iv coyly as she glanced away from him and into the crowd.

  Ren’ai knew him in that moment. Big Nose. She laughed inside as he reached up awkwardly, taking Ren’iv’s waist and helping her down to her feet. She curtsied politely before brushing past him to make her entrance. Father caught Ren’ai’s look of amusement and punched her arm in gentle correction.

  “Ow!” Stunned by the blow Ren’ai looked to Father who already had his attention focused elsewhere.

  He threw Big Nose two akiki and gave him a firm pat on the back.