by Greg Curtis
“Of course elder.” Naturally if there was one thing he couldn’t do it was exactly what the elder demanded. But then he’d surely always known that would be the case. Everyone else had to do the same. Still Yossirion managed another snort of disdain.
“So be it child.” The elder let out an exasperated sigh. “With every day that passes you become more and more like one of these high born fools. But if that’s your wish I will not hold it against you.” Though of course he would remind him of it every time they met. He enjoyed pointing out his failings.
“And at least there’s one honest soul among us.” Unexpectedly the elder went down on one knee and held out his arms for Saris and she quickly ran to him, accepting his attentions with all the grace she could muster. Naturally that involved a lot of yipping, some small growls, plenty of nuzzling, the occasional toss of her head and the excited beating of her surprisingly long tail against the ground. She didn’t do that for just anyone, and Iros was constantly surprised by how much she liked the elder. He wouldn’t dare to bring her to the Court. Even if she didn’t bite, she could growl, and when she didn’t like many of them, there could be some very offended high born elves. But then he liked to think that she was a good judge of character.
“Walk with me.” Finished with the jackal hound, the elder stood up, reached out and grabbed his arm, turning him around, and then began leading him back the way he had come, and just when Iros had almost reached his destination. But still he wouldn’t object. He wouldn’t even point out how odd it was for an elf to be physically almost dragging him along the path like an errant child, or that people were staring. It wasn’t his place and Yossirion wouldn’t have cared anyway.
“Do you know what that rotten little child has done now?” By rotten little child the elder naturally meant High Lord Finell. He was never sparing in his criticism of the high lord. Never quiet about it either. But then he didn’t have to be diplomatic. Even though his words surely got back to him, Finell could not touch him. No ruler would ever dare touch one of the priesthood. The people would not have it. Finell he thought, must hate that. Another reason to like the elder.
“Elder?”
“He’s gone and hired more guards for that accursed prison he and that black blood Y’aris have built. More guards! We never even had a prison before, and now we have one and it needs more guards. Just how many prisoners does he think it’s going to hold?” He rushed on with his tirade before Iros could answer him.
“And then there’s those damned inquisitors as well. Creeping around the city like hunting spiders. By the beauty of the Mother, why does anyone need inquisitors? And why are they always masked?”
It wasn’t the first time Elder Yossirion had been upset with the prison, and quite likely he had cause. The elven lands had always been peaceful and law abiding. The few crimes they did have were mostly settled by tribunals hastily convened, and the punishments made to fit the crime. Reparations and hard labour for however long, in the service of the victim was the norm. It was a similar system to the one they used in Greenlands. There the town prison was mostly used for holding drunks until they sobered up. Iros had spent a few nights in it himself as a young man.
Yet the guards for the prison were the least of the things that Iros worried about. Even the grey cloaked inquisitors that sometimes walked the streets in their robes and masks, frightening people, weren’t too much of a worry. He’d seen people like that before, though usually executioners didn’t wear their hoods out in public. What troubled him, though he did not dare discuss it openly, was that every day he seemed to see more and more black cloaked elves in chain armour wandering the streets. The Royal Watch they were called, but he knew them for what they truly were, an army.
The City Watch in their grey cloaks and green trim kept order in the streets and chased down thieves and the like. And for the most part they were decent elves doing a good job. He’d had many a pleasant conversation with them. The rangers protected travellers from the dangers of the wilds, and their leather and chain armour was hardly ever seen in the city. Probably because they weren’t all elves, and not even all of a single race. But again, whenever he met with them, he found them to be good people.
But the Royal Watch didn’t speak. Not to him. And as far as he could tell, they performed no other function than that of an army. They protected no one save the high lord. They just wandered the streets in their ones and twos, frequented the inns where they drank the ale and mead stocks dry, drilled in the open areas, and occasionally harassed people going about their normal business. Mostly the low born and mixed bloods, and of course outsiders. They made their lives a misery.
If he didn’t know better, he would have said that Leafshade was a city preparing for war. But with who? He’d sent many pigeons back to the king with his concerns, and heard nothing in reply, though he was surely heard.
“I understand your frustration elder.” And he did. But there was nothing he could do about it. About any of it.
“This never would have happened under Gerwyn. He understood what it is to be an elf. If he could look down upon his son now he would cry.” Iros carefully said nothing, since whatever he did say could only be seen as a mistake. Either he would insult the memory of the former high lord or the current one. So Iros simply waited for the elder to continue.
“You must do something. You must say something in the Court this afternoon. You must stop this madness.” Iros could see that the elder had worked himself up into a state, clearly believing that this prison of Finell’s was a serious failing. A blight on the land. And maybe it was. But there was little that he could do. It was an internal matter. He was only given leave to speak on matters that concerned the relations between Finell’s people and King Herrick’s.
“I’m sorry elder, but you know that that’s out of my bailiwick.” Of course nothing was out of his bailiwick as far as the elder was concerned. He believed that all people of good heart should stand and be heard, and he was probably right. So it hurt Iros to see the look of disappointment appear on the elder’s face. It reminded him of his mother’s face whenever he’d done something disreputable again. And he had been a difficult child.
“A failure of nerve?”
“No. Simply my duty elder.”
“An excuse then.” The elder pounced on him. “But there can be no excuses in a matter of this urgency.”
“By the Divines!” Iros gave in with a resigned sigh knowing that Yossirion would not stop. Like a wolf at a kill he never stopped until the carcass was stripped bare.
“Maybe I’ll try to squeeze in something at the Court this afternoon about how we have always admired the lack of prisons and stockades in Elaris.” It was as much as he could do, and probably more than he should, but Yossirion was a friend. Besides, it might add a little life to the proceedings.
“Is that it?” For a heartbeat the elder let his disappointment show. But he covered it up quickly. “I suppose it is still more than the high born could find it in their hearts to agree to. Not a one of them is worth the time of day!” It didn’t seem to occur to him as he vented his frustration in public, that many of those same high born elves were passing them on the river stone paths. Some of them were even greeting them politely, paying his words no attention. Doubtless they’d heard the elder’s rants before.
Of course the others, the low born, those of poor families or mixed blood, were enjoying his rush of blood. Iros could see several of them laughing quietly, mouths carefully hidden behind hands, faces turned away as shoulders heaved in merriment, and he could guess what the gossip in the inns would be that evening.
So maybe it would be worth it to say something in the Court that afternoon. If nothing else it would annoy Finell and his black robed advisor and that was always enjoyable. And after all nothing important ever happened in the Court.
Chapter Seven.
The garden was peaceful as always, the sun shining, the birds singing. It was a haven of calm in the busy city, just as
it was meant to be. Which was why Sophelia loved spending so much time in it, tending to the flowerbeds, weeding, mixing in the fertiliser, or simply enjoying it. Some days she thought, she might have been happier having been born into a lower house that concerned itself with such things instead of a trading house like House Vora. But such was not the way the Mother had decided things should be.
Of course it wasn’t the Mother’s choices that troubled her this day. It was her cousin’s. And once more he had delivered an unpalatable brew of problems for the house. Problems her father as First of the house would have to deal with, and she as his eldest daughter would have to speak to.
“Father, we must speak against this.” And as she walked beside him through the garden, she knew his thoughts were running in the same direction. As were surely many others. Like a stampede of fell oxen, the traders knew only one direction.
“In sooth, but calmly.” Was she letting her emotions show again? Was she letting them cloud her judgement? Sophelia wasn’t sure. But she was sure that there were two wrongs that had to be addressed in Finell’s latest edict. The damage it would do to the finances of many houses. And the simple unfairness of it.
Still she took a moment to calm herself. To let her normal composure take command of her face. People often said that she was too calm. Too serious. Too composed. That her eyes were the cold blue of the ocean, not the warm blue of the skies. Even her friends sometimes said it. But few of them realised that it was all a façade. That inside she was just like everyone else. That she fretted over some things, and took pleasure in others. That she would have liked to be able to smile and even laugh openly. But these things were not permitted of a woman of her station.
Sophelia only allowed herself two eccentricities in life, and they were minor. Things that might be noticed, maybe even remarked upon, but never dismissed as unworthy. The first was her clothing. She favoured yellow as a colour, and so her robes always carried a few threads of gold or lemon woven in them. Not so many as to make them gaudy or shocking, but enough that they weren’t quite the orthodox white favoured by most. Yellow was such a happy colour, and it went with the blue of her hair and eyes.
The other foible she allowed herself was her necklace. A piece of polished amber on a moon silver chain that she wore everywhere. But it wasn’t for its beauty that she wore it. It was because trapped inside the almost glowing amber was a firefly, and often she felt as though she and it were kindred spirits. Trapped together in life and death.
In everything else she was the epitome of an elven maiden. Her hair was always washed and combed, and hung straight to her waist, exactly the right length. Her face was always perfectly clean as were her clothes, and they of course were perfectly tailored. She nodded politely to all she was supposed to and spoke only those words that were proper. None could accuse her of being anything other than proper.
So instead when she heard the comments she maintained her composure, and suffered the criticism stoically. Still it hurt when they sometimes said she could be quite pretty if only she would allow a smile to grace her face now and then. Sometimes she wondered what her betrothed Berris of House Allel must think of her. Though he too was of the great houses and surely knew the same rules. Perhaps one day, when they were married, she would ask him.
For the moment though, in the privacy of her own home and walking with her father, she thought she should have just a touch more freedom. Especially given what Finell had decreed.
“Calmly yes father, but firmly. It is not just the cost to the house that must be argued against. It is the indecency of the edict.”
“House Vora has always been known and respected as a house of fairness. And this tax, it is both unfair and indecent.”
“It is both.” Tenir stopped to study one of the orange blossom trees. “And we shall speak against it. But with our arguments in order. Finell will not listen to accusations of inequity. Not while that black blood whispers in his ear.”
He was right. She knew that. Not only had their cousin been ascended to the Heartwood Throne when he was too young, even now he was only nineteen, he had the worst of all advisors in Y’aris. A man of poisoned heart. Yet the two of them made an oddly apt pair. The boy with a permanent sneer on his face matched perfectly by the by his arrogance and endless mockery. And the advisor filling his head with dreams of greatness, and his heart with suspicion. Finell would not listen.
“We must speak to the financial cost. To the burden that will have to be carried by all the trading houses that deal outside of Elaris. Because we will all employ outsiders in our business, and to have to pay an extra tax for them, will leave us at a disadvantage to the other traders from other lands. Elaris will be weakened by this unjust tax.”
“And of the inequity? The indecency?” Sophelia was dismayed by the thought they could ignore such a grievous injustice.
“We will ask Elwene to dinner when she returns and put the case to her. She has far more sway with her brother than we do. And she will support our argument.” He was probably right, she hoped. Elwene would support them. But as to how much she could achieve, that was another matter. Finell loved her. Of that she had no doubt. His sister was probably the only one in the entire world he cared for. But would he listen? She doubted it when she already knew his justification for the tax.
Supposedly it would encourage the houses to hire only their own people. So there would be fewer elves without work. Save that there were no elves without work. There was a shortage of workers in almost every calling. But it was still an excuse to use, and she worried that Elwene might fall for it.
Sophelia loved her cousin. Often she wished that she could be more like her. Built of faith and with an eternal smile on her face. But she did not have the sharp mind of a trader. She could be fooled.
“We will have to teach her well of all the arguments, both good and poor.”
“In sooth daughter.” Done with the tree her father moved on at a leisurely pace through the garden, and Sophelia walked with him. She knew that there was much more still to discuss about the tax, not least how House Vora would deal with it. Because she knew that Finell would not overturn his edict quickly.
They couldn’t dismiss their workers simply because of their blood. It would have been dishonourable and a breach of their agreement. Besides which most were in their house’s employ because they could provide services that others couldn’t, like familiarity with other realms. So they would have to pay the tax and take the loss.
But maybe, she thought, just maybe, they could take that cost out of Finell’s allowance. After all, he lived off the house’s coffers, and a little belt tightening would not go amiss in his life. Now that was an amusing idea.
The only questions were how to raise the idea with her father. And how to do it without letting at least a small smile grace her face.
Chapter Eight.
Iros had to control his natural instinct to fidget as he sat in his assigned seat. But it wasn’t easy when he was uncomfortable.
In Leafshade he wore his ceremonial armour cuirass and neatest linen all day every day. After two years in the city he had at least reached the point where it no longer chaffed, but it still wasn’t comfortable.
The swords still bothered him too. As a member of the Royal Dragoons he had grown accustomed to wearing his swords everywhere. But there was a difference between how a soldier wore his arms and how a lord did. As a soldier he had carried them on a thick leather belt that strapped firmly to his waist, with a tie down the bottom of the scabbard around his leggings. It worked well as it meant his swords were always ready to be drawn. As an envoy though he wore them instead attached by a thin strip of leather that hung from the bottom of his highly polished cuirass. While it might look more respectable, it meant that the swords swung wildly whenever he moved in too much of a hurry, and threatened to stab him every time he sat down.
For the same reason he wore his family cape wherever he went, the green garment with its golden fire drake c
overing his armour and flapping around in the wind. And when he sat down the thick material tended to bunch up behind him and catch on the backs of the seats.
And though it annoyed him he shaved every day, and let his hair grow a little longer than he liked before he combed it flat. He had to look presentable at all times. The slightest sign of untidiness, of clothes not properly laundered, a face smudged with dirt or hair unwashed, would be taken as proof of his lesser blood. But still with his face constantly shaven so closely and his hair combed hard and flat, he itched.
He worked hard not to show it though. An envoy had to master his expression as well as his tongue, and Iros had spent years learning to maintain an earnest, respectful demeanour. Sometimes it still didn’t come off perfectly, and he looked more naïve and even innocent than a man of his years should. But that could work to his advantage. If people saw someone young and unworldly they could foolishly believe they might have the upper hand in a negotiation. And to the high born who would always see him as human first, at least he seemed harmless to them. They wouldn’t want him as a friend, but at least they didn’t fear him.
