A Rose Point Holiday

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Author's Note

  This short novel takes place during the first and second scenes of the epilogue of Her Instruments Book 3, Laisrathera. The author recommends reading the full series first, starting with Book 1, Earthrise. And for the curious, the cover art is by Ilse Gort. Thank you, Cara!

  Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love! -Hamilton Wright Mabie

  Three phrases that sum up Christmas are: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, and Batteries not Included. - Author Unknown

  CHAPTER 1

  “The holidays are almost here, milady. How would you like to prepare?”

  Reese looked up from the maps spread on her desk, wondering if she looked as flabbergasted as she felt. She was trying to work on the whole ‘facial self-control’ thing, since it seemed a useful management tool for Liolesa. “The what?”

  “Holidays,” Kis’eh’t said from the corner where she was reviewing equipment lists on her data tablet. “Typically religious observances or celebrations of milestones considered significant by society.”

  Reese covered her face as Irine snickered. “Ignore her, Felith. Tell me what I apparently don’t know about these holidays that need preparation while we’re in the middle of a million other things that also need preparation, not the least of which is my wedding.”

  Felith folded her hands behind her back. Unlike Reese, she had a face of masklike smoothness, so the only way anyone could tell she was amused was the twinkling in her eyes. “The end of the year, milady. Our holiday season begins at Solstice and lasts until the New Year Feast. I assume Lord Hirianthial hasn’t mentioned it?”

  “Nor anyone else on this close-mouthed planet, no,” Reese said. “So tell me what we’re in for.”

  “Are there are presents?” Irine asked, ears perking. “Please say there are presents.”

  “It is the giving season,” Felith said. “And there are three major events. Are you otherwise engaged? Shall I come back later or…?”

  “No, please,” Irine said. “Interrupt us. We’re trying to carve out bits of land for immigrants without running afoul of inheritance laws and it involves math and Reese hates it.”

  “I told her I could write a formula,” Kis’eh’t said absently, still reading her data tablet.

  “I want to understand it myself. I did our account books, I can do this.”

  “We were always in debt,” Irine muttered.

  Reese eyed her, then reached over and ruffled the Harat-Shar’s hair until the tigraine started laughing and pushing her away. “There,” Reese said. “Now that I’ve dealt with that, please, Felith, interrupt us.”

  Felith perched on one of the seats scattered in the room Reese had appropriated for her study; her future study, anyway. Right now all it had was a desk and a few chairs, and one moth-eaten rug pulled out of storage… or rat-eaten, or whatever it was that occupied the vermin niche in the local ecology. Eventually Reese hoped to have lots of filled bookcases, both with Alliance-made books she could afford to lend out and some of the beautiful hand-made Eldritch versions. And more furniture. Matching furniture.

  At least there were heated floors. The wind off the sea kept it from getting as cold as it did inland, but even she thought it was brisk out.

  “There are three major events during the holidays,” Felith said. “The Solstice Vigil is the first. You know what the solstice is?”

  “Shortest day of the year,” Kis’eh’t said, still reading.

  Felith glanced at the Glaseah. “Yes, this. We also call it Longest Night, and when we first landed it was the most dangerous night of the year. Our predators liked to hunt at night, and we were ill-equipped to fight them. It became custom for men to stay out to guard our homes.”

  “I can’t imagine that ended well,” Kis’eh’t said, finally setting aside her tablet. “A castle this size? How many men did you deploy in this exercise?”

  Reese said, “I don’t imagine most of the houses were this size back then… were they?”

  “Ah… not typically. But great houses like this one would send out their guard as well as their nobles. And their male servants as well. But it was dangerous, then,” Felith said. “As the years passed and we culled the creatures, and as we fortified our buildings, it became less so. The Vigil became symbolic. Men now gather in the chapel to keep the Vigil until midnight; then they return to the house to wait out the remainder of the night with their families, who greet them with food and warm drink.”

  “Warm drink, like… what, wine?” Reese asked, thinking of the hot drinks they’d been served before.

  “No, no. The men mull their own spirits in the chapel,” Felith said. “They call that gentleman’s punch… it’s not fit for a woman to drink.”

  “Sounds interesting!” Irine exclaimed. “What’s in it?”

  “Probably hard liquor,” Kis’eh’t said. “Though how that will keep them awake, I don’t know.”

  “The punch gives them courage for the fight,” Felith said. “And makes wounds hurt less when they fall.”

  Reese shuddered. “Right. Back to the food and drink part that’s not disturbing. So the rest of us women are inside… doing what for several hours? I hope something other than waiting?”

  “In the past, women used to bide at the windows with candles, or if there were enough individuals, they would sing,” Felith said. “These days, we play board games in the sitting room, and have a little mulled cider and eat pastries.”

  “Angels, can you imagine those first Eldritch women?” Irine asked, wide-eyed. “Sitting in their houses all night, hoping their men are going to come back?”

  “They were the ones who needed the punch,” Kis’eh’t agreed.

  “I guess that’s why they drink now,” Irine said. “Making up for all the years their ancestresses were stuck inside, singing and waving torches around, hoping to glimpse their spouses and brothers for the last time before they got torn apart.”

  Felith was striving not to cover her eyes. Reese didn’t blame her. “So! Back to food and drink.”

  “Yes,” the Eldritch said, recovering. “There is a tea we make… a stimulant, so that it’s easier to see the dawn. When the men return from their vigil, we eat, drink, and exchange gifts. That’s an intimate gathering, milady. You are expected to invite only family. All the families will have their own gatherings while they wait for their menfolk to return.”

  “Right,” Reese said. “So far, not so bad. What’s next?”

  “A week after the Vigil we have the Lady’s Day,” Felith continued. “On Lady’s Day, the lady of the House goes to her province’s largest town—the one associated with the manor, that usually is—and distributes gifts to her people. Then she celebrates mass in the town church: that’s the Ladymass, which gives thanks for the gifts of the Goddess.”

  Irine was already scraping maps off Reese’s desk until they found the one encompassing the entirety of the province Rose Point oversaw, Firilith. “I don’t think we have more than one town.”

  “I’m not even sure we have one town,” Kis’eh’t said. “Ignore those, they’re probably centuries out of date. Let’s see what the satellite maps pull down.”

  “The what?” Felith said, baffled.

  “Here,” Kis’eh’t said, and set the tablet to project over the desk. The four of them studied it, Felith with a blank expression and the remainder of them more intently.

  “I’m… not seeing anything,” Irine said, reluctant. Looking down at her paper map, she pointed. “There are supposed to be settlements here… and here…” She let her finger drift up to skim the projected map. “Those look like they’ve been overgrown or covered in sand.”

  “There are people living in Firilith,” Feli
th said. “But I think they are concentrated in Rose Point’s castle town, milady. Down the road from us.”

  “That one still has roofs, at least,” Kis’eh’t said. “That will make our job easier, then, if we need to give gifts to everyone. How does that work? Do we have a census? Does the lady bring individual gifts?”

  “No! Goddess and Lord.” Felith stared at them. “The lady gives a handful of symbolic gifts. The people who wish to have a chance at receiving them travel to the town where she is celebrating mass, you understand.”

  “That’s not going to cause resentment or anything,” Irine said.

  Reese scowled. “No, I get it. If you have six or seven hundred…”

  “Minions?” Irine offered.

  “Serfs,” Kis’eh’t said, mouth quirking.

  Reese cleared her throat and said, firmly, “Six or seven hundred tenants, then handing out individual gifts is impossible. What do ladies usually give, Felith?”

  “Candy to children, thrown from their carriage,” Felith said. “And a little money to those charged with managing the town, the guard, so on. Then there are a handful of gifts given to the attendees. Most ladies give a log as a promise that they won’t let their people be cold, and a fruit of some kind as a symbol that they won’t let their people go hungry… a seed to symbolize fertility… the gifts are sometimes specific to the House. So, for instance, Jisiensire gives a horseshoe that denotes wealth in the coming year.”

  “Reese in a carriage! I’d like to see that,” Irine exclaimed.

  “I am not riding a carriage. I’m either riding that horse if we need me to look like an Eldritch lady, or I’ll have someone drive me in a real vehicle. No carriages.”

  “Aww—”

  “No carriages,” Reese repeated, eyeing Irine. “Anyway. I think I have an idea what I want to do for Lady’s Day. Go on, Felith. What’s last?”

  “The New Year’s Feast,” Felith said. “It is hosted here, at the castle. A celebration for all the people of the province, who can attend if they wish. They eat from your table, milady. And they bring you gifts. Also usually symbolic.”

  “Don’t start,” Irine said to Kis’eh’t.

  “But I wanted to guess at the symbols used to represent submission to oppression and indentured servitude!”

  “They’re tenants,” Reese said firmly. “Tenants, Kis’eh’t.”

  “Ours are tenants,” Kis’eh’t said. “And perhaps the Queen’s.”

  “And Lady Araelis’s,” Irine offered.

  “But I wouldn’t guess at anyone else’s,” Kis’eh’t finished.

  “You’re going to offend our native,” Reese said.

  Felith’s cheeks colored. “I fear Kis’eh’t is correct. But you are also right, milady. Your people will never be like the serfs that suffered under the hands of the Queen’s worst enemies.”

  Surprised, Reese said, “Thank you.”

  “Truth, milady, and I am glad to offer it. If I may speak so boldly.”

  “We like bold speech here,” Kis’eh’t said. “You fit in just fine, Felith-arii.”

  Felith beamed, and even on her schooled face that shone.

  “So,” Irine said. “The Vigil, Lady’s Day, and the New Year’s Feast. That’s everything, right?”

  “We light a daily candle as well, starting at Vigil and ending at New Year’s,” Felith said. “But otherwise, yes… that is the whole of it.” She paused, then added, “The solstice is next week.”

  “Of course it is,” Reese said, covering her face. “Okay. Irine, you are now the party planner. Go to it.”

  “Whee!” Irine leaped from her seat. “I’m gone! And you really should let Kis’eh’t write you the formula. You’ll be less crabby, and you absolutely need to be less crabby with two weeks of parties coming!”

  “As if a wedding’s not enough,” Reese said with a sigh to Kis’eh’t after the Harat-Shar had departed with Felith.

  “You did say you wanted to stay…”

  Reese thought of Hirianthial, smiled. “I did, didn’t I.” She rolled up the map and tossed it to the Glaseah. “Go ahead and do your coding magic. But explain it to me when you’re done.”

  “My gift comes early!” Kis’eh’t exclaimed. “Goddess be praised!” As she gathered her data tablet with the map, she said, “Dare I ask why the change of heart?”

  “I apparently have presents to arrange and less than a week to do it,” Reese said. “We’ll just say I now have more urgent things to do.”

  The decorating commenced immediately. By the following morning, enormous swags of fabric and evergreen boughs were being carried into the castle, the resinous scent wafting in on the shoulders of the men pressed into service to haul them... because they were large, and they were going everywhere: on mantels, hung from window sills and doors, lining entire rooms where floors met walls. The clutches of berries Reese had assumed to be real were in fact painted glass beads—the fir cones, though, were genuine, and scented with something enough like cinnamon that the faint hint of cardamom that cut through the sweetness surprised her. Also glass were the stars hung everywhere light could catch them.

  The broad golden bowl that appeared in the middle of the great hall, though, mystified her. Particularly since it was large enough for her to sit in.

  “Should I even ask?” she said to Irine.

  “That is the firebowl,” Irine said. “Apparently Felith neglected to mention that the candles we’re supposed to light every day have to be lit from a fire in this bowl. Everyone’s in the household comes from here, and the central fire has to be kept lit from Solstice until the New Year. That’s when we let it go out.”

  Reese eyed it warily. “That sounds dangerous. What do they do, fill it with coals? Wood? Why here, and not a fireplace that’s properly vented?”

  “I don’t know,” Irine admitted. “Kis’eh’t said she’d come up with something for us. Felith wasn’t sure whether she should be scandalized by the suggestion, but she decided since this was a new sort of house, new ways of doing things seemed called for.”

  Reese chuckled. “Good for her.”

  “She’s more than three-quarters converted to modern thinking,” Irine agreed, satisfied, surveying the hall with her hands on her hips. “Apparently we should have colored rugs and wreaths and a lot of other things that we don’t have because we aren’t Eldritch, but now that I know about them I can have them made for next year. Which is when—fair warning now—Kis’eh’t is going to insist we align the Order of the Universe to coincide with the local end-of-year holiday so the Pelted immigrants can have their celebrations. She said we could skip this year because we’re so busy.”

  The idea of juggling two holidays, one of them foreign and the other an excuse to celebrate every holiday the Pelted and their alien allies observed within a single week....

  “That face,” Irine said, staring at her with sagging ears.

  Reese rubbed it, hoping that would wipe the expression off. “Sorry. There’s just so much to do. I’m spending money as fast as the Queen lends it to me. Or gives it to me, I can’t tell and I’m afraid to ask. And everything’s broken or ancient. You know.”

  Irine hugged her, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise but did. It was a welcome surprise, which was also new. But nice. Reese leaned into the tigraine with a sigh that ruffled the fur on Irine’s neck. “Sorry. I just want to get it right.”

  “Of course you do. But you’re stressing too much about things, arii. You should go get Allacazam and take a nap.”

  “Later, maybe. I need to talk to Belinor and Val first, see if I can get them to go into town.”

  “Ooh?” Irine glanced at her, brows arched. “Are they going to scout for you?”

  “Hopefully,” Reese said. “Well, that and they really do need to see if there’s a church there that can handle a Ladymass. Since Val’s High Priest now, he’s got a good reason to be nosing around.” She studied the hall. The fireplace in it was worthy of the name, longer than
she was tall by twice her height, and it was completely bedecked with greenery and stars. The boughs were pretty: they reminded her of postcards of Terra in winter, with snow-dusted firs and glowing hearths. Her family hadn’t celebrated Christmas, which had seen a revival after the Rapprochement with the Pelted had brought the Christian Hinichi back into contact with the Church that had inspired their religion... but she’d always found the winter imagery moving, and envied, just a little, the heroines of her romances who could curl up beside a fire with hot cocoa and toasty slippers. “This is looking really pretty, arii.”

  Irine bounced on the balls of her feet. “And this is just the great hall! The part I really want to work on is the sitting room where we’ll be having the Vigil party. Since the boys are going to be freezing their tails off in the chapel for half the night, I want them to have someplace warm to come back to. And nice.”

  “The chapel is nice!”

  “The chapel is beautiful,” Irine said. “I love how you refinished it. And the roses are glorious. But you decided to leave the roof half off and it’s cold out there, Reese.”

  “They can light a fire,” Reese said. Then paused. “Can’t they? Or is that against the rules because it might cause basilisks to come eat them?”

  “No idea,” Irine said. “Don’t really want to know either. Brr.” She shivered. “Anyway. I must go discuss pie with the girls!”

  “Pie sounds very good about now,” Reese said wistfully.

  “There will be pie,” Irine said. “That’s one thing Felith and Kis’eh’t both wholeheartedly agree on.” She gave Reese another quick hug. “Remember the nap!”

  “Later,” Reese promised. She drew in a deep breath after the tigraine had gone, tasting the pine-and-cinnamon-and-sea-brine smell of the hall and watching the firelight glitter in the stars. She’d never really had a winter holiday that meant anything to her, but something about this one was already seeping into her heart. This year it was definitely going to be a bit thrown together, but by next year? With the castle in order, and hopefully the town too, and more tenants, and her Pelted residents...