“ I welcome you, Lord and Lady Dai, to Kerala,” Lord Sen replied.
“ I also welcome you and she whom you bring to join with our House,” Lady Amara added. Lord and Lady Dai bowed their heads in the proper acknowledgment between social equals; their daughter bowed more deeply, from her waist.
Lord Sen continued the formal introduction. “May I present to you my eldest son and Heir, Sadaiyo.” Sadaiyo’s bow to his future father-in-law was stiff, as if it pained him to have to show the correct amount of respect. His arrogant visage remained impassive. Jelena’s gaze darted back and forth between Sadaiyo’s face and his brother’s. Ashinji’s beauty owed as much to the kindness of his spirit as it did to his physical attraction. Sadaiyo was just as handsome, yet Jelena felt cold fear knot her gut when she looked at him.
Next, the two sets of parents exchanged gifts. Two of Lord Dai’s servants came forward at his signal to present a large bolt of fine, sea-green silk to Lady Amara and a bow made of rich, dark wood to Lord Sen.
After a few words of admiration, Lord Sen pulled a small leather pouch from his sleeve.
“ I hope these little baubles will bring you some pleasure, my lord and lady,” Lord Sen said. He upended the pouch onto his open palm and two black pearls the size of hazelnuts spilled out, their iridescent surfaces gleaming in the sun. A soft murmur of appreciation rippled through the assemblage.
“ They are most satisfactory, my lord,” Lord Dai replied, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement of the richness of the gift. Lord Sen carefully dropped the pearls back into the pouch and pressed it into his guest’s hand.
“ Come. A meal has been prepared,” Lady Amara announced. “You must be very tired and thirsty after your long journey.” Lord Sen waved his guests forward and everyone visibly relaxed. Jelena guessed that the formal ceremony of greeting had concluded. The two noble families filed up the steps and disappeared into the keep while the servants of Lord Dai began to mill about and the Kerala staff dispersed. A few folk remained behind to mingle. Gendan came forward to speak to Lord Dai’s captain. The two men talked animatedly as if they knew each other. Gendan then spoke to the driver of the carriage and pointed toward the east wing of the keep. Jelena watched as the painted coach rolled away, a small knot of servants trotting briskly behind.
“ Well, that’s it for now,” Kami sighed. “Oh, here comes my man!” She scampered over to meet Gendan as he approached and flung herself into his arms. The passion of their kiss made Jelena blush and lower her eyes.
“ Jelena! Jelena, c’mere!” Kami called out, waving. Jelena sighed and walked over to where the lovers stood, arm in arm.
“ Hello, Captain,” Jelena greeted the older man formally.
“ Jelena,” Gendan replied. Captain Miri had never been very warm toward her, and she knew the reason behind his reticence, but neither had she ever felt any malice from him.
“ Gendan has a few hours off, so we thought we’d take a ride out to the old stone circle. Will you tell Aneko where I’ve gone so she won’t come looking for me?”
“ Yes, of course.” Jelena answered.
“ Just wait ‘til I get you alone, my girl!” Gendan’s voice crackled with mischief. He tickled Kami, and she squealed in response, twisting in his arms to punch him playfully in the chest. Captain Miri had left his youth behind some time ago; Kami had just entered into the fullness of womanhood, but despite the difference in their ages, their temperaments seemed a perfect complement each to the other.
“ You two have good time,” Jelena said.
“ Oh, we always do.” Kami sensuously nibbled on Gendan’s ear. It seemed to have the desired effect, for he grabbed her by the hand and hauled her off, stumbling and giggling, toward the gate. Kami waved happily, skipping a few steps to regain her balance. Together, the two lovers disappeared through the gate, leaving Jelena standing alone.
Only a few people remained in the upper yard, mostly house servants and the two guardsmen at the doors. Jelena wandered back down to the lower yard, thinking about Kami and Gendan and how lucky they were to be able to love each other openly and proudly. She imagined them making love in the deep grass of the stone circle, and it filled her with a longing so intense, she found it almost too much to bear.
Ashinji had looked so handsome today in his formal clothes, his beautiful hair shining like the fine silk of his garments. In her mind’s eye, she replaced Gendan with Ashinji and imagined herself lying in his arms, her naked flesh entwined with his. Gods, how it hurt, knowing that she would never experience the warmth of his love.
The lower yard stood empty, with only the soft cooing of pigeons in the eaves of the barracks to break the stillness. The day’s excitement at an end, the castle would quickly settle back into its routine.
Jelena’s thoughts turned to Magnes. She wondered if her cousin had returned home, only to find Amsara shut against him. He had committed a serious crime when he had helped her to escape. To make matters even worse, he had turned his back on a marriage contract, an act that most certainly cost Duke Teodorus a dear price, both financially and socially. The duke was a proud man and would not easily forgive such disobedience.
Jelena had known loneliness her entire life, but what she felt now was an entirely new experience. Magnes had been the last link to her old life, the only person in Kerala who knew her entire history firsthand. In a very short time, she had been forced to shed every vestige of Soldaran identity. She now lived, dressed, and spoke as an elf. She had even begun to think and dream in Siri-dar; still, she felt her otherness as acutely as she ever had back in Amsara.
She had found good friends in Aneko and, especially, Kami. Friendship with other women was a pleasure she had heretofore been denied. The easy camaraderie she felt with them amazed her, and yet, she felt the inescapable fact of her human blood would forever set her apart from them. The irony of the situation was not lost upon her.
Ashinji had never tried to sweeten the truth for her about elven attitudes towards those of mixed blood. The folk of Kerala were especially tolerant because of their close proximity to human lands and a long history of interaction and commingling, but Ashinji warned that she might encounter prejudice as bitter as that which she had endured in Amsara, if and when she ever traveled beyond the relatively tolerant boundaries of eastern Alasiri.
As a rule, people of mixed race, referred to as hikui in Siri-dar, did not have the same legal rights and protections under the law as did full-blooded elves, though within Kerala, Lord Sen had decreed otherwise. Jelena’s best hope lay in finding her father or his kin. If she were accepted, then she would be fully protected as a member of his family.
The wedding celebrations would be finished in another three days. At that time, Jelena was to take up her new duties as a messenger, which would give her the opportunity to seek out information on the possible identity of the man who had fathered her. With her ring and Lord Sakehera’s help, she felt confident that she would soon know the truth.
Jelena looked up to find that her feet had carried her to the stables without any conscious direction on her part. She thought about going in and choosing a suitable mount, but a voice called out her name from behind. She turned to see Aneko striding briskly towards her.
“ Jelena, have you seen Kami? She was supposed to report back here after everything was finished.” The older woman looked as if she had just come from the bath house. Her dark hair hung wet and sleek to the middle of her muscular back, shining like an otter’s pelt in the sunlight. Her face wore a look of mild annoyance, as if a harmless but none too amusing practical joke had just been played upon her.
“ Kami is with Gendan. She told me tell you so you would not look. They went off…uh, to old circle stones.”
“ Ai, Goddess, that girl! She promised she’d take my shift if I traded with her so she could watch the bridal party,” Aneko grumbled. “I can’t very well complain to Gendan, now can I? She’s going to get herself knocked up long before her wedding day if
this keeps on.”
“ What is ‘knocked up’? Oh, yes. Pregnant?”
“ You are learning Siri-dar very fast,” Aneko said, nodding approvingly. “Soon, you’ll be able to curse with the best of us.”
“ Is pregnant before marriage bad thing here?” Jelena asked.
Aneko shrugged. “Uhhh, it’s not what most women would choose, but it happens. There’s no shame in it…not much, anyway. If it happens to you, Jelena, no one will think the worse of you.”
Jelena looked down at her dusty sandals, hoping that Aneko could not see her chagrin. “I…I was going to choose horse…for me, for riding as messenger.”
“ C’mon, then. I’ll help you.” Aneko smiled and started towards the stable doors. Jelena followed, still clenched a little inside.
Like a hidden message woven into the fabric of metaphors that made up a poem, the meaning behind Aneko’s words could be gleaned with just a bit of conscious thought.
If it happens to me. If I bear Ashinji a child, there won’t be any shame in it. No shame, perhaps, but no celebrations, either.
Best for everyone if that never happens.
Chapter 20
Homecoming
The slowly dying sun set the ancient stones of Amsara Castle ablaze with crimson light. Long, dark shadows of towers and walls stretched like questing fingers across the plain below.
Magnes looked skyward to where the fortress squatted atop its rocky perch and felt a sharp twinge of anxiety deep in his gut. The first lamps of evening flared to life on the walls above, shining like stars drawn down from the heavens. Below, at the base of the hill, people made their way home to Amsara village after a long day in the fields. Herdsmen drove cattle into milking sheds and sheep into pens. Their shouts and whistled signals to their dogs pierced the still, sweet air.
Magnes drummed his heels against the flanks of his horse but the animal-weary from the trek south out of Alasiri-stubbornly refused to walk any faster. And so, slowly, but steadily, the elf-bred horse carried Magnes back to his father’s house.
He knew the castle guard would have already spotted him some time ago, before the light of day had failed completely, but in the twilight of evening, they would be unable to identify him until he arrived at the gates. He had changed back into the clothes he had worn out of Amsara, so as to give no clue to where he had been these past weeks. Castle folk would be curious enough about his sudden return.
After riding up a series of switchbacks, Magnes reined in the horse at the main gates, which were shut tight for the night. The animal blew noisily and shook its head, then heaved a sigh. Magnes patted its sweat-darkened neck and waited.
A few moments passed before a small square hole opened up in the center of a door set within the gate itself. A pale blur flashed across the opening, and Magnes heard a startled exclamation, followed by loud exhortations to open the door and be quick about it.
The portal swung inward. Magnes dismounted and led the horse through, only to find himself surrounded by excited guardsmen, all talking at once. Someone took the reins from his hand and led the horse away. Another man asked if he wanted a drink. All welcomed him home, and none asked where he had been. They knew better.
“ I think I should go to my father now,” he said, and the men respectfully fell back.
~~~
At the entrance to the keep, Magnes paused for a moment, then pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. His eyes immediately swung left to scan the great hearth. The flickering light of the lamps cast dancing shadows across the cold stones of the dead fireplace. The hearth lay bare.
Ghost was not in his usual place.
Magnes swallowed hard and decided that he would deal with that later. For now, he had to stay totally focused on how he planned to handle his father.
It’s dinner time, you idiot, Magnes chided himself. Father won’t be here in the keep.
Duke Teodorus always insisted that the family gather together this one time during the day to eat and discuss family business. Magnes pulled the keep door closed and headed for the great hall.
The sound of multiple voices alerted him to the presence of guests in the great hall this night. Magnes halted just outside the door to gather his wits. He had no wish to face his father in front of an audience, but this particular confrontation could not wait. The door stood slightly ajar. He put an eye to the crack and surveyed the room.
Duke Teodorus occupied his rightful place at the head of the main table. Thessalina sat to his left, dressed in her usual brown and black leathers. To her left sat Father Nath, Amsara’s resident priest. To the duke’s right, in the chair usually reserved for Magnes, slouched the corpulent Lord Taceo, a minor noble and one of Duke Teodorus’s vassals. Taceo’s equally rotund wife had wedged herself into the chair on her husband’s right.
Father Nath had just made a comment about the divisions in the Soldaran Imperial Council over the empress’s plans for war, when Magnes pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
All conversation ceased. Everything, including the very air itself, seemed frozen, as if time had stopped. The sound of his own heartbeat roared thunderously in Magnes’s ears.
“ Gods…Magnes, you’re back!” Thessalina exclaimed, shattering the spell.
“ Hello, Father,” Magnes said. His feet had mysteriously grown roots that now anchored him to the rush-strewn floor. He could not move.
Duke Teodorus slowly lowered his wine goblet and wiped his mouth on a cloth. His face was still, as inscrutable as that of a stone sphinx guarding a desert temple. His icy blue stare fastened onto his son with chilling intensity.
The tension in the room hung as thick as congealed blood. Nobody dared move or speak, not even Thessalina, whose quick eyes darted from her father’s face to her brother’s, then back again.
At last, when Magnes thought he could bear it no longer, the duke spoke.
“ Tell me, Daughter,” he drawled. “What should be done with a son who steals another man’s property, runs out on a legal marriage contract, and brings disgrace to himself and his family?”
“ Father, I…I,” Thessalina stammered, for once at a loss for words.
The roots loosened their hold, and Magnes took a step forward. “Father, please just listen to…”
“ Shut your mouth!” roared the duke, launching himself from his chair with such violence that it flipped over backward. Lady Taceo screamed in panic and plopped to the floor as her husband, letting out a startled yelp, threw himself sideways to avoid Duke Teodorus’s flying wine goblet.
The duke rounded the table and advanced on Magnes like an enraged bear. Magnes stood his ground, and braced himself. Radiating white-hot fury, the duke halted before Magnes and raised his fist. Unflinchingly, Magnes held his breath and waited for the blow that would surely knock him senseless. He prayed that, when he awoke, his father would be calm enough to listen.
He was vaguely aware of panicky voices raised in alarm, but they did not matter. His entire focus had centered, with the crystal clarity that comes with extreme danger, upon one point. He saw-really saw- for the first time, the sheer size of his father’s hand-the back of it crisscrossed by an intricate roping of veins, the whitened knuckles dusted with coarse, black hair. The heavy gold signet ring the duke wore on his middle finger would surely leave an interesting mark.
The blow never came.
Slowly, Duke Teodorus lowered his hand. Thessalina stood behind him, gripping his shoulder.
Magnes started breathing again.
A muscle in the duke’s jaw twitched, like a little worm jumping under the skin. “We will speak tomorrow. You will tell me everything . Now go!” he growled. Magnes looked beyond his father to Thessalina, whose eyes implored him to obey.
He turned and fled through the door out into the night, feeling like a coward. He should have somehow made his father listen. Instead, he had tucked his tail in and had slunk away like a whipped dog.
Slowly, he walked back to the keep
. The vacant hearth caused his gut to clench as he crossed the ground floor chamber and made his way upstairs to his apartments. Pain rapidly filled the hollow space that had opened up in his heart.
Snagging a small lamp out of its niche in the wall beside the door to his rooms, he entered and made his way over to the fireplace, where he lit two larger lamps. Slowly, his eyes wandered over the familiar space.
A fine layer of dust coated the mantle. The chamber had a forlorn, abandoned quality to it, as if its occupant had had to vacate in haste, leaving almost everything behind, which, in fact, was what had happened. He sat down at his writing table and trailed a finger through the dust on its surface.
The gurgling pangs in his stomach reminded him that he had eaten nothing since morning. He thought about going down to the kitchen, then decided against it. He could not face anyone else tonight, not even the servants.
Weariness descended on him with the swiftness of a dark winter fog. His arms and legs felt weighted down with rocks as he struggled toward the bedchamber. Somehow, he managed to dredge up enough energy to pull off his boots before he collapsed across the bed, fully clothed. He plunged into sleep before his head hit the coverlet.
~~~
Magnes awoke to the sounds of someone moving about in the outer chamber. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, yawning. He looked down at his rumpled clothing, then cautiously sniffed at his armpits and wrinkled his nose in distaste. He wondered, with wry amusement, what the fastidious and ever impeccably groomed Ashinji would make of him. No doubt his elven friend’s perfectly shaped nose would be offended, but he would be too polite to say so directly.
Magnes rolled off the bed and stumped out into the front room, startling the servant who had just finished laying out a meal.
“ Ai, gods! Ye nearly scared me out o’ me skin, m’lord,” the man exclaimed. The delightful aroma of fried bacon and fresh baked bread filled the room. Magnes’s stomach rumbled fiercely. “Lady Thessalina told me t’ bring ye up sommat to eat,” the servant explained. “I hope yer hungry.”
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